She looked away before he could say, her hands efficiently unwrapping the treats she’d brought, as though he were some small child who could be won over with a—
“Biscuit?” She held it out to him on a napkin and he wished he could say his mouth did not salivate.
With a huff of resignation, he reached for the treat with a mumbled thanks. He might not have been gently raised, but he was no ingrate either. He had some manners...when he chose to remember them.
Over the years, Marcus had taught him about the rules of society. The etiquette. The games by which the gentry lived and breathed. He knew of them, he’d just never had occasion to use them.
Until Abigail. Now she was forever in his space and on his mind, and it made him permanently aware of how little experience he had interacting with ladies. Well, with ladies like her. And she knew it. She must. There was no way she couldn’t see how brutish he was next to her easy elegance and charm.
There was no way she didn’t spot the darkness in his soul when she stood there so brilliant and...and good.
No, he’d been right all along. But she wasn’t a sprite sent from the gods of the sea, she was an angel sent from above. An angel sent to show him all the ways he did not measure up.
This was torture, he decided.
He shoved the biscuit in his mouth, crumbs falling as he inwardly cursed. She wasn’t just his penance. She was his own personal torment.
“There now.” She smiled beatifically. “Feeling better?”
He glowered at her. “I am not some irritable child who merely needs to be fed.”
Even as he said it, he realized that he did indeed feel better. He had been rather hungry, come to think of it.
As if she could read his mind rather than hear the words falling from his lips, her smile widened. “I thought so.”
He changed his mind once again. She wasn’t an angel. She was a devil.
“Now, shall we have a look at your injury?” Her eyes were wide with innocence and he froze with the last bite of biscuit hovering in front of his mouth.
“I told you. I don’t need a nursemaid.” And he certainly did not need her. Staring at his thigh. His bare thigh.
No. No, sir. He knew where to draw the line of propriety even if she did not. He looked around at the chaos that surrounded them. Polly was bouncing on the settee—the one piece of decent furniture, Nicholas was once again perusing the tools with a seriousness he’d never seen from the boy before, and the other handful of heathens were racing around and laughing as though his home were some sort of fair attraction.
But there was one person noticeably missing. “Where’s your chaperone?”
Abigail’s brows hitched up. “Hattie?”
He grunted. He didn’t care which sister accompanied her, just that she had someone. Someone who was not under the age of ten, preferably. Someone who would look out for her reputation and her safety.
His brows drew down again. “You came here—to my home—and you did not bring a chaperone?”
She blinked up at him, and he did not miss the way her lips twitched with amusement. But there it was again.
Something different about her that he hadn’t been able to identify before.
Concern and a sensation he cared not to name had his chest tightening. She looked paler than usual. The area around her eyes a little swollen. A little pink.
“I have six children with me, Mr. Calhoun. I hardly think I am in grave danger of being caught alone with you.”
Caleb. He went to correct her again, but stopped himself. It was for the best that she keep some sort of distance between them, even if she disregarded every other propriety.
“We’ll watch out for her, Mr. Calhoun,” Nicholas added. Apparently he’d been paying attention after all, even though his gaze was fixed firmly on the tools, turning them over in his grubby paws as thought they were his own.
Abigail smiled brightly. “So, you see? I have no need for my sisters or our maid as a companion with Nicholas here to look out for me.”
He stared at her hard, and this time her gaze wouldn’t quite meet his. He’d have liked to think it was because even she knew that her actions were folly. That no-good smuggler was still out there. And even if he wasn’t, Caleb was here.
And Caleb was dangerous. He was a retired pirate, for heaven’s sake. Did she not realize yet that she should not trust him?
“You ought to have a chaperone,” he said. Wonderful. Now he was sounding like a fretful mother hen.
Her smile was slow and sweet. “Do you really think Hattie would be much protection, Mr. Calhoun?”
He had a vague memory of the youngest sister. Blonde like Abigail, but even more slight, with her nose forever stuck in a book.
“I love my sister dearly, but she is roughly the size of your pinky.” They both looked to his smallest digit and he had the oddest urge to...laugh.
He never laughed.
Well, rarely.
As it was, a soft coughing growl came out and he supposed that was how he laughed. It’d been so long, he hardly recognized it himself.
But this was no laughing matter. She ought not come to his house alone. He glanced around at the urchins. Well, nearly alone. No one to save her from him, and that was what mattered. That’s what this was about.
She should be scared of him, and she wasn’t. The woman had no sense.
Or maybe she had a little because as he drew closer, she kept her gaze on the basket, talking quickly. Too quickly. “And besides, Hattie is under the weather. And Minerva is gone, as you know, and Sally...” She reached out to brush a crumb from the table’s edge. “Well, Sally has left with Rebecca to go to the
