Chapter 3
Three
Ramsay was halfway down the narrow corridor when he heard it.
A voice cut through the corridor like a blade.
“Let go of me!”
He stilled, breath catching low in his chest, a sharp spike of alertness flashing down his spine. His body moved before his thoughts did, legs propelling forward, heart already drumming, as if some ancient instinct had snapped awake and pointed him toward the fire.
As he rounded the corner, the scene snapped into view.
It was she. The lass from earlier. The one with the vase. And the voice. And the eyes that had met his so fiercely, he’d been chewing on them ever since.
Ramsay didn’t think. He charged forward to rescue her.
A tall man in expensive tailoring had her pinned against the railing with one arm clenched around her wrist. Her free hand was braced against his chest, trying to push him back.
“You’ll belong to me soon enough,” the man sneered. “Once we’re back on English soil, you’ll be mine—”
“You can’t make me.” Her voice was low, seething.
And then she punched him. A closed fist, fast and sharp, straight to his jaw. The man stumbled back with a guttural sound of pain, nearly tripping over his polished shoes.
She didn’t need his rescue. Ramsay couldn’t help it. A chuckle escaped him as he stepped into view.
The woman stood above the man, arm still slightly raised, chest heaving.
Her cheeks were flushed with exertion, a vivid rush of color against porcelain skin.
Her bonnet had slipped halfway off, and one damp curl clung stubbornly to her cheekbone.
She looked altogether wild and magnificent, like a goddess interrupted mid-curse.
Now, with her back against the railing, chest rising in fury, and that dress clinging to her curves like it had been sewn on wet, he felt it again. That low thrum of unwelcome want, deep in his gut.
She was irresistible.
He’d seen fights before—dozens, perhaps hundreds.
Street brawls, clan disputes, bloodied noses and split knuckles, all delivered with brute force and no poetry.
He’d even seen women fight—sharp-tongued Highland matrons with broom handles or broken plates, defending hearth and pride. But never like this.
Never with such elegance. Never with such defiant, unshakable grace.
His eyes dropped to the tremble just beginning to show in her fingers, the slight quake of breath beneath her stays. Still, she stood tall, unflinching, daring anyone to question her.
Why did it catch him so? Why this strange rush of—what? Admiration? Concern?
He didn’t even know her name. But something about the tilt of her chin, the steadiness in her gaze, made the moment feel…personal.
Damn it.
“Well,” Ramsay murmured, stepping closer, “that’s one way to handle a disagreement.”
She turned. Her eyes narrowed when they landed on him.
“I have this under control,” she said, slightly breathless.
“I can see that.” He gave the unconscious man a casual glance. “I was only going to ask if you’d like another go.”
The corners of her mouth twitched. “It wasn’t exactly planned.”
“No?”
“He grabbed my arm.”
“Did he now?”
She brushed her skirts off with brisk dignity then winced as her knuckles caught on the fabric.
Ramsay caught the motion. His eyes dropped to her hand where blood had begun to bead faintly at the edge of one knuckle. Nothing severe. A scrape, as she would likely call it. But the subtle, fleeting tremble in her fingers was enough to pull something tight across his chest.
He took a step closer before he could stop himself. Just decency, he told himself. A gentleman helping a lady, even one who had just felled a man like a seasoned prizefighter.
There was something about the way she held her injury behind her back, as if ashamed of it, as if afraid that showing pain would undo all the fierce composure she’d just summoned. Something about that refusal to appear weak.
He cleared his throat, voice lowering. “Let me see,” he said, nodding toward her hand, keeping his tone even.
“I said I have it under control,” she replied sharply, drawing her hand slightly behind her back, her eyes flashing with a warning that didn’t quite match the faint tremor in her fingers.
“And yet you’re bleeding,” he pointed out, watching her with furrowed brows, his tone somewhere between dry and concerned.
“It’s only a scrape,” she muttered, not quite meeting his gaze.
“A scrape that might worsen if not seen to,” he returned evenly, folding his arms but not stepping away.
She gave him a look, part challenge, part gratitude. “I’ll wrap it when I go below.”
He nodded but didn’t move.
“In Scotland,” he said, “we admire a lass who can throw a proper punch.”
She tilted her head. “Do you also admire those who loiter?”
Ramsay grinned despite himself. “Only when they’re bleeding and brave.”
The man on the deck groaned softly.
She looked down at him then quickly around the deck. “I need to get out of sight. If anyone sees me like this, I’ll be ruined.”
“Ruined for defending yourself?”
“You clearly haven’t spent much time among English society.”
“Not willingly.”
“Then trust me. This—” she gestured to the scene “—would end with me banished to some aunt’s drawing room until I wither away from shame.”
He gave her a long look. “You don’t appear the withering type.”
She blinked, as if startled by his audacity.
Then, to his surprise, she laughed—a real one this time. It burst out of her in a single, short breath, sharp and bright, like glass catching sunlight. He felt the sound like a match struck in his chest. Unreasonable, he thought. Inappropriate.
And yet he wanted to hear it again.
Her cheeks were still flushed with adrenaline, and her posture was just shy of feral. He found it oddly affecting. There was steel in her beneath the proper hem and polite vowels. A kind of fire that refused to apologize for burning.
“I need to go,” she said, more softly now. “Before someone sees.”
Ramsay nodded and reached into his coat pocket. “Here.”
She frowned. “What is that?”
He pulled out a clean kerchief and extended it. “For your hand.”
She hesitated then took it, slowly, their fingers brushing. Her skin was warm. Fine-boned. He watched her wrap it around her knuckles, focused and quiet.
“I’ve never hit anyone before,” she admitted, knotting the cloth.
“Could’ve fooled me.”
She glanced down at the man again. “Do you think he’ll make a scene?”
“Only if he wakes up.”
She looked up at him, startled, but she didn’t laugh this time.
The air between them was tight with breath and heartbeat and everything unspoken. Her eyes searched his face, still flushed from the fight, and Ramsay realized—too late—that standing so near her was dangerous for reasons that had nothing to do with fists.
He stepped back half a pace.
“You shouldn’t stand so close to the railing,” he said gruffly. “You might fall.”
The words hung in the air, oddly loud.
Her expression shifted. Not into gratitude but into something colder. Rawer.
“Oh, I see,” she said, her voice clipped. “Now you’d like to tell me where I’m allowed to stand?”
His brow furrowed. “It’s not a—”
“I’ve had quite enough of men warning me. Grabbing me. Insisting I listen, insisting I obey—”
“I didn’t say—”
“Well, I heard you,” she snapped, stepping back. “And I am not going to put up with men telling me what to do anymore.”
They stared at each other. Her chest rose and fell. His jaw clenched.
A beat passed.
She was wild, though not in the way men whispered about behind fans or called improper at dinner tables. Hers was a storm that came without thunder: sharp, sudden, unapologetically alive.
Ramsay watched her now, cheeks flushed, eyes blazing, spine straight as a sword, and felt something twist low in his gut. She didn’t wilt. She didn’t wait for permission to strike.
Ramsay wasn’t sure what he’d expected when he left Penelope’s cabin. A missing doll. A dusty storeroom. Some corner of the ship full of forgotten things. But not this. Not her.
He should have kept walking. He should have gone on with his ridiculous, hopeless search. But something about her made the thought of turning away feel almost unbearable.
A low groan pulled Ramsay’s attention back to the deck.
The man the lass had struck—still crumpled but beginning to stir—rolled onto his side, fingers twitching like a beetle that had been turned belly-up.
A moment later, he lifted his head, groggy and squinting.
Then, with an angry hiss and the stubborn pride of someone too stupid to stay down, he pushed himself upright.
“You—” he snarled, swaying slightly. His face was mottled red, his lower lip already swelling like a bloated plum. One of his eyes was starting to darken.
Ramsay stepped forward at once, placing himself between the man and the lass, though she remained by the railing, upright and unmoved, chin high.
“Stay out of it,” the man growled. “This isn’t your concern.”
Ramsay didn’t blink. “It became mine the moment you put hands on her.”
The man lunged without warning, shoulders low, fists curled, teeth bared like a dog who hadn’t yet realized it was outmatched.
Ramsay saw it coming. He’d seen it in barrooms, in back alleys, in the jittery pause before a fight broke out.
He sidestepped cleanly, grabbed the man by the lapels of his jacket, and punched him.
A clean, simple maneuver, executed without rage or elegance.
The man’s own momentum betrayed him. He stumbled backward, feet slipping on the wet deck.
He flailed. One arm shot out blindly for balance. It landed—unfortunately—against her shoulder as he fell flat on the floor.
She yelped. It wasn’t a scream. Just a sharp sound of surprise. Her feet slid. Her body jerked sideways. Ramsay turned in time to see her back tilt over the railing.
“Saints above,” he muttered and lunged.
His hand shot out and caught hers as it flailed in midair. His other arm hooked around her waist, gripping tight, dragging her back with a grunt of effort that scraped through his throat. Her skirts billowed as her leg skid through the wooden floor.
They tumbled and landed hard on the deck, tangled together in a heap of limbs and fabric. His shoulder took the brunt of the fall. Her elbow caught his ribs, and one of her curls got stuck in the button of his coat.
For one stunned moment, neither of them moved. They were breathing. That was all. Breathing and stunned and very, very close.
Then Ramsay exhaled into her hair. “We really must stop meeting like this.”
She made a sound that was half outrage, half breathless laughter.
Her bonnet was gone. Her hair was everywhere—soft, wild, fragrant. Her hands had somehow ended up on his chest, and her mouth was a fraction too close to his for propriety.
Ramsay became acutely aware of her weight and warmth and the way her body was pressed against his in places no one was supposed to witness, let alone feel.
Her breath came fast, short, and shallow, catching slightly at the top of her throat.
It stirred the hair near his collar, warm against the skin just below his ear.
Not fear. He knew the sound of fear. He’d heard it in screams and sobs and the quiet shudder of a child crying into a blanket.
This wasn’t that. This was something else entirely.
Her corset pressed against his chest, rigid and unforgiving, laced too tightly for comfort but too perfectly for modesty.
His arm had hooked instinctively around her waist when she fell, and now, it held her still, hand splayed over the small of her back.
She was firm against him. Her breath still came fast, shallow, and hot, and her face was close enough for his thumb to graze skin. Warm, smooth, and far too real.
She was trembling. He could feel every tremor passing through her body and into his. Adrenaline crackled in the space between them. Her chest heaved. Her eyes blazed.
And he still hadn’t let go.
He could feel the curve of her. Too much of her.
No. No, don’t read into it. Don’t be a fool.
And yet, he didn’t move.
Then she spoke, voice low and clipped. “Get off me.”
“I’m not holding you down.”
“You’re breathing on me.”
“Would you rather I hadn’t pulled you back from the brink?”
Her brow knit. “That man—”
“Is about to wish he’d never stepped foot aboard.”
She made another sound—less dignified this time—and shoved at his chest until he rolled off her.
He rose to his knees then stood fully, offering her a hand. She ignored it and pushed herself up, brushing furiously at her skirts.
But before either of them could speak again, a new voice split the air.
“Get your hands off my sister!”
Ramsay turned sharply. The lass stiffened beside him.
A tall figure strode across the deck, his stride swift and his fury unmistakable. Broad-shouldered, well-dressed, and very clearly armed with righteous indignation.
“Norman,” the lass breathed.