Chapter Three
“I am sure if you explain things, miss, your Captain Seaton won’t be too angry with you. They are very important people, after all, aren’t they? Captains, I mean.”
That was when Phylis decided she was not going to punch the arrogant man who was clearly following her on the nose.
No. That would be too good for him.
She was going to kill him with kindness instead.
Halting in her steps, Phylis turned with what she hoped was an innocent smile and said as sweetly as she could manage, “I know captains are very important people. I am Captain Phylis Seaton.”
Perhaps too much of her annoyance had gotten in the way, for the man stared with mouth agape and evident increasing horror as they stood there.
“Y-You?” he stammered, eyes wide. “You—Captain Seaton?”
“As astonishing as you might find it, yes,” said Phylis tartly, wondering why she was even bothering to speak to this utter idiot. “I am Captain Seaton, and thanks to you, my ship has gone.”
That was sufficient to break the spell, or whatever it was that holding the man frozen. “‘Gone’?”
“Yes, gone, as I’ve explained before, to Edin—it is no business of yours,” snapped Phylis. Lord save me from idiotic men!
Yes, it’s gone, more’s the pity. There was something about being on board the Dreamer that was unlike anything else.
Oh, Phylis had an office here of a sort, with a bed in the corner for the rare times she trusted her first mate to take the Dreamer away for a few days.
Sometimes it was necessary. Sometimes the captain had to be in port to receive goods or make agreements—or sign contracts.
Still. Phylis knew she wouldn’t be entirely settled until she was back on board, with the wind in her hair and the salt in the breeze.
“I just—I’m sorry, but I cannot believe you’re a captain!”
Phylis sighed. “Of course you can’t.”
It was the same the world over. Oh, certain ports had grown accustomed to seeing Captain Seaton merely because she was there so often, but most of the time it was a tiresome conversation that always went the same way.
“Good afternoon, I’m Captain Seaton.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I assure you, I most definitely am.”
“But you’re a woman!”
“Well spotted. Can we unload our cargo now?”
It never went well, and that was just the shortened version.
Captain Seaton prepared herself for a repeat of the tired, old routine, although at least this time, it would be with someone who was clearly a gentleman and not, as it so usually was, a weather-beaten old man who could barely lift a crate.
Phylis blinked. Not just a gentleman, but a handsome gentleman. Very handsome. Dear God, he had looked good in the alleyway, but out here in the sun, it was quite clear that he was dashing.
Oh, damn her sideways, she had been on land too long. ‘Dashing’?
“I am just astonished,” the man said blankly. Then his expression settled into something far more comfortable. “Ah, well. Takes all sorts.”
Phylis blinked. “I’m sorry, Mr.…?”
“Chance. Michael Chance.” The man winced as though she were about to castigate him about his name, which sounded normal, as far as she was concerned. When Phylis said nothing, the man cocked his head. “You make no remark.”
“I wasn’t aware I had to,” said Phylis, glancing at the building to her left. “Look, I’ve got to go, so—”
“Go where?”
Nosy sod. “My office, as it happens,” Phylis said smartly, as though she were far too busy for the likes of him, and by the way, had tired of him. Neither of which was too far off the mark, even if she had missed her ship by now. “Good day, Mr. Chance.”
“You haven’t heard of me?”
“Was I supposed to?” asked Phylis as she started walking to the building where she rented two rooms.
“But—But this is unheard of! Here I am, planning to immigrate thousands of miles to escape my name, and you haven’t even heard of me here?”
“I don’t spend more than a few days a year on land, and not all of those here in London,” Phylis said with a shrug as she entered Maundy Buildings and made for the stairs. “Now, good day, sir—”
All too late, she realized the bounder had not only followed her into the building, but was actually clambering the stairs alongside her.
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” she asked curtly as they reached her landing.
Rather than be cowed by her sharpness, the blaggard merely shrugged. “No.”
“Go away,” said Phylis tautly before unlocking her office and stepping inside.
Well. Office. It was a pair of rooms that were very low rent because of their location so close to the docks, but that suited her fine.
She hadn’t bothered to decorate much, though.
Her time spent here was next to nothing, and so Phylis had not seen much point in furnishing the place beyond a desk with two chairs, one either side, a bed in the corner, and a fireplace with a kettle on it. What else did she need?
The other room made excellent storage, and for the low price of a few crowns a year, it suited her quite well. She had never entertained visitors here before. She had never needed to.
Mr. Chance sat in one of her chairs. “So you really are a captain?”
Phylis sighed as she rolled her eyes, placed the paperwork—totally in the wrong order—on the desk, and sat in her own chair on the other side of the desk. “Yes.”
So, he was one of those.
Well, you met them occasionally. They weren’t as bad as the men who insisted, despite the evidence before their eyes, that she couldn’t be a captain—but they still had their challenges. The men who were dazzled and intrigued by the very idea of a woman giving a man an order.
“That’s impressive,” said Mr. Chance, leaning back and examining her. “Truly impressive.”
Phylis smiled briefly. “Yes, it is. Good day, Mr. Chance.”
“How, precisely, does a lady such as yourself—so beautiful, I mean—end up being the captain of a ship?” Mr. Chance asked politely.
That was, it would have been a polite question, if he had not been looking at her as though he wanted to take all her clothes off and ravish her across the desk.
Phylis blinked. She was imagining that, surely. No man would dare do such a thing to her, she’d made sure to show a few flapdoodles how that would go before they’d barely tried, and besides, there was paperwork upon the desk. What sort of a man would disrupt paperwork?
And for a second time?
“It’s a long story,” she said aloud, hoping the briefness of her statement would encourage the lout to depart.
Mr. Chance did not. “I’ve not got anywhere to be,” he said lazily, grinning as he leaned back with both hands behind his head. “And I like a good story.”
“What a shame, for I have no interest in telling it,” Phylis retorted hotly.
She should absolutely not be allowing this man to get under her skin.
It was ridiculous! She dealt with varlets and idiots every day of the week; most of them not within her crew, obviously, but still.
Men of all sorts, shapes, and sizes had the capacity to be utter dolts, and so Phylis was not unaccustomed to forcing them out of her sights.
This Mr. Chance, though…he was staring with such open attraction that Phylis could feel heat pouring through her body.
It should have been illegal, for a man to look at a lady like that!
Well, she was hardly a lady; she hadn’t been born for that sort of thing. No, she was a woman, and she worked hard, and she did not deserve to be looked at like that! Like… Like the man wanted to kiss her!
And she wouldn’t let him. Obviously.
Phylis shifted uncomfortably in her seat and tried not to think about how handsome the man was.
“You know, you are very beautiful.”
“Yes, I know,” Phylis said sharply, in the hopes the man would cease talking.
It worked, but only for a moment—and in that moment, Mr. Chance smiled, allowed his gaze to slowly move down from her eyes to her lips to her décolletage—thankfully mostly hidden by the men’s shirt she was wearing—down to where her breasts were, though he would have to presume, for they were most definitely hidden by her shirt, then back up to her eyes.
“You are an extraordinary woman, Captain Seaton,” Mr. Chance murmured.
Phylis swallowed. Or at least, she tried to swallow, but the blaggard was looking at her with all the heat of a rake.
Mr. Chance. This is no duke, no titled gentleman who is accustomed to—to deflowering virgins, or whatever it is that dukes get up to, Phylis thought rapidly. He’s just a mister.
Just a gentleman meandering down an alleyway who had followed her here.
And Phylis could not deny—at least in the privacy of her own mind—that he was a man she rather liked being admired by.
He was handsome, and charming, and it had been a long time since a person had wished to speak to her for more than five minutes without either throwing her a rope or trying to negotiate a price.
“It must be difficult.”
Phylis started from thoughts that had nothing to do with negotiation, and everything to do with being thoroughly kissed by Mr. Chance. “What is?”
Mr. Chance shrugged nonchalantly, in that way only rich and entitled young men could. “Being a captain. Working hard for a living.”
She could do nothing but laugh. “Plenty of women work for a living, Mr. Chance.”
“But most of them don’t do so as captains of ships,” he pointed out, entirely accurately, most unfortunately.
This time, it was Phylis’s time to shrug. “I suppose not.”
“That makes you fairly special, don’t you think?”
This is not a seduction, she reminded herself firmly, even as her breasts strained against her chemise. This was just a conversation with a cultured gentleman, though goodness knew why he was bothering to have it with her. Cultured gentlemen spoke in such roundabout, suggestive ways, did they not?
It wasn’t as though she had much experience in knowing…
“I wouldn’t call myself special—”
“I would,” interjected Mr. Chance, and his gaze was calculating now, not in a mercenary way, but in the way that a person carefully considered exactly how they were going to press a flower or paint a mountain. “I think you are very special, Captain Seaton.”