13. Chapter 13
Chapter thirteen
Marguerite entered the cabin. She hoped a woman could be vibrating internally like a harp string and still cross a threshold with dignity. She shut the door behind her.
What had she done?
She had thrown a bucket of water at the captain. Not merely the captain. The Duke of Stormhaven. The ambassador to Naples. The man upon whose ship she now depended for passage, safety, reputation, dinner, and the continued avoidance of English creditors.
She had thrown water in his face.
In his face.
His very handsome face, which had been tanned beyond what should be permitted by law, set above a white shirt damp enough to reveal that Providence had grown careless with muscle distribution.
He had stood there barking at her in that maddening way of his.
Instead of responding with diplomacy, she had used a bucket.
Elsie, who was sitting on the floor with her arms wrapped around a wooden pail, lifted her head. Her pallor had not improved. If anything, it had acquired a more philosophical shade of green.
“Did your diplomacy work this time, miss?”
“Oh, splendidly,” Marguerite said, wringing her hands once before catching herself and clasping them behind her back. “Wonders. Absolute wonders.”
Elsie raised one eyebrow. Marguerite looked away. The eyebrow remained raised. She could feel it. Elsie’s eyebrows had social influence beyond their station.
“Well,” Marguerite continued quickly, “if you insist on particulars, I may have committed a minor faux pas.”
Elsie waited.
“Nothing worrying,” Marguerite added. “Or—well. Nothing dry.”
Elsie’s second eyebrow joined the first. “Did you get the water for the bath?”
Marguerite opened her mouth. Closed it.
Footsteps moved beyond the door. Low male voices passed, then stopped. Marguerite went still, and her heart, already behaving without authorization, sprang directly into her throat.
Perhaps it would be best if she threw herself into the sea before they came for her. No. That was foolish. The sea was cold. Also full of sharks. Did the Channel have sharks? It was English water, so if it did, they were no doubt gray, judgmental, and underfed.
She crossed to the small stern window and looked out at the darkening water. It slapped against the hull with an implacable sound.
“I think water is overrated, Elsie,” she said faintly. “There is so much of it outside.”
Elsie stared at her. “Miss, what did you do?”
Marguerite turned. “Fine. If you must know, that—that pirate would not listen to reason, so I threw water in his face.”
Elsie’s mouth opened. The latch twisted. Both women froze.
“Oh, no,” Marguerite whispered.
Elsie clutched the pail tighter. “Is it him?”
The latch moved again.
Marguerite’s mind supplied an immediate procession—sailors with hard faces, officers with ropes, Tristan standing behind them in his wet shirt, inscrutable, magnificent, and cruelly dry-eyed.
They would haul her on deck. They would make her walk the plank for assaulting naval authority with bathwater.
The sharks would circle below, delighted at last to have French seasoning.
“There they are. They will make me walk the plank. The sharks will have me for dinner, Elsie.”
The door opened.
Marguerite screamed.
Elsie screamed.
The person on the other side screamed too, though in a youthful register.
A cabin boy stood in the doorway, pale, round-eyed, and holding a steaming bucket in both hands. Behind him, two more boys waited in the passage with additional buckets, their expressions suggesting they had expected to deliver hot water and had instead arrived at a murder.
“For milady’s bath,” the first boy squeaked.
Marguerite stared at the bucket. Steam curled upward. Apparently, mercy smelled sweet.
“Are you sure this is for my bath?” And not some skin-boiling torture…
“Yes, miss. Captain’s orders.”
Relief arrived so swiftly her knees softened. She caught the edge of the table and tried to make the gesture look intentional, as if one often gripped furniture while receiving ordinary household triumphs.
The boy shuffled forward and set the bucket near the tub. More water followed. Bucket after bucket. Warmth began to rise through the cabin, softening the air, fogging the edge of the stern window, turning the copper tub into a promise.
Marguerite watched it fill. She should have been ashamed.
She was, a little. But beneath the shame, blooming like heat beneath cold skin, came something far less respectable.
She had thrown water in the Duke of Stormhaven’s face, and instead of being condemned to death by sharks, her lack of diplomacy had ended in victory.
A small victory, perhaps. A wet victory. A victory with steam rising from it.
Marguerite looked at the tub, then at Elsie, whose green face had acquired a grudging respect.
“Perhaps,” Marguerite said, “directness has occasional uses.”
Elsie hugged her pail and closed her eyes. “Don’t let it go to your head, miss.”