5. A Landlocked Captain #2
She had been kind.
Almost unbearably so.
Reginald had spent most of his life at sea. Every port had its houses, and his men visited them often enough.
Reginald never had.
Not because he lacked carnal urges. Or opportunity.
But because of disgust, a disgust that began before he’d even been old enough to name it.
He had not been quite five when he wandered into his father’s rooms and found him with one of the young women who seemed to appear and disappear from the house without explanation. Reginald had been confused then.
Later, when he understood what he had witnessed—and learned that his father had married his mother for money and influence rather than affection—the confusion hardened into revulsion.
To his father, women weren’t people. His wife had been property. The others were pleasures purchased at his whim.
One transaction after another.
Reginald had vowed never to become that sort of man.
Then Rose Darling appeared.
His breath had caught. Heat tightened throughout his body, making him feel suddenly, brutally awake.
But it was not only her beauty.
It was the way she moved, the way she’d watched him. He’d had a sense that she saw beneath not just his mask, but his entire facade—to the man underneath.
God help him, for those moments, he’d believed he’d found the other part of himself. Ridiculous.
The convictions he’d carried for years had gone silent.
At the time, he had foolishly believed her tenderness came from the same inexplicable connection that had swept through him—that perhaps she was the woman he had been searching for all his life.
The woman he had never truly believed existed.
By God, he should have known by her comfort, by her ease, exactly who she was then.
“Reg?”
Sam’s voice brought him back.
Both of them were watching him.
“The men can’t come here,” Reginald said.
The words came out more sharply than intended.
Miss Darling only lifted one shoulder. “Why not?”
Because his men were sailors and the women in this house were not conveniences to be handed over for their pleasure.
And until he had divested himself of The Domus completely, every last one of them were under his protection.
He couldn’t allow his own crew to treat them as commodities.
“Let them come for supper and cards. For music and company,” Miss Darling suggested. “No woman need offer anything if she doesn’t wish to do so.”
Sam’s gaze moved from Miss Darling to Reginald, far too amused.
“You wish to keep your crew.” She went on, more carefully. “Give them somewhere safe to spend their coin. Somewhere they will not be cheated, robbed, or tempted away by another captain before your ship is ready to sail.”
It was sensible.
Damn it.
“My men are not like the gentlemen who come here,” Reginald said.
Miss Darling’s brows rose. “They are men, no?”
“They are sailors. Good men, most of them. But they have been at sea for months. They drink too much when we’re ashore. And some have an unfortunate habit of settling disagreements with their fists.”
“They can be uncouth,” Sam added.
Reginald gave him a look.
Sam grinned.
Miss Darling frowned slightly, though she did not appear alarmed.
“Are they clean?”
Reginald blinked. “Clean?”
“Washed,” she said. “And willing to remain so.”
Beside him, Sam made a sound that was much too close to a laugh.
“They can be,” Reginald said.
“And they know how to follow rules?”
“Of course.” His men were rough around the edges, but they knew him. They knew what he would and would not tolerate.
Miss Darling studied him for a moment.
Then she gave a small shrug.
“It is your choice,” she said. “It is your house, after all.”
The words landed harder than they should have.
His house.
But her home.
Sam was the first to speak.
“It couldn’t hurt, Reg.”
Reginald looked at him, then realized Miss Darling had never been properly introduced.
“Miss Rose Darling,” he said, “this is Mr. Samuel Dyer. My first mate.”
She inclined her head. “Mr. Dyer.”
“Miss Darling,” Sam said. He gave her a bow that was awkward enough to be amusing, though there was nothing mocking in it.
Then he turned back to Reginald. “What shall I tell the men?”
Reginald looked at Miss Darling.
She stood quietly in the doorway, watching him expectantly.
He should refuse.
… But it really was a rather tidy solution.
He nodded once and then turned to Sam. “Tell them they may come tomorrow evening. But speak with Boris first. And make certain every man understands that the rules are not negotiable.”
Sam’s grin returned.
“Aye, aye, Lord Reginald.”
“Do not start.”
Sam laughed, gave Miss Darling another brief nod, and let himself out.
Reginald looked at her again.
At the woman who had made him forget himself completely.
She stood before him now—calm, certain, and utterly unapologetic. Beautiful, by God. Her posture was elegant, her voice refined, her expression composed.
And yet she was no lady. Quite the opposite by society’s measure.
Perhaps that was what disturbed him. She didn’t fit anywhere he tried to place her.
Against all reason, Reginald felt drawn to her.
He should hand the whole business over to Sedgewick. Let the solicitor and Huxley settle the accounts. Reginald could rent a room near the docks and hide out while the Phantom Gale was made seaworthy again.
It would be simpler.
Safer.
Only a fool would mistake this woman for harmless.
She had already persuaded him to act against his better judgment once, and she had made no secret of her intentions.
She wanted The Domus to remain open.
He meant to close it.
There could be no compromise between them.
And yet, for reasons he could not begin to understand, he didn’t dismiss her outright.
Even now, with Sam gone, she remained in the doorway, watching him.
Her gown was modest enough for daytime, though it did nothing to hide the lush curves of her breasts or the smallness of her waist. Her skirts fell in smooth folds over rounded hips. Everything about her looked touchable. Yielding.
He remembered that she was soft.
Reginald set his jaw.
“Did you come here for a reason,” he asked, “or do you mean to eavesdrop outside my door for the full thirty days?”
She did not look offended. In fact, amusement danced in her dark eyes. “We never finished our tour.”
Right.
That.
Reginald glanced toward the door. The thought of walking through The Domus, meeting Malum’s employees—his employees for now—learning their names, allowing them to look at him with all their expectations and suspicions—did not appeal.
“You cannot simply stroll into my office and make demands whenever you please,” Reginald said.
Miss Darling’s brows lifted.
“I am the bloody captain of a ship. None of my men would dare enter my quarters without permission like you have.”
Then again, none of his men made his body tighten the way she did.
Something in her expression changed—the slightest fading of her smile.
Reginald felt an immediate, irritating stab of regret. He gestured toward the chair opposite his desk.
“Sit down.”
She glanced at the chair, then back at him. “You wish to talk?”
He had intended to establish rules. Boundaries. Some clear understanding of how the next thirty days would proceed.
But he had, in all fairness, agreed to learn more about the business his brother had handed him. He might as well begin—and get the matter over with as quickly as possible.
“Sit,” he repeated.
Miss Darling lowered herself into the chair.
Reginald settled behind the desk, putting its considerable width between them.
“Tell me more about the club.”