Susan Wiggs - The Calhoun Chronicles Bundle - The Charm School

He shook his head. “Miss Peabody, I don’t hate you. Whatever gave you that impression?”

“To begin with, you threw my spectacles overboard.”

“Do you miss them?”

She hesitated. In truth, she barely noticed the lack. “That is beside the point,” she said. “They belonged to me, as did my shoes. As did my hair. You had no right.”

“On the contrary, Miss Peabody. I have every right.”

“Ah, yes. How could I forget? You are master of this ship. Your word is law. I wouldn’t be surprised if you appointed yourself lord high executioner.”

He caught her in his angry stare. “Don’t tempt me.”

“You have robbed me of my spectacles, my shoes and my hair.”

“You’re better off barefoot. Those heeled things you wore made you as useless as tits on a fish.”

The image made her shudder. “Why does cruelty come so easily to you?” she asked softly. “Doesn’t that scare you sometimes? It would scare me.”

“Everything scares you, Miss Peabody.” With that, he straightened up and walked away, casually slipping his knife back into its hip sheath.

She drew her knees up to her chest and dropped her head onto them. She would not cry. She would not cry.

“B-begging your p-pardon, miss,” someone said.

She lifted her head. “Timothy.”

“I have some sk-skill at barbering,” he said in an explosive rush. He showed her a slender pair of scissors. “If you like, I’ll make a straighter job of the skipper’s handiwork.”

“Very well.” She surprised herself by agreeing and following him into the deserted galley. The deck felt hard and alien beneath her stockinged feet. “Do what you can.”

He moved behind her and gently lifted the hacked off strands away from the nape of her neck. She heard a deft snip-snipping sound as he set to work.

“Timothy.”

“Y-yes, miss?”

“May I ask you something?”

“C-course.”

“Did all the men on deck witness this incident?”

“They did, miss.”

“And did it not occur to any of you to intervene? To stop the captain from abusing me?”

“I didn’t see no ab-abusing, miss.” He smoothed his hand over her hair. Her head and scalp felt light as if a great tugging weight had been removed. “See, miss, on the last sail, Rivera lost a finger on the capstan. I expect the sk-skipper, he—he acted right quick so’s nothing like that would happen to you.”

She fell silent and sat still as Timothy finished her hair. He stood in front of her, scrutinizing his work, evening things out here and there, then nodding with satisfaction.

“See, miss, the skipper, he ain’t a bad man. He’s—”

“Walking in on you before you say something foolish,” Ryan interrupted, stepping into the galley.

“Y-yes, sir!” Closing the scissors, Timothy straightened up and hurried out.

Isadora regarded him stonily. He was going to apologize. She was not going to accept.

“Mr. Datty did a yeoman’s job on that hair.” He blinked, then narrowed his eyes keenly as if something startled him. His mouth curved subtly up at the corners. “He did indeed.” He held up a very small shaving mirror.

She had a vague impression of a cloud of unkempt curls, an unhappy face flushed with anger. She pushed the mirror away.

She felt naked without the long tangle of hair that had cloaked her for as long as she could remember. The hair was her shield, her covering. What would stand between her and the world now?

“You seem determined to see me shorn of dignity,” she said.

“Quite the opposite,” he said in his maddening drawl. “I would say there is more dignity in a woman who walks with ease and confidence rather than tottering around on tall-heeled shoes.”

“And when did your opinion matter?” she demanded.

He took a step toward her and went down on one knee so that their faces were level. She felt an odd jolt of…something. Fear? No, for there was no urgency to get away from him. On the contrary, his stance before her, his expression and the way his hands came to rest on her shoulders made her want to stay exactly where she was.

She had no idea why this reaction came over her, particularly in the midst of her rage. But there was something compelling in the way he waited, not answering her question but simply watching her.

Determined not to let him stare her down, she studied him, trying to discern some clue as to why he insisted on tormenting her. He had the sort of face one would describe as boyishly handsome, a face that would probably still be handsome even when he reached fourscore years of age. A finely drawn mouth that smiled too readily. Dimples that softened the chiseled effect of his nose and cheekbones. Eyes that crinkled at the corners and that had in their depths the strangest combination of mischief and pathos.

There was, in her heart, a heat she had never felt before. A knowing. Here was a person who had the power to stir her blood. And this was not, she knew instinctively, a good thing.

“Well?” she prompted, telling herself such thoughts were fanciful, ridiculous. He was someone whose actions she must report to his employer.

He kept his hands on her shoulders even though she wished he’d move them. “Miss Peabody, I know you’ll be disappointed to hear this, but my opinion matters. Everything I think, say, do, or wish matters. That is the nature of being the captain.”

She sniffed. “So you will use your power to make me miserable.”

He smiled, his face softly lit with infuriating sympathy. “Miss Peabody.”

She glared at him.

“Isadora. May I call you Isadora?”

“Why ask permission? You’re the captain, the despot, the most high admiral of the ocean sea.”

“Not the ocean. This ship.” Very slowly, deliberately, almost insolently he let his hands skim across her shoulders and trail down her arms. “Isadora, you surely don’t need me to make you miserable. You’re doing a fine job of that on your own.”

She caught her breath in fury and surprise. “How dare you?”

He laughed, his hands cradling her elbows. “Because I have nothing to lose, Isadora. Not a damned thing to lose.”

Despite his laughter, she heard pain in his voice, saw it in his eyes. She had never met such a maddening, interesting, complex individual.

“What do you mean by that?”

“You despise me already, sugar. So it doesn’t seem to matter what I do.”

“Your mother is a woman of such admirable manners. I find it surprising that she raised a man who would say such a thing. Particularly after hacking off a lady’s hair with a sabre.”

“It was a midshipman’s dirk.”

“It was the height of rudeness.”

“We’re talking in circles here, Isadora. We’ve been over this. I’m not going to apologize. And you’re not going to be miserable any longer. You were supposed to leave that unhappy mode of life behind when we left Boston.”

“Unhappy? How dare you suggest I am unhappy?”

He let out a sigh of exasperation. “My dear, you are unhappy to the last inch of your shadow. I fear this state is so familiar to you that you no longer recognize it as unhappiness.” Finally he did the unthinkable. He moved his hands to cover hers, making an insistent circular motion with his thumbs in her palms. “What I want you to know is that you don’t have to live like that, Isadora. At least, not while you sail under my ensign.”

She had a strange urge to shut her eyes and simply feel the sensation of his thumbs rubbing her. His fingertips were sinfully warm and leathery from work, so different from the clammy clutches of men forced to partner her at Boston dance parties.

She made herself sit very still, eyes wide open as she fought the inexplicable slow warmth that filled her, beginning with the tips of her fingers and flowing through her body, settling in its more unmentionable places. “I really don’t think,” she began, then had to pause and moisten her lips before going on, “I don’t think you need concern yourself with my happiness or lack thereof.”