The Lost Gentleman. Margaret McPhee

them. With a sigh of relief she sat down on the bed. And thought.

      North was not stupid. He was going to ask questions. About what she was doing in the water. And the thought frightened her. But one of the best forms of defence was attack and so Kate had no intention of just sitting here waiting meekly for the interrogation.

      On the washstand in the corner, someone had sat a fresh pitcher of water, brandy and some fresh dressings. Kate wasted no more time. The dressings Gunner had applied had stuck to the dried clotted blood. She eased the mired dressings from her side using the water and dabbed the fresh flow of blood with the brandy, ignoring the sting of it. The wound made wearing her holsters an impossibility. Much as she would have felt more comfortable with them in place she left them where they were. Then, she quickly dressed, tying her pocket in place beneath her skirt, and fixing her hair the best she could with her fingers and the few pins that remained. She stood there, looking into the small peering glass fixed to the wall, for a few moments longer. Calming herself, waxing her courage and determination, readying herself. One final deep breath and she went to face North.

      * * *

      ‘Come in.’ Kit did not raise his eyes from the open ledger before him when the knock sounded at the door. He was expecting Jones the Purser with a list of the supplies needed. It was the silence that alerted him to the fact that it was not Jones that stood before him. He marginally shifted his gaze and caught sight of a pair of feminine bare feet peeping from beneath the hem of the black dress he had hung on the back of Kate Medhurst’s cabin door.

      ‘Mrs Medhurst.’ He set his pen down, rose to his feet and bowed, as if they were in a polite sitting room of one of London’s ton. ‘Take a seat, please.’ He waited until she lowered herself on to one of the chairs on the other side of the desk before resuming his own seat. ‘I did not think you would be recovered enough to be out of bed today.’

      ‘I am very well recovered, thank you, sir.’ Following yesterday’s lapse, her armour was back in place. Her head was held high with that slight underlying hostility that was always there for him. There was the same expression in her clear grey eyes, politeness flecked with strength and defiance, wariness and dislike.

      Most women would have still been abed, waiting for Gunner to dress their wounds. Kate Medhurst had not waited for Gunner...or for him and his questions. The grazes on her hands were the only visible evidence of what she had endured the previous day.

      ‘How are your hands?’

      ‘Healing.’ She held out her hands before her, palms up for him to see, a gesture of revealing herself to him, a clever tactic given that he suspected that, aside from yesterday, Kate Medhurst had revealed nothing of the truth of herself.

      ‘And the rest?’ His eyes held hers.

      ‘The same.’ She did not look away.

      He let the silence stretch, let that slight tension that buzzed between them build, until she glanced away with a small cynical smile.

      ‘I came to thank you,’ she said, taking control of the situation and looking at him once again.

      ‘For what?’ He leaned back in his chair, watching her.

      She raised her eyebrows in an exaggerated quizzing. ‘For rescuing me.’

      ‘Is that what I did?’ he said softly. Rescuing her...or preventing the escape of a prisoner.

      The ambiguity of the words threw her off kilter for the tiniest moment. He could see it in the frisson of doubt and fear that snaked in those cool, unruffled eyes of hers, before she masked it.

      ‘How else would you describe it, Captain?’ she asked.

      ‘A lunchtime swim,’ he said.

      Despite herself she smiled at that and averted her gaze with a tiny disbelieving shake of her head.

      He smiled, too. And then hit her with the question. ‘What were you doing in the water, Mrs Medhurst?’ His voice was soft, but the words were sharp.

      Her eyes returned to his. The hint of a smile still played around her lips. ‘Swimming. At lunchtime.’

      ‘As I suspected,’ he said.

      They looked at one another, the amusement masking so much more beneath.

      ‘Tell me about Kate Medhurst.’

      ‘What do you wish to know?’

      ‘How she came to be aboard Coyote.’

      ‘In what way do women normally found upon privateer or pirate vessels come to be there?’ she countered.

      ‘Were you abducted?’

      ‘Abduction is a delicate question for any woman.’

      She was good. ‘As is the question of allegiance, I suppose.’

      ‘I do not know what you mean, sir.’

      ‘I am sure that you do.’

      She said nothing. Just looked at him with that calm unruffled confidence that hid everything of what was true or untrue about her.

      ‘Where are you from, Mrs Medhurst?’

      ‘Louisiana, America.’ She said it with defensive pride, wielding it like a weapon. ‘And you?’

      ‘London, England.’

      Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly at his answer.

      ‘Why do I get the feeling that I am not your favourite person?’ he asked.

      ‘Delusions of persecution?’ she suggested, and arched one delicate eyebrow.

      He laughed at that. And she smiled, but the tension was still there simmering beneath the surface between them.

      ‘I don’t expect you can take me home to Louisiana,’ she said.

      ‘No.’

      ‘Too dangerous for you?’ she taunted.

      ‘Most definitely.’

      ‘So, Captain North,’ she said in a soft voice that belied the steel in her eyes, ‘what are you planning to do with me?’

      ‘We are for Antigua to replenish our water and stores before our journey to England. There is a British naval base there, they will arrange your transport home.’

      ‘Thank you.’ She gave a single nod of her head.

      The conversation had been conducted on her terms. Now she terminated it at will. ‘If you will excuse me, sir...’ She rose to her feet.

      And as manners dictated he did the same. He waited until she reached the door and her fingers had touched to the handle before he spoke again. ‘I had presumed you would be happy to travel with us to Antigua. Is that the case?’

      ‘Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?’

      ‘Why, indeed?’ he asked.

      The quiet words hung in the air between them.

      Her eyes held his a moment longer and the tension seemed to intensify and rustle between them. About unanswered questions, implications and the physicality of yesterday.

      ‘Good day, Captain North.’

      ‘Good day, Mrs Medhurst.’ Her bare feet were silent upon the floor. The door closed with a click behind her.

      He stood where he was, his eyes fixed on the closed door. In his mind he was seeing the one moment when Kate Medhurst had let her mask fall, in the ocean faced with death. Then there had been nothing of poise or polish or clever tricks. Only a pair of dove-grey eyes that had ignited desires he thought long suppressed. Eyes that made him remember too well the press of her half-naked body against his and the soft feel of her, and the scent of her in his nose. Eyes that were almost enough to make a man forget the vow he had sworn...as if he ever could.

      He sat