Wrenching his eyes from the spectacle of all he couldn’t have, he made himself listen to her reply to his question through the thunder of his own blood in his ears and sought refuge behind the table until he had his body in a fit state not to betray him.
‘I dragged your fellow debauchee out of his chair and pushed him under the pump until he stopped screaming like a stuck pig, then told him if he didn’t find me the makings of a very hearty breakfast, I’d tell Kit what a useless excuse for a man he still is, then hope he was sent straight back to the gutter where Kit found him,’ she explained, mercifully all without turning round to turn those shrewd dark eyes of hers on yet another faulty male.
Yet Hugh doubted she’d carry out her threat against his brother-in-iniquity; her shoulders were hunched against his scrutiny, but her very defensiveness argued against her. ‘Where’s Coste hiding himself now, then?’ he asked, as he dared to come out from behind his barricade and pick up a slice of just-crisp-enough bacon from the stack keeping warm on the side of the hob.
‘He’s probably still trying to find a couple of scrubbing women willing to muck out the pigsty you two have made out of this room and the scullery, and another couple to dust and make good the rooms you haven’t yet got around to spoiling. He insisted that he wasn’t ready to eat yet,’ she said gruffly.
‘He won’t know where to start.’
‘I told him where to find a reliable domestic agency and sent a note along with him for the manageress setting out my requirements,’ she said, turning about at last to sharply forbid him to take one more bite until it was all ready, otherwise mercifully keeping her eyes on what she was doing rather than on him. His more-obvious state of arousal had mercifully subsided, but it was his body and he knew very well it was only waiting for the flimsiest excuse to lust after hers once more. ‘I expected I’d have to force you into eating anything this morning,’ she said with an ambiguous twist of the lips that might have been a smile and something told him she’d been looking forward to it.
‘Sorry to disappoint you, Miss La Rochelle, but I have a very hard head.’
‘Evidently,’ she replied coldly, as if he didn’t deserve such a mercy.
He strolled into the scullery to leave his used shaving water and was astonished to find that she had washed all the crockery and glassware he and Coste had left scattered about the kitchen. Such an excess of energy made him wonder if she’d slept at all and whether she had embarked on this whirlwind of activity to put whatever came next for her out of her mind for a while. What was bold, bad Eloise La Rochelle afraid of? he wondered, and why did he hate to think of her facing problems so insurmountable that they might leave her cowed and fearful instead of her usual bold and brazen self?
Given her daring method of arrival last night, she certainly wasn’t naturally timid and many things that would make even a bolder-than-average female quake seemed to leave her unmoved. So had she got herself tangled up in something dangerous as soon as Kit’s back was turned and should he be making it his business to find out just what she’d been up to? He eyed the racks of dishes draining over the sink with a preoccupied frown and went back into the kitchen for his breakfast and a more sober and detached assessment of his uninvited guest than any he’d managed to make so far.
‘You’ve been very busy indeed,’ he said on returning to the kitchen.
‘I don’t like to be idle,’ she admitted and he thought he saw a shadow darken her deep-blue eyes, then it was gone and she was glaring at him as if he might eat with his knife unless sternly watched once more.
‘There seems very little risk of that,’ he said and tried not to fall on the food she’d cooked like a ravening beast. ‘Can I pour you coffee?’ he asked, reaching for the pot at the same time as she did, flinching as what felt like a shock of lightning jagged up his arm as their fingers met fleetingly, then fell away.
He took a deep breath and stared at his hands, unaware until he saw his knuckles whiten that he’d clenched them into fists to stop himself gripping her slender fingers as if they were his lifeline. He loosened his fists and made himself glance at the bright morning outside the window, still gallantly promising something more than the usual London haze. Today he could enjoy the blessing of a fine morning, a useful occupation and a full belly—what more could a man ask of life? Sighing at the thought of all he could ask for, but no longer dared risk wanting, he turned back to watch her with raised eyebrows and a cynical half-smile.
‘I am perfectly capable of lifting a coffee pot for myself, thank you,’ she said sharply and he wondered if she’d been as disturbed by that startling bolt of connection between them as he had.
‘I don’t doubt it, after viewing the evidence of your industry,’ he said mildly and ate his way through a delicious meal as the headache he knew very well he richly deserved began to drum at his temples once more.
It was probably caused by the tension of wanting her so urgently, but not being able to have her, he assured himself. An old familiar and purely physical burn that, as a captain used to months without female company, he knew all too well and had learnt to endure. This time, however, he somehow doubted that reading Shakespeare or studying his charts and plotting a series of possible courses to fanciful places would distract him from it, but at least experience had taught him that the sharpness of it would dull if he could find a sufficiently absorbing occupation. Yet could any distraction blot Eloise La Rochelle from a man’s mind for very long?
‘Thank you,’ she said unexpectedly and sat and sipped her fragrant brew with what he guessed was feminine satisfaction in producing something edible when two supposedly strong men had been unable to do so between them. ‘It’s good to be busy once more,’ she added and he wondered if a life of silken idleness had palled on such an unusual Cyprian.
‘I’d be an ingrate if I failed to appreciate the fruits of your labour, even so,’ he said as he laid down his knife and fork to pour coffee and add sugar to it.
‘Should I pass you the cream?’ she asked.
‘No, thank you, I became used to going without it on board ship.’
‘Don’t most captains take a cow with them on long voyages?’ she asked and he wondered if she’d studied the life of a sea captain because her lover often lived that life without her. The shock of pure venomous jealousy at the very idea of her pining for her lover brought him up short and made him glare at his own hand stirring his coffee as if it had mortally offended him.
‘Sometimes there isn’t enough room for luxuries,’ he managed fairly normally.
‘Oh, yes, merchantmen are carefully designed to make use of every available inch of space for cargo, are they not?’ she replied, setting off that demon of envy in him once more and making him even more silently furious with himself.
‘Men-of-war are just as niggardly with every spare inch they can gain, having a goodly quantity of ammunition and unstable gunpowder to stow, as well as a vastly greater crew to accommodate,’ he explained.
‘It must be strange for you to go to sea as captain of a merchantman after commanding in the Royal Navy,’ she mused, blasting his attempt at replacing the general with the personal out of the water. He sighed as he lay back in his chair to sip his coffee and met her eyes warily.
‘I never said I’d been a navy man,’ he argued, almost groaning aloud at the defensiveness in his voice. It was still a wound he hated to have probed, which seemed foolish in the extreme compared to everything else he’d lost.
‘How else
