His hands dropped to his sides. “If you need anything, Hardwick is at your disposal.”
What if I need a husband who cares for me? she thought despairingly. What if I need a friend to converse with, to share laughter and sorrow with, someone to love? But she said nothing.
Instead, she mounted the companionway stairs in the fading twilight to bid a silent and lonely farewell to her homeland.
Chapter Seven
As it turned out, the voyage wasn’t quite as bad as she feared. The first night was the worst. Realizing she couldn’t remain on deck the entire time, Selena allowed Mr. Hardwick to escort her to the officers’ cabin for a late supper, where he tried to entertain her in Kyle’s absence. After a brief stroll on deck, he persuaded her to retire to her own cabin.
Selena passed a restless night, starting awake every time the schooner rolled over a deep trough, but at least her preoccupation kept her from feeling too homesick. And she suffered nothing more than a minor queasiness from the rising and sinking with the motion of the ship. Thank goodness, Selena thought as she dragged herself from the bunk the next morning. If she had been susceptible to seasickness, she would have lost Kyle’s respect entirely.
She had vowed to keep out of his way and not cause him or his crew any trouble, but she ran into a minor difficulty almost at once: the matter of her corsets. Unlacing was no problem, for she could reach the ties easily enough. But without a maid to help, she found it was impossible to tie the laces tightly enough to fit into her gown.
When a cabin boy brought her breakfast, she had to send him away, for she was still engaged in the struggle. Hardwick came a moment later. He called to her through the door, expressing worry that she might be ill, and his concern made her overcome her discomfort at being seen in such a state. Dressed in a wrapper, holding the lapels close together at her throat, Selena opened the door a crack.
“I’m not ill,” she explained with a blush. “Indeed, I’m quite comfortable. It’s just that I am having a slight difficulty getting dressed. I’m accustomed to the services of a maid, you see.”
“Of course,” Hardwick said kindly. “I should have foreseen it. I’ll fetch the captain at once.”
“That won’t be necessary!” Selena protested. “I’m sure I can manage.” But Hardwick murmured that this problem was in the captain’s domain and disappeared along the companionway.
When Kyle arrived some moments later, he entered the cabin with extreme wariness. But his unwanted wife wasn’t attempting a seduction, he realized as she carefully shut the door. Rather, she was embarrassed. Her cheeks were flushed the same pale coral shade as her wrapper.
“Hardwick said you needed me,” Kyle remarked, his tone guarded.
Selena couldn’t meet his eyes. “Do you suppose,” she asked in a faltering voice, “that you might help me tie the laces of my corset? I can’t accomplish it alone… and I had no one else to ask.”
Kyle, who had spent far more time helping ladies out of their corsets than in, stared at Selena. Her appearance was a striking contrast between angelic and wanton. Her pale hair, still tousled from sleep, spilled around her face, while the virginal way she was clutching at the throat of her wrapper suggested she feared he might attempt her virtue again.
Kyle greatly preferred her hair down to the severe style she frequently wore, but the sight, combined with quick rise and fall of her breasts beneath the frail muslin, aroused carnal feelings in him that he had no business feeling if he meant to seek an annulment of their marriage. Yet he couldn’t think of a way to refuse her simple request without seeming churlish, not without admitting how fragile his control was whenever he was near her. Especially, he thought with a mental groan, when she was half-naked. Gritting his teeth, he nodded brusquely.
Selena, who still wouldn’t meet his eyes directly, modestly presented her back to him. She was, however, quite aware of Kyle’s scrutiny. It had sent her pulse rate soaring and nearly shattered what little composure she had been able to summon. Now she would have to yield what little protection she had. But it had to be done. Her body tense, she took a deep breath and let the wrapper slip off her shoulders.
Kyle, too, sucked in his breath. The loose corset covered her long, slender back with lace and satin, but Selena’s smooth shoulders were completely bare and so was a vast amount of ivory skin. He realized at once that breathing was a mistake, for her scent—the scent of warm violets—filled his nostrils and made him want to brush aside the fine, silver-blond tresses and lower his lips to the curve of her neck. It was all he could do to keep his hands from sliding around her to fondle the ripe breasts that were being pushed up so provocatively by the stiffened fabric of the unlaced corset.
With a silent oath, Kyle forced such provocative thoughts from his mind. Bracing himself, he focused on the crisscrossing laces of the garment.
Her body was tense; he could feel it as he began his task. But so was his. And his fingers, which had tied thousands of knots during his long career at sea and mended even more sails, were unsteady. They slipped as he pulled on a delicate ribbon.
“Infernal things,” Kyle muttered, trying to get a better purchase.
His voice was huskier than he would have liked—and huskier than Selena would have liked. It quivered down her spine like a caress. Tensing even further, she focused her gaze on the cabin porthole and tried to ignore how Kyle’s long fingers felt as they brushed against her back. Her skin had turned into a trembling jumble of nerve endings.
When Kyle mumbled another oath, she cast a worried glance at Horatio. Yet she was less concerned that he might add Kyle’s comment to his vocabulary than grateful for the distraction the parrot presented.
The silent Horatio was no distraction at all to Kyle, though; his fumbling fingers refused to do his bidding.
“Damn and blast it!” he swore as he tried for the third time to loop the ribbon ends into a simple bow.
“Awk! Blast it! Blast it!”
Kyle’s head came up abruptly at the squawk. “No one asked your opinion,” he growled, giving the parrot a darkling look. He turned that look on Selena when she caught he
r lower lip between her teeth. “I’m sorry!” he ground out. “I forgot that blas… that bird was there.”
He tackled the laces again, wishing he was anywhere but there in the cabin with an eager-eared parrot and Selena Markham… Ramsey. Especially Selena. One part of him wanted nothing to do with her. Another wanted to punish her for bringing him to such a pass. And yet another—by far the greatest part—wanted to take her in his arms and awaken all the exquisite, undiscovered passion in that lovely body.
One thing he was certain, though: he couldn’t take being in such close quarters with Selena for the entire trip. It would be more than a week before they reached New Orleans, and he was already aching for her like a callow schoolboy. What was worse, his condition would be obvious to any of his men, if not the lady herself, which meant that when he left her cabin, he would have to find a remote hiding place where he could cool off.