“I would venture to say you’ve demonstrated that quite thoroughly.” He observed her a little more intently, as if trying to read her thoughts.
She imagined him in Salé coldly demanding her release. Imagined how his voice would have turned sharp when they refused, how his eyes would have gone flinty with rage.
For her.
“Why did you not tell me?” she demanded, hating how small she felt.
“Would telling you have earned me a promotion aboard the Possession?”
“Certainly not,” she said.
“I thought as much.” In the silence that followed her statement, he studied her from across the carriage. “What are you thinking?”
Memories flitted by: Mejdan, laughing indulgently while his two young daughters draped him with silks to make him look like a woman. Nafisa and Aysha on market day, happily trying on a hundred scarves while the shopkeeper grumbled and huffed. Katherine and Nafisa laughing themselves sick while Nafisa taught Katherine Arabic from the same book the children used, and Katherine’s tongue refused to cooperate. Had Captain Warre and her father been successful, there would have been no market days, no playing with the children, no laughter. She would have been brought home to a country that would have seen her as a tragic oddity, where nothing awaited but ruination, isolation and loneliness.
But she made herself raise a brow at him. “That you are by far the most efficient cabin boy I’ve ever had, and promoting you would not have served my interests at all.”
“Touché, my dear Captain.” His smile did not reach his eyes, but something else did. For the briefest moment she saw his desire wage war with his guilt.
And then the carriage drew to a stop in front of a town house, and his expression changed to cold calculation. “Here we are,” he said. “I would suggest you bear in mind that Lord De Lille is one of the most powerful lords in the House.”
She peered out at the house with that same knot in her gut as when she faced an aggressing ship. “I remember. He and Lady De Lille were friends of my father’s.”
“Then I don’t need to tell you to remember your manners in front of Lady De Lille.”
She smiled at him. “For shame, Captain. When have I ever not remembered my manners?”
* * *
MANNERS, KATHERINE DECIDED a short time later, were a severe inconvenience.
“I’ve always thought foreign travel was fraught with danger,” Lady De Lille declared after Captain Warre had flawlessly introduced a retelling of his rescue. She was a plump froth of lace and pink ribbons, peering out from a frame of heavily powdered gray curls topped by a lacy cap. “I’ve never once been tempted to see the world’s oddities—especially not those where you’ve been.” She leveled her eyes at Katherine the way a ship might level its guns and pointed her fan as though it were a pistol. “Not that I haven’t been to Paris, mind you.”
Katherine clenched her teeth behind the smile she’d pasted to her lips. “Naturally.”
“But I would never travel farther south than that.” Lady De Lille’s mouth pruned disapprovingly. “I have strong feelings about the effect of the Mediterranean climate on one’s passions.”
“How fortunate that passions are rarely inflamed in Paris,” Katherine said.
Captain Warre shot her a meaningful look. Behave.
She let her eyes drive into him. This is preposterous!
Seated nearby, Ladies Gorst, Linton and Ponsby exchanged looks with each other and with a Mrs. Wharton, who was married to one of the navy’s top admirals.
Lady De Lille narrowed one eye, but Captain Warre spoke first. “Hot weather does tend to make people more reactionary,” he said pointedly.
“So true!” Lady Gorst agreed. Quickly fanning herself, she leaned toward him to assure a clear view of cleavage her disarranged fichu no longer covered. “A summer in London nearly does me in. I’m sure I wouldn’t last above an hour in that hot climate. However did you tolerate it?”
“One quickly acclimates when one has no choice,” he said.
“Indeed,” Mrs. Wharton said. “The admiral has always said exactly that.” The lady looked at Katherine. “You must have grown quite acclimated to the heat. One can only see how much time you’ve spent in the sunshine.”
“Sunshine is unavoidable in the Mediterranean,” Captain Warre said quickly, cutting off the reactionary response that leaped to Katherine’s tongue. “In any case, I’ve always questioned whether it can be good for ladies’ health to avoid sunshine as studiously as they do.”
“Bless me if this isn’t the first time any such question has crossed your mind,” Lady De Lille scolded. “I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous in all my life.”
Lady Gorst laughed and drew her fan across her cheek. “And it’s hardly a winning argument, as a lady will always sacrifice health for beauty.”
Lady Ponsby nodded.
“One can only see how your time in Barbary has affected you.”
“Is it true they eat dogs?” Lady Gorst gave a graceful shudder. “Oh, I couldn’t bear it.”
Lady Ponsby paled.
Katherine thought of Zaki, with his jeweled bowl and his silken pillows, chewing on a mutton bone with nearly an inch of meat still attached. These people were fools.
Captain Warre shot her a glance. “An ill-informed rumor, I assure you.”
“Except when the market for kittens is tight,” Katherine added.
“Oh!” Lady Gorst placed a hand against her heart.
“My word,” Lady De Lille said crossly. “You are in more dire need of a husband than anyone I’ve ever met. It is only too bad that your age and adventures put you out of the market, though I suppose there is the estate’s fortune to sweeten the deal.”
Katherine stood abruptly.
“Sit down, Lady Dunscore,” Lady De Lille ordered.
Instead, Katherine walked away, leaving Captain Warre to make their excuses.
“My heavens,” she heard Lady De Lille declare as Captain Warre’s footsteps sounded behind her in the entryway, “if her father weren’t such an amiable man I would not have her in my house, mark my words, regardless of Croston’s good opinion, which is highly suspect in any case under the circumstances given that he is clearly besotted.”
* * *
“EXAGGERATING MOORISH BARBARISM is a bloody poor way to further your cause,” a clearly-not-besotted Captain Warre growled into Katherine’s ear four visits later after she told an open-mouthed Lady Someone-or-other that she’d witnessed no less than a dozen beheadings during her first year in captivity.
Katherine stepped into the blessed freedom of the waiting carriage. “This is intolerable.” And they saw her not as the countess of Dunscore, but looked at her the way they might gape at some freakish oddity.
“Be that as it may, you will learn to tolerate it or even my most heartfelt endorsement won’t help you.”
“Heartfelt endorsement!” she hissed. “Was that when you told the odious Lord Bashford that I was anxious for domesticity, or when you told Lord Quinn that my ‘accomplishments’ may not be traditional but nonetheless should not be overlooked?”
“Your gratitude leaves me speechless.”
“As did Lady Moore’s suggestion that I should set up shop in Covent Garden.”