“I noticed. Why is that, Isadora?” They came to the bow of the ship and he turned to study her.
“I have no idea.”
“There!” Ryan said suddenly, shading his eyes. “There it is!”
“There what is?”
“The equator.” He took out his spyglass and handed it to her.
She closed one eye and peered through it. “What am I looking for?”
“The equator. Isn’t that what you came here to see?”
“See? But—”
“Keep looking.” Furtively, Ryan plucked a hair from his head. On the pretext of adjusting the focus, he held the hair crosswise over the lens. “Now can you see it? The equator?”
“Why, yes,” she crowed, clearly elated. “I do believe I can.” Her mouth curved into a smile that had a disquieting effect on him. “How fascinating. And isn’t that an elephant walking along the line?”
He took the spyglass from her and put it away. “I was fairly certain you wouldn’t fall for that.”
She regarded him with her usual prim disapproval, though her eyes still danced with humor. “I am not in the habit of ‘falling’ for things, Captain. I’ve no idea why you would attempt such a prank with me.”
“To see you smile. You don’t do it often enough, and you should.”
She regarded him somberly. “Why should I?”
“Because…” Ryan began to feel foolish. “Because I order you to, and I’m the captain.”
She rewarded him with a grin. “Then I suppose I have no choice.”
He grinned back. “No, ma’am, I don’t guess you do.” He leaned back against a timber head. “We’re about nine hundred miles out from Rio.”
“It sounds like an unbearably large number.” She shaded her eyes and gazed at the nothingness that surrounded them.
“The briny blue. As far as the eye can see. That’s why I like the crew to get along.”
“They seem to. Even Mr. Click has been quiet this past week. When do you think we’ll make Rio?”
“Within the week. There’s a premium of a hundred dollars a day for each day under average for the whole trip.” He reached up, running his hand along an awning. “This looks good. Is it new?”
“I doused it with salt water,” she said, meeting his puzzled gaze. “Luigi says it prevents mildew.”
“So it does,” Ryan said, and though they spoke of mundane matters, he felt a beat of emotion that had nothing to do with awnings or deadlines or anything but the woman standing with him on his ship.
This was new to him. She was new to him. In the past he’d been drawn to women whose beauty outweighed their brains, whose idle chatter rang louder than their common sense—in short, women who didn’t make him see himself for what he was—a spoiled, shallow young man who hadn’t grasped the importance of social conscience until it was too late. He used to prefer women who didn’t challenge him to be more than he was. But not anymore. He wasn’t certain exactly when or why it had happened, but at some point he had started to feel something soft and new for Isadora Peabody.
“Look,” he said, nervous with the sensations churning in his gut, “I realize we haven’t been getting on—”
“Not for lack of my trying.”
He gritted his teeth to stifle a retort. “Don’t ruin my graciousness by being infuriating.”
“I was not—”
“Only because I’m stopping you. Now, hush up and listen. I was angry about the way you made yourself a part of this enterprise. You used your connections with Abel Easterbrook to your advantage.”
“It’s no more than men of commerce do.”
“Damn it,” he burst out, “you are the hardest person to offer an apology to.”
She flinched at his language. “Is that what this is? An apology?”
“Yes, damn it,” he shouted.
“Well, it’s not working.”
“Not for lack of my trying,” he said, mimicking her.
“Steady there, miss,” Chips cautioned Isadora. “Keep one hand in the rigging no matter what, and make sure your feet stay balanced in the ratlines.”
Though she had climbed only a few feet off the deck, Isadora felt vulnerable, particularly when the ship crested a swell and listed a little. Yet despite her uncertainty, she felt proud and excited. The Isadora who had left Boston Harbor would never have dared to climb a ship’s rigging. But since the men of the Swan had decided to teach her the ways of the sea, she had dared a hundred new things and her confidence grew every day.
“What the devil—?” Ryan Calhoun hurried over, a scowl on his face. “Damn it, Chips, you can’t let the lady go aloft.”
“It’s not his fault, Captain,” Isadora said hastily. “I insisted. I heard a rumor that Cape Frio is near and I wanted to see it.”
The truth was, she wanted to see everything. For her, the voyage had grown and burgeoned into a journey of self-discovery. She had no idea what she would find at the end. All she knew was that she felt more at home aboard this ship than she ever had in the middle of her own life in blessedly distant Boston.
“Come down from there this instant,” Ryan said, his voice harsh with command. He stood leaning against the capstan, looking unconsciously appealing as well as commanding.
Isadora couldn’t stop the wave of warmth that engulfed her. Though he couldn’t know it, he had everything to do with her newfound sense of belonging. The way she looked or spoke or comported herself mattered not at all to Ryan Calhoun. He treated her no better and no worse than his crew of seamen. Thanks to him, she’d learned to endure a flash of male temper, to understand teasing and joking, to see humor in situations that used to appall the old Isadora.
The amusing part was that he seemed to have no idea how good this was for her. She smiled bravely down at him. Climbing the spanker rigging had seemed such a grand idea when she’d first thought of it. Chips scrambled around like a monkey, making it look so simple. Yet now that she had begun her ascent, she began to regret it.
“Don’t make me order you down,” Ryan said furiously.
She quickly made up her mind. Pride demanded that she stay her course.
Since crossing the equator several days earlier, they had gone back to avoiding one another. Let him save his roguish charm for girls with empty heads and full bosoms. Isadora was not about to be taken in by him.
“I’m going to continue, Mr. Pole,” she said to Chips.
The ship’s carpenter sent Ryan a helpless look. “Opposite hand and foot every time, miss, there’s the way. Opposite hand and foot.”
“Damn it, I’ll keelhaul you, Pole,” Ryan shouted. “Don’t think I won’t.”
“You won’t.” Chips failed to suppress a grin. “I have to help the lady. It’s her first time, you know.”
Isadora tried not to smile as she grasped the rigging in one hand and raised her opposite foot to the next ratline. Her blowing skirts made the going awkward, and it was immodest in the extreme to climb in this manner, but she couldn’t help herself. She hungered for a sight of the wild, exotic land they had sailed so fast and so far to find.
“I can see your drawers,” Ryan Calhoun called loudly.
She nearly let go. Only a keen sense of