"Very well, but do not think you can fob me off so easily regarding the other matter. You have given me your word, and your honor demands that you keep it." She put her hand through the crook of his arm.
He wanted to laugh at the bossy bit of goods, demanding that he teach her more of passion. He managed to maintain a straight face, however. He had never had the urge to smile, much less laugh, so much in his entire thirty years as he did in one hour of Thea's company.
He laid his hand over hers and squeezed. "My honor is very important to me."
She nodded. "Just so."
The wind whipped Thea's hair as she stood against the rail, looking out over the gray waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Shielding her eyes from the wind, she lifted her gaze to the sky and watched a lone seagull dip and soar in its flight.
"Are we really that close to port?"
Drake, who stood beside her at the rail, nodded. "We'll reach Liverpool two days ahead of the contract."
She smiled at the satisfaction in his voice. She turned away from the soaring bird and focused on Drake. "Have you had any luck in identifying the blackhearted sailor who tried to toss me into the ocean?"
The satisfaction faded from his expression.
She shouldn't have said anything. He would have told her if he had, and now she had ruined this perfectly marvelous moment alone with him. They got precious few of them. The closer the Golden Dragon got to port, the busier he became with ship business.
Thea could not blame him for the lack of opportunity to explore their attraction. He simply did not have the time. She sighed. It was not a comforting thought. Soon, they would go their separate ways and the likelihood of her seeing him again was very small. Drake had his business to run, and she had her thief to find.
The thought of their imminent separation swept through her like the chilly wind until her heart was as cold as the skin of her arms had been before Drake insisted she wear his coat. She pulled the blue superfine closer about her and covertly sniffed his fragrance. She wanted a memory to take with her when she left, more than a stolen moment of passion with her maid sleeping in the next bed. Something to warm her heart in the future when loneliness and her work were all that she had to cling to.
She had made arrangements. She just hoped he would not think her too bold.
She realized that while she had been woolgathering, he had been speaking and she'd missed all of what he had said. "I'm sorry. My mind was elsewhere. What did you say?"
His brows drew together in an expression of irritation that she had begun to find quite endearing. "What could be more important than finding the man who tried to harm you?"
Plotting to be with the man whom she feared she was coming to love. Terrified at the very thought, she refused to entertain it. Love weakened women. It made them vulnerable to men who would hurt them and treat them with scorn as her father had done to her mother.
"What is the matter? You've gone green around the gills again. Do you need some ginger tea?"
She warmed under Drake's concern. He was a stubborn man. Perhaps more like her father than she wanted to believe, but he had a tender heart under his unbending pride and honor.
"Nothing. Please repeat what you said."
"I said that we haven't had one bloody lead that has gone anywhere. None of the sailors on watch or in quarters saw anything peculiar."
"I suppose the men in quarters were sleeping rather soundly." The combination of their daily rum rations and hard labor undoubtedly provided for very sound sleep indeed.
"Yes." His voice was clipped.
She trailed her hand down his arm. "Don't be angry. Soon we'll be in port and the danger will be past."
"That's not what my instincts are telling me."
Wary, she pulled her hand away from him and turned, grasping the rail with cold fingers. "Do not let your imagination run away with you."
"My instincts are not fantasy. What's more, you know something that you aren't telling me."
She gripped the rail more tightly, tempted to tell him everything. He would insist on taking over the investigation, or helping her at the very least. The prospect of seeing more of him, even at the cost of some of her independence, tantalized her. But it would not be fair to Drake. She could not trade upon his chivalrous nature.
Feigning a lightness she did not feel, she pointed to the gull, now a tiny speck in the sky. "It's amazing to me that although the ocean looks as vast as it ever did, we are close enough to land for birds to fly above us."
Strong fingers closed over her wrist and pulled so that she found herself against his hard chest. "Tell me."
His eyes were almost black in their intensity. She blinked, trying to regain her equilibrium.