He offered her the brandy, but she shook her head. “Thank you, no. I don’t indulge in spirits.”
Kyle’s mouth quirked at the corner, deepening his right dimple. “Drink it. It’ll do you more good than the lime juice and water you ladies find so appealing.”
When he stood there waiting, looking as if he wouldn’t countenance her refusal, she accepted the glass and took a small swallow, nearly choking as the fiery liquid burned her tongue and throat.
“Now,” Kyle said casually, “why don’t you tell me what you were doing, charging into the sea like that? It didn’t seem to me that you were intent on a moonlight swim.”
Selena searched his face, reading only concern in his hazel eyes. “Perhaps I wasn’t thinking very clearly, but I wasn’t trying to kill myself. I was merely upset.”
“Want to talk about it? I’ve been told I’m a good listener.”
Oddly, she thought he might be right. He looked as if he might sympathize with her. But it wasn’t something she could share with a stranger, even if she was in the habit of bearing tales.
“Thank you, Captain,” Selena said, turning away to avoid his penetrating gaze, “but I am quite all right now. Truly. And I should return home. Someone may wonder where I’ve gone.”
“God Almighty.” The oath was breathed slowly, in a low tone. A large hand clamped down on Selena’s arm and spun her around to face him.
Kyle’s face was incredulous. “You were a virgin!”
Selena winced at the fierce accusation in his tone and the pressure of his grip. She returned his gaze mutely, wondering how he had known.
“There’s blood on your nightdress,” he ground out, answering her unspoken question. “Sweet heaven! That was why you were so—” He broke off then to eye her narrowly. “I think you’d better start explaining, Miss Markham.”
Selena searched for a plausible reason. “Perhaps I cut myself, Captain—”
“Like hell you did!”
Selena swallowed hard. Kyle Ramsey might be an unrefined American; he might swagger and curse like a common sailor. But he was deceptively quick. She wouldn’t be able to fool him with some halfhearted lie. Yet she couldn’t tell him the truth. “Please,” she said, stalling for time, “you are hurting my arm.”
Kyle gave vent to a muttered oath, but he released her to stalk over to the brandy decanter. He poured himself a very gene
rous amount as he grappled with the dilemma Selena Markham had presented him. If she wasn’t so anxious to leave, he would have suspected a ploy to snare him as a husband. It wouldn’t be the first time a lovely young innocent had insinuated herself into a man’s bed with marriage as her object. But if rumor could be believed, Selena Markham was already betrothed.
Kyle shot her an unfriendly glance. “Lady, I don’t know what your game is, but I don’t much like it.”
“I…” Selena took a deep breath, and, for one of the few times in her life, told a deliberate lie. “I wanted to learn about love.”
“So you gave yourself to a stranger?”
Flushing at his disbelieving tone, she stared down at her bare feet.
“You’re engaged to be married, aren’t you? Why didn’t you ask your betrothed to initiate you?”
“I… my reasons are my own, Captain. I don’t think I am obliged to share them with you.”
Kyle gave her a long, assessing look. How did she manage to look so cool and remote after losing her virtue to a man she had only met that afternoon? “What’s your betrothed’s name? Warner? I suppose now he’ll be challenging me to pistols at dawn.”
Selena lifted her gaze to his. “I don’t intend to tell him,” she said quietly. “And I would appreciate it if you would refrain from mentioning what happened tonight, as well.”
“You can bet your sweet life I won’t mention it! I’m not that much of a fool.”
She stood there, silent. Kyle ran his fingers through his hair in a gesture of frustration. “Blast it, I don’t have any experience deflowering virgins, or I would have realized at the time—”
“Please…I don’t hold you responsible. You merely did what I asked.”
Glaring at her, Kyle took a deep swig of liquor. He didn’t need this kind of trouble. He could have—and now it looked as if he should have—availed himself of any of a dozen willing females in St. John’s, but oddly, after kissing Selena Markham that afternoon, he hadn’t quite felt in the mood for the full-blown temptresses he usually favored. He had chosen instead to sober up from his afternoon revelries in solitude. And then Selena Markham had shown up, sobbing and looking like some wild wraith in the moonlight. And what had begun as an attempt at a rescue wound up as a seduction. His.
It had bothered him that she hadn’t found pleasure in his lovemaking, but perhaps Miss Markham’s inexperience explained her coldness. If he had known— But he should have known. Now he had more to worry about than getting shackled in marriage; he could wind up with a noose around his neck. If Warner didn’t shoot him first.