“It was not just me that made the decision. I sail with a partner. He has been on land these past six months on family business. Together we talked Brady around to this arrangement. He loves the woman, but he also loves the sea. He is a good first mate. We did not want to lose him entirely.”
“A woman can do that, draw a seafaring man back to land?”
“Oh, yes,” Roderick replied, with irony. “Losing crew to women is a hazard we have often encountered. Many a seafaring man will suddenly find his land legs if lust is involved. Worse still, if his mind is addled by romantic notions.”
Roderick had never understood it, but when he stared across at his companion he began to see how it could happen. Maisie Taskill could easily lure a man to land if she set her mind to it. Which was exactly why he should be keeping his distance, not spending every possible moment with her, and endeavoring to find out her history. Yet he couldn’t help himself. Natural curiosity, he told himself. That’s all it was.
“You thought he would stay with the Libertas if you did this to help him?”
“Gregor thought it would be the case, but I think we may lose Brady yet. He gets melancholy when we are away too long. It is better for a seafaring man not to grow attached to one woman.”
Maisie sat back in her chair, a curious expression on her face. “Gregor?”
Roderick thought he’d offended her with his plain speaking, but it was Gregor’s name that had caught her attention. “Gregor Ramsay is the man I share joint ownership of the vessel with. He is in Fife at the moment, settling a score.”
She shifted in her chair and tapped her chin with one finger. “The name. Something about it seems familiar. I am fairly sure I don’t know it, but I have the oddest feeling I should.”
How would she know Gregor Ramsay? Roderick wondered. “Did you hail from the East Neuk of Fife? Perhaps you heard of him there?”
She shook her head. “I was born in the Highlands. I have never spent time in Fife.” She lifted her shoulders. “No matter.”
“The Highlands, aye. That accounts for the wildness I witness when you lose control of your senses.”
“I have no idea what you are referring to, Captain.” Her smile and the flash of her eyes assured him she did.
“What took you to England?”
For several moments she didn’t speak at all, and she looked wronged. It was as if he’d asked her a terrible thing. When she did reply there was tension in her voice. “Something that turned out to be a very big mistake.”
“We all make errors.”
“That is true enough.” There was wariness in her tone.
“This life is not easy, nor is our path laid out straight and fair.”
She nodded, then lifted her mug of ale and sipped from it. “No, but I did not make the error.”
Roderick pressed on, his curiosity rife. “Who did?”
Again, she thought about her response at length, then gave a forced smile. “The man who thought he could bend me to his will and keep me.”
Roderick lifted his brows. Apparently she’d had a suitor, one she hadn’t given her virginity to. Yet she’d given it readily enough to him. A puzzle lay therein. It was the sort of puzzle that he and some of the men would enjoy debating at length while they shared a flagon of rum on a night and made entertainment for themselves. More intriguingly, she showed a deep determination against being kept by a man. Any man, or just this suitor?
“You have an unusual strength of spirit,” Roderick commented.
“For a woman?” she retorted.
“Aye. And more than many men, too.”
She looked away and into the flames in the hearth. “I had to be strong.”
“Why so?”
She flashed him a warning stare. “It is better that you know nothing about me. I have said too much already.”
Irritation built in Roderick. “I do not agree.”
It was more than idle curiosity now. He had a bad feeling about the things she said, and their physical union—whilst only a temporary arrangement in lieu of a fee—made him believe he had a right to know.