Her heart pounded. She slicked the wet comb through his thick hair, trying not to think of his mouth so near to the bare expanse of skin above her neckline, unable to think of anything else. Each breath she took seemed to tighten her bodice across her breasts, and she could hardly bear the ache at their tips. Thom must see how her nipples beaded beneath the cotton. But though she yearned for him to touch her, his hands had fisted at his thighs.
Now was not the time, anyway. Desperately, she searched for something to distract her. Anything. Such as dinner with Lord Pinchpenny. She wondered breathlessly, “Do you think that he put off his cook with the rest of the crew? He doesn’t seem like a man who will tolerate poor fare at his table.”
“He doesn’t.” Thom’s voice was rough. “But he also doesn’t seem a man who does anything by half.”
“Then he would have had to hire another for this job. A mercenary cook. I didn’t even realize there was such a thing, though I suppose all of the knives come in handy,” she said, and smiled when Thom laughed. That quiet rumble counted among her favorite sounds in all the world.
When his laugh faded, she felt his hand upon her hip. But not to pull her closer. It was a small touch of apology, instead. “I won’t be good company at dinner. I’d as soon kill him as talk to him.”
“I won’t care if you don’t speak a single word, Thom. You are always good company to me.” She used her fingers to smooth back a few dark strands near his temple, then sighed. “We should not delay much longer.”
“No. But I’ll need another minute before I’m decent.”
“Oh?” Then she saw the state of his trousers, and heat flooded her cheeks. “Thom!”
He laughed again at her admonishing tone—though the truth was, she did not mind a bit.
And she could use another minute, too.
The captain’s cabin also lay on the second deck, but at the stern rather than the bow. Squared off, the cabin was bigger than the triangular one, and whoever the usual captain was, that person had more sensible taste than displayed in the stateroom. A heavy brown curtain separated the main part of the room from the berth. Sturdy furnishings and dark woods gave the cabin a somber appearance. Paned windows overlooked the tall blades of the twin propellers, and beyond them, offered a view of the setting sun painting orange across the water in broad strokes.
Lord Pinchpenny was alone, reading by the glow of a small lamp. As they entered, he set the book aside and rose from his chair to greet them. “How lovely you look, Mrs. Thomas.”
“Thank you.” Her reply was stiff. She did indeed look well. But a single heated glance from Thom pleased her a thousand times more than flattery from this man ever could.
“Please, come and be seated. I cannot tell you how grateful I am that you’re here. I’ve longed for civilized conversation.”
He gestured to the table, a more formal setting than in their stateroom, and large enough to seat eight. Standing at the head, he pulled out the chair on his right.
Thom took it. He dragged the next seat back for Georgiana, keeping himself between her and Lord Pinchpenny.
Flattening her lips to stop her smile, Georgiana sat. Not much civilized conversation would be found with her husband—which was exactly how she liked him. Lord Pinchpenny didn’t attempt to conceal his amusement. He regarded Thom with a wide grin before looking to Georgiana again.
“By your accent, I believe we must have been almost neighbors once. You lived on Prince George Island?”
Near to Manhattan City, but in many ways, she couldn’t have been born any farther away from this man. They were most certainly not neighbors. But she only replied, “Not for many years. My family came to Skagen when I was a young girl.”
Still standing, Lord Pinchpenny filled their glasses with red wine. “Before the revolution in England?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t return home when the tower was destroyed?”
“England was never my home, sir.”
His brows rose at that. “I have always considered it mine. All of my family has. Indeed, that is how we’ve come to this situation now.”
“The situation where you’ve threatened both me and my husband?” Georgiana smiled, so that he would know this conversation was still civilized. “What is it that you needed, sir? The money?”
“No.” He finished pouring wine for himself and took his place at the head of the table. “I’m not a thief. This is reclamation of honor.”
Through piracy and murder? “What honor do you wish to reclaim?”
“Title, lands. But above all, a good name.” He leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs at the knee, the easy posture of a man utterly sure of himself. “I’m the Earl of Southampton—or rather, I should be.”
And Georgiana had always thought she should be Queen of the North Sea. That didn’t make her so. “And why aren’t you?”
“Shortly before the Horde’s invasion, my ancestor—Henry, the sixth Earl of Southampton—shared the fears of those who had already fled England, and sent his countess and children to the Americas. But he remained behind. My family had extensive holdings and many tenants dependent on them, and the earl was loyal to the Crown. He would not abandon either out of fear. Like every man of my line, he believed that it was his honor and duty to serve them.”
Beside her, Thom drew in a long, slow breath and closed his eyes. Probably because he was rolling them toward the heavens.
Georgiana suppressed another smile. “And so he was caught in England when the tower went up?”
“No. He was among those who weren’t infected by the Horde’s radio signals. And you have likely heard the stories of what had happened then. Confusion and panic everywhere. No one quite knew what had happened; they only knew England was under attack of some sort, and even the king had been affected. For the security of the Crown, his ministers agreed that a portion of the treasury should be taken out of London for safekeeping until the threat was defeated. They entrusted my ancestor with some of those treasures.”
It finally began to make sense. “Including the chest of gold coins?”
“Yes. Everything my ancestor took with him was documented, with the understanding that it would all be returned when the Horde had been overthrown. That documentation reached the Americas with one of the king’s ministers. But my ancestor did not. The Irish fired upon his ship, instead.”
“They denied it.”
“Yes. So my ancestor was labeled a thief when the treasures in his keeping disappeared—and his title and lands were stripped from him and his heirs. I ought to have been next in line.”
“Now you want to restore your family’s good name.” Along with the title and lands.
“Yes.”
“And you needed the coins as proof that your ancestor didn’t steal them?”
Smiling, he dipped his head in a slow nod. “Exactly right, Mrs. Thomas.”
What a load of ballocks. She didn’t doubt that there was some truth to his tale of being an heir and of lost titles, but the history of those coins would have been revealed when Thom put them up for auction, and Southampton’s family’s name would have been cleared then. So that could not be his only reason for taking such drastic measures to secure the coins—and the most probable reason was the same as the one she’d first suspected: money. Those coins were worth a fortune. A clever man could claim that he’d only recovered half their number from the wreck, return those to the Crown as proof of his ancestor’s innocence, then sell the remainder on the sly.
Georgiana didn’t know what his ancestor had been, but this would-be Lord Southampton was likely nothing but a thief, after all.