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After their exchange on the poop deck Dita did her best to avoid Alistair without appearing to do so, and flattered herself that she was succeeding. It did not prevent the disturbing stirring in her blood when she saw him, but it gave her a feeling of safety that, in the restless small hours, she suspected was illusory.
She was helped by the captain relaxing his seating plans at dinner. Having clearly established precedent, he acknowledged that to keep everyone tied to the same dining companions for three months was a recipe for tedium at best and squabbles at worst.
Breakfast and supper were informal meals and by either entering the cuddy with a small group, or after he was already there, Dita ensured she was always sitting a safe distance from Alistair.
During the day, when she was not in her cabin reading or sewing alone or with Averil, she sought out the company of the other young women on deck. They were all engaged in much whispering and secrets, making and wrapping Christmas gifts, teasing each other about who was giving what to which of the men.
They irritated her with their vapid conversation, giggling attempts to flirt with any passing male and obsession with clothes and gossip, but they provided concealment, much, she thought wryly, as one swamp deer is safer from the tiger in the midst of the herd.
Alistair had no way of realising that this was not her natural habitat, she thought, as she watched him from under the tilted brim of her parasol while Miss Hemming confided her plan to get Daniel Chatterton alone under the stars that evening.
It was on the tip of her tongue to point out that Mr Chatterton was already betrothed, and had been for years to a young woman who awaited him in England, and that with the amount of cloud cover just now there would be no stars to flirt beneath. But she bit her lip and kept the tart remarks to herself. Alistair bowed slightly as he passed the group, accepting both the wide-eyed looks, nervous titters and her own frigid inclination of the head with equal composure.
Now, why is Dita so set on avoiding me, I wonder? Those chattering ninnies are boring her to distraction and in five days I cannot believe we have not sat next to each other for a meal simply by chance. That kiss on the maidan? Surely not. Dita has more spirit than to flee because of that, even if she knows I want to do it again. And more. And I’ll wager so does she.
‘Oh, Lord Lyndon!’ It was one of the Misses Whyton, indistinguishable from each other and with a tendency to speak in exclamations.
He stopped and bowed. ‘Miss Whyton?’
‘What is your favourite colour, Lord Lyndon?’
Ah, Christmas gifts. He had hoped to escape that by the simple expedient of not flirting with any of the little peahens, but it was obviously not working. ‘Black,’ he drawled, producing what he hoped was a sinister smile.
‘Ooh!’ She retreated to her sister’s side, a frown giving her face more expression than it usually bore. Apparently whatever she was making would not work well in mourning tones.
He glanced across and saw Dita’s head bent over a book. Now, it would be amusing to surprise her with a Christmas gift. What a pity he had no mistletoe to accompany it.
Or, perhaps he could improvise; he certainly had the berries. Smiling to himself as he plotted, Alistair strolled along the main deck to where the Chatterton twins and a few of the other young men had gathered. With the captain’s permission they were going to climb the rigging. After a few days out most of them were already feeling the lack of exercise and it seemed an interesting way of stretching muscles without overly shocking the ladies. Wrestling, sparring or singlestick bouts would have to be indulged in only when a female audience could be avoided.
Daniel and Callum had already taken off their coats and were eyeing the network of ropes as they soared up the main mast. ‘It looks easy enough,’ Daniel said. ‘Climb up on the outside and you are leaning into the rigging the whole way.’
‘Until you get to the crow’s nest,’ his brother pointed out. ‘Then you have to swing round to the inside and climb up the hole next to the mast.’
‘Bare feet,’ Alistair said. Like the other younger men he was wearing loose cotton trousers. He heeled off his shoes as he looked up. ‘I tried this on the way out.’ He squinted up at the height and added, ‘Smaller ship, though!’
‘We cannot all get up there at once, not with a sailor already in the crow’s nest,’ Callum pointed out, and the others moved off to stand at the foot of the smaller foremast, leaving the Chattertons and Alistair in possession of the main mast.
‘We three can if we move out along those ropes the sailors stand on to bundle up the sails,’ Daniel pointed out. ‘And don’t snort at me, Cal, I don’t know the name of them and neither do you, I wager.’
‘Sounds as though that will work.’ Alistair took a yard in his hand and swung up to stand on the rail. ‘Let’s try it.’
The tarred rope was rough under the softer skin of his arches, but it gave a good grip and his hands were toughened by long hours of riding without gloves. It felt good to reach and stretch and use his muscles to pull himself up and to counteract the roll of the ship, one minute dropping him against the rigging, the next forcing him to hang on with stretched arms and braced legs over the sea.
The newly healed wound in his thigh reminded him of its presence with every contraction of the muscle, but it was the ache of under-use and weakness, not the pain of the wound tearing open. His right hand was not fully right either, he noticed with clinical detachment, and compensated by taking more care with the grip.
The wind blew his hair off his face and ripped through his thin shirt and Alistair found he was grinning as he climbed. Daniel appeared beside him, panting with effort as he overtook. From below Callum called, ‘It isn’t a race, you idiot!’
But Daniel was already twisting around the edge of the rigging to hang downwards for the few perilous feet up into the crow’s nest. Alistair heard the look-out greeting Chatterton as he reached the top spar of the mainsail himself and eyed the thin rope swinging beneath it. It was a tricky transfer, but if sailors could do it in a storm, he told himself, so could he. There was an interesting moment as the sail flapped and the foot rope swayed and then he was standing with his body thrown over the spar, looking down at the belly of the sail.
Callum appeared beside him. ‘I wouldn’t want to do this in a gale at night!’ he shouted.
‘No. Damn good reason not to get press-ganged,’ Alistair agreed as he twisted to look back over his shoulder. The young women had stopped all pretence of ignoring the men and were standing staring up at them. Dita, hatless, was easy to pick out, her face smoothed into a perfect oval by the distance.
‘We have an audience,’ he remarked.
‘Then let’s get down before Daniel and make the most of the admiration,’ Callum said with a grin.
Going down was no easier, as Alistair remembered. As he glanced down at the ladies, and to set his feet right on the rigging, the scene below seemed to corkscrew wildly, as though the top of the mast was fixed and the ship moved beneath it.
‘Urgh,’ Callum remarked, and climbed down beside him. ‘Remind me why this is a good idea.’
‘Exercise and impressing the ladies, if that appeals.’ Alistair kept pace with him as the rigging widened out. His leg was burning now with the strain, but it would hold him. He’d be glad to relax his hand, though. ‘It is Daniel who is betrothed, is it not?’
‘Yes,’ Callum agreed, somewhat shortly. ‘A childhood friend,’ he added after another rung down. ‘I’m not looking for a wife myself, not yet while I don’t know whether the Company wants me to come back out or work in London.’ After another two steps down he seemed to unbend a trifle. ‘What about you?’
‘I certainly require a wife,’ Alistair agreed. ‘There’s the inheritance to think of. I shall no doubt be braving the Marriage Mart this Season in pursuit of a well-bred virgin with the requisite dowry and connections, not a thought in her brain and good child-bearing hips.’
Callum snorted. ‘Is there no one below us right this minute with those qualifications? What about Lady P—?’
He broke off, obviously recalling that Dita fell scandalously short of one of Alistair’s stated requirements. ‘Er, that is—’
‘That is, Lady Perdita has enough thoughts in her brain to keep any man in a state of perpetual bemusement,’ Alistair said, taking pity on him. ‘I have had my fill of troublesome women, I want a placid little English rose.’
And besides, he thought as he jumped down on to the deck and held out a hand to steady Callum, she certainly hasn’t got child-bearing hips. She’s still the beanpole she always was.
A beanpole, he was startled to realise, who stood regarding him with wide-eyed interest. So, she was not above getting in a flutter over displays of male prowess. How unexpected. How stimulating. She came up to him as he shrugged back into his coat and he braced himself for gushing admiration.
‘That looks wonderful!’ Dita exclaimed, her eyes fixed on the crow’s nest and not on him, or any of the men. ‘I would love to do that.’
‘No! Of course you can’t, you’re a girl!’ It was the response that had become automatic through years of her tagging along behind him. ‘A lady,’ he corrected himself as the wide green eyes focused on his face, and he was conscious of an odd feeling of disappointment.
‘That’s what you always said,’ she retorted. ‘You always snubbed me, and I always got my way. I climbed the same trees, I learned to swim in the lake—I even rode a cow backwards when you did. Do you remember?’
‘Vividly,’ Alistair said. ‘I got a beating for that. But what you did when you were eight has nothing to do with this. Besides anything else, you couldn’t climb rigging in skirts.’
‘That is a very good point,’ she said, bestowing a smile on him that left him breathless. Before he could think of a response she turned away.
Dita Brooke had obviously been taking lessons in witchcraft, he concluded, wondering whether he was foolishly suspicious to read a promise of trouble into that radiant smile.
‘Ooh! Lord Lyndon, you must be ever so strong to do that!’ One of the merchants’ daughters, he had no idea which, gazed at him in wide-eyed adoration.
‘Not at all,’ he said, lowering his voice into a conspiratorial whisper. ‘I get dizzy at heights and had to be helped by Mr Chatterton there. Fine physical specimen, and all that money, too …’ He let his voice trail off in admiration and watched with wicked pleasure as she hurried off to hang on Callum’s arm.
Alistair sauntered back to his cabin to wash. He took care not to limp and reflected that unless he wanted to become a circus turn it would be better to confine vigorous exercise to the early morning before the ladies were about.
It was not until he had stripped off his shirt and was pouring water over his head that he identified the strange feeling of disappointment that had hit him during that brief exchange at the foot of the mast. Dita had wanted the adventure, the experience, but for the first time, she did not want it in order to follow him.
But why should she? he thought. He was no longer thirteen, she was no longer eight, and she was most certainly not the troublesome little sister he had always thought of her as. But she was going to be trouble for someone.
Dita retreated to her cabin and piled all the items from on top of her trunk on to the bed so she could open it. She was restless and impatient and they had only been at sea a few days; she needed exercise and adventure and she was going to get it, even if it meant getting up an hour early.
The fact that the close proximity of Alistair Lyndon was contributing to the restlessness could not be helped. She closed her eyes and let her memory bring back the sight of him, his thin shirt flattened against his back by the wind, the muscles in his forearms standing out like cord as he gripped the ropes, the curiously arousing sight of his bare feet. He had always been tall, but the lanky youth had filled out into a well-muscled man.
She had watched him like a hawk for any signs of weakness from his wounds, but he had shown nothing, not until he had strolled away and she had seen what she doubted anyone else had: the effort not to limp. He should take it more easily.
Then she gave herself a little shake. Alistair could look after himself and there was no point in torturing herself with worry about him. She should think about her own plans. Alistair was right, she could not climb in skirts and she couldn’t climb at all if the captain realised what she was about, so it was a good thing that she had packed her Indian clothes.
Dita dug out a pile of cottons and laid them on the bed. She had beautiful shalwa kameezes in silk, but she had stowed those in the trunks below decks. In her cabin luggage she had kept the simple cotton ones for lounging in comfort in the privacy of her cabin.
She shook out a pair of the trousers, tight in the lower leg, comfortably roomy around the waist and hips: perfect for climbing. And she had a kurta, the loose shirt that reached well down her thighs. That would give her plenty of room to move. All she had to do was to wake at dawn.
The deck was cool and damp under her bare feet, still not dry after the early morning holystoning it had received. Most of the crew on deck were gathered near the main mast, with few close to the shorter of the three masts nearest the stern.
Dita dropped her heavy plait of hair down inside the kurta, used a coil of rope as a step and climbed on to the rail, her hands tight on the rigging, her eyes fixed on a point above her head and not on the sea. Her heart pounded and for a moment she thought her fear of the water would root her to the spot, but it was far enough below.
No one had noticed her in the early light, they were too busy with their tasks and she had deliberately chosen garments dyed the soft green that, improbably, cow dung produced.
She stepped on to the first horizontal rope in the rigging that tapered upward to the crow’s nest and grimaced at the tarry smell and the roughness under her hands and feet. But it felt secure and after a moment she began to climb, slowly and steadily, not looking down.
It was harder than it had looked when the men had done it, but she had expected that. After several minutes she rested, hooking her arms through the ropes and letting her body relax into the rhythm of pitch and roll. Perhaps that was far enough for today; there was a burn in her muscles that warned her they were overstretched and when she risked a downwards glance the deck seemed a dizzying distance below.
Yes, time to get down. As she hung there, deciding how much longer to rest, a figure came out on to the deck. Even foreshortened she recognised Alistair in his shirtsleeves. He seemed to be holding a pole of some kind. He turned as though to climb the companionway to the almost deserted poop deck and as he did so he glanced up.
Dita froze. Would he would recognise her?
‘Get down here this instant!’ He did not shout, but his voice carried clearly.
Defiant, Dita shook her head and began to climb. She had rested; she could do it and she was not going to come down just because Alistair told her to. A rapid glance showed he was climbing after her and she kept going. But she was slow now, slower than he was, and he reached her as she neared the top where the rigging narrowed sharply.
‘Dita, don’t you dare try to get into the crow’s nest!’
She glanced down to the wind-tousled black head on a level with her ankles, suddenly very glad he was there. ‘I have no intention of trying,’ she admitted. ‘I’ll just have a rest and then I’ll come down.’
‘You are tired?’ His face was tipped up to her now, and the world below him—one moment the sea, the next the hard and unforgiving white deck planks—twisted and turned in the most disconcerting manner.
‘Just a little.’
‘Hell. Keep still and hang on.’
‘I have no intention of doing anything else. Alistair! What on earth are you doing?’ He climbed up beside her and then swung over so his body bridged hers and his hands gripped the rope either side of her wrists.
‘Stopping you falling off. Your face has gone the nasty shade of green I remember from when you climbed the flagpole on the church tower.’
‘Oh.’ She certainly felt green now. ‘Alistair, you can’t do this, I’ll push you off.’
‘There’s hardly any bulk to you,’ he said. ‘Put one foot down. Good, now the other.’
Awkwardly they began to descend. When the ship swung one way his body crushed hers into the rigging, even though she could feel him fighting to keep his weight off her. When it went the other way she knew his arms would be stretched by the extra extension her body created. She glanced over to his right hand and watched the way his knuckles whitened and the tendons stood out under the strain.
His breath was hot on her neck, her cheek, her ear, and she could feel his heartbeat when his chest pressed into her back. And, as her mind cleared and she gained enough confidence to think of other things, she realised that he was also finding this proximity stimulating—with his groin crushed into her buttocks with every roll of the ship there was no disguising it.
The realisation almost made her lose concentration for a moment. She was enjoying the feel of his body so close too, frustrating though it was to be pinned down like this, unable to do anything but place hands and feet at his command. I remember how his body felt over mine on a bed. I remember the scent of his skin and his hands on my …
‘We’re at the rail. Slide round in front of me and jump down,’ Alistair ordered, shaking her out of her sensual reverie.
Dita very much doubted her legs were up to jumping, but she had too much pride to argue. With an awkward twist she swung down from the rigging and landed on the deck on all fours with an inelegant thump. ‘Thank you.’
Alistair’s face as he straightened up beside her showed nothing but anger. If he had enjoyed being so close to her, it did not show now. ‘You idiot! What the blazes do you think you were doing? You could have been killed.’
‘I doubt it.’ They were attracting attention from some of the deck hands; Dita turned on her heel and walked away towards the cuddy, her shoulders braced against the coming storm. Behind her she could hear the slap of Alistair’s bare feet on the deck.
The space was empty, she was relieved to see, and the stewards had not begun to lay the table and set out breakfast. There was little hope of outdistancing Alistair and reaching the roundhouse, although she was going to try—he could hardly pursue her into that all-female sanctuary. Dita lengthened her stride, then his grip on her shoulder stopped her dead in her tracks. His hand was warm and hard and the thin cotton caught in the roughness of his palm. Struggling would be undignified, she told herself.
‘I should go and change,’ Dita said, her back still turned.
‘Not until you give me your word you will not try that damn-fool trick again.’ The thrust of his hand as he spun her round was not gentle, nor was the slap of his other palm as he caught her shoulder to steady her. ‘Are you all about in your head, Perdita?’
She tipped up her chin and stared back into the furious tiger eyes with all the insolence she could muster. ‘Perdita? Now that is serious—you never called me that unless you were very angry with me.’ Alistair’s eyes narrowed. ‘Let me see. The last time must have been when I borrowed your new hunter and rode it.’
‘Stole,’ he said between gritted teeth. ‘And tried to ride it. I can recall hauling you out of the ditch by your collar.’
‘And you called me Perdita for a week afterwards.’ She remembered his strength as he had lifted her, the fear in his voice for her—and how that had changed to anger the moment he realised she was unhurt. He had never failed to rescue her then, however much she annoyed him.
‘And it is not funny! ‘
She must have been smiling at the memory. He took a step forwards; she slid back, still in his grasp.
‘And I am very angry now and I am not fifteen and you are not a child and a fall from a horse is not the same as plunging into the sea from a great height.’
‘No,’ she agreed. The door was quite close. If she just edged a little more to the right and ducked out of his grip … She needed to distract him. ‘You enjoyed that.’
His brows snapped together as he took the step that brought them toe to toe. ‘What do you mean?’
‘We were pressed very close together. Did you think I would not notice, or not understand? I am not an innocent.’ What had possessed her to say that? The fact that he was obviously thinking of her as a child to be extracted from scrapes, even though his body was well aware of her age? He really does not remember that last night, she thought. He had been drinking, a little, when she had gone into his arms; she had tasted the brandy on his lips, but he had not been drunk.
‘No, you’re not, are you?’ Alistair agreed, his voice silky as he moved again, turning them both so that he was between her and the door. Once she had been small and lithe enough to slip from his hands, evade his clumsy adolescent attempts to control her. Now he was a mature man, with a man’s strength, and he was not going to let her go. Not until he was ready. She was angry and a little frightened and, it was disturbing to realise, aroused by the fact. ‘You would be wise to behave as though you were.’
‘I mean—’ Dita bit her tongue. But she was not going to explain herself to Alistair and tell him that her only experience was their eager, magical, lovemaking. If he chose to believe that she had lost her virginity to Stephen Doyle, that was up to him. She could hardly accuse him of failing to understand her, when she couldn’t forgive herself for going off with the man. ‘I mean, why should I trouble to pretend, with you?’
‘Is that an invitation, Dita?’ He was so close now that she had to tip her head back at an uncomfortable angle to look up at him. He gave her a little push and she was trapped against the massive table.
‘No,’ she said with all the composure she could muster. ‘It is an acknowledgement that we were … friends, once, a long time ago and I do not think you have changed so much that you would deliberately hurt me now.’
‘And an affaire would hurt?’ He lowered his head so his mouth was just above hers. His lids were low over those dangerous eyes and she stared at the thick fringe of spiky black against his tanned cheek. Not a young man’s fresh skin any more. There were small scars, fine lines at the corners of his eyes. Her gaze slid lower. He hadn’t shaved yet that morning and the stubble showed darker than she remembered. Alistair’s mouth was so close now that she could kiss him if she chose.
I do not choose, she told herself fiercely. ‘Naturally.’ And an affaire is all you would consider, isn’t it? You’ve as much pride as I have and you wouldn’t offer to marry another man’s leavings. And I am not the girl I was, the one who was dazzled by you and had no idea what the fire was she was playing with that night. I am the woman who desires you and who knows that to surrender would be my undoing and the last blow to my reputation. I must be sensible.
She made herself shrug, then realised that her hands had come up to clasp his upper arms, her fingers pressed against the bulge of muscle. Dita made herself open her hands and pressed them instead to his chest. Pushing was hopeless, but it gave her at least the illusion of resistance.
