Passenger (Passenger #1) - Alexandra Bracken Page 0,40
kept in the hold.
Nicholas took a steadying breath of the savory, salty smell of the lobscouse and allowed Jack to refill his bowl when he emptied it. The boy’s hands shook slightly from nerves. This was his first voyage, and Nicholas remembered the feeling well.
“You’re doing a fine job,” he murmured to the boy. “Well done.”
Jack straightened up, setting his shoulders back. He struggled to keep the smile off his face as he moved to serve Chase. When he arrived at Wren’s side, the man broke off his story only long enough to give the boy the full brunt of his condescension.
“Have you gone deaf as well? I said I wasn’t fond of it.” Wren glanced at Nicholas. “Your charity knows no limit. Employing half-wits and simpletons?”
A growl curled in Chase’s throat at the same moment that the spoon in Jack’s hand “slipped” from his fingers and landed with a wet thump in Wren’s lap.
“You damned—!”
Nicholas’s body tensed as the other man raised his hand. The impertinence would be dealt with, but not like this—for, whatever weaknesses other men might accuse him of, Nicholas would never condone striking a child, even to discipline him. “Mr. Wren—”
He wasn’t quite sure how she moved as quickly as she did in those heavy skirts, but Etta was suddenly standing over Wren, settling a hand on his shoulder.
Chase yanked Jack out of Wren’s reach as the man glanced at Etta, distracted for a moment from his anger.
“Sorry,” Jack mumbled. Chase gave him a little shake and the boy added, “Sir.”
“It’s all right, isn’t it? Accidents happen,” Etta continued soothingly, picking up Wren’s displaced napkin. “There you go—”
She turned slightly as she reclaimed her seat, meeting Nicholas’s gaze evenly. Well. That was a masterful manipulation of the moment. He tilted his head in acknowledgment. Well played.
Etta tilted hers right back, cocking an eyebrow as if to ask, And where were you? He bit back an unwelcome grin at the challenge.
“The bugger did it on purpose,” Wren insisted.
Etta continued, “Now, what were you saying about the island and food…?”
As Wren was, mystifyingly, an officer, he was granted a measure of respect by the able-bodied seamen of both crews, including the ship’s boys. There were standards of how a captured crew was to be treated, and the truth was, Jack would need to be disciplined for his actions. There was no way to avoid it without stepping on the exasperating decorum of it all, but Miss Spencer…
He turned to find Chase watching her with brows raised. She’d blown out the flame before the fire could catch.
Now, however, Miss Spencer seemed to devour each of Wren’s words like bites of a second supper. Ironwood had trained her well. Nicholas would need to watch her to ensure that he himself wasn’t being played—or perhaps the better strategy was to stop watching her altogether.
The candlelight was doing fascinating things to both the silk of her gown and the color in her cheeks. She struggled to lift her fork to her mouth, clearly in discomfort from the fit of her gown. Perhaps that, too, explained the breathy way she laughed and laughed at Wren’s inane jokes.
Where was the little lioness, he wondered, roaming the decks with her hair down and floating like a cloud around her? The one who’d looked ready and willing to do violence to two men twice her size—with a grappling hook, no less? She’d gone into the cabin wild, burning, and come out as cool and pale as a pearl. If she’d coifed her hair and powdered it, he might have been convinced he was watching someone from his own century.
Beside her, Edward Wren was the pride of bloody England with his beautiful manners and charm. Nicholas had made a dispassionate assessment of him when the Ardent’s first mate was brought up from the hold, and had found him lacking in everything but pretty manners. The look on his face when Hall had introduced Nicholas as the master of the ship…
His fingers closed around the silver knife, gripping it until his breath was steady. Disbelief. Disgust. Worse, even, than Sophia’s open malice.
They’d made their introductions just as Captain Hall and the Challenger were readying to sail. Not a single word had passed between them after the captain left; they’d merely studied one another, Wren taking stock of him the way he would a horse he was considering purchasing. Nicholas returned the favor now.