buried her nose into her drink.
The way the men regarded her was another matter. Distracted by laughter at the far end of the room, she looked back into an expression of raw hunger on the part of young Fordshaw. The same came from Lord Something-or-Another, earlier in blue, now in peach moiré. Another mentally undressed her where she stood. Emboldened by her sullied status, their assumption was if she had played the whore to the pirates—Blackthorne specifically, his appetites well-known—she would now do the same for them. She longed for one of the fans the women brandished in grand style, so that she might send a few messages of her own, namely a good bash across the face, or somewhere lower and more efficacious.
Cate shifted closer, more grateful still for Harte’s presence.
It was the third—no fourth—glass of punch which brought Cate to see Roger in a much more pleasant light. He wasn’t without his charms. Once relaxed, he was witty and quite knowledgeable on many subjects. Clean-profiled, tall and regal, under different circumstances she may have found him attractive, in an aloof, thin-blooded sort of way.
She worked her fingers together, feeling the metal cool of her wedding ring. It was a constant reminder of a past life. After losing Brian, another man in her life was never a consideration. Nathan had been a complete surprise.
Nathan. She shied at recalling his look as he slid off the balcony: betrayal, heavily laced with the satisfaction of suspicions rewarded. He had expected the worst from her and, to his mind, she had fulfilled the prophecy. The warm flush of the punch dissolved under the chill of that reality.
She felt Roger looking attentively down at her. “Have no cares,” he said in quiet earnestness. “I’ll assure that you are at my side.”
It took Cate a moment to fathom what the devil he was about. Seating arrangements? Good Lord!
Supper was called, a matched pair of footmen opening the doors. Lady Bart took the head of the table, the Commodore opposite. His position of honor spoke loudly to Lady Bart’s regard. Cate was whisked into the seat to Harte’s right, much to the displeasure of those scrambling for that same spot. The lush-eyed Fordshaw, a heart-shaped mouche at the corner of his mouth—declaring himself both kissable and a lover—was to Cate’s side, Mrs. Big Wig across. As the toasts were given, her stomach rumbled.
The bounty at Lady Bart’s table, however, struck Cate almost ill. For the months, she had lived on ship’s fare, and before that on what could be begged or scrounged. Now she was faced with over a dozen dishes. More than once, she looked down to find the cold, startled looks of her food staring back: fish, doves, crabs, and a suckling pig from its silver-platter repose in the middle of the table.
Her stomach might have been empty—several cups of punch aside—but it was now quite closed. She ate without appetite, much of it becoming a glutinous mass in her mouth. The wines, and excellent they were, however, flowed like the proverbial river, the footman seeming to have taken up a permanent position at her elbow to refill her glass. Roger grew more intent with concern at seeing her poke her food about the plate. Like an obedient child, she tried to eat, but only wound up scattering it, piling it up, and scattering it again.
As the servants moved like wraiths at the table’s perimeter, conversation fell into small localized groups. The low hum of one blanketed the next, the titter of female laughter high over the men’s deeper. Amid the tinkle of silverware and china, came the rise and fall of Lady Bart’s shrill. Conversation at Cate’s end of the table was dominated by Big Wig. Harte her primary focus, Fordshaw a distant second, she piped higher when either man sought to address Cate.
As Big Wig prattled on, Roger arched a questioning brow at Cate, the significance of which was unclear. Cate returned a vague smile, hoping her discomfiture wasn’t too apparent. It had been a long time since she had worn anything so restricting. The stays were too short, gouging her back and ribs at every breath. The gown was too narrow at the shoulders and too short at the sleeves, the banded cuffs cutting her arms.
“Is everyone a guest?” Cate asked of Roger during a brief lull in Big Wig’s dialogue. Her head buzzing from the wine, it was a silly question, but conversation of some sort seemed requisite.
“That would