him open his eyes to the injustices being committed in full view.
Rhystan frowned at the thought of their now intersecting paths. Five years had passed in a blink and yet felt like an eternity. It was a miracle he’d even been in Bombay at all, but he’d received word of an enormous shipment of opium, arranged by none other than his old friend, Markham.
Had fate had a hand in his return?
In this unwelcome reunion?
With one hand on the wheel, Rhystan let his gaze rove the deck, over the handful of men swabbing the wood clear of seaweed and crusted salt, until it fell on one small figure. Sarani sat with Tej and Red, a man he trusted, braiding ropes. A cap was pulled low over her head, and the nondescript clothing she wore made her blend in with the others, but she could be clothed in a burlap sack and he’d still be able to find her.
He wasn’t an enthusiast of her male attire, but Gideon had pointed out that she didn’t draw as much notice from the men. Rhystan begged to differ. He’d prefer to see those slender legs obscured by yards of voluminous fabric, not encased in formfitting trousers. Then again, heaving manure from the livestock pen off the side of the ship while wearing a dress wasn’t ideal. He scowled. The damned quartermaster had had a go at him for that, too.
“Mucking out the stalls, Captain? She’s a lady.”
“There are no bloody ladies on this ship, and it’s a job. Her job for the man she replaced.”
“Get the boy to do it,” Gideon had said. “Put her in the galley instead.”
The galley was a better place for her, true. A kinder place. Rhystan knew he was being harsh, but he couldn’t be weak. Not after what she’d done. “Shoveling shit is what she deserves.”
To his everlasting surprise, however, she’d borne the foul task without complaint. Grinning even, when she returned to see to his duties reeking to high heaven of filth and dung and tracking God-knew-what into his cabin. His scowl deepened. If it were up to him, she’d be sequestered in his quarters from sunup to sundown. Or off the sodding ship altogether. Between his marauding cock and his unraveling temper, his patience was at a new low.
Her presence rubbed him raw, mostly because it reminded him of things he needed to keep buried. Like speculating on whether the honeyed taste of her would still be the same. Or wondering if she was still ticklish on the sides of her ribs. That night in his cabin, it had taken every ounce of discipline not to drag her into the bath with him, and all the time he’d watched her, he’d felt like an interloping voyeur.
At first, when he’d come out of the privy, he’d observed her internal debate with amusement, waiting for the perfect moment to announce himself and offer her the bath, but then in seconds, she’d stripped. The power of speech left him, followed quickly by the power of coherent thought. He—a seasoned man of the world—had been knocked senseless by a mere slip of a girl.
Their handful of stolen kisses and furtive explorations in their youth had not prepared him for the sight of her unclothed—all that glorious, honey-hued skin and a pair of perfect dusky-tipped breasts, not to mention the mouthwatering swells of her buttocks and those never-ending slender legs that he instantly wanted wrapped around him.
He’d been hypnotized.
And hard as forged Damascus steel.
As the minutes went by, he hadn’t been able to bring himself to move, not when every delicious feminine curve had been on display. He’d stood there in silence, jaw agape, guilt and desire warring inside him, and had wolfed down the sight of her. In his stupor, he’d realized two things. One, Princess Sarani was no longer a girl. And two, his body’s reaction to her was much the same as it’d been five years ago.
Even now, as she sat on the foredeck, her ratty clothing did little to diffuse the memory of the damp, dewy skin hidden beneath it, and his body swelled. Rhystan adjusted the crowded crotch of his trousers discreetly, ignoring Gideon’s smirk as he followed Rhystan’s line of sight to where Sarani sat. The man’s thick black eyebrows rose, but Rhystan pretended not to notice. Hell if he’d acknowledge acting like an oversexed greenhorn to his bloody quartermaster.
Sarani leaned in to hear something Red was saying and burst out laughing. The unaffected sound made