Beautiful Tempest(51)

"Do you always oversleep?" He'd turned about to give her a curious look. He was wearing a white shirt again, opened halfway down his chest. No blood was on it. He'd even tucked it into his buff-colored pants and tucked those into his long Hessian boots. And his hair was still damp. He'd bathed or had seawater dumped on him, as some sailors did. Was he still getting dressed outside the cabin? She'd like to be awake one morning to find out.

She sat back on the edge of her cot. "I'm still on my London schedule, late-night parties, nothing needing my attention in the morning. And no maid to wake me any sooner."

He grinned. "But I just did that."

"So you did," she mumbled.

He finished what he'd been doing, then opened the door wide before he left it and went to his desk. That must have been a signal for Jackie, because the boy immediately entered the room and set the food tray on the table. Jacqueline got no greeting from the nervous lad and he left rather quickly, so she went to the table and sat down facing Damon. Only a single plate of eggs and sausage was on the tray, along with a pot of tea and a basket of muffins.

"You've already eaten?"

"Unlike you, I'm an early riser."

It bothered her that he could stand by her bed and watch her sleep in a room filled with sunlight. Did he? No, why would he?

He added as an afterthought, "It's too bad you can't be trusted, Jack. You might otherwise have the freedom of the deck."

Her brows shot up. He'd never tempted her with that sort of freedom before. Why would he now? Bloody carrots again. He did like dangling them. But they both knew he'd never trust her on deck by herself, so saying something like that was cruel of him. Yet he wasn't, she realized, and was a little surprised how sure she was about it. He was many things, but he'd never been cruel to her. Did he mention it because he wished he could trust her? That was an interesting thought. Her strategy of being nice to him might be paying off.

Before she could ask him why he was treating her differently on this voyage, Jackie returned with a fresh bowl of water that he set on the desk in front of Damon. A little steam was coming out of it. Damon had already reached into his drawer for the shaving apparatus he kept under lock and key: razor, tin shaving cup, a short-bristled brush, and a can of soap chips that could be whipped into a lather.


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Jackie got one of the little towels from the washstand and dipped it into the hot water, wrung it out, and wrapped it around the lower half of Damon's face, then started to whip up a lather in the cup. He'd apparently done this before, yet the lad looked so nervous Jacqueline ached for him.

She watched them while she finished her breakfast. When she was done, she pointed out, "Jack is frightened to death that he'll nick you."

"How else is the boy to learn without practice?"

"I can do that. I do know how."

"Come here."

She snorted. "Don't pretend you're agreeing to let me wield that razor."

"Indeed not, I have another task in mind for you. But you can give the boy pointers. A little teaching wouldn't be amiss." Damon wiped beads of blood from the nick Jackie just gave him.

She didn't leave her chair, merely told the boy, "Just keep the strokes steady. Any pauses have a chance to cut instead of scrape."

When Jackie was almost finished with the shaving, Damon asked her, "How do you, or more to the point, why would you know how to shave a man?"

"My brother taught me. He teased that I might want to shave a husband someday. I was young enough to be curious about the process."

"Your brother with a look-alike aboard?"

"Yes, Jeremy. My twin brothers aren't old enough to shave yet."

"You have twins in your family?"

"Gilbert and Adam, four years younger than I."

"Any other siblings?"

"Not that we're aware of."

He burst out laughing, then winced when he got nicked again for it. She was already scowling at him. "It's not funny. My uncle Tony had a daughter he didn't know about until she was already full grown. She's well entrenched in the family now, as well as any other bastards that we are aware of. We take care of our own."

"Commendable. Most families don't-at least don't take care of members of the illegitimate sort."

"Yes, swept under the carpet, so to speak. But we're not most families, Bastard."

"Apparently not. And you can use my name, now that you know it."

"I'm still debating whether to or not. The name Bastard suits you so well."