Page 41 of The Governess and the Rogue

She looked at the package with swift suspicion. “What is it?”

“Nothing outrageous. Just a trifle I picked up during my travels. I have a trunkful of them in my cabin.” He pressed it to her. “Take it. It’s a purely practical item, I assure.”

Bea reluctantly accepted the gift. Her fingers nimbly removed the twine and the paper wrappings, revealing the vibrantly colored shawl within. It was sky-blue, with a border of embroidered flowers and leaves.

Jack recalled encountering it at a bazaar during his first outing after his surgery. He’d thought it an uncommonly pretty pattern. One that didn’t entirely suit his mother, sister, or sisters-in-law. For some reason, he’d bought it anyway.

Bea’s gaze jolted to his. “I can’t accept this! It’s cashmere!”

“Nonsense,” Jack said. “I won’t allow my fiancée to catch a chill above deck.”

“But I’m not your fiancée, as you very well know. It’s all just playacting.”

Jack smiled, amused by her maidenish indignance. “In that case, you may consider this part of your costuming.”

She shook her head, even as she touched the shawl with her fingers. A vaguely wistful expression came into her eyes.

Looking at her in that moment, Jack could readily believe that she was a dreamer like her mother.

“Come,” he said. “Put it on before you catch your death.”

“I’m not likely to,” she said. “I have a very robust constitution.”

“Bea, must you always be so literal? And ungrateful too, I might add. Every time I attempt to be gallant⁠—”

“Oh, very well.” She grudgingly slipped her old shawl from her shoulders.

Jack took it from her. He thrust it into his pocket for safekeeping as Bea unfolded the new shawl and draped it around herself.

The rich colors of the cashmere transformed her in an instant, enlivening the whole of her person and making her eyes shine like twin jewels.

She glared at him. “There. Are you satisfied?”

Jack swallowed hard. “I’m exceedingly satisfied,” he managed.

“Who did you really buy it for?” she asked.

“No one,” he said. “I simply thought it beautiful. I figured it would do for one of the many females in my life. And it has.”

“Is that what I am now? A female in your life?”

“Does the thought repel you?”

“No, I…” Bea’s words trailed away as he reached to adjust a fold of her shawl. “That is…”

Jack’s knuckles quite unintentionally brushed over the wool-encased curve of her bosom.

His pulse quaked.

“What do you wish for?” he asked abruptly. “When you make your wishes on the evening star?”

“I can’t tell you that,” she replied. There was a husky catch in her voice that made his already simmering blood catch fire.

“Why not?”

“If I did, they wouldn’t come true.”

Jack bent his head to hers; closer, closer. Heaven knew what he was thinking. Nothing, very likely. He seemed to be operating purely on instinct. Masculine instinct, driven by the moon and the stars, and how surprisingly lovely Bea was beneath them in the shawl that had so obviously been meant for her.