Page 113 of Go, Rogue

He fixes his eyes on her big, blue ones. Eyes he’s beginning to see enliven with a good fight. She loves a brawl, his Menace does. So if that’s what it takes to strip the gray sheen that’s dulled her, that’s what he’ll give her.

“Bloody hell, lass,” he says. “I never took you for a dimwit.”

Catherine glares at him, feeling all the frustration and fury that she’s squashed down the last few days surge back up within her.

“I beg your pardon?” she says. “Did you call me a dimwit?”

“Aye, I did.”

He takes another limping step toward her, his emerald eyes flashing. “You’re a dimwit if you think your bloody reputation holds the least little bit of importance to me. I’m a duke now. I could give a fuck all what anybody thinks. And neither should you.”

She takes a step forward too, pressing her finger into his chest. “You’re a stubborn, blustery, temperamental fool if you think you can storm onto this ship and tell me what I ought to do or not do. The Eagle isn’t under your command. You’ve no rights here at all. Less than a week and already the title has gone to your head.”

He catches her hand and holds it, pressing it to his heart. “That’s where you’re wrong,” he says.

She ignores the surge of joy that floods her at the feel of his calloused grip, as if a dam has broken. “I’m not wrong,” she says, stoppering all that emotion to better hold fast against its tide.

“Nay. You’re not. I’m definitely a temperamental, blustery fool. For you, Catherine, and only for you. But you’re wrong about The Eagle. She is under my command. I bought her.”

“I beg your pardon?” She pulls away. “Why would you do that, Andrew?”

“Why do you think, lass?” He moves closer again and reaches a single hand up to cup her jaw. “And why are you crying?”

She steps away from him. Not because she wants to but because she has to. “Andrew, don’t you see? No romantic gesture in the world—and I do appreciate the purchasing of a ship as a grand romantic gesture—will give you what you want. I cannot be what you need. I won’t be.”

He looks, for the first time since he’s barged onto this ship and into her room, unsure of himself. Abashed, even. “What do you mean? You’re everything I need.”

“No,” she shakes her head. “I was, I think, when you were Andrew. But that’s not who you are anymore. Now you’re the Duke of Barclay and the entire world has changed.” She pauses. “I’d love to change it back but I can’t. I won’t be Lady Catherine West ever again. I will not live my life in a cage. And I will not let you throw away your future because of my reputation. I know you don’t understand what I mean, but it is true nonetheless.”

He sits on the bed with a heavy thump and a grimace. “I understand it,” he says. “Not all of it, but more now. I felt it yesterday at the Ball—the pressure to succumb to who they want you to be. The way it really is different, how they think about you and look at you and treat you, when you’re a title and not a man.”

“Yes,” she says, and ignores the tears making their way down her face. “Now imagine it if you weren’t a duke. If you were me, and those expectations made up the entirety of your life. And your only choices were to accept them or live in freefall with no net to catch you, ever. I choose freefall. But I won’t take you down with me.”

“Sit,” he says, and pats the bed next to him.

She does, even though she thinks she probably shouldn’t.

“I bought this ship from the governor general yesterday,” he says, “for a more than reasonable price. I’m going to sail her to New York, fit her with the power of steam, then crew her with as many men and women as could benefit from the work. After that, I’ll take her back to Scotland and load her with Esmee’s whisky to sell.”

“That’s wonderful.” She feels the tears still sliding down her face. “That’s exactly what you should be doing.”

“Aye, but don’t you see, stubborn girl? I can do all of that with you by my side—or without you. But Elphame help me, I don’t want to do it alone. The world is a grim and ugly place without you in it, even for a duke. I want you with me, Catherine. I’ll always be a net to catch you.”

She wants to tilt her body into his and lay her head in the place she loves between his shoulder and his jaw, but she doesn’t.

“No,” she says. “I will not be your encumbrance.”

She closes her eyes and wishes—how much she wishes—they were back in that room in his cabin instead of this one. That rain still pounded on the roof and his breath was heavy in her ear and she didn’t have to think about anything else but him.

How he feels and smells and looks and breathes and loves and is.

He picks her hand up from where she’s balled it in her lap and holds it. “You told me, lass, that I got to choose how I thought of myself and my father, did you not?”

She nods her head yes. She did say that.

“And do you not think,” he goes on, still clutching her hand in his, “that I should not get a choice now? That I have no say in who shares my life and how we live it?”

There’s a crack, just a little one, in the wall of her defenses. She feels it there, pressing against her chest as he uses her own words against her.