Page 17 of Go, Rogue

“Of course it seemed strange,” she goes on, realization dawning. “But you needed the money, so you didn’t ask any questions. I do understand. Sometimes we believe what we need to believe because our fortunes depend upon it.”

He turns back to her and his emerald-green eyes flash. “You. Don’t. Understand. A. Bloody. Goddamned. Thing. Not about me. Not about my business. Not about my ship. And certainly not about my life. Hell, Menace, even if you tried to understand, my life is beyond your grasp, and I have neither the time nor the desire to explain it to you.”

She sighs. “We’re here now, Captain McGann. Together. So, we might as well make the best of it.”

He shakes his head so that his dark curls toss about like the storm that seems to be gathering in him.

“No, lass. We are not here together, and I will not make the best of it. I will endure your presence aboard my ship for ten days and ten days only. Right until we land in Boston, and then I’ll put you on the first ship back to London.”

“What?” she sputters. “You cannot do that!”

“But you can do whatever you please? We’re not in the ton any longer. You’re on The Elphame now, under my command. A place where I’m in no way beholden to you, but I am to Crawford. He’s my partner, and it means something to me when I say that. So, if I’ve to ease anybody’s mind, it’s his.”

He pauses and stares at her with narrowed eyes. “Unless you gave your family the courtesy of telling them where you’d run off to? But I don’t think you did that, did you? If you had, you wouldn’t be standing here now with no shoes on your feet.”

Catherine closes her eyes for a moment. He’s right. She hadn’t told anyone where she was going. She hadn’t really known herself until she was in Chester’s carriage and giving directions.

“I didn’t tell them,” she admits.

“And your so-called investments in Crawford’s and my company? Not a word of that either, I presume?”

“No.”

“You’re selfish, lass. Lying to those who love you. Making them worry when a note or a whispered word could ease their minds.” He shakes his head. “And you’re cruel.”

She stumbles backward from him as if he hit her. She feels like she wants to be sick. Because. Because—

Because he’s right. She could have left a note for Violet or her mother to tell them where she went, but she didn’t. All she could see was her future with Pembrooke yawning in front of her like a deep, dark chasm. And she fled so as not to fall into it.

The investments, well, she told herself that her omission of the truth was for Violet’s own good. She’d thought that because Crawford refused Violet’s funds, he would refuse Catherine’s too.

But Catherine isn’t opening a medical clinic. If she’s honest, the only thing she’d been trying to do was stay connected to Andrew McGann.

His green eyes bore into her and she shakes her head. He’s right.

Drat him.

“Would you have taken the funds?” she asks quietly, “if I’d told you they came from me? After what I… what I did?”

McGann only shrugs. “We won’t know now, will we? You took that choice away.”

She had done that. But it doesn’t justify him doing the same now.

“So, you’ll take away my choice in Boston? A choice for a choice, like an eye for an eye? One does not absolve the other, Captain.” She glares at him. “And as I said earlier, I earned a place on this ship. And the right to my own life. I’ll have them both.”

“You bought your berth,” he spits at her. “You didn’t earn it. ‘Tis not the same thing. And no amount of money will buy me out of sending word to Crawford, so don’t even think of it. I’ll do what’s right for me and for this company, and that’s sending you home, lass.”

She feels the tears begin to prick in her eyes. She doesn’t want to go home. She can’t, not after the mess she made of her nuptials. Even an earl’s daughter can’t get away with jilting a fiancé at the altar.

She’ll never be accepted into polite society again, and that will harm everyone. Violet’s efforts to fundraise for her medical clinic and her mother’s social standing now that she’s finally out from under her father’s thumb. Not to mention that she’ll be a social pariah.

No, it’s better for everyone if she stays as far away as she can.

She takes a deep breath. “Look, Captain McGann,” she says, “I’ll send word of my whereabouts as soon as we land. And then I’ll go straight to Violet’s father in New York to further allay any worry. I promise you that. But please, please do not send me back.”

He doesn’t answer her, only turns and walks away. And the clench in her stomach at the thought of going back to London, to that life she just escaped from, nearly brings her to her knees.