Page 28 of Go, Rogue

“Menace—”

“No,” she says flatly. “I’ve just run away from my own wedding, Captain. In case you hadn’t noticed. I’m not about to dive headlong into another one.”

“It would only be pretend.”

“No.”

“Menace—”

“No.”

She turns her head away from him, and the sting of her rejection feels like a damned wasp let loose inside his chest. It shouldn’t, though. He knows it shouldn’t.

“Then I’ve no choice but to keep that door locked. It’s not safe for you aboard this ship, no matter how friendly the crew seems.”

“Then keep it locked.”

Her eyes are the kind of steely blue he knows he shouldn’t argue with. He does it anyway. The argument distracts him from considering too deeply why the idea of her being Mrs. McGann lights up parts of his brain and his heart that he hadn’t known had gone dark until now.

“Be rational, Menace.”

“No.”

“They’ll think you’re my mistress.”

“Let them think whatever they’d like. I’ve spent too long pretending, Captain. Do not ask me to do it again.”

“Menace. I won’t have you treated like a goddamned doxie.”

“No!”

“Damn it!”

He’s yelling again. He hates yelling. If only it didn’t feel like she slapped him straight across the face. He’s being foolish. More than foolish; he’s being ridiculous.

Again.

Twice in one morning!

And all the while, she thinks him so low she won’t even pretend to marry him. The worst part is, he doesn’t know why he’s surprised. He’s nothing but a bastard. A bit of rough for her to use however she wants. That’s all he’s ever been to her, which she made more than clear the last time he saw her.

He really should not be taken aback that she’s treating him so now. But he is. Their supper together last night threw him off his guard. He felt comfortable with her, their conversation flowing, easy and fun. Like they were beginning to understand each other.

He should have known better. They’ll never understand each other; they’re too different. As far apart as Boston and the Spice Islands. And he was wrong to think otherwise.

Bloody hell.

Don’t be an eejit.

He stands, slamming the chair back so hard that it crashes to the deck behind him. And then he storms out the door.

Catherine listens to the angry thunder of his footsteps moving away and knows she hurt his feelings. Drat it all. She didn’t mean to, but she would rather be locked in a room than locked in a marriage, even if it is a pretend one.

Maybe it isn’t rational, but it’s how she feels, and she isn’t that keen on the idea of rationality as the highest priority one ought to have anyway. Her father always went on at her mother about being rational on the rare occasions she objected to his spending all of her money on himself: new carriages, train tickets, the sporting estate he bought in Scotland where Catherine fell so ill she was laid up for nearly six months and forced to read archaic texts about the Scottish legal and agricultural systems.

It seems to her that ‘be rational’ is just what men say when a woman disagrees with them. She isn’t going to do it. She’ll be no one’s wife, pretend or otherwise. But she’d rather have said that in a way that didn’t upset him.

Not that, she reminds herself, he has a reason to be upset. Maybe he ought to be more rational!

She stalks over to the bookshelf, pulling out the first tome her fingers land upon. It’s only after she settles in to read that she realizes she has chosen a history of naval warfare.

Fine, she thinks, contrary even to herself. This is what I’ll read, then.