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His head cocked to the side. “Why would you think me not to be?”
“No reason.” She shook her head slightly, her hands smoothing the front of her skirt. “Why is it that I have been requested to come on deck?”
“Cap said something about proving you aren’t a prisoner—though not in such clean language—so he wanted me to show you about the ship.”
Why hadn’t she thought of this earlier? The captain. She should have demanded to see him directly when she awoke. The second Mr. Lipinstein entered her room. Relief washed over her, sending her spine to tingling. “Who is your captain? I would be delighted to meet him—relieved, actually.”
Des’s forehead scrunched. “Cap’n Roe is. Roe—Robert Lipinstein.”
The tingle in her spine evaporated, dragging her back down to the worn floorboards beneath her heels. She pushed words out through her suddenly dry mouth. “Mr. Lipinstein is your captain?”
“Aye, he is.” Des glanced about, his nervous look telling her he thought she was slightly addled. “I thought you would have figured that, you being in his quarters and all.”
She looked over her shoulder, her gaze drifting over the rolls of maps, the logs, the wall of windows. Captain’s quarters. It was a tight space, but of course she was in the captain’s quarters. She would have realized it if she’d been able to think of anything past that ogre of a man since she had awakened.
Her look darted back to Des. “Mr. Lipinstein is captain of this ship?”
“Yes, my lady.”
“How—how is that possible? He’s only been out of prison for two years. How does a man like that become a captain of a ship in that amount of time?”
A decided frown set into Des’s face. “He earned it, my lady. But best that you ask him a question like that. I was just sent to fetch you.”
With a slight nod, she shuffled to the left of the door and retrieved her boots and stockings, then moved to sit on the chair by the desk, making sure her skirts continued to dust the floor.
She twisted to the side so Des couldn’t see her scarred legs as she tugged her stockings up her legs. The first mate had the civility to turn his head to the side, giving her privacy. At least there was one gentleman aboard.
She laced her boots slowly, her mind wild with this new information of Mr. Lipinstein—he was the bloody captain of this ship. Why hadn’t she been told of this by the investigator she had following Mr. Lipinstein? How was it even possible that he was the captain of this ship? From everything she’d learned of the man since the fire, he’d never set foot off of English soil until he was freed from Newgate.
Her boots laced, she stood, smoothing the front of her muslin shirt with her left hand.
Des pointed to her bare right arm where her sleeve had been ripped free. “Should I wrap that? Cap said if there wasn’t pus and it wasn’t throbbing, it’d be good to wrap it before we go on deck.”
Torrie lifted her elbow, looking at the line of stitches just above the joint. The blood had crusted along the thread in neat fashion. “It looks well enough.”
He picked up a strip of linen from the desk, unfurling it. “May I?”
She nodded, watching him as his long fingers lifted her elbow and he started to wrap the strip around her upper arm. He had a kind face—classically handsome with his square jaw, sandy blond hair, straight nose and a mouth that made her want to reach out and touch the delicate skin of his lips—but the depths in his blue eyes told her he’d weathered too much of what this world could hand out. Sadness, but with a certain resilience over the darkness. She immediately trusted him. “It sounds as though you respect Mr. Lipinstein.”
“I do.” Des nodded as he set the end of the one strip in place and grabbed a new one, tucking it under the first wrap to secure the start of it. “He has saved my life more than once, though I’ve done my fair share of saving his hide on occasion.”
“So he’s earned your esteem?”
His hands staying in motion as he wrapped her arm, Des glanced up at her. Hazel eyes. Such an interesting swirl of colors she knew she stared a touch too long at them.
“Most men in his position, they demand the respect. It’s the way of the sea. It always has been.” He looked down at the wrapping. “But not Roe. No—Cap has earned the respect he has. Every bit of it. I never met any man in my life so willing to lay down his own life for others. But Roe can’t be killed—not that I’ve seen anyway.”
He tucked the end of the linen strip under the wrap, securing it in place. “That should keep the stitches in place for the time being. But try to not bump your arm against anything on the ship as we move about—the walls, the rails. It is calm skies now, but the swells are still enough to throw you off your feet, and if you open up the wound again, Cap will have my neck.”
She gave him a smile. “Thank you. I can’t get my jacket over the bindings, so my arm is a bit exposed with my sleeve torn away as it is, but this helps me maintain a semblance of modesty.”
He gave her a nod and held out his right elbow. “Shall we? Cap had cook set a full plate for you on deck, and as I said, the skies are clear and the air is brisk. A beautiful day, at that.”
She drew in a deep breath and set her left hand along the crook of his elbow. “Then I would be happy to get a breath of fresh air.”
{ Chapter 5 }
The swell of it hit her, startling her awake. She hadn’t even realized she was dreaming, so far deep into the dark she was.
