Austin laid down his dividers, leaned back in his chair, and took a moment to study his adversary. She was tall, and, though a bit on the thin side, well formed. Her narrow skirt lay flat against long, slim, shapely legs. A mass of golden hair coiled in a heavy braid around her head, not all of it staying put. Enchanting little curls hung about her face and teased her inviting white neck. Her eyes behind the spectacles were gray, not slate-gray, but the clear and liquid color of diamonds.

     "What are you doing in here?" he asked, his voice quiet. "Davis should have announced you."

    She started. "Yes. Of course. I do beg your pardon."

    Her voice, even trembling, was whispery soft, warm as sunshine. It caught his thoughts, wrapping around his buried desires. Deep inside him an alarm like the bell that announced the changing watch clanged a warning.

    He rested his elbow on the arm of his chair. "Very well, you have my notice. What do you want?"

    Her mouth opened and closed. Her tongue darted out to lick her lips. "Oh, yes. Indeed. You must be very busy. You are--you are looking at the charts, are you not? Can you--that is, will you show them to me? Show me where we are, I mean?"

    He hesitated one moment, then motioned her to him. "Easily done. Come here."

    She looked dismayed, as if she'd planned to rob him of the papers while taking root against the door. But he wanted the opportunity to study her more closely. She intrigued him. Besides which, he wanted her hands out from behind her back, to see what weapon, if any, she held there.

    She dragged in a breath, like a swimmer preparing to plunge into icy water, and scuttled across the few feet separating them. Under the low-swinging lantern, her hair blossomed into burnished gold. The bodice of her dull, gray spinster's gown parted still more, tantalizing him with hints of the delights inside. Austin imagined himself dipping his hand into that bodice, fitting her lovely glove into his palm.

    He shook off the vision with difficulty, trying to suppress the warm stirrings that had begun within him. He did not have time for passion. Every attachment he'd formed with a woman, including his own wife, had turned catastrophic. For a long time now, he'd habitually pushed aside any thoughts of lust simply out of self-preservation.

    Now those thoughts trickled through him and threatened to become a flood.

    He touched his finger to the chart. "We are here."

    She rested her hands--empty of weapons--on the desk, and leaned down to look. A lock of her hair caressed Austin's fingers. Silken warmth rubbed his skin, and the stirrings below multiplied. The subtle scent of her filled his nostrils, flowed over his brain and nudged his senses awake.

    "It looks different from a regular map," she said. "How can you tell what everything is?"

    Austin jerked his hand from under her hair and kept his voice steady. "The lines are latitude. Here is our position, according to the compass and sextant and what I can deduce from the time."

    "I see. How far are we from Havana?"

    "Havana? A long distance. Why?"

    Her gray gaze flicked to him. The mirror told Austin he had little to worry about under a woman's scrutiny, but he became suddenly aware of his defects: the scar that creased his cheekbone, the minute lines about his eyes, the color of his hair--perhaps she would dislike dark brown laced with red.

    "I--that is, it is all so fascinating, is it not? All these charts and things. Do you know, I had never been on a sailing ship before this voyage, and yet, I long to stay on this ship forever. I suppose you feel that way, too. That is why you are a captain."

    "Perhaps. But I plan to retire after this voyage."

    "Oh, how sad."

    Her simple exclamation awakened a voice buried deep inside him. The voice told him he would be miserable land bound for the rest of his life, that he would yearn for the sea and its freedom, always.

    No. I am tired. I deserve to rest.

    Alone. In his cold house on Beacon Hill, away from everything he had ever loved. His wife had lived in that house, and had hated it.

    He let coolness enter his voice. "You should retire, Miss Clemens. No doubt you find life at sea wearying."

    "Not at all. In fact, I feel more lively than I have in a many a year. It quite agrees with me, though I was queasy at first."

    He shoved back his chair and rose. "But it wearies me. Perhaps I wish to sleep."

    "Oh. I beg you pardon, I hadn't thought of that. Do you wish to? Sleep?"

    Austin let his gaze move to his bunk, low and narrow under the sloping port wall of the cabin. "I had thought of going to bed, yes."

    Her cheeks pinkened, like ripe, dusky peaches in snowy cream. She glanced once at the door, then swallowed hard. "My, it is warm in here, is it not?"

    He had thought the room rather chilly, except for the area around his thighs. She fluttered her hand in front of her face, her movements jerky, then she yanked open a hook of her bodice.

    The heat in his loins raced to fill his entire body. He knew she'd come to rob him, to seduce him into a stupor so she could search his cabin or convince him to hand the papers over to her. He should stop her, send her on her way.

    But she paralyzed him. Her beauty, at once both subtle and breathtaking, held him mesmerized. So he stood, tensely watching her. 

    She fumbled at another hook. It caught. She yanked.

    He went to her. "Please. Allow me."

    Her lips parted, her eyes widening like a startled dove's. His pulse beating hard, he reached up and flicked the hook open himself. 

   Her breasts rose swiftly, splaying the bodice open to reveal a chemise of white cambric, tied with a ribbon. The round, dusky tips of her breasts, lifted high by her stays, pressed the thin fabric.

    "How beautiful," he whispered.

    "What is?"

    "You. Do you wish me to go on?"

    Her voice shook. "Go on?"

    He smoothed a loose tendril of hair from her forehead. "You play the innocent maiden so well. You have enchanted me, my sparrow. Shall we continue on the bunk? It might be more comfortable."

     "Your bunk? I thought--I mean, oh, yes, of course."

     He cupped her shoulders. Need throbbed through him, demanding that he take her. If she had come to seduce the papers out of him, let her seduce him. He could laugh and send her away later, empty-handed. An hour with her might be worth it.

     From out of the depths of his memory came the voice of his mentor. Captain Gainesborough had stood in Austin's Beacon Street sitting room the day before the voyage, his gray head nearly touching the chandelier. Tall and lean, Gainesborough had been easily distinguished on the deck of his frigate during the naval battles of the War of Independence. If the American navy hadn't disbanded after the war, and if the Americans had adopted all the ranks of the English, Gainesborough would be a commodore or even an admiral by now. But Americans had believed those ranks sounded too “royal” so Gainesborough had retired a captain, if a highly respected and senior one. Now a partner in the shipping company Austin also had joined, he served as go-between between shipping interests and the new American government. He let the government know the problems and concerns of the mercant traders; they occasionally asked him for his naval expertise on some problem. Those papers, my boy," he'd said, "could mean the difference between peace and prosperity, and disaster. You must protect them with you life." And Austin had stood before him, ramrod straight, and answered, "I understand, sir."

     Cold reason touched him. She was subtle, and she had certainly cast her spell on him. She might be even more dangerous when she'd seduced him in truth, leaving him helpless and begging for more. The papers had to be protected, even from himself.

     He leaned down, letting his voice grow chill. "I have a better idea, Miss Clemens. Why don't you tell me exactly why you came here and what you want? If you do not tell me too many lies, I may only lock you in your cabin. If you lie too much, I'll throw you in the brig. Now, which is it to be?"