The Scoundrel and I: A Novella Read Online Free PDF Page B

business is none of yours, sir.” She searched around the floor for her slippers.
    Grabbing them up, he went to one knee on the damp boards and proffered a shoe.
    “Hand on my shoulder,” he said.
    Her mouth hung open.
    “Come now.” He wiggled the slipper. “Can’t tell you my capital idea with you standing there shoeless.”
    “Captain Masinter, this is—”
    “Serendipitous!”
    “Serendipitous?”
    “I’ll explain it all as soon as you’re shod.”
    There was nothing to do but set her palm gingerly on his gloriously hard shoulder, slip her feet into the proffered slippers, and try to ignore the delicious tingle that leaped from his fingertips brushing across her insole right up into her belly. Shod and breathless, she backed away as he stood to his full height again.
    “You have ruined your—that is—your—” She simply could not say the word breeches. Not to a man she did not know. She pointed to his knees.
    “Sailor, miss. A bit of damp’s nothing.” He waved it away. “Good God, woman, aren’t you eager to hear my plan? Moment I came up with it I could barely contain myself. Wished I’d had wings to fly here.”
    “Impetuosity does not seem like a very useful trait for a ship captain,” she mumbled.
    “
Au contraire,
madam. All great sea commanders have got to be able to throw themselves into a fine idea at a moment’s notice. That’s how battles are won.”
    “Are you a great sea commander, Captain Masinter?” She already knew. Casually introducing the Royal Navy into conversation at tea with her friends, she had learned from Adela, who was silly with adoration for all men in uniform, and Minnie, who practically memorized the gossip columns, that Captain Anthony Masinter, recently retired from his command of the
Victory,
was a bona fide war hero. Apparently, he had also lately come into an impressive fortune. None of this had been welcome news to Elle. She did not need more reasons to dream about the stranger who had ruined her life. And she adamantly did not trust sailors.
    But now she was not dreaming of this sailor. She was staring up at him like a nincompoop.
    “Came out of a few routs intact,” he replied easily. “But that’s not important at present, of course. Now see here, miss—” Abruptly he sobered. “Know it ain’t proper—”
    “It
is not
proper.”
    “—to ask you to give me the honor of your name, but this’d all be much easier if I knew it.”
    “What would be easier?”
    “Helping you out of this bind.”
    “No.” She backed away. “I told you last night that I do not need your help.”
    He watched as she retreated another step.
    “You know,” he said, “you needn’t always be running away from me. I won’t bite. And I’m dashed sorry to disagree with you, but it seems you do need help.”
    But she did not believe that he would not bite. Men always bit when they discovered a woman unprotected and alone. From the moment her father had sold her mother’s leather tooled Holy Bible to buy gin, to the day Jo Junior reappeared in London with a wife, all Elle had ever known of men were lies. Except her grandfather, but he had been a man of letters.
    “Why are you doing this?” she demanded. “What do you hope to gain from it?”
    “What—Why—” he began twice, then more slowly, seriously: “Your continued future employment in this shop, of course. That is what you want, isn’t it?”
    “That is all? You do not want anything else?”
    For a moment the ship captain was silent. Then he said, “No. I want nothing else.” With a tilt of his head forward and a very slight upturning of the corner of his lips, he added, “Miss . . . ?”
    She did not believe him. But he believed himself, and that was better than nothing. Also, he was correct: she did need help.
    “Miss Flood,” she said.
    He smiled with such clear contentment that she wished she believed him too.
    “Great pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Flood.” He bowed. Today he