“No need for that.” His gaze fastened on the careful styling of her hair. How long would it take her in front of that new paper or a canvas before she would pull out every pin and set it tumbling again? And why did he have to battle the urge to assist her with that? By thunder, he would scare her off to parts unknown.
Inhaling, she shook her head. “I hate that I have become this way. It is not who I am, not how I am.”
“You cannot help being ill.”
She turned her eyes to his, revealing those sparkling, churning, tempestuous blue-green depths. Yes, every bit as alluring as the fathomless ocean. “’Tis not seasickness, Thad.”
He couldn’t help but smile. “I have known that from the start, Gwyn. And when you are ready to share what is plaguing you, I am happy to listen.”
Though she didn’t greet his invitation with an immediate confidence, he read acknowledgment in her eyes. Perhaps one day she would share her burden.
In the meantime she glanced down as if just realizing she was perched upon his lap and shot upward. A wise move on her part. Indelicate as the phrase might be, Mercer had been right when he called her a tempting armful.
She pulled out the second chair and sat before he could rise to assist her. But when she reached for the china teapot with shaking hands, he stayed her with an upheld palm. “Please, allow me. You are not quite steady yet.” He took up one of Mrs. Hatcher’s famed cinnamon cookies and handed it to her. “This will restore you in a blink.”
Her fingers closed around the treat, but her eyes strayed to the door. “That man out there. Who was he?”
Thad poured her a cup of tea and added a generous dollop of honey. “Mercer?”
“I suppose.” She picked up the lone spoon and stirred.
He poured himself a cup and let the scent fill his nose. “He is too far beneath you for you to worry about.”
When she sipped, he was reminded of a hummingbird, so delicate yet with a mysterious strength. “I thought you Americans had risen above the trappings of rank or some such nonsense.”
Thad snorted a laugh and took a small drink from his unsweetened cup. “Perhaps we have risen above titles, but there are still lines not to be crossed. And you, my friend, will have nothing to do with the likes of him.”
“Is he in trade?” The twitch of her lips indicated she knew well that was an objection that applied to him as well as Mercer. The imp.
He narrowed his eyes and put another cookie before her. “It is his particular trade. Slaves.”
“Oh.” Her cup clattered against its saucer. “That is…”
“Exactly.” Though he knew a few gentlemen with interests in the slave trade, they never dirtied their hands with it directly. The fact that Mercer did… He had made a fortune, but to Thad’s mind, ’twas no better than blood money. And Mercer no better than the Barbary pirates who had left Arnaud for dead and then, when they discovered he still lived, sold him in Istanbul as though he were nothing more than a rug.
Only when small fingers touched his hand did he realize he gripped his cup so tightly it was in danger of fracturing. He looked up and saw Gwyneth’s frown. “Are you all right?”
His face must have worn a dark cloud indeed for her to ask such a thing in her own upset state. “Well enough. There are just few things in this world I detest as much as slavery.”
Her frown went from concerned to perplexed. “Yet you are friends with Mr. Mercer?”
“Not friends. I try to make an enemy of none, but some I simply cannot like.”
“Hear, hear.” She lifted her cup in salute, though the hint of revelry faded from her eyes as quickly as it had sprung up. “Have you ever? Made an enemy?”
“Hmm.” He took another sip and noted the new tremor to her hands. “None of a personal nature, so far as I know. And you?”
Her eyes snapped for only a moment before her lips curved up. “A few, perhaps. I did, after all, steal the attention of Sir Arthur Hart from the other young ladies vying for it.”
Sir Arthur Hart? A namby-pamby name if ever he’d heard one. No doubt belonging to some English dandy who had earned a knighthood by lending the Prince Regent a handkerchief on a day he had a runny nose.
Thad selected a cookie and bit into it, figuring he needed the dose of sugar. “Your beau?”
“No. Papa did not give his approval.” She turned sorrowful eyes upon him. “Could we go home?”
His gaze fell from her eyes to the twitching fingers of her right hand. “Of course. You want to draw.”
“Close. I need to paint.”
He nodded, helped her up, and then wove his fingers through those of her right hand to see if they would still. For a moment he thought she would pull away. He expected her to. But then her palm relaxed against his, and her eyes reflected calm.
’Twould have been a comfort, had he not been so busy wondering what shadows would appear in this soon-to-be painting of hers.
Arthur gripped the rail of the ship and told himself the whipping wind was invigorating. That the constant damp was refreshing. That the incessant rocking and pitching was soothing.