accepted a cup of coffee and took a slice of toast.
‘I think I’ll do that every morning,’ he went on, without so much as a glance in her direction to accompany the warning. ‘Why don’t you two join me? We could box, wrestle, use singlesticks.’
‘Good idea,’ Callum agreed, with a nudge in the ribs for Daniel who was grumbling about early rising. ‘We will be sure to avoid the ladies by doing that.’
And that put an end to any dawn exercise on her part, Dita recognised, slapping preserve on her toast with a irritable flick. It was easier to be angry with Alistair than to confront any of the other feelings he aroused in her.
‘What a charming picture you two ladies make.’ Alistair again, smiling now. Beside her Averil made a small sound that might have been pleasure at the compliment, or might have been nerves. ‘So English in your muslins and lawns and lacy fichus.’
‘You do not like Indian female dress, my lord?’ Dita enquired. She was not going to allow him to needle her and she rather thought he knew exactly why she had changed into something so blandly respectable. It had been an error to show him that she cared for his opinion. She had morning dresses that would make him pant with desire, she told herself, mentally lowering necklines and removing lace trim from the contents of her trunk.
‘It is suitable for Indian females, but not for English ones to ape.’
‘But English gentlemen resort to Indian garb to relax in, do you not? Why should ladies not have the same comforts? But of course,’ she added, ‘you do not appreciate the wonderful freedom of casting off one’s stays.’
Averil gave a little gasp of horrified laughter, Callum went pink and Alistair grinned. ‘No, but I can imagine,’ he said, leaving her in no doubt he was thinking of garments he had unlaced in the past.
She was not going to rattle him, she realised, and all she was succeeding in doing was embarrassing Averil and scandalising Callum Chatterton, who was too nice and intelligent a man to be teased.
‘And how do you ladies intend passing the day?’ Callum enquired, changing the subject with rather desperate tact.
‘I am making Christmas gifts,’ Averil confided. ‘I thought that all of us who dine in the cuddy make up a house party, as it were. On Christmas Eve after supper it would be delightful to exchange little tokens, just as though we really were at a Christmas house party, don’t you think?’
‘Gifts for everyone?’ Daniel asked, chasing some tough bacon around his plate.
‘It would be invidious to leave anyone out, I think.’ Averil frowned. ‘Of course, it is not easy to prepare for this sort of thing, not knowing everyone who is of the party. But twenty small gifts are not so very hard to come up with.’
‘Twenty-one with the captain,’ Dita pointed out. ‘I think it is a charming idea, but we should let everyone know we will do it, don’t you think? In case there is anyone who had not thought of gifts and is embarrassed.’
‘Oh. I had not considered that. If there are people with nothing suitable to exchange, it would indeed put them out.’ Averil’s face fell.
‘If you mention it now, then anyone who needs to do last-minute shopping can go to the bazaars when we call at Madras,’ Alistair suggested. Averil beamed at him and Dita found herself meeting his eyes with something like gratitude for his thoughtfulness to her friend.
‘That was a kind thought,’ she said across the table when Averil was distracted by Daniel teasing her about what she could possibly give the captain. ‘Thank you.’
‘I do occasionally have them,’ he said laconically. ‘Miss Heydon is a charming and kind young woman and I would not like to see her embarrassed.’
‘I do not accuse you of being unkind,’ Dita began. That had felt like an oblique slap at her, the young woman he had no compunction about embarrassing.
‘You, my dear Dita, are a feline. You walk your own path, you guard your own heart and you will not yield to anything but your own desires. Miss Heydon is a turtle dove—sweet, loyal, affectionate. Although,’ he added, glancing along the table to where Averil was fending off Daniel’s wit with surprising skill, ‘she has more intelligence and courage than at first appears. She would fight for what she loves.’
‘Whereas you think me merely selfish?’ Dita’s chin came up.
‘And intelligent and courageous and quite surprisingly alluring. But you are going to find it hard to bend that self-will to a husband, Dita.’
‘Why should I?’ Alluring? The unexpected compliment was negated by the fact he found it surprising that she should be attractive. She sliced diagonally across the slice of toast with one sweep of her knife. ‘Men do not have to compromise in marriage. I cannot imagine you doing so, for example, even for a woman you love.’
Alistair gave a harsh laugh. ‘What has love got to do with it? That is the last thing I would marry for. Excuse me.’ He pushed back his chair and left the table.
How had he let that betraying remark escape? Alistair wondered as he strode down to his tiny cubicle off the Great Cabin. Or was it only his acute consciousness of his own ghosts that made him fear his words would expose him?
Love brought blindness with it and rewarded trust with lies. It had blinded him, humiliated him—he was not going to give it a chance again. Physical love was easy enough to take care of, even if one was fastidious and demanding, as he knew himself to be. Alistair grimaced as he sat on his bunk and tried to remember what he had come down here for. Not to run away from Dita Brooke, he sincerely hoped, although the wretched chit was having the most peculiar effect on his brain.
Easier to think about sex than about emotion—and Dita seemed to produce emotional responses in him he rarely experienced: anxiety, protectiveness. Possessiveness, damn it. Yes, better to think about sex and she certainly made him fantasise about that, too.
He had dreamed about her for years, erotic, arousing, frustrating dreams that had puzzled him as much as they had tormented him. They had been too real. Had he really thought about the girl he had grown up with in that way and suppressed it so the desire only emerged when he was asleep? Now it was damnably hard not to indulge in waking dreams about the adult woman.
Three months’ celibacy was not something he would seek out, he had to admit. He was a sensual man by nature, but he prized control and he was not going to seek relief either here on board or in any of their ports of call. Fortunately there was no one on the Bengal Queen who attracted him in that way. No one except Lady Perdita Brooke, of course.
Hell. How could he feel responsible for her—a hangover from all those childhood years, he supposed—and yet want to do the very things he would kill another man for trying with her?
She was so responsive, with all the intensity and passion of the child grown into the woman. Her reckless riding, the way she had flung herself from her horse and run to him, her uninhibited attempts to care for him. That kiss. Alistair fell back on to the bed and relived those stimulating seconds.
He had enjoyed that, irresponsible as it had been. And so had Dita. And being Dita, when she thought he was offering to do it again she had wanted it, as filled with passionate curiosity for risk and experience as she always had been. Passion. A shiver ran through his long frame as he thought about passion and Dita.
Damn it, no. By all accounts she had been hurt enough by her own recklessness—the last thing she needed was an affaire with him. And the last thing he needed when he arrived in London for the Season was the rumour that he had been involved with the scandalous Lady Perdita. He was hunting for a bride as pure as the driven snow and for that he had to preserve the mask of utmost respectability that was expected in this artificial business. He owed it to his name. And he owed it to his own peace of mind not to become embroiled with a mistress who would expect far more than he was prepared to give.
Alistair sat up abruptly. He was leaping to conclusions