Regency Debutantes: The Captain's Lady / Mistaken Mistress. Margaret McPhee

Foot completely severed, you know. The boy’s got a feel for surgery, Captain, and it would be a shame to see it wasted. I’d be happy to have him help down here.’

      Georgiana Raithwaite had quit the security of his cabin amidst the pounding fury of battle to help tend the wounded! Nathaniel reeled. The girl was incredible, infuriatingly disobedient, without a thought for her own safety, or indeed the discovery of her secret, but incredible all the same. He knew that he would have defied the First Lord of the Admiralty himself had he been ordered to lie useless within a cabin when all around a battle was sounding. A sigh escaped his lips. They were not so very dissimilar after all, the captain and his ship’s boy. Even if that slim dark-haired waif was hellbent on ruining her reputation. With a heavy heart he made his way steadily towards the cabin that housed the woman in question.

      Georgiana was sitting in the wooden chair, reading by the light of the flickering lantern. Or that at least looked to be what she was doing, by virtue of the book balanced carefully before her. She did not move upon Nathaniel’s entry to the cabin, only glanced up at him with questioning eyes.

      Somehow she had managed to cleanse the blood from her hands that were folded neatly before her. The same could not be said for the rest of her uniform. The darkened jacket had been hung over the back of the chair, leaving him a clear view of a blood-splattered shirt and the shapely figure it failed to conceal.

      Two voices spoke at once. One mellow and deeply masculine, the other clear and soft. ‘I’m sorry.’