Of course you can’t, you’re a girl!’ It was the response that had become automatic through years of her tagging along behind him. ‘A lady,’ he corrected himself as the wide green eyes focused on his face, and he was conscious of an odd feeling of disappointment.
‘That’s what you always said,’ she retorted. ‘You always snubbed me, and I always got my way. I climbed the same trees, I learned to swim in the lake—I even rode a cow backwards when you did. Do you remember?’
‘Vividly,’ Alistair said. ‘I got a beating for that. But what you did when you were eight has nothing to do with this. Besides anything else, you couldn’t climb rigging in skirts.’
‘That is a very good point,’ she said, bestowing a smile on him that left him breathless. Before he could think of a response she turned away.
Dita Brooke had obviously been taking lessons in witchcraft, he concluded, wondering whether he was foolishly suspicious to read a promise of trouble into that radiant smile.
‘Ooh! Lord Lyndon, you must be ever so strong to do that!’ One of the merchants’ daughters, he had no idea which, gazed at him in wide-eyed adoration.
‘Not at all,’ he said, lowering his voice into a conspiratorial whisper. ‘I get dizzy at heights and had to be helped by Mr Chatterton there. Fine physical specimen, and all that money, too …’ He let his voice trail off in admiration and watched with wicked pleasure as she hurried off to hang on Callum’s arm.
Alistair sauntered back to his cabin to wash. He took care not to limp and reflected that unless he wanted to become a circus turn it would be better to confine vigorous exercise to the early morning before the ladies were about.
It was not until he had stripped off his shirt and was pouring water over his head that he identified the strange feeling of disappointment that had hit him during that brief exchange at the foot of the mast. Dita had wanted the adventure, the experience, but for the first time, she did not want it in order to follow him.
But why should she? he thought. He was no longer thirteen, she was no longer eight, and she was most certainly not the troublesome little sister he had always thought of her as. But she was going to be trouble for someone.
Dita retreated to her cabin and piled all the items from on top of her trunk on to the bed so she could open it. She was restless and impatient and they had only been at sea a few days; she needed exercise and adventure and she was going to get it, even if it meant getting up an hour early.
The fact that the close proximity of Alistair Lyndon was contributing to the restlessness could not be helped. She closed her eyes and let her memory bring back the sight of him, his thin shirt flattened against his back by the wind, the muscles in his forearms standing out like cord as he gripped the ropes, the curiously arousing sight of his bare feet. He had always been tall, but the lanky youth had filled out into a well-muscled man.
She had watched him like a hawk for any signs of weakness from his wounds, but he had shown nothing, not until he had strolled away and she had seen what she doubted anyone else had: the effort not to limp. He should take it more easily.
Then she gave herself a little shake. Alistair could look after himself and there was no point in torturing herself with worry about him. She should think about her own plans. Alistair was right, she could not climb in skirts and she couldn’t climb at all if the captain realised what she was about, so it was a good thing that she had packed her Indian clothes.
Dita dug out a pile of cottons and laid them on the bed. She had beautiful shalwa kameezes in silk, but she had stowed those in the trunks below decks. In her cabin luggage she had kept the simple cotton ones for lounging in comfort in the privacy of her cabin.
She shook out a pair of the trousers, tight in the lower leg, comfortably roomy around the waist and hips: perfect for climbing. And she had a kurta, the loose shirt that reached well down her thighs. That would give her plenty of room to move. All she had to do was to wake at dawn.
The deck was cool and damp under her bare feet, still not dry after the early morning holystoning it had received. Most of the crew on deck were gathered near the main mast, with few close to the shorter of the three masts nearest the stern.
Dita dropped her heavy plait of hair down inside the kurta, used a coil of rope as a step and climbed on to the rail, her hands tight on the rigging, her eyes fixed on a point above her head and not on the sea. Her heart pounded and for a moment she thought her fear of the water would root her to the spot, but it was far enough below.
No one had noticed her in the early light, they were too busy with their tasks and she had deliberately chosen garments dyed the soft green that, improbably, cow dung produced.
She stepped on to the first horizontal rope in the rigging that tapered upward to the crow’s nest and grimaced at the tarry smell and the roughness under her hands and feet. But it felt secure and after a moment she began to climb, slowly and steadily, not looking down.
It was harder than it had looked when the men had done it, but she had expected that. After several minutes she rested, hooking her arms through the ropes and letting her body relax into the rhythm of pitch and roll. Perhaps that was far enough for today; there was a burn in her muscles that warned her they were overstretched and when she risked a downwards glance the deck seemed a dizzying distance below.
Yes, time to get down. As she hung there, deciding how much longer to rest, a figure came out on to the deck. Even foreshortened she recognised Alistair in his shirtsleeves. He seemed to be holding a pole of some kind. He turned as though to climb the companionway to the almost deserted poop deck and as he did so he glanced up.
Dita froze. Would he would recognise her?
‘Get down here this instant!’ He did not shout, but his voice carried clearly.
Defiant, Dita shook her head and began to climb. She had rested; she could do it and she was not going to come down just because Alistair told her to. A rapid glance showed he was climbing after her and she kept going. But she was slow now, slower than he was, and he reached her as she neared the top where the rigging narrowed sharply.
‘Dita, don’t you dare try to get into the crow’s nest!’
She glanced down to the wind-tousled black head on a level with her ankles, suddenly very glad he was there. ‘I have no intention of trying,’ she admitted. ‘I’ll just have a rest and then I’ll come down.’
‘You are tired?’ His face was tipped up to her now, and the world below him—one moment the sea, the next the hard and unforgiving white deck planks—twisted and turned in the most disconcerting manner.
‘Just a little.’
‘Hell. Keep still and hang on.’
‘I have no intention of doing anything else. Alistair! What on earth are you doing?’ He climbed up beside her and then swung over so his body bridged hers and his hands gripped the rope either side of her wrists.
‘Stopping you falling off. Your face has gone the nasty shade of green I remember from when you climbed the flagpole on the church tower.’
‘Oh.’ She certainly felt green now. ‘Alistair, you can’t do this, I’ll push you off.’
‘There’s hardly any bulk to you,’ he said. ‘Put one foot down. Good, now the other.’
Awkwardly they began to descend. When the ship swung one way his body crushed hers into the rigging, even though she could feel him fighting to keep his weight off her. When it went the other way she knew his arms would be stretched by the extra extension her body created. She glanced over to his right hand and watched the way his knuckles whitened and the tendons stood out under the strain.
His breath was hot on her neck, her cheek, her ear, and she could feel his heartbeat when his chest pressed into her back. And, as her mind cleared and she gained enough confidence to think of other things, she realised that he was also finding this proximity stimulating—with his groin crushed into her buttocks