"My, but that was no time at all." She reached for the tankard, then looked back toward the table where her wet shift lay.
"Grounding a ship's no trick. You just weigh the anchor and pray she comes about. Getting her afloat again's the difficulty." He leaned against the window frame and lifted his tankard. "So here's to freedom again someday, Katy. Mine, yours."
She started to drink, then remembered herself and turned toward the table to retrieve her shift.
"I don't expect you'll be needing that."
She continued purposefully across the cabin. "Well, sir, I didn't expect . . ."
"Oh, don't start now being a coquette. I like you too much the way you are." A stroke of lightning split down the sky behind him. He drank again, then set down his tankard and was moving toward her.
"I'm not sure I know what you mean."
"Take it as a compliment. I despise intriguing women." He seemed to look through her. "Though you do always manage to get whatever you're after, one way or other, going about it your own way." A clap of thunder sounded through the open stern windows. "I'd also wager you've had your share of experience in certain personal matters. For which I suppose there's your royalist gallant to thank."
"That's scarcely your concern, is it? You've no claim over me." She settled her tankard on the table, reached for his velvet doublet—at least it was dry—and started draping it over her bare shoulders. "Nor am I sure I relish bluntness as much as you appear to."
"It's my fashion. I've been out in the Caribbees too long, dodging musket balls, to bother with a lot of fancy court chatter."