Free Patricia Potter by Lightning Page B

her face. He had enjoyed the exchange, but now he hesitated to continue. “You’ve lost someone?”
    “A father. A brother.”
    “How?” he asked quietly.
    Lauren looked around for Jeremy, but he had disappeared. She knew it was for the purpose of leaving her and the captain alone together. Corinne was in the kitchen, supervising the meal.
    Lauren swallowed. She had said more than she had meant to say, and now she had to lie. She hadn’t realized how difficult it would be. Especially when his eyes held sympathy.
    Desperation must have shown in her eyes, because he suddenly backed away. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to revive sad memories.”
    The quiet compassion in his voice surprised her. But then everything about him surprised her, and frightened her because she was finding she liked him. And she couldn’t. If she wasn’t going to start fulfilling her task now, she never would. She knew that just as she knew the sun rose every morning.
    “It’s all right,” she said, looking up and meeting his eyes. “They both died in Virginia.”
    “Confederate?”
    “Yes.” There it was—the first lie, bold and ugly. Lauren hated how easily the words flowed from her mouth. Mr. Phillips had done his job well, selecting her, and the thought did not please her.
    He was silent, and she was relieved he offered no additional condolences.
    “How did you happen to come to Nassau?” he asked instead.
    “My home was in Maryland. Many of our neighbors were Unionists. It grew … awkward, and Uncle Jeremy asked me to stay a few months. It seemed … best.”
    His blue eyes, those startling dark blue eyes, probed hers for several moments. “It must have been difficult leaving everything you knew, your home.”
    A depth of understanding flowed in his voice, and it struck her as odd in a man who made the sea his home.
    “Yes,” she said simply. “And your homer’
    His face clouded. “I have none at the moment.”
    “Except your ship?”
    “Except my ship,” he confirmed.
    “And family?”
    “None.”
    “Except for Socrates?”
    “Except for Socrates,” he confirmed again with that slight wry smile. “But I don’t think he accepts that relationship.”
    “I think he does,” she said, more softly than she intended. She found that they were staring at each other, as if in a trance. Tension radiated between them, and a growing excitement stiffened their faces, made their eyes wary as they felt something extraordinary happening, something neither wanted.
    “Family resemblance?” Adrian grinned suddenly, and she knew he was trying to break that strange sense of time-lessness that had unexpectedly shrouded them.
    Her gaze swept over him, over the light blue jacket that flawlessly covered broad shoulders and the dark blue trousers that hugged well-formed long legs. His hair, the rich red brown of a sun-ripened chestnut, was thick. It curled slightly, crisply, over his forehead and at his neck, emphasizing strong, clean features. The forehead was broad and broken by dark eyebrows that arched naturally in a perpetually quizzical expression. His cheekbones were high, and his mouth wide, the lips set above a square jaw. Even with a black eye and bruises, it was a handsome face. If she had not known differently, she would believe it a face of character.
    But you do know better. The unspoken words jerked her back to her duty. He was an opportunist, an adventurer. Yet when he smiled … dear God, she forgot everything else.
    “Now that you mention it, there is the slightest similarity,” she said, forgetting everything but the almost mesmerizing charm of that smile.
    “I think Socrates would resent that observation,” he said, his eyes twinkling, coaxing an unwilling smile from her. Socrates appeared to know he was the center of attention and swung down from Lauren’s arms. Squatting on the floor, he clapped his hands together.
    Lauren looked at the grinning Socrates and then up at Adrian. “No, I think