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chuckle, struggling not to stare at his arms. But his crystalline eyes were compelling enough, a fall of dark hair shadowing them.
    “Why would I wish a thing like that?” She made an effort at a scoff. “Sun getting to you, Seton?”
    “Perhaps only your men’s vain wishes.”
    Again with the brothel.
    “The men don’t need a stopover in Bermuda this week.” She rushed the words because the sudden notion of his clear blue gaze fixed on her while she was wearing nothing but net stockings and lace wiped her mind clean of all else. “They need a golden beach under swaying palm trees three weeks from now.”
    For a moment he said nothing. Then, “And what do you need, Viola Carlyle?”
    Her every muscle went still as stone.
    “Your sister still believes you are alive, Miss Carlyle.” His steady gaze did not waver. “I have searched you out and come here to bring you home.”

Chapter 6
     
    V iola’s throat seized up entirely.
    “I don’t have a sister.”
    “You do, and she has been waiting for you to return for fifteen years.”
    “You’re mistaking me for someone else.”
    His brow lowered. “Why haven’t you?”
    She twisted her lips to control her sudden quivers. “Mistaken—?”
    “Returned home.”
    She had no response that she could share with this man. She’d barely even told her father as he lay dying, when finally after thirteen years he had asked her that same question.
    “You could have returned to England at any time these past years. You have a ship of your own, and sufficient funds.” Seton’s regard remained constant. He had a way of doing that, holding her gaze as though he could wait an hour, a day, a fortnight for a reply.
    Except in the corridor below three days earlier, when for a moment he had looked—strangely—impatient.
    “I don’t have sufficient funds for anything. Why do you think I work for rich American merchants?”
    His gaze seemed to sharpen. “So you admit to being English.”
    “I admit to being born in England. But that doesn’t make me who you say I am.”
    “You cannot deny it.”
    “I can. Do you have any proof?”
    “I need no proof. You give yourself away every time you open your mouth.”
    She opened her mouth then snapped it shut. He leaned back against the rail, as though he had all day to pursue this conversation. Which he did. He had trapped her on her own ship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Criminally clever, the Pharaoh.
    “Your accent is nearly as flat as an American’s,” he said, “but inflections, certain vowels bespeak your origins.” He ducked his head. “And you speak words no lowborn sailor would know.”
    “I don’t.”
    “The first time I came aboard your ship you used the word sobriquet . A few moments ago you said inveigle .”
    “I read quite a bit.”
    “Why is that?”
    “Why shouldn’t I?”
    “You should. You are the daughter of a gentleman. A nobleman—”
    “Everyone knows my father was a smuggler.”
    “—and a lady.”
    That, she could not deny. Her mother had been born into a gentleman’s family, well situated with a fine house and good lands. When Maria Harrell’s father gave her to wed to the quiet, book-loving Baron of Carlyle in order to improve the social fortunes of the family, she’d been but seventeen, suitably dowered, very pretty, and already in love with Fionn Daly—a common sailor she should never have even met let alone given her heart to.
    They had never fallen out of love. Four years later, in a blooming spring when Lord Carlyle was in town for the session and Lady Carlyle at home tending to her firstborn, the Irishman had sailed into port and . . . made Viola. Ten years after that, Fionn returned again to finally claim his love and his child. With disastrous consequences.
    Viola held her tongue. Nothing she could say now would suffice, and her heart beat too swiftly to allow for measured speech. She slipped her gaze across the deck, at the sailors about. All loyal to her, most