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when she heard his voice again.
    “I really don’t give a bloody damn how it happened,” her employer said irritably.
    “Captain!” the old man huffed. “There are ladies present. Moderate your language.”
    There was no apology. “How it happened doesn’t matter,” the captain continued after a weighted moment. “Just get it cleaned up and see to the girl. She’s cut herself on the broken glass.”
    So he’d noticed that, had he? What else had he noticed?
    But Wilf, the idiot, didn’t get the message. “She’s unbearably clumsy, Captain. We’ll see she’s bandaged before she leaves.”
    “She’s not going anywhere. This house is a disaster, and you and your wife have been complaining that you need help for months. This is her first day and she’s allowed a few mistakes.”
    Defending her again, she thought dazedly. But did he even get that good a look at her? He didn’t strike her as a knight errant by nature. His smile was too wicked.
    By that time she’d backed out of the room, setting the heavy tray on the counter in the pantry, and she was trembling slightly as the door swung shut behind her, hiding her from view.
    “Well, I for one do not tolerate shoddy service,” an older woman’s voice broke in. The pirate’s future mother-in-law. “And I would hope my daughter would follow my standards in all things.”
    “Not in all things, I hope,” the captain said lazily, and Maddy wondered if she were the only one who caught his subtle, sexual hint in that statement.
    There was a laugh from the far end of the table, and Maddy knew she wasn’t alone.
    “Of course I shall, Mama,” came a meek voice. Poor girl. She was bullied by her parents, for doubtless that blustery old man was just as controlling, and she was about to marry an indiscreet lecher who kissed strange girls on the street. Though he also rescued them from rape, she had to admit fairly. So despite his thoroughly bad behaviorin claiming her mouth she ought to put that out of her mind and concentrate on the fact that his act had been essentially noble.
    Of course, putting that kiss from her mind was far from an easy task. When she thought about it, a strange tightness caught beneath her breasts, and heat bloomed where it shouldn’t. Would her husband kiss her like that? She could teach him to.
    Except maybe she wouldn’t be wanting to kiss her husband like that, depending on whom she landed. She was going to be practical and hardheaded, and the unfortunate fact was that titles and large incomes tended to come with elderly, pockmarked, overfed men like Lord Eastham with too much hair on their faces and not enough on their heads. The captain’s smooth-shaven face was another sign of his disdain for society. How would it feel to kiss someone like that when they had a moustache, and perhaps side-whiskers? Tarkington had had a luxuriant mustache, but he’d never kissed her like that, even when they…
    Maybe she should stop thinking about kisses, but at least it kept her mind off her sore feet and aching muscles.
    “Pssst.”
    It took Maddy a moment to realize Mrs. Crozier was signaling her. With a sigh she hoisted the tray once more and carried it down into the kitchen.
    “Set it on the table, you stupid girl,” the woman snapped. “At least you had the sense to keep your mouth shut. And stop bleeding all over my clean kitchen. There are supplies in the cupboard where you found your aprons. Clean yourself up.”
    Easier said than done, and by the time she’d managed to wash the blood away and wrap a crude bandage around her hand the bleeding seemed to have stopped. She’d allowed herself a moment to sit while she tried to bandage herself, and it would have been so easy simply to close her eyes and sleep, just for a few seconds.
    Life had suddenly become a great deal more complicated. Instead of an elderly sea captain full of bluster she found herself in the household of a… a gypsy king. With those long, black curls and a golden