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curse.
    Captain Cabot was nothing like what she expected.
    She had to make herself think of Larry … of the last time she had seen him.
    His eyes were green, much more vivid than her hazel ones, but then everything about Larry had been vivid and glowing. She had adored him, followed him, imitated him. Lauren had always been Button Nose to him, and since so many followed his lead, she’d become Button to everyone in their acquaintance. Laurence and Lauren were all too alike in sound, and she’d been the only one to call him Larry.
    The years he was away at school had been misery, but she had worked with her father, helping with dressings and splints and assisting with operations. She took great satisfaction in knowing that soon all three of them would work together.
    When he had finished his medical studies, the war was in its second year, and Larry felt bound to offer his services. He had always loved the sea, and had often said that if medicine weren’t in his blood, he would have plied the China trade. So it wasn’t surprising that he chose the Navy. Lauren had been pleased, believing the sea far safer than the bloody battlefields down South.
    He had looked so grand that last day, tall and strong and excited about his new adventure. Everything was an adventure to him, and this was to be the greatest one of all …
    Lauren turned over in the bed. Button. How she wished she could hear him say it again. Once more. A dozen times more. A hundred times more, as long as she was wishing.
    But he never would, because of Adrian Cabot. Blue eyes and a handsome face couldn’t compensate for that loss. Neither could a rescue.
    She closed her eyes tightly against Captain Cabot’s invasive interruption of her rest. Part of her wished for sleep, but another part feared it, feared the nightmare that had recurred since the night Larry died. Feared the pain that struck her as it must have struck Larry.
    And she knew she would do anything she had to do … to see justice done.
    Adrian gingerly washed the cut on his lip and placed some very expensive ice on the discolored skin around his eye. He looked like bloody hell.
    Socrates had jumped up on the bureau and was likewise peering in the mirror, first at himself with a deplorable lack of modesty, then up at Adrian, chattering fiercely.
    God, but he was exhausted, as well as hurting. He had left the dinner to check on the continuing unloading of the ship when he had, heard Lauren Bradley’s cry and ran to the rescue.
    He winced as his hand touched another sore spot. He must be getting old, or else he’d forgotten how damned painful a fight could be.
    But it had been worth it, he’d decided, for the moment of seeing Lauren Bradley without all the defenses he’d noticed in her. He had been strangely attracted to her earlier in the day, though he hadn’t known exactly why. Perhaps it had been the fire in those lovely eyes, or perhaps the almost hostile attitude that piqued his interest. But even then, except for the eyes, she had appeared quite unremarkable in the modest gray dress with the high neck and severe hairstyle.
    But that evening, she had been extremely fascinating, especially when she’d so ably tripped one of those louts instead of fainting as so many of the women he knew would. And she was very appealing with her hair flowing in wild curls halfway down her back, and her dress ripped to show at firsthand her deliciously feminine curves. Even in the dark, he had seen the blush creep up her face as she had said her last words, and he had been amazed at the surge of warmth he felt when she had so grudgingly thanked him.
    Lauren Bradley was very different from any other woman he’d ever met, and he wondered if perhaps that was why he was so interested. She mystified him with her hostility, attracted him with the secret fire in those amber-green eyes, and challenged him in a way he hadn’t been challenged in years.
    It could also be, he thought a bit wryly, that she did not