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richly woven in scarlet and brown. Gratefully she wrapped it around herself, appreciating its beauty and its warmth. "I'm going to spend the night in luxury. Thank you, Captain."
    "Gavin." One side of his mouth quirked up. "Since we're sharing quarters, we might as well be less formal."
    In normal society such a request would seem forward, but they were strangers alone together in a world far from home, and that created a rare kind of intimacy between them. "I'm called Alex by those who know me well."
    He sat opposite her again. "Alex. It suits you."
    "Actually, as a child I was called Amy. At fifteen I decided I wasn't an Amy anymore." She smiled as she reflected on simpler, happier times. "My middle name is Alexandra, which sounded so much more grand and grown-up. So I stopped answering to Amy, and soon everyone was calling me Alexandra or Alex."
    His face lit with amusement. "You must have been a proper handful as a girl."
    "I was. The result of wanting to be a boy, I suppose." Her amusement faded as she thought about the decisions that had brought her to such a dreadful situation. "Being around my mother wasn't always easy. I suppose that was one of my reasons for marrying a man who would take me away from England."
    "Your mother is difficult?"
    Alex thought of Catherine Kenyon, missing her so much she wanted to weep. The wine was weakening the defenses she'd built for survival. "Only because she's so ... so perfect. The most beautiful woman in England, a wonderful mother, and so good and kind she was called St. Catherine when we followed the drum through Portugal and Spain. She made our life seem like a grand adventure."
    "You grew up with Wellington's army? No wonder you found normal life tame."
    "Since I didn't know anything different, I loved our life. It's only looking back that I realized how difficult it must have been for my mother. She was responsible for me and two servants, often without enough money or supplies, and my father going off with his troops for weeks at a time." There had also been her father's endless infidelities, but that was a topic that was never, ever referred to, even after Alex had become a married woman herself. "Once she and I were almost captured by bandits. She drove them off with a pistol. She did everything right, while"-her voice broke-"I couldn't even protect my own daughter."
    "You can't blame yourself for that, Alex," he said sharply. "When pirates attack a small, unprepared merchant ship, passengers are lucky to survive."
    Again she swallowed back threatening tears. "You've been attacked by pirates?"
    "Four times." He absently touched a faint, almost invisible scar high on his left cheekbone. "The first time I was just a boy. That's when I learned that a well-run vessel can never drop its vigilance. Later attacks, when I was chief mate and then master, didn't do much damage. I only hire captains who share my views on setting a good watch, and my ships are better armed than most merchant vessels. Though extra guns reduce cargo capacity, I've never lost a ship, and my fleet sails some of the most dangerous waters on earth."
    So he wasn't only a captain, but owner of a substantial trading company. It was clear why Sultan Kasan wanted Gavin Elliott's services. "Were your parents Scots? Your accent is becoming steadily more Scottish."
    "It must be the wine." Idly he swirled his glass. "My mother was from Aberdeen, the daughter of a Scottish vicar. I was born there. We lived in Scotland and England before my parents emigrated to America when I was ten."
    "So you're British," she said, pleased that he'd been born in her own country. "A London lawyer told me 'once a Briton, always a Briton'."
    "There's some truth to that. I've never forgotten my childhood home," he said slowly. "But America formed my mind and ideas. We have our problems, but the country isn't crippled by a class of arrogant, parasitic noblemen, as the nations of Europe are. A man can create himself in ways that are