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ready-to-be-censorious eye.
    He heard a footfall— her footfall. He was turning to search for Emily even before she rounded the cabins in a gown of lilac cotton that fluttered in the breeze.
    Seeing him, she smiled and strolled his way.
    He struggled to keep his answering—too revealing—smile from his face, managed to replace it with a frown. “What are you doing up at this hour?” He glanced around. “You shouldn’t be on deck—it could be dangerous.”
    She tilted her head, studied him for a moment, then, smile still flirting about the corners of her rosy lips, she looked out across the waves. “It’s so peaceful and quiet, you’d hear any other vessel approaching, surely?”
    She looked back at him, met his eyes.
    The best he could do was humph, and lean back on the railing. “Couldn’t you sleep?”
    He was being deliberately off-putting. Just having her near…but the more he replayed their earlier conversation, the more he dwelled on the soft light he’d glimpsed in her eyes, the more he was certain she was carrying a torch for MacFarlane, and he had no intention of trying to compete with that. With his friend’s ghost.
    “I seem to have been sleeping too much, if truth be told. And it’s such a lovely morning.”
    She settled against the railing beside him.
    The warm softness of her body called to his, a siren song weakening his defenses. He told himself he should push back and move away—seize the excuse of being on guard to do a circuit of the barge.
    Instead, he stayed exactly where he was, from the corner of his eyes watching the breeze playing with her hair, teasing out tendrils to lie alongside her porcelain cheeks.
    After a moment, he forced his attention back to the waves. “I…gather you come from a large family.”
    Emily laughed. “That’s an understatement. I have three sisters and four brothers. I’m the second youngest—only Rufus is younger than me.”
    “So you’re the baby of the girls?”
    “Yes, but that’s something of an advantage. We’re all very close, although of course the other three are all married and have their own households. Nevertheless, we still see each other often.” She was perfectly willing to discuss her family, as it allowed her to turn his way and ask, “What about you? Do you have brothers and sisters?”
    He stiffened, straightened. “No.” He glanced down at her, then softened the single syllable with, “I was an only child.”
    She noted the past tense. “Your parents…have they passed on?”
    Eyes back on the waves, he nodded. “There’s no one waiting for me in England.” He shot another swift glance her way. Half smiled. “Not like you.”
    “Ah, yes—there’ll be a fattened calf and all manner of celebrations when I get back.” And if matters unfolded as she hoped, he’d be there to share them. Her delighted smile as she looked out across the waves was entirely genuine. She’d had a sudden disconcerting thought that he might have someone waiting for him in England—some lady, even a fiancée—but his statement had been a blanket one. A species of relief slid through her veins, and left her almost giddy.
    He was prickly and stiff, but she wasn’t going to let that deter her. According to her sisters, men—strange beasts—were often that way when they were attracted to a lady but trying to hide it. As for the rest, she’d realized that “Protective” was his middle name, at least as far as women were concerned. However, she’d yet to see any clear indicationthat with respect to her, that protectiveness had moved beyond the general to the specific.
    But they had plenty of journey ahead of them, plenty of time for her to watch and see.
    She was still at the stage of mentally ticking items off the list of characteristics her “one” should possess. Her ideal was fairly clear in her mind, but matching the reality to her list was proving more challenging than she’d expected. There were all sorts of issues one had to take