Jek didn’t appear to notice her stiff silence. “Ever notice the captain’s hands?” Jek asked them rhetorically. “He’s got the hands of a man that can work… and we’ve all seen him work, back there on the beach. But now that he’s the captain and not in the tar and slush, he keeps his hands as clean as a gentleman’s. When a man touches me, I hate to have to wonder where his hands last were, and if he’s washed them since. I like a man with clean hands.” She let the thought trail away as she smiled softly to herself.

“He’s the captain,” Althea objected. “We shouldn’t talk about him like that.”

She saw Amber wince for her at her prim little words. She expected Jek to turn her sharp wits and sharper tongue against her, and feared even more that v Paragon would ask a question, but the woman only stretched and observed, “He won’t always be the captain. Or maybe I won’t always be a deckhand on his ship. Either way, I expect a time will come when I won’t have to call him ’sir’. And when it does…” She sat up abruptly, grinning with a flash of white teeth. “Well.” She lifted an eyebrow. “I think it would go well between us. I’ve seen him watching me. Several times he has praised me for working smartly.” More to herself than the others, she added, “We’re just of a height. I like that. It makes so many things more… comfortable.”

Althea could not hold the words back. “Just because he praised you doesn’t mean he’s staring at you. The captain is like that. He recognizes a good job when he sees it. When he does, he speaks up, just as he would if he saw a bad bit of work.”

“Of course,” Jek conceded easily. “But he had to be watching me to know that I work smart. If you take my drift.” She leaned over the railing again. “What do you think, ship? You and Captain Trell go back a ways. I imagine you two have shared many a tale. What does he like in his women?”

In the brief silence that followed this question, Althea died. Her heart stilled, her breath caught in her chest. Just how much had Brashen shared with Paragon, and how much would the ship blurt out now?

Paragon had shifted his mood again. He spoke in a boyish voice, obviously flattered by the woman’s attention. He sounded almost flirtatious as he replied, “Brashen? Do you truly think he would speak freely of such things to me?”

Jek rolled her eyes. “Is there any man who does not speak far too freely when he is around other men?”

“Perhaps he has dropped a story or two with me, from time to time.” The ship’s voice took on a salacious tone.

“Ah. I thought that perhaps he had. So. What does our captain prefer, ship? No. Let me speculate.” She stretched in a leisurely manner. “Perhaps, as he always praises his crew for ‘working smart and lively,’ that is what he prefers in a woman? One who is quick to run up his rigging and lower his canvas-“

“Jek!” Althea could not keep her offense from her tone, but Paragon broke in.

“In truth, Jek, what he has told me he prefers is a woman who is quiet more often than she speaks.”

Jek laughed easily at his remark. “But while these women are being so quiet, what does he hope they’ll be doing?”

“Jek.” All Amber’s rebuke was in the single, quietly spoken word. Jek turned back to them with a laugh while Paragon demanded, “What?”

“Sorry to interrupt the hen party, but the captain wishes to see the second mate.” Lavoy had approached quietly. Jek straightened up, her smile gone. Amber glowered silently at him. Althea wondered how much he had heard, and chided herself. She should not be loitering on the foredeck, talking so casually with crew members, especially on such topics. She resolved to imitate Brashen more in how he separated himself from the general crew. A little distance helped maintain respect. Yet the prospect of severing her friendship with Amber daunted her. Then she would truly be alone.

Just as Brashen was alone.

“I’ll report right away,” she replied quietly to Lavoy. She ignored the belittlement of the “hen party” remark. He was the first mate. He could rebuke, chide and mock her, and part of her duty was to take it. That he had done so in front of crew members rankled, but to reply to it would only make it worse.

“And when you’re done there, see to Lop, will you? Seems our lad needs a bit of doctoring, it does.” Lavoy cracked his knuckles slowly as he let a smile spread across his face.

That remark was intended to bait Amber, Althea knew. The doctoring that Lop required was a direct result of Lavoy’s fists. Lavoy had discovered Amber’s distaste for violence. He had not yet found any excuse to direct his temper at Jek or the ship’s carpenter, but he seemed to relish her reactions to the beatings he meted out to other crew members. With a sinking heart, Althea wished that Amber were not so proud. If she would just lower her head a bit to the first mate, Lavoy would be content. Althea feared what might come of the simmering situation.