Irresistible by Karen Robards Page B

swatted his hands away. "I can undress myself, old man. Contrary to your apparent opinion, I'm neither helpless nor a child. Give me that towel and have done."
    With a slightly aggrieved expression, James did as he was told. To Claire's dismay, even as Hugh rubbed his head with the towel his gaze fastened once more on her.
    "As for you, vixen, I'll not perjure myself by saying that it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I will point out that I am perfectly aware that you are present, so you may cease trying to make yourself inconspicuous by curling up into a ball."

 
    Chapter 6
    Without warning, Hugh found himself looking into a pair of eyes that gleamed unexpectedly gold as the lamplight caught them through the black tangle of her hair. Siren's eyes… To his dismay, the thought registered in his brain before he could cut it off.
    His expression turned grim. Those eyes were not going to be allowed to sway him. They were, first and foremost, traitor's eyes. His gaze flicked once more to James, who was crouched beside him now, attempting to dry his feet and legs. Impatiently he shifted out of reach. James gave an annoyed tsk and frowned up at him.
    "If I hadn't witnessed it with me own eyes, I never would've believed you'd have jumped in the sea without first thinkin' to remove your boots," James said, his tone part scolding and part mournful. "And them brand-new, too, with them fine chamois tops and tassels like the tails of gold horses. Now what's to do? They're lost, and you've no more footwear with you. A pretty figure you'll cut, riding about France in your stocking feet. Not but what you didn't lose a fine pair of clocked stockings, too."
    "I'll just have to wear your shoes then, won't I?" Though he'd be hanged if he'd admit as much to James, he did slightly regret the loss of his boots. He'd taken delivery of them just the week before. "And your stockings, too."
    "And what about your coat, eh? The sea has that too, and the other one we brought is still damp, and all but ruined from the rain we rode through getting here."
    "You scold worse than a wife, you know that?" Hugh narrowed his eyes at his faithful retainer. "Take your sorry self off, and see what the captain has aboard in the way of spirits. I thirst."
    "Aye, you'd like me to think that, wouldn't you? You're looking to the bottle to ease your hurts, I don't doubt, which ye wouldn't be needin' to do had ye not been so bloody foolish."
    The trouble with servants who had been with a man from birth was that over the years they could be counted on to stop showing proper deference to him, Hugh reflected sourly, shooting James a quelling look. Having been the recipient of such a look on countless occasions in the past, James had no trouble interpreting it— or disregarding it. Giving an ostentatious sniff that expressed his feelings as clearly as any diatribe might have done, he abandoned what he would doubtless describe as his unappreciated efforts to make his master more comfortable and stood up, towel in hand.
    "Very well, then, I'm going. Have a care what you're about."
    Hugh didn't reply to this parting evidence that his henchman for life had little faith in his ability to function satisfactorily without him, and James, with a final expressive sniff that Hugh also chose to ignore, took himself off.
    As the door shut behind James, Hugh's attention shifted back to the woman. She was huddled on her side, her face shrouded by long, tangled skeins of ink-black hair through which her eyes still gleamed at him like— not a siren's, perish the thought— a wild thing's. With her knees practically tucked beneath her chin, she was curled at the center of a spreading puddle. Her soaked skirts— they would, when dry, be a shade close to tobacco brown, he judged— lay about her like the limp petals of a wilted flower. Her gown appeared both stylish and surprisingly modest, given her profession. It was of fine wool, as he had noted before, with a high, close neckline