The Companion by Susan Squires

cast his eyes about the deck. After they moved over her, they came back and rested on her in speculation. Beth was used to the eyes of personable men moving over her. She was not used to them returning. She felt her color rise. Would that her brown complexion did not show her confusion.
    He moved purposefully in her direction and bowed, most correctly. He wore a black coat and buff breeches. His boots shone, though he must have tended them himself, since he had come on board without even a servant. He was clean shaven, his hair tied back neatly, no fobs or seals or rings. “Miss . . . Rochewell.” He had to search for her name. Not surprising.
    “Mr. . . . Mr. Rufford.” Her own hesitancy was not because she did not recall his name.
    He glanced to the sea again. “All is well, I hope? The convoy skims along prosperously?”
    “Why, yes. How not?”
    “Oh, I expect we shall hit calm seas sooner or later and wallow in our own filth for a week. Or . . .” here his deep voice grew harder, “we might even see an enemy sail.”
    “What enemy? Napoléon is vanquished these three years, the American war long ended.”
    His smile was not humorous. “We might always catch sight of a local corsair.”
    Beth chuckled, dismissing his fears. “We have a sloop of the Royal Navy for protection. No pirate would dare to come within a league of us.”
    “True, if the sloop’s Captain fights true. I have known them to run shy when there were only merchantmen involved.” The bitterness in his voice was back.
    “Who is more competent than the King’s Navy? They rule the water.”
    He did not contradict her. He simply looked at the merchantmen shushing through the sea around them, silent with their distance, the placement of HMS the sloop, then cast his eyes to the rigging and swept the deck and its occupants. Sailors were putting out lanterns in the rigging. Lamps flickered on the boats around them as well, a small, warm constellation.
    He seemed disinclined to continue conversation. Beth racked her brain for a way to engage him. “You have been in your cabin all the day, sir. Does the voyage not agree with you?”
    He fixed her with his steady gaze. “Night is more congenial to one of my temperament.”
    “Ahh.” The silence stretched. The crew moved about on tasks unknowable, oblivious. “Do you dine with the Captain? I am afraid you must be famished, having missed your dinner.”
    He nodded and picked out his watch. It was two hours to supper. “We have some time before we eat,” he remarked, looking conscious, as if he considered making a proposal.
    Beth mustered her courage. “I saw a chessboard in the stern cabin.”
    “Do you play?” he asked, curious.
    “A little.”
    “Why do I think you are a Trojan horse, Miss Rochewell?”
    “Because no one who really plays chess only ‘a little’ would admit it?”
    A tiny smile played about his lips. “Just so. Let us repair to the stern cabin. I wonder if you can give me a brisk game.”
    She could, for she had played with her father for all those long equatorial evenings. But she began with a conservative opening. Boldness was for later. She could not help but notice that he wore some spicy scent, cinnamon and something more elusive. It did not fit with his austerity.
    They played in silence. Beth wondered how she would broach any subject at all with her mysterious partner. Her eyes were drawn to the way his coat bulged over his biceps as he put his elbows on the table. He laid his cleft chin on his clasped hands, eyes on the board. Finally he glanced to her face. “You know the classic game. Are you capable of more?”
    He moved his knight in a rogue attack, too early by far, on her queen, three—no, four moves out. She stared, sorting through the sequences engendered by each possible counterattack. Conservative play said she should block with her knight. But if she attacked with her rook she not only blocked but also set up a sequence that, if he complied, might