Page 17 of The Captain of Betrayal
"Oh, don't be so blooming sanctimonious," Polly exploded, her last nerve severed with just that one glance. She grabbed a rather confused Emily by the hand and dragged her back toward the boarding house, not turning back to look at James. Let him stand there looking foolish, she thought with satisfaction.
"What does sanctimonious mean?" Emily asked, once they were inside the door.
"It means to feel superior to someone," Polly snapped. Usually, she was most patient with Emily, but James had affected her so much that she felt as though her very skin was itching. She could not bear for her sister to begin to question her on why she no longer considered James their friend, for she had never divulged to Emily that she had found James that evening in London. Instead she had told her sister that James could not be found, had told her to forget about him, then taken her to Bristol. Emily's memories of James were untainted by hurt, and to have to explain to her about the betrayal seemed an exhausting prospect.
"That's not like James, to think he's superior," Emily offered unhelpfully.
"Well, perhaps he's changed," Polly retorted, "Lord knows I have."
She had changed completely. She was no longer a naive girl who believed in love, she was a grown woman with a heart that had long ago given up on that idea.
CHAPTER EIGHT
That hadn't gone well, James thought ruefully as he sipped on his tankard of ale. He hadn't intended to annoy Polly, but the challenge in her eyes had set a flame within him. He was, at heart, a man who relished a fight, and a fight for Polly's heart seemed far more appealing than the battles and skirmishes of his Navy career.
He thought back on his intended, and how she had looked in the green. Over the years, when he had thought of his old friend, his mind had concocted a vague picture of what Polly might look like as a woman. His mind had done Polly a disservice, for the image he had carried of a red-haired woman, was nothing in comparison to the Polly Jenkins he had seen today.
She was still petite, but rather like Napoleon, she was larger than life despite her diminutive stature. Her simple day dress, despite its best efforts, had done little to disguise her womanly curves. And her hair...James snorted as he thought on how he had once called it "red". Her hair, free from the cover of a bonnet, was like burnished copper, and it framed her face in lush curls.
Idiot, James thought to himself; he had spent ten years imagining what Polly was like, then had expected her to be exactly like the character he had drawn in his head. It was his own stupid fault that the real Polly had taken him so unawares. During his career, which despite its humble beginnings had been illustrious, James had always felt a strong sense of control. He could command any situation--pirates, cannon fire, Napoleon's ships--and now he found himself flailing at the sight of a pair of mossy, green eyes.
He needed to rethink his plan of action.
"I'd offer you a penny for your thoughts, lad," Jack Lawless called from behind the bar, "But from the glum look on your face, I'd wager they're not worth that."
"Do I really look so morose?" James asked with a laugh, allowing Jack to take his empty glass and refill it to the brim with strong, hoppy ale.
"Aye," Jack gave a knowing smile, his blue eyes twinkling. "There's only two problems a man can have to make him look so glum; money or women. Now, by the cut of your vowels, I'd wager it's not the first but rather the latter."
James said nothing in reply, merely raised his eyebrows in acquiescence to the man's superior skills of deduction--though his comment about James' accent irked slightly. He had never quite lost the accent of the aristocracy which he had acquired in Westminster, and he knew that because of it folk like Jack marked him out as different, and branded him--rather unfairly--as a toff.
"So, it's woman troubles," Jack called loudly, attracting the attention of the locals who populated the dark tavern.
"Lud, why don't you just ask the Bristol Post to put it on their front page," James muttered, as the craggy group of fishermen looked up from their pints with interest.
"Enough lip from you, young man," Jack Lawless said, looking a little affronted. "If it's advice you need, then you're in the right place. I'll have you know that I was considered quite the Lothario in my day--women used to fall at my feet quite regularly."
"Only 'cuse you stuck out your leg to trip 'em up," an elderly fisherman called from behind his bushy beard, cackling wickedly at his own joke. His fellow drinkers joined in, their laughs echoing of the wooden beams of the roof, and causing Jack to bristle in annoyance.
"Ignore him," Jack muttered darkly to James, "He's in his cups, I should have cut him off an hour ago."
The bearded fisherman scowled at the inn-keeper's comment, and to prevent the situation from escalating any further, James cut across their sparring match.
"What advice would you give a man who is trying to woo a woman that has not forgiven him for a past transgression?"
"Depends on the transgression, my son," Jack replied sagely, "If it's philandering that caused the upset, then you'll have to sweet talk her."
"It wasn't a roving eye that upset her," James confessed, acutely aware that every ear in the place was listening to him.
"You didn't steal from her, did you?"
James did not even deign to respond to that query with an answer.
"Did you try and pinch her sister's bum?" one man asked, with the look of a man who had once tried that very act himself.
"No."
"Tell her you were just poppin' out for a pint of milk, then disappeared for twenty years?"
