The reverence with which he handled her book was gratifying and reassuring. At the sight of that something in Nicki momentarily loosened and something like a smile tugged at the corners of her lips. Her book was in good hands. She approved of the way his hands had danced across the cover and the teasing way he’d begun to open it and then closed it, as if to keep something contained. It made her feel… warm… soft? She wasn’t sure how it made her feel, but it didn’t matter. The feeling didn’t linger long, not in the presence of this exasperating, confusing man with his unsettling smile. She left before him at his gesture and nodded to the watchman as she walked toward the gangplank. 

He kept talking, his tone light and teasing and she felt herself flushed and irritated all over again. Why did she always feel that he was mocking her in everything? Then in turn she would feel foolish for her paranoia. Why did she care? She knew who she was, she knew what she’d been through to get there, why did it matter that this man with his bright smile and laughing eyes thought he knew her well enough to pick at her? But it mattered. It was too much, especially when his words came that suggested that she knew her place at the captain’s table and on his ship. 

She stopped mid-step, so abruptly that he might have walked into her. She didn’t turn but she did close her eyes and clench her fists at her side, trying to reign in her temper. She was aware that so many of the crew were certain that she was the captain’s whore. That she was never seen coming from his cabin, nor he from hers meant nothing to them. It was simply inconceivable to most, even the ones who had kissed the deck after she’d put them down, that she might have earned her place through merit. No, they seemed to tell themselves, it must be the work of her quim and not her mind or her skills. 

She was already put out about the whole prospect of this card game in the first place and in a moment of pique she was almost ready to toss aside her plans and wipe the floor with them, take them for everything so they never ask her along again. But no, she needed to control her temper, to not let it get the better of her hard won good sense. She had paid a dear price for it, she needed to use it. 

“I don’t appreciate your implications, Sir.” She said through clenched teeth, a growl making her honeyed voice no less sweet for all the controlled anger that it held. “I am no one’s charge. I am my own person in an office I hold through merit. If I win or lose at cards it will be by my own design.” 

With that she set off, her pace a little less leisurely as if she wanted the insulation of company between her and the unsettling helmsman. She held her tongue and walked, navigating the streets to the Parakeet with care and precision. Though she had not been there before she had made a point of knowing the major haunts of the captain should an emergency happen while in port. It was the walk of but a few minutes at the pace she set. She paused at the door of the tavern to pull it open and gesture him in, in a manner that mirrored his earlier gesture, though she did not grin with the radiance of his smile.