Watch him she did. Covertly and with great intensity. Her eyes were half-lidded, heavy with irritation but they watched him, sliding over the play of muscles under his tanned skin, the way the tendons stretched and pulled at skin in such a simple act as taking a drink. She watched him and told herself it was with a scientist curiosity. An interest in anatomy that made her eyes follow him and modesty that made her hide her watching. Modesty and sense. She didn’t want this exasperating man to think more of her look than was truly there. 

He took a second swig and she didn’t mind, didn’t protest because it allowed her to watch more. But then he was speaking and grinning and that quiet moment of peace when his mouth was otherwise occupied was gone and her irritation and unsettled mood returned as she took the bottle from him, her fingers brushing his lightly as she took the bottle from him. She paid it and the resulting tingle no mine and drowned them out with a big, almost defiant mouthful of rum as she wondered how to answer his question.

Fun, what was fun? She was out in the world, making her way on her own terms. She could study and learn whatever she liked, she could go to the places she’d only read about and sketch the specimens she could only admire in other people’s books. Maybe, just maybe there would be a book of her own one day, with a pen-name of course. But was that fun? 

“I don’t typically have fun.” She said before she meant to and regretted it. She looked away and flushed, the brand on her cheek florid as her embarrassment colored her flesh. She didn’t want to be a stuck up-ice-sculpture but it was armor and she needed that. She’d been without before and she didn’t care to ever be so again. 

The Captain saved her, coming in, with more sheets to the wind than he had been before which soured her mood. For all that she didn’t let it cross her features, simply moved toward the table and chairs, the slight lifting of her chin the only response Jax would get for his goad. She sat down in the chair with all the grace and dignity of someone wearing full skirts for all that she was simply wearing well fitted breaches and a rather nice frock-coat that did nothing to hide the curves of her body despite that it was a man’s garment. She put the rum on the table where Jax could reach it but not so close to the inebriated captain. She pulled out a purse of coin, carefully counted for what she could afford to lose and plunked it down not far from the rum.

“Captain, I wonder if you would you do me a great kindness and explain to me how this game, [i]Gleet[/i] is played? It is [i]Gleet[/i] isn’t it?” Innocent confusion dripped from her honeyed voice as her surgeon’s fingers traced idly over the coin in her purse.