“Stupid girl,” she admonished herself beneath her breath as she took the hand he offered.

She wasn’t wearing gloves, she’d forgotten them in her excitement to escape on this adventure gone wrong. When her palm touched his, she felt a thrill of something, a hiss of awareness that shot up her arm and through her body.

She stepped into the boat and snatched her hand away as she settled onto one of the hard benches in the middle of the boat. Rook Maitland took the one facing her. He was so big, his knees pushed into her space and their legs almost touched no matter how far back she tried to tuck them. She huffed out a breath at this new invasion and tried with all her might to make her mind go somewhere else. Anywhere else but here.

Only it wasn’t so easy. Not when her mind kept taking her back to her family. She had to assume that Thomasina would have returned to her chamber after the ball. She would have found the letter Anne had left. The one filled with hopes for a future with Ellis that now seemed so faded and far away and foolish. What would her sister have thought? What would Juliana think? Would they be able to manage their father’s outrage together? Would Harcourt’s fury lead to untold punishments against them?

She bent her head as the consequences of her selfish action washed over her like the bouncing waves that occasionally crested over the edge of the boat as they rowed farther into the heart of the Irish Sea. In the dark.

She lifted her head and found Rook Maitland watching her. He was hardly more than a shadow outline in their captain’s lantern light, but his dark gaze glittered as he held it on her.

“How far must we go?” she asked as the sea bobbed heavier.

He was silent for what felt like an eternity, but at last he grunted, “It will be a few hours, yet. It’s a long row to Scotland.”

Her eyes widened. Scotland? She had thought that idea was abandoned when Ellis sent her off with this man. But if they were crossing the sea after all, perhaps that meant Ellis wasn’t the villain he had seemed to be. Perhaps he would return for her after all and this could be resolved just as she’d planned from the beginning.

She clung to that hope and nodded. “What town?” she asked.

“You have a great many questions,” her companion said softly. “Why didn’t you ask Ellis about his plans for you, as he is your love?”

She bit back the retort that she didn’t love Ellis and shrugged. “I thought I knew the plan,” she said. “So I didn’t ask. And here we are.”

He nodded slowly. “Yes. Here you are.”

She realized he hadn’t answered her question about the town, but she was too exhausted to ask again. She would find out soon enough, she supposed. And if he was reticent to share with her, perhaps that was for the best. He wasn’t going to be her companion for very long. It was probably best that an unmarried lady didn’t attach herself too strongly to a very handsome cousin of her intended. People would talk, wouldn’t they?