“Sod it, I’ll do it,” one of the men said and scratched at the door. “Cap’n?”

With her heart in her throat, Sarani darted toward the bed and hiked her skirts, hopping onto the wooden bed rail. It creaked. She froze midstep as the captain let out a snore but didn’t move. He was enormous, like a slumbering giant. Carefully, she moved to the lower rail at the end of the bed and then lifted one foot over his feet, nearly kicking over a heap of books beside it and toppling the topmost one. It made a soft thump as it fell open, but the captain didn’t stir.

A sheaf of what looked like translated literature from the Royal Asiatic Society drew her eye. Poetry, if she had to guess. Other volumes in the stack caught her eye, including Vanity Fair: A Novel without a Hero, a book by Thackeray that had sparked many an impassioned discussion once upon a time with said boy from her past.

“The Sedleys are selfish bigots,” she remembered telling him. “They don’t care if their son is happy, only that he marries the right pedigree.”

He’d nodded. “That’s the way of the nobility.”

“That might be so, but my parents made a love match. And what about poor Miss Swartz? It’s revolting, such hypocrisy. They were willing to accept her money, but not her, simply by virtue of her Jamaican heritage. How is that fair?”

“It’s not. And your parents were a rare exception to the rule.”

“I want to dismantle the rules!” she’d growled.

The look on his face had been one of awed admiration. “If anyone can do that, you can.”

Sarani blinked away the memory. What were the odds?

And why was she thinking about him?

Move, Sarani. Now’s hardly the time to reminisce.

Giving her head a frustrated shake, she’d just made it to the other side when the tapping stopped and the doorknob turned. Her heart pounding, Sarani dove behind the privy door just before a head of carrot-red hair appeared in the opening.

“Cap’n?” the redhead whispered and tiptoed to the bed. “He’s dead asleep, lads,” he said, creeping back to the two others waiting in the corridor.

After a few more seconds of frantic argument, they shut the cabin door. Sarani stayed put, taking in the small water closet and then the empty chamber pot. She was fit to bursting. It wouldn’t hurt to relieve herself, would it? The captain wouldn’t be the wiser, and she’d rather not soil herself. Making quick work of it, she gathered her skirts and did her business with no small amount of relief before cracking the door and peeking around it.