Asha had taken to playing a type of bamboo wind instrument, called a shehnai, in the evenings. The crew flocked to her like children waiting for sweets, and Rhystan didn’t deny them the musical entertainment. The discordant notes of the shehnai were mournful and beautiful in equal measure, and the maid’s skill with the instrument was remarkable.

It reminded him of his time in Joor.

He suspected the same was true for Lady Lockhart, who usually watched from the side with an undecipherable expression on her face. Sadness? Nostalgia? If he recalled correctly, she played as well, though her talents also extended to the pianoforte and the harp.

Once more, the thought of her made him scowl.

The crafty little imp defied him at every turn. If he gave an errand or a job, she went out of her way to botch it, and when he confronted her about it, she was all doe-eyed innocence. Rhystan knew she was pulling one over him. No one could be that naive or clumsy or unintelligent. And he knew for a fact she wasn’t.

He tasked her to mend his clothes, and she somehow managed to sew the sleeves shut. He ordered her to dust his cabin, and she managed to find a rag that the cook had used to wipe his hands while gutting fish. His quarters had stunk of fish entrails for days on end. He’d had half a mind to make them switch rooms and have her sleep in the stench she’d created, but he couldn’t bring himself to give up the bed that had been built to accommodate his large frame. He’d borne the reek in grim silence until it had faded.

His precious collection of books had been rearranged by binding color and then size—nautical and scientific texts mixed in willy-nilly with volumes of Shakespeare and poetry. It’d taken him hours to find one with charts he’d been working on, lodged neatly between Thoreau and Brontë. If she hadn’t boasted once upon a time that her own collection of books in Joor was meticulously arranged by subject and author, he would have thought it a blunder.

No, it had been intentional.

Rhystan supposed they were small acts of rebellion, considering how crudely he’d treated her that first day of discovery. But he hadn’t escaped punishment either. Despite the tomfoolery, desire was a double-edged sword that cared little for its wounded.

Her constant presence wore at him, getting under his skin and driving him mad. Her jasmine scent lingered everywhere. Not a day went by that he didn’t wake with an erection or go to bed without one, and his dreams were chock-full of erotic fantasies, all of which included her.

Not that he would ever admit that.