"Then how can you be sure it was a seaman?"
"The smell."
"The smell?"
"Yes." She shifted under the blanket, trying to find a more comfortable position. Her entire body felt bruised. "Sailors have their own unique odor, and unless you have passengers who go similar lengths of time without bathing and spend the majority of that time in the salty air, it was a sailor."
He didn't believe her. She could see it in his eyes.
"I know sailors. I've been around them all my life."
He still looked unconvinced. "Was he drunk?"
Remembering the man's brute strength and steadiness on his feet, she shivered and shook her head. "No. I don't think so."
"I guess you could tell that by his smell, too?"
She glared at Drake. "As a matter of fact, his breath was too awful to have recently been cleansed with any sort of spirits."
He shook his head. "It doesn't make sense. Thea, every seaman on this ship knows that it's worth his life to attack a female passenger. Even drunk, most of them would never think of it, much less act on the impulse."
"Why isn't it worth his life to attack a man?"
Drake looked at her as if she had lost her mind. "He would have no reason to attack a man."
"Well, I didn't think he had any reason to attack me either." She moved again. There was simply no comfortable position. "Imagine wanting to throw a passenger overboard. He must be mad."
Drake grabbed her shoulders in a painful grip. "He tried to throw you overboard?"
"I have enough bruises from tonight's adventure. You needn't add to them."
He immediately loosened his hold, but he didn't release her. "Explain."
She nodded and began with the villain accosting her from behind, continuing until she had told Drake everything.
"He said something about fighting with the sharks and dragged me toward the side of the ship." She didn't realize she was crying until she tasted the salt of tears on her lips.
Drake brushed her cheeks with gentle fingers. "I don't understand."
"I don't either."
Although now that she had gone over the events again, she couldn't help wondering if this incident and the accident at Merewether Shipping were related. She could not afford to dismiss it as coincidence. Since writing the letter to the London office regarding the discrepancies in the ledgers, she'd had two nearly fatal experiences. Her instincts were screaming that the incidents had something to do with her investigation.
"You know something." His grip tightened. "Bloody hell. What is it?"
She winced and his fingers loosened again. This time he caressed her arms. "Sore?"
"Yes. I feel as if I've been tossed about in a runaway carriage."
"You have experience being knocked around in runaway carriages?" A quizzical smile tilted the corner of his lips.
"Well, yes, actually. When I was fourteen. One of Jacob's sons decided to play a trick on me and put a thorn under the harness of the horse when I was learning to take the leads."
"What happened to Jacob's son?"
"I couldn't say for certain, but he didn't sit in my presence for several days."
Drake's dark eyes glinted with amusement and she leaned into him, relaxing in the strength of his embrace. She felt safe.