Laura saw at a glance that his clothes, worn as they were, were well cut, and that he carried them with ease. His hair was dark, his eyes—of an indefinable color—inscrutable, distanced. He needed a haircut, and a shave. He didn't—quite—look disreputable; but then, he didn't look not disreputable. He was coiling a heaving line that she'd noticed earlier in a tangle on deck; she shifted her look to the heavy monkey's fist that swung at the end of the line as he gathered up the coils. He frightened her. "I thought I asked everyone to leave," she said, her voice tense. "Ask, nothing. You shouted everyone off this vessel," he said with a slow smile as he hung the neatly coiled heaving line on a belaying pin. "Without success, obviously." She watched him cautiously as he ran his gaze up the length of the spruce mast, itself the thickness of a man's waist, until it was lost in the night sky. "Wants a good oiling," he commented, shifting that inscrutable look to her face. She took it personally, as if he'd told her her skin was too dry.
What do You think about By The Sea, Book Three: Laura?
