" That”-Mr. Grayson slammed the door of the captain’s cabin-“was the most breathtaking display of stupidity I have ever witnessed in my life.”
Sophia cringed in her chair as he plunked a basin of water on the table. Liquid sloshed over the side, trickling toward the floor. With jerky motions, he removed a flask from his breast pocket, unscrewed the top, and added a splash of brandy. Then he threw back a healthy swallow, himself.
She’d never seen him so agitated. He took everything as a joke, laughed off confrontation, deflected insult with a roguish smile.
“You’re angry,” she said.
“Damn right, I’m angry. I’d like to string every one of those bloody idiots up to the yardarm and shout them deaf.”
“So why are you here, shouting at me?”
He yanked open a drawer and removed a box. When he flung it on the table and flipped the latch, the box proved to be a medicine kit, crowded with brown glass vials and plasters and rolls of gauze.
“Because…” With a sullen sigh, he dropped into the other chair. “Shouting the crew deaf is the captain’s privilege. And I’m not the captain. So I’m here instead, playing nursemaid. Give me your hands. "

― Tessa Dare , Surrender of a Siren (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy, #2)