Page 93 of Dangerous

He and Mia made love and talked as they’d never done before, even during those first heady days of their marriage. She told him of life in the sultan’s palace and how she’d decided early on that she would not be angry or self-pitying, but work to make a better life for her son. He told her of his childhood, his life at school, and the years he’d spent alone after his last marriage.

After that first week they’d taken to sharing their evening meal with Bouchard and then playing cribbage or a three-handed game the Frenchman knew called nines.

If someone had told him two weeks ago that he and Bouchard—a man he’d immediately wanted to kill—would enjoy each other’s company, he would have thought they were mad.

As much as Adam enjoyed the afternoons and evenings lounging, he was accustomed to physical activity and long days without any way to exercise his body would have been hellish. The second week on board he’d found a spot where he was in nobody’s way and woke just before dawn to practice fencing on the foredeck.

One of the sailors must have passed word along to their captain because Adam arrived the next morning to find Bouchard waiting for him, sword in hand.

“Captain, what a . . . surprise,” Adam said, giving the younger man the chilling look he’d found so useful at the card table. He might like Bouchard, but he’d be damned before he ever showed it. The man was the most arrogant, obnoxious, and mercurial human Adam had ever met. There was no point in stroking his ego by demonstrating anything that might be misconstrued as admiration.

“I ’ear you are up ’ere stabbing de air, my lord. I tink maybe you would enjoy stabbing me more, eh?”

Bouchard’s smirk made Adam’s hand twitch. Which made him look at his blade.

“I do not spar with real blades. The last thing I need is to kill you and have your crew toss me to the fishes.”

Bouchard thought this was hilarious. “Yes, the last ting I need is to kill you and ’ave . . . have,” he corrected, “your wife toss me to the fishes.”

They both had a laugh at that.

“It’s a pity we don’t have any practice blades.” Adam thought for a moment and then had an idea. “We have killed more than one bottle of wine between us—are there any corks around? It would do for mine.” He looked at the narrow point of his sword. Yes, one cork should blunt the end. They would need to make sure to test it frequently.

He looked at Bouchard’s sabre. “I think perhaps yours may require a few.”

The Frenchman nodded.

While Bouchard went to procure corks Adam stripped off his waistcoat and shirt and began the stretches Beauleaux insisted on before sparring.

He was midway through his final set when the younger man returned. He watched Adam until he finished and then handed him a couple corks.

“What is dat you do?” Bouchard asked, carefully slicing the first of the corks he’d brought with the sharp blade.

“Stretching exercises.” Adam pierced the cork with the end of his short sword and watched Bouchard. He’d brought a bucket of corks and was putting several down the blade. Probably a wise idea.

“Stretching exercises?” He said the last two words as if they were new to him. Which they probably were. The man’s English was good—indeed he seemed to be improving every day—but he still missed many words.

“It is so you do not hurt yourself—your body.” He saw Bouchard’s smirk, and smiled. “You can laugh now. Just wait until you are my age. You will wish you’d treated your body better.”

The Frenchman thought that was funny. “’Ow old are you?” he asked, fitting the last cork onto the sabre.

“Older than you.”

Bouchard found Adam’s attempted setdown even more amusing.

“So, we are ready, old man? Or you need more stretching exercises?”

Adam ignored his taunting and took his position, “En garde!”

The next hour was one of the most grueling of Adam’s entire life. Not even at Eton, where the goal of fencing practice had been to either behead or thrash one’s mates as savagely as possible, had he ever fought the likes of Bouchard.

The Frenchman had learned his skills while using them and his was not the style of gentlemen’s sons all over Europe. As a result, nothing Bouchard did was predictable or followed any particular style or school. If Adam wasn’t aware every second, he ended up defending to within an inch of his life. Bouchard thrived on chaos: it didn’t matter what Adam did; the man was ready to engage.

By the third morning they had a small audience, not to mention Ramsay, whose Ghost was running alongside the Scythe that day. The two ships came close enough for the baron to yell brief messages back and forth. The thrust of Ramsay’s messages was to make certain the two men weren’t trying to kill each other.

Every day they became a little more evenly matched, until it was almost impossible for either of them to score a touch.

This morning was their last bout. Adam bowed to the younger man once they’d finished, and they shook hands.