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“Nay, nothing so dramatic. If you would know the truth, I thought you dazzling, devastatingly handsome. But your anger made you unfamiliar, somehow alien to me. I think I would have gladly accepted oblivion at that moment.”
“Your pride is as great as mine, cara, and you gave me measure for measure.” He grinned at her suddenly, and his hands loosed from about her back and dropped downward to her hips. “You have complained not one whit about your shoulder. Perhaps you should have your promised thrashing today.”
“The pain is great, my lord, it is simply that
I am a stoic. You promised me two days. I shall hold you to it.”
He eyed her silently for a moment, and grinned. “I do not believe it.”
“Believe what, my lord?”
“That you are still awake, my love. Have I given you so little pleasure that our lovemaking no longer serves as a sleeping drought?”
“I would never be so inconsiderate to my husband,” she said, “only to my lover.”
Chapter 29
She talked with boundless energy, of everything. There were no more private, secret places in her mind from which she kept him. Except for the child.
Her only bout of morning sickness happened when she was alone. She was creeping quietly along the companionway after washing out the basin herself when Scargill appeared.
He looked at her pale face, and the basin, and shook his head. “Ye must tell him, lass.”
He held out his hand, and she silently handed him the basin.
“Ye’re being foolish, ye know, ’twould give him great joy.”
She sighed. “I know. At least I think I do. You and Joseph, both of you always knew what was in my mind.” She felt her mouth tremble; she gulped and straightened her shoulders. She still felt weak from being ill, and it was making her behave foolishly.
“I can’t imagine, lassie, how ye could ever believe otherwise. Joseph would have told ye the same thing. Go lie down now until ye recover yer energy. Ye’ve so much. The men would likely blame the captain if they saw ye so woebegone and limp.
“His lordship will be here at any moment, lass. He is never long apart from ye.” He nodded encouragement and left her, carrying the basin under his arm.
Cassie waited for the earl, watching the white-topped waves and the sails billowed by the stiff March breeze. She tired of waiting for him, and shaded her eyes against the bright morning sun, making her way nimbly toward Mr. Donnetti, who hovered as always like a lean hungry hawk over the wheel.
“Where is his lordship, Mr. Donnetti?”
Her tone was diffident, for she did not know Francesco as well as Scargill.
Mr. Donnetti smiled down at her in what looked to be an assessing way, but it was merely the habitual set of his mouth, and the measured droop of his eyelids.
“The captain is settling a minor dispute.”
“What dispute? He told me nothing of it. What has happened, Mr. Donnetti?”
“Nothing to cause any particular concern, madonna.” His voice was almost indifferent. These were halcyon days for his master and mistress, and he wished now that he had kept his mouth shut.
But Cassie was not to be put off. “I repeat, Mr. Donnetti, what is the dispute?”
He shrugged and hunched more closely over the giant wheel. “One of the men, madonna, a new man, in fact, hired on just before we left Genoa. Capable enough, I suppose, and until last night, quiet to the point of being surly toward the other men. Unfortunately, he got his hands on a bottle of gin. Turned nasty he did and drew a knife on Arturo of all people. Claimed Arturo was feeding the crew swill fit only for pigs.” Mr. Donnetti shrugged again, philosophically. “I disarmed him, of course, but the captain had to be told.”
“What is the captain doing?”
“Twelve lashes. I’d throw the swine overboard myself.”
Cassie turned inadvertently toward the mainmast.
“Below-deck, madonna,” Francesco said, following her eyes. “The captain would not want you to witness the flogging.”
