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“Ye can’t see much from here.”
She turned to Scargill, who was shading his eyes with his hands, looking toward land.
“Ye’ll turn dark as a blackamoor, if ye don’t have a care.” He indulgently eyed the light sprinkle of freckles across the bridge of her nose.
She raised her golden-tanned face toward the sun, disregarding him. “We will put into port, Scargill?”
“Nay, madonna, it’s hardly likely.”
At the tightening of her lips, he added lightly, “If ye know yer politics, ye’ll realize that the Spanish are no friends to the English.”
“His lordship does not have a Spanish flag?”
Scargill shook his head at her ill-disguised sarcasm.
She doubted that the earl would put into port in any case, unless, of course, she thought bitterly, he were to lock her in the cabin for the duration. At least this wasn’t the case as long as they were at sea. The earl had given her free run of the yacht, though he forbade her the wearing of breeches. “I think it would be unwise,” he had said one evening, grinning at her crookedly, “to tempt my men more than they already are. The sight of you in breeches would doubtless encourage them to mutiny.”
She looked midway up the mainmast at Angelo’s perched figure and sighed enviously. Her skirts billowed in the sea breeze, and she slapped them down, her illhumor mounting.
As though he had read her thoughts, Scargill said gently, “Ye know that his lordship is in the right, madonna. To see such a figure as yers climbing the rigging would surely cause the men to forget their duties. Ye wouldn’t wish to be the cause of a man having the skin flailed off his back. It would be the lightest punishment his lordship would mete out, ye know.”
“I daresay that such a display of viciousness would well fit his character.”
Cassie bit her lip as the earl’s voice boomed out behind her. “Perhaps, Cassandra, but then I have never informed you what your punishment for such disobedience would be.”
She whirled about. “Is it also your habit to eavesdrop on other people’s conversations, my lord?”
“There’s no need to get yerself all a-twitter, madonna,” Scargill said easily, raising a placating hand. “Ye know his lordship is the captain and thus must keep himself apprised of all that goes on.”
“And just what would my punishment be, my lord?” Cassie demanded coldly, ignoring Scargill.
“What do you think would be just?”
“I would say, my lord, that the punishment I have received already at your hands is sufficient for anyone’s lifetime.”
The earl waved Scargill away, a signal that the valet obeyed with alacrity. He took a step nearer to Cassie, and she held her ground, her expression forbidding. His voice dropped to a caressing murmur. “It is no way my fault, Cassandra, that you have felt punished for our four days of abstinence.”
“How dare you?” Angry and embarrassed color mounted her cheeks.
“How dare I what? Remind you that you are a woman and not a sailor to be climbing over the rigging dressed in breeches?” As the gleam of fury did not abate, he added placidly, “If we have another storm, I will approve the breeches for its duration.”
“How very kind you are.”
“Remind me to hide your dinner knife, cara, since you are in such a foul temper.” She turned away from him, and he stood quietly for several moments watching her walk quickly to the forecastle deck where several of his men were working.
“’Twould appear to me that ye make little headway, my lord,” Scargill said pensively, walking into the earl’s view. Out of habit, he smoothed down the coarse lock of red hair that fell over his forehead.
“It has been but two weeks,” the earl said coolly, shifting his gaze toward the distant Spanish coastline. “If I do not despair of the outcome, why should you?”
Emboldened by the earl’s direct question, Scargill said quickly, “Ye have the habit of twitting the girl mercilessly, my lord, and though the madonna is sharper in her wits than most ladies I’ve known, she has no chance with ye, what with ye being so much older and experienced. Hardly loverlike ye be, my lord.”
The earl laughed. “The madonna, as you and the men persist in calling her, despite her tender years, is quite able to cross swords with me. Verbally that is. And as to my not being loverlike, I doubt that you or anyone else is qualified to judge. Now, if you have done with dissecting my character, I suggest you speak with Arturo. I require a special dinner this evening for my lady, something very English for her waning appetite. It will be in the nature of a celebration. You might even call i
t a monthly celebration.” Grinning to himself, he turned away, his destination the helm and Mr. Donnetti.
As he strode along the highly polished deck, his eyes strayed toward Cassandra, who was sitting cross-legged, her skirts modestly tucked over her ankles, listening with avid attention to undoubtedly outrageous tales spun by Joseph, a rotund little Corsican once in the employ of the Barbary pirates. Hie men had taken to her, no doubt about that. A lady to her fingertips who did not lord it over any of them, and a lady whose sailing skills bettered those of many a man. When it became common knowledge that she spoke Italian, he had noticed with a rueful smile that the habitual foul language his men used all but disappeared.
The earl paused a moment and gazed up at the wind-bloated sails, estimating their speed. Since the storm in the Channel, the weather had turned glorious and warm. Though it was the end of June, the Atlantic was not famed for such a continued spate of good weather. If it held, they would reach Genoa a good week beforetimes.
