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“Unbelievable comfort, Cap’n.”
“There, you see?”
Rollo threw up his hands.
Flash withdrew his still-itching hands from his pockets and looked wistfully toward the steadily drinking, quite inattentive merchant. The urge to lighten the merchant’s pockets wasn’t as strong as it used to be, thank the powers. He’d be twenty in four months. Rafael had promised him that when he became twenty, all urges toward criminality would disappear. He believed Rafael implicitly.
“Ye’re a divil, Cap’n,” said Lindy fondly. She ran light fingertips through Rafael’s thick black hair. “Aye, a divil.”
Rollo rolled his eyes. “Come on, Flash, let’s get back. He’ll be all right.” The two men left the Blue Boar, the prosperous merchant, and their sodden captain.
“He’ll be all right,” Rollo said again.
“He might not be the divil,” said Flash, a gamin smile lighting up his thin face, “but he’ll feel the very divil tomorrow.”
“Aye, but his night will be pleasant enough.”
“Not if he keeps drinking that vile swill.”
“I daresay that the girl, Lindy, will know when he’s had enough.”
Lindy, at that very moment, was gently prying the snifter from Rafael’s long fingers. “It grows late, Cap’n. Me feet are weary.”
Rafael looked up at her, but his eyes didn’t range further north than her bosom. “And the rest of you, my girl?” His look was lazy, his voice drawling.
She chuckled, and stroked her fingers over his jaw. “Ye come with me, me fine lad, and I’ll show ye.”
As Rafael followed Lindy upstairs, he devoutly prayed that his major working parts wouldn’t shut down and leave him humiliated as well as drunk. Lindy paused a moment, turning to face him from the step above. His face was on a level with her bosom. He leaned forward and kissed the soft white flesh.
“Ah,” said Lindy, and pressed his face close. He was right and randy, this lovely man. The moment he’d come into the Blue Boar, she’d known she wanted to bed him. It was the way he looked at her that made her know, simply know that he was a man who was generous with a woman, a man who enjoyed a woman’s body and her pleasure. The fact that he was one of the most beautiful men she’d ever served unwatered brandy to made her leap of faith final. His body, she had observed during the long evening, would be as magnificent as his silver-gray eyes. Ah, yes, she would enjoy him thoroughly.
She smiled as she slid her hand down his body. When her fingers closed about him, she said softly, with immense satisfaction, “Aye, ye are a divil.”
Elaine Carstairs, Baroness Drago, looked at her younger cousin across the breakfast table. It was an altogether lovely morning, the sun bright, a nip of fall briskness in the air. “What is wrong with you, Victoria? You are always up beforetimes. Is there something you wish from me?”
It was late, Victoria knew, and Elaine, now six months pregnant, didn’t rise until at least ten o’clock in the morning. And Victoria had waited in her locked room until she guessed Elaine would be in the breakfast room.
“Well, Victoria?”
Yes, Victoria wanted to shout at her suddenly, I want you to keep your husband away from me. But she only shook her head and bit into her now-cold slice of toast.
“I must say that you don’t look yourself. I am the one increasing, and here you are with shadows under your eyes looking quite awful. I hope you aren’t sickening with anything.”
How to tell her cousin that she hadn’t slept, that fear of Damien had made her cower like a helpless creature in her bed, afraid even to answer the maid’s knock.
“I trust you are well enough to take Damaris riding? The child could talk of nothing else when I visited the nursery this morning. If you call that prattle of hers talking, of course.”
“Yes,” Victoria said, looking up from her plate of congealed eggs. “I’ll fetch her in just a little while.”
“Victoria! Really, what is wrong with you?”
“What’s this? You aren’t well, little cousin?”
Victoria felt the small amount of breakfast form a hard knot in her stomach at the sound of Damien’s smooth voice. She forced herself to take a deep breath and look up at him. “I am well,” she said, her voice cold, stilted. “I will take your daughter riding.”
“Excellent,” said Damien. “I do believe I will join you. We will ride to St. Austell, if you like. I have business there.”
“She looks awful,” Elaine said, not mincing matters. “If she is sickening, I don’t wish her to be near Damaris.”
