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Perdie chuckled. “I’ll ensure I will divorce you once we get back to Felicity and Hattie.”
A scowl darkened his handsome face. “I’ll just declare you are my wife again. Do you ken I could meet an amazing gun-toting, rapier-brandishing bonny lass like you who also walks and speaks elegantly like a princess and allow you to slip from me. Am I daft?” He shrugged. “For better or worse, Perdie, dearest, for better or worse…”
Perdie glared at him. Ought she to be amused, scandalized, or outraged? Her mouth dried as he started rolling up the cuffs of the shirt he wore, displaying his brawny forearms and the dusting of hair on them.
Weakly, she said, “A gentleman wouldn’t speak of a lady’s behind. Don’t you know we ladies don’t like to be reminded we have them?”
He smiled. “’Tis a pity, as I’m not likely to forget.”
Definitely scandalized.
With the hint of his Scottish burr in his voice, she couldn’t bring herself to be insulted.
Instead, she cleared her throat and asked, “What’s for dinner?”
“Fish,” he said jauntily and set about searching the bank nearby.
Perdie rolled her eyes and reached under her skirt to fetch out the pistol still hidden in her waistband. “If it’s fish we need, I could do that. They don’t move very fast.” At least, so she hoped. She only had one shot.
Thaddeus stared at her. “Please tell me that isn’t loaded.”
She hiked up her chin. “It’s none of your business.”
“It is my business if you shoot a bleeding hole through your leg on accident.”
She raised her wrist, the bag dangling from it several shades darker than the pink of her underdress. “I put the ball and powder in my reticule.”
Not that her assurance seemed to quell Thaddeus’s sudden black mood. He gestured at her. “Put that thing away. If you try to shoot the fish, you’re like to leave a bigger hole than what we’ll have left to eat. Besides, it won’t do for you to waste our only shot.”
She rested the pistol on her knee and narrowed her eyes at him. “Oh? And you propose to do better?” She could have fetched the bow and arrow from the carriage, but instead she raised an imperious eyebrow. “Let me guess—a big brawny man like you is going to catch a fish for me with your bare hands.”
It was his turn to snort in incredulity. A smile teased the corners of his mouth. The look he gave her warmed her from the inside out. She curled her toes in her boots before remembering that she ought to keep her distance from him—emotional and physical.
“I’ll catch the fish with a stick, milady. I’ve done it often enough in my youth.”
She chuffed out a laugh. “Because you’re ancient.”
“I think I’ve got a fair more years on me than you.”
“I’m nineteen,” she said primly, suddenly feeling absurdly young.
“Seven and twenty,” he said triumphantly. With that, he pulled a branch from the ground and used his boot knife to sharpen the tip. Perdie watched him all the while, keeping a challenge in her eyes.
He caught not one fish, but five, on five separate sticks. She found herself entranced with the way his shoulders bunched before he struck with the makeshift spear. With each triumph, he presented the fish to her like a bouquet of roses. She didn’t squeal or turn away, though she did hold the flopping creatures at an angle away from her to preserve her skirts. When he caught the fifth, he turned to her with a look of such triumph in his eyes that it stole her breath. She felt like she was standing on the bridge with him again, her wrists clasped in his hands and their breaths near to mingling. She swallowed heavily, forcing down the feeling before he read it in her expression.
“Now let’s return. I’ll start a fire while Lionel cleans and guts these fishes.”
Perdie glanced at them. “Only five?”
“There are five of us.”
Her belly rumbled and she smiled sheepishly. “One fish each…that is half a course.”
“Given the size of these fishes, I would say at least two courses.” He grinned. “I will catch another for you.”
She pointed at a large fish moving swiftly through the water. “That big silver and blue one. Not the smaller ones clustered around him.”
He regarded her with amusement. “Why not? Anything else? The moon while I am at it?”
