LITMIR.BIZ

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and sipped her fragrant brew with what he guessed was feminine satisfaction in producing something edible when two supposedly strong men had been unable to do so between them. ‘It’s good to be busy once more,’ she added and he wondered if a life of silken idleness had palled on such an unusual Cyprian.

      ‘I’d be an ingrate if I failed to appreciate the fruits of your labour, even so,’ he said as he laid down his knife and fork to pour coffee and add sugar to it.

      ‘Should I pass you the cream?’ she asked.

      ‘No, thank you, I became used to going without it on board ship.’

      ‘Don’t most captains take a cow with them on long voyages?’ she asked and he wondered if she’d studied the life of a sea captain because her lover often lived that life without her. The shock of pure venomous jealousy at the very idea of her pining for her lover brought him up short and made him glare at his own hand stirring his coffee as if it had mortally offended him.

      ‘Sometimes there isn’t enough room for luxuries,’ he managed fairly normally.

      ‘Oh, yes, merchantmen are carefully designed to make use of every available inch of space for cargo, are they not?’ she replied, setting off that demon of envy in him once more and making him even more silently furious with himself.

      ‘Men-of-war are just as niggardly with every spare inch they can gain, having a goodly quantity of ammunition and unstable gunpowder to stow, as well as a vastly greater crew to accommodate,’ he explained.

      ‘It must be strange for you to go to sea as captain of a merchantman after commanding in the Royal Navy,’ she mused, blasting his attempt at replacing the general with the personal out of the water. He sighed as he lay back in his chair to sip his coffee and met her eyes warily.

      ‘I never said I’d been a navy man,’ he argued, almost groaning aloud at the defensiveness in his voice. It was still a wound he hated to have probed, which seemed foolish in the extreme compared to everything else he’d lost.

      ‘How else to account for the naval officer’s sword in the larder, I wonder?’ she said with a pretence at scratching her head. ‘Was Coste a dashing captain at Trafalgar, I wonder? Or perhaps he’s really an admiral on half-pay, when not pretending to be Kit’s hall porter and supposed watchman? No, I think the sword must be yours, Captain. I doubt Coste rose above able seaman in his entire career at sea and neither Kit nor Ben have served in the Royal Navy.’

      ‘It’s not so very different,’ he admitted because it was easier than arguing. ‘The sea can only be read or even guessed at by good navigation and a weather eye on her contrary moods. It’s still my job to decide if it’s wiser to sail before the wind or ride out a storm in safe anchorage. And at least I have a sound, fast ship that isn’t an easy target for any enterprising French frigate captain, eager to build a fine and romantic reputation as a triumphant sea wolf.’

      ‘And did you once roam the seas looking for such prey yourself?’

      ‘Of course, that’s what the Admiralty expects of flag officers not on blockade.’

      ‘And were you good at it?’

      ‘Naval captains must prove worthy of their rank if they expect to stay at sea,’ he said carefully.

      ‘And some do so more easily than others, I dare say,’ she said blandly, so why didn’t he trust her smile?

      ‘Perhaps,’ he replied tersely.

      ‘And you were one of them,’ she said and he cursed himself for giving her a clue if she ever wanted to track him down.

      At least the Admiralty hadn’t ordered the breaking of the sword now resting in Kit’s larder, or his speedy expulsion from the Service. He almost wished they had, so it couldn’t follow him like a symbol of all he no longer was, but couldn’t quite discard.

      ‘Don’t bother visiting the Admiralty to find out how and when they lost or mislaid one of their junior officers, will you? Their lordships don’t encourage idle curiosity.’

      ‘Who says it would be idle? And you’re very defensive about a career you pretend not to care a fig for, Captain Darke,’ she said shrewdly.

      ‘Perhaps I hate having my life picked over for the amusement of others?’

      ‘And I don’t have time or inclination for idle gossip, Captain Darke.’

      ‘Then you must be the most unusual female I have ever met.’

      ‘Please don’t think me artless enough to mistake that for a compliment,’ she countered smoothly, yet he felt he’d annoyed her by lumping her with the more curious of her kind and tried to be glad of it.

      ‘I don’t think you in the least bit artless, I assure you, Miss La Rochelle,’ he said with a cynical almost-smile she didn’t bother to return.

      ‘Clearly,’ she told him, but he thought he saw a shadow of pain in her blue eyes before she gathered up their dirty crockery and bore it off to the scullery.

      ‘You hardly need to be with so many charms already in your armoury,’ he explained clumsily—why must he follow her into that utilitarian room when she’d given him an ideal escape route?

      ‘Look what you’ve made me do now,’ she chided fiercely as she jumped on finding him so close to her, splashed herself, then swatted angrily at the large wet patch plastering her dusky shirt to her torso with a glass cloth.

      He did just what she asked and the cool scullery was suddenly close and stuffy as his gaze lingered on wet dark linen, clinging emphatically to wet woman and almost as closely plastered to her fine breasts and tightly furled nipples as he’d like to be himself. Hard and fierce and instantly emphatic, his painful erection would have informed him he wanted her any way he could get her, even if his hungry eyes weren’t busy devouring her like a lover. Want flared hot and heady between them again, but on its heels came a dark memory of his younger self, home from the sea and pitifully eager for the woman he thought was his. At least his wife’s betrayal had armoured him against mistaking lust for anything else. He assured himself that his annoying reaction to Eloise La Rochelle, or whatever she cared to call herself, was a physical thing he’d learn to ignore and nothing deeper.

      ‘I wish you good day and expect you to be gone by the time I get home, madam,’ he informed her stiffly and turned to pick up his coat from the chair he’d flung it on to earlier, shrugging into it as he cravenly bolted for the front door and freedom from wanting what he couldn’t have.

      At least it should have been freedom, except he had to halt stock-still on Kit’s doorstep to breathe deeply and steadily as he thought hard about desolate arctic waters and relentless storms at sea. At last he was respectable enough to proceed through this confoundedly civilised neighbourhood without his very obvious need for Miss Eloise La Rochelle and her magnificent body instantly causing a scandal.

      Not just her body either, he couldn’t help but recall as he marched rather blindly along the wide streets to his destination. She had that acute, questing mind and an unexpected sense of humour to render her almost irresistible as well. He let himself consider the unique charms of such a contrary, intriguing woman for a moment and would have been horrified to know an unguarded smile quirked his mouth as he did so. Most of the time she was as knowing as any street urchin, full of self-reliance and used to hardship almost from birth, then she’d astonish him with an eager enthusiasm for life and suddenly seem as coltish as any ingénue. No, he assured himself, he was long past being a fit companion for any sort of innocent, even if it was Eloise the buccaneer. Once again, he fought his over-active imagination as he pictured her in that black shirt aiming a pirate ship at his sturdy merchantman, and discovered how much he’d relish capturing and taming such an unlikely opponent when she failed to overrun him.

      ‘Idiot,’ he chided himself as he nearly walked into a lamppost. A little restored to his usual stern self, he strolled towards Stone & Shaw’s offices in the City, but was still too preoccupied with his eventful evening, sore head and unwanted

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