by Bianca D’Arc
“Drink or no, I meant what I said.”
“Are you proposing? Marriage? To me?” She laughed as if it were a joke. She didn’t believe him.
“I am.”
She eyed him more closely, her gaze narrowing even as one marmalade eyebrow rose in assessment. “Do you have a fatal disease?”
“No.”
“Are you engaged to fight a duel?”
“Again, no.”
“Condemned to death?” She straightened with a fluid undulation, her spine lifting her head up in surprise as the thought entered her head, all worldliness temporarily obliterated. “Planning a suicide?”
“No and no.” It was so hard not to smile. Such an arch, charming combination of concern and cheek. The cheek won out: she gave him that feral, slightly suspicious smile.
“Then how do you plan to arrange it, the ‘without the man’ portion of the proceedings? I’ll want some sort of guarantee. You can’t imagine I’m gullible enough to leave your fate, or my own for that matter, to chance.”
A low heat flared within him. By God, she really was considering it.
“And yet, Lizzie, I think you may. I am an officer of His Majesty’s Royal Navy and am engaged to captain a convoy of prison ships to the Antipodes. I leave only days from now. The last time I was home, in England, was four and a half years ago and then only for a few months to recoup from a near fatal wound. This trip is slated to take at least eight. Years.”
Her face cleared of all traces of impudence. Oh yes, even Lizzie could be led.
“Storms, accidents and disease provide most of the risk. Don’t forget we’re still at war with France and Spain. And the Americans don’t think too highly of us either. One stray cannon ball could do the job quite nicely.”
“Is that what did it last time?”
“Last time? I’ve never been dead before.”
The ends of her ripe mouth nipped up. The heat in his gut sailed higher.
“You said you had recovered from a near fatal wound.”
“Ah, yes. Grapeshot, actually. In my chest. Didn’t go deep enough to kill me, though afterwards, the fever nearly did.”
Her gaze skimmed over his coat, curious and maybe a little hungry. The heat spread lower, kindling into a flame.
“Do you want to see?” He was being rash, he knew, but he’d done this for her once before, taken off his shirt on a dare. And he wanted to remind her.
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Copyright © 2010 Cristine Martins
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