She lifted her head. “So you are still going to go through with the competition?”
He lifted a brow. “Are you afraid I will not win?”
“Don’t be absurd.” She settled back down and traced his collarbone. “I never doubted you. I only counseled patience.”
“I understand,” he replied. “And you were right. As angry as I was at the way Anthony had ordered you to appear, I might have done him serious harm.”
“Why, Chev, are you apologizing?” she asked lightly.
“I am,” he replied, all seriousness. “And I am sorry I did not send word as soon as I returned. I was court-martialed, and the Admiralty did insist I aid them, but I—I wasn’t well. I wasn’t thinking correctly. If it’s any consolation, Hurtheven, quite literally, tried to knock me back to sense.”
The hammock listed as she sat straight. “Hurtheven hit you?”
Chev ran the back of his hand down her arm. “There now, my lioness. He was right—I thought you and Thaddeus were better off without me. I was haunted by the pirate’s repeated insistence I was nothing. And I thought—” He lifted his injured arm. “I thought you wouldn’t be able to bear this.”
“I love you.” She grasped his arm and held his scars against her cheek. “All of you. You areeverything.”
“Noteverything.” He smiled. “You created all of this without me.”
She shook her head no. “You were in every thought, in every plan. And every day, I saw more of you in Thaddeus.”
His Adam’s apple moved as he swallowed. “I love you, too.”
She leaned down, kissed him lightly against his lips, and settled back by his side. She made the hammock rock with another kick.
“If you were supposed to help resolve the matter between the admiral, his wife, and his mistress, how did Ashbey end up wedded to the widow?”
“That,” he sighed, “is another story. But it certainly helped that she is carrying his child.”
“Ash?! Ashbey is going to be a father?”
“And he’s so happy, he constantly grins.”
“That I have to see to believe.” She sighed. “But I’m glad.”
So glad. Everyone knew the admiral had long ago scorned his wife in favor of his mistress. And she knew the Duke of Ashbey had vowed never to wed again, even though she’d always known there was something unique and precious under the exterior of the serious duke.
“Well, that’s one good thing that’s come of this.”
“That and Emmaus has a ship.”
“I hope he will be happy. Where will he go?”
“I believe the proper question is where won’t he go. And, he will be in charge, and for him, that with bring the greatest satisfaction.”
“For anyone, no?”
“Yes. For anyone.”
“I’m sorry you did not have the chance for vengeance.”
He angled his body toward hers. “I’m not.”
“You aren’t?”
“No,” he said sincerely. “It is enough she is gone.”
She rested her hand over his heart. “Is it?”
