She only hoped Chev would understand the reason behind the gifts she’d requested and see that the gauntlet she’d set up was one only he could win.
~~~
“Can you believe that?” Cheverley asked.
Emmaus continued cleaning the barrel of the largest of his four flintlocks. He’d finished with the musket before Cheverley had returned.
“What was she thinking?”
“I don’t know,” Emmaus glanced up. “Why don’t you go back and ask her?”
Cheverley lifted his brows. “Shebeggedme not to confront Anthony and then, and then she invites him to compete for her hand in marriage?! I don’t think she was thinking at all.”
“And if you don’t think she was thinking,” Emmaus snorted, “I don’t believe you know your wife very well.”
Chev folded his arms and scowled into the fire. The very idea of a competition was absurd, even if shooting through twelve axes was something that only he had ever been able to do.
And he wasn’t completely certain he could do it again.
Was she?
“You didn’t say what kind of gifts she requested,” Emmaus said.
“She asked for gifts she doesn’t even like. Laces, perfu—” He stopped abruptly. Tingles raised the hair on the back of his neck.
Emmaus cocked a brow. “And, let me guess, wine?”
Chev closed his eyes and exhaled. “Proof of smuggling.”
“When’s the competition?” Emmaus asked.
“Tomorrow.”
“I hope to be back by then.”
Cheverley eyed Emmaus with unease. “I should go with you.”
“No, you should not. Your place is here.”
His placewashere, wasn’t it?
In Chev’s heart he knew it was. But when she’d told him he wasn’t ready, something slick and twisted had snaked up from the tar of his worst nightmares. And a taste he could not spit out lingered.
“This is almost over,” Emmaus said. “I’ve gathered enough men to take the ship. And, if I’m successful, we’ll have further proof the ship is tied to Anthony. Trust me.” Emmaus set aside his gun. “And trust your wife.”
Chev held Emmaus’s gaze—which flickered with the fire of a man about to go into battle.
“Are you certain tonight is your night?”
“The ship has been emptied of cargo. Half the crew are in Penzance. I’ve two men from Pensteague, and a member of the crew,” his gaze slid away, “I convinced to help me. With luck and the right incentives to the rest of the crew, I might not have to fire a shot. What are you going to do about this competition?”
“Go back to Ithwick and have Lord Thaddeus collect the weapons.”
Emmaus rose and clamped Chev on the shoulder with a firm hand. “I expect to see you on the morrow.”
“I look forward to calling you Captain.” Chev swallowed. “God speed—from both my wife and me.”
Chapter Eighteen
