“I haven’t any pennies to spare. My most valuable pair of stockings went up in smoke. You can’t have my astrolabe back. I like it.”
“A kiss if I win.”
Her hands stilled on her yarn. She stared at her fingers as if she’d never seen them before.
What a talent he had for erasing all of her thoughts and replacing them with nothing but sensation.
She contemplated saying, “But what if that’s what I want, too?” For the pleasure of watching his expression change.
She didn’t know if it was what she wanted.
Or rather: she wanted to kiss him again. He likely knew it.
Shedidn’twant consequences.
She could not have it both ways.
And then she understood his strategy: he wanted it. And very much.
This was his way of allowing her to choose it.
“Done,” she said.
She had the pleasure of watching the most carnal of satisfactions darken his eyes.
“And when I win...” She gathered the nerve to say it. And inspiration was upon her. “I want your earring.”
He went absolutely still, his face, for an instant went almost cold and speculative.
And then his expression evolved into one of rank respect.
That earring was worth hundreds of pounds. And it would change her life.
And for an instant Daphne was afraid that she had overshot her mark. That he might not want to kiss her several hundred pounds’ worth.
“Well played,” he finally conceded, quietly. “We’ll make a sporting woman of you yet. I agree to your terms.”
Her breath hitched.
“Though, of course, you can’t win.” He held his hand out flat over the floor. “Do you see this? No board was ever steadier. I can slice the gizzard of a pirate with the tip of my rapier in the dark of night on the deck of a ship listing in a storm. I can shoot the eye out of a mosquito at fifty paces.”
“Impressive. No wonder the South Sea is populated by little mosquitos wearing eye patches.”
His little shout of delighted laughter lit her clear through like a sunburst.
“Have youseenmy embroidery, Lorcan? Absolutely flawless. I can patiently render the most tedious of inspirational phrases on any pillow as smoothly as the finest calligraphy. My mending? Every stitch exquisitely straight and tiny. My knitting? Tell me whether you can see any light through these rows.”
She held up the beginnings of the coverlet she was knitting and he peered at it. “I see a hole big enough for a mosquito wearing an eyepatch to fit through.”
“Lies,” she said indignantly.
He laughed softly.
Surprisingly, she thoroughly enjoyed the mutual bragging. In his presence, unanticipated corners of her character seemed to be unfolding like a secret letter written long ago.
“And furthermore, I had the extraordinary nerve to leap from a crate into the dark right into the arms of a man I couldn’t even clearly see.”
“Seldom have I such a worthy opponent,” humored the man who dove into the water to save a child and fought pirates, somberly.
