Page 72

“There wasn’t any danger,” he said, then checked himself. “Or—just enough. And now, behold!”

The wind had kicked up and the green scarf streamed out from the ship’s mast like a pennant.

Glancing between his wide white smile and the green scarf, she felt an answering ripple within her. Hot and red.

“Your ship,” he said. “The Bluebell.”

She couldn’t resist his good humor, not when she’d lately feared he’d shuttered himself to her forever.

“The Bluebell,” she repeated, more breathlessly than she’d intended, then nodded. “I’ll put it in the novel. My pirate is French, though. So his ship will be La Jacinthe de Bois.”

“Not very fearsome, for a pirate.” He tipped his head. “I liked it as a name when I imagined you the ship’s mistress, with your eyes like bluebells.”

She flushed. A high compliment, coming from a botanist. “He’s not a fearsome pirate.”

“No?” He laid a finger across his lips, regarding her. “He doesn’t pillage and murder? Why is he a pirate?”

“Freedom.” She shrugged. “Danger.”

“In that case, I understand.” He lowered his hand, rubbed his thumb absently along a red weal on his palm.

Another man might have torn his palms open on that mast, but Neal had calluses. She remembered their roughness.

“I wish . . .” she began, ignoring the wary light that came into his eyes. “I wish we were in my novel. I wish that ship were the brigantine La Jacinthe de Bois, and I was the heroine and you were the pirate she’d met in the woods, the one who offered to share with her the freedom of the high seas.”

“I don’t speak French,” he said, his tone light.

“I’ll rewrite it,” she said. “He’s a Cornish pirate and his ship is The Bluebell. He sacks estates for the fun of it, and he always tempts fate by taking the time to dig up flowers, which he keeps alive in glass cases in his cabin.”

“The deck,” he murmured. “He should put the cases on the deck. Not much light in the cabin, I’d wager. Never mind. Go on.”

“The deck, then.” She exhaled. “The deck of his ship is bursting with plants and flowers, bow covered with bluebells. And his parrot speaks in slogans on behalf of the Society for the Protection of Plumage. Now do you approve?”

He laughed, and she felt a sudden surge of power. She had the ability to elicit that grin. They got on well together, despite everything. She couldn’t define exactly what they shared, but their connection was real.

“ ‘Outlaw the market hunting of birds,’ ” he quoted. “That’s their slogan, if I remember correctly. You’ll come up with something catchier.”

“Certainly,” she retorted, pleased at the implication. He believed she might improve upon something thought up by one of his brilliant sisters!

“And when we’re pursued by aggrieved landowners, or the authorities,” she continued, “we’ll retreat to our hideaway on the French coast. Maybe we’ll like the life there so much we give up piracy altogether.”

Other men indulged her when she spoke. Neal listened. He was listening now, too intently. She sensed it coming, some negation. Some rejection. One of his rolled-up sleeves had slipped down and he pushed it back as he folded his arms.

She reached out then, watched her hand close on his forearm as if her hand belonged to someone else. It was so much paler than his forearm and looked flimsy against its bulk. He could break her grip just by flexing.

She closed her eyes, and when she opened them, he was staring at her.

“It didn’t come true.” She formed her lips into a smile. “We’re not in my novel. We’re not sailing for the French coast.”

Slowly, he shook his head. The humor went from his face. He, too, seemed to understand that their ill-defined rapprochement had come to an end.

“If France is still your destination . . .” As he slanted his gaze toward the river, she noticed the shadows on his eyelids, smudges of fatigue.

Into the lengthening pause, without looking back at her, he said, “I’ll take you to Plymouth. You can get on one of the steamers to Roscoff.”

She loosed a shuddering breath. It was more than she deserved from him.

It wasn’t enough.