“How dare you give the poor woman trouble over those nasty biscuits! If you made biscuits worth eating, sir, perhaps she wouldn’t throw them to the fish!”He blinked his eyes in astonishment. “Biscuits worth eating? I’ll have you know, madam, that I bake the best biscuit on the high seas!”“That’s not saying much, considering that ship’s biscuits are notoriously awful!”“It’s alright, Louisa, you needn’t defend me—“ Sara began.Louisa just ignored her. “Those biscuits were so hard, I could scarcely choke them down. As for that stew—”“Look here, you disrespectful harpy,” the cook said, punctuating his words with loud taps of his cane. “There ain’t nothin’ wrong with Silas Drummond’s stew, and I defy any man—or woman—to make a better one!”

“Faintly, Sara heard a noise from somewhere above them, the grating of wood against wood, but she thrust the sound from her mind. Then a voice called down from above, “Cap’n? Cap’n, you down here?”Gideon tore his mouth from hers and jerked his hand back, a curse rumbling from his lips. “Yes, Silas, I’m here. I’ll be with you presently.”Shame washed over Sara in buckets as she came out of her sensual fog. Good heavens, her hand was on his breeches! And he’d been touching her with an intimacy only allowed a husband!As she snatched her hand away, the sound of descending footsteps echoed down to them. “Ive got to talk to you,” Silas said, his words punctuated by the clumping sound of his wooden leg on the steps. “It’s about that woman Louisa—““If you come any nearer, Silas” Gideon barked, “I’ll have you keelhauled, I swear I will!”

“You know, Silas shouldn’t have something so indecent like this lying about,” Ann said. “One of the children might see it.” She brightened. “I know! We should put some clothes on it! That would make it all right, don’t you think?”“Oh, by all means. Do clothe the woman,” Louisa said, laughter bubbling up from the back of her throat.Ann flitted around the room looking for something appropriate. “Ah, this’ll be fine,” she said, her back to Louisa. She fooled with the thing a bit, then turned and held it up for Louisa’s approval.It took Louisa a second to recognize what Ann had chosen to clothe the poor beleaguered fertility goddess in, but as soon as she did, she burst into laughter.Silas’s drawers. Ann had clothed the carving in Silas’s dirty drawers.After that, Louisa couldn’t stop laughing. Ann had tied the legs around the carving’s neck so that the back side of the unlaced drawers covered her front. It was truly a site to behold. And when Ann looked at her in all innocence, obviously unaware that the lady’s clothing was as indecent as the lady herself, Louisa laughed so hard her sides hurt.“Louisa, are you alright?” Ann asked as she went to her friend’s side. “I swear, you’re behaving strange today. Really strange.”Louisa couldn’t even speak. All she could do was laugh and point at the carving.“This?” Ann asked as she held the carving up. “What’s wrong? Don’t you like her fine woolen dress?”Louisa erupted in more peals of laughter.Unfortunately, it was just at that moment, when Louisa was laughing herself to death and Ann was waving the carving about in the air, that Silas chose to make his untimely entrance.“What are you females going in here?” his raspy male voice roared from the doorway, making them both jump.Ann dropped the carving at once, watching as it rolled across the wooden floor, losing its exotic gown in the process.Louisa managed to rein in her laughter, though a few chuckles still bubbled out of her.“We wasn’t doin’ nothin’, truly,” Ann began to babble. “Louisa said . . . I mean . . . we thought . . .”“It’s all right, Ann.” Louisa faced Silas, laughter still in her eyes. But when she saw his livid expression and reddened face, she sobered at once. “I’m sure Silas knows better than to blame you.”“We was just tryin’ to help.” Bending to pick up the carving, Ann held it out to Silas. “Honestly, Mr. Dumm—”Silas made a choking sound as he saw what Ann held in her hands. “Get out.” Snatching the carving from her, he tossed it across the room. “I said get out of here! Now!”

“He stared past her to the place at the other end of the dining table where Regina would sit as his wife. If she were here. If he hadn’t driven her away. “I’m not sure I know how to love, Louisa.” She took his hand. “Don’t be silly. Loving is easy. It’s finding someone to love you back that’s hard.”

“He strode forward, heedless of the murmuring that began among the women when they saw him. Then Sara turned, and her gaze met his. Instantly a guilty blush spread over her cheeks that told him all he needed to know about her intent.“Good afternoon, ladies,” he said in steely tones. “Class is over for today. Why don’t you all go up on deck and get a little fresh air?”When the women looked at Sara, she folded her hands primly in front of her and stared at him. “You have no right to dismiss my class, Captain Horn. Besides, we aren’t finished yet. I was telling them a story—”“I know. You were recounting Lysistrata.”Surprise flickered briefly in her eyes, but then turned smug and looked down her aristocratic little nose at him. “Yes, Lysistrata,” she said in a sweet voice that didn’t fool him for one minute. “Surely you have no objection to my educating the women on the great works of literature, Captain Horn.”“None at all.” He set his hands on his hips. “But I question your choice of material. Don’t you think Aristophanes is a bit beyond the abilities of your pupils?”He took great pleasure in the shock that passed over Sara’s face before she caught herself. Ignoring the rustle of whispers among the women, she stood a little straighter. “As if you know anything at all about Aristophanes.”“I don’t have to be an English lordling to know literature, Sara. I know all the blasted writers you English make so much of. Any one of them would have been a better choice for your charges than Aristophanes.”As she continued to glower at him unconvinced, he scoured his memory, searching through the hundreds of verse passages his English father had literally pounded into him. “You might have chosen Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, for example—‘fie, fie! Unknit that threatening unkind brow. / And dart not scornful glances from those eyes / to wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor.’”It had been a long time since he’d recited his father’s favorite passages of Shakespeare, but the words were as fresh as if he’d learned them only yesterday. And if anyone knew how to use literature as a weapon, he did. His father had delighted in tormenting him with quotes about unrepentant children.Sara gaped at him as the other women looked from him to her in confusion. “How . . . I mean . . . when could you possibly—”“Never mind that. The point us, you’re telling them the tale of Lysistrata when what you should be telling them is ‘thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper. /thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee / and for thy maintenance commits his body / to painful labour by both sea and land.’”Her surprise at this knowledge of Shakespeare seemed to vanish as she recognized the passage he was quoting—the scene where Katherine accepts Petruchio as her lord and master before all her father’s guests.Sara’s eyes glittered as she stepped from among the women and came nearer to him. “We are not your wives yet. And Shakespeare also said ‘sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more / men were deceivers ever / one foot on sea and one on shore / to one thing constant never.’”“Ah, yes. Much Ado About Nothing. But even Beatrice changes her tune in the end, doesn’t she? I believe it’s Beatrice who says, ‘contempt, farewell! And maiden pride, adieu! / no glory lives behind the back of such./ and Benedick, love on, I will requite thee, / taming my wild heart to thy loving hand.’”“She was tricked into saying that! She was forced to acknowledge him as surely as you are forcing us!”“Forcing you?” he shouted. “You don’t know the meaning of force! I swear, if you—”He broke off when he realized that the women were staring at him with eyes round and fearful. Sara was twisting his words to make him sound like a monster. And succeeding, too, confound her.”

“She realized she’d been staring only when he said, his voice lower and huskier, “Who are you looking for?”His words snapped her out of her terrible trance. “I . . . I . . .” she thought furiously and said the only thing that came to mind. “For you. I was looking for you.”Suspicion flashed in his sea-blue eyes. “In the rigging?”“Yes. Why not?”“Either you’re very ignorant about what a captain does, or you’re lying. Why is it?”Ignoring the plummeting sensation in her stomach, she forced a smile to her face. “Really, Gideon, you are so suspicious. Last night you accused me of plotting behind your back, and this morning you accuse me of lying. Who else would I be looking for but you?”

“His eyes narrowed to menacing slits. “But that doesn’t mean that if you refuse my offer and stay, I’ll stand by and let you have her. I won’t. In the end you’ll lose, and you won’t even have the consolation of my gold.” He took his foot off the chair and leaned forward, planting his hands on the table as he eyed Petey with suspicion. “Why all the questions, Hargraves? You’d give up any hope of riches and adventure just to marry Miss Willis?”“No, of course not,” Petey said hastily, before the pirate’s suspicions could be truly roused. “You can be sure I’d prefer this scepter and the chance to be off this island to Miss Willis any day.” He paused, weighing his words. “I just don’t understand why you don’t feel the same.”Captain Horn drew himself up with the bearing of one of those nobles he so distained. “That’s none of your concern. Do you want the thing or not? Because if you don’t—” he broke off as he reached for the scepter.Petey jerked it back. “I want it.” He wasn’t sure if he was playing this right, but it didn’t look as if he had any choice.“I want it. I’ll be off your island tomorrow.”For a moment, Petey could have sworn he saw relief in the captain’s face. Then the man’s expression hardened. “One more thing—you’re not to speak to her of any of this, you understand? You must promise to leave tomorrow without a word to her.”