Page 75 of Much Ado about a Widow

“Yes, love?” He pulled a blanket up over them.

“I agree wholeheartedly with you.”

“About what, sweetheart?”

“Your new idea of distracting me from being ill.” She opened one emerald-green eye and smiled. “You are the most wonderful distraction, my love.” Yawning, she burrowed her head into his shoulder. “Perhaps you can distract me again in a little while, even if I don’t fall ill. It’s probably better that way.”

* * *

Grayish light filled the cabin the next morning, waking Rob from an exhausted sleep. Not that he’d have had it any other way. After dinner last night, cooked by Chapman and served by Ayers, he and Georgie had repaired to the bunk, sleep the furthest thing from their minds. At some point they had fallen asleep in each other’s arms. Georgie slept still, her cheek pillowed on one hand.

The sweetest sight he’d ever awoken to. Her tousled hair spilled in bright waves over one satiny white shoulder and the mussed sheets, her mouth in a pink bow with her other hand curled beside it. He could watch her sleep for hours, although if he gazed on her much longer he’d wake her instead and see if making love in the morning light proved better or much better than making love in the night.

As though she’d heard his thoughts, she opened her eyes and stretched, one tender breast peeping out from under the covers, the rosy nipple seeming to beckon his mouth.

“Georgie?”

“Mmmm?” She snuggled closer to him, sliding her hand across his abdomen, making the skin there jump of its own accord.

Any restraint he might have had flew out the porthole. He slid down in the bed, pulling her toward him.

“Is it morning?” Her eyes remained closed, and he gently kissed the lids.

“Yes, barely, I think.” Continuing his journey, he kissed her cheek, her nose, her chin, then back up to her rosebud mouth.

“Mmmm. What a wonderful way to begin breakfast.” She opened her mouth to him, inviting him in.

He needed nothing more and thrust his tongue into her.

“Captain! Captain!”

Ayers’s frightened voice cut through the fog of lust in Rob’s brain. He sat up in bed, shaking away the call of his body. “What’s the matter?”

“A ship, Captain. A huge four-master pulling alongside us. They’re hailing us.”

“What in the—” Rob tore out of the bed, pulling on his shirt and breeches without thinking, struggling to thrust his feet into the tight Hessians.

“What’s going on?” The sleepy calm had fled Georgie’s face. She sat in the middle of the bed, her eyes two points of green in a sea of white.

“I’ve no idea. Stay in the cabin. Lock the door when I leave, and—” He ripped open a drawer in his desk and pulled out a pair of pistols. Checking to make sure they were loaded, he tucked one in his breeches and held the other out to her. “You ever fire a pistol before?”

She nodded, her gaze firmly fixed on the gun in his hand.

“Good.” He thrust the loaded piece at her, grateful when she took it without protest. “I hope this is nothing, but I wouldn’t wager a hot ha’penny on it.” He grasped her to him, kissing her quick and hard, then ran out the cabin without a backward look. Had Travers staged a rescue attempt? How would the earl even have found out their plans? He’d not been seen since Rob and Jemmy had thrown him into the stable and bid the groom get him to his lodgings, wherever that was.

Running onto the deck, Rob immediately discovered they had turned into the wind. Searching the horizon for the enemy ship, Rob glanced to port and gasped. A fully rigged, four-masted barque had pulled within a dozen yards or so of them. At double her size, the enemy ship easily dwarfed the Justine and, with a long row of cannon pointed squarely at them, out-gunned them as well.

“Ahoy, Justine.” A crew member, likely the first officer, hailed them from the bow of the ship.

“Why didn’t you call me sooner?” Rob turned to Ayers, who stood beside him, ashen.

“They came up on us so fast, Captain, I scarcely had time to realize they wanted to detain us. They were well astern of us and just like that”—the sailor snapped his fingers—“they were pulling alongside and hailing us, guns drawn.” Ayers pointed to the line of sailors on the other ship, muskets trained on them.

“Christ.”

“Is it pirates?” Out of nowhere, Georgie appeared at Rob’s elbow.

“I don’t know.” He frowned. “I told you to stay below.”