The Scoundrel and I - Katharine Ashe Page 0,59
his face. Dropping his gaze, he stared fixedly at the deck before his boots. “Temper’s not what it—what it should be at present. Not suitable for feminine company.”
“Forgive me, Anthony. I am sorry.”
“I am too. Thought I’d—” He bit back his speech.
“You thought what?”
He met her gaze directly. “I thought I’d found you.”
“Found me?” she whispered.
“The one. The perfect woman for me. The only woman. That day, with your grandmother, I looked at her and saw what you’d become someday.”
“Poor, blind, and ill?”
He smiled gently. “Beautiful. As you are now. Forty, fifty years from now, still beautiful. Your eyes, your smile. I saw myself all those years in the future, holding that woman’s hand and loving her as much as I do now. More, daresay.” He drew a deep breath. “But I’m not the man you want, Elle. I can’t write a clever letter. I can’t even write a clever word. And I can’t pretend that I don’t love you when I do. That ain’t me.” His eyes jerked upward. “Isn’t.”
“I don’t want him. I never wanted him. I wanted them.”
“Them?”
“Lady Justice and Peregrine. Them together. How they cannot seem to get enough of each other, even when they are at each other’s throats for all the world to see. Their spark. Their devotion to each other. I want that.”
“You want that?”
“I want you. Because I feel that way with you. I have felt it since you walked into the shop and made me drink ale, and every moment since. I feel so alive with you, so happy. You make me laugh and you make me hum when I don’t even know I’m humming and you make me want to speak with contractions and strip off every piece of clothing and throw myself at you. You make me feel everything I thought I would never be allowed to feel. I love you, Anthony.”
A burst of air escaped his lungs and his eyes were bright.
“Please accept me, Captain,” she said, “even though I am a scoundrel.”
In an instant she was in his arms and her mouth was beneath his. They kissed and she sighed and he held her close and it didn’t matter that all the world could see. He was hers and he was wonderful.
“We’ve a bit of a problem, Elle,” he said, nuzzling her throat and then the edge of her lips.
“We. I like that,” she murmured. “But what problem could we possibly have?”
“Just signed on again.” He kissed her. “Admiralty’s thrilled.” He kissed her again. “Gave me command of this first-rate beauty, Princess Donna. Sparkling new, just launched out of dry dock. Forty-eight guns.”
“How splendid! Congratulations.” She smiled up at him. “I will miss you dreadfully. How long will you be away? A month? Two?”
“Two years.”
Her eyes popped wide.
“Your good-bye note was very effective,” he said.
“I don’t suppose you can tell them you made a mistake?”
“I signed on with one condition. Told them there was a particular printing press maker in Philadelphia I’d like to visit. New platen design. Everybody’s clamoring for it.”
“You researched printing presses?”
“Thought I’d nab one for you. If you hadn’t tied the knot with anybody else by then, I hoped I might be able to entice you with it.”
“Are you telling me that you rejoined the navy so that you could sail across the ocean, purchase a printing press, sail back to England with it, and use it to court me?”
“That’s about the size of it.”
“I love you, Anthony Masinter.”
He kissed her yet again.
“Thing of it is,” he murmured against her lips, “as captain I’ve the liberty to keep a wife aboard.” He drew away to look into her eyes. “What say you, little print mistress?” The blue shone. “Care to join me at the altar before I’m obliged to cast off?”
“Yes. Oh, yes.” She went onto her toes, pulled him down to her, and kissed him with every bit of happiness in her heart. He wrapped his hands around her face and for several sweet, delectable minutes made her very glad that she had reconsidered her notions about sailors.
“Will Lady Justice approve?” He stroked her cheek. “I hear she’s none too keen on marriage.”
“She isn’t.” She smiled into his loving eyes. “But she has never met my scoundrel.”
A SELECTION OF LETTERS
and
Other Writings
BY
LADY JUSTICE
Advocate for All Britons
&
(Her Detractor and Nemesis)
PEREGRINE
Secretary, The Falcon Club
~
Presented to
His Majesty GEORGE IV
by
Captain Anthony Tallis Masinter
of the Royal Navy,
Upon the occasion of the birth of his daughter.
~
Selected & Edited
by
Gabrielle Elizabeth Masinter
Scoundrel Publishing Co.
London, England
July 1822
Fellow Subjects of Britain,
How delinquent is