Page 71 of The Runaway Duchess

He intercepted her look and grinned the grin that made her breath catch.

“A novel,” he said, and shook his head. “I should have known that a novelist was naming my ointment, not a botanist.”

A dreamer. A novelist. How smoothly those words had rolled off his tongue. What possibilities he saw in her. For her.

If only she’d met Neal Traymayne years ago. But no, years ago, she didn’t have the eyes to see him.

“It wasn’t a pirate ship, not in the story I was told.” He leaned a shoulder into the willow. “Legend has it that ship was hidden there when the tide of the civil war turned and the west fell to the Parliamentarians. Members of the Prince’s Council were to be spirited to the Scillies. But something went wrong, obviously. The ship is still there.”

“A traitor,” she suggested. “He revealed the plan to the enemy. Instead of Cavaliers, Roundheads burst through these trees and slaughtered the crew.”

“Are all novelists so bloodthirsty?” Again, he flashed that grin. “I read too many horticulture journals.”

“How dull. I couldn’t tolerate reading any.” She responded automatically, tensed, and then, just like that, the tension dissipated. She could say what she pleased without worrying if it matched up with Neal’s image of Muriel Pendrake. Hiding her smile, she turned to the river.

“Still, it might have been a pirate ship.” She sighed as a breeze rustled the willow fronds, looked up at the tiny green leaves fluttering down around them. A leaf settled on a dark wave of Neal’s hair.

She knew how his hair would feel between her fingers if she plucked at that leaf.

She closed her eyes, blocking him out. She imagined the ship in its prime, bows and decks painted red and gold, white sails bellying in the wind. She could see it rigged for speed and racing downriver, past the headlands to the open sea.

“I’ll claim it for you.”

Her eyes flew open. “What are you talking about?” Even as she laughed, she was frowning. His voice held that same cocksure note she remembered from when they stood soaked to the skin in the Kyncastle harbor.

He was already unwinding the lightweight green scarf from around his collar.

“Red or black would be more piratical. But this ensign is at least distinctive.” He shrugged out of his coat. Without the scarf holding his collar together, his shirt gaped at the neck, exposing a triangle of bronzed skin.

Why did this man’s neck overwhelm her? She shouldn’t stare at it, but staring was better than the alternative. She wanted to taste it, to put her lips and teeth to that muscular curve.

“By your leave.”

Mortified, she jerked her head up. His expression was all politeness, but his eyes were glinting.

Has my lady looked her fill?

She made an unintelligible noise and he was off, vaulting logs and rocks, then skidding down to the mud. He circled around the ship’s hull and vanished from sight, and the next thing she knew he was up on the deck, weaving around ancient blocks, springing over weather-rotted boards.

“You’ll break your fool neck!” she shouted as he shimmied up the mast, which was nearly certain to splinter, to send him crashing through the deck, and Lord, if he wasn’t laughing, legs wrapping the ancient timber as he knotted his scarf to the pinnacle.

“What shall we call her?” he shouted down. “Lavinia’s Revenge?”

She put her hands on her hips. “Is Neal’s Inglorious and Untimely and Entirely Unnecessary Demise too much of a mouthful?”

“You’re the wordsmith.” He shrugged—shrugged!—as though maintaining his hold on the mast required no special concessions. “I’m thinking The Bluebell has a nicer ring.”

“Thinking! That’s a laugh.” She ended with a mutter. She wasn’t going to shout herself hoarse while he monkeyed around twenty feet in the air. What kind of natural scientist didn’t understand gravity?

She couldn’t help it. She shouted again. “I hope you and Captain Heron there enjoy yourselves!”

She’d leave them to it, the birdbrains.

She moved swiftly behind the willow and sat, setting her back to it. She tried not to interpret the sounds floating from the river. A particularly loud thud made her wince. But Neal’s arrival was only delayed by a few moments more, and she heard him coming, whistling as he climbed the bank. She stood hastily, feet protesting, and met him as he crested the rise. Instinctively she fisted her hands on her hips, but her remonstrances caught in her throat.

He looked, if possible, even more disheveled than before. Even more raffishly attractive. A light sheen of sweat made his cheekbones gleam. She could smell him, clean sweat and aromatic smoke.

“You look proud of yourself,” she managed.