Shanna looked back over her shoulder toward her father. “Papa, are you ready to eat?”
“Most certainly!”
Trahern chuckled deep in his chest and, realizing he had just witnessed a setdown in the softest feminine way, could almost feel pity for the blundering numbers who had fallen in her wake. With a strange sense of pride, he watched the poised deliberation of his daughter as she walked beside the bondsman. They made a splendid pair, the two of them. And what fine children she would bear him if they—
“Bah! Madness!” Trahern shook his head to shed the thoughts. “I have cast the die too well. She would never deign to wed a bondsman.”
Shanna slipped easily into the slow, considered movements which gave her an air of cool aloofness. Her hand rested lightly on Ruark’s arm, and she smiled into those gleaming amber eyes. The two of them led the procession into the dining room where Milan had begun to chafe at the delay, seeing only the ruin of delicate flavors as the cook tried to keep the dishes warm. At Shanna’s entry the small man’s face suddenly beamed, and he clapped his hands together as a signal for the young boys to bring the food. At last dinner was to be served.
“Sit here, Mister Ruark,” Shanna directed, indicating the chair near her own which was placed at the end.
Ralston left open the place opposite the bondsman for Sir Gaylord and took a seat across from Pitney, nearer Trahern. If there was trouble to be brewed, he was the master brewer, and he would see this mixture to its best fermentation.
The conversation at the beginning of the meal was somewhat stilted. Gaylord could only gaze at Shanna, and when her attention was diverted, he allowed his eyes to dip appreciatively to her breasts where the stiff bodice pressed the swelling curves into a most tempting display. Annoyed by the knight’s lustful perusal, Ruark had to hold tight rein on his own manners. Ralston, unusually verbose, directed his words to the squire.
“I’ve noted that the Good Hound has been brought in to clean her hull. Do you intend, squire, to take the schooner along to the colonies, or do you plan to use her here for trade around the islands?”
Trahern paused in his eating and gestured to Ruark. “Ask the lad there. It belongs to him.”
Ralston and Gaylord both turned to stare aghast toward Ruark, who casually stated the situation.
“Gentlemen, it is permissible by English law for a bondsman to own property. I gained the schooner in a fair battle, as Madam Beauchamp will attest.”
“This is preposterous!” Gaylord declared. It nettled him sorely that a slave should have a vessel while he, a titled gentleman, was still trying to gain financing for a shipyard.
“However so,” Ruark grinned, “the schooner is mine and shall remain mine unless I choose to give it up for my freedom. But then, I think ‘twould take me longer to earn the price of a ship than to pay my indebtedness. The Tempest will be loaned to the squire for the voyage in return for the price of seeing her made fit. A fair enough exchange as we both see it.”
“The Tempest?” Ralston queried arrogantly.
“Aye, I’ve renamed it,” Ruark replied leisurely. “Of late I’ve come to enjoy storms as they seem to bring me naught but good, and I deemed it only fitting.”
“My daughter has an aversion to them,” Trahern commented absently, missing the spreading color that had risen on Shanna’s face with Ruark’s statement. “No cause as I could see, but it started when she was a little thing.”
“Perhaps I’m outgrowing that, papa,” Shanna returned softly, not daring to meet her husband’s gaze. “After all, it was a storm which enabled us to escape the pirates.”
Her father accepted this with a mouthful of lobster then swallowing, muttered, “Good. ‘Tis time. You’ll be having children of your own someday. Wouldn’t do for you to put that fear in them.”
“No, papa,” Shanna agreed meekly.
“And what of the pirate’s treasure on the schooner?” Ralston sneered. “Does that belong to Mister Ruark also?”
“It did,” Trahern stated, raising his eyes to his man. “But all that which was not mine he gave to Mister Gaitlier and Mistress Dora for the years they spent in service to the pirates.”
The agent’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “Generous of the man, considering he could have bought his freedom.”
Ruark ignored his tone of derision. “By right it was theirs, and I saw it as fair payment from the pirates.”
Gaylord held his silence. He could not understand giving even a small wealth away. Ralston dismissed the subject. He knew such foolish deeds would tend to endear the lady more to the bondsman—and perhaps that was Mister Ruark’s ploy, Ralston mused.