Much Ado About Marriage (21 page)

Thomas came to freezing halt, choking audibly, and it was all Fia could do to keep from laughing at Robert’s guileless expression.

The Scotsman laid a card on the barrel and gave her a sweet smile. “’Tis your draw, beauteous maid.”

Fia drew a card as she stifled a giggle at Thomas’s shocked expression.

“Montley, I have been looking for you,” Thomas said shortly.

“And you have found me. I trow, ’tis a wondrous life.”

Thomas scowled. “You are needed on the foredeck.”

“But I cannot leave, bold captain of the seas. I’m pledged to Lady Fia and we are deeply in play.”

Fia kept her gaze firmly fixed on her cards.

“She’ll live without your presence. ’Tis time you earned your keep. Simmons thinks there’s a storm brewing. We need to ready the ship.”

“I am but a guest!” Robert protested. “Why should I overtake duties befitting a member of your crew?”

“If you don’t like it, then leave.”

“Leave?” Fia asked. “But . . . we’re at sea.”

Thomas’s eyes glinted with amusement. “Precisely.”

Robert seemed to consider this. “Whilst a swim would be pleasant, I fear ’twould ruin my new doublet.”

“Most likely,” said Thomas, devoid of sympathy. “The choice is yours.”

“I vow, you’re unreasonable,” huffed Robert.

“And Simmons awaits you.”

Robert sighed heavily. “Very well. As soon as Lady Fia and I finish this one hand, I will go.”

“For the love of God, Montley. Give you a deck of cards and all the world may go to hell with your blessing.” Thomas raked a hand through his hair and Fia yearned to smooth it back into place.

“Just one hand, Thomas. Come and watch.” Robert indicated the barrel seat that Mary had just left.

Thomas regarded the barrel much as one might a snake. “I don’t wish to play cards.”

“Then Lady Fia and I will play without you.” Robert smiled at her. “’Tis your turn to deal, my love.”

She took the cards, but before she could do more than
turn them over in her hands, Thomas sat on the barrel Mary had just vacated. “This had better not take long.” Legs firmly set, he crossed his arms with the air of a man determined to see some unpleasant business through. “Make haste. We’ve work to do.”

Fia sent Robert a glance beneath her lashes and he embarked on a lengthy description of the game they were to play. Fia obediently dealt the cards and they began.

Robert did not cease prattling, which was a relief, for Fia’s heart was thundering far too hard to allow her to engage in casual conversation. She stole glances at Thomas. His eyes were weary looking. Had he been having trouble sleeping, as well? What had—

Robert cleared his throat. “My sweet, do you discard?”

Fia dragged her gaze back to her cards. She chose a card at random and slid it under the mug.

“Ah, Lady Fia,” Robert said. “I begin to suspicion you harbor unexpected depths.
Gutta cavat lapidem non vi sed saepe cadenda.
”

Thomas’s brows lowered as he silently mouthed the words.

Fia arranged her cards in a more organized manner. “He said, ‘The drop hollows the stone not by force, but by falling often.’”

“I know what he said,” Thomas replied curtly. “I just didn’t see how it applied.”

“He thinks I’m pretending to lose merely to catch him unawares.”

Robert blew her a kiss. “You have explained me better than I could have myself.”

Thomas sent Robert a disgusted look. “I don’t understand why you couldn’t have said that in simple English.”

“Ah, the burdens of genius! Understood by so few.” Robert sighed and stared at the sea as if beholding some invisible sign of his greatness.

Thomas snorted. “Crackbrained fool.”

“You see what I have to contend with?” Robert asked Fia. He made a great show of choosing a card. “’Tis a difficult decision when there’s so much at stake.”

“At stake?” Thomas asked, suspicion lowering his brow.

“Aye, Lady Fia and I wagered on the outcome of this game.”

Fia slanted an astonished look at Robert, who gave her a quick wink.

“What’s the wager?” Thomas snapped.

“Why, Thomas,” said Robert sweetly, “Lady Fia and I play for kisses.”

“What?”
Thomas roared. In a second, he was on his feet, pulling Fia with him. Her cards flew into the air, were caught by the wind, and tumbled across the deck. “Return to your cabin!”

“No.” Fia pulled her hands free and dropped back onto her seat, her jaw set. “Stop ordering me about! I will not be treated so.”

Had Thomas politely asked her, she might have agreed to return to her cabin, but to be yelled at in such a manner irked her no end. “I am staying where I am. Robert and I have a game to play.” She gathered the fallen cards, brought them back to the game, and took her place back on the barrel. “Robert, ’tis your turn.”

“So ’tis,” Robert said, calmly playing another card.

There was a moment of silence while Thomas glared down at Fia.

“Fine,” Thomas finally said. He sat down, his jaw taut. “Deal me in.”

Robert eyed Thomas with an interested gaze. “Are you also playing for kisses? For if you are, you’ll have to shave that face of yours before I pucker—”

“Not from you, arse,” Thomas snapped. His gaze flickered over Fia, lingering on her mouth. “I play for
her
kisses and she for
mine
. You will have to satisfy yourself with less.
Far
less. Now deal the damned cards.” He sent a burning look at Fia as he spoke.

A shiver traveled over her and extinguished her irritation.

“But—” Robert sputtered. “What if I win?”

Thomas slapped a card onto the makeshift table. “You’d better hope you don’t. In fact, if you wish to spare yourself a lumped head, I’d suggest you lose as hard as you can.”

Robert sniffed, looking offended. “’Tis ill-mannered to threaten a man while playing cards. You break my concentration. Fortunately for you, I thrive on challenges. Shall we sweeten the pot?”

Thomas’s gaze lingered on Fia. “I think the pot sweet enough.”

Fia’s cheeks heated, and she pretended to organize her cards.

“Well said,
mon ami,”
Robert said with grudging admiration as he settled back into the game.

“Of course ’tis well said,” Thomas returned calmly. “You are not the only one who delivers compliments where they are deserved.”

“Oh, you deliver compliments with ease, just not as often with such
eloquence.”

Naturally, Thomas returned with a witty sally, which Robert immediately answered.

In their determination to win the game, they completely
forgot about Fia. When they twice missed her turn without noticing, Fia threw her cards on the barrel. Neither did more than glance up until the wind tried to carry the cards away. For a moment, they were occupied in gathering and placing the lost cards into the discard pile. Then, with the air of men achieving greatness, they settled back on their respective seats and lost themselves to strategy and counter-strategy, mocking parry and return.

She was forgotten while the two fools competed for her. ’Twas ludicrous! Finally, she could take no more. With a muffled exclamation, she rose. “I’ll take my leave. Mary needs me below.”

“Very well, my sweet,” answered Robert absently.

“Anon,” answered Thomas, his regard solely for the card Robert slid under the edge of the mug. “A-ha! Now I have you! You play like a damned novice, Montley.”

“Aye, but at least I
play.
You merely toss random cards and hope one will take.”

Fia marched away. As she reached the steps to descend into the hold, she looked back.

Robert stared at his cards with a rapt expression, lost to everything but the game, but Thomas met Fia’s gaze with a knowing smile.
That bounder had acted thusly on purpose!
He had cut her out of the game as cleanly as a knife through warm butter. For some reason, the knowledge sent a trill of warmth through her and she found herself smiling back before she turned and went to seek out her maid.

Och, ’twas a fine madness, indeed. Fia could no more untangle her thoughts where Thomas was concerned than she could fly. All she knew was that when he was close, she felt as alive and free as if she were on a stage before a wildly appreciative audience.

Yet the reality was much different: if she entered into a real marriage with Thomas, the last thing she’d feel was free. His views on the correct comportment and place of his wife within the confines of his life were harsh and narrow, and she knew she’d fret against such restrictions.

It was a maddening conundrum, and she feared there was no real answer. The best thing she could do was enjoy her time with Thomas, for when they reached London, all would change. And sadly, it would not be for the better.

Fia flipped the fan open and turned it toward her, admiring the rich colors of the painted silk. A pastoral scene decorated one panel. It presented a man asleep in the golden grasses of a sun-drenched field, his long, bare legs peeping through the wheat. A covey of young, buxom nymphs admired him with wandering hands, their nudity barely covered with garlands of flowers.

She held the fan before the window and examined it more closely. The man lay naked, and the grass was very inadequate to cover his nether areas. She gazed anew at his face. “Sweet Saint Catherine, ’tis Robert MacQuarrie!”

She shut the fan with a snap, her face burning. Only Robert would own a fan so daringly painted with his own likeness. She had to laugh, though, at his audacity.

Fortunately, she grew up in a castle filled with men, and she knew how to deflate even such a high and mighty personage as Robert.

Hmm. Perhaps she would wonder aloud why the nymphs were so enthralled with such a plump little man?
Of all things Robert abhorred, to be thought plain or ordinary burned him the most.

Grinning to herself, Fia danced around the cabin, an imaginary partner clasped in her arms. She was just beginning to understand the more complicated steps that Robert had been teaching her. It had been pleasant to whirl around the deck, her feet moving with the music. It had been even more pleasant to have Thomas staring at her with such interest.

’Twas a pity he hadn’t won the card game. She had waited impatiently for the outcome, pacing the cabin until Mary had sent her away. Robert had met her in the corridor, and there was no mistaking the triumph in his blue eyes.

“You won.” She hadn’t meant to say the words with such a lack of enthusiasm, but disappointment weighed her down like a heavy, wet blanket.

Robert laughed. “Do not look so put-upon, my love. The game ended just as it should have and—”

Thomas’s deep voice bellowed down the passageway from the deck above.
“Montley!”

Robert sent a good-humored glance toward the deck before he grinned back at her. “I must go. When I return, we’ll practice the art of conversation. The queen is an intelligent woman and she is most impatient when bored. ’Tis important to be able to turn a phrase, tickle her wit, make her laugh or—”

“Montley! Before the hour passes, if you please!”

Robert chuckled. “Adieu, my lady.” With that he left, his short cape swirling behind him.

Fia had frowned and returned to her cabin. Her husband was a mite high-handed. ’Twas probably for the best that he’d lost the game.

Mary always said fate was what you made it, and Fia was beginning to believe that more and more. Perhaps she should take her fan and go practice her wiles on some of the sailors on deck? Simmons would be a good beginning. He was a kindly old man and always grinned when she came about.

She approached the ladder leading up to the deck just as a shadow darkened the opening. She fluttered the fan. Robert had vowed there was little so entrancing as a pair of feminine eyes peering over the edge of a fan. Not only did it draw attention to the beauty of one’s eyes, he had explained, but it screened the rest of the face from view, and there was not a man alive who could withstand a mystery.

She peeped over the edge, lowering her lids to give a sultry expression. Robert had specifically taught her this trick to render her admirer speechless.

“God’s blood! Where did you get that?” Thomas did not sound admiring.

Her smile froze into a grimace behind the fan. “Lord Montley was most kind in allowing me the use of it.”

“Return it to him. I don’t like such frippery nonsense.”

“I am told ’tis all the fashion.”

His brows lifted. “Perhaps I don’t care for fashion.”

She lowered the fan and closed it with a practiced flip of her wrist. “Perhaps you’d be more enjoyable if you did.”

After a surprised moment, he chuckled. “I suppose I deserved that.”

“Trust me, you did.” Fia couldn’t help but feel a bit piqued. Thomas was supposed to be charmed by the fan. He should have bowed and flattered and responded in turn, not chuckled at her as though she were a child playing dress-up.

Perhaps she had not plied her fan correctly. She tried again. “My lord, I look forward to hearing what you have to say. May I suggest that we go somewhere more . . . private?” She gave him a languishing glance through her lashes.

Thomas’s smile disappeared and his face turned red. “Sweet Jesu, what has that devil’s spawn been teaching you? You sound and look like a—” His mouth opened and shut, but he seemed unable to continue.

She dropped her hand and drew herself up to her full height, disappointment rumbling through her. “You cannot tell me that the ladies of Elizabeth’s court do not ply fans and flirt.”

“They might, but that’s no reason for you to—” His gaze narrowed. “Wait a moment. Why do you care what they do in Elizabeth’s court?”

“Once our wedding is annulled, I could very well join the queen’s court as a lady-in-waiting. Robert said ’tis a possibility, given my position.”

“You will spend your day running errands for a woman known for her ill temper and shrewish nature.”

“I’ve been living with Duncan for years now; I’m used to ill tempers. It might be nice to have some female companionship. Robert says ’twould suit me well and he’s been teaching me some of the ways of Elizabeth’s court.”