Page 17 of Unearthing the Smuggler's Heart
Maybe he should tell her that he hadn't chucked her list into the sea yet. That'd at least get him a reaction.
It was hard to brood overly long on it with the smell of a rich wine sauce coiling its way through the air in the galley, and he found his mind quite empty of both his long day of annoyances and his bemusement with Jade Ferris as he eagerly sought out the table and slumped into a chair.
She arrived with Cook, assisting him in helping to carry out the dishes. That ridiculous fall of hair she'd had shrouding her this morning had been pulled into a ribbon, which coiled down her back and curled just into the dip of one side of her waist. It was, unfortunately, still very fetching, but at least she no longer looked like some beatific Madonna, come to wrest ship's command from him.
Our Lady of the Schedules, he thought with a clearing of the throat.Notre Dame du Temps.
The first bite was, admittedly, utter bliss. There was a healthy amount oflardonsmingled among the mushrooms and juicy strips of chicken, begrudging proof that preventing the men from snatching quick bites from the carving table all day did, actually, improve the final quality of the meal. The salad, too, had a wealth of walnuts in it, something that generally did not survive the trip from the pantry to the galley at all.
Isabelle, never one to hold back, was making many sounds of approval. "I had no idea Cook could create dishes like these!" she breathed, twisting her spoon in the bowl. "Absolutely gorgeous."
"He has some old recipe books," Jade told her, sounding oddly proud of the man, like he was her infant son, just come out with his first full sentence. "This recipe was written entirely in French, as it were. Between the two of us we were able to translate."
"You don't speak French?" Mathias asked her with obvious surprise.
She cut those big, green eyes to him and grimaced. "I should," she confessed. "I studied it long enough as a girl. I can make myself understood, but beyond that, I'm afraid it's quite hopeless. There was no one to practice with and admittedly very little interest on my part to learn to speak a language on my own."
"Well, if ever you want lessons, I'd be happy to assist," Mathias said without thinking.
There was a pause, a beat of silence during which he saw Isabelle's auburn head turn toward him and tilt all the way to the side in a very slow, very obvious look of questioning.
Miss Ferris had flushed, two bright dots of pink on her cheeks. "Oh," she managed breathlessly, snatching at her glass of wine. "I couldn't possibly impose."
Ah.
A slow smile spread across his face, watching her dark lashes bat against one another with her glass held to her lips. This was his riposte, should he choose to use it. The little thing was quite ill equipped for being flirted with.
"I insist," he said, drawling deliberately and leaning forward onto his elbows. "It is a beautiful language and all should speak it. Perhaps we couldschedulea time."
"Mathias," Isabelle said, her tone flat, but the warning in her voice clear. She would not let him tease the waif, so he would need to do it out of her earshot.
His smile only widened, and he sat back in his chair, watching Miss Ferris avoid his eye with a smugness only reserved for finally regaining the upper hand.
"How did the water collection fare?" Isabelle asked, the consonants all landing with the sharpness of needle jabs. "I'm afraid the two of us got rather dusty in the pantry today and encountered more than one spider. I was hoping we had gathered enough for baths."
"Baths already?" Mathias tsked. "It's only the second night."
"Oh, please, Mathias," Isabelle pleaded. "It will soothe our bones."
"Do we not bathe in sea water?" Jade asked, evidently curious enough to regain her bearings. "I would have thought that the more sensible thing to do."
"We do," Mathias said to her, holding her gaze until she looked away simply for the boost to his own ego. "It is just that one does not feel quite as clean after soaking in salt."
"Especially the hair," Isabelle added. "It dries all wrong."
He sighed, considering them. They didn'tlookdirty, but truth be told, he wouldn't mind a nice, long soak himself after being hunched over that sail all afternoon. "Oh, all right, then," he conceded. "Why deprive ourselves? I'll see to it."
Isabelle made a squeak of approval and dropped a kiss on his cheek in thanks.
Miss Ferris was silent. Every time he looked away, he could feel her studying him. He rather liked the sensation, he realized, which surprised him. He would have expected to be unsettled by such a thing.
Once the meal had concluded, he set himself at the business of having the bath drawn right away, and informed the ladies that chivalry notwithstanding, he was as sore as a whipping horse and was going to go first. "There's enough water to refresh the tub after, don't worry," he'd said in response to Isabelle's pout.
"I ache all over," she told him, sounding befuddled about it. "It wasn't the work in the pantry that did it, I'm just so verytired."
He understood that well enough. The bath was set up in the cargo hold, and once it was half full, Mathias deemed it good enough and wasted no time stripping down and climbing inside. He was certain that the whole of him melted into liquid clay at once, spreading out, shapeless into the base of the tub. That is what his muscles told him, anyhow, even if his lying eyes still detected his human body, whole and sprawled out before him.
The steam smelled of rosemary, a chunk of soap having fallen into the foot end while it was being filled. He could not even bring himself to reach down and remove it before it could dissolve. No, moving at all was quite impossible. Instead, he sank down into the water, allowing the warmth to slosh over his shoulders and up the base of his neck, coaxing out the knots and snarls.
