“Fancy a swim?” Savage asked Tony, peeling off his shirt and not even trying to disguise the bulge between his legs.
“No, thanks,” Tony said stiffly. “What the hell do you do when a woman is unwilling?” he demanded primly. “Or has that situation never arisen?”
“Many times,” Adam admitted. “I simply resort to the fine art of seduction.”
“How the hell can you seduce a woman when you don’t even speak her language?”
“Sex is a universal language, Tony. Did you ever look at those books I gave you?”
Tony’s cheeks flooded with color.
“I can see that you did,” Savage said, grinning. “Christ, try not to be so bloody narrow minded and circumspect. Your cock’s for more than pissing through, you know. You haven’t lived until you’ve experienced a Mediterranean woman’s hot mouth and quick little tongue all over your prick.”
Tony’s mouth fell open.
“Here, have some oysters, if they don’t make you randy, there’s no hope for you, boy.”
Tony picked up the crustaceans and left Savage to his señoritas. He was a bloody rake, rouè whoremaster, and ravisher of anything in skirts. When she got back to the ship she was going to toss the gold gown into the bloody Tyrrhenian Sea! She didn’t, of course.
The sky was cloudless, the sea a smooth aquamarine, as theFlying Dragonglided through the Straits of Messina that divided Sicily from Italy. Paddy McSwine had procured lovely soft cheeses and luscious black olives, as well as a supply of spices brought from far-off ports.
Tony helped him prepare bouillabaisse flavored with fennel and he told her which meats tasted better with marjoram and oregano. She recalled the delicious paella he’d made when they were anchored in Spain and he told her the yellow color and unique flavor was saffron, which was reputed to make you mirthful.
Tony picked up a handful of bay leaves. Simply touching them released their piquant fragrance. McSwine told her they were from a tree native to the Mediterranean.
“Cap’ns partial to curry.”
“His man from India, John Bull, told me it’s addictive. He said the first taste of mild curry leads on to thevindaloo,that’s the hottest.”
“Curry more than any other substance is responsible for increasing the world’s population.” Paddy winked suggestively. “Take it from me, ’tis the best aphrodisiac in the world. Forget yer ‘Wine of Egypt’ with its cantharides, curry will make ye stiff as a bloody poker.”
Tony decided to retire from the galley.
“If ye feed it to a female, she’ll be so hot, she’ll beg ye for it.”
Tony was beginning to believe men thought of nothing but sex. Then she blushed. An inordinate number of her own thoughts were preoccupied by the subject these days!
Savage brought treasures aboard for Edenwood at every port they made. He bought marble sculptures from Italy and statues of ancient Roman soldiers that were so lifelike, you expected them to blink their, eyes and speak. On Corfu he discovered a small Greek temple and had it dismantled. Then he had the graceful, fluted columns carefully wrapped to take back to his garden.
When they returned to the ship, the crew was diving and swimming about in the tropical waters of the Adriatic, all naked as the day they’d been born. Savage agreed to join them, but Tony declined all invitations.
The Scot called, “Ye’ll no catcha fish wi’ yer shrunken worm.”
Tony replied by thumbing her nose. She took one last look before she went below. Corfu, Greece, was an emerald isle on a turquoise sea. It was one of the most beautiful places Tony had ever seen. Flowering shrubs cloaked the rolling landscape while the knotted, gnarled trunks of the olive trees formed wreaths of silver leaves. The peasants rode mules, the women carried bundles of firewood. Surely this was the spot where Ulysses was washed ashore.
Adam couldn’t understand how anyone preferred the stifling belly of a clipper ship to the sybaritic lure of a blue lagoon. He knew that Lord Lamb was a bit of a snob and understood that the uncouth seamen with their cruel humor were not easy to tolerate. He concluded Tony was unused to male rough-and-tumble and had likely never taken his clothes off outdoors. He might even be concerned about the size of his genitals, afraid that he might not measure up before other males.
Belowdecks, Tony discovered that the storage room that had been padlocked now stood open. In fact it now held the Greek Temple, carefully packed in crates. She was certain that Savage no longer left the ship in the dead of night and hadn’t done so in fact since they’d left France. She wondered if this hold had been emptied in that country where unrest was visible in the street. What had he smuggled into France? The most obvious answer was guns, and ammunition.
She shrank from the idea. It was corrupt, like selling death and destruction. She whirled about at a noise behind her. It was McSwine. He seemed to be forever creeping up on her, slinking about just like a ferret. “I—I thought you were swimming.”
“No, sor! I toldt ye before, I never touch water. Water’s fer drownin’.”
“What was in this locked hold?” she asked outright.
“I’m blind an’ deaf. I toldt ye that before too.”
“That strange smell that lingered about doesn’t seem so noticeable now. What caused it?”