Free Ransome's Quest by Kaye Dacus Page B

yourself to them. Occasionally, when we cannot put in somewhere to resupply, all we have to eat are yams.”
    “Then you’d best leave me ashore next time you put in to resupply because I am
not
eating that again.” She speared several of the small chunks of chicken with her fork and ate those instead. “For whom did you buy these dresses?”
    Salvador carved the back quarter of the side of the chicken facing him and added it to his plate. “They are for my fiancée.”
    “You are betrothed?” Charlotte looked down at the beautifully worked pink silk dress. Modest and tasteful, it did not strike her as the type of gown a woman who would marry a pirate would wear. She returned her gaze to Salvador and tried to see him objectively. Dark hair that glinted with hints of red in the direct sunlight, brown eyes with flecks of gold and green, broad shoulders, and well-tailored clothing that showed him to be a fine physical specimen. Yes, she supposed he could be considered quite handsome—when he wasn’t abducting innocent young women.
    “Does she know, your fiancée, who you are? What you do, I mean? Does she know the gifts you bring her are purchased with ill-gotten gains?”
    “She knows what I have told her, and that is enough.”

    If Salvador had known telling Charlotte Ransome he was engaged to be married would result in such a drastic change in her demeanor, he would have revealed that fact within hours of bringing her aboard
Vengeance.
She did not speak for the remainder of the meal, a contemplative frown etched between her delicate eyebrows.
    The consternation had no effect on her appetite, however. She consumed almost half the chicken on her own, in addition to the few vegetables she ate. He liked a woman with a hearty appetite; though having felt nearly every bone in Charlotte Ransome’s body when he carried her away from Tierra Dulce and again yesterday in the water, he wondered if this appetite was newly discovered. She couldn’t weigh more than a couple of cannonballs together, even when she had been fully clothed and soaking wet.
    Not like Serena. No, it would have taken more than one man to haul a sodden Serena up the side of the ship yesterday. Holding Charlotte Ransome against the pull of the rope, he’d been concerned he might crush her delicate ribs. If she had not told him she also was engaged to be married, with her bobbed hair and her boyish frame he would not have guessed her age to be more than fourteen or fifteen. And Serena’s dresses on her gave her more the air of a child than her immature and illogical words and actions could do.
    Yet there was something about Charlotte Ransome to make Salvador believe she had been through experiences no woman should have to face. After all, even when he had been his most threatening, with fear sparkling in her eyes, she had held her ground against him. And she felled Picaro and nearly managed to escape before they subdued her at Tierra Dulce.
    After the dishes were cleared, Salvador dismissed Suresh. Charlotte moved to the leather-upholstered bench below the stern windows and stared out at the darkening horizon. Salvador leaned back in his chair, fingers laced over his sated stomach.
    Such an odd contradiction of a girl-woman, at times seeming to be no more than a child and then surprising him with her maturity and grit.
    She rose from the window seat and paced the short distance between the stern and the door.
    He should have entertained her for dinner formally with his officers. He’d developed the habit of eating with them rather than alone so the empty table wouldn’t remind him of just how alone he truly was. Though, no matter how much he believed he could trust his men, he must keep his distance in order to maintain his position of command.
    But need he keep the same distance with Miss Ransome? Here, perchance, was a kindred spirit. Someone who might help him through the grueling loneliness that held him clenched in its grip since the moment