Calypso Magic (Magic Trilogy 2)

"I shall when I have finished this chapter."

"What are you reading?"

"The Adventures of Count Milano."

He groaned.

"Hush, the hero is in an awful position at this moment."

"Do you call it awful because he is making love to the heroine?"

"Of course not! She is pure and innocent and he wants only to protect her."

"The man sounds like an idiot and a fool. There is no such breed of woman."

"That reeks of Charlotte's Disease, Lyon. One would wish that you would strive for a cure."

"I suppose your count writes bad poetry to the heroine's plucked eyebrows."

"Be quiet."

"You know something," he said after a few more minutes, "I find myself wondering if you didn't arrange this particular plot to suit your fancy."

That caught her attention. "What do you mean? Or will I hate myself for asking?"

"It just occurs to me --- since I am still suffering from Charlotte's Disease --- that you have neatly engineered me into a corner. You, through your actions, took all choice out of my hands. Perhaps you planned it so you could trap me into marrying you."

Her first reaction to this outrageous nonsense was to hurl her novel at him. She didn't. Instead, she drew a deep breath and said nothing.

"Hit a nerve, did I?"

Her lips tightened, but still she kept silent.

"If you wanted me so very much, my dear Diana, couldn't you at least be honest about it? Was it my hand caressing your quite acceptable bottom? Or perhaps my brilliant dancing that enthralled you? Since you don't yet know anything about my skill as a lover, it can't be that. More likely, it is my wealth."

Very well, she thought. "It was your wealth. Certainly you have nothing else to recommend you."

"You know, I could simply leave you in St. Thomas and sail immediately for England. Leave you to face the music, as it were."

"That, my dear Lyon, would be my fondest hope."

"If I were a bounder that is what I would do."

Diana returned to her novel. She heard him chuckle. She'd let him lave his fun. She stopped reading suddenly and dropped her book to the floor beside her. "This is most odd, Lyon," she said thoughtfully.

He grinned. "Indeed it is. We're acting like an old married couple, whereas we could be acting like a young married couple. Would you like to share the bunk with me?"

"I wish you would keep yourself covered."

"You like what you see, Diana?"

He did look splendid, but she wouldn't admit that to him. "You are passable, I suppose." She turned to see his wide, very smug grin. She quickly doused the lamp.

"Tell me, Diana, since we are at least skirting the subject, where did the name Virgin Islands come from?"

"From Columbus, way back toward the end o

f the fifteenth century. He saw this mass of islands, more than he could or wanted to count. He named them after St. Ursula, who was a virgin, I suppose, and the thousands of maidens who followed her to a martyr's death."