"You want to swim with me? Maybe we could find an octopus or a barracuda."
She would like to swim, but she looked at the fish and knew if it weren't cooked quickly, it would rot. She sighed. "A woman's work," she said. "I am chained to my cooking pot, or at least I would be if I had one."
"A little conversation then while you perform that ghoulish task." He sat down beside her on a palm frond, to protect himself from the omnipresent sand, and crossed his legs. She coshed the fish on the head, rendering it quite dead, then picked up another bit of sharp stone. He looked pained. "If I watch this process, I doubt I will be able to eat it."
She gave him a scornful look. "You will get used to it quickly enough. Fish are food, not pets."
"That sounds like a truism from a parent. How are you going to cook it?"
"I'll rub it with some coconut milk, wrap it in palm fronds, and bake it in the embers."
She paused suddenly and looked over at him, her expression thoughtful. "Every time I think about where we are, or where we aren't, I still can't believe it. Castaway with you, of all people, an English earl! It isn't quite like waltzing in a ballroom in London, is it? Or tooling your grays about in Piccadilly?"
Lyon stretched out on his back, pillowing his head on his arms. "A unique experience, certainly. A prewedding trip, so to speak. You must admit, Diana, that few couples have such an interesting opportunity to get to know each other in such odd and various ways."
She found herself looking at his body. The swirls of hair on his chest looked soft and quite tempting. And his flat belly, wellShe gulped, her eyes briefly straying to the bulge beneath his ridiculous breechcloth.
"Don't you agree?"
She jerked. "Wh-what?"
He opened his eyes and looked at her flushed face. He gave her a very knowing smile. "Are you ready for me now, my dear?"
"I don't know what you're talking about. I suppose you're going to snooze now that you've provided our dinner."
"I need to garner my strength," he said in the blandest voice imaginable.
"Lyon!"
"Don't bleat, Diana."
"I'm not," she said, this time her voice nearly a screech.
"Look, a man who's worth his salt finishes what he begins. And I believe, my dear girl, that you've a wish that I do finish what I started. Tell the truth now."
"We're not married! I've been taught that one doesn't do that until one is married."
"I recall offering you Rafael's services. As a captain he could have tied our knot."
She was rubbing coconut milk distractedly over the scaled grouper. He watched her, amusement growing.
"I've never deflowered a virgin before."
She rubbed more furiously.
"I really should finish since I've only managed to loosen the flower from the stalk, so to speak."
"That is a ridiculous metaphor. I am not an oleander."
"True. Perhaps the sun is addling what few brains I have left. Give me some of that coconut milk. I can feel my nose and surely that isn't right." He rubbed his nose, with the white milk, then lay back again, bending one leg at the knee. Her eyes followed the line of that leg. "After all, here I am proposing not only marriage to you, but also offering you my body."
"Which is not worth all that much!"
He came up on his elbows and looked down at himself. "You have no faith, Diana. That can be changed in a flash of interest. I can easily become a man of quite noble proportions. Forgive my lack of modesty, but I believe truth is called for here."
She sat up on her heels, the smell of fish in her nostrils, and closed her eyes.
"You are provoking."