The Pirate's Tale. Grace D'Otare

caused spots, for instance. Or that women who were not virgins would never find a husband. Also—clearly—false.

      Here she sat in a fine house, married. For the most part.

      What sort of pirate was this husband of hers, two months at sea and all he did was watch her across the deck, staring with those intent blue eyes, as if she were the dangerous one?

      She sat down on the rug, unhooked her stockings and carefully rolled them down her legs, one by one. Absent husband or not, she was capable of creating a new experience for herself. She wiggled her toes in the carpet. Carpet in a bedroom! A luxury right under her feet.

      Shrugging off the coverlet, she reached beneath her dress to untie her drawers.

      Why had Mrs. Allworthy asked about her clothes? Who dared to take off all their clothes to bathe? She unfastened the buttons down the front of her gown and lifted it over her head, leaving her shift in place. The last time Gertrude had taken off everything…well, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d taken off all her clothes at the same time. Not with fifty women and children watching every move.

      The door banged open.

      The Captain, her new husband, entered the bedroom carrying a bucket of hot water in each hand. His shirtsleeves were folded up, revealing cords of muscles straining under the weight of water and pail.

      For once, his look wasn’t full of apprehension. Admiration, perhaps? Appetite, most definitely. She was after all, practically naked, the sheerness of her shift hiding all her flaws but none of her charms.

      Gertrude panicked. She grabbed the coverlet off the floor and wrapped it around her shoulders like a tent.

      The first time they’d met, she’d known immediately, he was a captain of men in both form and function. Deep-blue eyes and blue-black hair. A straight, sharp nose, unbroken, unlike many of his shipmates. Tall, but wiry. He could use a few good meals.

      And that commanding voice. “I’ve brought more water.”

      Several questions occurred to her. Don’t you knock? was the first. Will you stay? was the last.

      The Captain stepped further into the room and dumped one bucket of steaming water into the tub. The other he set by the fire.

      “Nothing to say?”

      His shirt was open. He had dark hair on his chest also. The room seemed smaller.

      “Gertrude is a mouthful. Do you have another name?”

      Old Gertrude. “No,” she told him.

      “I thought I might find you in the bath already, Gertrude.” He pointed. “Water’s hot.”

      She shuffled backward until her calves hit the bed. The convenience of her shipboard seasickness returned to her. New experiences were all well and good when you were in control of them.

      She did not feel that the man standing in front of her was quite under her control.

      “Actually, there are three other Gertrudes residing at the convent,” she babbled. “Gertie who is fifteen and quiet. Trudy is seven and never quiet, but she wets the bed when she has a nightmare. The youngest is called Baby Gertrude. I’ll miss her.”

      The first time they’d met, in the Mother Superior’s office, he’d looked at her exactly this way, as if he were looking at a ghost.

      A slow smile now curved his mouth with hints of fear and wonder.

      She blushed everywhere. Thank heaven, all he could see was the red in her cheeks. How could anyone as ordinary as she was inspire such a look?

      “An abundance of Gertrudes.”

      “Tradition. All the baby girls left at the orphanage…” Gertrude stopped. Her nerves tingled an alarm. “What are you doing?”

      “Can’t let a hot bath go to waste,” he answered, as he finished unbuttoning his shirt. “Go on.”

      She turned toward the wall as if suddenly fascinated by an etching of a sloop. “Girls are always christened Gertrude, after the Patron Saint of the West Indies.”

      There was a snap of leather and the clink of a buckle. He was taking off his pants.

      “Perhaps…I’ll wait outside.”

      “I’d prefer you didn’t.”

      Water sloshed and the Captain exhaled an indecent sound.

      She peeked over her shoulder. His head lolled against the back of the tub. His arms rested along the brass rim in one long line of flesh that stretched from earlobe to fingertip. Beads of water on his skin sparkled in the fire’s light.

      His abandoned clothes lay beside the empty water bucket in a pile. Shirt. Pants. It was the white linen of his drawers that gave Gertrude her first palpitation. He was naked in that bathtub.

      “Tell me. How did the sainted Gertrude make her name?” he asked, as if they were conversing over dinner.

      “Virgin.” The word was impossible to say without squeaking. “In 1306. Educated in the convent, lived a life of great mental activity.”

      “Great mental activity. You can be sainted for that?” He pointed to a small table without opening his eyes. “Pass me the soap, if you please.”

      Pass me the salt, he might have said. Gertrude sidled over to where Mrs. Allworthy had left a pair of apothecary jars and a rough sea sponge.

      “The sponge also, if you don’t mind.”

      Gertrude angled her way toward the tub.

      “How old are you?”

      “Here’s your soap.”

      “Put a little on the sponge for me? You didn’t answer my question.”

      “It’s not a polite question. I’m giving you time to reconsider.” She dripped a little of the fancy liquid soap on the dry sponge. “It’s not soaking in very well.”

      “Come closer. Dip the sponge in the water.” He didn’t move a muscle. His eyes remained shut, eyelashes curled on his cheek. She’d never noticed how pretty a man’s eyelashes could be.

      Was he watching her through the curtain of those lashes?

      Gertrude dunked her hand in the extra bucket of hot water. She squished the sponge until it bubbled. “Here you are.”

      “If you wouldn’t mind—” The Captain sloshed forward in the tub, bracing his arms on his lifted knees. “—washing my back, please? Piracy is not a trade that rewards politesse.”

      Wash his back? Gertrude had to think for a moment. What was he talking about? What should she do?

      The moment surrounded them, tingling with opportunity.

      New experiences. She stepped behind him. With him leaning forward, the front of his body was hidden from her sight. But the view of his tender nape trailed all the way down his back to the shadowed split of his buttocks. Muscles arched across his shoulder blades and tensed along the valley of his spine.

      Water everywhere and all Gertrude could think was how dry her mouth felt.

      “How old did you say you were?” he asked again.

      Keeping the sponge as a barrier between her hand and his skin, she buffed his shoulder.

      “More than twenty.” She scrubbed with broader strokes. “Quite a bit more. Closer to thirty, if you must know.”

      He gave a snort. “I thought so. They told me you were nineteen. And married before.”

      She nearly dropped the sponge. “Who told you that?”

      “The old woman with the bad teeth,”