"'Take it with a grain of salt,' d'ye mean, love?" He chuckled. "D'ye mean that, one… or a lot of 'em… might want me to smuggle arms? Start a Louisiana Navy? Turn privateer, or some such, and take Spanish prizes? Bein' a former naval officer might tempt 'em?"
Damme, that was knacky of me! he quietly chortled; Perhaps I can do subtle'!
"Oui, with the grain of salt, vraiment," Charite quickly agreed.
"But you're happy enough under the Spanish?" he further asked.
"Mon amour, I am most happy this moment, under you!" she teased with a coquettish stirring under him. "Mais non, the Spanish… such a horrible set of tyrants. And so bad for trade as well! Everyone I talk to says so. Papa, Monsieur Maurepas, our factors… If I were a man, /would be tempted to do something rash. To rid Louisiana of any taint of Spain… even their id-10ms!
"When I met you, you came close to being a man," Lewrie pointed out. "Though… thank God you aren't. Most surely aren't!" he said, sliding down her so he could kiss her nipples and circle her areolae on the tip of his tongue.
She knows more than she wants t'tell me, Lewrie furiously schemed; Her papa's in on it, I'll wager, maybe even her brothers. Damme… have I already met 'em, two nights ago? They were aliso alike, and…
"Oh la, Alain," Charite said, sounding as if she was mournfully wailing in exasperation at men's folly, "I fear, if someone gave you a chance to fight, do what you were trained for, you would leap for joy, and turn… pirate, if you thought it would be grand adventure. And, paid enough! Men… mon Dieu!" she spat in a flouncing huff.
"Something in what ye say, Charite darlin'," he frankly seemed to confess, breaking off his teasing ministrations to look her in the eyes. "I never did get many opportunities to… swashbuckle. Boring blockade work in all weathers… paper wars and ink smuts? Boresome. Hellish-boresome, most of my undistinguished naval career was. But I doubt I'd really do anything that damn fool."
"Bon!" she approved with some heat. "Good!"
"Not 'til they promised I'd be an Admiral," Lewrie cagily japed. "Not 'til it looked like it'd succeed. Look at John Paul Jones, that Yankee Doodle. Catherine the Great of Russia made him an Admiral over her whole fleet! Why, there's been dozens of ambitious Royal Navy men, taken service under foreign colours, some with the Admiralty's connivance and blessings, too, who didn't look like they'd ever make senior Post-Captain in their own service.
"The Swedes even made me an offer… not much of one, but," he added with a deprecatory shrug, suddenly inspired to feel her out even farther. "Not a command, actually-not a ship of my own. Arsenal clerking, counting cannon barrels or some such. I turned 'em down and tried for merchant service… where I'd at least be at sea, " he lied.
"You would be tempted," Charite stated, peering closely at him, not in the expected disapproval at such insanity that she had evinced just moments before, but in a speculative, calculating… weighing of his sentiment, with the faintest hint of a smile touching the corners of her mouth and eyes… as if he'd said or done something clever.
"Well, if they threw you in," he japed, shrugging again and forcing an inane grin onto his phyz to quash her slightest suspicions.
"Oh, la! Oh, zut alors, mon chou!" Charite suddenly snapped as she turned forceful in her attempts to slide out from underneath him. "The hour! It is growing dark, and I must go!"
"Oh, damme, no!" Lewrie said with a crushed groan. "Surely you could stay for a little longer, darlin'. Just a quarter hour more?" he entreated, gone all pleading puppy-eyed. He sat up, though, rocked on his heels once more as she lithely sprang down from the high bedstead au naturel, as boldly bare as she'd been born, fetching her discarded chemise off the back of a nearby chair and wriggling it down over her head. Damme, we were almost there, too! he thought; This close to…
"Lace me up, cher?" she asked, clapping her undone bustier to her chest, perkily, impishly smiling. "I must be home, quickly."
"What if I won't?" Lewrie pretended to pout.
"Then I must walk home as undone as a whore, and I will blame you for it, mon chou, " she threatened. "And there will be two dozen challenges to duels slipped under your door," she added, cocking her head at the doorway to his set of rooms.
"Well, as we said in the Navy… 'Growl you may, but go you must.' Damme!" he cried, springing naked off the bed. He seized her, burying his face in the hollow of her neck. "I simply cannot get enough of you, me girl!"
"Nor I you, cher Alain," she conceded, "but… I leave in the morning, you go upriver in a few more days, so we must part sometime. Only for a little while, mon amour, I promise! How do you say, that a parting is… something-something?" she crooned, embracing him with her fingers caressing his head and his hair against her as if to give comfort. "A short absence…"
" 'Absence makes the heart grow fonder,' " Lewrie recited, lifting his head to swing her length against his nudity. "I'll make you a new'un t'go along with that, too. 'Brief partings make rencontres all the sweeter… and urgent yearnings, the passion even fiercer.' Hmm?"
"You just made that up?"
"Aye."
"You are a rare Englishman… with the romantic soul of a true Frenchman," Charite admiringly declared. "Are you certain you weren't born French?"
"Quickened in Holland, but born in London. Son of a penniless rogue and a disinherited heiress, dammit all." Lewrie snickered.
"No matter, mon Anglais," Charite said, wide-eyed and serious, all but biting her trembling lips as she bestowed the sweetest little kiss on his mouth, "for…je t'aime, Alain mon chou. Je t'aime!"
"Darlin'!" Lewrie gasped, stunned right down to his curling toes by her sudden declaration of love; not intimate fondness, but her true love. Wondering what the Devil to do with it, but…!
When in doubt, lie like Blades, Lewrie told himself; It surely won't cost me much, and she might even halfway believe it!
"Je t'aime, aussi, ma cherie … ma petite biche," he growled in reply, his forehead pressed to hers. "You darlin' little doe-deer, I adore you, too. Ev'ry lovely inch of you."