“Once I got to the ground,” Emma continued, “it wasn’t very difficult to make my way to the docks and then onto the ship.”

“Didn’t your father notice your absence?” Alex inquired.

“Oh, I had all that worked out,” Emma said offhandedly. “He always leaves for his office very early in the morning. He never made a habit of looking in on me before he left. He was afraid he would wake me up. I’m a very light sleeper,” she explained, her violet eyes earnest.

Alex smiled, thinking that he’d like to have firsthand knowledge of that fact. “What about the servants?” he asked. “Surely one of them would notice you were gone.”

“We really don’t live in as grand a manner as you do here,” Emma said with a light smile. “My father and I don’t employ a fleet of servants. Mary, our housemaid, usually came to wake me at half past seven—”

“A barbaric hour,” Alex murmured.

Emma pursed her lips and gave him a look of mild reproach. “We also don’t keep your crazy town hours in Boston.”

“How provincial,” he said dryly, just to goad her.

It almost worked. She started to wag her finger at him, then stopped in mid-wag, her hand still suspended in the air. “On second thought,” she said slowly, narrowing her eyes, “I am not going to deign to discuss this matter with you.”

“I’m crushed,” Alex replied, reaching up and snatching her hand. With one swift tug, he pulled her down next to him. Emma squealed as she landed alongside his strong frame, her legs caught in the tangle of her skirts.

“Alex!” she yelped, trying to pull her legs free of the cumbersome material. “What are you doing?”

Alex let go of Emma’s hand and reached up to stroke the delicate line of her jaw with his knuckles. “I just wanted to get close enough to smell you.”

“What?” she croaked.

“Everybody has their own special scent, you know,” he explained softly, his thumb trailing across her full lips. “Yours is particularly sweet.”

Emma cleared her throat nervously. “Don’t you want to hear the rest of the story?” she said hoarsely. She scrambled up into a sitting position although Alex was not inclined to let her move away from him.

“Of course.” His hand moved to her earlobe, which he caught gently between his thumb and forefinger.

“Umm, where was I?” Emma blinked a few times in rapid succession as she realized that Alex had succeeded in turning her into a complete peagoose.

“You were explaining why your housemaid didn’t notice you were gone,” he reminded her, wondering if her fluttering eyelashes were as soft as they looked.

“Oh,” Emma said with gulp. “Well, she did notice I was gone, of course, at half past seven when she came in to wake me, but I knew that by the time someone could reach my father and he could make it to the docks, we’d be well out to sea.”

“So what happened?” Alex prodded, his fingers leaving her earlobe and moving down to stroke her neck.

Emma looked up into his eyes and was mesmerized by the raw passion she saw there. “What happened when?” she asked blankly, every thought flying out of her head.

Alex chuckled, pleased at her reaction to his caress. “What happened when your father realized you were gone?”

Emma wet her lips and swiftly lowered her eyes and fixed her gaze on his chin, which she figured would be considerably less disconcerting than looking directly into his emerald stare. “Well,” she said slowly, trying to regain her composure. “There was nothing he could do, really. We were already gone. The trouble started when I finally revealed myself to Captain Cartwright at sunset that evening. I thought he was going to explode.”

“What did he do?”

“He locked me in his cabin and turned the ship around.”

“A sensible man,” Alex commented. “I ought to send him a note of gratitude.”

“He didn’t give me any food.”

“Good,” Alex said flatly. “You didn’t deserve any.”

“I was really quite hungry,” Emma said earnestly, trying to ignore the heat on the nape of her neck where Alex’s hand rested. “I hadn’t eaten for nearly twenty-four hours when he locked me up, and it was another eight or nine hours before we got back home.”

“He should have horsewhipped you.”

“My father took care of that,” Emma replied with a grimace. “My backside was about as red as my hair for the next week.”

Alex fought long and hard to resist the temptation to ease his hand down her back and squeeze the part of her body she was discussing. He glanced surreptitiously over at Emma to ascertain whether or not she had any idea of his thoughts. She was gazing over her right shoulder, her eyes fixed on some point along the horizon, her lips curved into a reminiscent smile. Suddenly, as if she felt the weight of his eyes on her, she turned, her bright hair catching a breeze and flying around her face. The delicate smile remained on her features, but Alex saw wariness creep into her eyes. He sighed. She wasn’t stupid.

Hell, he supposed that was why he liked her so much.

Emma took advantage of Alex’s brief reverie to scoot back across the blanket to her original position, using hunger as an excuse. “I’m famished!” she declared. “I wonder what Mrs. Goode packed for us.” She began to rummage through their picnic lunch.

“Not one of Cleopatra’s new kittens, I hope,” Alex remarked.