Practical Widow to Passionate Mistress by Louise Allen Page A

substitute for the army life he had lost. She only hoped that whatever challenges the home he seemed so reluctant to reach held for him, they would satisfy him. Somehow she was coming to doubt it.
    Ross put down another winning hand and money passed between the two men before the merchant he had just trounced got up and walked off, trying to put a gracious face on his losses.
    ‘Excuse me.’ Meg recalled an excuse to remove herself from Signora Rivera and her grizzling son. ‘I must ensure the major takes his exercise.’
    Ross looked up as she approached him and raised an eyebrow. ‘Yes, my dear?’
    ‘Time for your walk,’ Meg said with wifely sweetness for the benefit of the nearby passengers. ‘Dear.’
    ‘I am not a lap dog requiring a stroll around the deck,’ he retorted, low voiced, as he gathered up the cards and his winnings.
    ‘More like a mastiff needing a run in the park or looking for a bull to savage.’ Meg maintained her smile. ‘Frequent gentle exercise is what that leg needs now; besides, if I leave you to clean out every mark on this ship we will find ourselves dropped overboard before we sight land again.’
    ‘You think I am prigging the cards, do you?’ Ross asked. But he put the pack in his pocket and got to his feet.
    ‘I am sure it is all your skill and there is no sleight of hand involved,’ Meg assured him, falling into step beside him and deliberately dawdling to restrict his limping stride. He needed to slow down, control his impatience as he had controlled the need to take her last night. He had been aroused, however well he thought he could hide it. And that in itself was arousing her, an effect that unfortunately did not seem to be wearing off.
    Meg reminded herself, yet again, that she could not afford an entanglement with a man she would never seeagain once they landed. For him it would be a matter of satisfying a physical urge. For herself, she did not think she could deal with it quite so simply. Perhaps it was her old, foolish romantic spirit again, but the thought of that intimacy without a mutual affection, without emotion, frightened her.
    They got to the bows and were halfway back on the circuit that she had decreed was a suitable distance before she ventured another remark. Ross, she was certain, would maintain a stony silence for the rest of the voyage if she allowed him to.
    ‘What will you do when you return home?’
    For a moment she thought he was not going to answer her. Then, two steps later, he said, ‘Learn to be a country landowner.’ He sounded less than enthusiastic, although the note of utter indifference to his own fate that had so worried her before was missing. It had been replaced with distaste, which she had to suppose was better.
    ‘Is it a big estate?’ It could be nothing very impressive, not if he had come into his inheritance four months ago and had not bought so much as a new shirt.
    Ross shrugged. ‘Big enough for someone who doesn’t know the front end of a pig from a stook of corn.’
    Pigs and corn sounded considerably less intimidating than town life and society, but then she had been brought up in the country. No doubt for a soldier it must seem both dull and difficult. Oh well, a small estate would give him plenty of leisure for recreation. He would hunt and fish, like all country gentlemen, find himself a wife—one who could manage without smiles or affection—and father a brood of dark, scowling children.
    ‘What?’ Ross enquired, catching sight of the amused twist of her lips. ‘You know the difference, do you?’
    ‘Certainly I do.’ Meg made for the hatch cover again, their walk at an end. ‘The stook of corn has more ears than the pig.’
    She was brought up short by a crack of laughter. ‘Now what is it?’ Ross enquired as she turned, hardly able to believe her ears.
    ‘You laughed.’
    ‘You made a joke,’ he countered, once more poker-faced.
    Perhaps, if he could remember how to laugh, she need not worry about