Cullen considered arguing with his new “wife” about who was better able to pry off a biscuit tin lid, for God’s sakes. But then something in the snapping, direct stare in her gray eyes made him stop and hand over the damned tin.
What would his old mates in the squadron say if they knew he’d just lost the first battle of his marriage to this fiery lass just because she’d stared him down? She hadn’t even flirted and batted her sooty lashes. And…they were still no more intimate than casual acquaintances.
She grasped the top of the tin with long, slender fingers and expertly wiggled the lid from side to side until it popped off, and he caught it with one hand.
Cullen’s mouth dropped open. “How did you do that?”
“Practice,” she said, and pointed toward the surgery outside their quarters. “Some of the dried herbs we use are kept in air-tight tins. When my father requires something to treat a crew member I have to get it for him in a hurry.” She blinked, struggled against the moisture threatening to leak from her eyelids, and corrected herself. “When he required something,” she added, her tone more subdued.
“Your father was a ship’s physician for a long time, and he trained you well as his assistant. You don’t have to pretend or apologize to me, Willa.” He enfolded one of her hands between his two massive paws. “Your father has been gone only a few weeks. Ye must give yerself time to grieve, lass.” He nearly bit his tongue. He hated how he reverted to a Highlands brogue when he was emotional.
She pulled away as if scorched by his touch and rubbed at her eyes. “I know my duties and responsibilities. I’ll work at your side until we return to England.” She swiped at a stray tear on her cheek with her sleeve. “But after that, I’ll live my own life…without you.”
Cullen leaned back against the overly-small chair bolted to the floor of the surgery. He swept the hazy cobwebs of guilt from his mind and gave his “wife” a hard look. “I accept,” he said.
“You accept?” She gazed at him, a bewildered look in her eyes.
“Yes. I accept your challenge.” Cullen lunged forward in the uncomfortable chair and leaned into her space.
“Pah—you are an impossible man, a—a stubborn Scot.” She crossed her arms tightly across her chest.
“I, Cullen MacCloud, wager you, Willa MacCloud, will not be able to resist my charms for the entire two years of our mission to St. Helena.”
“That is a preposterous wager. You will surely lose. We barely know each other, and my choices were rather limited when you crashed into the life I was settling into at the stable.”
“Willa, you are a beautiful woman. How long d’ye think ye could have pulled off that charade? How long would it have been before someone would have guessed yer secret and forced ye to dance to their tune?”
“I’ll never know now, will I?” Willa’s smile returned, the smile that hid so many things while rendering Cullen a staring dolt, like an awkward youth trying to impress his first love. Wait, that’s exactly what he was doing.
After a long silence, he abruptly said, “I was born twenty-nine years ago on MacKenzie lands west of Inverness.”
“Exactly twenty-nine years ago?” Willa gave him a half-intrigued, half-laughing look.
“Yes. As a matter of fact, twenty-nine years ago today.”
Her eyes widened. “It’s your birthday?”
He nodded solemnly.
“Why are you telling me this now?”
“Ye said ye barely know me. I’m telling ye something about myself. Now, it’s your turn.”
“But it’s not my birthday.”
“Then you’ll have to come up with something else. I’ll wait.”
“All right. Here’s something.” She paused for a moment, a mischievous light in her eyes. “I don’t like people who pry.”
Cullen sucked in a breath and bit down on his lower lip to forestall the acid retort bubbling in his throat. The voyage to St. Helena was going to be the longest tour of duty in his entire career with the Royal Navy. In more ways than one.
Willa hated herself for the small pleasure she’d taken in sharing a pot of tea and simple ginger biscuits with the infernal Scotsman she’d been forced to marry.
And the nerve of him. Challenging her to resist his so-called “charms” for the years they’d be forced to share the tiny cabin adjoining the ship’s surgery. She’d shared that same cabin with her father for the six years they’d been assigned to the Arethusa. And the four years before that, an even smaller living area aboard the frigate, Endmyion.
She would perform the work she’d been trained for since she was a small child. She would, by damn, continue that work in spite of Dr. MacCloud’s dubious “charms.” Her work was all she had left. There were always plenty of medical duties aboard a ship the size of the Arethusa. Each day, after the morning call for sailors with illnesses, the work never ended. Doses had to be dispensed for stomach complaints, aching joints, and most of all, venereal disease. After all of her husband’s years in the Royal Navy, she was sure at some point he had had to avail himself of treatment for the clap, like the hundreds of sailors he no doubt had treated as well.
Willa shuddered at the thought of all the hidden dangers of cohabiting with a man. She knew she could not forestall indefinitely the inevitable, disgusting joining, but she would do what she could to protect herself. Dipping into her sea chest, she reached for the thin leather volume of her latest journal. She could not refuse her husband forever, but she could track the vagaries of her own fickle body and perhaps avoid conception as long as possible.
