The Ice Princess (Princes #3.5)(11)

She picked up the glass and took a sip defiantly.

A corner of his mouth twitched before he picked up his meat pie and bit into it. He closed his eyes for a moment, a look of near rapture crossing his face.

Coral felt her mouth go dry. What would it be like to be the cause of such bliss? To drive this man—Isaac—to rapture?

He opened his eyes and smiled at her, swallowing, his tanned throat working. "You have no idea how tasty a meat pie is after months at sea."

There were any number of ribald comments she could make to that, but simple curiosity won out. "Tell me."

"We start out with fresh meat and provisions, of course." He took a sip of his wine. "But they never last long. Then we're down to mealy biscuits mostly until we make port again. Funny how each man takes it. Most simply soldier on, try not to think of better victuals."

"Most?" She poked at her pie with a fork. He'd set two out, though he was eating his own pie with his fingers.

He grunted. "I once had a first mate, name of Jones. He would talk on and on about food. Dishes his mother made. Favorite meals he'd had. The last meal he'd eaten while on shore. He could wax eloquent about a joint of beef until you fair tasted the meat on your tongue."

Coral raised her eyebrows, smiling in spite of herself. "And how did your other sailors take this?"

"Not always well." He chuckled. "I once had to confine two sailors to the brig. I was afraid they'd murder Jones in his sleep."

She laughed, the soft sound surprising her. She looked down at her meat pie and took a bite. It was delicious, the gravy savory, the thick chunks of meat tender. "Jones is no longer your first mate?"

He didn't answer and she looked up. Isaac had stopped eating and was staring blindly down at the table.

"Isaac?"

He inhaled and glanced at her, his eyes empty. "No, Jones is no longer my first mate."

She made a practice of leading men on and then turning away. Of never asking too deep a question. Of never becoming involved.

But not tonight. "What happened to him?"

His brows knit as he stared down at his half-eaten meat pie. "We were in battle. A cannon blast caught him on the right arm, just below the shoulder. It wasn't a single ball, but shrapnel—bits of sharp iron. His arm . . ." He swallowed, reaching for his wineglass, but he merely fingered the stem. "His arm was destroyed. The sawbones tried to make a clean amputation, but the wound was very near the shoulder, and it wouldn't stop bleeding. We buried Jones at sea the next morning."

She bit her lip. For some reason the very stoicism of his recital made it all the more heart-wrenching. "I'm sorry."

He didn't seem to hear her. "It's strange. Sometimes the most ordinary of men, the ones small in stature, the ones not outstanding in intelligence or good humor, show the most extraordinary courage. He was awake the entire time, Jones was. All that night with the screams of the other wounded around him he merely lay there, his face white, a small smile on his lips. After the sawbones cut into him, carved away the bits of flesh that hung from his shoulder; after he said he could do no more, Jones looked at him and thanked him. And when I went to talk to him just before dawn, Jones tried to salute and told me it'd been an honor to serve with me."

She looked at him helplessly. She knew how to give a man immeasurable pleasure, how to tease and flirt, how to bring a man so close to the brink he literally begged to be released, and yet she did not know how to comfort this one man.

"Isaac," she whispered.

He blinked and looked up. "Forgive me. This is not nice conversation for a supper table."

She felt a spurt of unaccountable anger and blurted, "But this is what I want to talk about. I want to know about you, about your ship and about your men. I want to know you, Isaac."

Her rash words hung there in the air between them. She couldn't take them back, couldn't pretend she hadn't said them, so she stared at him defiantly. For a moment he didn't move.

Then he leaned a little forward. "Take off your mask, Coral."

She couldn't. She simply couldn't. If she removed her mask, he'd see what lay beneath, he'd see everything she wanted to keep hidden. He'd see her. But oddly, her hands were moving of their own volition, pulling free the ribbons at the back of her head. She laid her golden mask on the table.

And looked at him.

Chapter 6

Now one day a soldier came home from war to the village where he'd been born. And after he'd greeted his mother and father, his sisters, and his old grandmother, he looked around and exclaimed, "But where is Tom, my younger brother? Will he not come and bid me welcome home?"

At this his family sighed and looked at their toes until the grandmother spoke for them all. "Alas! Poor Tom has been enchanted by the Ice Princess and we've never seen him since."

"Tut!" said the soldier to that. "Then I shall have to bring him home again." . . .

--from The Ice Princess

When Isaac arrived the next night, Coral was sitting at the table, as regal as a queen. She was also wearing the golden mask. He waited until her maid curtsied and left the room, and then he stalked toward her.

"Remove it, please."

She hesitated, but he stared at her in command. On this matter he would brook no retreat. Still, he must've unconsciously held his breath as she raised trembling fingers to undo the ties at the back of her head, for he exhaled as her mask fell and once again was caught by surprise.