“The exact nature of the pose depends on what the purchaser of it desires. I am flexible in my art if decent pay is offered. Although, I must say that in my most popular ones, she is indeed wearing her drawers. However, as the legs of a woman’s drawers do not join, if you draw her at the right angle . . .” He grins. “It is all about the angle.”

My cheeks flush, and I quickly drink more rum.

He lifts his pencil from the page. “Careful, crécerelle. If you overimbibe, I will be forced to end this conversation, lest it lead places you would not wish it to go.” He glances up at me. “Shall we stop discussing my side profession?”

I shake my head.

He returns to his drawing. “Do you have questions about it?”

I certainly do. So many questions, which range from somewhat indiscreet to wildly indiscreet. What comes out of my mouth, though, is, “I presume it was lucrative?”

He laughs. “Onboard a ship? Among men trapped for months at sea? It was even more lucrative than privateering. One thing you must understand about pirate—or privateer—life, crécerelle, is that when money flows, it flows like water, and men let it slip through their hands just as easily. For a sketch done at sea, which might take me an hour’s time, they would pay what they could expect to for an entire day in a brothel.”

He adds a few strokes. “While openly lewd sketches were my most lucrative, they are not my favorite to draw. They leave too little to the imagination. They are also not to my personal taste. I prefer something more like this.”

He turns the sketchpad around, and I blink. It’s me, undoubtedly me, captured exactly as I am right now, lounging by a fire. Lounging by a fire in my corset and drawers, hair over my shoulder as I lean on my arm. There is nothing suggestive in the pose, and somehow that makes it all the more sensual, and I find myself blushing fiercely.

He tears the page from the pad and holds it over the fire. “Oui?”

“No,” I say, moving to snatch it from his hand.

“You may destroy it if you like,” he says.

I shake my head.

“Then, with your permission, may I continue to work on it another time? That is simply a quick sketch. A concept. I would not ever show it to others, and in case it is ever discovered, I can blur your face to be unrecognizable.”

“I am not concerned with anyone recognizing me.” Especially considering I won’t be born for another thirty years.

“Well, I still would not show it. This is a private portrait, sketched in a private moment. I must admit, that bodice you wear is very fetching. It is not a design I have seen before.”

I almost say it’s French. That’s the usual explanation for any unusual item of fashion.

“It is a new style,” I say.