“It’s a shame we can’t go to Italy, as my parents did for their wedding trip,” he said idly. Then his eyes lit up. “If you weren’t aboard, I might give it a try. Shoot across the channel, tiptoe around France, and dock at Leghorn.”

“Leghorn,” Sophie said with fascination. “Do you mean Livorno?”

“Exactly.” Patrick leaned back against the rail, grinning at her as he tossed orange peels over his shoulder to the screaming gulls. “Did you study geography in school, then?”

“Oh no,” Sophie said. “I was sent to Cheltham Ladies’ School, and the best young ladies have no need for geography, since they never travel outside the boundaries of England.”

“Why do you know the Italian name for Leghorn, then?” Patrick’s eyes were automatically ranging over his vessel, checking the gaff rigging, the square sail on the foremost mast, the easy, orderly movements of his crew.

Sophie looked at him and said, “Oh, just a bit of knowledge one acquires.”

But Patrick merely appeared to be distracted. “Do you speak Italian?”

Sophie froze inside. “No,” she blurted. “I don’t know very much …” What an idiot she was! Had she just said that she didn’t know very much about languages? Or that she didn’t speak very much Italian? And, oh dear, what about the book on Turkish grammar currently residing amidst her undergarments? Perhaps she could throw it overboard when Patrick wasn’t looking.

“No one expects young ladies to actually speak foreign languages,” Patrick said comfortingly. “I swear that most of the ladies I’ve met in Almack’s barely know their native tongue. You must be fluent in French, given your mother’s nationality.”

Sophie nodded, afraid to open her mouth.

“I’m a dunce when it comes to languages.” Patrick popped a sweet section of orange into her mouth. “I speak French poorly, and after that I know only odd phrases in other languages. Do you know what the most important sentence in any language is?”

Sophie shook her head, fascinated despite herself.

“Hazard a guess.”

She thought for a moment. Her knowledge of languages was so academic that it was difficult to visualize herself in a different country. “ ‘Where can I find a constable?’ “

Patrick rolled his eyes. “Believe me, constables are more trouble than they’re worth.”

“ ‘Will you direct me to an inn?’ “

“No.” Patrick moved closer to her and tipped up the rim of her bonnet. Then he tore off a section of orange and held it before her face. “ ‘Please, will you accept this unworthy gift, an offering from me and my country, O honored lady?’ “

Sophie laughed as he sensuously rubbed the dripping orange across her lips until she opened them.

“I can say it in fourteen languages,” he said, laughter lurking in his eyes. “Unfortunately, it is the only thing I can say in Welsh, so we will have to encounter the country in English.”