Sophie swallowed. It was too late for her to admit to a fluent knowledge of Welsh.

But Patrick mistook her fleeting expression of alarm. “It’s quite all right, sweetheart. The whole country speaks English. And anyone who doesn’t had better learn.

“And they might want to start boning up on their French as well,” Patrick added. “Some people think that Napoleon will launch a force from Brest and swing right around Cornwall, land in Wales, and attack England from the back side.”

“Oh, Bonaparte.” Sophie was having trouble concentrating on foreign affairs, given that Patrick had cut another orange slice in half and was tempting her lips with it. The sharp smell tickled the inside of her nose.

“Not to worry about him. The Lark is one of the fastest ships on the ocean. We can outrun whatever fleet Napoleon has in the channel. All he really has are flat-bottomed boats, anyway.”

“Is the Lark a Baltimore clipper?”

Patrick gave her a surprised, encouraging look. “Yes. It has a V-shaped hull, sharp-built to cut the waves.”

Sophie grimaced at him, irritation cutting through the sensual haze he was weaving with his orange slices. “Don’t you think I can read?” She said it mildly enough. “The Times has been talking of the shipyards in Fells Point for five or more years!”

Patrick absentmindedly ate the orange slice he had intended to give her. “I don’t know much about proper English ladies. My mother died before I grew up, and since then—” He shrugged. “I haven’t spent much time in England.”

“I know,” Sophie broke in, “and since you have been here, you haven’t spent time with ladies!”

Patrick chortled. “Actually,” he said teasingly, “it’s not that they weren’t ladies, just that they weren’t the ‘proper’ sort of ladies.”

He grinned. He liked this whipper-sharp bride of his, with her tart tongue and longing eyes. Patrick moved over and pushed Sophie back against the railing, fitting the front of his body against hers like a jigsaw puzzle.

Sophie looked up at him, a sweet wistfulness in her eyes. “Have you been to fourteen countries, then?”

“At least,” Patrick replied.

“How I would love to travel,” Sophie said longingly. “I would go to the Orient.”

“What do proper ladies do all day long?”

Sophie’s mind was clouding again. “They … they go on calls and leave cards.”

“That sounds remarkably tedious. What else?”

“They shop.”

“Why?”

Sophie gasped. Patrick was unmistakably moving his hips against hers, just slightly.

“Patrick! What if someone sees you?” She couldn’t see anything around his body.

“There’s nothing to see,” her husband replied comfortably. He had braced both his hands on the rail on either side of her. “What do proper ladies buy when they shop?”