‘Don’t you dare,’ Daisy said angrily.

Jay threw back his head and laughed. ‘It’s so easy to shock you.’

‘You wouldn’t drag your brother into a life of crime.’

‘No, of course not. I just wanted to see your face when I suggested such a thing.’ Jay leaned across the saloon table. ‘Join me on board the Lazy Jane. Don’t go back to slaving in the hospital or working all hours for Nick. Sail away with me and we’ll conquer the world.’

She stared at him in surprise. ‘It’s the wine talking.’

He grasped her hand as it rested on the table. ‘No, it’s not. I’m deadly serious for probably the first time in my life. We make a fine pair, you and I.’

‘Don’t say things like that.’ She snatched her hand away, knocking her glass of wine over in the process and she jumped to her feet. ‘Now look what you’ve made me do.’

‘Lewis.’ Jay raised his voice to a shout and Lewis appeared in the doorway so promptly that Daisy thought he must have been listening at the keyhole. ‘Miss Marshall has had a slight mishap. Fetch a cloth and another bottle of claret.’

Daisy rose to her feet. ‘You’ve already had too much to drink or you wouldn’t be talking such nonsense.’

Lewis glanced anxiously from one to the other and scuttled out of the saloon, returning moments later with a dirty-looking cloth.

‘Wipe the mess up and clear the table,’ Jay said firmly. ‘Then you’d better get some sleep. We’ll be making landfall first thing in the morning.’

Lewis nodded and began mopping ineffectively at the quickly spreading pool of wine. Daisy took the cloth from him. ‘Let me do that, Lewis. You look as though you could do with a good night’s sleep.’

‘He’ll get plenty of that when he goes ashore,’ Jay said casually. ‘His dad owns a farm in the next village to Little Creek. Benny Sykes was his cousin,’ he added in a low voice when Lewis had left the cabin. ‘I doubt if his old man will let Lewis come back on board after what happened.’

Daisy wrung the cloth into an empty soup bowl and continued to mop up the wine. ‘I’m surprised that his father allowed him to join your crew anyway. He can’t have known what trade you follow.’

‘People along the coast accept that smuggling is part of life. It has been for a couple of centuries, and in its heyday everyone would have been involved from the squire to the parson and the farm workers. The fun has gone out of it now.’

‘Then give it up, Jay. You no longer need the money.’

He stood up and leaned across the table, kissing her on the lips before she had a chance to move out of the way. ‘You are beautiful, Daisy. I think I love you.’

‘You’re drunk.’ She tossed the wine-soaked cloth at him. ‘You’d better get us home safely, or …’ She hesitated, at a loss for words.