Ned smiled. Their gazes met, and a tremulous moment passed before Cecilia looked down, rearranging a fork on the table ever so slightly, and Ned’s smile deepened. “I’ve seen nothing shocking,” he assured her. “Do try the wine; it’s not bad.”

Cecilia hesitated. She’d never taken alcohol before and was unsure it was wise to do so now. Miss Darlington would not even let her drink Communion wine, believing it the surest way to catch rabies. But a young woman in the company of an urbane gentleman did not want to look unsophisticated; therefore, Cecilia lifted her glass and sipped.

Dry sweetness burst in her mouth. The taste was strong but not unpleasant. She took another sip and failed to dislike it. The sweetness fizzed down her throat. After a moment, she sipped again. Her lips tingled. The room seemed to soften with a mild heat. They must have lit a fire, she thought, and looked around to see it, without success.

“What do you think?” Ned asked. “Pretty reasonable for free wine, yes?”

“Yes,” she agreed, and took another, more protracted, swallow.

“Sissy,” Ned said—

“Please don’t call me that. I am not a Sissy.”

He looked at her a moment (his face swaying in the most peculiar fashion) and then smiled. “I believe you’re right. And you are not a Cilla either. Perhaps Ceelee?”

“No.”

“Leelee?”

“Certainly not. Not.” She drank the last from her glass before setting it down. Then setting it down again as the table leaped beneath it. Ned watched her hand move slowly away from the glass to touch the breadstick, then the spoons, then tap the table, before resting again in her lap. Then he looked into her eyes, holding her steady with his warm, smiling gaze.

“No,” he said. “Not Leelee but a lily. Pale and delicate and sometimes poisonous. As William Blake said, ‘the Lily white shall in love delight, nor a thorn nor a threat stain her beauty bright.’”

She eyed him narrowly. “I do believe that was accurately recited!”

He gave her a sly, knowing grin. Her stomach, and her understanding of him, both flipped. She lifted her glass to sip more wine as a cover for her confusion, but it was empty. He poured her more.

“A lily,” she said, wrinkling her nose. As soon as the glass was full, she took it and drank. “I don’t know. Thornless doesn’t seem quite right for a pirate.”

“Trust me,” he said, and she laughed.

Ned sat back in his chair, watching her laugh, utterly charmed. She clearly could not hold even the smallest amount of liquor, and the consequence was a loosening of her reserve that not only brought her to laughter but made her eyes turn dark beneath their long lashes and her face soften so that she seemed at once older and yet more vulnerable; gentler and yet more deadly to his heart. She laughed in the same way she did everything else, with innate consideration—quietly, so as to not disturb the other diners, but spirited enough that it honored his joke.