“Well, they can shop during the day alone, or with a maid or a friend,” Lewrie flummoxed, “another girl, their mother, or a member of her family? At night, that’s another proposition, ’cause there’s the risk of criminals prowlin’ about, then they would need a man’s protection. T’be considered ‘respectable’ and all.”

“But, what you think of a woman by herself at night?” Maddalena pressed, halfway ’twixt dead-serious, but with the air of someone who was eager to win a point.

“Well, is she pretty…?” Lewrie teased, tongue-in-cheek.

“Aha! You see? Even you would think her a whore!” Maddalena crowed with delight to prove her assertion, playfully shoving on his chest. “Without a Senhora Dona or man of her family, it is not done!”

“Bit lonely, though, just sittin’ round by yourself?” Lewrie posed, cocking his head to one side. “Mean t’say…”

“Ah, there is the newspaper, books to rent,” Maddalena explained, “in Spanish, Portuguese, and English, there is sewing, my bird to talk to … I would like to get a kitten, but the Major did not like cats. Perhaps if you do not mind…”

“Get one!” Lewrie exclaimed, “get a pair! I’ve had cats aboard in my cabins for ages!” He quickly described Chalky, and what splendid company he made at sea.

Maddalena rewarded him with another close, long hug, and a kiss on his cheek. “Por Deus, but you are wonderful man!”

*   *   *

He found a runner to carry a note out to his ship, saying that he would be back aboard by the start of the Forenoon, then helped Maddalena finish stowing away all her things where she wanted them. They went out to the nearby markets for her staples; wine, cheese, bread, fruits and jams, olive oil for cooking, some spices, and coffee, cocoa beans, and coned sugar. She also needed flour, rice, and some of that Moroccan pasta, cous cous. Lewrie learned that it was one word, and was not pronounced “cows cows”. He had to pay a street urchin to help get their “haul” up to her new lodgings.

They dined after sunset at a nearby establishment, lingering to talk and sip wine long after their spicy omelets, cured ham, sliced tomatoes, and rice puddings were finished.

Then … back at Maddalena’s lodgings, with the heavy oak door locked and barred, Lewrie was invited to get comfortable, taking off his coat, waist-coat, neck-stock, and sword while she hummed to herself at her vanity in the bed-chamber. When she returned, she was barefoot, padding to join him on the settee in a dressing robe which she held close at the throat, as if hesitant to fulfill her part of the “bargain” she’d made with him for a time.

Only a few candles were lit, there was another bottle of that effervescent Spanish wine to share, and after some time spent talking and laughing softly, she leaned closer, then closer, ’til they shared a first, timid kiss. Lewrie did not wish to maul her, to begin their arrangement brutishly, but it was a damned hard thing to deny his rising excitement. Their embraces and kisses began gently, worshipping her fine neck, her ears, her eyes and cheeks, and it was Maddalena who responded with pleased moans, loosening her dressing robe to bare her shoulders, her throat, to his kisses, chuckling low and drawing him onward. Teasingly, tantalisingly, at last she took hold of his right hand, kissed his wrist and his palm, then placed his hand on her breast.

She slipped away from him, rose, snuffed all but one candle, and padded to the door of her bed-chamber, beckoning him to follow.

What fantacies Lewrie had envisioned of her form did not hold a candle to the reality of her. Her arms, back, and torso were lean and firm, sweetly tapering to the swell of her hips, a firm, flat belly, and long, slim legs. Her breasts were firm and warm, with large, dark areoli and puckery nipples, which Lewrie worshipped as he held her so very cuppable lean bottom. Once completely nude, they stood by the side of the bed-stead, with her thighs slightly parted, and his hard manhood between, pressing together, their hips moving as Lewrie gently ran his hands over her smooth flesh, feeling as if he might explode that instant, and she loosed her long, dark hair to swish across her back and over his eager hands.

At last, she stepped back, looked him in the eyes with that same frank and open expression, smiling mysteriously as she got into bed and reached out to draw him down to join her, and her body, in the light of a single candle, was golden.

It had been so long, Lewrie wanted to roar, seize her hips, and thrust in at once, but instead, he kissed her all over, from her neck to her belly, which made her groan and writhe, and he could feel her belly quiver a little. With his senses alive beyond imagining, Lewrie slid up and eased into her, slowly, ’til he was sheathed in her warm wetness, so deep that there was no depth left to plumb, and Maddalena lifted her knees, reached down to his bottom, and urged him on to the last, and gave out a cry. He released at last, mindless minutes later, in a burst of immense, searing pleasure, thrusting away to salvage and savour the last waves of it, and Maddalena clawed at his back, panting and whimpering, then gave out a gasping, “Sim, yes, ahh!” and arched her back with her thighs about him, clinging as if she was drowning in her own joy, and snatching at anything that might keep her afloat.

Lewrie put the intensity of the experience down to how long it had been since he had lain with a woman, but he was wrong. Maddalena tantalised him to a second go, he kissed her all over to begin a third, and each time his delight was just as shattering, if not better. And, as they at last fell into an exhausted, entwined sleep, she bestowed one last, lingering kiss, and whispered, “I felt that you might be a wonderful man, Alan, but now I know … so wonderful in all things.”

*   *   *

He looked back one last time before making his way to the quays the next morning, and Maddalena was standing on her balcony in her dressing gown, sipping coffee. He waved, feeling like a schoolboy, and she blew him a kiss, her smile as wide as his. Waking to snuggle and kiss, tease and chuckle, whispering tentative sweet nothings to each other, well … it had been all that he could do to rise, dress, and depart, wishing that he could take the whole day off, just once.

Damme, I’ve “bought” me a woman! Lewrie marvelled to himself; And it may be the best bargain I’ve made in ages! So passionate and pleasin’! Just some long delays, so I can stay in port a few more days, please Jesus.

His steps were jaunty, even as he realised that the arrangement could not last; such things rarely did. He would be at sea three weeks out of four, so long as they continued raiding the Spanish coast, and seeing to his ship’s needs, and Sapphire’s people’s needs, would take up most of his time in port, leaving little for Maddalena, who would, after a time, surely wish to seek a “cozier” keeper, who would be around more often. Men got bored after a while, which was why they ran out to seek mistresses, after their wives whelped littl’uns, and gave all their affections to the babes, or got porcine in the process. He knew of only one man of his acquaintance, his old school chum, Peter Rushton, now Viscount Draywick, who was still with his mistress, after six years, and that was most-likely due to the nearness of the lodgings he gave her to Parliament, and Peter’s seat in the House of Lords.

Well, Tess was a charming, darling, and lovely creature, passionate—when Lewrie had bedded her—and Peter had told him that she was a “raree”, one of the few young women he knew who had little desire for fripperies, luxuries, or costly things, and was more than happy to be snug, secure, and cared for.

Christ! Lewrie thought; Maddalena’s beginnin’ t’sound like Tess! One from Portuguese peasantry, t’other Bog-Irish poor! I could never take her t’London, but … maybe she is a good, long-term bargain!