Beauty's Curse by Tamara Hughes

Author:Tamara Hughes [Hughes, Tamara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Pirates; Shipwrecked; Shipmen’s Superstitions; Curses; Entangled; Scandalous; Romance; Historical Romance; Georgian; category
Goodreads: 25587997
Publisher: Entangled Publishing
Published: 2014-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

The flash of disappointment in Amelia’s eyes put a weight in David’s stomach the heft of a coconut. Although she wouldn’t admit it, she’d hoped he’d been the one to say I love you. Why? He wasn’t worthy of her. Couldn’t she see that?

She dusted the sand from her shift, sand that had been there this entire time. “Give me something to do. I’m feeling useless,” she insisted.

David heaved a sigh. She should rest. She needed to recover. Yet he didn’t blame her for wanting to keep herself occupied. A blush still stained her cheeks, and her fingers trembled as they straightened the linen.

“Very well. I’ve gathered some vines. You can knot them together for a fishing net.” He hadn’t seen many fish so far, but he had hope.

He rose, and his head swam for a matter of seconds. While he’d drunk his fill of rainwater, they’d need more than that and coconuts to survive. He handed her a snarl of vines and returned to his mound of tinder.

She immediately went to work. “Thank you for everything you’ve done for me. I realize yesterday must have been difficult caring for me and—”

“Don’t worry yourself. It was nothing,” he assured her, the quaver in her voice almost too much to bear. He attempted to light the leaves again. The spark didn’t take hold. “I’m just glad you’re feeling better.” In fact… “You were lucky to survive.” He waited for the coming argument. She had yet to admit to any good luck, no matter how obvious it was to him.

Amelia contemplated the vines in her hands. “True. We were both very fortunate to find land.”

Had he heard her correctly? “You admit it?”

“How can I not?” She shrugged. “I thought we would die on that boat. I was sure of it.”

Good. About time she came to her senses. He sat back on his heels and rearranged the dried palm fronds to better block the slight breeze.

“Of course that bit of luck doesn’t excuse my poor choice of traveling across the ocean.”

He dropped his hands to his knees and uttered a low curse. “You’re still blaming yourself for our predicament?” Then again, why would he think otherwise? She’d been stubborn in her belief that she was some sort of harbinger of misfortune from the first moment he’d met her.

Her lips curled, a look of disgust on her face. “If it’s not bad luck that puts me and others into harm’s way, it’s my foolish choices.”

Although Amelia said the words, David had a feeling he knew who put them there. “Is that what your stepmother told you?”

Her hands tugged a bit harder on the vines. Her stepmother probably wasn’t her favorite topic of conversation. Still, he couldn’t stay silent. Not on this. Not after hearing her berate herself time and time again. “How old were you?”

She cast a suspicious glance his way.

Likely she worried he’d try again to talk her out of her silly beliefs. She was right to worry. “How old were you when your stepmother first came into your life?”

“Four or five.

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