Caution to the Wind (American Heroes) by Adams Mary Jean

Author:Adams, Mary Jean [Adams, Mary Jean]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press, Inc
Published: 2013-04-19T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

Amanda set a steaming tureen of turtle soup on the table. Later, she would have to admit she had outdone herself with dinner, but right now, she was too amazed at the transformation that had taken place to pay much heed to the visiting officers’ keen interest in the succulent aromas wafting from the stone tureen.

She had been stunned to learn a dining room existed on the ship. Actually, it didn’t normally. The Amanda was too small to have a permanent dining room, but like many ships refitted for battle, certain walls were removable. From somewhere the crew had produced a large, mahogany dining table, a linen tablecloth edged with lace, and china decorated with delicate blue flowers inlaid with a silver filigree. She wondered if the captain had borrowed the finery from his English guests.

Captain Stoakes had told her she could cook whatever she pleased. There were plenty of chickens on board, and her sense of humor got the best of her. While she had to improvise a bit with the ingredients, she made a passable coq au vin for his guests.

She hoped serving a well-known French dish to English guests didn’t go against the privateer’s code, but with the chicken simmering in the pot, it was too late to turn back. Perhaps no one would notice the subtle jab at English pride. But, whether or not they caught it, these were Captain Stoakes’s guests, and she really had no right to be rude. She would make up for her thoughtlessness by serving a fabulous desert.

Maybe a crème brulee? Amanda cringed. Apparently, her dark sense of humor went even deeper than she knew.

Now, she and Cookie brought out one perfectly prepared, although somewhat improvised, dish after another, and she watched their guests attack each with gusto.

The captain’s table seated eight that evening; Captain Stoakes, Buck Smythe, Doctor Miller, and four of the officers of the captured merchantman, including the captain whom she had seen earlier and his ship’s surgeon. To Captain’s Stoakes left, a woman of stunning beauty hung on his every word, and when she could manage it, his person. Amanda couldn’t help but stare, both at the girl’s beauty and her boldness.

Seated next to the captain’s tall, powerful frame, she appeared almost fairy-like, something to be seen yet not quite believed. She had dark blue eyes set in porcelain skin. Her rosebud lips smiled demurely at everything the captain said, and she often cast sideways glances at him from beneath her long dark lashes. Unlike her own complexion, this woman had no freckles and certainly no sun-bronzing. Amanda raised her hand and trailed her fingertips across her wind-roughened cheek to settle for a moment on her chapped lips. She let the hand drop.

Tearing her gaze from the woman’s face, she ladled the soup into elegant, sculpted soup bowls then handed them to Cookie so he could set them before the guests. She was no one’s idea of a beauty, and never would be, so what did

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