Chapter 10 #2
“You want to come with me?” She gave him a laugh that brightened her eyes with disbelief. “I’ll be fine on my own.” She patted her sides and rattled her weapons. “I get that you think I’ll be in danger if I’m alone, but I’m sure you don’t want to follow me around while I look at dresses.”
He folded his arms across his chest and tried to make his tone light to hide his true intentions. “Are you saying I don’t like going shopping because I’m a man? That’s rather presumptuous.”
“Nooo.” She giggled, stepping forward to poke him in the chest. “I’m saying you probably don’t like going shopping because you’re a cheapskate who doesn’t like spending his coin.”
Bloody hell, she has me dead to rights there.
Instead of responding to her brutally truthful comment, Alister turned her and slapped her arse so hard she jumped.
“Move it. Let’s go find you something better to frolic around in.”
She gave a loud squeak of surprised indignation before walking forward to lead the way.
Because they were on their own without men guarding them, he kept his hand firmly on the hilt of his cutlass. Without a care, as if the world was filled with innocent bunnies and pretty rainbows – and not the criminals around them – Rosetta skipped along.
To his annoyance, she stopped at every stall that held something of interest to her – which happened to be almost every single one. She even stopped to lean over and smell some flowers at a florist. He noticed she paid special attention to the roses and the white gardenias.
“Actually, it might be good that you’re here with me,” she said under her hat, walking once more with her hands behind her back. “You can pay for a new dress.”
“Nay.” He chuckled with deep humour. “You can pay for your own clothes.”
She tilted her head back to look at him while pointing to the neckline of the yellow one she was wearing. “I only have to get a new one because you ripped this one last night.”
“You’re a cheeky one, but you can’t pull the wool over my eyes this time.
” He raised his brow when he thought he may have seen the corner of her lips twitch, as though she was going to smile at being caught.
“I still remember the day you took my ship from me and screamed, ‘Get me out of this godforsaken ugly dress!’ You wanted a new one regardless.”
“And here I was, hoping you were forgetful!”
She threw her hands up in frustration, but the smile that broke from her showed him she wasn’t really bothered in the least. He shook his head at her, cracking his own small smile as they continued to shop.
She darted around, moving back and forth to look at everything, but always returned to his side. Alister thought he might have been enjoying himself a small amount, watching her flit around the market like a fairy.
That was, until she started trying to feed him different strange foods.
From their supply hunting, she’d already figured he hadn’t tasted much. Now, she seemed to be on the prowl to make sure he tried everything possible and made him pay for it!
If he refused because he wasn’t sure if he would like what she offered, it forced them to move on. Occasionally, he’d try something just to make her shut up. Unfortunately, they got to a stall selling something specific, and she refused to budge.
“You have got to try this. I only ever got to eat it when I was in the mansion. My family couldn’t afford it. The fact that they even have it here means you have to.”
“Nay, I don’t want to.”
He eyed it over with a grimace. He didn’t like the brown colour of it. He also didn’t fully trust that, after everything nice she’d gotten him to eat, she wouldn’t trick him into eating something foul.
He could picture Rosetta playing a prank on him too easily.
She would very much learn that Alister didn’t like messing with his tastebuds. He was enjoying himself. The last thing he wanted was to be put into a sour mood because he’d eaten something that made him shudder with disgust.
Rolling her eyes, she was so adamant he try it that she paid for it herself.
“A whole silver for just that piece?” he howled when he saw she was holding a tiny sliver of this brown food that looked like it came from the back end of an animal.
It was no bigger than his thumb nail.
“Only nobles can afford to eat something like this,” she said, inching closer. “Just try it.”
“Why should I care what nobles eat?”
He’d tried things like caviar and snail once because he’d been curious to know why the rich wanted to eat them.
Alister didn’t often purge what was in his stomach, no matter what he ate or how much he drank, but even he’d almost retched when he’d tasted them.
Their gross consistency also hadn’t helped.
Since then, he’d refused to eat something just because they did.
“Please?” she asked with a giggle, bringing the piece closer to his face. “I used to love eating this.”
His hand shot forward, and he grabbed her wrist to stop her.
“I. Said. Nay,” he bit with so much malice in his tone that he noticed some of the people around them stepping away.
His teeth were tightly gritted, and he knew his face would be twisted into something nasty. Why does she never listen? It was as if she was getting under his skin like this on purpose.
Her lips parted. He watched her eyes bow at the corners, her cheeks lifting as she cringed at him. It took him a moment to see past his own anger to understand why she gave him such a pained expression.
Alister’s eyes widened. He immediately released her small wrist when he realised he’d been crushing it within his meaty fist. He brought his hand back so quickly, like it was on fire, that he knocked it into a pedestrian behind him.
The small man acted as though Alister had punched him in the face when he stumbled back, holding his cheek.
“Ah, shit.” He felt a hint of shame prickle on the back of his neck. “Rosetta... I didn’t mean to.”
Alister may be forceful, but he didn’t think he’d ever actually hurt her by grabbing her before. Not because he was afraid she’d shoot him for it, but because she’d run and fought from a life filled with abuse from a man. Alister didn’t want to be cast into that same category.
Her eyes narrowed on him, her lips thinning into a scowl.
“If you eat it, I’ll forgive you.”
He winced when he looked at it near his face, then back at her. Fine then! He hesitantly opened his mouth and let her place it on his tongue.
His face was crinkled in worry as he started to chew, but eventually, it faded into a widened state of mystification. Seeing his expression change and keeping to her promise to forgive him, she gave him a bright smile.
“It’s good, right? Apparently, it’s hard to make.”
Alister thought it may have been the most delicious thing he’d eaten, besides maybe a perfectly cooked piece of meat – which he never got at sea.
His gaze shifted to assess the remainder of the puzzling brown food in the stall. “What is it?”
“It’s chocolate,” she answered with a wistful sigh, gazing at the display in longing. He noticed she also distractedly rubbed at her injured wrist in an attempt to soothe it. “It’s made from cocoa and milk, which is why it goes to waste so easily. I haven’t seen it since I left Luxor.”
When she stepped away from the stall, Alister’s feet felt stuck to where he stood. With a solemn sigh, he reached his hand into his coin pouch and flicked a gold coin at the vendor.
Catching back up to her, since she hadn’t noticed he hadn’t followed straight away, he grabbed her good wrist. She gasped when he slapped a small bag into her upturned hand.
“What’s this?” She looked inside before frowning at the small pieces of chocolate.
“A smart man knows when he’s right and when he’s wrong.”
“Al–” She paused before she finished saying his name out loud in the overcrowded marketplace. “I told you it was okay as long as you ate it.”
“Aye, but that didn’t sit right with me.”
Her expression remained thoughtful, before a look of sweet contentment curled her lips. She pulled a piece from the pouch and popped it into her mouth. Her cheeks grew flushed, like they often did with arousal, at the taste. He blinked at her reaction.
They continued their shopping, but Alister noticed Rosetta hadn’t bought anything but the piece of chocolate she’d forced him to eat.
He’d never had any intention of buying anything in the first place, but he wasn’t too beaten up at losing an entire gold coin since he’d gotten her to smile so warmly.
She stopped them at a jewellery store, and he rolled his eyes so hard, he thought he may go blind in the other. He knew she would at some point start making them peruse some.
In rare times in the past, when Alister may have spent time with a woman and walked market streets, there was always tension within him. Women always wanted him to buy things for them, commenting on how something was pretty, or saying, “I’ve always wanted something like that.”
He despised it.
He hated it all the way down to his bones, his soul.
The number of times he’d stormed away from a woman in a huff because of her insistent, annoying begging, he couldn’t count on one hand. He expected the same from her and already the swirl of fire began to swell in his belly.
He tried to suppress his growing anger.
His brows drew together while she looked over a golden necklace and placed it over his collar bones, like she was trying to pick something for him. She must not have thought it suited him because she placed it back down and moved them along. She didn’t seem interested in anything for herself.
She’s not going to ask me for anything?
“You wear a lot of jewellery,” she commented with humour. “Have you ever bought a piece of it?”
He looked over his fingers that almost held a ring on each. He could feel his golden ring dangling from his ear and his mother’s gift still knocking against his sternum.
“Nay. Almost all of it is booty.”