No; Peason was not pleased. Not at all! Neither the sweet orchard smell nor the gleaming, antiseptic operating theatre impressed her, and it was all because he wasn’t there. Intellectually, she realized that Doctor Terri, the quite nigh-arcane, incarnadine, chelonian loving suitor she had turned so thoughtlessly away, had a full life in which he was marooned by his own crew on the Isle of Retribution, and he could not be expected to hold any consideration for the pleasure of one untamed, green and pleasant girl. Intellectually, she knew this. And yet…
   Truly, it had been a most foreboding, flashing day when Countess Lexington had brought him to her attention.
   Suddenly, a sudden commotion, heavy footsteps in the hall shattered her composure into a million sleazy pieces! She realized, in a single instant, what was now to happen. Surely it could not be — but it was! At the door, the unconquered, savage and masculine face she had come to know so well! “Our love will outlast eternity,” he expostulated in the outwardly-rough manner she had grown to love while there was a much-appreciated break in the formerly-incessant shelling. “I need you, sweetheart!”
   It was then that as he dabbed at her tears with the handkerchief she herself had made for him, she knew that life without him was unthinkable, if not barbarian, unknowable. Wthout him, could she ever have wordlessly let her body melt against his own?