The Book of the Seven Delights Read Online Free PDF

complement of female garb.
    He lowered his eye patch, intending to retreat in silence, when the chit abruptly lifted her nightdress and dragged it off over her head.
    She stood fastening the sleeves of a starched white blouse while a gray tweed skirt hung open from her waist on one side and down along her hip on the other. The breeze blew her long hair such that it caught on her blouse and wrapped about her arms and shoulders. Chestnut brown hair. Lapping suggestively around her.
    His mouth went dry.
    "I'll tell Haffe to check on you in an hour," he managed gruffly. "You'll probably need reviving by then."
    He headed for the door to the cabin passage, feeling suddenly too damned warm himself. "Oh, and if you know what's good for you, you'll get rid of those silk petticoats, too. Where you're going, you won't want to draw attention to what's under your skirts."
    "I'll have you know, the quantity and quality of my petticoats is—" She stalked after him to the top of the stairs he was descending, determined to have the last word. "Proper ladies wear petticoats all over Arabia and Africa. I've read the accounts… Lillias Campbell Davidson… Mary Kingsley, too, in West Africa… Amelia Edwards in A Thousand Miles Up The Nile … Ella Sykes in Through Persia on a Side-Saddle … Mabel Crawford in Through Algeria … they all wore plenty of petticoats!"
    His cabin door was slamming behind him before he realized she was citing titles and authors. Books .
    Good God. She was heading off to Morocco armed with the advice of a bunch of lunatic females who had gone gallivanting all over the globe and somehow survived to write about it. In glowing terms, no doubt. Making it sound like a tea party in paradise.

    A raving innocent. With a boatload of pride.
    Headed straight for disaster.
    He groaned and ripped off his eye patch, rubbing the scars around the eye it had covered, purging the lingering silhouette of her cool, naked curves. Stubborn chit… sailing into a town like Casablanca with no idea who or what lay in wait for her… refusing to listen to the voice of reason and experience… just like he had years ago…
    Somebody ought to save her from herself. Somebody who actually cared if she "corseted" and
    "petticoated" herself into oblivion. Somebody who didn't mind simple-minded lies and high-handed manners. Somebody with a lot more patience than common sense.
    Somebody else .
    He had far more pressing matters to contend with… like how to win back some of his stake money from the crew, and how to get off the ship when they docked without getting spotted, captured, and very likely killed.
    Life on deck wasn't really so bad, Abigail decided, except for her tendency to awaken at the slightest noise and the ship's penchant for making worrisome noises night and day. Over the next few days, she regained her strength and made increasingly longer visits to her cabin to bathe, wash her hair, and restore order to her belongings. It was a relief to find that none of her journals or maps were missing and that her cache of money remained undisturbed.
    Haffe, the rotund little steward with the ever-present turban and horse-toothed grin, was diligent in his efforts to see to her needs. It was from him that she learned that the racket from "Smeeth's" cabin, meant that the gambling had resumed and that the crew were making nightly contributions to his "luck."
    It was just like him—she fanned herself with the book she was reading—to spend his time drinking, gambling, and taking advantage of the poor crew. Thank heavens she didn't have to deal with him anymore. Her one regret was that he couldn't see just how well she was faring, corset and all. She fanned harder.
    Two mornings later the horizon filled with a coastline of beaches and cliffs that gave way to glimpses of rolling hills and the fertile plains beyond. North Africa. Morocco . The place of spice markets, minarets, and men in turbans… of sand dunes and oases… of caravans of camels