How to Seduce a Bride

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“Be damned to all men,” the young woman said angrily. “I’ll marry and be done with them!” She stood on the dock, her back rigid and her hands closed to fists.

“Oh, Daisy, you don’t mean it,” her friend exclaimed.

“Well, maybe I don’t,” Daisy said with the winsome smile that drove half the men in Botany Bay mad with desire and set the other half to lustful daydreams. “But I’m going to leave this place on the next fair tide, see if I don’t. I’m bound and determined to marry again. That’s the only way to be safe from unwanted attentions.”

“There are plenty of single men right here,” her friend protested.

“Yes,” Daisy said. “But not a gentleman among them. I’ve friends here I’ll miss, true. It’s a good enough place to live if you’re free. But I’m not free, even though I’m single again. Especially since I’m single again.” She watched the horizon and the departing ship, and as it became smaller her voice became firmer. “I know what I mean to do and how I’m going to do it. And if a randy captain thinks he can keep me off his ship unless I share his bed, let him. There are other ships and other captains, and not all of them such horn-mad, lusty-guts neither.”

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