1635_ Cannon Law - Eric Flint [17]
"My lady speaks the truth, as ever. What need have I of maps and rutters and"—he sneered, as magnificently as only Ruy could—"Guidebooks, when I have but to know I am in your presence and can therefore never be lost?" He composed his face in a smile of such seraphic contentment that it was all Sharon could do not to crack up there and then.
As it was she chuckled, and hugged his arm where it was through hers. "There are times, Ruy, when you verge on the impossible." She looked up into his face again, and saw the beatific countenance had returned to the usual impish grin. A grin that made it difficult, sometimes, to remember that he wasn't just old enough to be her father, he was actually a couple of years older than her father. And was still recovering from a severe abdominal injury to boot. Technically, at least—the most she'd ever seen was him wincing a little getting up.
That was Ruy Sanchez de Casador y Ortiz. Somewhere close to sixty years of age, he still thought getting into a sword fight against six-to-one odds was a perfectly reasonable proposition. Of course, he'd spent most of those sixty years fighting in Spain's wars and skirmishes on three continents and had survived everything that had been thrown at him. Come right to it, he'd put four of his six opponents down before they got him, leaving the other two for Sharon and Billy Trumble to deal with.
She'd found his courtship hard at first, perfect seventeenth-century gentleman though he was in that as in all things. She still found the memory of Hans painful, even now nearly a year and a half after his death, and with all the things that had happened since. Life did, indeed, go on, but at its own pace, and she hadn't been ready. And there, if you wanted to see a bright side, was the real beauty of Ruy. Old enough and scarred enough himself, he'd understood perfectly and been patient. Then, just as she was being relieved of her duties at the Venetian embassy by the new resident down from Magdeburg, the Day had come. A Day that merited a capital letter when she thought about it. The Day that fell a year and a day after Hans had died protecting Wismar from the Danish invasion fleet. The day she'd promised Ruy an answer to his marriage proposal.
By the Day there had been no doubt. By then she'd found a new life of her own, as a trader, diplomat and—as she thought of herself—medical missionary to the surgeons and physicians of down-time Italy. She'd also had months of Ruy's charming company to make her answer a foregone conclusion.
That just left the wedding to plan. Which reminded her, they'd come for this walk out of the new embassy—recently upgraded from a consulate by Sharon's arrival as ambassador—for a reason. The fact that Rome had been remodeled in the time between now and the future date at which this dog-eared guidebook had been written had somehow let her get sidetracked. In fact—
"Ruy? Are you trying to distract me?"
Innocence personified, cherubic this time. If, that is, you could imagine a cherub with conquistador mustachios. And wasn't that a laugh—almost the first thing Ruy had done in his military career was a term of service as an actual by-God conquistador.
"Don't give me that look, Ruy! You've been trying to duck out of planning our nuptials ever since I said I would marry you."
He had the good grace to look abashed. "Sharon, I confess, it is true. I am a simple man. For me it is only you that matters. Alas for my unpretentious nature."
Sharon snickered, and Ruy responded with a look that was old-fashioned even for the seventeenth century.
"Alas, as I was saying, for my unpretentious nature, it is only proper