Blushing at Both Ends (29 page)

CURTAIN

18

The Pirate's Bride – A
Swashbuckling Romance

‘BUT, MY DEAR,'
said Lady Pamela, in what she hoped were tones of persuasive reason, ‘at least meet the young man. Surely there can be no harm in that?'

Her daughter gave a heavily theatrical sigh. ‘Mama, how many times must I tell you? I have already met him. Five years ago, at Lady Porchester's ball in Berkeley Square. A pasty-faced tongue-tied youth of no distinction whatsoever. I thought little of him then, and have no desire to meet him again now.'

‘But five years is a long time, my dear. During that interval, may the young man not have changed a good deal for the better?'

‘Indeed – or for the worse. You tell me he has become an excellent businessman, and has transformed the fortunes of his father's sugar plantations here on the island. Most impressive, I'm sure. But, Mama, if I wished to die of boredom, no doubt there are quicker ways of doing so than by marrying ‘‘an excellent businessman''.'

Lady Pamela cast her eyes to the heavens. ‘Isabel, I declare I sometimes despair of you. John, help me, for pity's sake! Can you do nothing to persuade your daughter?'

Lord Abercrombie turned reluctantly away from the window, where he had been contemplating the lush Barbadian scenery and the azure sea that lay beyond. In truth, he was a little in awe of his fiery-natured daughter, and rarely tried to oppose her wishes. Contemplating her now, her dark-haired beauty enhanced by the flush on her cheek and the sparkle of indignation in her eye, and mentally contrasting his own pale sandy-haired looks, he wondered, not for the first time, how he could have sired such a girl. Indeed, there had been rumours: Lady Pamela in her youth was not averse to the pleasures of Regency London, and a certain Castilian grandee from the Spanish Embassy had been much in her company . . . Still, why waste time on such fruitless musings?

‘Come, my dear,' he murmured soothingly, ‘is it so much to ask that you meet this young man for an hour or so at dinner? And, you know, if by chance you like him, it could be a most advantageous match for you.'

‘For
me
!' Lady Isabel laughed scornfully. ‘Father, let's at least be candid with each other. You choose to gamble and fritter away our family inheritance, and now you hope that an alliance with a rich trader of the Indies may restore your fortunes – or at least stake you again at the gaming tables. Advantageous, you say? I don't doubt it!'

‘Isabel!' protested her mother. ‘How can you speak so disrespectfully to your father? For shame!'

‘Mother,' retorted the young woman, ‘had my father wished me to honour him with the deference due from a daughter, he might have bestowed on me a little more of the care and affection expected of a father. It's a trifle late now to establish conventional family ties. Besides, might I remind you that you brought me out here – both of you – under deceitful false pretences? This journey, you told me, was intended to restore my father's health. Now it transpires that your true aim was to barter your
only
child for a bag of gold.' Anger and contempt flashed from her eyes. ‘And
you
dare ask respect of
me
?'

With these words Lady Isabel flounced from the room, leaving her parents to gaze at each other in dismay. Eventually, Lord John shrugged helplessly. ‘We are expected at dinner, m'dear. We'd better go, and give the Trevelyans what excuse we may for Isabel's absence. A touch of tropical fever, perhaps?'

But news travels fast in the Caribbean. Long before Lord and Lady Abercrombie, graciously apologetic, had presented themselves at their hosts' dining table, sharp-eared and quick-tongued Barbadian servants had conveyed from one household to the other – not without much laughter – the true reasons for Lady Isabel's non-appearance.

Three days later, that headstrong young lady was strolling on the beach below the villa her parents had leased. The beach, a perfect crescent of pristine white sand fringed with palm trees and lapped by gentle blue waves, offered irresistible appeal to her romantic nature, and she had taken to walking there early each morning before the day grew too hot. It was a lovely spot, and she found herself thinking that, all told, there might be many worse places to live. Only not – she shuddered – as the wife of some sugar-growing
commerçant
, a dullard preoccupied with yields and harvests and market prices. No, what the wild beauty of the island suggested to her was a companion altogether more dashing, more spirited – a man whose bold nature would relish meeting the challenge of a woman worthy of his mettle . . .

Lost in her reverie, she unconsciously rounded the small headland of the bay, only to pause at an unexpected sight. There in the next cove a ship lay at anchor: an old-fashioned square-rigged galleon, all but motionless on the calm sea. And nearer at hand, drawn up on the shore, a longboat with its oars berthed.

With instinctive caution, Isabel turned to retreat. But before she could retrace a single step, a voice spoke behind her. ‘Well, here's a pretty surprise for a fine morning. Where did you spring from, my beauty?'

Isabel swung round. Five paces away a man was reclining on a rock, smiling lazily at her. His skin was brown and his hair was long and tousled; he was bearded and a golden earring hung from his left earlobe. Though he was young – scarcely older, Isabel guessed, than herself – there was an air of authority about him that belied his casual, even ragged, attire and his bare feet. He was, she acknowledged with an involuntary tremor, very handsome, but at the same time there was something dangerous about him. Strangely, Isabel found herself recalling a puma she had once seen at the Zoological Gardens in Regent's Park. Though this man's body was utterly relaxed, it was as though he might pounce at any moment.

Yet more puzzling to Isabel was an odd feeling that his face was somehow familiar, though just why she was unable to recall. ‘Have – have we met?' she asked absurdly, for all the world as if they were conversing in some genteel Mayfair drawing room.

The man smiled all the more broadly. ‘Now is that likely?' he asked. ‘You, a fine young lady from London, and I – well –' with a gesture he indicated his tattered shirt and breeches ‘– as you see me.'

‘How do you know I'm from London?'

‘Oh, my lady, this is a small island, and word gets around. Especially to someone like me, who make it my affair to know things. So, yes, I know who you are, Lady Isabel, and who has brought you here – and why.'

‘Well, in that case,' responded Isabel, her temper rising, ‘you will also know that it's none of your damned business! Now, if you will kindly excuse me.' She turned to go.

The man whistled. It was a brief whistle and not loud, but within seconds half-a-dozen men had appeared as if from nowhere and blocked Isabel's path. ‘How dare you! Let me go!' she cried, and struck out with her fists, but at once she found herself held, gently but firmly, quite unable to move.

‘Ah, but you see,' purred the voice behind her, ‘I intend to
make
it my business. And the first order of business today, my lady, is that you make a short sea voyage with me and my companions.'

‘No! Help!' screamed Isabel, struggling wildly, but to no avail.

The largest of the men, a broad-chested grinning bald giant of a fellow with a striped jersey and red neckerchief, slung her unceremoniously over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and marched off with her towards the longboat. She kicked furiously and thumped his back with her fists, but she might as well have assaulted a mountain.

After a brief ride in the longboat, Isabel was toted up a rope ladder in the same undignified style and set upright upon the galleon's deck. The boat's crew were joined by a dozen more assorted ruffians, some black, some brown, some white, but all rakishly attired and regarding her with unconcealed curiosity, while the man who had first accosted her seated himself on an upturned cask and gazed at her coolly. ‘Welcome, my lady, aboard our humble vessel,' he remarked ironically.

Isabel stared around her in mounting alarm. ‘You're – you're pirates!' she gasped.

‘Pirates? Oh, come, Lady Isabel, that's a crude, ill-favoured word. We prefer to call ourselves – freebooters.'

The crew chuckled. ‘Aye, freebooters,' they repeated, seemingly much taken with the term.

Isabel drew herself up with all the haughtiness she could muster. ‘Call yourselves what you will, but you
had
best let me go at once, before this kidnapping brings the Royal Navy about your ears! My father is a British peer, and my fiancé one of the richest men on the island.'

‘Your fiancé? And who might that be, pray?'

‘Mr Henry Trevelyan.'

The self-styled freebooter threw back his head and laughed lustily. ‘Mr Henry Trevelyan, indeed? Ah, that's rich, my lady!'

‘Why do you laugh, you villain?'

‘Why, because first of all he's not your fiancé. How can he be, when you refuse so much as to meet him? Second, because that poor milksop is my father's son.'

Isabel stared. ‘You lie! Henry Trevelyan has no brother.'

‘Oh, not officially, perhaps. But, as you must know, Lady Isabel, these things may happen in the most respectable of families. Wrong side o' the blanket I may be, but a Trevelyan nonetheless.' Rising, he swept her a low bow. ‘Charles Trevelyan Esquire, my lady, at your service.'

He settled himself back on the cask. ‘Which brings us handily to the second order of business. You were brought to Barbados, Lady Isabel, to marry a scion of the Trevelyan family. And so you shall. Me.'

‘You presumptuous wretch!' Isabel's eyes flashed fury; she stepped forwards and dealt him a ringing slap across the face. ‘I marry a bastard! How dare you?'

Several of the crew started forwards, but Charles waved them back. Rubbing his injured cheek, he grinned wolfishly at Isabel. ‘Bastard maybe, my girl, but even bastards don't take kindly to being struck. I would strongly advise you not to do that again.'

‘I scorn your threats,' stated Isabel proudly. ‘As for marrying you, I'd die first!'

‘Oh, I doubt that will be necessary. I'm sure you'll find marriage a preferable alternative. You see, I've made all due respectable provision.' He gestured, and a
trembling
clergyman was pushed forwards from among the crew. ‘A genuine pastor, I assure you. We abducted him only last night. I hope, sir, your congregation will not be too discommoded by your absence.'

‘Were he the Bishop himself, I should still refuse!' stormed Isabel.

‘As you wish, my lady. I merely thought that, as a well-brought-up girl of good family, you would prefer the more honourable option. But, believe me, my beauty, when I tell you that, with or without benefit of clergy, you shall grace my bed tonight.'

‘Why, you unspeakable blackguard!'

This time, the slap was even harder. It was followed by a deathly hush. Isabel, seeing the look in Charles's eyes, backed away as he rose and advanced purposefully upon her.

‘You wouldn't hit a woman!' she pleaded, raising a protective hand to her face.

Charles smiled. ‘Oh, I shan't smack your face, my lady. It's much too pretty for that. But you must learn that, daughter of an English peer or no, you can't go about hitting whomsoever you wish. And Mother Nature in her wisdom has furnished, elsewhere about the female anatomy, parts far more pleasingly shaped for smacking.'

‘No!' cried Isabel as she divined his meaning. She turned to flee, but she felt her waist encircled by a strong arm. Before she knew what was happening, she found herself lifted bodily off the deck and deposited face-down across Charles Trevelyan's sturdy lap as he sat back down on the cask.

‘You wretch! Let me go at once!' she cried, struggling wildly, but Charles had her firmly pinioned with an arm across the small of her back, while with his free hand he rucked her dress up above her waist.

In that tropical clime Isabel had attired herself as lightly as was consonant with modesty. The lifting of
her
dress revealed that only drawers of fine white silk veiled the lush curves of her bottom. The clergyman gave an ineffectual bleat of protest, drowned by lusty roars of approval from Charles's crew.

‘That's the way of it, Cap'n!'

‘Warm her pretty arse for her!'

‘Give it her hot and strong!'

Ignoring Isabel's cries of fury, Charles coolly stroked the soft silken mounds that lay so invitingly at his mercy. ‘You have a lovely bottom, my lady,' he observed pleasantly, ‘but I'll wager it's not been spanked near as often as its shapeliness invites, nor indeed as often as the conduct of its owner deserves. A regime of sound and regular chastisement might have done much to curb that wayward temper; but I doubt your lazy wastrel of a father ever troubled to tan this spoilt young backside for you.'

‘Certainly not!' exclaimed Isabel indignantly. ‘How dare you! Let me go, you brute!'

‘As I thought,' returned her captor. ‘And doubtless no one else did, either. More's the pity. A sound spanking once a week or so, my fine lady, might have improved your manners beyond all recognition. Still, better late than never: and once we are joined in blissful matrimony, my sweet, I shall have ample occasion to make up for your father's neglect of his parental duties in this regard.'