Care and Feeding of Pirates (4 page)

Diana crooned to her son and bounced him in
her arms. After the bedroom door slammed--the draft of it rocketed
down the stairs--the child settled down again into his peaceful
slumber.

Christopher let Honoria go. For now. There
would be time, plenty of time. He had to search for Manda, and he
could not leave England until he found her. Before Christopher
departed, he would scoop up Honoria and carry her off. It was
inevitable.

Her body had fit to his again so easily. She
belonged to him--Christopher had known it in his bones since the
day he'd first met her in the garden room at the Ardmore house.
Circumstance had had other ideas, but circumstance had led him back
to her once more.

It would be a fight. Honoria would not come
easily. But Christopher would have her, even if he had to drag her
off, kicking and screaming.

Christopher took leave of Mrs. Ardmore and
let himself out of the house. Outside, London was still misty, but
a certain warmth had penetrated his blood, which began to burn him
hotter than the sun in the Pacific islands.

*** *** ***

"Do you want to talk about it?" Diana asked,
sitting on Honoria's bed.

Her sister-in-law had put baby Paul to bed,
looked in on Isabeau, seen the house locked for the night, and
returned to Honoria's bedchamber. Honoria supposed Diana had
tactfully been giving her time to compose herself, but Honoria
thought she'd never be composed again.

She felt limp, sick, and worried, and at the
same time very angry. How
dare
Christopher come back to life
just as she'd gotten her own life put in order?

She'd finally been able to begin a normal
life, preparing to have a family of her own. So of course,
Christopher would choose that moment to come back from the dead and
turn her heart inside out. He'd done it on purpose. Honoria was
certain of it.

"What is there to say?" she told Diana. She
lay facedown on the bed, her head at its foot. She hadn't
cried--Honoria rarely cried. "You heard Christopher's story. It is
true."

Diana leaned down and hugged her. "Oh,
Honoria, why did you never tell anyone?"

"Who was I to tell?" She tried to sound
nonchalant, as though it hadn't hurt to keep the secret. "James
disappeared the day of the hanging, and I did not see him for
nearly a year. And then it seemed pointless. The marriage had only
lasted the day. I thought Christopher dead and gone, everything
over." She sat up, raking her hair from her face. "Are you going to
tell James?"

"Well, I do not see how I can keep it from
him."

Honoria took Diana's hands in hers. "Please
say nothing for now. I do not want Mr. Templeton to hear of this in
a roundabout fashion, nor do I want to face the gossipmongers."

"I would never say anything outside the
family, dear."

Honoria was in too much turmoil to apologize.
Her body still quivered from Christopher's touch, and she'd wanted
to taste his mouth far into the night. If Diana had not interrupted
them, Honoria would gladly have succumbed to him on the floor. Or
on the bed. Or on the windowsill for that matter, while passersby
in Mount Street looked up in astonishment.

"Please let me think on it," Honoria said.
"Perhaps he will see reason and release me."

"An annulment is not as easy to obtain as you
might think," Diana said. "Especially when one party is unwilling.
There must be very special circumstances or an embarrassing
affliction on the man's part."

Honoria very much doubted Christopher would
say that he wanted an annulment because he was impotent. Which he
wasn't. Honoria had felt that quite plainly. Even now she grew warm
as her treacherous mind remembered the exact shape, length, and
feel of his hardness against her body.

"There is some precedent for a marriage
ending when one of the parties goes missing," she said, her throat
dry.

In these times of risky traveling, war, and
uncertainty, husbands or wives could be missing for years with no
word. In that case, the remaining person could assume the other
dead and marry again.

"Yes," Diana said. "The trouble is, he's
turned up again. And you have the license, and he seems determined
to keep the marriage." She slid her arm around Honoria's shoulders.
"But if you like, I can ask my father's man of business, in pure
speculation, of course, what legal steps might be taken."

"Please, not yet. I want to think."

Diana patted her shoulder and fell silent.
Honoria hated to impede Diana like this, but she wanted no one to
know her folly until she could decide what to do.

She needed to talk to Christopher, to
explain, but that might do her little good. Whenever they were
together, Honoria melted into a puddle of lust. Perhaps if the two
of them could meet somewhere neutral, facing each other across a
very wide table, perhaps, with witnesses, she might see a way out
of this mess.

The trouble was, she could not prevent
Christopher from striding up and down London, proclaiming their
nuptials far and wide. Christopher knew Grayson Finley, who was now
Viscount Stoke. Wouldn't Grayson laugh to hear that the
oh-so-proper Honoria had let herself be talked into marriage with
Christopher Raine?

Grayson would tell his wife, the beautiful
and ladylike Alexandra, and Alexandra would be shocked. Gossipy
Lady Featherstone would hear the news and delightedly spread it
throughout the
ton
. Honoria could not run about London
scolding everyone to silence.

All this was nothing, of course, to what
James would say.

She needed to speak to Christopher again,
once she had calmed herself. There was no reason they couldn't
speak to each other as reasonable and rational beings. James had
set Christopher free to begin a new life, and now he must begin
it.

Honoria closed her eyes, feeling again his
hands on her hair, his warm lips parting hers.

Christopher would go away again. He had to.
Because if he didn't, Honoria would burn up, quickly and quietly,
and be of no use to anybody.

*** *** ***

Christopher slid into the shadows of the
Mayfair streets as he made his way south to Piccadilly. He probably
did not need stealth, but it came as a habit. He liked to observe
the world around him without being too closely observed
himself.

Tonight, though, he was too preoccupied about
Honoria to pay much attention to the world--distracted by the
remembered feel of her, the taste of her, the glorious fact that
she was still his wife.

His eyes and ears automatically registered
carriages, horses, and people, as well as the thieves who also
tried to keep to the dark. His feet moved him toward Piccadilly and
St. James's, and his meeting there.

His mind and his heart, however, remained
with Honoria. He wanted her with every breath he drew. Their usual
course was to see one another, stare at each other for a few
moments, then grab each other and start kissing. Laces tore,
buttons spun across the room, linen ripped while they sought each
other with hands and mouths in desperation.

And then they'd be on the floor, her skirts
raked high, his breeches open, his hands on her thighs, parting
them for the inevitable and final phase of their greeting.

They simply couldn't keep their hands off
each other. And, Christopher reflected, why should we?

Honoria was a beautiful and sensual woman,
and he was a man who needed her. Christopher wanted her with an
intensity that had driven him across the world to find her
again.

St. James's Square, elegant by day, was a far
more interesting place by night. The entire area of St.
James's--the square itself, Jermyn Street, St. James's Street,
Piccadilly--were riddled with clubs for the highest gentlemen in
the land. Aristocrats, military leaders, wellborn gentlemen, old
friends, old money, old ties--a gentleman's club was more his home
than his own house.

Or so Christopher had heard. He'd never had
the pleasure of entering a gentleman's club and had no interest in
doing so now.

The aristocratic St. James's had another side
to it. Tucked among the respectable clubs were the hells, gambling
dens in which gentlemen rubbed shoulders with blacklegs and
hardened gamblers ready to fleece young, soft aristocrats.
Upper-class gentlemen came to slum, play games both legal and
illegal, and talk with lovely, well-dressed ladies who enticed
gentlemen to wager.

Christopher had come to meet a man who could
help him. He entered the Nines, a tall, narrow establishment in St.
James's Square, paid his fee, and went up to the first floor.

They call this vice,
he thought as he
looked around the gaming rooms. Compared to the vice he'd seen in
the ports of Siam, China, and Brazil, the Nines was a child's tea
party. The cardsharps with smooth faces and watchful eyes kept to
their places at tables. They busily took money from young men who
were confident that their names, their father's names, and their
inheritance would allow them to lose whatever they liked.

Christopher quickly spied the man he was to
meet. Grayson Finley stood at the foot of a hazard table, a tall
man, broad of shoulder, with sun-streaked hair, his face tanned and
weathered like Christopher's. Finley watched the dice and the
thrower with a cynical expression, but Christopher noted that he
won nearly every wager he made.

Finley had once been one of the most ruthless
and feared pirates on the seas. These days he wore frock coats and
finely tied cravats and owned several estates. He'd been Ardmore's
partner before Ardmore had turned pirate hunter, then years after
they'd gone their separate ways, Finley had inherited a title. Now
he was married, had four children, and was a respectable aristocrat
called Viscount Stoke.

Christopher did not join the dice game.
Instead he took a turn at Faro, a game in which the optimistic
gambler wagered on what would be the value of the next card the
dealer turned up. Christopher won a few guineas and lost a few.

He found himself coming under the scrutiny of
a smallish man of about forty, with a pleasant face and a long,
beaky nose.

"Not got the taste for it?" the man asked,
voice friendly. "I notice you do not throw down your family fortune
on the turn of a card."

Christopher's fortune could probably purchase
the estates of a few of the aristocrats present, but he shrugged.
"I'm a careful man, by habit."

"I am surprised you came to the Nines then."
The man smiled. "Not a place for a careful man."

"It's a way to spend an evening."

He chuckled. "A good answer, my friend. I too
sought a way to spend the evening. Although," he lowered his voice
a fraction, "I do not know if I care for the company here. But a
man must come to a gaming hell at least once in his life, mustn't
he? I am sowing my wild oats, you see."

Christopher looked him up and down. "You've
left it a bit late." Christopher's oats had certainly been wild, so
much so that a few years of his younger life were fuzzy about the
edges.

The man laughed. "Too true, my friend. But I
am to be married in a few months time, and I decided that 'twas
better late than never."

Marriage seemed to be catching. "Best of luck
to you."

"Thank you. I say, would you like to adjourn
to a tavern? I much prefer conversation with a careful man over a
comfortable pint to sowing wild oats."

Christopher glanced at the hazard table.
Finley was still there watching the dice.

He opened his mouth to form an excuse, but
the gentleman thrust out his hand. "Ah, but we have not been
introduced. The name's Templeton. Rupert Templeton."

Christopher froze for half a second before he
forced a cold smile and took the other man's hand in a very firm
clasp. "Raine," he said. "Christopher Raine."

Templeton winced a bit at his grip but
betrayed no recognition. He'd never heard of Christopher.

Christopher told Templeton to name the
tavern, and then the two of them departed. Christopher felt
Finley's puzzled gaze on his back, but nothing short of a volcano
erupting in the heart of St. James's would keep Christopher from
walking to a nearby tavern with Honoria Ardmore's intended.

*****

Chapter Four

The tavern in Pall Mall poured excellent ale
and was full. Christopher and his new friend Rupert Templeton
squeezed onto a corner of a bench. Christopher stood two pints,
which Templeton said was very decent of him.

They could not have much conversation over
the roar of the tavern's regulars. Near them, a few Scotsmen
debated national issues with their English counterparts, and both
proved that neither nation had yet bested the other in drinking
ability.

Templeton was proving to be friendly and
open-minded, and had not much wrong with him, to Christopher's
annoyance. The man turned to the subject of his upcoming nuptials
easily enough.

"Thought I'd be a bachelor into my old age,
Mr. Raine, that's a fact. But when I met Miss Ardmore, I said to
myself,
Rupert, old man, why not give it a try?
She's an
American, of course, but I never held that against anyone." He
chortled.

"England is at war with America," Christopher
pointed out.

"Yes, that nonsense--that will be cleared up
soon. I have many business interests in America, and I'll settle in
Charleston. Miss Ardmore comes from a fine family, but she's felt
at a loose end, poor thing, since her brother married."

"Her brother," Christopher prompted,
wondering what a respectable Londoner would make of James
Ardmore.

"I gather her brother is something of a
legend. Captain Ardmore's wife, however, comes from a most
distinguished naval family. I imagine much of Captain Ardmore's
reputation is a mix-up."