Claimed by the Rogue (5 page)

They came out into an open hallway. A swift look below to the tiled foyer showed it to be empty of all but two family footmen. Seemingly satisfied that they remained unobserved, Lord Tremont continued toward the arched door at the opposite end of the hall. Coming upon it, he reached inside his padded doublet and produced a cluster of keys. The click of the lock and the creak of the opening door struck Robert as deafening amidst the hush. Holding the door, Lord Tremont stood back for him to enter. Brushing past his lordship, Robert rushed Phoebe inside.

Apart from the new tooled leather paper-hangings, Lord Tremont’s study was as Robert remembered it, the same floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, the substantial Chippendale desk with its green baize blotter, the aroma of cigars marking it as the sole masculine sanctum in a house otherwise filled with fragile porcelains, dainty furnishings and prim pastels. He’d seen the inside of this room only once before, six years earlier, when he’d first sought Phoebe’s hand. The man-to-man interview had gone far better than Robert had dared hope. Setting aside his reservations concerning Robert’s lower birth and lack of fortune, his lordship had granted them his blessing, much to his wife’s chagrin.
 

Hopeful of ending this evening with a likewise-happy result, Robert crossed the Turkish carpet to the velvet-covered sofa. Stooping, he settled Phoebe onto the cushions and slid his arm free from beneath her. As if sensing his withdrawal, she shivered. Subsiding onto his knees beside her, he battled a piercing sense of loss. Though he’d held her but briefly, his unburdened arms felt abysmally empty.
 

Leaning over, he cupped the sweet curve of her cheek, inwardly cursing the wretched calluses that kept him from fully feeling the satiny texture of her skin. “Phoebe, love, awake,” he coaxed, willing her eyelids to lift.

Once she revived what might her feelings be? The few words she’d spoken before her faint had been those of a woman deep in shock. With her wits returned, might she feel less than tender toward him? Lest he forget, she’d been poised to promise herself to another.

“Step aside, you scalawag.” Pushing past, Lady Tremont produced a small vial from her gown’s hidden pocket. She pulled out the stopper and Robert rocked back upon his ankles. The reek was reminiscent of rotted egg and ammonia—smelling salts.
 

She passed the bottle beneath Phoebe’s nose. Coughing, Phoebe came awake, her eyes shooting open. “Have done, Mama, I p-pray you.” Batting the bottle away, she pushed herself up on one elbow. Her watery gaze alighted on Robert, widening if not in delight then certainly in surprise. “So I wasn’t dreaming.”

Heartened, he braced his hands upon the sofa side and leaned closer. “No, love, you were not.”

Lady Tremont whirled on him, her stiff skirts clipping him on the chin. “How dare you address my daughter as though she were your doxy! She is the nearest thing to a married woman. Now leave us and see you do not darken our door ever again.”

Rising to his full height, Robert glared down at her. “I’m not going anywhere, not until Phoebe and I have spoken—in private.” Seeking support, he looked to Lord Tremont but Phoebe’s father had taken refuge behind his desk and was making an intense study of the jade paperweight in his palm.

Her ladyship sniffed. “If you are suggesting we leave our daughter sans chaperone and quite alone with you, it is out of the question.”

“No, Mama, it is not.” All heads, including Robert’s, turned to Phoebe. “Now leave us.
All
of you,” she added, her quicksilver gaze settling on her mother. She might appear as fragile as a hothouse blossom, yet Robert sensed a steely strength in her that had not shown itself before.

Aristide shoved away from the wainscoted wall and sauntered over toward them. Once again Robert was sensible of a sharp stab of something more than rivalry—wariness. “You are as yet in shock,
ma petite
. Permit yourself to be guided by those who have your best interest at heart.” The dagger glare he shot in Robert’s direction signified his exclusion from that select circle.

Phoebe brought her feet to the floor and sat upright. Smoothing her skirts, she lifted her face to Bouchart. “I thank you for your concern, my lord, but pray you be assured I do not require guiding.”

A muscle jumped in the Frenchman’s jaw; otherwise he appeared perfectly composed. “I suppose it would be cruel to refuse such a touching reunion.” His hooded gaze flickered to Robert. “Provided it is in the service of saying
adieu
, I shall not interfere further.”

Lord Tremont put down the paperweight and crossed to the desk’s front. “They have not seen one another for six years. I for one mean to give the lad a chance to say his piece. Without an audience,” he added, casting a meaningful look to his hovering wife.

“Really, Tremont, I—”
 

“Come along, m’dear. Taking firm possession of her elbow, he towed her toward the door. One hand on the brass knob, he turned back inside. “Given the highly unusual circumstances, Bouchart, you will understand that I must delay announcing your betrothal.”

A stormy look greeted the paternal pronouncement but, catching Robert’s eye, the Frenchman swiftly assembled his features into an affable mask. “But of course you must do as you feel best,
mon père
. Phoebe and I shall be guided by your wisdom.”

Sickened by Bouchart’s unctuous display, Robert turned to Phoebe’s father. “Thank you, sir. Your faith in me will not prove displaced.”

Keeping an arm about his wife, Lord Tremont met his gaze with a nod. “I should hope not, Bellamy. I entrusted my daughter to you once before. Try to do better this time, eh?”
 

“Quite, sir.”

Bouchart bent and placed a peck upon Phoebe’s brow, the proprietary gesture boiling Robert’s blood. “
Ma petite
, I shall cede to your wishes for now, but know that I keep watch from the corridor. Cry out, and I will be by your side in an instant.” He touched the ornamental sword at his side, a toothpick compared to Robert’s cutlass, before following Phoebe’s parents out.

Robert waited for the door to close behind them before turning back. Phoebe’s gaze met his, as yet unreadable but not overly warm. At a loss as to how to proceed now that they were indeed alone, he wracked his brain for some source of occupation.
 

“Your Frog fiancé is correct on one count. You’ve had a shock.”
 

So had he. Finding her in the midst of a betrothal ball—hers—hadn’t been among any of the possible scenarios he’d spun.
 

“I’ll pour us a brandy,” he added though of the pair of them, he allowed it was he who could do with the drink.
 

He’d expected her to refuse—the Phoebe of his memory hadn’t been much of a tippler—but to his supreme surprise she pointed him to a mahogany and bird’s-eye maple spirits cabinet. “Please.”

He made his way toward it. The hinged door had been left unlocked. Opening it, he took a swift inventory of the interior shelves and located what must be brandy and two dusty if otherwise clean glasses. Tucking the decanter into the crook of his arm, he carried it and the glasses back over to where Phoebe sat waiting. Aware of her gaze going over him, he poured out the drinks, a small one for her and a brimming one for himself. Setting the decanter down on the marble-topped side table, he handed her the glass.
 

She took it with a murmur of thanks, her gaze alighting on his left wrist and the thick carved ivory band he wore over it. “That’s a most unusual bracelet. I don’t recall you wearing such adornments before you…left.”

Her eyes veered to his pierced ear, and he availed himself of the distraction to slip down his sleeve. “I’ve worn your locket every day since we parted, albeit concealed beneath my neck cloth.” Every day save one—the day his torturer had ripped it from his throat. “Of all the jewels that have since come into my possession, none can touch your token in its worth.” Eschewing several nearby chairs, he seated himself on the cushion beside her, his thigh brushing hers.

She slipped over as if to make room, and even after all these years, Robert knew her too well to misread the gesture. Those few millimeters separating them might as well have been a chasm.
 

Regarding him over the rim of her glass, she remarked, “And you’ve grown out your hair.”
 

He reached his free hand toward her tumbled tresses and clipped a curl between his thumb and forefinger. Testing its silkiness, he said, “So have you.”

She pulled back and rather than press her, he let his hand fall to his lap. “After you…died, I hardly cared for keeping up with fashion.”
 

Robert stiffened. “And yet you’ve managed to land yourself a lord for a husband.” Admittedly it was a boorish way to begin. Beyond her flashing eyes, she didn’t answer, nor did he blame her. “Forgive me. I should not have—”

“No, you should not have. Six years you’ve stayed away without a word, allowing us all to believe you dead. One line from you, Robert, one bloody line, and I wouldn’t only have forestalled marriage plans. I would have
lived
for your return.” She stopped there, waiting.

The condemnation in her face and voice was deserved, he knew—he’d more than earned it. And yet as tempted as he was to rise up and defend himself, how could he possibly foul her ears with the truth? That until six months ago, he’d let himself believe it would be kinder, nobler, to let her and all the rest go on thinking him dead? That though his body might be healed, his mind was as yet too shattered to trust himself in her society, let alone her bed? That months of wandering and later those at sea had seemed to halt time to a standstill, the hope of “someday” floating before him like an elusive golden grail he could never quite commit to, let alone reach out and grasp? What would have been the point in writing only to let her know that, for the foreseeable future, he must as yet remain away? Instead he’d waited until he could trust himself not to fall apart in front of her, until Caleb’s soothing herbs and other healing ways had hushed his inner demons to a muted roar, their salivating jaws and snapping tails banished to his nightmares and no longer his waking. And, it now seemed, he’d waited too long, acted too late.

“And now you’ve returned. What did you bloody well expect, a hero’s homecoming?”

Phoebe Tremont, Phoebe Tremont, Phoebe Tremont…

Him heralded as a hero? The mere suggestion had him awash in shame. He fought his way back to the present—and sanity—by focusing on minutia, notably her expanded vernacular. The Phoebe of his recollection had never once uttered any oath bolder than “What fustian!” or “Stuff and feathers!” The outraged female facing him now was fully capable of cursing a blue streak if provoked, he felt certain of it. The stark shift might be damnably disconcerting, but it was also undoubtedly…arousing.
 

Fantasizing other, more pleasurable pursuits to which her rosebud lips and sharp tongue might be put, gamely he said, “I’d settle for a smile—and a kiss.”

Her gaze narrowed. “And I’ll settle for answers.”

“It’s a long story,” he warned, taking a swig of port to buoy his courage.

She stared at him askance. “Fortunately I find myself with some time.”

Setting his glass aside, Robert steeled himself to repeat the script he’d rehearsed so many times in his mind. “We put in at the Comoros Islands to replenish our water and perishables. The islands lay off the southeast coast of Africa between the continent and…Madagascar.” Someday pray God he’d be able to speak the latter without sickening, but he wasn’t there yet, not nearly.

“I’m well aware of their location.”

Her clipped tone caught him off guard, as did her confident assertion. The Phoebe from six years ago had been barely able to locate England on an atlas.

“The islands are a desirable stopping-off point for ships, including those that sail under the black flag.”
 

“Pirates, you mean?” Her eyes widened with what he took to be concern—finally! “Were you…set upon?”

Heart drumming, he nodded. “With easily half of the crew ashore, we made an absurdly easy target. By the time we spied their approach, we were trapped. Despite our superior guns, they had surprise on their side. Their broadside attack left us leaking like a pudding cloth.” A well-aimed chain shot had taken out their main mast and most of the rigging. “They boarded our quarterdeck and the battle, though valiantly fought, was short-lived. The captain and most of the crew were cut down inside of an hour.”
 

Those of lesser luck had survived to serve as sport for their drunken captors and, later, to be sold as slaves.
 

“Were you wounded?” Her gaze slid over him as though searching out potential peg legs and other wooden appendages. Thankfully for him, she couldn’t begin to suspect the ugly sight his clothes concealed. Given what they’d done to him, he would wear a nightshirt to their marriage bed.

“I’d been confined to my cabin with a fever,” he admitted, the bald truth though it hardly painted him as a hero. “By the time they got around to finding me, they’d looted anything of value and their bloodlust was waning along with the Madeira and porter.”

Her hold on the glass tightened. “How did you escape?”

Now came the hard part. Robert braced himself to repeat the bold-faced lie he’d rehearsed in his head. “I hid in one of the hatches, waited for darkness, and once it arrived, used its cloak to make my way to land.” In reality, when he’d next trod upon terra firma, he’d done so as a prisoner in irons. “There I waited for the next ship to make port. Once it did, I begged my passage to the mainland.”