Pirates (26 page)

That was nearly a hundred years away, Phoebe reminded herself. The hormonal upheaval caused by her pregnancy, coupled with her worries about Duncan’s safety, caused her to be macabre. What she needed was some fresh air and sunshine.

“Phoebe?”

Only at Phillippa’s troubled prompting did Phoebe realize she’d left her end of the conversation hanging in midair while she ruminated about hormones, Duncan, and the fate of Troy. “I’m sorry,” she said with a laugh. “I’ve been under a lot of strain lately, and I tend to be easily distracted.”

Phillippa’s smile was as spectacular as those of her brothers. “I should think so,” she agreed. “One minute you were
a nun, the next you were my brother’s wife. That would be enough to distract anybody.”

“Yes,” Phoebe agreed with a soft smile. There was another knock at the door, and Mrs. Rourke entered, carrying the promised blue dress over one elegant arm.

“I do hope you have not been prattling,” the older woman told her daughter affectionately. “Phoebe has been through enough these past weeks, I’m sure, without enduring one of your interrogations. Here—let us see if the gown suits.”

Phillippa sulked a little, chin in hand, while her mother helped Phoebe into the blue dress, which fitted almost perfectly.

“It’s so dull around here,” the girl protested. “This wretched war has changed everything. And as soon as someone comes along that I might talk to, I’m accused of prying.”

Mrs. Rourke’s eyes were soft with laughter as she looked at Phoebe. “I’m afraid our Phillippa is incorrigibly inquisitive.”

“I don’t mind,” Phoebe said, and it was true. She had to tell some lies—after all, she couldn’t very well say that she’d I come back in time from another century—but it was only natural for Phillippa to be curious.

As soon as Phoebe’s gown had been buttoned and her unruly crop of hair had been tamed just a little with a damp brush, Phillippa fairly dragged her out of the bedroom and down the stairs. The house, seen only dimly the night before, proved to be a spacious, uncluttered place, with good paintings on the walls and Carrara marble fireplaces in several rooms. Phoebe spotted several statues, very probably Greek, that would have made a modern museum curator drool.

“I want you to meet Father,” Phillippa explained, as they left the house through a set of French doors leading into a garden.

Phoebe’s first sight of John Rourke, the man for whom her son would be named, if Old Woman’s prophesy was correct, caused a bittersweet tug in her heart. A smaller,
gray-haired composite of Duncan and Lucas, he was seated on a bench, absorbed in a leatherbound volume of
Richard III
. Instantly, Phoebe recognized his strength, but his weakness—failing health—was visible, too. At the sound of Phillippa and Phoebe’s approach, he raised his eyes from the book, smiled, and stood.

“So this is Phoebe,” he said in a gentle, cultivated voice.

An image of John Rourke collecting his youngest son from a British whipping post and carrying him home flashed in Phoebe’s mind. She felt the color drain from her face and curtsied in a belated effort to hide it.

“Welcome to Troy,” he told her, stepping forward to kiss her lightly on the cheek when she stood straight again. He held both her hands as he assessed her with warm, mirthful eyes. “For all that his politics will surely get us all hanged one day, I must confess that my second son has impeccable taste in women.”

Phoebe was charmed, and some of her self-consciousness seeped away. Okay, so she had hair like a candidate for brain surgery. In time, it would grow, and she would feel less like a misfit. “Thank you,” she said.

“Phoebe used to be a nun,” Phillippa announced, bringing another rush of color to Phoebe’s face.

A sort of skeptical humor danced in Mr. Rourke’s blue eyes, along with some deep sorrow, bravely borne. “Very interesting,” he said. “Tell me, my dear—when will Duncan come to collect you?”

Phillippa took a seat on another bench, listening with interest. Phoebe sat beside her, at a gesture from her father-in-law, and he returned to his bench.

“I don’t know,” Phoebe answered belatedly. Suddenly, she wanted to cry, though she did not indulge the desire. “It’s a terrible risk, Duncan’s coming here.”

“Yes,” Mr. Rourke replied quietly. “Duncan thrives on such escapades. I don’t mind admitting that I wish he’d been blessed with a modicum of common cowardice. Just enough, mind you, to keep him from taking foolish chances.”

Mrs. Rourke joined them in the garden just then and deftly steered the conversation in another direction. “Lucas
has returned to Charles Town on business,” she said. “I’ve asked him to bring our dressmaker back with him, if she’s free to travel. You were quite right earlier, Phillippa.” She paused to touch her daughter’s shoulder. “Life here at Troy has become tedious. A ball would be just the thing to raise our spirits, as well as those of our neighbors.”

Phoebe’s smile faltered on her mouth, but she kept it from slipping away. Duncan was bound to arrive soon, and a house full of guests would present a very real danger to him.

“Do you think that’s wise, Margaret?” Mr. Rourke asked. “Many of our friends are members of the King’s army. We can hardly exclude them from the festivities.”

“Of course we can’t,” Margaret agreed. “What better way to allay suspicion, though, than to invite all our friends for a celebration? Ours is a sizable holding, Mr. Rourke. There are countless places to hide.”

Phoebe didn’t volunteer an opinion; she was too confused.

Phillippa had no such problem. “It’s a grand idea,” she said cheerfully, beaming at her mother. “May I have a new gown? A lavender one, with lace trim?”

“We are at war,” Mr. Rourke reminded his daughter, his tone carrying a gentle rebuke. His kindly gaze shifted smoothly to his wife’s exquisite, ageless face. “It would behoove you to remember that as well, my dear.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Margaret said, undaunted, sitting down on the bench beside her husband and opening an ivory fan with a slight, graceful flick of one wrist. “We shall have simple gowns made,” she added, no doubt for Phillippa’s benefit. “Do give the idea serious consideration, Mr. Rourke. We could have dancing, and surely we can spare one or two hogs for roasting?”

Mr. Rourke—Phoebe thought it was romantic that Margaret addressed her husband in that formal way—sighed heavily. “We might as well cook that old boar before either the King’s army or Mr. Washington’s appropriates him for rations.”

As easily as that, it was decided. There was to be a party at Troy. Not just an afternoon affair, either—this gathering
would last for days, with guests traveling long distances to attend.

Phoebe and Phillippa were appointed to draft the invitations that very evening, and neither objected. Phillippa was delighted at the prospect of a festivity, and Phoebe was simply grateful to have something to occupy her mind. If left to her own devices, she would have fretted herself into a dither, worrying that Duncan wouldn’t show up and, at the same time, that he would.

There was no sign of him that night.

Lucas returned in the morning, bringing a weary dressmaker and a number of bolts of fabric with him, and was immediately dispatched to Charles Town again, with a manservant, to deliver invitations. John Rourke himself carried the others to neighboring plantations, while Phoebe, Phillippa, and Margaret busied themselves planning decorations and menus.

The dressmaker, who spoke French even though she appeared to understand English very well, cornered Phoebe and took her measurements. Soon, a flurry of sewing was going on in the rear parlor. Mrs. Rourke and Phillippa were fitted as well, and there was an air of excitement throughout the great house.

As busy as she was, Phoebe was still waiting for Duncan. After three days had gone by, she was so anxious that she walked to the end of the Rourke driveway, a distance of some two miles, hoping to meet her husband along the way. Instead, she encountered her father-in-law, driving a buggy pulled by a gray horse.

He drew the vehicle to a stop beside her, and the compassion she saw in his face was nearly her undoing. Instead of speaking, John Rourke simply patted the seat beside him.

Phoebe hesitated a moment, then climbed aboard, her eyes burning with tears she refused to shed. She stared straight ahead, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. “I don’t suppose it’s safe to stray so far from the main house at this hour,” she said.

Her father-in-law brought the reins down on the horse’s
back, and the buggy lurched forward. “Not in these times,” he agreed quietly. “Are you unhappy here, Phoebe?”

She turned to look at him, forgetting her earlier desire to hide her emotions. “No,” she said quickly. “You’ve all been wonderful, as though you were my family …”

“ ’As though’? But we
are
your family, my dear.”

Phoebe wanted that to be true. She’d been so lonely, for so long, and belonging was a new experience for her. Still, she couldn’t afford to forget that she was a rebel, and these good people were loyalists. For all their kindness toward her, and her affection for them, the Rourkes were technically her enemies. And she was theirs.

“How can you say that, when you know I’m not a Tory?”

Rourke smiled in the gathering darkness, holding the reins loosely in his calloused hands. The horse plainly knew its way home. “You are wedded, before God and man, to my son. As Duncan’s wife, you are as much my child as he is.”

Phoebe could no longer hold back her tears, though she wiped them away hastily with the backs of her hands. “Duncan is a fortunate man, to be born into such a family,” she said with a sniffle.

Her father-in-law patted her arm. “He is indeed a lucky rascal,” he replied, with a warm smile. “Just look at his wife.”

T
he preparations for the grand celebration went on, and still there was no word from Duncan.

The days were long and sultry, and Phoebe did her best to keep busy, hiding an agony of suspense behind a ready smile and a flurry of frenetic activity. At night, she lay sleepless in her vast feather bed, obsessing, imagining all the ghastly fates that might have befallen the man she loved.

Lecturing herself on the pitfalls of codependency did no good at all. Where Duncan Rourke was concerned, it seemed, she had reached roughly the same evolutionary level as the jellyfish.

Guests began arriving ten days after the invitations had been dispersed, rattling up the long driveway in carriages and wagons and carts, mounted on horses and mules, even on foot. The mansion seemed to swell with people, and Phoebe kept a low profile, unsure how to present herself. John and Margaret Rourke seemed proud, even eager, to introduce her as their daughter-in-law, and Phillippa regaled everyone who would listen with the nun yarn Phoebe had made up to explain her haircut.

When Major Basil Stone arrived in a fancy coach, on the
afternoon of the ball, Phoebe was watching from a window in the upstairs hallway and nearly suffered a heart attack. Lucas had told that august and dangerously British personage that she was a mute bond servant.

She stepped back with a gasp, the fingers of one hand spread over her thumping heart, those of the other crushing the fabric of the curtain.

Strong hands gripped her shoulders and, for one moment of joyous terror, she thought Duncan had come to Troy at last. But she knew her husband’s touch—it was imprinted on her nerve endings for all time—and no more than an instant had passed before a mingling of disappointment and relief swamped her.

It was Lucas who turned her to face him.

“There are shadows under your eyes,” he said gently. He was attentive and affectionate with Phoebe, was Lucas Rourke, but in a brotherly fashion. “The strain of being my brother’s bride shows plainly, I’m afraid.”

Phoebe sighed and turned her head slightly, briefly, as if to glance at Major Stone through the window glass again. A tremor of dread went through her, closely followed by a flash flood of pure irritation. “Your friend is here,” she said, ignoring his comment about her appearance. “The one who met us when we arrived in Charles Town. I believe you told him I was a mute bond servant.”

Lucas moved past her to lift the curtain and look out. To her annoyance, he chuckled. “Ah, yes,” he said. “It’s Basil. Oh, what a tangled web I’ve woven.”

Phoebe took a moment to contain her temper. It would do no good to panic. “Of course, Major Stone will hear a different story from your parents, won’t he? How do you intend to explain my coming up in the world so quickly? Not to mention the spectacular way I’ve managed to overcome my affliction?”

He turned to look at her over one broad shoulder. There was no fear in his eyes, only amusement and a sort of tender concern. “I’ll simply tell him I lied,” he said, as though the answer should have been perfectly obvious.

“But he could arrest us both …”

Lucas smiled. “And spoil my mother’s lovely party? Believe me, Phoebe, Basil has better manners than that.”

“You are impossible,” Phoebe hissed. The strain of waiting and worrying, compounded by sleepless nights and days of running hither and yon, trying to stay one step ahead of her fears, had stretched her self-control to a thin thread. “We are talking about your brother’s life here, in case you’ve forgotten. That man down there, alighting from his fancy carriage, would like nothing better than to put a noose around Duncan’s neck!”

Lucas touched her face with light, cool fingertips. “There are a great many people who want to hang your husband,” he said reasonably. “Major Stone will find himself standing in line for the privilege. Still, he who would execute my brother must first capture him, and that task is far beyond lesser men, requiring an equal. For good or ill, Duncan has few of those.”

Phoebe was only mildly reassured. “He has his weaknesses, like everyone else,” she argued in a hushed voice, remembering that the rooms of Troy were crammed with guests of all political persuasions.

Lucas arched an eyebrow. “Such as?”

“Such as this place,” Phoebe whispered. “Such as you, and Phillippa, and your mother and father—”

“And you,” Lucas supplied thoughtfully. “Yes, I see. A clever enemy might use you—or any one of us, come to that—as bait for a classic trap.”