Sea Scoundrel (24 page)

“Old enough not to get snagged by a woman who fal s in love with a pig.”

Patience huffed in disgust and turned to gaze at the scenery. She tried to ignore the sense of homecoming as she watched the passing countryside. “There is nothing as beautiful as England when it’s al green and dewy, is there?” She lowered the window and inhaled the fresh earthy scent. “With castles in the distance and black-faced sheep dotting every hil side. Oh, look! I love those little Gothic chapels that seem to sit neglected in the middle of a green pasture. They’re part of England’s very special charm, don’t you think?”

“Every place has its own charm, Patience. My home in America is every bit as beautiful and gracious, but in a different way, from my home in England.”

“You have a home in England? Other than the quarters you and Shane share in London? I thought you made your home in America.”

Patience could not help note his pained expression. “My current home is in Boston, Massachusetts, and I love it there. But if the trade embargo between England and America is ever reinstated, I won’t be able to go back for a while, and England wil , once again, become my home. I have a country house in Brighton, as a matter of fact. It overlooks the sea. Hence my love for sailing.” Perhaps he would prefer not to have shared that, but she couldn’t help asking one more question. “Where were you born?”

“Plymouth.”

“I can’t believe it. I was born in Torquay and lived there until I was twelve when my parents died. We didn’t live so very far apart growing up. You’d think I would have heard of the St.

Benedicts.”

“You’d have to account for the fact that I’m ten years older than you. By the time you were hanging from trees, I would already have gone to sea.”

“How did you know I liked to hang from trees?” He gave a satisfied smirk. “I have come to know you wel in the past months. Let me see if I can guess anything else.” She doubted he would. She had such a checkered past.

He pondered for a moment. “You swim like a fish.” She scoffed. “You know you’re right. Anybody from the coast would. Now let me guess something about you.” She thought about his arrogance and determined self-assurance. He made decisions, despite what others thought. “I’l bet when you went to sea, you went in direct defiance of your parents’ wishes.”

Hah. She’d surprised him. “I’m right then.”

“Almost. I defied my father.”

Sensing his withdrawal, likely because of the inevitable question of his mother, she changed tack. “We’re even then.”

He let out his breath and relaxed, arms crossed. “I imagine you’re no stranger, Patience, to defying your parents.”

“Other than tree climbing, I never had the chance. I young when they died. But I’l tel you who I have defied. My Aunt Harriette. Most recently, because of you.” He sat forward brows lowered. “I beg your pardon?”

“Every time you touched me like no man should, and I let you, it was in direct opposition to everything Aunt Harriette preached.”

“Is that the only reason you al owed it, Patience?” She looked him in the eye for a minute and then down at her clenched hands. “You know it isn’t,” she whispered.

They stared out opposite windows.

“Grant. I need to talk to someone about it and you’re the only one.”

She’d confused him again. “What?”

She took the pink satin ribbons, hanging neatly from her bodice, and began to knot them. When she ran out of ribbon, she saw the length of knots. “Oh, bother.” Sighing, she unknotted them—Aunt Harriette would expect sloppiness anyway. “I want to know what happened the other night. No. I want to know what you said you had no right to teach me. The marriage union, you said, or something like. I don’t know anyone else I can ask. I’ve never been intimate with another human being, other than you, so you must tel me.”

“Patience, that is usual y the prerogative of a husband.”

“A house here in Sussex, a rose garden, a white kitten, and my old nurse. That’s my future. None wil provide the information I seek. I think since you have, shal we say, piqued my interest in the subject, you could at least enlighten me. I wil never marry so there wil be no other way for me to learn.”

Grant cupped the back of his neck, something she’d seen him do often lately. Then he sighed and removed his greatcoat. He raised his booted feet to rest them, cross-ankled, beside her on the seat opposite, loosened his tie and unbuttoned his waistcoat. Regarding her as if she were a snaggle-toothed witch, he sighed again. “Al right. You must certainly have seen farm animals, ah, horses or sheep, mating?”

“Of course. Which is why I am asking you about men and women, not animals, Captain.”

He gave her a wry grin. “You’re not making this easy for me.

Men and women are special in that when they choose a mate, they choose for life.”

“Captain, can we get past that, please. The other night on the sofa in the drawing room, you touched me, in, what I can only term, a scandalous manner. It was ... however, shal I say it? Exhilarating. I do think I’l probably go to hel for it, by the way, but it was worth it. Now, you hinted that something more would have taken place were we wed. Not that I would ever consider that, mind you. Marrying you, that is, or anyone. But married people would have proceeded in a different manner. What would have happened next?”

“God’s truth, Patience. The Deity must have some vengeful plan in bringing us together. Knowing you has become the most vexing experience of my life. What do you expect me to say? Do you want me to describe something so wonderful as if it were written in a textbook? Perhaps you wish me to draw you a picture. I could do that. You could show it to your Aunt Harriette.”

He leaned forward, lowering his voice. “A man does not go about explaining something like that in cold terms to a young girl with wide eager eyes who deserves better.” He saw pain cloud those eyes before she lowered them and knew he’d hurt her. “Bloody hel .” He reached for her.

Settled on his lap, Patience turned her face into his neck.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m a brute. I’l tel you. Bear with me here would you? This wil be a first for me.” Excitement overcame her chagrin. “Consider it practice.

You may need to explain to your daughters some day.” He laughed. “I may not want a rose garden and a kitten, but marriage is not in my future any more than yours. I’l be tel ing no daughters, you can be sure of that. What I want from life are the successful business enterprises I already have and a few others to keep my mind stimulated and my purse fil ed. My house wil be large to entertain friends, acquaintances and business associates, and I wil have gained people’s respect, despite the fact I am in trade.

That’s why we suit so wel , Patience. We both have a goal the other understands. Now, be quiet while I compose my thoughts.”

Patience hid her eagerness for the coming lesson.

Grant took in her demure posture and cleared his throat.

“What we shared the other night was a wonderful, affectionate experience, but it would have gone further were we a married couple.” He blew out his breath. “Don’t watch me like that.” He pushed her face back against his neck.

She wiggled her bottom to gain a soft nest. “How appropriate,” he drawled.

“What?” she asked, sitting up.

“Patience, when we hold each other and kiss and such, do you not notice anything about me?”

“What do you mean? We both act as if we have lost our breath. I like the way your skin feels under my hand and I like the way your hand feels on my skin.” This time it was he who shifted, to give her a clue as much as to make himself more comfortable, under the circumstances. “You throb when I touch you intimately, Patience.”

She looked as if she were trying to reach some high mathematical conclusion, then she wiggled her bottom experimental y, until a look of wonder came into her eyes.

She nodded. “You throb too, don’t you, Grant?”

“When we lie facing each other, like on the settee, we are in the perfect position to make love as two married people.

You see, like any male animal, a man grows hard when he wishes to mate with—make love to—a woman.” Her eyes were fil ed with wonder. He tried to ignore their beauty. “After you ... after I ... that is, after you experienced that rapture, like the other evening in the library, I would then have inserted that part of me into you. God, it sounds so cold and horrible said that way, Patience, and—”

“Are you sure? I don’t mean to contradict you, Grant, but I don’t think it would fit.”

He took her hands and tried not to smile. “I’m sure.” He brought her fingers to his lips. “You wanted to know so I told you. But what I haven’t said is that what you felt was only a smal portion of the inherent ecstasy in coming together the way I just explained. It’s better than anything you ever imagined. Making love is glorious.”

Grant wondered how he could believe it; he had never made love in his life. He had merely satisfied himself with lust. How base that sounded.

“So, when you throb it means you’re hard and capable of doing ... that? Like right now?”

He shifted her back to the opposite seat and lowered his legs, crossing his ankle over his knee, wondering how he got into this.

“Show me.”

“What?”

“Show me what it looks like when it’s hard,” she repeated slowly, as if speaking to a child.

“You’re impossible. Do you know that?”

“If you don’t, I’l never know.”

“Then you’l go to your grave not knowing!” He knocked on the roof with his cane. “Driver stop.” When the carriage stopped, Grant jumped out.

“Where are you going in the middle of—”

“I’m going to take the ribbons. I’ve a need to drive.” He slammed the door in her face.

A minute later the carriage took off at such a pace Patience’s neck snapped back and she hit her head.

They arrived at Aunt Harriette’s a ful half hour ahead of schedule. When Grant opened the carriage door for her to alight, he was stil scowling.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“You should be.”

“It’s not my fault a man of the world, like you, was shocked out of countenance by a country mouse like me.”

“Hah! Mouse, indeed.”

Patience lost her interest in their banter the minute she looked about. She couldn’t believe she was back in the sleepy vil age she had detested so long. She had forgotten how beautiful, this place.

Most of the cottages in the lane were thatch-roofed and white-washed, her aunt’s a bit shabbier about the edges than most, yet stil charming and homey for al that.

Patience wondered why she’d never noticed that before. A neat stone path bordered by Lavender, Savory and Rosemary, their scents bringing her home more than her very presence, led to the familiar, scarred front door. She knocked on the arched, slatted portal.

When no one answered, she entered. Utter shock sent shivers down her spine.

“What’s wrong?” Grant asked.

“It’s the same but different. The paintings are gone, the stone floors bare of rugs.” She walked past the front room to the kitchen, then up the stairs, silent, Grant fol owing. “Al the furniture we brought from Craithorne is gone. I never saw these crude benches and tables before.”

“Perhaps your aunt has moved,” Grant suggested hoping to relieve her dismay.

Patience seemed to find that possibility a relief. She searched an ancient wardrobe. “No,” she said. “These are her clothes.”

She descended the stairs with the agility of someone who’d maneuvered them with speed for years and made for the kitchen to stand looking about, hands on hips. Grant pictured the freckle-faced twelve-year-old in this very spot.

“Where could she be at three in the afternoon? Our ritual was tea and fresh baked scones at three-fifteen without fail.” She searched the cupboard. “Mama’s silver tea set is gone.”

Lowering herself to a bench by the table, Patience gazed absently at the room. Grant sat behind her, put his arms around her and took her cold hands to chafe them. The room and her hands were like ice. “So, there
are
some good memories here?”

“I suppose.”

Two grimy urchins came prancing into the kitchen, hand in hand, and stopped when they saw strangers waiting. A girl of about twelve held the hand of a boy somewhat younger.

Grant noted that Patience stared with every bit as much confusion as they. Two tal er boys and another girl skipped in and col ided with the first set. Each child carried a book.

“What you doin’ here?” a boy asked.

“This is my Aunt’s house. What are you doing here? And do you know where my Aunt is?”

“Sure,” a smiling girl answered. “She’s cleaning up ‘ta manor house, then she’l come teach us reading.”

“Cleaning? Aunt Harriette is in service?” Shock had barely registered on Patience’s face when an older woman came in. “You’ve arrived before me again, have you?” She stopped when she saw Patience.

Grant stood, but the woman ignored him, studying her niece, her distress clear. She removed a much-worn cape and hung it on a peg. “Children,” she told the urchins, “No school today.”

Their cheers fil ed the smal kitchen.

“Double tomorrow,” she said. “And don’t forget your bibles.” She shooed them out ignoring their moans and grumbles over double lessons. Then she turned to Patience.

“Patience, dear. Why are you not in America with your new husband?”

Grant bristled at the word, husband, and chided himself for the inconsistency. Patience might
have
a husband someday—she should—which would be best for his peace of mind.

Patience stood and nodded to her ogre of an aunt, or so she thought her. “Aunt Harriette.” For a moment Grant thought Patience would bolt, but with obvious effort, she remained stoic. “I’d like you to meet a friend of mine, Captain Grant St. Benedict.”

Her aunt nodded. “Captain.”

He bowed. “Lady Belmont.”

“Please sit down, Captain.” The woman looked to Patience, seeking explanation.

Patience swal owed, but Grant could see from her stance that it wasn’t likely anger she swal owed, but pride more like. “Conrad Van Barten died before I arrived in America,” she said. “I was stranded and alone, with no money and no place to stay. Mrs. Van Barten took me in for as long as she could. You were right. I shouldn’t have gone. I was foolish.”