Sea Scoundrel (36 page)

“How can you marry a woman you don’t respect? Two days ago you asked me to be your mistress.” Aunt Harriette gasped.

Brian chuckled.

“I meant no disrespect.” He ran a hand through his hair.

“How foolish that sounds. I meant—” He shook his head, unable to give voice to what he meant; he feared the answer too much. “Patience, you, of al people, deserve happiness for a lifetime. You deserve commitment, vows spoken before God and man. Marry me, Patience.”

“But your drinking. It sickens me to see a man drink to excess, lose control. I can’t tel you what happened inside me when I realized you were drunk the night of the fire.” He remembered her look and didn’t think he’d ever seen such haunting fear, not even the night she saved the
Knave’s Secret
from the
Phantom
. “Don’t you understand?

I was drinking because of you.” He shook his head. “No.

That’s wrong. Not because of you, because of me. I was so disturbed that you were angry with me, that I drank in a way even I find distasteful.” He couldn’t tel her he was drinking because he feared loving her. Not yet. “Marry me. Please.” He placed his fingers against her lips to silence her then found himself tracing their shape. The distraction lasted until he realized where they were. “I ... care for you Patience. I care about your feelings. I wil never drink to excess again. I promise you before my father and your Aunt as witness.”

Patience turned from his embrace. “I wil never drink to excess again. If I heard my father speak those very words once, I heard them a thousand times.” But she al owed him to take her hand and to tug her toward the door.

“Patience and I must speak alone,” Grant told Harriette and his father. “If you wil excuse us?”

They both nodded, their worry not masking the love in their eyes.

Patience had always wanted her aunt to love her. He had always craved it from his father. How ironic they should become certain of it at the very point their lives were so uncertain in every other way.

Grant led Patience to the library and the chairs by the hearth. For a while they sat facing each other and al owed silence to flow over and around them and were comfortable with it and each other.

Patience settled chin in hand to stare into the fire.

His numbness had begun to be replaced with a heady relief.

He had wanted to stay with Patience the night he taught her passion. He remembered the pain of
not
being able to lie beside her. At the inn in Scotland, when he’d slept with her in his arms, he remembered joy upon drifting, joy upon waking. Finding her beside him every morning ... Now there was a life to contemplate. He extended his hand.

She rose and took it.

He pul ed her onto his lap.

“Wil you marry me, Lady Patience?”

“What? Marry the Marquess of Andover?” She was masking fear with jest. He kissed her. “Wil Patience marry Grant?”

“Must I?”

“You must—or there
will
be little bastard babies running al over England.”

She buried her face in his neck.

“We have to marry, Patience. For the girls.”

“For the girls,” she whispered, her fear like a living thing, her heart pounding. She stood, hands on hips. “I can’t believe you’re smiling when we’re in such a coil. Being forced against one’s wil is not pleasant.” She batted dust motes.

“I’m smiling, Patience, because I find the prospect of being married to you ... intriguing. Now that my arguments are, shal we say, of no consequence, I bow to the inevitable.”

“Fine for you. You’l go back to sea and leave me to molder while you travel the world.”

“I love the sea, Patience. It’s in my blood.”

“Take me with you then? You said sailing with me was an adventure.”

“Patience, fire, flood and pestilence are adventures, but I would not invite them along on a voyage.” It wasn’t an ocean voyage she needed. “Listen, Patience. I know how much your independence means to you. Suppose we strike a bargain. Here and now. I’l even put it in writing. I propose we become partners with equal say in our lives and our marriage.”

Patience was struck dumb, but only for a minute. “That’s ridiculous. It isn’t done. Is it?”

She was weakening and Grant was pleased. “Patience, it’s preposterous for a sea Captain to become partners with his crew, but I am, and I’m a good partner; ask any of my men.”

“With this marriage partnership, then, if I choose to go to sea with you, I can.”

“Wel , as to that, I plan for you to be in a delicate condition very soon, and I would not want to risk your health or that of our child.” God’s truth, the thought of their children brought a warm stirring to his heart.

Her color rose at his words.

“I do love that blush. Remind me to make you blush while you’re naked so I can see exactly where it begins. I’ve always wondered.”

“You are a true scoundrel. Do you know that?”

“Yes, and you are a true hel cat. And do you know that I am partial to hel cats?”

“Just partial?”

“Fond, perhaps.”

“I might be fond of you too, especial y after our night at the inn.”

“That was nothing compared to what we’l find in each other’s arms as husband and wife.”

She reddened again and looked away. “Wil you forgive She reddened again and looked away. “Wil you forgive your father, Grant?”

“I want our children to know their grandfather, Patience.”

“I’m glad. Now. Let’s put this partnership on paper.”

* * *

As she stepped from Brian’s house on the morning of her wedding, Patience saw a bottle-green coach with white velvet bows on the doors and white carriage horses bearing snowy plumes on their regal heads.

Grant, handsome in dove gray pants and black frock coat, top hat tilted roguishly, bowed and took her hand as she reached the vehicle. “
My
Lady.” He kissed her inner wrist, a promise in his dancing black eyes, and handed her up before he got in and sat beside her.

“Scoundrel,” Patience said smoothing his lapels as the horses sped them on their way. “I suppose if a woman is forced to marry, it is best the groom be tolerable looking.” Grant’s bark of laughter calmed her. “Vixen,” he said as he teased a curl amid the white rosebuds in her hair. He relaxed against the velvet squabs, took her hand in his and held it, their silence comfortable.

“I have a surprise for you,” she whispered as the carriage slowed.

He raised a brow. “Considering other surprises, I wonder, with no smal bit of anxiety, what it could be.”

“I’m wearing bosom inserts today. Just for you.” The carriage door opened upon his look of delight and reaching arms, and he growled his frustration.

When Patience stepped down, she gasped. He’d found her a country church in the middle of a green field. The sun broke through the clouds blessing the smal Gothic structure with slanting beams of radiant light.

Life beckoned and showed new promise as, hand in hand, Grant and Patience climbed three steps to their future.

The stone-arched chapel was fil ed to capacity with wedding guests—including four scoundrels, one being the minister who would perform the ceremony—and a profusion of multi-hued, hot-house flowers.

Cherubs gazed from above, doves cooed in the eves, and sunlight splintered a rainbow through an honor-guard of stained-glass window.

As they pledged themselves to each other, Patience saw Aunt Harriette dab at her eyes, and Brian handed her his handkerchief. Four scoundrels beamed with the pride of brothers.

After the ceremony, sitting across the carriage from Grant

—her new husband, God help her—Patience found him already ordering her life, for the carriage clattered away from London, rather than toward it. “Where are we going? I expected to go back to Brian’s. The girls wil need me. You said I could decide—”

Grant shook his head. “This is our honey month, Patience.

A time for us. Aunt Harriette wil watch over your chicks. For the next few weeks, you are mine alone. No let me correct that, for we belong to each other, do we not? I would like to be alone with you, to love you at my leisure. Would you like that? Because if not—”

“I do,” she whispered. If only they could
love
each other.

He smiled, pul ing her close. “Good. Now, I seem to remember you wanted a house in Sussex by the sea, with a kitten and a rose garden.”

“Grant St. Benedict, it’s bad enough we were forced to marry. If you offer me five thousand pounds a year, I’l crack your skul .”

“Patience, I venture to suggest that no one could force either of us to do anything. We chose to marry. No don’t interrupt your husband, for I owe you an apology. That morning in Scotland, in my own misguided way, I was asking you to spend your life with me. I would have been true to you, Patience, forever, even without speaking vows. I was wrong, I know, and it was badly done. And after I asked you, I saw how vulgar the proposition. ‘Twas only stubbornness made me argue.”

He took her hand. “What I am about to admit, I do so knowing ful wel you are the only person likely to understand my motive. I wanted a lifetime with you without the frightening verdict of marriage attached.” She looked earnestly into his eyes. “Now you’ve been sentenced, how do you feel?”

“Set free,” he said, surprising her. “How do
you
feel?”

“I wanted to be independent.”

“And I. But, Patience, isn’t independence being free to choose the life one wishes. I stood my ground so long for wanting independence, I denied wanting
you
.” Patience nearly denied the hope surging within her. But wanting someone was not loving them. She crossed to him and settled herself in his embrace. They spent a long, lazy time kissing. Patience relaxed, free of restraints for the first time since she’d met him. It was right to be here, to love him. If only he loved her back.

The thought was sobering. “Where
are
we going?”

“To our house in Brighton. Snowdrop is waiting for us.

Summer wil bring your roses.”

“Is it a cottage?”

He tilted his head, his look apologetic. “The house is, perhaps, larger than you would have chosen. I am partial to it, but if it’s not what you want, I wil buy you a smal er one, whatever, wherever you wish.”

He would do that for her? To choose one’s own house would seem independent, but she was not fooled. She had a choice only because he al owed it. She was shackled.

Good and proper.

If only she didn’t love him.

Grant pointed to the cliff in the distance. “There it is.” Patience gasped as jagged turrets and endless crenel ations rose and sprouted from the landscape to become an edifice worthy to shelter a king. “A little larger than I would have expected? It’s a blooming castle.”

“I was afraid you would notice. Do you think we might fil it with children?”

“I don’t think an army could fil it with children.”

“Never the expected answer. I can’t wait to show you every priest-hole and secret door. I have favorite hideaways, the armory and the library. My ancestors are entombed in the chapel.”

“Company. How delightful.”

Grant kissed her in the very hungry, very demanding way he had done in her bed that night at the inn.

In a distant part of her mind, Patience decided that passion might be a very good argument against independence, passion with Grant, that is.

They had advanced into the realm of near-completion by the time the carriage came to a stop. Disappointment shone on Grant’s face as it pounded in Patience’s breast.

In a whimsical haze, she met the servants and chatted with the housekeeper. Then final y Grant led her upstairs. She’d no more than gazed at the master suite, before a magnificent creature of a man fil ed her arms and heart so ful , she could hardly remember a time when he hadn’t.

Grant had never been so glad about losing a fight in his life.

He was determined to bring Patience with him on a slow, sensual journey, as determined to show her his love as he was terrified to tel her of it.

They dined in their private sitting room. “This meal is to keep up your strength, Patience,” he said. “You wil have need of it.” Grant removed the covers to reveal lobscouse and plum duff and to fil the air with spice.

Patience laughed. “Wil you lick my fingers clean?” The heat in his gaze was answer enough. He stood and took her hand.

She fol owed wil ingly, seeing suddenly the truth that had been plaguing her. This man was her destiny. Smiling or scowling, his mouth begged for her kisses. His black eyes haunted her sleep.

Grant St. Benedict Garrick, her husband, her soon-to-be lover was as beautiful inside as out. Patience Kendal had married, not the Captain, not the Marquess of Andover, not the il usive Saint ... but Grant.

Whatever his name, his soul was the mate to hers.

His kiss was deep and achingly slow. Her heart beat faster and her body quickened. “I believe,” he whispered into her mouth, between touches of his bottom lip to hers, his breath teasing, “Our union was destined.”

He did feel the same.

She removed his frock coat and waistcoat, but when she boldly stripped him of his shirt, he raised a shocked brow.

“Saucy wench. You have overpowered me. Have your wicked way with me, then.”

“I believe I shal , if you wil teach me how.”

“My pleasure. But you should know first that I love you, Patience,” he whispered against her lips. “I love you so damned much.”

Her heart expanded. Tears fil ed her eyes. “Oh, Grant, I love you, too. I have for so long.”

His triumphant shout was muffled as he kissed her with blazing passion.

His husky voice purled desire through her in high, warm waves. She combed her fingers through the black curling hair on his chest, abrading ever so lightly. She rubbed her cheek against that very mat, inhaling his spicy scent. “I wanted to do this the day Wel ington fel in the ocean.” His eyes smoldered. “I would have let you.”

“I wasn’t ready then.”

“Are you now, Patience? Shal we final y ... dance, my love?”

* * *

Two weeks into their honey-month, Patience and Grant walked the snow-dusted rose garden of Andover Castle.