Seduced by a Pirate (9 page)

S
IXTEEN

T
he story thus far has taken but a single day . . . but this final chapter happens later, after days had blurred together like shining beads on a string: luminous, joyful, slipping from pleasure to pleasure, into a memory of the best summer of their lives.

Even in all that joy, one night stood out. It was in the dog days of summer, when September was still breathing sluggish, summer dreams, and snow seemed like an old wives’ tale. The lake water was warm even in the morning, and the lawn of Arbor House was burned by the sun and disheartened by the pounding of little slippers up and down its slope all day long.

Far from keeping the children out of the lake, Griffin encouraged amphibian habits. This particular day, court had been in session only in the morning, and he had the children in and out of the lake all afternoon. By now they had all learned to swim, though none as well as Colin, who was a veritable fish. Shark had tied a wooden seat to a willow tree; it swung out over the lake and they took turns dropping, screaming, into the water. They raced little wooden boats back and forth and quarreled over a dead fish that Alastair discovered floating belly up.

By six o’clock, when Phoebe and Griffin came around to give goodnight kisses, all three children were already dreaming, brown as berries, exhausted and happy. Colin, Margaret, and Alastair had changed since June. When Griffin first met them, they had been scrappy but vulnerable, with the wariness of children who aren’t entirely sure that the world is a safe place.

Now they swam and ran and played with a blithe sense of invulnerability. They were the pirate kings and queen of their world. They had Papa to protect them against everyone, including and most especially pirates, and Mama to cuddle them (when Papa wasn’t), and Nanny to scold them, and Lyddie to ignore them, so they could get into mischief now and then.

To their minds, their parents had no greater ambitions than to wrestle and play and soothe them.

But, of course, their parents sometimes waited impatiently for bedtime, played chess with an eye on the clock, stole kisses that no one saw, and counted the minutes until twilight fell.

This evening Griffin kept Phoebe and Viscount Moncrieff in stitches with tales of the idiot prosecutor for the Crown, one Barnardine Hubble.

“So Hubble looks down at Margery Bindle and he says, with all the pompous clearing of his throat and twitching of his wig that you can imagine, ‘Miss Bindle, can you confirm that you believe your baby was conceived on the evening of August eighteen, when the defendant came through Bath in company with his theater troupe?’ ”

“Poor woman,” Phoebe said. “Caught by a player. Some of them are wickedly handsome.”

The sideways glance her husband gave her, which said without words that she was not to ogle good-looking actors, was quite satisfying.

“So,” Griffin continued, “Margery agrees that the baby was conceived on the evening of August eighteen, and Hubble demands, ‘What were you doing at that time?’ ”

Phoebe broke into giggles, and even the viscount smiled. “The chamber went into an uproar,” Griffin admitted. “I couldn’t stop laughing myself, and afterward Hubble huffed around the back rooms complaining about a lack of dignity in the courtroom.”

“He’s right. There is no dignity in your court,” Phoebe said, putting down her fork. If she didn’t stop eating, she’d be as round as a church steeple in a few months. “Tell your father what happened last week with the doctor.”

Griffin and his father were becoming fast friends, though naturally they never said such a thing aloud. They were too used to considering each other enemies, when to Phoebe’s mind they were more alike than different.

“Dr. Inkwell is fascinated by dissection,” Griffin said, waving a paring knife as if to illustrate the doctor’s technique. “Alas, a Mrs. Crosby claimed that he dissected her husband while still alive, even though the man’s death was attested to by two doctors.”

“Poor woman,” his father observed. He was peeling an apple in one neat spiral.

“Only Hubble would be fool enough to prosecute the case. He began by cross-examining the good doctor. ‘Before you began the dissection, did you check for a pulse?’ The doctor said no. ‘Did you check for breathing?’ The doctor said no.”

“Shouldn’t he have checked something of that nature?” the viscount asked.

“Hubble asked if it’s possible that the patient was still alive,” Griffin continued, “and Dr. Inkwell said no, because his brain was sitting in a jar on his desk.”

A slow smile curled the viscount’s lips, the same smile that Phoebe saw countless times a day on her own husband’s face.

“And then Hubble asked, without skipping a beat, ‘But could the patient have still been alive?’ ”

“This is the part I love,” Phoebe put in.

“ ‘Absolutely,’ snaps Dr. Inkwell. ‘Mr. Crosby is undoubtedly alive and practicing the law.’ ”

They frightened a sleeping sparrow with their laughter. She started from her nest and flew in a circle around the courtyard before settling in the old oak.

They had been dining early so the viscount could take himself back to his own house and spend the next day working on the most important bill that the House of Lords would see that quarter.

“Tomorrow,” Phoebe called, blowing her father-in-law a kiss as he took his leave.

There were no lonely corners of Griffin’s heart anymore, but had there been, his father’s grin as he left would have soothed them.

Griffin had a family now. Hand in hand, he and Phoebe wandered down the lawn to the water, and from there climbed into the flat-bottom rowboat, and from there ended up in mid-lake. They began with a twilight swim and ended up naked in the boat.

It was that sort of evening.

He was lying flat on his back, enjoying the slosh of warmish water that was playing around his back. Phoebe was on her knees, perched over him, and he knew that any moment now the queen of the pirates would make him happy.

But probably not until he begged.

Which he was going to do, as soon as he’d had enough of stroking those luscious breasts, and then down the slope of her stomach, and . . .

The slope of her stomach.

“Phoebe?” he asked. “Is there something you forgot to tell me?”

She looked down at him, tossed her hair over her shoulder in a way that made her breasts plump in his hands. “Sir Griffin, have you noticed that I like to choose the right moment to make important announcements?”

“I have.”

“I have no time for that now.”

His hands slid down, into the hottest, wettest place on the whole boat. His wife gasped and dipped to kiss him.

He kissed her hard, saying without words what was in his heart.

Then she straightened and let him guide her with strong hands, let him drop her at just the right angle, let her cry echo across the rippling water and into the quiet night.

“You are my heart,” he said, thrusting into her, fierce, out of control as always, beside himself.

She smiled down at him, hair wet and finger-combed, looking like Venus perched on a clamshell rather than atop a battered pirate. She looked like a boy’s wet dream. She looked like his wife.

“I love you,” she gasped as he thrust up, at just the angle that he knew she liked the best. “And, Griffin?”

“Yes?” He wasn’t really listening, concentrating on making her come before he completely lost his claim to manhood.

“We’re having a baby,” she cooed.

“You choose now to make your announcement?
Now
?”

Her hands were clutching his shoulders, and he saw her eyes go luminous, pleasure-filled. He lost control then, but it was all right, because they reached that moment together and tumbled down into a river-soft silence together.

And then when he had carried her off the boat—with a leg that was stronger than ever—he laid her gently on the grass and whispered, “So we’re having a baby?”

Her eyes were tender and unbearably loving. “Yes.”

“Our fourth,” he said, stretching out beside her. “Do you think we have a boy or a girl in here?” He cupped her stomach.

“I don’t know. A little viscount, perhaps?”

“I would like Colin to be the viscount,” he said, feeling a prickle of guilt. Colin was his right-hand man.

“Colin would hate to be a viscount,” Phoebe said with a laugh. “He is going to sea, Griffin. You know he is. You simply need to concentrate on making sure that he never becomes a pirate.”

“Of course not,” her husband murmured.

And distracted her again.

E
PILOGUE

I
t was fair to say that the courtroom of the Justice of the Peace for Somerset County was infamous. Certainly among smugglers, solicitors, and ne’er-do-wells. Sir Griffin Barry, Justice of the Peace, had a way of talking to a man who’d been hauled in for beating his wife that could make a hardened criminal turn ash-white.

“He’s a maverick,” Mr. Calvin Florand said to his young associate, Mr. Edwin Howell. Howell had just entered the Inns of Court, and Calvin always made a point of taking a new associate down to Shropshire for a few days. They spent their days observing the court, and their nights pulling apart flagrant violations of law resulting from the doling out of justice. Calvin reckoned that Howell would learn more about justice—and the limits of the law—in three days of watching Justice Barry’s court than in a whole year of sitting in a classroom.

Just now Howell was watching Sir Griffin with round eyes. His Honor never looked precisely justice-like—how could he, given that tattoo?—but he looked particularly dangerous today. He wasn’t clean-shaven, and his wig, rather than giving him the air of an English gentleman, made him look like a lion at a costume ball.

“Does he always look like this?” Howell asked in a low voice.

They watched for a moment as Sir Griffin leaned over the bench and gave the defendant a hard stare. The clerk had just read aloud a criminal complaint against one Charlie Follykin, who was charged with buying three and a half “tubs of spirits” for thirteen shillings a tub in France and transporting them across the Channel, with intent to resell them in England for four pounds each.

“How do you plea?” demanded the clerk.

“A pox o’ your throats!” Charlie spat.

The prisoner looked like a man who expressed his appetites with abandon. He had a large stomach, a large mustache, and a glossy sheen to his eye that suggested unswerving overindulgence in spirits.

As the silence wore on, Sir Griffin leaned over and said, “Did you drink half a tub before or after selling it?”

“Never drink what I could sell,” Charlie assured him. Apparently, even Charlie understood that insulting this justice would not be a good idea.

“Then you meant to sell it. He enters a plea of guilty,” Sir Griffin directed. The clerk scribbled on the court docket.

“I’m curious, Charlie,” the justice said, fixing the prisoner with a gimlet eye. “Exactly how did you get to France?”

“Get to France?” Charlie said, letting fly with a tremendous belch. “I never do. I won’t. I’ve been drinking all night, and I’m not fitted for it.”

“You must answer His Honor’s questions,” admonished the clerk.

Charlie looked blearily up at the bench. “I’ll not go to France, even if you beat my head out with billets.”

The clerk was clearly distressed at this lack of reverence, but the judge merely looked amused. Finally, when it seemed that Charlie was getting the better of the court, Sir Griffin stood up. He walked down from his seat, carefully turning back the wide velvet sleeves of his robes.

The clerk faded backward, leaving Charlie mumbling to himself and looking at the floor.

“You!” said the Justice, when he was standing before the prisoner.

Charlie jumped. There was something about that voice which clearly woke him out of his trance. “Huh?”

“Do you want me to knock you into next Monday?”

“No,” Charlie said hastily.

“Tell me why in the blazes you are in this court on a trumped-up charge.”

Charlie peeked at the Justice, then looked back at the floor. “I was supposed to guard the tubs,” he muttered. “Eight shillings a night.”

Sir Griffin walked around and climbed up onto his chair. “Right,” he said briskly. “The prisoner changes his plea. Not guilty, here by reason of collusion. Who turned you in, Charlie?”

Silence. The clerk darted forward and poked the prisoner in the back.

Charlie just looked confused.

Sir Griffin leaned over, and a flash of real annoyance crossed his face. “Follykin, this is the eleventh time I’ve had you before the bench in the last four years.”

“Not that many,” Charlie said, looking rather appalled.

“My wife gave birth to a baby yesterday. Do you think that I want to be here, breathing the foul air coming from your mouth?”

Charlie shook his head.

“Babies cry all night,” the Justice said reflectively. “I know what happened here, Follykin. Your friends talked you into taking the fall for the smuggling because you fell down on the job of guarding the tubs, drank the brandy, and then let the assizes find you.”

“Only had a sip or two,” Charlie protested.

“You didn’t mind because you like the jail, don’t you? I’ve heard the jailer’s wife has a rare hand with a pasty.”

“She does,” Charlie agreed.

“Right.” The Justice slammed his hammer onto his table. “The prisoner is condemned to four days hard labor, not for importing spirits, which he didn’t do, but for the crass stupidity of wasting my time so he can get his hands on some Cornish pasties. The four days hard labor will be carried out in the children’s foundling home, where I would expressly note that after being given a thorough cleaning, the prisoner should be put to rocking babies. All day. And most of the night. He can bed down in a storage closet.”

Charlie looked up at the judge, a tragic look crossing his face. “Don’t do that to me, Your Honor,” he begged.

The clerk prodded him with a stick. “Move along, Follykin. You know His Honor doesn’t ever change his mind.”

“Why should you have a better night than I will?” the judge demanded. He took off his robes, tossed them into the hands of a waiting clerk, and left the courtroom without further ado.

“That’s bollocks,” the young lawyer whispered. “There wasn’t any procedure. He threatened the prisoner. He sentenced him to hard labor even though he was innocent, or at least partly innocent. And that kind of hard labor . . . I’ve never heard of it. A storage closet isn’t jail!”

“Right,” Calvin said. “Now I happen to know that the jailer’s wife provides the very inn we’re staying at with pasties, so let’s retire, shall we, and discuss the finer points of the actual
use
of English law in our courtrooms.”

Outside, Griffin climbed rather stiffly into his carriage. These days his leg gave him a twinge only when he was dead tired.

He was dead tired.

Fred had come into the world screaming as loudly as he could, and he hadn’t stopped yet.

When Griffin reached his house, Fred’s wailing had upset his sister Sophie, who was crying as well, and what with one thing and another, Alastair and Colin were up, too. The only child peacefully sleeping, in fact, was Margaret. Griffin appeared at the nursery door only to find that his poor wife had the desperate look of a woman in need of rescue.

Griffin took Fred and popped him into the cradle; wonder of wonders, he fell asleep. Nanny took charge of Sophie, Lyddie took Alastair to the kitchens for a glass of milk, and Griffin picked up his poor wife, tired as she was, and carried her all the way down the hill to the river.

They sat there for at least an hour, just staring at the water and ignoring the faint sounds of mayhem that continued to issue from the house. The moon turned the water into a shimmering silver plate.

Griffin thought there was probably nothing more lovely than to have his wife’s round bottom in his lap and to rest his chin on her hair and feel her breathing against his chest.

After a time Colin came trotting down the hill with a bundle in his arms, trailing a bit of pink blanket.

Phoebe rose and took Fred—crying again—then settled down in a different chair to feed the child, who appeared to have the appetite of a future giant.

Colin leaned against his father’s shoulder in a companionable sort of way.

“I like the way you brought Fred down here,” Griffin said, winding his arm around his eldest son’s shoulder. “Good man.”

“Had to be done,” said the pirate.

“A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.”

Fred burped, and Colin wrinkled his nose. “Do you think he’ll sleep any better tomorrow night? He doesn’t seem to sleep at all.”

“Probably not,” Griffin said. He looked over at his wife’s bright hair. He could just see the curve of her cheeks as she murmured to their new son.

“Do you suppose you could stop having babies now?” Colin asked with a sigh. “There are five of us, you know. It seems like an awful many.”

Griffin’s heart swelled with the pure joy of the moment. All those years on board ship, he’d grappled with adventure and death and mayhem. He thought he was proving himself, but he didn’t really understand what it was to be a man until he returned home.

“Five seems like a good number to me,” he said, hauling Colin’s lanky body over the side of his chair and into his lap.

“I’m too old to sit in your lap,” Colin protested, his skinny legs flailing a moment. But then he settled against Griffin’s shoulder, and two seconds later he was asleep.

Griffin reached out and took his wife’s hand. “I love you,” he said quietly.

Phoebe smiled at him. She was more beautiful than she’d been when they married, more beautiful than she’d been when he returned from the sea. She would only get more lovely every year . . . and he would only love her more.

“Damn,” he said quietly. “I don’t even know what to do with the way I feel for you, Phoebe.”

She smiled again, her eyes luminous in the moonlight. “Just love me, Griffin.”

He raised her hand to his lips. “There’s no question of that, my darling.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t you dare . . .”

“My darling Poppy,” he said smugly.