The Pirate Next Door (11 page)

He squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them again. They were blue and dancing. “Why do you want me to?”

“As a memento of the occasion.”

He chuckled. “As if the occasion will not be seared into my memory for all eternity.”

“Oh,” she said, pleased.

He smoothed his hand over her stomach, his gold signet ring cool on her skin. He traced a line over her abdomen, which she knew followed one of the marks left by her pregnancy. “What happened?” he asked softly.

“Nothing happened, my lord. I bore a child. He died.”

He did not answer. He leaned down and pressed a long kiss to her belly. Her tongue suddenly loosened. “His name was Jeremy Mark Brenden Alastair. He lived for one afternoon.”

Grayson kissed another scar that her gowns hid to all the world except herself, her maid, and now, the viscount next door.

Her emotions were wrung raw, stretched and pulled until she could no longer call upon her habitual control to contain them. A tear leaked from her eye. After a moment another followed. She pressed her hand to her hot cheeks and shook silently.

He drew her to him, cradling her, comforting. “Shh.”

She wept on, unable to apologize, unable to stop. She had cried for her son the first day, but had been forced
to dry her tears ever after. Theo had not wanted to discuss it; indeed, he seemed to have forgotten all about it by the next week. Alexandra had held in her emotions, gotten on with her life. It spilled out now, the grief, the empty pain, the futile days of going on when she had wanted to die herself.

The viscount’s touch tumbled her hair. “Shh.”

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Forgive me.”

“Better to cry than to bottle it in. Leave it, and it festers. And then it never goes away.”

The pain in his eyes told her that something burned inside him as well, an old grief that he had not been able to release. She rubbed her face against his shirt, amazed she had found someone who actually understood. Even Lady Featherstone, as kind as she’d been, had not been able to offer the comfort she’d needed. She’d found it now with a pirate who had abducted her to his ship to ravish her.

She sniffled. “Are we going somewhere on this boat?”

“Ship,” he corrected. “And no.”

“I thought maybe we would go to France.”

“No, I am not leaving England again. I am here to stay.”

She touched his face. His chin was all sandpapery again. Theo Alastair would have gone into shock. “I have never left England.”

His brows quirked. “No?”

“My sphere is very small. London and Kent. Your sphere is large.” She smiled. “The entire world.”

“Not anymore.” He flicked her a look she could not decipher. “Not anymore.”

He kissed her, as if wanting to halt the discussion before he was forced to explain himself. She decided she
did not mind. His tongue lazily circled hers, warm and slow, as if they had all night. Which they did, in a sense. Alexandra was far too tired to climb down the sides of ships and row in little boats back toward London and the West End.

The door burst open. Alexandra jumped. Her teeth scraped Grayson’s tongue.

“Ongh!” he said.

“Sir!” Thumping footsteps hastened inside. “McDaniels has arrived. He has news—oh.” A young man with sandy blond hair stopped and stared, eyes round. “Sorry, sir. Uh—I’ll just be outside. With McDaniels. And his news.”

Clearing his throat, his face cherry red, the blond man scuttled back through the door and closed it behind him.

“Damn.” Grayson sat up, pushing his hair back. The hard, annoyed expression had returned, driving away his smiles. “I won’t be but a minute, love.”

Alexandra nodded, finding nothing inside her for speech. Grayson swung his legs off the bed and stood. He took a step; then his breeches pooled around his boots, and he fell forward, a surprised look on his face. He caught himself on the desk just in time.

Alexandra’s hand flew to her mouth. Her laughter came out a choked cough.

Grayson snarled something, leaned over, and grabbed his breeches. His backside and hips were pale, she noted, in contrast to his tanned legs. He pulled his pants up and fastened the fly.

“Go ahead and laugh, sweetheart.” He shot her an amused smile. “I like it when you laugh.” He reached the door, blew her a kiss, and ducked out.

Outside, Mr. McDaniels, Grayson’s third officer, waited with Priestly. The man greeted him with a huge grin. “Sorry to interrupt, sir.” His
r
’s rolled.

Priestly, who’d made the untimely dash into the cabin, still blushed under the lantern light. “Sorry, sir,” he mumbled.

Grayson shot him a severe look. “When you observe me carry a beautiful woman into my cabin, Priestly, don’t be so surprised when you find me inside with my pants down.” He turned to McDaniels. “What have you got for me?”

McDaniels inclined his had. “Your French king, sir. He did get aboard a ship. Least as far as I can reckon.”

At last, Grayson thought. At long, bloody last. “Tell me.”

McDaniels complied. “The Frenchie king lives off in the countryside in a house loaned to him. He pretends it’s a little Versailles and they swagger and bow just like they were still in France, except everyone is pretty strained in the pocket.”

Grayson nodded impatiently. He knew this. He’d met a few French émigrés through the Duke of St. Clair. They lived meagerly in small houses, or rooms in houses, in the streets between Portman and Cavendish Squares, but pride forced them to behave, as did their king, as if they still had vast wealth, enormous power, and contingents of servants.

“Well, sir,” McDaniels went on. “Some of the Frenchies here in London go regular to visit their king, like the Bourbon princes and the Duc de Berri.” He pronounced it “Dook dee Berry.” “But some of the others, just the normal ladies and gentlemen, and those who
have had to earn their own keep, they got to feeling forgotten. So they asked the Frenchie king to travel to London. I hear that it was hard for the king to arrange the visit—politics with our government or some such. I don’t know much about that sort of thing.”

Grayson nodded. “So he wanted to assure his populace in London that he still loved them.”

“Seems like. Came in a carriage with guards and everything.”

The émigrés Grayson had met were tired people who by this time had given up ever seeing their beloved France again. The canny ones realized that even if they did return, they would find their country vastly changed, and not the France they had fled.

“So who did the king visit?” Grayson asked. “Did you talk to them?”

“He went to two houses near Marylebone Street. In one, some ladies and their maids occupy themselves making straw hats. In the other, some valet or other has set up a shop selling French trinkets and such for the families who managed to get goods out of France. So the king visits these two houses, and then suddenly climbs back into his carriage and says that’s all, he’s going home. The other Frenchies were annoyed. They were going to make it a big holiday, have the families come out and see the true king, give him gifts, make speeches, and so on. But off he goes.”

Grayson frowned. “Is that all?”

“No, indeed, sir.” McDaniels gave him a white-toothed grin. “I talked to all the servants, stood them drinks and so on. You know, some Frenchie wine isn’t all that bad, in the right pub. Even met a fellow who can set you up with the best brandy, sans customs.” He tapped the side of his nose. “If you want it.”

“Kings first, McDaniels. Brandy later.”

“Sorry, sir. Anyway, here’s an interesting thing. Everyone saw the king go into the second house, but no one really saw him come out. I mean, sir, they saw a fat man in a blue cape, all bundled up, hustling back into the carriage. Why was he all bundled up when the sun was shining hot that day? my fellow wondered. So, the carriages left and that was that.”

Grayson’s pulse beat faster. “Where are these houses?”

“I can show you. Now my fine fellow in the pub, who lives in the house the other side of the one that sells trinkets, says that early the next morning, the proprietor of this shop gets into a hired hack and goes out. He wonders a bit where he got the ready for the carriage, but didn’t think much about it. But later that evening, when he had cause to be down near the river, he sees him again. This time getting out of a boat with a man he’s never seen.”

Grayson rubbed his upper lip. “Did he get into the carriage alone?”

“My fellow could not say. He saw only the proprietor, but it was early morning and dark.”

“That may mean nothing.”

“Yes, but I made inquiries up and down the river. Seems he did get into a boat with two large fellows, and when he came back, there was only one. So where did the other fellow go, eh?”

Grayson’s blood beat faster. At last, something to get hold of. “Your source is reliable?”

“Sources. Many of them cheeky.” McDaniels grinned. “But I put it all together, like.”

Grayson nodded. “Good work, McDaniels. Keep an eye on the shop. I want to pay it a visit myself.”

“Yes, sir.”

He turned over possibilities. “I also want to speak to Madame d’Lorenz. She’s always been the expert at what truly is happening in the upper-class French circles. Peel her away from Ardmore; I want to see her alone.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What do we do now, sir?” Priestly looked expectant. Grayson hid a sigh. His life had suddenly become filled with errands, each one a nuisance. His vision of spending a few days in his cabin locked in Alexandra’s arms receded before the Admiralty business.

“Now?” he mused. “Right now I need to talk to Jacobs. To plan how we are going to find that annoying Frenchman in a river full of ships.” He eyed Priestly. “I want you and a handful of crew to stay here and look after Mrs. Alastair. She is not to leave. Give her anything she wants, anything at all, but not a boat to get to shore. Understand?”

Priestly clearly did not, but he nodded.

“Good. McDaniels, you will come with me and show me where those houses are.” He hesitated. “But there’s something I need to do first.”

He turned back to his cabin. Behind that door, which the breeze had blown slightly ajar, lay a beautiful, enticing woman, the woman of his dreams. He would have to leave her behind to travel across cold London with an overly jocular, somewhat smelly pirate crew. Life was not fair.

Behind him, Priestly snickered to McDaniels. “How long do you think it will take him, sir? Two minutes?”

“Don’t know, lad. Maybe three. He’s still fairly robust.”

“Should we wager?”

Grayson swung back to them. “I assure you gentlemen, if I planned to do what is in your lewd thoughts, it would
be hours.
Hours
. And when this stupid business is finished, I promise you, it will be
days
.”

“Yes, sir,” they both said together. The smirks remained.

He turned his back and entered the cabin. Alexandra had burrowed beneath the blankets on the bunk. He shut the door firmly on his men and crossed to her. Her breathing was too swift for sleep, and when he bent down to kiss her, she opened her eyes and responded.

“I have to go for a while, love,” he whispered as the kiss ended. “I will return as soon as I can. If you want anything while I’m gone, anything in the world, ask Priestly to get it for you. I’ll flog him if he does not. I promise.”

“Anything?” she said sleepily.

“Anything, love.” Except a ride home, he added silently. She would be safe from Ardmore here. They were in the middle of the Thames; the only way to them was over water. If Ardmore or his men tried to storm the
Majesty
, Ardmore would have a fight to the death on his hands.

He kissed her again, deep and long, savoring her. His arousal, slightly sated now, reminded him how good it had felt to have her squeezing him tight. He ruthlessly tamped down the thought. He ended the kiss, his lips clinging to hers until the last moment.

When he stood up, her diamond necklace dangled from his hand.

Her brown-green eyes widened. She clapped her hand to her bare throat. “What are you doing?”

“Stealing your jewels. It is traditional.”

She stared at him in open-mouthed shock, outrage dancing in her eyes, then, suddenly, like the sun emerging from behind a cloud, she smiled.

He clutched that smile to his heart, clutched the diamonds in his hand, and left her.

Across the Thames, aboard the
Argonaut
—whose name had been carefully painted over and rewritten as the
Carolina
—Mr. Henderson toyed with the mother-of-pearl handle of his now empty pistol. Emotion raged inside him, and he did not like emotions. They were inconvenient, a distraction, and a nuisance. And ever since he’d met Mrs. Alastair—if “met” were to proper word for what he’d done—his emotions had plagued him.

On the other side of the table Captain Ardmore read letters, or whatever the hell papers he was perusing.

“Finley’s landed on his feet as usual,” Henderson observed glumly. “Damn him.”

Ardmore did not look up. “What do you mean, on his feet?”

“Mrs. Alastair. If that isn’t landing on his feet, I don’t know what is.” He added reflectively. “I’d be on my knees, personally.”

“I agree, Mr. Henderson,” Ardmore said in his Southern drawl. “She is an extraordinarily lovely woman.”

The usual cold note in Ardmore’s voice had actually softened. Interesting. “You are not going to—ah.” Henderson rubbed the sides of his mouth, which still hurt from Finley’s damned thick fist. “You are going to leave her alone, aren’t you?”

Ardmore turned another paper over. “If you mean am I going to force myself upon her, no, I am not. If you mean will I take her away from Finley, yes, I will.”

Henderson set his pistol aside, out of temptation’s way. “I wish you would leave this one alone, sir.”

Ardmore looked up. Henderson stopped himself from flinching. Having James Ardmore give you his full atten
tion was a situation much to be avoided, but he’d stand his ground.

“Why?” Ardmore demanded.

Henderson sighed, then decided he might as well plunge in. It was only his grave after all. “Mrs. Alastair is different. She is a lady. Descended from a duke, for God’s sake.”

“I come from one of Charleston’s first families, myself.”

Henderson clenched his hands. When Ardmore chose to be obtuse, it meant he did not want to discuss the matter at hand, and the officer in question should only pursue it at his peril. But Henderson felt reckless tonight. His mouth already throbbed with Finley’s punch. What was a little more pain? “I want no part in whatever you intend for Mrs. Alastair,” he said. “Finley, I will gladly help you hunt down. He is a pain in the fundament, and I would love to see him get his comeuppance. But Mrs. Alastair—” He broke off. Ardmore was simply watching him, giving him the rope with which to hang himself. “I will no longer help you with Mrs. Alastair, sir,” Henderson finished in a rush. “I will not drug her, I will not abduct her, I will not assault her. She deserves none of that, and I am ashamed to have been a part of it.”

Ardmore’s eyes were as impenetrable as green ice, and just as cold. “Or?” he asked softly.

“Or what?”

“You have proclaimed I and my ideas for Mrs. Alastair can go to hell. On what condition? If I continue to insist, what will you do?”

“I will have to resign, sir.”

Ardmore said nothing. The silence stretched, broken only by the soft sigh of wind outside the stern windows, the quiet slap of water against the hull. Henderson was suddenly reminded of the summer day, a few years back,
when he’d been visiting Ardmore’s Charleston home, where Ardmore’s sister, Honoria, lived. Henderson had been walking with Miss Ardmore in the gardens, and to all of his flirtations-she was a beautiful woman, after all-she had simply given him a green-eyed stare and a raised brow. Her clipped tones had told him what she’d thought of him, an Englishman, trying to make up to her. A true ice queen. He decided that the stare Ardmore was giving him now was the classic family signal that the person who received it was lower than worms.

Ardmore finally answered. “You know I cannot let you resign while I am in England. You know why.”

Henderson’s face heated. “I give you my word, sir, I will not betray you. My quarrel is not with you. I simply do not want anything to happen to Mrs. Ardmore.”

Again, the cool stare, the faint look of scorn. “Nothing will happen to her. I do not harm innocents.”

“You might this one. Just by being who you are.”

Ardmore regarded him for a long, quiet moment. “Your objections are noted, lieutenant.” He sat back, steepling his fingers. “Now, tell me more about your chase of Burchard. It looks like we’ll have to kill him again.”

In other words, subject closed. Completely. Henderson bit back a sigh and launched into his tale, but his inconvenient and troubling emotions still raged inside of him.

“This is the first time I have been on a pirate ship,” Alexandra said primly, looking into the flustered face of Mr. Priestly. “So of course I do not know.”

Priestly’s harried look became more pronounced. He had a narrow face, a shock of brown-blond hair, small blue eyes, and a pinched mouth. Alexandra supposed he made a frightening pirate, but at the moment, he seemed frightened of her. Which was all to the good.

“Mrs. Alastair,” he said in a voice stretched thin. “I really do not understand what you are asking for.”

“It is perfectly simple, Mr. Priestly. I need to know where the lady’s retiring rooms are.”

“The
what
rooms?”

“Retiring rooms. Where a lady might be private.” She leaned toward him and lowered her voice. “For private necessities.”

He blinked a few times, and then drew a relieved breath. “Oh, you mean the head.”

Alexandra dabbed at her mouth with the almost-white napkin he’d managed to find her. It had been the third napkin he’d brought, and he had almost wilted in relief when she’d said, with slight disappointment, that it would have to do. She’d had a breakfast of bread—fresh, not the stale loaf he’d first produced—hot coffee and fruit. Peaches. Fresh, ripe ones from the market on shore. All served in the captain’s cabin on a little folding table covered with a white cloth, no stains. She’d been served on porcelain plates with a silver knife and spoon. Oh, and fresh, cool butter for the bread, please.

She had bade them bring her a bath-hot, Mr. Priestly, not lukewarm-and she’d dressed again in her silk gown. She’d also combed out her hair and gathered it into a tail. Priestly had proudly brought her a silver-backed hairbrush after a two-hour-long search, holding it out to her like a dog expecting a pat. She’d inspected it in his hand and then asked him to please bring her a clean one.

She wiped her hands now while he foundered. Inside her, anger seethed and boiled, anger at none other than that rat, Grayson Finley. She’d heard every word of his conversation with officers McDaniels and Priestly through the opened cabin door, including the order to Mr. Priestly
to give Mrs. Alastair everything she wanted, but not to let her off the ship. For any reason.