How To Please a Pirate (25 page)

The insufferable little bitch had the
audacity to stare pointedly at Catherine’s bosom. Her nipple was
still winking behind the thin veil of lace, pert as ever, but now
the pale skin around it flushed crimson with embarrassment. It was
one thing to plan a seduction. It was quite another to be caught at
it.

Catherine stepped behind one of the curtains
and shoved her breast back down. Once Hugh managed to get himself
named protector of this pile of rocks, Catherine decided her first
demand would be that the sharp-eyed Mistress Wren be released from
service. Without good character.

The Drake children’s play was in full swing
when Catherine slipped into the garden. A make-shift stage was set
up on one side of the central fountain with chairs arranged in neat
rows for viewing. Catherine took quick stock of Gabriel’s other
guests. She recognized Millicent Harlowe and several other hopeful
young ladies along with their chaperones leaning forward in their
seats in an effort to look interested in the farce being
presented.

On stage, four of the girls had what appeared
to be large
papier-mache
boats attached to their hips, with
rope rigging slung over their shoulders to hold the vessels in
place and ridiculous tall hats designed to simulate a mast and sail
on their heads.

“On July 12, 1588, a fleet of one hundred and
thirty warships set sail from Spain to attack our beloved
England.”

The speaker was that dreadful Hyacinth, the
eldest of Gabriel’s nieces, the one Hugh tried unsuccessfully to
deflower. She gave her narration from a podium on stage right.

To Catherine’s surprise, Gabriel, a priest
and a scruffy, thoroughly disreputable-looking fellow who she’d
wager hadn’t bathed in months appeared on the stage. Like the
children, they too ‘wore’ ships, but Spanish flags flapped from
their absurd headgear.

“The frigates and galleons of the Spanish
Armada were bigger than the English schooners, but the English were
more swift and agile,” Hyacinth informed them.

In demonstration, the little ‘schooners’
darted about between the larger ‘frigates and galleons’ to the
delight of the fawning ladies in the audience. The scruffy
character tried to turn circles along with the children and only
succeeded in making himself dizzy enough to weave like a drunkard
before he sank to the floor, one Spanish galleon sent to the sea
bed by the gallant English.

Catherine tried to smile and chuckle along
with the others, but her face felt brittle. Once Hugh controlled
the destinies of these spoiled children, she’d see to it they were
fostered out as far away as possible. Or perhaps they could be sent
to a nunnery to insure no furtherance of the Drake line. Yes, that
would probably be best.

“The English chased the Armada up the channel
and set a fire ship adrift toward them,” Hyacinth read from her
script.

One of the Drake children stepped out of her
ship costume and produced a flint and steel from her pockets.

“Daisy,” Gabriel’s tone held a stern warning.
“What did I tell you about using real fire?”

Daisy rolled her eyes and shoved the flint
and steel back into her pocket.

Perhaps a nunnery on the continent for this
one, Catherine mused.

Then Daisy raced to the side of the stage and
came back with a length of fiery cloth. She wrapped her little
sister, the smallest ship, with the simulated blaze and gave the
tike a shove toward the Armada. The Spanish frigates tried to evade
her, but the priest became tangled in the child’s trailing ‘flames’
and went down in a blaze of orange muslin.

“The Spanish didn’t dare try to run the
English gauntlet by sailing back through the channel, so they
traveled north, trying to escape around Scotland,” Hyacinth
explained.

Gabriel, the only remaining Spanish frigate,
began to sail away from the harrying English.

Catherine glanced over to see Mistress Wren
lean against the wall, her features going soft and drowsy as a cat
on a windowsill while she gazed on the Lord of Dragon Caern. The
chatelaine looked as if she might break into a full-throated purr
at any moment.

Well, that explains much,
Catherine
thought.
The trollop fancies herself in love with
Gabriel.

“But as you know, the weather in Scotland is
generally not felicitous to any, not even the Scots,” Hyacinth
continued. “Terrible storms rose up to meet the Spaniards and many
ships were lost.”

Upon this dire pronouncement, the four
youngest of Gabriel’s nieces fell upon him with arms flailing,
simulating foul weather. The Lord of Dragon Caern put up a valiant
effort, but in the end, he was ignominiously rolling on the floor
under a tangle of giggling children. Unlike the true history, none
of these Spanish ships escaped English courage and craftiness and
Scottish foul weather.

The audience applauded politely when Gabriel
stood with his littlest niece straddling his shoulders, demanding a
pony ride. As the players took their bows amid general hilarity,
Catherine noticed that Gabriel tossed a glance toward Mistress
Wren, his face flushed and beaming.

It was a fleeting unguarded moment, but she
recognized a look of utter captivity when she saw it.

Catherine heaved a deep sigh. Seduction was
no longer a viable plan. Gabriel Drake had already been
seduced.

She ground her teeth together, wondering how
best to make use of this new development. The goal was still the
same, of course. To make certain Gabriel didn’t wed.

Unfortunately, Catherine would have less joy
of the enterprise than she’d hoped. No matter. Viscount Linley
would be visiting later in the fall to stag hunt with Hugh. She’d
always been sizzlingly aware of him in a way that made her body
hum. She’d find another use for the lamb bladder in her
reticule.

Gabriel’s gaze slanted toward Mistress Wren
again. Catherine caught another unspoken message zinging from him
to his chatelaine. Men were so transparent sometimes. Or perhaps,
Catherine was more perceptive than most.

Yes, indeed. Gabriel was a lamb she could
lead to slaughter. And he’d just shown her the best way to go about
it.

Jacquelyn pushed through the kitchen doors
and recoiled immediately, bringing a scented hanky to her nose.
“Mrs. Beadle, what on earth is that stench?”

“Whatever do you mean, Mistress?” Mrs. B.
didn’t bother looking up from the ham-sized mound of dough she was
kneading into submission.

“That.” Jacquelyn waved an arm toward the
offending crock bubbling on the hearth. “What are you cooking
there?”

“Why, that’s naught but a couple of hens I’ve
set to boiling along with some herbs and an onion or two.” She
paused to flour her hands and the rolling pin and began flattening
a ball of the dough into a perfect circle. “We’ll have the broth
with bread for luncheon and the meat for supper, I’m thinking.”

Jacquelyn’s stomach roiled in protest. “Why
are you using old rotten meat?”

“Old? Rotten?” Mrs. Beadle bristled under the
accusation. “For shame, Mistress! As if I’d ever set bad flesh on
the table at Dragon Caern. These hens are freshly killed. Twisted
their necks for them myself, I did. Had the devil’s own time with
it, too, let me tell you. Lively ones, they were. Nothing a bit
wrong with these biddies.” She gave an injured sniff. “Their
feathers are drying yet in the shed if you doubt my word and wish
to be thorough about checking your facts.”

Jacquelyn lowered the hanky and took another
tentative sniff. She quickly recovered her nose. If she hadn’t
already emptied her stomach twice that morning, she was sure she’d
leave what was left of her breakfast on the clean stone pavings of
Mrs. B.’s immaculate kitchen.

“What ails you, Mistress?” Mrs. Beadle’s
round face puckered into a sympathetic frown.

“I don’t know,” Jacquelyn said into the
heavily perfumed hanky. Even the rose-water scent she loved now had
a metallic tang to it. “Nothing smells right.”

Mrs. Beadle rounded the stout table and laid
the back of her floury hand against Jacquelyn’s cheek.

“You’ve a touch of the ague, like as not,”
she pronounced as she waddled back to her work. “No fever, though.
A garlic poultice will fix you right up. Soon as I’m done with
these pies, I’ll make you one.”

Jacquelyn doubted the strong scent of garlic
would settle her uneasy stomach, but she perched on one of the
chairs to wait. She hoped it wouldn’t be necessary to make another
dash to a chamber pot. The need to void her bladder was so urgent;
she’d barely made it the last time.

Whatever was wrong with her, she feared it
wasn’t the ague.

“You’re making pies again?” Jacquelyn asked,
trying to distract herself from the scent of boiling poultry.

“Aye, gooseberry this time,” Mrs. B.
confided. “Mr. Meriwether picked them himself, or so he told me.
Actually, I think the children did most of the work. With the tall
tales he fills their noggins with, that old scallywag can make any
chore an adventure.” Mrs. Beadle shook her head in mock reprimand,
but a chuckle escaped her lips.

Could Mrs. Beadle actually harbor tender
feelings for Gabriel’s old first mate? Jacquelyn wouldn’t have
thought so, but the odd little smile on the housekeeper’s face made
her wonder.

“So, you’re making pies for Meri,” Jacquelyn
said. “That’s the third time this week unless I’m mistook. Some
might say you’re spoiling the man. Do I detect a romance in
bloom?”

Mrs. Beadle’s brows lowered in a frown.
“Certainly not! This is but a business arrangement.”

“A business arrangement?”

“Aye,” she said, pounding the crust with more
enthusiasm than the task warranted. “We’ve reached an agreement,
that old salt and me. I make him a pie and he takes a bath. And
there’s an end to it!”

Mrs. Beadle dusted the excess flour from her
hands and looked up at Jacquelyn, concern making her clamp her lips
tight for a moment.

“Mistress, you’ve gone pale as a fish belly.
The kettle’s boiling. Let me get you some tea.”

“Thank you,” Jacquelyn said when Mrs. B. set
the cup and saucer before her, then she waved the housekeeper off.
“No, no cream or sugar.”

“But you always take your tea with a bit o’
milk and a lump or two.”

“Not today,” Jacquelyn said, gratefully
letting the warm tea slide down her throat. “Nothing tastes right
either.”

“Sickness will do that to a body,” Mrs.
Beadle said philosophically, then she chuckled. “Lady Helen was
like that when she was bearing Miss Lily. If you was a married
lady, I’d say you were breeding instead of down with the ague.
‘Course Lady Helen also had a weak bladder and nipples so tender
she could hardly bear to dress. Couldn’t keep down her breakfast if
her hope of heaven depended upon it for the first six months.”

Sensitive nose, weak bladder, tender nipples,
queasy stomach, Jacquelyn ticked off her symptoms one by one. To
make matters worse, she was late for her monthly woman’s trial.
Mrs. B’s words confirmed Jacquelyn’s worst fear.

She was either carrying Gabriel’s child or
she was dying.

Jacquelyn wasn’t sure which would be
worse.

By day, Gabriel served admirably as Lord of
Dragon Caern. He meted out justice, advised his tenants and paid
court to the women who hoped to become his baroness. He even made
time to play with his nieces or oversee some of their lessons.
Jacquelyn found reasons to avoid him during the sunlit hours and he
didn’t seek her out.

But by night, Gabriel was either in
Jacquelyn’s bed or she was in his, finding new ways to drive each
other to exhausted completion. And when they were utterly spent,
they talked. He regaled her with tales of piracy and she told him
of the doings at the Caern he’d missed while he sailed the Spanish
Main. Sometimes, they recovered enough to make love a second time,
with unhurried thoroughness. Sometimes, they sank into satisfied
slumber, their bodies fitting together with the natural
unselfconsciousness of lovers.

By tacit agreement, they didn’t discuss his
impending nuptials or what it would mean to their nightly trysts.
They reveled in the eternal now.

The odor of the roasting chickens made
Jacquelyn retch silently.

‘Now’ was irretrievably gone.

When Mrs. Beadle’s back was turned, Jacquelyn
fled the aromatic kitchen and bolted up the stairs to her chamber.
She shoved a rug under the door to stop up the crack beneath
it—anything to get away from the stench of roasting flesh.

Nothing would allow her to escape the
inconvenient truth growing in her belly.

* * *

“Mistress Wren.” Timothy’s voice pleaded
through her shut door, his consternation evident in the uneven
breaks and squeaks in his tone. “Are you there, Mistress?”

“Yes, Timothy, I’m here,” Jacquelyn said
wearily. She’d stripped off her dress and lain down in her shift
across her bed, willing the nausea to pass. “What is it?”

“It’s Lady Curtmantle. She’s in the solar and
she says it’s urgent.”

“Tell her Lord Drake is otherwise occupied,”
Jacquelyn said. She thought Gabriel was planning to ride over to
inspect the new mill he’d ordered built for his tenant’s grain.
Already he’d found productive use for some of the treasure he and
Jacquelyn found in the Caern. As long as he spent it in small
increments, no one would believe he was anything other than a good
steward of a prosperous estate making improvements to his
holding.

“The lady doesn’t wish to see Lord Drake,”
Timothy explained. “She’s asking for you, Mistress.”

“Botheration,” Jacquelyn muttered. The first
time she laid eyes on the woman, something inside her twitched.
This person meant the folk of Dragon Caern no good. She couldn’t
point to any particular behavior on the lady’s part that gave her
that irritated tingle on her spine, but she couldn’t shake the
feeling either.