My Lady Pirate (29 page)

You fantasize about making love to a pirate queen but did you every stop to consider the

consequences of
marrying
one? That’s just what your king needs, to have the wife of one of his admirals sailing the Spanish Main as a modern-day Anne Bonney! Never stopped to think about how
that
would look, did you?” Her voice turned bitter. “Just as
I
never stopped to think about how utterly whimsical
my
fantasy was of marrying an
officer.
”

“As my wife you would no longer
need
to be a pirate.”

“I will never give up the sea, Gray! Don’t think it for a damned minute! I worked too

damned hard for all that I am, to give it up for you or any man. And I’ve learned my lesson, the hard way, about
trust!
”

He put down his fork. “But Maeve, I am different—”

“You,
different?!
You, the worst of the lot. The notorious Admiral Falconer! Ha, you think you can have any woman you want but I tell you, you shall not have me, not now, not tomorrow, not ever again! You ask me to trust you! Why the bloody hell
should
I? Do you think I was born yesterday? Do you think I haven’t heard the stories about you, and your string of paramours stretching from Jamaica to Tobago? Your
doings
are a shame to your navy! How poor Nelson must blush for you!”

She expected anger, fury, a reaction. What she got was just one of his wicked, dimpled

smiles and a thoughtful tugging at his chin.

“Well . . .” he murmured, on an expulsion of breath.

“
Well?
”

“Is that all you have to say?”

“What would you wish me to say? To deny my reputation would make me a liar. I will not

lie to you. I have . . . sampled the charms of many women. But!”—he raised his hand, staying her angry words— “that only makes me all the more sure I have found the one I want to marry. I never realized what it meant to
love
a woman until I met you. Yes, there have been many women in my life, but none of them were the woman of my dreams.”

“And neither am I.” Maeve rose to her feet. “I’m merely your
fantasy,
nothing more!”

“Oh, you’re more than that, Maeve,” he countered smoothly.

She stood frozen, her hands gripping the back of her chair, her eyes blazing with anger and defiance. But he merely picked up his fork and knife again and began to eat. “To begin with, you’re a piratess. In case you haven’t noticed, I have a certain fondness for pirates.”

“I wouldn’t have guessed,” she said acidly.

“Secondly”—he speared a small mound of carrots with his fork—“I happen to admire you.

For your spirit, your courage, your seafaring ability, and . . . your tenderness. For the reputation you’ve managed to carve out here in the West Indies, which, I’m delighted to discover, has no bearing in truth at all.”

“My reputation?”

“Aye.” He lifted the fork to his mouth, chewed, wiped his lips. “Do you think I would’ve

waited so long to find you had I known you were anything
but
the sour-toothed, wretched old hag of questionable sexual preferences that legend had it you were?”

“What?!”

“So you see,” he said, mildly, and raised his glass to her, “one cannot always place stock in a
reputation.
”

Stunned, she sat back down in her chair, her fingers clutching her napkin. Sour-toothed hag?

Questionable sexual preferences?! “What about
your
reputation, then? Are you saying that yours is false, too?”

“On the contrary.” He looked up and gave her his wicked, charming grin. “I’m every bit the blackhearted rake you’ve heard that I am. I eat ladies’ hearts for supper and spit them out in the morning. More cornbread, my dear?”

“No!”

“Very well, then. Where was I? Ah yes, your attributes. Number one, you’re a pirate queen.

Number two, you’re fiery and spirited and a true seafarer. Number three, you’re dangerous and beautiful, in a savage, exciting sort of way. Number four, you are leading me as merry a chase as Villeneuve is Nelson. Number five, and most importantly, I find myself in love with you. My most demanding task, at the moment, is making you see and believe the truth of that.”

“I see and believe nothing but clever manipulations enacted by a master manipulator!”

Very softly, he asked, “Do you love
me,
Maeve?”

His unexpected and sudden switch from blithe insouciance to studied focus caught her off

guard. She sat there, her mouth slack, the napkin growing warm in her hands and now, twisted into a ball in her lap. “I—”

He smiled, gently. “Do you?”

She raised her chin and looked him straight in the eye. “There is a difference, Sir Graham, between love and
trust.
”

“Do you love me then, Maeve?” he repeated, softly.

“I . . . I don’t know what I feel for you.” She picked up her napkin and put it down on the table, rising to her feet at the same time and thinking only of escape before she could admit something she’d later regret. “But what does it matter? I don’t
trust
you and never will. You deceived me, Gray, you made me look foolish in front of my crew, you made me the laughingstock of your navy and God knows who else, you made me feel like an idiot for falling for your stupid story about being a
traitor,
and now you expect me to trust you?”

“Do you love me, Maeve?”

She turned away, clenching her fists at her sides.

“Do you?”

Whirling, she yelled,
“Yes, damn you!”

“There now. That wasn’t so hard to admit. Now that we have
that
cleared up, please sit down and finish your dinner.”

She stared at him. He was eating, just as calmly as before, looking down at his plate with those ridiculously long black lashes veiling his eyes, lying against his cheeks. He glanced up, stopped chewing for a moment, glanced pointedly at her chair, her plate, and inclined his head to indicate that she should sit down.

Maeve sat. Or rather, fell into the chair. Now that she’d said it, admitted it, she felt foolish, ridiculous— conquered. It was not a comfortable feeling, and she shot back to her feet, feeling trapped and humiliated.

“Sit down.”

“Stop telling me what to do, I hate it!”

“
Sit down.”

She sat glaring at him, wanting to bolt.

He glanced up, grinning. “I
am
your Gallant Knight, you know.”

She looked away, her mouth severe and hard, her hands fisted in her lap.

“Your heart has been sorely wounded, Maeve.” She heard the scrape of his chair as he

pushed it back and came around the table toward her. She felt his presence behind her, felt his hands touching her hair, then resting lightly upon her shoulders. It was a gentle touch, a possessive, protective one, and beneath the weight of it she melted inside. His thumbs grazed her nape, eliciting an involuntary shudder; his breath was warm against her cheek as he leaned down and kissed her temple.

“I love you, Maeve.”

She clenched her hands together fiercely, her nails biting into her palms.

“I love you so much I would give my life for you,” he continued.

Her fists buried themselves in the folds of the blanket, and the nightshirt just beneath.

“I love you so much I would marry you tonight, if I could. But I shall wait, because I would have your father’s consent on the union.”

“My father,” she snarled bitterly, “has washed his hands of me. Disowned me. Forsaken me

as his daughter.
Abandoned
me.”

“Your father,” he responded, his voice deep and soft just above her head, “has, for the past seven years, believed you to be dead.”

Gray, standing above her, felt every muscle in her body go rigid.

“D-dead?”
Slowly, she twisted around in the chair to face him, all chalky face and chestnut hair and a lost-child look that drove a fierce urge to protect her, to shield her, into his heart.

“What do you mean, he thinks I’m . . . dead?”

“My flag captain happens to be your cousin. He realized who you were the day you burst

into Lord Nelson’s cabin the first time,” he said softly. “He told Nelson, and Nelson told me, and now, I’m telling you.” He gazed deeply into her eyes, and stroked her cheek. “Your father did not abandon you, dearest. He’s spent years thinking you are dead.”

“You lie!”

“No, Maeve. I do not. Ask Colin if you don’t believe me.”

She went very, very still. Her eyes fell shut, and her body began to tremble violently.

“Oh . . . my God . . . ”

He said nothing and merely stood beside her, being there for her, at this moment of

horrendous discovery.

“You mean . . . you mean, all these years I’ve thought he’d disowned me, when all the time he thought I was
dead?
” She looked up, stunned, her face frighteningly pale. “But why?
Why?

Why would he think that?”

“According to Colin, your father went after you as soon as he discovered you had run away from home, Maeve. He got as far as Florida, where he was told by some Bahamian fishermen, and then, the captain of a French merchantman, that a topsail schooner had wrecked on the reefs off one of the Keys.” He took her hand. “The schooner answered
Kestrel’s
description, Maeve.”

“And he
believed
that?”

“Apparently not. He searched for weeks for you. And returned home brokenhearted. I am

not a father, but I can well imagine his grief, and his anguish over the fact that his headstrong young daughter had met her end because of a silly argument over what he, in his love, thought was best for her. Perhaps he went on denying her death—but since he never heard from her, ever again, he must’ve had no choice but to accept the apparent truth. How awful it must’ve been for him, and your family, to bear.”

“Oh, my God,” Maeve whispered. “Oh, my
God
. . . To think that all these years . . . to think I believed the worst of him—I—” She put her head in her hands, then shot to her feet and

stumbled dazedly to the windows. “I’m so
ashamed
. . .”

He moved to stand beside her.

“To think that he, too, probably watched the shore every day in the futile hope that
I
would return . . . to think he probably stood at the waterfront every single night, every
awful, single
night,
staring at the horizon and wishing he could turn back the clock and change things. Oh, God”—she felt him gathering her close, and didn’t pull away—“Oh,
God,
what am I to do?”

“You’ll do, dearest, what your heart tells you to do.”

“But it’s been seven years, Gray, seven
years!
”

“In the scope of eternity, that is but the blink of an eye.”

“I know, but I’m—I’m so
ashamed!
”

He held her protectively against close. “Whatever you do, Maeve, I love you, I will stand beside you, I will even take you home to New England myself if you wish me to—and I hope

you do. Whatever you decide to—”

A musket thumped outside, angry voices sounded, and the door opened just enough to admit

Colin Lord’s fair head. His face was crimson with embarrassment, his eyes anxious. “Admiral, sir, forgive me, but there’s a lady here to see you. I told her that you would not wish to—”

“Pooh on what you told me, Captain-dear,” came a feminine voice, and the woman shoved

past both Colin and the marine sentry and strode brazenly into the cabin. She stopped, her lip curling with contempt at the sight of the admiral and the chestnut-haired girl who’d gone stiff in his arms. Maeve stared back. The woman’s lips were awfully red. Her face, awfully fair. And then she gave a slow, sultry smile and driving her hand into her pinned-up hair, sent it tumbling down her back in a sleek fall of liquid ebony.

“Well, well, Sir Graham,” she said, her voice a study in practiced, husky sexuality. “I see you’ve found yourself another
trollop
with whom to amuse yourself. What, weren’t my attractions
hot
enough for you?”

Maeve stared, her eyes going wide. She turned, speechless, and looked up into Gray’s face.

But the admiral had turned a ghastly white, and beads of sweat were dappling his forehead.

He did not look well. He did not look well at all.

The woman smiled. “Surprise, surprise . . .
Gray.
I see you’re just eating dinner. Mind if I join you?”

“Cat,” he said shakily, and raked a hand through his hair. “I th-thought you were . . . on Barbados.”

“On Barbados?” The woman strode forward, plucked Gray’s mug from the table and took a

long sip, watching him from over the rim. Then she put it down. “Oh, darling, you of
all
people should know how positively bored I am with the tropics, especially after how many years have elapsed since I’ve last been to London. I thought I would take passage on one of the merchantmen that Papa’s sending home with your convoy.” She looked at him pointedly. “After all, I’m still waiting for a dangerous pirate to whisk me off in the middle of the night. Oh, don’t look so shocked, Gray! Did you really think I’d let you sail back to England without me?’

The admiral made a choking noise and motioned for Colin and the sentry to leave.

Maeve had gone numb with shock. For a brief, hollow moment she was unable to feel

anything; then, myriad emotion flooded in. She thrust herself out of his arms and stared up into his ashen face. “Gray—who is this
female?
”

“L-L . . . Lady Catherine Fairfield,” he managed. He looked lost, and, for the first time since she’d known him, a prisoner of a situation rather than master of it.

So, this was the mistress on Barbados.

“Look, Maeve, I know what you’re thinking, but this is not what it seems—”

“Indeed, Gray,” the woman said silkily, with a pointed, insulting glance at Maeve, “I should hope it
isn’t.
And who is this . . . chit? Your latest
toy?
”

“She’s no
chit,
Catherine, she’s to be my wi—”