Pirates (20 page)

He had risen from his chair, set on making preparations and departing immediately, but her words stopped him cold. “No,” he said. “Absolutely not.”

“Don’t force me to stow away, Duncan,” she warned, rising and walking over to stand toe-to-toe with him. “Or catch a ride on the first passing ship. I will do whatever is necessary, but I will not be left behind.”

Duncan gave a long sigh and shoved a hand into his hair, which was still loose from the night. “What makes
you
so bloody stubborn?” he demanded angrily.

Phoebe raised one shoulder in an impudent shrug. “I don’t know. It comes naturally to me. What makes
you
so bloody stubborn?”

“Kindly do not swear,” he said in a taut voice, turning from her and leaving the terrace for the bedchamber. “It is not becoming.”

“That was swearing?” she countered, following him and dressing while he threw shirts and breeches and other necessities into a trunk. “You should have told me before. I might have said the wrong thing at a tea party.”

Duncan clenched his jaw, then relaxed it by force of will. “Damnation, Phoebe, I don’t need this kind of vexation from you. My father may already be dead.”

“I know,” Phoebe answered with gentle implacability. “On the other hand, he could be thriving by now—how long ago was that letter written? If he’s gone—and I doubt that very much, since he’s your father and must therefore be quite as intractable as you are—you’ll need me to comfort you. If he’s well, he’ll want to meet his daughter-in-law.”

Duncan stood stiffly for a while, like a mule about to be driven down a road knee-deep in mud, and then relented. Phoebe would try to follow him if he left her on the island and probably get herself killed or kidnapped in the process. At least, if she was with him, he could protect her.

“Will I never win another argument?”

She drew close to him and slipped her arms round his waist. Her hair smelled of sunlight, and there was a faint, musky perfume on her skin, the scent of their lovemaking. “Not while you’re married to me,” she answered.

Even then, Duncan knew her words were prophetic.

They sailed with a full crew in the early afternoon, and both the tides and the wind were with them. It was Phoebe, out to explore the ship, who found Simone huddled behind a crate in the hold, looking scared and defiant.

Her possessions filled the small bundle beside her.

“What are you doing here?” Phoebe asked, placing her hands on her hips and keeping her voice down.

“I’m leaving. That ought to make you glad. ’Course, if you tell Duncan, he’ll send me back.”

Phoebe sighed and sat down on another crate. The light in the hold was dim, and the place made her uncomfortable anyway, reminding her, as it did, of her brief adventure aboard Mornault’s ship. “It doesn’t make me glad,”
she said. “The island is your home. You were born there, weren’t you?”

“No matter,” Simone replied tonelessly, glaring at Phoebe with an obdurate gleam in her eyes. “I’ll find a new place.”

“I thought you were determined to stay and seduce my husband,” Phoebe said. “Just last night, you told me …”

“You wish me to try?”

“Of course not. But if Duncan is the sort of man to take a mistress, he’ll do so, whether you’re on Paradise Island or in Timbuktu. These are difficult times, Simone, and dangerous ones. You would be better off staying put.”

“I imagine you would be, too. But you didn’t.”

Phoebe laughed softly and shook her head. “You’ve got me there.”

“You planning to tell Duncan I’m aboard?”

Phoebe considered. “No,” she said at length. “You’re a grown woman, and if you want to leave, that’s your business. Where will you go?”

Simone rested her head against the ship’s side, closed her eyes, and sighed. “To the big island. I can get work there.”

“Try the Crown and Lily Tavern,” Phoebe suggested. “Ask for Mistress Bell. And whatever you do, don’t tell her I sent you. My brief career as a serving wench wasn’t exactly a stunning success.”

In spite of everything, and obviously against her will, Simone smiled. “So I’ve been told.”

“I’ll bring you water and food,” Phoebe said, standing up. “And I’ll keep your secret, as well. But I want one question answered in return.”

“What?” Simone asked. Her eyes were still closed, and she’d been humming very softly during the brief lapses in their conversation.

“What made you change your mind about staying?”

“The change I see in Duncan,” Simone said. “I tried not to recognize it at first, but it was there, right from the beginning. You give him something more than pleasure. You touch a part of him that other women just can’t reach.”

Phoebe didn’t reply, but left Simone with her bundle and
her dignity and took herself up onto the main deck, to watch the island recede into the glittering horizon.

Duncan was busy, as were all his men, and Phoebe made a point of staying out of the way, trying to go unnoticed, as if she, too, were a stowaway.

When the midday meal was served, below deck in the galley, Phoebe collected her share of food on a large wooden trencher, plus a little extra, telling the cook she preferred to eat in the captain’s cabin. She did go to the small chamber she would be sharing with Duncan during the voyage—the berth looked hardly wide enough for the two of them—in case someone was watching. She ate, then packed cheese, bread, dried meat, and a banana into a leather bag, along with a jar of water, and slipped down to the hold.

Simone accepted the food with dignity and offered grudging thanks.

Phoebe returned to the upper deck and the cabin, where she took off her dress, lay down on the berth in her chemise, and went to sleep. When she awakened, Duncan was beside her, his hair unbound, wearing only his breeches and an insufferable grin.

“It was good of you to wake, Mistress Rourke,” he said. “I have business with you, as it happens.” With his right hand, he caressed her thigh, from knee to hip, displacing the wispy slip in the process.

Phoebe gave a shivery croon and stretched contentedly. “What sort of business?” she asked, as he bared her breasts and prepared them for pleasure with light, brushing motions of his fingertips.

“The most intimate kind,” he replied and put his tongue to her nipple.

Phoebe arched her back and groaned. “You—know how much noise I make,” she managed to sputter, her fingers already deep in his hair, holding him close to her. “What will your men say?”

Duncan raised his head just long enough to answer. “That I’m a lucky bastard,” he replied.

N
ow,” Duncan said, when he and Phoebe lay spent with lovemaking on the berth in his cabin, their arms and legs still entangled. “Tell me who you are hiding in the hold.”

Phoebe drew breath to deny the accusation, then stopped herself. She could not begin this new and wonderful marriage by lying to her husband—to do so would weaken the whole foundation of their relationship, and that was most precious to her. “I promised I wouldn’t tell,” she said miserably. “Not that it’ll matter. When you go down there to look for yourself, she’s going to think I betrayed her.”

“‘She,’” Duncan mused, tracing the line of Phoebe’s jaw with the tip of his index finger, caressing her lips, which were still pleasantly sensitive from his kisses. “It cannot be Old Woman, for she would not trouble herself to hide. Indeed, she would probably demand this cabin and take over my duties and those of the cook and navigator as well. So our traveler must be Simone.”

Phoebe sighed, with sincerity. “Just when she was beginning to like me,” she lamented.

Duncan’s expression was thoughtful. “Simone is not a
slave or a prisoner,” he told his worried wife in his own good time. “If she wishes to leave the island and make her way in the world, she is free to do so, like anyone else in my household. Except for you, of course.” He chuckled and tasted her mouth as though he were sampling a vintage wine. “You, I cannot spare.”

Phoebe fretted, her body already reawakening, blossoming again, under Duncan’s skillful attentions. There were things she wanted to ask him, important things, but her thoughts were unfocused, as though she’d had too much to drink. “Ummm … that feels
very
good. But if you make me cry out like last time, I’ll be too embarrassed to set foot outside this cabin …”

“That would be fine with me,” Duncan said throatily, showing neither haste nor mercy as he proceeded to bring her, once again, to a fever pitch of arousal. “At least you can’t get into trouble here.”

“That’s—oh, God, Duncan—that’s what you think …”

He had her again soon after the fragments of her sentence fell away into insensible moans, and with meticulous thoroughness, kneeling between her thighs and grasping her hips to raise her to him, and pull her hard into each thrust. She bucked against him, making a sound that was at once a series of sobs and a single unbroken groan. When Duncan came, at last, she had long since been satisfied, and fallen still in exhaustion and utter contentment.

She watched his marvelous face as he surrendered to pleasure, and she was filled with joy, for this was the one time he could not hide his emotions from her.

“If we keep this up,” she said, stroking Duncan’s head after he’d collapsed beside her, his cheek resting upon her breast, “we’ll have more children than I really want to give birth to, without anesthetic and Lamaze classes.”

“Speak English,” Duncan said, his voice muffled by her flesh.

Phoebe laughed. “I’m trying, darling. I truly am.” She was solemn again, remembering Simone. “What are we going to do about our stowaway?”

Duncan sighed. “What
can
we do?” he grumbled.

“I could go down there and tell her that you saw me taking her food—that is how you knew, isn’t it?—and guessed that she was on board.”

“She won’t believe you.”

Phoebe’s frustration was mounting. “No. And Simone is fiercely proud, Duncan—I think she would rather ride out this whole trip in the hold than have you know her heart is broken.”

Duncan raised his head and looked into Phoebe’s eyes. “Kindly do not romanticize the situation,” he said. “Simone is young and very beautiful. She is free. In time, she’ll get over her infatuation and wonder what she ever saw in me.”

She slipped her fingers into his soft, glistening hair, loving the way it felt. Loving him. “Nope,” she said. “You were her first love, I think. There will always be a small bruise, somewhere in her heart, that will ache whenever she remembers you.”

He uttered an exaggerated groan of misery and despair. “I see I can depend upon you, not only to prevail in every disagreement, but spare me absolutely nothing.”

Phoebe lifted her head just far enough to kiss his chin, which was already stubbly even though he had shaved that morning, before they boarded the ship. “As an eighteenth-century wife, it is my duty to keep you on the straight-and-narrow path, and I’ll use a staff with a hook on the end if I must. Now, about Simone …”

Duncan groaned again. More loudly than before.

“I’ll continue to take her food and water, until we get to Queen’s Town and she can make good on her escape,” Phoebe decreed, undaunted. “You can turn a blind eye to her in the meantime and make sure she isn’t discovered before we make port.”

“We’re not going to Queen’s Town,” Duncan said, with pained logic. “The place is festering with British soldiers, in case you’ve forgotten, any one of whom would like to hang me from a sturdy branch and use my carcass for bayonet practice.”

“Well, we can’t take her to the States—the colonies, I
mean,” Phoebe protested, her face warm because, incredibly, she
had
forgotten that Queen’s Town wasn’t a port Duncan could sail into with flags flying and trumpets sounding. But then, neither was Charles Town, and he certainly meant to go there.

Something else tugged at the edge of her mind, a vague but urgent concern, but it eluded her in her intoxicated state.

She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Simone is black.”

“Yes,” Duncan replied dryly, “I had ascertained that much.”

Phoebe slugged him in the shoulder, though just hard enough to indicate irritation. “Duncan, you cannot take that woman—that
girl
—to a place where she might well be made into a slave!”

“No,” he said. “But it was her choice to make this journey, not mine. I will not risk the lives of my wife and my crew—”

She laid a finger to his lips. “You needn’t do that,” she pointed out reasonably. “Just send Simone ashore in a skiff, when we’re close enough to Queen’s Town. She will make her own way after that.”

Duncan had that intractable look on his face again. “That will destroy the illusion that I didn’t know she was traveling in the hold, won’t it? God in heaven, Phoebe, this is all so complicated, so
female
. It would be far simpler to simply tell the chit that I’ve found her out, and that she needn’t hide in the hold like a bilge rat, living on scraps. We could put her off the ship tomorrow night—I have friends who would see her to the big island.”

Phoebe waited patiently for him to finish. “That’s a good idea,” she allowed. “The second part, I mean, about letting your friends take Simone to Queen’s Town. But until tomorrow night, husband, you must leave her be. When the time comes for her to go ashore, tell me, and I will handle it.”

“How?”

“I don’t know, but I have twenty-four hours to figure it out.”

Duncan muttered a curse and flung himself off the berth
to wash and put his clothes back on. He still had a ship to captain, after all, and could not while away the daylight hours in his cabin, making love to his wife.
More’s the pity
, Phoebe thought. He really was a spectacular creature, in body as well as mind, with his well-defined muscles, tanned skin, and longish, somewhat shaggy hair—even the whip marks on his back didn’t detract from the physical wonder that was Duncan Rourke.

Pirate. Patriot.

Father-to-be.

Phoebe smiled, cherishing her secret. She would not tell Duncan about their child until she was sure she was pregnant. And since her periods had never been regular, it might take a while to be certain.