Seduced by a Pirate (4 page)

S
EVEN

P
hoebe stared at her husband, trying to think of an appropriately mature response, when Nanny McGillycuddy, Mr. Sharkton, and the children topped the little hill, Lyddie drifting behind them like a kite on a string.

Her mind was such a whirl that she said nothing even when they entered the courtyard. Her husband believed the children were illegitimate. He hadn’t known her name. He thought she was some sort of lightskirt, a jade who would . . . would . . .

She hated him.

“Please forgive me for not rising to meet you,” Griffin said to Alastair. “I’ve injured my leg. I have met Colin, but what’s your name?”

“Alastair.” Her three-year-old stood squarely on his spindly legs, gazing at the pirate as if he met men of his cut every day . . . which he did not. They scarcely had a male servant other than two young men who worked in the house when they weren’t in the garden. And the bootblack, of course.

“Do you call yourself Dare for short?” Griffin inquired.

Alastair frowned. “That’s a silly name. My name is Alastair because that’s the name my mama gave me.”

“Alastair is an ancient and respected name,” Phoebe said, throwing Griffin a cold look.

She’d already figured out that her husband wasn’t the sort of man who could be silenced by a glance.

“Alastair sounds a bit silly, isn’t it? But Dare sounds like a fellow who can climb into a tree house. Have you?”

“Have I what?” Alastair asked suspiciously.

“Built a house in a tree. Or even climbed up a tree? That’s a perfect tree for a house,” Griffin said, pointing to an ancient oak on the other side of the courtyard.

“He hasn’t,” Margaret said, elbowing Alastair aside. “But
I
have.”

Her curls were wild and disordered, and she wore only one stocking. The other was wound around her head and tied in the back.

“Oh, Margaret,” Phoebe groaned. “Why are you attired in such an outlandish fashion? You were fairly tidy an hour ago.”

Margaret fixed her gaze on Griffin and didn’t bother to glance at her mother. “I’m a pirate queen,” she said stoutly. “This is what they wear.” There was a moment of silence. “Well, you’re a pirate,” she demanded. “You should know. Don’t they wear this? It’s called a turban.”

Griffin was in the grip of one of the oddest feelings of his life. There the three of them were, lined up before him: Colin, the stubby but fierce pirate; Margaret, the pirate queen; and Alastair, the wet one. They were all rather grubby. But they were his now. Born under the protection of his name and title. His children.

“I have been a pirate,” he said. “But I’m home now, and I cannot remember what pirate queens wear on their heads.”

Margaret reached out with a slender finger and poked his tattoo. “You’re not supposed to write on yourself.”

“That’s right,” he confirmed.

“Did you kill anyone?” Colin asked.

“Yes.”

“Good!”

Griffin shook his head. “No, not good.”

“Pirates
always
kill people. Walk ’em down the plank!” Colin clearly had a bloodthirsty side.

“Not the action of a gentleman,” Griffin said, “and that’s the most important rule of all. More important than being a pirate. Kill only in self-defense, only if a man has taken up a weapon against you. No innocents, no women, no children.”

Colin narrowed his eyes, thinking about it.

“Where’s your sword?” Griffin said, turning to Margaret. “A pirate queen should have a sword, it seems to me.”

“We only have one, and Colin has it on Mondays. I don’t get it until Wednesday.”

“Sir Griffin,” Phoebe interjected, “may I introduce you to the children’s nannies?” She sounded rather desperate, as well she might. He didn’t remember his governess teaching him the rules for introducing one’s by-blows to one’s long-lost spouse.

He came to his feet, swallowing a curse as his cane slipped and he lost balance for a moment.

“Mrs. McGillycuddy was my own dear nanny,” Phoebe said, giving him a narrow-eyed look that suggested she’d overheard the blasphemy he’d swallowed.

At least now he knew where Alastair had inherited his critical gaze.

The nanny had hair that presumably had once been red but was now a faded pink. She had a big bosom and a big behind; all in all, she looked nanny-ish to Griffin’s uneducated eyes. His own nanny had been tall as a tree and mean to boot. Nanny McGillycuddy didn’t look mean at all.

“And this is our nursemaid, Lyddie,” Phoebe added, nodding to a young girl, who dropped into a rather flustered curtsy.

“Well, my lord,” Nanny McGillycuddy said in a tone that made it clear she was more than a servant, though not quite the mistress of the house, “should we take your appearance as a sign that you have abandoned a life of crime?”

“Nanny!” Phoebe cried in an anguished voice.

But Griffin liked Nanny. She hadn’t challenged him out of impudence, but because she was saying what needed to be said.

He answered in kind. “I have been given a full pardon by the Crown, and I intend to live a life of impeachable sobriety in the bosom of my wife and our family.”

There was a Napoleonic air about the way Nanny snorted in response to that statement. Griffin had met Napoleon once, and he’d never forgotten the way the Corsican bared his teeth when he’d spoken. Apparently Nanny didn’t think a pirate was suited for the sober English life.

That made two of them.

“Well, now that we’ve all met,” Phoebe chirped, sounding positively feverish, “why don’t we have tea?”

“We’ve had tea,” Colin told her. “And so have you, Mama.”

Griffin looked at his wife. It was a strange thing to discover that she was still utterly beautiful, like coming across a discarded plate and turning it over to find out that it was made of solid silver. Her cheeks were pink with embarrassment, or perhaps anger, and she had the most exquisite skin he’d seen in his entire life.

In retrospect, he had always minimized the role of her beauty in his disastrous wedding night, blaming his failures on youthful ineptitude and nerves. But damn . . . she was exquisite. Enchanting.

More than any woman he’d seen in all his travels.

“His lordship has not had tea,” Phoebe stated, a bit desperately.

He took pity on her. “Nanny McGillycuddy,” he said, “take these piratical rapscallions off to the nursery, will you? My wife and I have to catch up on fourteen years’ worth of conversation.”

The nanny gave him a hard look that said without words that he’d better not make her mistress unhappy, then bustled the children away, the nursemaid trailing after them.

“I’ll go to the kitchens and see about tea,” Shark said, patently eager to escape a round of marital conversation.

“Why no servants?” Griffin asked after Shark disappeared. “No butler, no footmen? We weren’t even greeted by a housekeeper.”

“She must have been busy. I do employ a few manservants, but they’re occupied in the fields or the gardens at this time of day. I don’t keep a butler, because mine isn’t that sort of household.”

“
That
sort of household?” he repeated, raising an eyebrow.

“A gentry household,” she clarified. “I don’t use my title, and I don’t aspire to re-create that atmosphere.”

“Isn’t life easier with servants?” he asked, genuinely curious.

“A butler who merely stands about and answers the door for a random visitor? Footmen whose only role is to polish the silver?”

He shrugged. It wasn’t something he gave a damn about either way. He himself ran a tight ship, every man assigned to four or five tasks. Noblemen like his father liked to have a passel of servants standing around merely to demonstrate consequence.

Clearly her mind went in the same direction. “Your father will be anxious to see you. Doubtless he saw the same notice in the paper that I did. I am sure that he is waiting on tenterhooks for your arrival.”

“I’m not capable of playing the prodigal son. No regret, for one thing.”

“You sound as if the subject of piracy amuses you. I do not know your father well, but I assure you that he sees nothing amusing in your occupation.”

Griffin shrugged. “We have never shared interests. At sea one soon realizes that titles and precedence don’t matter to a dying man.”

“I don’t suppose they do. But there is a great deal to be said for a fortune that is not built on theft.”

“All fortunes are built on theft of one sort or another.”

Phoebe didn’t seem to be the twitchy sort, but he had clearly made her nervous. She kept clasping and unclasping her hands. “We must talk,” she said finally.

“We are talking,” he said, just to be contrary.

The anger in her eyes woke her up and made her look less like a saint and more like a flesh-and-blood woman.

“Actually,” he drawled, “I think we should be doing more than talking.”

Her brows drew together.

“We are married,” he prompted.

“I know that.”

“Yet our marriage was not consummated.”

She rolled her eyes. “I was there. I remember. And the answer is no.”

Lord, there was something wildly freeing about being in company with a woman who hadn’t the slightest awareness of his fearsome reputation.

“You can’t blame a man for the sins of his youth,” he said piously.

“That’s got nothing to do with it.”

“Does your refusal have anything to do with the children’s father?”

“No!”

The relief he felt was well out of proportion to the situation. But it would have been damned awkward to return after fourteen years and find one’s wife grieving for a dead lover. “Well, then, we’d better get about the business with expedience,” he said cheerfully.

“Sir Griffin,” his wife said, leaning toward him. Her eyes were dark blue, eyes a man could drown in. “You have not been away from England so long that you’ve forgotten your English. I do not want to consummate this marriage because I do not want to be
in
this marriage!”

Just in case he didn’t understand, she got up and took herself into the house without another word.

After a minute, a capable-looking housekeeper appeared, introduced herself, and escorted him to the master’s bedchamber.

It showed no signs of use. How long had that fellow been dead? Or perhaps she never brought him to the house.

It was all very interesting.

E
IGHT

P
hoebe fell into her bedchamber and leaned back against the closed door, her heart galloping. In a wilderness of Sundays, she never would have imagined something like this.

Griffin had changed so much. Not even a shadow of the shy boy she’d married remained. This man had an air of danger about him that made her feel like a rabbit in sight of a wolf: frozen, enticed.

When her father had first suggested the match with the future Viscount Moncrieff, Phoebe hadn’t demurred. She had always known that her father would find husbands from the nobility for herself and her sisters. He had the money, and he wanted the bloodlines.

Her primary feeling had been gratitude that he had chosen someone who wasn’t sixty, even though she would have preferred someone a bit older than herself, or at least her age. By the time the young baronet was finally old enough to marry, she had just celebrated her twentieth birthday, and felt sophisticated and worldly in comparison. She had been taller than her fiancé, and certainly weighed more.

But now, fourteen years later, their positions were reversed. He had become a man of the world, a man whose shoulders were twice the size of hers. And she was a country partridge who lived at home with her three children.

This was a disaster.

There had to be some way out of the marriage. There just had to be. He thought she was a loose woman. The idea sickened her. But what if she let him continue in that misapprehension? Surely he would not allow a love child to become the future viscount.

A sob rose in her chest. Her life, her sweet life with her darling children . . . That man did not fit in here. Whatever would her friends think? Her neighbors? Even if they didn’t discover that he had been a privateer, he was marked under the eye like a New World savage.

Common sense told her that someone would inform him that she had adopted the children, so infidelity would never work as a reason to dissolve the marriage.

Tears caused by pure frustration fell onto her hands and slipped between her fingers.

In a way, it was worse that he was so handsome, with such a male appeal. Even his tattoo wasn’t entirely uninviting. And there was something sensual and possessive in the way he looked at her. An unwilling flicker of heat lit in her stomach, followed by a churn of nausea.

The door burst open. “Shark says he will take us to the sea,” Colin cried, running into the room. “The sea, the sea, the sea!”

Phoebe surged to her feet, her maternal instinct sweeping all her other feelings to the side. How
dare
Mr. Sharkton say something of that nature to her child? Lure him into a dangerous, bloody career—indeed, if it could even be dignified with that title?

“Colin Barry,” she said in a voice that he had rarely heard, “return to the nursery.”

Colin gaped up at her.

“Now!”

He turned around and trotted away as fast as his legs would carry him.

She had instructed Mrs. Hastie, her housekeeper, to put Griffin in the largest bedchamber. Luckily, she had never occupied it herself, but had taken the airy bedchamber closest to the nursery.

Now she marched straight toward Griffin’s room, her tears dried by pure rage.

She would fall dead before she allowed her son to be lured by a couple of felons to death at sea. She threw open the door without knocking. “I must speak with you.”

Her husband was at the window, staring down at the lake and the fields beyond. He turned around slowly, leaning on his cane.

For a second she just stared, as if seeing him for the first time. Griffin was so much bigger, so much more
manly
than she could have imagined. Paradoxically, the fact that he was wounded didn’t diminish his ferocity; instead she had the feeling that she was looking at a wounded lion nursing his paw, but ready to spring at any moment.

As dangerous as he ever was.

Even his dark blond hair lent itself to that vision. Although it was cut short, it sprang from his scalp like a shorn mane. She was stricken by an edgy awareness that sent a flush of heat to her face, but she straightened her backbone.

She had to protect her children.

“Hello, Phoebe,” Griffin said, as if she barged into his bedchamber every day. “May I offer you a seat?” He took two steps toward the fireplace, leading with his stick, and pulled forward one of the armchairs.

Phoebe sat, since it would be impolite not to. “I came to inform you that my son will
never
go to sea, and it is reprehensible and irresponsible of Mr. Sharkton to discuss the possibility with him.”

Griffin leaned against the back of the chair opposite her and raised an eyebrow. “Mothers make rules, but children don’t always agree.”

“Colin may be entranced by the idea of piracy now—and I regret to say that your arrival will only exacerbate that—but in time he will outgrow it.”

“What would you like him to do with his life?”

“Something safe,” she flashed. “Something in England, perhaps in Bath.”

“So you see him as a merchant?”

Of course she saw Colin as a member of her own class, rather than one of the gentry or above, whom she privately considered to be ne’er-do-wells. “Yes,” she said, keeping her gaze steady. “I would much prefer that Colin earn an honest wage, whether he owns a business or works in one.”

To her surprise, Griffin nodded. He must have seen a flicker of disbelief on her face, because he added, quite reasonably, “You may not like the way I have earned a living, Phoebe, but I assure you that I worked very hard for it. I know the value of money.”

She didn’t want to think of him in a positive light. “We must discuss how we will dissolve this marriage,” she said, setting aside the topic of childrearing for the larger one. “I think it will be a relatively simple matter, since it was never consummated. I know there are provisions for that sort of thing.”

His eyes darkened, and Phoebe instinctively straightened. Griffin’s blue eyes were like a summer sky: they told her a storm was coming. “You truly want to dissolve our marriage?” Not a trace of anger colored his voice, and his expression hadn’t changed. But . . .

“You needn’t be angry about it,” she said, meeting his eyes squarely.

“I am not angry.”

“You are lying to me, and I most dislike falsehoods. I would judge you furious, and without merit, I might add. I am not the one who absented myself from the country for years.”

“I apologize. You are correct. I do not wish to dissolve our marriage, and I find the idea . . . annoying.”

If that look in his eye was annoyance, she’d hate to be in the vicinity if he lost his temper.

Griffin was also thinking that he might have understated his reaction to her suggestion. “We could not dissolve the marriage on the grounds of non-consummation,” he said, keeping his voice even only with effort.

“Why not?”

“Because it would label the children as bastards.” Really, he felt he was behaving in a remarkably enlightened fashion. It was all very well for Shark to talk about a woman’s right to dally with other men, but Griffin himself was finding the whole concept quite difficult to come to terms with.

“Further, annulling the marriage would mean that I swore to being impotent,” he added. “And I’ve been impotent only once in my life.”

The moment Phoebe had lifted her veil in the church and he had seen her for the first time, panic struck. At twenty years old, she had been wildly sensual and far beyond a boy’s ken. Her hair was golden and her lips were rose, and she looked like the princess every man dreamed about. Worse, she was
older
than he. Unquestionably older.

He had felt a paralyzing wave of embarrassment. Naturally, that had been the beginning of the end.

“You’re even more beautiful than when we married,” he said abruptly.

She frowned. “What has that to do with anything? We are in an untenable situation. Mr. Sharkton just promised to take Colin to sea. I would rather die than see my children follow in the footsteps of a bloodthirsty pirate.”

He couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face. She was adorable. Formidable, but adorable.

“Why are you smiling?” she asked in a threatening tone. “Do you find the idea of injury to my children
amusing
?”

“No!” he said quickly. “Not at all. Never.”

“Right.” She paused, but he was happy to let her carry the conversation. “Why haven’t you seated yourself, Sir Griffin?”

“You called me Griffin earlier.” With a silent groan, he dropped himself into a chair. He missed the young body he’d had when they last saw each other, for all he had been skinny as a finger bone.

Sunshine was pouring through the window behind her. It slid over her hair like warm honey, making every strand glow as if lit from within. Still, the bright light also revealed small lines at the corners of her eyes.

Phoebe had changed as well. There was something a bit sad about her now. Subdued. She hadn’t been subdued at their wedding; he would have remembered that.

“Griffin it is, then,” she said, nodding sharply. “Let’s return to the question of our marriage.”

“I shall not be arrested,” he said, “so that won’t work as an excuse for divorce. I’ve received a full pardon from the Crown.”

She snorted. “My father used to say that everything has its price.”

“It is true that a ruby may have helped.” She was so delicate, perched on the edge of the chair. Her features were delicate, and her bones were delicate. . . . She looked like the ideal of English womanhood.

She also looked skeptical, so he added, “The stone was approximately the size of the Prince Regent’s big toe.”

“I suppose it was stolen from someone?”

“We had it off a pirate’s ship, so it likely was stolen from somewhere, yes. But not by us.”

Her back became even more rigid. “While I am relieved to learn that my husband is not in imminent danger of imprisonment, it doesn’t solve our current problem.”

“Right.” Griffin sprawled out in his chair, trying to make it look as if he were comfortable, whereas in fact his leg was in flames.

“If you’re in that much pain,” she said, “perhaps you should stand up again.”

“Standing doesn’t help.” How the devil had she known when he was angry, and known again when he was in pain?

He pounded his thigh to get the muscles to relax. “I don’t see what makes our marriage so problematic. If we dissolve the union on the grounds of non-consummation, it would label your children bastards.”

The word fell sharply from his lips, although he didn’t mean it so. Somehow in the last few minutes he had made up his mind. It had been her right to have children, given his long absence. Which meant they were now
his
children. It didn’t hurt that Colin was just the sort of plucky, brave boy he liked.

Phoebe seemed frozen in her chair. Naturally, it would be difficult for her to discuss her infidelity.

“I won’t say that I wouldn’t have preferred that you waited to have children until I returned,” he continued. “But you had no idea that I might ever come back, and frankly, had I not received this injury, I might have continued aboard ship until I lost my life at sea. If I remember correctly, you are now thirty-four.”

“Yes. Rather old to have children,” she said, her voice wooden.

“Given your age, I suppose that you and I might never have children. Therefore, I should thank you for taking the precaution to provide me with heirs.”

“Does it not bother you?” The words came out like something of a croak.

“Yes,” he said frankly. “Of course it bothers me that my wife slept with another man during my absence.” Even saying the words made a feeling of near madness rise up his spine. “But how can I blame you? We were married for less than a day. I didn’t even remember your name correctly. I named my ship after you, you know: the
Flying Poppy
.”

“It’s unfortunate that was not my name,” she said dryly. “Or perhaps fortunate; the
Flying Phoebe
sounds absurd.”

Exhibiting a remarkable stubbornness, she added, “But surely you want children of your own, Griffin. My advanced age precludes that, and combined with non-consummation, I am certain that the courts will agree to an annulment.”

“Do you see me telling a court that I am impotent?”

Her eyes drifted uneasily over his body. There was a powerful surge of attraction between them, whether she wanted to acknowledge it or not. For whatever reason—probably some long-delayed response to their disastrous wedding night—the only thing he wanted to do was sweep her off to bed.

He wanted to kiss her until those pink lips were dark rose, leave bites all over her creamy skin, tease and stroke and lick her until she was writhing under him, gasping his name.

The way she was blushing, he might as well have spoken aloud every lusty idea that had run through his mind the moment he saw her.

“May I assume that you came straight here from London?” she asked.

Griffin nodded. He was trying to decide how Phoebe would react if he simply picked her up and took her to bed. Enough conversation. She was no virgin, after all. That made it easier.

“I think we will all be more comfortable if you removed to your father’s manor while we work out this mess.”

“No.” The word came out like a bullet.

He wanted this wife of his. In fact, it came to him with an incandescent clarity that he wanted Phoebe more than he’d ever wanted any other woman. She was
his,
from the top of her buttery hair to the bottom of her no doubt dainty toes. “I see no grounds to dissolve the marriage.”

“Because—”

He interrupted her. “You have supplied the children that we lack. We will simply pick up where we left off.”

She stared at him, apparently dumbfounded.

Once again the feeling of rightness swept over him in a flood. Phoebe was his wife, and she would stay that way.

“I don’t care who you slept with. I will accept Colin and the other children as my own and treat them with the same love as if they had been. We bought this house about eight years ago, am I right?”