Seducing the Beast (34 page)

“Nonsense. He’s angry because I defied him. I refused to do what he wanted. No one is allowed to defy the Beast.”

After a pause, Grace said quietly. “Are you afraid to let him love you, Maddie?”

“Afraid?” she scoffed. “Why would I be?”

“Because you must always be in charge.”

Flinching, Maddie tried to take her hand away, but her sister kept it.

“He’s a strong man, I can tell. You met your match, Maddie. No more boys who let you take control, but a real man with a will of his own, a man who doesn’t need a partner in crime, or a nurse, or a tutor.”

“Ha! That’s what you think.”

Grace chuckled. “He wants to love you, as a deserving woman should be loved. You’re no carefree, grubby-kneed urchin anymore, sister. Time to grow up and face the future. Where is your indomitable Carver courage?”

Rolling onto her side, she drew her sister’s hand to her belly. “’Tis here. I’m saving my courage for her.”

“Oh…Maddie!”

“Don’t lecture me, Grace. I couldn’t bear it.”

Grace sat up, quickly practical. “Does he know?”

She shook her head. “Like most men, he never troubles himself with inconvenient matters.”

“He
should
know.”

Sounding much braver than she felt, she replied, “This is my babe. Mine. As if I would ever let him get his hands on my child. To raise it as he was raised? Miserable and unloved? Never. It’s naught to do with him. And he’s--” she broke off, unable to speak of his wife.

“Naught to do with him?” Grace exclaimed. “Do you claim an immaculate conception?”

“Stop. I will not have my condition discussed”

Grace shook her head.“Such bosom-clutching dramaticals, Madolyn Carver.I see that your adventure has not changed you that much.Close the shutters.It’s too cold with them open.”

But Maddie was too hot with them closed, so she gave up her half of the coverlet, as long as Grace agreed to keep the shutters open. They were quiet for a while, Maddie listening to the breezy creak of the elder tree by the dairy.

“I don’t know why he came here.” Maddie yawned. “He won’t have his wicked way with me again. From now on I’ll remain celibate.”

“Glad I am to hear it.”

Although Maddie pretended to be asleep, her sister must have seen the blue where her eyelids were not quite closed, for then she exclaimed under her breath, “Celibate, indeed.”

After a lengthy night of celebration at the local tavern, their father rose late the next morning with a sour stomach. When their mother complained he should know better at his age, he assured her the day he listened to one of her lectures he’d be in a wooden box and why could she not hold her tongue like other wenches? She threw a ladle at his head, he pulled her into his lap for a kiss and she cursed at him, none too convincingly. Maddie exchanged a smile with her sister, for this was how their father behaved when he knew he was in their mother’s bad books.

“What’s so funny this morn?” their mother asked.

“Naught,” Grace replied, while Maddie attempted to stifle those chuckles.

Their mother scowled. “I wish someone would share a jest with me.”

Captain Carver reached for her hand. “I’ll share one with you, my love.”

“Oh?” she snorted. “A jest you heard at Merryweather’s last night, no doubt. And not fit for the ears of children.” But she let him keep her hand. “What then? Do tell.”

He paused a moment, looking around the table at his greedy offspring, until his stern, blue regard settled upon Madolyn. “One of your daughters is to be married.”

The fire in the hearth spat and crackled. One of the dogs scratched lazily. Outside, in the yard, the hens cackled.

“Is that not a fine jest?” he added.

Their mother turned slowly in her chair to look at Madolyn.

“Not me,” she blurted. “I know nothing of it.”

“What man is this?” her mother inquired.

“There is no man.”

“Oh there’s a man all right,” said her father. “At least, he is one for now, unless I decide to castrate the bugger.”

Madolyn stood swiftly. “I’ll gladly do it for you.”

“I thought you said there was no man.” Her mother tried to follow.

“And indeed there is none.” She panicked, thinking he would take her child away. He might even have her arrested for anything, she thought suddenly. Oh Lord! She was a ruined woman, a scarlet hussy bearing an illegitimate babe. And all because he’d once gazed upon her with those pitiful, sad-puppy eyes.

The entire family looked at Maddie the Merciless, she who never succumbed to any man and was never at a loss for argument--or for a cause.

Captain Carver leaned back in his chair, making it groan as he stretched. “We’ll see what he has to say for himself, won’t we?”

“I care not one whit. Whatever he has to say. Whoever he is.”

Abruptly discarding his casual demeanor, her father sat bolt upright and roared down the table. “I’m the one who makes the decisions in this house, daughter!”

Little John burst into tears, Grace spilled the breakfast ale she was pouring and Nathaniel, who’d been half-asleep until then, woke with a start and nearly fell out of his chair.

Dropping like a stone, Madolyn sat, hands in her lap. Knowing she’d disappointed her father, fear and grief flowed like cold poison into her blood. She thought it would stop her heart completely.

“He’ll be here in half an hour,” he growled. “I trust the rest of you can find tasks out of the house this morn?”

Without a word, they got up from the table, even with their breakfast unfinished. Her mother lifted John from his chair and before she left the room, sent the Captain a warning message with her eyes. He nodded to her, and she slipped out silently, closing the door behind her.

“You always wanted adventure,” he said, his voice lower now, his usual steadiness returned.

Madolyn looked at her hands. “And now I pay for it.”

“Was it against your will?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll not hear another complaint from you,” he muttered. “If your lot is distasteful, ’tis no fault but your own. I knew the moment I saw those gowns…didn’t want to believe it of one of my daughters. I should have known you’d be the one to cause me grief sooner or later, and now he’s come for you. Seems his conscience wouldn’t let him rest.”

She refused to believe it. He’d told her, in no uncertain terms, his world could never be changed. “He has a wife already, Papa! Even the Earl of Swafford can’t have two wives.”

“He tells me that marriage is to be annulled.”

She clasped her hands tightly in her lap. “Annulled?” He wouldn’t go to those lengths for her, surely.

“He’s set on having you,” her father remarked, bewildered, as if it was such a puzzle why anyone might want his most troublesome daughter.

“He’d have to get me cupshotten and drag me to the chapel door in chains. I’d rather join a nunnery! There are some still standing.”

“A nunnery?” her father chortled. “Not a silent order I presume.”

“I’d rather marry our goat. At least
that
beast has a heart.”

“I’ll bear it in mind if we get desperate, but one way or another, you’ll be made an honest woman before you loosen your laces another inch for that babe.”

Alarmed, she caught her breath.

“Did you think you could hide it from your mother?”

Inwardly she cursed her own stupidity.

“His Lordship Fancy Breeches came to me at Merryweather’s yesterday eve--face like a smacked backside, babbling a sad tale about how he cannot bring himself to live without you. Apparently he’d thought he could and quickly found he couldn’t.” He sniffed disdainfully and began cracking his knuckles. “Thought he could take his pleasure from a mere sailor’s daughter and pay no consequence. Like any rich man, he expects to get what he wants, but he comes up against me this time.”

Crossing quickly to the fire, she sat on the old settle and closed her eyelids over scalding hot tears.

She was Madolyn the Merciless. She would survive this.

* * * *

She’d not forgotten how he filled a room with his presence. Her father was not a slight figure, but Griff exceeded his height by several inches and was forced to bend his head under the low roof beams to fit inside their house.

He avoided her gaze at first, for his attention was solely on her father.

The captain waved him into a chair. “And I thought you would never be troubled by a woman, Griff? Is that not what you once told me?”

He paled. “You make sport of me.”

“Who is she then? I’m curious to hear about this wench of yours, the one you said would never exist.”

“For a long time I knew her only as Limpet.” He fired an accusing glance in her direction. “Now I know her as Madolyn Carver, captain. Your daughter.” Falling into a chair, he sprawled there, long legs spread out, spider-like.

The memory of his strength and the glorious weight of his body over hers…it was too much and she couldn’t sit still.

When she got up to leave, her father bellowed at her to fetch two mugs of cider from the pantry, adding, “You can stay put and hear what the fellow has to say, same as I must, since you got us into this mess with your jiggery pokery!”

Stomping down into the pantry, she kept one ear open, undecided whether she was most angry at him for being there or at herself for those instant lusty imps careening merrily through her womanly parts. She was indeed a dreadful sinner to think of such things now.

In the main room of the house Griff continued haltingly, “Your daughter has turned my life upside down and inside out.”

She shouted from the pantry, “Of course, ’tis all my fault!”

“You stay mute, girl, until someone asks you a question,” her father bellowed, “then you answer. See how it works?” When she emerged from the pantry with their cider, he was scowling, ready to snatch the tankard from her hand.

“I want her back.” Griff reached for the other tankard, his fingers briefly touching hers. “I want your daughter, captain.” When he looked up at her, emotions she didn’t think he possessed poured out through those eyes. Before the tide swept her away, she stepped over his long limbs and hurried back to the sanctuary of the hearth, where she occupied herself stabbing at the fire with a poker.

“She put you through battle, lad.” Her father sighed, suddenly genial again. “Mayhap you’re better off without her.”

Griff was adamant. “I want her. I don’t take these matters lightly and I told her that when she first seduced me.” Ignoring her indignant, horrified protests, he added, “She was a maid when I met her, captain…she’s my responsibility now.” When his eyes met hers again she saw the wicked glimmer. “She was mine first. She’ll be mine to the last.”

Her father set down his tankard, rested his large, callused hands on his knees and said gruffly, “Fine poetry, Swafford, but the fact remains--you deflowered my daughter! Before you go around claiming ownership, an apology is in order.”

Madolyn poked at the fire. “Apologize? Ha! He doesn’t know the meaning of the word.”

“I’m sorry, Captain Carver. I don’t know what else I might do to make recompense, other than to insure your daughter’s future happiness with my very life. I mistreated her and insulted you as her father. For this I do apologize.”

Shocked, she looked over her shoulder. Surprisingly the great fool didn’t explode into little chicken feathers, when she’d expected any confession of fault from his lips to cause no less than his immediate demise.

He added grimly, “I wouldn’t blame you for taking a knife to my throat, captain.”

“So I can hang for it? No. But you’re lucky, Swafford. I’m an old man, not the fighter I once was, or else you’d be picking the skin of my knuckles out of your noble teeth. However,” abruptly he switched again into the role of friend, “knowing my daughter, I daresay she had a little to do with it. The image of her mother, reborn and worse.”

Madolyn’s protests were again ignored and the two men continued discussing her fate.

“I’m to blame, captain. I should have known better, should have acted like a gentleman and not…not…” He couldn’t finish his sentence.

“Should have, could have. Won’t help you now will it?” Her father was pragmatic, and Maddie suspected he enjoyed himself. After all, it was not every day he got to hold a man like the Earl of Swafford at his tormenting mercy. “I remember,” he said slowly, eyes agleam with mischief, “you vowed to me, not long ago, that you liked your life without a woman anywhere near it. In fact, you were so sure of your immunity, you promised me a few ales if you ever fell prey to that particular fever.”

Griff nodded gloomily. “That was before I met your daughter.” He looked over at her as she prodded the fire with another burst of furious energy. “Whatever it costs me. Name your price.”

“As if I could sell my beloved daughter…”

“You once described her to me as a
bad penny
, captain.”

“Aye, she’s a mouthy girl with more spirit than sense.”

“Papa!”

He continued breezily. “I can’t merely give her to you.” He waved his tankard. “Can’t trade my daughter because you take a fancy to her. I daresay your ancestors got away with such in the past, but this is the modern world.”

Apparently confused by these rapid changes in her father’s attitude, Griff scratched his head. “I thought you liked me.”

“Aye. Before you ruined my innocent daughter.”

“You admitted it was probably as much her fault as mine!”

“I said she might have had something to do with it.
Might
have. A little something.”

“She seduced me the moment we met.”

“Lies!” she yelled, swinging around, brandishing the poker. “All lies! Papa, don’t believe a word he says.”

Her father sat tall, putting on a solemn face again. “What would my little daughter know about seduction?”

“Plenty,” Griff said dryly.

“She’s naught but a child!”

“She’s very much a woman, captain. You speak of her as if she is a child still, and I daresay that’s partly at fault for her mischief.”

“And how you dealt with her is any better, is it? She left you weeping sorry tears into the malmsey, Swafford. Must not have liked your methods either.”