The Pirate's Secret Baby (29 page)

But it was too early to share those feelings with her. She was still skittish, unsure of her footing on a shifting deck. In addition, she had secrets and until her past was dealt with, one could not move forward. It would take time.

Of course, if he continued to find excuses not to give her her wages it would be that much more difficult for her to pack her bags and leave.

She removed her hand from his when they exited the study, not comfortable showing affection in a household where she was an upper servant. He would be certain to establish her place here without question, one way or another.

He led her up the stairs past the master's quarters, the rooms that had been his father's, and into the lady's suite. As he thought, it had remained unoccupied, uncleaned, but largely undisturbed. The cheery wallpaper covered in twining spring vines and golden flowers showed a water stain at the corner of the ceiling, but otherwise it was much as he remembered it. He lit the candles around the room, their wicks sputtering as the dust of years of neglect burned away.

Lydia stepped in front of the massive framed portrait over the empty fireplace, staring at it in silence as the dust motes stirred in the dry air.

"Mattie looks just like her--or will."

The painting showed a tall, muscular man wearing the clothing of thirty years past, a country squire in his element. He had washed-out blonde hair, hazel eyes and a ruddy complexion. In one hand was a riding crop, the other was placed on the shoulder of the adolescent standing beside him and cradling a fowling piece, a brace of ducks at his feet.

The artist had talent. The two men, clearly father and son by their build and resemblance, looked like self-satisfied slabs of Saxon beef, as English as ale and kippers.

There was another, younger youth flanking a seated woman. He was a faded version of his father and older brother, like a watercolor left in the rain. The lad was pale and slender, with long fingers cradling a flute. He looked away from the artist into the distance.

Robert inhaled and for a fleeting moment thought he'd caught a whiff of French perfume, a fragrance as delicate and ephemeral as the lady in the portrait.

The seated woman was a study in melancholy, but she was immediately recognizable. Her familiar sharp cheekbones, the ebon locks clustered around her face--it was an adult version of Mathilde St. Armand, but with haunted azure eyes rather than Mattie's laughing ones.

The bareheaded baby on her lap waved a rattle. One could imagine him waving a cutlass in a similar fashion years later.

"My mother insisted, I'm told, that I not be posed in a cap despite my father's orders. You can see how little I resembled him and he did not want anyone to speculate on a cuckoo in his nest.
Maman
was firm, one of the few times she stood up to him. My hatred of ugly caps goes back a long way," he finished with a humorless smile.

"I would like to hear your story," she said, still looking at the portrait.

"Will you like me better if I have a sad tale to tell? If I ran off to sea because of my tragic childhood, rather than because it's where the money was?"

"Tell me, and I will decide for myself."

"Very well, but I warn you, it's the stuff of bad melodrama."

He clasped his hands behind his back and looked up at the portrait. There they all were, a family far from happy.

"My father's roots go deep in this land and in fairness to him, he was a good steward of the legacy left him as Huntley. He avoided London, preferring manly activities, hunting and sport, tending to his crops. His sons were one of those crops, but in this he suffered disappointment.

"That is Ralph, the eldest next to him. Ralph was exactly what father wanted--a son who drank hard, wenched hard, was a bruising rider, and essentially was a copy of his sire. Except for one key difference... Ralph was like an oak that looks attractive and whole at a glance, but when you get closer, you see the rot at its core.

"Nicholas..." his voice softened as he looked at his second brother, the musician. "Nick was...a disappointment. Father had Nick's life planned for him. He would take a commission in the army and bring honor to the family in battle."

He saw her head turn toward him as she asked dryly, "Never tell me that as the third son you were destined for the Church."

He almost smiled at the idea of him standing in a pulpit and preaching on proper living.

"Things changed, so we'll never know."

The smile faded from his face.

"Nick hated bloodshed. Father took him hunting and Nick sobbed when he shot a rabbit. Ralph laughed at him, called him girlish and weak. Nick kept telling Father he did not want to go into the army, he wanted to compose music. Naturally, Father responded by beating Nick. It was his response to any rebellion by us--a fist or the strap or a caning. Ralph took to leaving dead animals in Nick's bed, in his room, in his wardrobe, laughing when Nick would cry."

"Animals?"

"Squirrels. A rabbit. My terrier, Samson."

"Dear heavens. Did you tell your father?"

"I tried, one last time. He caned me for being a talebearer. It all ended the day Ralph discovered Nick and a footman locked in an embrace in the stables. He told Father, who beat the footman with his fists until the man was half dead. Ralph held Nick, his arm twisted behind his back, forcing him to watch. I tried to help Nick, but Ralph laid me out with a blow that nearly shattered my jaw."

"How old were you?"

"I was ten. Ralph was twenty-five."

"Where was your mother?"

"My mother? She'd died the year previous, but had been ailing for years. Father never let her forget that his last son looked nothing like him, and too much like a dancing master who'd traveled through the area the year before I was born. You see, mother was my father's second wife. On one of his infrequent trips to London he met Juliette St. Armand, daughter of French émigrés. Juliette's face was her fortune, and my father wanted a second wife, one to bear him more strapping sons. After birthing me she began taking laudanum for her pains, for headaches, for escape. Eventually she took too much and her escape was permanent."

She made a noise, but he didn't look at her, instead swallowing the bile that rose at what he'd say next.

"I was angry with my father, angry with Ralph, angry with Nicholas weeping in his room. I took a pony cart and helped the beaten man get away to a house in the village where he could recover. When I returned to the stables to put up the pony I heard a strange noise in the rafters, a creaking sound. It was almost like the sound the rigging makes when the wind is just so, and you know a storm is brewing before midnight."

He was lost in his own memories now, in the nightmare. He'd walked the pony into the stable, exhausted from the day's events, his face aching and swollen. The noise hadn't registered with him until the pony nickered and danced nervously, shying from the shadows moving on the stall.

That was when Robert heard the creaking and looked up. Nicholas swayed there, at the end of a rope, his unseeing eyes following the shadow of his body in the lamplight.

"They told me afterward it was my screaming that brought people running to the stables. Of course father tried to hush it up, but too many people knew what happened and Nicholas was buried in unconsecrated ground."

Until her soft hand brushed at his cheek he hadn't known there were tears on his face. She made soothing noises, offering comfort, a comfort he had not received on that nightmare evening when his father yelled orders at the servants and Ralph just stood there, an expression almost of satisfaction on his face.

He pulled Lydia into his arms and held her, his face buried in her fragrant hair, her warmth bringing him back.

"I left after they buried Nick and I've never returned."

"But where did you go? You were only a child!"

"Not much older than Mattie. I hadn't realized it until now." He cleared his throat and since she did not seem inclined to push him away, he continued holding her, finding comfort in her embrace. Was this why she'd asked to be held--"just held"--that night? For the comfort of knowing you're not alone, that even in your darkest memories there might be someone, somewhere, who could bring you back to the light and warmth? It disturbed his notions of what he wanted from Miss Burke, why he wanted Lydia with him, why he was willing to tell her all of this.

"I started following the canal, knowing it eventually would take me to the sea. The first night I slept under a hedgerow and nearly froze to death. But by my second day I saw a man limping along, and I recognized him."

"The footman?"

"Yes. He was on his way to Liverpool, where he planned to take ship and leave England. He didn't want me tagging along with him, but he wasn't in a position to push me away, and he soon realized a young, pretty boy begging farmwives for food was more likely to get something than if he'd asked."

"Did your father look for you?"

"I don't know. I don't care. I was done with that life. My home now was on the oceans and it was a life that suited me."

"What about the footman?"

"Life aboard ship suited Mr. Fuller as well."

"Ah. That explains much," she murmured, then was silent, thinking it over.

"What happened to Ralph?"

He sighed, and she grasped him tighter, which helped him continue.

"I had contacts with people who kept me apprised of the situation here. I did not return when my father died. He'd made it clear through his solicitor in London that he was not interested in having me return and left money with his man to encourage me to stay away."

"Did you take it?"

He pulled his head back and looked at her. "Do I strike you as the sort of person who would leave free money on the table? Of course I took it. Some of the finest taverns and brothels in the islands grew richer on my patrimony."

She made no comment to this, but asked, "And what happened to your eldest brother?"

"Fortunately for the people of Ashwyn, Ralph did not survive my father's death for long. While he was alive, father could keep the worst of Ralph's excesses in check. Once he was gone--you heard about the difficulties keeping maids here. I have no doubt we'll hear further tales of depredation that can be laid at my late brother's feet. He died after falling off of his horse in a drunken stupor and drowning in a ditch. I received word in the islands that I was now Huntley and you know the rest, Miss Burke."

He stopped talking because he was increasingly aware of the woman he held, her soft, comforting curves nestling against him, her warmth seeping into places in his bones he hadn't realized needed warming until this moment. He put his fingers beneath her chin and tilted her face up so he could look into her eyes. They were clear, and aware, and expectant.

He was the one who was nervous as his lips hovered above hers for a breath, and she was the one who sighed and closed the brief gap between them, looping her arms around his neck, drawing his head down to hers as she opened her mouth to him.

He took his time, letting her warmth flow into him like the noonday sun after a stormy night, relishing the feel of the rightness of her body close to his, only thin layers of clothing separating them. She made a needy sound he felt as much as heard and he slanted his mouth against hers, drawing out the mingled sweetness and tartness of her kisses, of her essence. He knew now why he'd had to bring her here, why he'd shown her the portrait, why he'd told her the story. She was the one who would bring the light into his gloom, her, and Mattie, and the puppy, and even the weak winter sunshine of England.

It was why he'd left the tropics, why he'd finally returned to this place, why he was tentatively ready to call it home without the tinge of sarcasm discoloring what this land was to him, what it could be to him in the future.

Huntley could be his home again. Whether or not his father's suspicions were correct, he was the baron now and he felt that obligation, the need to see to the estate and the village and the land just as he'd always seen to his ship and its crew. He could not do it alone. He needed his hearty crew, rascals all, including their lovely, luscious--dare one hope for lusty?--governess.

Ah yes, that was the cue he'd been hoping for. She moaned, and her mouth opened farther as he slanted his lips across hers, caressing her, slipping his tongue inside to deepen the kiss, to get all the sweetness he could from her mouth, from her soul. She tightened her arms around his neck, pulling him closer, her hands fisting in his hair as he moved down to embrace one soft, full breast, the nipple peaked in anticipation as his sensitive fingertips learned every inch of her form.

When the kiss ended, as all kisses do, he looked down into her face, her gaze dreamy, her lips moist and inviting, and he took a chance, every bit as risky as facing down a well-armed frigate.

"Stay here, Lydia. I need you."

"I cannot--I cannot make any promises to you. There's too much I--"

He put his finger over her lips. "Stay with me tonight."

* * * *

Four words. Not words of love, or words of commitment, but words flowing deep into her, moistening her parched core, bringing a hope of renewal, a yearning for something more than mere survival and existence, one day following another at the beck and call of people who did not value her.

The pirate valued her. He showed her in his insistence that she was a member of his rag-tag crew, in protecting her, in allowing her to love and care for his most precious treasure, Mattie.

She knew she was a good governess, but there were times she suspected she'd be an even better pirate. Pirates Anne and Mary lived lives that were short, but they were full lives. They took what they wanted, wrenching their happiness from danger and despair, living lives of color and passion.

She could only lie to herself so many times. Inside, she was still that girl willing to risk it all for love and excitement. Color was returning to her life, to her heart. Bright colors, bold colors, the colors of passion. The sapphire blue of glowing eyes, the burnished ebony of thick hair, a fine form kissed golden by the sun and chiseled with muscle and sinew to make a woman's pulse race.