The Raider (15 page)

“Jessie…” the Raider warned.

She gave him a sly smile while looking at him through her lashes.

With a low growl, he sprang for her. Oh, what a delicious sight, she thought, this muscular, tawny-skinned, masked man moving through the night toward her. She opened her arms to him. He began kissing her neck hungrily.

“I may not know your face when I see it, but there are other parts I'll recognize. You'd better keep your clothes on in town.”

He laughed against her neck. “Get up, you little temptress, and get dressed. I want you to tell me what cowardice you were talking about.”

She wanted him back in her arms, but no matter how she moved her body, he didn't touch her again. While he dressed—and watched her, she was sure—she thought she heard a few groans coming from him, but he seemed to have infinite control.

When they were both dressed, he pulled her into his arms again and when he held her tightly to his chest, she could feel how much sweat was on his body. She smiled contentedly and rubbed her cheek against the damp silk of his shirt.

“Now tell me what you've been doing.”

She told him just about everything that had happened since she had seen him last. Her throat closed as she started talking of the loss of her ship, but the Raider gave her a little shake.

“No more feeling sorry for yourself,” he commanded.

Surprisingly, his harsh words made her feel better and she was able to continue without tears.

“So,” he said slowly, “you want to stir up more trouble.”

She pulled away to look at him. “I want to fight. That man had no right to burn my ship. Just because England is our mother country doesn't give her the right to treat us like…like…”

“Children?” he supplied.

“We really aren't children, you know,” she said quietly. “We're adults and we have the intelligence to govern ourselves.”

“Jessie, you are talking treason.”

“Maybe, but I've heard rumors about things that are being said and written in the south. I thought that maybe if I could get hold of a few pamphlets, I could make the people of Warbrooke realize we're not alone.”

“And how are you going to get these pamphlets? How do you distribute them without getting caught? How do you protect your family while you're saving the country?”

“I don't know,” she said angrily. “It's just an idea. I haven't worked out the details yet.”

“Maybe I could help,” he said softly.

As usual, Jess didn't think before she spoke. “No, I get in more trouble helping you than I do alone. Maybe someone will give me a ride on a ship leaving port. I can—”

It had taken a while for the Raider's temper to reach the boiling point, but now it spilled over. He grabbed her shoulders. First he cursed her in a few words of Italian, then in Spanish. He caught his breath and then spoke between teeth clamped together.
“I
will get your pamphlets.
I
will distribute them and
you
will stay home where women belong.”

Her eyes flashed angrily. “If I'd stayed home until now, you'd be dead.”

For a moment they glared at each other.

“Who have you been talking to?” he asked.

“No one,” she said, beginning to back down. “Alexander merely pointed out a few facts to me.”

“That fat sea walrus? Why is he always around you? What do you want from him?”

“Are you telling me who to see?” She started to rise. “You don't own me because of what we just did. And you have yet to prove that you can do anything without a great deal of help. Some Raider you are! The only successful raid you've ever made is under a woman's skirt.”

Jess put her knuckle to her mouth. She knew she'd gone too far.

The Raider stood, his eyes hot with anger.

“Wait, I didn't mean that,” she began. “It was just that you shouldn't have told me to stay home.”

He didn't say another word to her but turned on his heel and disappeared into the night.

For a while, Jess stood there, straining her eyes and ears for a sight or sound of him, but she heard and saw nothing. Turning, she gathered her nets and fish and started home.

W
EARILY
,
Jessica threw down a load of fish and lobsters on the big table in the Montgomery common room. Eleanor snapped at Molly to watch what she was doing, then slammed a corn muffin pan into the brick oven. She hissed at the scrawny dog in the cage turning the spit, then gave Nathaniel a dirty look because he wasn't already at work cleaning the fish.

“What's going on?” Jess asked.

“Him.” The word was as much seethed as spoken by Eleanor.

Jess looked in question to Nate as he retrieved a lobster from where it had fallen to the floor.

Nick,
Nate mouthed, motioning his head toward the doorway.

“What has your Nicholas done now?” Jess asked, taking a corn muffin hot from a pan.

Eleanor turned on her sister with angry eyes. “He's not mine.” She calmed herself. “Alexander is ill. He may be dying, for all I know, and that great, hulking, arrogant monster won't let me in to see him. He says Alex wants to see no one.”

“That's probably true,” Jess said, her mouth full. “He probably doesn't want anyone to see him without one of his rainbow coats.” She dusted off her hands. “But he'll see me.” She went down the hall and had her hand on the latch to Alex's room before Nick came from another room and saw her.

“He doesn't want to see anyone.”

Jess knocked on the door. “Alex, it's me, Jessica. Eleanor is worried about you. Unlock the door and let me in.” There was no answer. She looked at Nick. He was a big, thick, dark man who was now looking down his nose at her in a particularly haughty way.

“I want to see him,” Jess said, her jaw set.

“He is not receiving callers.”

Jessica started to say more but then smiled and shrugged. “Just make sure he eats well,” she said cheerfully, then turned and went back to the common room. Eleanor looked at her askance and Jess shook her head before leaving the house.

She had no intention of allowing that man to tell her what she couldn't do. She skirted the house, through the weeds and bushes, making her way to Alex's bedroom. She stopped short as she passed Sayer's window. Very calmly, the elder Montgomery looked up from his book.

Jess swallowed hard, but as the older man merely kept looking at her, she gave him a weak, tentative smile and continued on. He was watching her intently when she passed the second window, but he didn't call to her or question what she was doing skulking about his house.

When she reached Alex's window, she was pleased to see the shutters were open. She put one foot inside before someone grabbed her belt and pulled her back out. She looked up at Nicholas Ivanovitch.

“Mistress Jessica,” he said in a shaming voice. “I wouldn't have believed this of you. Now run along and don't be sneaking into a gentleman's bedchamber.”

Jess's hands made fists at her sides, but she turned on her heel and left. What did she care what had happened to Alexander? All he did was give her trouble anyway. It was
his
fault she'd made the Raider so angry. If Alex hadn't planted those nasty doubts in her head about the Raider's usefulness, she'd never have questioned him.

She could feel tears gathering in her eyes, but she sniffed them back. Maybe the Raider had told her he loved her, and maybe he did hate her now, but she'd survive.

She sniffed some more and headed back to the cove. The Wentworths wanted fifty pounds of clams for dinner for the admiral and his officers. The thought of the last time she'd seen snobbish Mrs. Wentworth made Jess smile. The woman had had to take on some of the cooking for the English officers. The Wentworths were expected to feed and house the Englishmen and all their wealth was going into the men's bellies.

“That'll teach her,” Jess said, smiling and swinging her clam shovel.

That night Eleanor was tearful. The children were used to Jessica's emotions and rages, but Eleanor was a different matter. Usually, she was their rock, someone who was steady and unshakable.

“Something is wrong with Alexander. I know it,” Eleanor said. She was sitting at the table, seeming to have completely forgotten her role of serving food. The children looked at their empty crockery plates, then up at Eleanor and they seemed to understand the depth of her concern.

Jess motioned to Nick and the two of them brought the stew and cornbread to the table, silently dishing it out while Eleanor voiced her worry about Alex.

“The food I send in to him is barely touched and never a sound comes from the room. The door is locked; the shutters are bolted over the windows. I think something is wrong.”

“What's the worry?” Jess asked. “So the man has a cold. He's so vain he probably doesn't want anyone to see him with a red nose.”

Eleanor came out of her seat in fury, pointing her wooden spoon at Jessica's face. “We owe our very
lives
to that man,” she yelled. “You're so busy dreaming over your glamorous Raider that you don't see how much that dear man has done for us. He saved our house from being burned. He kept you from being hanged. When Pitman destroyed everything we owned, Alex replaced it. When the
Mary Catherine
was burned—because of your Raider—Alex saved your neck by keeping you from making a fool of yourself.
Alexander
is the one who's helped us. The clothes we're wearing, the dishes, the furniture, the food—everything we owe to Alex. And you can't even be so much as courteous to him. So help me, Jessica, if you ever again say one word against him again, I'll…I'll…”

Jess was aghast. Eleanor was always bossy, but she'd never dared yell at her sister before. “Make me wear a coat like his?” Jess said meekly, trying to lighten the moment.

One moment Eleanor was standing utterly still and the next, Jessica had a bowl of hot stew pouring down her face. The door slammed on Eleanor's way out.

Jess threw the bowl aside and plunged her head into a bucket of drinking water. When she came up for air, all the children were standing around her, their eyes wide in fear.

“Will Eleanor die and leave us, too?” Phillip whispered.

“Not unless I kill her,” Jess muttered, then looked at the children's faces and sighed. “No, she's just angry. Just like I get sometimes.”

“All
the time,” Nate said, making Jessica glare at him.

“You stay here and eat and I'll go get Eleanor.”

It wasn't easy making good her promise to the children. First, Jessica had to chase her sister for a quarter of a mile through the forest, but as Eleanor wasn't used to moving about outdoors at night, Jess found her just as she became entangled in a blackberry bramble. Jess had to listen to more of Alexander Montgomery's many virtues—and when Eleanor ran out of those, she started in on how the bondservant Nicholas was above himself.

Jess just worked at freeing her sister's hair from the thorns and listened. She wasn't about to comment on Eleanor's belief that one man was a saint and the other a devil.

At home Jessica swore that she'd get in to see Alex the next day, no matter what she had to do, and that she'd be very kind to him and thank him for all his help and not make one comment about what he was wearing.

“Even if the light blinds me, I'll not say a word,” Jess promised.

Eleanor woke her at four the next morning and told her to go then, while Nicholas was asleep. Jess grumbled but she obeyed. She didn't want a repeat of Eleanor's temper. Yawning, Jess left the house and went up the hill toward the sprawling Montgomery house.

*   *   *

Alex climbed in the window of his dark bedroom, stretching his shoulders in weariness and rolling his head, trying to ease the kinks in his neck. He tripped over the end of the bedstead.

“Taggert!” Nick's voice came from the bed.

Alex stood still. “Is Jess here?” he whispered.

Nick sat up and rubbed his eyes. “Oh, it's you. What time is it?”

“Three in the morning.” Alex sat on the edge of the bed and removed his boots. It had been wonderful to wear his own clothes in Boston. It had been nice not to be sneered at, and to have ladies look at him from over their fans. No one pointed at him or laughed at him or ridiculed him. “Why are you in my bed and why did you call out ‘Taggert'?”

“Those women!” Nick growled, getting out of bed slowly. “Eleanor was sure you were dying and demanded to see you. Then she sent the other one, your Jessica, to sneak in the window. I caught her by the seat of her pants.”

“If you hurt her, I'll—”

“What?” Nick challenged.

“Thank you, most likely,” Alex muttered.

“Did you get your pamphlets?”

Alex stretched his back. “I've been on a horse for three days. No sleep, very little food, but I got the damned things. As soon as I've slept a day or so, I'll distribute them.” He smiled. “So Jessica tried to sneak in the window. She didn't see that the room was empty, did she?”

“No, I got her out in time. Take your bed and I'll go to my own. Tomorrow the women can come in.”

“Not unless I'm warned. I'll need to put on a”—he sighed—“a wig and my fat suit.”

“That's your problem. Tomorrow I'm going to lie on my boat and let my servants wait on me. You can take care of yourself.”

Alex was too tired to protest. He pulled off the rest of his clothes and slipped naked into bed, asleep before the covers settled.

He was awakened by small hands on his wrist and traveling up his arm.

“Alex,” came Jessica's voice. “Alex, are you all right?”

Somewhere in his tired brain, Alex sensed danger—and lust. He took Jess's hand in his own and had it halfway to his lips before the danger won out. “Jess?” he said thickly.

“Yes,” she whispered. “I came to see that you're all right. Eleanor is frantic about you.”

Alex's mind was slowly beginning to function. Right now he was neither the fat Alex nor the masked Raider. He opened his eyes, thankfully, to a dark room. “Hand me one of those wigs,” he said, moving down under the covers. The last thing he needed was for Jess to see his full head of hair. The last time he'd seen her, she'd been running her fingers through that hair.

“Alex, I told you that I can well stand the sight of a bald head.”

“Please, Jessica,” he whined.

His eyes were beginning to adjust to the darkness. When she thrust the smallest wig at him, he peeped at her from beneath the covers. “Turn your back.”

She groaned but obeyed and, surprisingly, didn't say a word.

Usually when he wore the small wig she had handed him, he had to tie his hair down tightly to conceal it and now he had difficulty getting his thick hair under the wig. He hoped no black tendrils were straying for Jess's sharp eyes to see.

“Would you hand me a coat?” he asked petulantly. Maybe a bright satin coat would keep her from looking at him too closely.

Jess spun around on her heel to look at him. “I promised Eleanor I wouldn't say a word about your clothes, but I think the only way for me to keep my promise is if you don't wear one of those things. Now sit up so I can look at you. Eleanor is convinced you're at death's door and, by your voice, you aren't far away.”

Alex stayed under the covers and, after a few silent curses directed at nosy women, he looked up at Jess. “I can't sit up. I don't have anything on.” He almost lost his resolve when he saw Jess shudder at the prospect of seeing his nude body. Too quickly, he thought, she opened a chest at the foot of the bed, withdrew a clean shirt and tossed it to him as she turned her back. He sat up, the covers falling away and revealing his strong, powerful body. As he slipped the shirt on, he thought he ought to make her pay for what she had said to him when he was the Raider.

He moved down in the bed, put a pillow over his stomach, and covered his arms so only his hands could be seen. “All right,” he said tiredly. “I'm decent now.”

Jess lit a candle and studied his face. “You don't look so bad. What's been wrong with you?”

“Just a flare up of my old illness. Did I tell you, Jess, that one doctor said I might not live very long?”

She frowned, then put the candle down. “You don't
seem
to be ill most of the time. Except that you
look
awful, you don't act especially decrepit.” Her eyes widened. “I'm sorry, I promised Eleanor I wouldn't insult you. Well, now that I've seen you're all right, I'll go. I have fish to deliver. Now, you eat something and stop making my sister yell at me. Maybe I'll see you in a couple of days.” She turned to leave.

By a lightening quick motion, he caught her wrist. “Jess, couldn't you stay a moment? It's so lonely here.”

She tried to shake his hand away but couldn't. “That's your fault, Alex. You post that sea bull outside and he lets no one in.”