The Ransom (19 page)

She gave him a lifeless smile as the sea breeze doused him with her scent of vanilla and cherries. “Indeed. Your timing was impeccable, milord. I feared I would have to endure his company all afternoon.”

The thought that she felt the same way about him cast a shadow on the sunny day. “Our plan is working then, milady.”

“It would seem so, yes. Hence, now my task remains to stop my brother from inviting the odious man to our house.” She gave an exhausted sigh, which pricked Alex’s concern.

A breeze ruffled the white fichu tucked within the neck of her blue camlet gown. She gazed at him from beneath her straw hat as anxiety tainted with sorrow rolled across her expression. He resisted the urge to take her hand in his.

Outside the covered carriage, rows of tall brick homes that were lined up like soldiers soon gave way to cabinet makers, bakers, a mercantile, and other shops, which then opened to a wide market square. The smell of roasted boar and turtle stew wafted through the windows as vendors hawked their wares, “Fresh meat, fresh pork, duck an’ turtle! Swordfish! Snappers! Mullet!” And the ever present rum punch or Kill-Devil rum.

“You appear tired. Are you getting your rest, milady? I heard something about your friend—Miss Abilene Hastings, was it?—that she’d suddenly been taken ill?”

Suspicion spiked her gaze. “How did you hear of her?”

“You left our engagement fete so suddenly, I asked where you had gone.”

“Then, you discovered her”—Juliana bit her lip and looked away—“her predicament, milord.”

“That she has fallen from grace, indeed. That you have the heart of a saint, I find I am quite pleased.”

“She has not fallen from grace. Merely slipped,” she shot back.

He could not help but smile at this.

“She is a dear friend, milord. I will never abandon her like others have abandoned me.” Sorrow shadowed her eyes as the carriage careened around a corner and a salty breeze replaced the smells of the market. She glanced at the ribbons of glittering turquoise spreading across Kingston Bay. “Are you familiar with the Pirate Earl, milord?”

He masked his nervous surprise. “Indeed! Who isn’t? The king of the pirates, a swarthy fellow I hear, a giant of a man in both brawn and brains.” He flung his hand through the air. “The scourge of the seas, the pillar of plunderers.” He leaned toward her and winked. “And quite fortuitous with the ladies, I hear.”

She stared at him quizzically even as a blush tainted her neck. “I wouldn’t know about such things. But to my point, milord, he calls me milady just like you do, though you both know I am not titled.”

Alex cursed himself for the mistake, but effected a shocked expression. “Begad. You know him?” He stomped his cane on the floor. “A
pirate
?”

The carriage jostled over a bump, and she lowered her lashes. “I have had some encounters with him, milord. Nothing untoward, I assure you.”

Heat swamped the carriage, and Alex drew a handkerchief to the back of his neck, doing his best to appear justly shocked. “And he did you no harm? This ravisher of young women, this rogue of the night?” This time he
did
take her hand in his. “You must be more careful, sweetums.”

She tugged away. “I beg you, do not call me that when we are alone. And nay, he did not harm me. In fact he was quite the gentleman.” She stared out over the glittering bay with its festoon of ships as if searching for one in particular. The Pirate Earl’s ship, mayhap? If so, the longing in her eyes heated Alex far more than the sun streaming through the carriage windows.

“Was not your father a pirate, milord?” she hissed, then snapped her eyes his way.

Alex bristled. “
Was
, if you’ll allow. He traded in the trade, so to speak, to become a missionary.” Though he tried to hide the disdain in his voice, it seeped in anyway.

She narrowed her eyes. “Then why, pray, did he send his son to the most wicked outpost on the Main?”

Think fast, Alex. Think fast.
Though many people knew of his father’s past, no one had been bold enough to ask the question. “To protect me from a scandal, if you must, milady … I mean to say Miss Juliana.” He smiled and adjusted the lace at his cuff, feigning boredom as he thought up a story. “If you must know I was called out by a jealous husband. Though I assure you I had not touched his wife.” He gave an indignant huff for effect. “But my father, knowing I possessed little skill with the sword, whisked me away to hide until the man’s temper abated. ’Tis quite the tale. I should tell you sometime.”

“The man must have quite the temper, milord, for you have been in Port Royal for years, have you not?” Her tone was sarcastic.

“I find the climate to my liking.” Even as he said the words, he felt a drop of sweat slide down his forehead, and he quickly dabbed it with his handkerchief before it washed away his powder.

Disbelief edged her eyes as she shook her head and glanced away.

“But for now,” he added with excitement, “when we arrive at the Wilsons, I insist you regale us with your adventures with the Pirate Earl!”

The squeak and grind of carriage and wheels entered on a wave of humid air. Miss Juliana shifted in her seat. “I’d rather not. It will do no credit to my reputation. Nor yours, milord, since we are now courting.”

Ah, Alex liked the sound of those words spilling from her luscious pink lips.

“Besides, I will never see him again.”

He didn’t like the sound of those words.

The carriage lurched over something in the road, lifting them from the seat and tossing Juliana toward the open door. Clutching her arm, Alex drew her close, then chastised his driver, “Watch where you’re going, man!” He didn’t realize he’d used his real voice until the words had left his mouth. Beside him, still in his grasp, Juliana’s leg rubbed against his thigh. She caught her breath and stared at him as if he had turned into a horny toad.

“Your voice, milord. What happened to your voice?”

Chapter 16

Juliana didn’t know what was more upsetting—the rock-hard feel of Munthrope’s thigh against hers, or the deep, powerful sound of a voice that seemed foreign on the pimpish goose’s lips, yet so familiar to her ears. Not only the sound of it, but the tone: the authority of one in command.

An unexpected swirl of excitement sped through her, and she yanked her arm from his grasp, wondering if the sun and fresh air had the opposite effect on her reason than it did on most.

“What voice, sweetums?” he said in his usual high-pitch. The momentary authority that had appeared on his face vanished beneath a façade of giddiness. “Shall I sing you a ditty?”

Before she could beg him not to, he began.

Pirates come and pirates go

Lost at sea, nowhere to row

Beware, the earl has come to port

Man the cannons at the fort

When he looks your way, don’t be afraidy

For only Juliana is a milady

Despite the lunacy of the ballad, or mayhap because of it, Juliana shook away her foolish notions. Lord Munthrope was a swaggering nimbycock, nothing more. Proven by their arrival at the Milson home for tea moments later—an arrival met with the pomp and enthusiasm that accompanied Munny where’er he went. His admirers, most of them women, immediately flocked around him like seagulls around a tasty fish. A very large fish, with a rather muscular thigh, unless Juliana was imagining that as well. What did it matter? She was here only to reinforce their courtship for Captain Nichols’s sake. How long she would have to suffer Munny’s company before the captain finally gave up, she had no idea. As it was, she was now forced to engage in idle chatter while she should be home running Dutton Shipping. Another secret to be kept from this loose-tongued crowd. Not easy to do when several ladies intrusively inquired why she’d been absent at so many functions of late.

“Why, there was such a grand affair for the governor’s birthday at the king’s house last week. Not to be missed. Everyone was there,” one elderly lady prattled on, describing what the attendees had worn, what was served, who danced with whom.

“And tea at Mr. Skagway’s the next day,” another lady chimed in.

“And cricket at the commons.”

“And games of whist at the Bells.”

While the women babbled on about the benefits of coconut milk over palm oil for one’s complexion, Juliana slipped away. Moving to the table, she set down her tea and watched Lord Munthrope, who, with flamboyant gestures, relayed some humorous tale of a duke’s son caught with his breeches down at a cockfight in Bath. Everyone was riveted, chuckling as he carried on.

At the end of the story, exclamations of praise and jocularity abounded while Mrs. Milson invited guests to sample pastries in the next room. As the small crowd made their way through the arched opening, Munthrope, with forefinger and thumb easing down the sides of his mouth, scanned the room, looking for something. His tea, mayhap?

A twinge of familiarity struck Juliana—similar to those singular moments when one senses a reoccurrence of past events. Odd. His eyes met hers. A glimmer of strength was soon clouded by his normal limpid gaze. “La, have you seen my tea, sweetums?”

A knock on the front door echoed from the foyer. A pleading female voice followed, joined by Mrs. Milson’s butler’s stern reply. More pleading brought a harsher tone that ended in a shout. Lord Munthrope sashayed toward the altercation and stopped before the short squab servant, who although dressed in the pristine livery of a butler reminded Juliana more of a portly penguin.

“Alack, what is the problem here, Jenson?”

Juliana approached as the butler, upon seeing who addressed him, deferred his eyes and bowed. “Milord, ’tis naught but a beggar and her daughter.”

Sunlight tumbled over a woman, not much older than Juliana, dressed in clean but stained canvas skirts, her dirty hair pinned up in an attempt at fashion, her face unsoiled but haggard as if she’d aged before her time. A young girl, no more than four, stood beside her, clinging to her gown.

Juliana’s heart pinched in sorrow.

“Why must you be so cruel, Jenson?” Lord Munthrope said, astonished.

The man’s eyes lowered. “Mrs. Milson ordered me to send all beggars away, milord. They affect her nerves for the worse, I’m afraid.”

“Indeed?” Munthrope swept the curls of his periwig over his shoulder and gazed at the pathetic woman.

Juliana started forward, willing to give the beggar her share of the pastry being served in the other room, when Lord Munthrope placed his jeweled hands about his waist.

“Mrs. Milson would defer to such an honored guest such as myself, would she not?” he asked the butler.

“Yes, milord.” Jensen’s bottom lip shook.

Reaching within his green metallic-braided coat, Munthrope withdrew a pouch, opened it, and held it toward the woman. Her face aglow, she spread her palms wide as he poured dozens of glittering coins into her hands. Juliana blinked, not trusting her eyes. The loot looked to be around twenty shillings or so, enough to provide a roof over the woman’s head and some food for a month, mayhap two. Then leaning toward the butler, Munthrope said something Juliana couldn’t hear, sending the servant scrambling off, only to return within seconds with a bowl of fruit and pastries, which, upon Munthrope’s nod, he gave to the woman as well.

Still trying to find a place for the coins in the pockets of her skirts, she looked up at the food and then over to Munthrope as though she were seeing an angel.

“Thank you, Gov’nor, God bless you, Gov’nor. You’re a kind man.” Tears spilled down her cheeks. Then taking the bowl in one hand, she grabbed her daughter with the other and headed down the steps to the street below.

Two hours later, when Juliana finally managed to drag His Lordship from the party, she could not shake the vision from her thoughts. In all her years associating with gentile society, she had never seen one of them—save her own mother—lift a charitable finger to help anyone. In fact, faced with disgusted looks and quick changes of topic, Juliana had given up asking any of her friends for help for the orphans. It seemed as if those without money or position were not only beneath her friends’ help, they were also beneath their very notice.

Yet Munthrope had not hesitated before lavishing the unknown woman and her child with more money than they’d no doubt seen in one place before. Now, as he sat beside her in the carriage, he seemed pensive as he stared out the window at passing shops and warehouses—almost drained from the theatrics of the day.

Juliana broached the subject, desperate to discover his motive. “I’ve never seen such generosity, milord. When you assisted that poor woman and her child.”

He looked her way, and instantly the giddy fool returned. “Have you not? You must get out more often, sweet—” He stopped at her look of reprimand. “Miss Juliana.”

“I’ve been
out
quite enough to know such charity is rare among Port Royal society.”

He waved a hand through the air, lace fluttering. “’Tis nothing I pray thee. I have plenty.” His eyes met hers, a dark indigo blue that startled her with their intensity. Flecks of light gray rolled across them like storm clouds. Why hadn’t she noticed that before? Mayhap because she’d never truly looked at him. ’Twas hard to get past the white powder covering every inch of his face, the red staining his cheeks and lips, the moles, the horse patch over his right brow, and the star cornering his lips.