Claimed by the Rogue (32 page)

Chelsea’s starchy demeanor dissolved. “Oh, Phoebe, can it really be so?”

“It can—and is. But please, Chelsea, for the sake of the love we bear your brother, stand as my intermediary this once more and call for him.”
 

Chelsea released a heavy sigh. “I would that I could, but he truly isn’t here. This morning he packed what few things he’d brought and left for Blackwall to supervise the loading of his ship.”

Heart drumming, Phoebe crossed the carpet and sank down on the sofa cushion beside her friend. “Do you know when he means to set sail?”

Chelsea shook her head. “He said nothing for certain, but I suspect soon.” Shifting to face Phoebe, she added, “When he returned home yesterday, he was in a very bad way, seemingly stupefied but with scant spirits on his breath. He maintains he was lured there by a note falsely made out to be from you, dosed with some potent but short-lived intoxicant, and trapped into appearing to deceive you with your maid.”

Hearing Chelsea summarize the story, it no longer sounded nearly so fantastical. “Earlier today I discovered that someone has made free with the contents of my writing desk. At first I thought it might have been Belinda, but I have begun to suspect it was my maid.”

Chelsea turned to look at her. “The same servant who the other day swore he’d set out to rape her?”

Ashamed at having been so easily duped, Phoebe admitted, “The very one.” Plucking at her bonnet ribbons, she shook her head. “Oh, Chelsea, I’ve made a horrible hash of everything. Since Robert’s return, I’ve done all I can to push him away and now it seems I’ve succeeded.” That thought led to one equally bad or worse. “Surely he wouldn’t set sail without saying goodbye…would he?”

Have a happy life, milady.

“I honestly can’t say. But if there’s even a chance of persuading him to stay on—”

“I have to take it.” Phoebe shot to her feet. Rounding the sofa, she made for the door.

“Wait!”
 

She turned back. Seeing Chelsea struggling to rise, she retraced her steps and helped her friend up.
 

Bracing a hand to her back, Chelsea said, “I shall go with you. Were you to be seen alone at the docks at this hour—”

“I’d be ruined,” Phoebe finished for her. “But that is a risk I am prepared to take.” If the past six years of separation had taught her anything, it was that there were worse fates than social exile. “Besides, you are too near your time to go anywhere but back to bed,” she added sternly.
 

Her gaze went to Chelsea’s protruding belly, prompting a pang of longing. How wonderful it would be if she were to find herself likewise laden a year hence—but only if the babe was Robert’s.
 

“Then you shall take one of our footmen with you. On second thought, you shall take two.”

Phoebe shook her head. “That will make things quite crowded in the hackney, I’m afraid.” Waiting at the stands for a hired carriage hadn’t been precisely convenient, but it had been preferable to going about her scandalous business in a conveyance marked with her family’s crest.
 

Chelsea’s brow lifted. “In that case, you shall take the carriage as well.”

Phoebe sent her friend a look of deep gratitude. “Thank you for believing in me despite…everything.”

Chelsea shrugged aside the sentiment. “Mistakes have been made all around. There is nothing to be gained by pointing fingers—for any of us. I shall be content to see the two of you settled once and for all. Now off with you and bring my brother back home.”

Cradling a glass of Madeira, Robert reclined on the black lacquer divan in his cabin, spoils from a palace in…well, he’d quite forgotten where. Commotion from above deck caught his attention, a woman’s voice pitching above the typical sailors’ rumpus. One of his crew must have run afoul of his doxy, or so Robert surmised. Women, even the loose sort, seemed to have a sixth sense when a man was poised to pull out of port. Tantrums and full-out fits weren’t uncommon. A few went so far as to drive home their hurt feelings at knifepoint. Then again, he supposed it was human nature not to want to be left behind.

You left me. I never would have left you, but you left me—and then stayed away for six years.

Not for the first time, Robert wished he’d found the courage to confess the truth to Phoebe. He’d told himself he was acting in her best interest. Only now that it was over, now that it was pointless, did he own his silence for what it was—pure and simple cowardice.
 

He’d found his courage but too late. After the other day, she wouldn’t believe a bloody word he said. Given the damning scene arranged by her maid, no doubt at Bouchart’s behest, he couldn’t blame her.
 

His hopes, his dreams, were as dashed as a ship broken upon the rocks. His gilded surroundings, his storehouse of wealth, even his ship meant nothing to him now. The one treasure he cared to claim was the one he could never have: Phoebe. After the previous disastrous day, there was no new course to chart, no sparkling second chance for which to strive. Star-crossed lovers they’d remain. It was finally and forever too late for them—and the fault was once again his.

But there was a great deal more at stake than his personal happiness. Once she wed Bouchart, she wouldn’t only be beyond Robert’s touch. She’d be beyond his help as well. Short of kidnapping and sailing away with her, there would be nothing he could do to save her from what he was convinced would be a monstrous marriage.
 

Montrose was his sole hope. His former spy associate in the War Office had dispatched a man to Paris to dig for details on Bouchart’s past—if indeed Aristide Bouchart was even his name. Even knowing he’d lost all hope of having Phoebe for himself, Robert was determined to see the wedding stopped for her sake.

In the interim, there was nothing more to be done beyond holing up in harbor and feeling sorry for himself. Since boarding the night before, he’d camped out in his cabin, leaving word he wasn’t to be disturbed unless the bloody boat sprang a leak—several. Whatever was amuck on deck, Caleb or Sandy would have to handle it.

A sharp rap outside his cabin door brought him out of his brooding. It seemed he was not to be left in peace after all. Whatever the hubbub, it must require his personal attention. Trouble with the harbormaster? Another lumper caught stealing? A rat catcher who’d planted fat rodents in order to ratchet up his price? The possibilities for problems whilst docked were depressingly diverse.
 

“I told you I wasn’t to be bothered,” he barked, determined not to budge if he could help it.

Sandy, his boatswain, called out, “Captain, there’s a lady to see ye.”

Releasing an oath, Robert rose. Chelsea, it must be. What was Montrose thinking to let his pregnant wife go haring about the docklands at night? But even an alpha male such as his brother-in-law could exert but so much influence. Despite being mere weeks away from her time, his sister remained as intrepid as ever. She must have given her servants the slip and struck out on her own.
 

Resigned, he drained the snifter and stood. Wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, he called out, “Very well, Chelsea, come in and say your piece, but be forewarned, as soon as you do I’m sending you back to Anthony.” He turned away to pour himself more of the spirit.

The door groaned open. Softly soled footsteps padded inside. Perfume, a light floral fragrance intermingled with citrus and vanilla, wafted within.
 

The clearing of a feminine throat announced the petitioner’s presence. “It isn’t Chelsea, I’m afraid.”
 

Robert whirled, sending the spirit slopping onto his forearm. “Phoebe, what in God’s name—”

Dropping her cloak’s hood, she sent him an uncertain smile. “Surprise.”

Shock was more like it. A tumult of emotions welled within him. Doing his damnedest to force his feelings back down, he flung a look at Sandy, sagely holding back by the door. “I should flay you alive. What the devil were you thinking to bring her below?”

Ever unflappable, Sandy shrugged. “Would you rather I left her on deck for any passerby to remark upon?”

Robert brought his gaze back to Phoebe. Sandy had the right of it—there’d be no passing her off as either a dockside whore or a stevedore’s missus. Even without the fashionable bonnet and pelisse, there was no disguising what she was: a lady.
 

He shifted his gaze to Sandy. “Leave us.”
 

The boatswain looked happy enough to comply. “I’ll be topside if you need me.” He ducked out, pulling the cabin door closed.

Left alone with her, Robert stared into the pale oval of her face, delved into the quicksilver eyes searching his, and the anger and humiliation from the day before suddenly melded into one bright, pulsating point of pain. “This had better be good.”
 

“I’ll do my best not to disappoint.”

“If you don’t give a whit for your reputation, then at least consider your safety. The docks are no place for a lady to prowl alone. Anyone possessed of a peahen’s brain would know that.” Even in the throes of wanting to throttle her, he found himself sending up a silent prayer of gratitude to whatever Powers That Be for seeing her to him safely.

Any appearance of sheepishness left her. She firmed her mouth and lifted her chin. “I wasn’t prowling and I didn’t come alone, so there’s no need to ring a peal over my head. Chelsea sent two of her manservants with me. They saw me safely to the bargeman who brought me from shore.”

Small surprise, his sister was involved albeit as a confederate. “Oh, well, in that case, I suppose it’s all perfectly fine.”

“There’s no cause for being sarcastic.” She started toward him.
 

For once let her come to me
, Robert thought. Midway to reaching him, she lost her footing. Seeing her sway, he was instantly contrite. Her hand shot to the grab rail. Before she could reach it, he was beside her.
 

Bracing an arm about her waist, he anchored her against him. “Has anyone ever told you you’re a menace?”

A smile tipped up the corners of her mouth. “Sorry,” she said, looking anything but. “I suppose I don’t yet have my sea legs.”

“We’re docked,” he pointed out, in no mood to be gracious. Seeing her gloved hand wrap around the rail, he withdrew and moved away.

Holding on to the bar, she sent her gaze circuiting the cabin’s four corners. “I feel as though I’ve stepped into Ali Baba’s cave.”

Robert followed her gaze, attempting to see his quarters through her eyes. An intricately decorated filigree attar casket once belonging to Tipu Sultan, one of the Company’s most formidable opponents, rolls of colorful hand-woven Persian carpets piled against a cabin wall, a life-size mechanical organ fashioned in the form of a tiger mauling an English redcoat that, when wound, released a most realistic roar.
 

“I've never much thought about how it must seem to a woman," he admitted. “To me it’s simply…home.”

She looked at him askance. “Would you bamboozle me into believing I’m the first female to set foot upon your ship?”

“The first female to come aboard this ship, hardly, but you are the first to see the inside of this cabin.”
 

Her steady gaze probed his. “Is that true?”

Dry-mouthed, Robert nodded. “It is.”

She glanced to the glass in his hand. “Are you planning to offer me refreshment?”

“My stores of champagne and ratafia have run low,” he said, a deliberate sarcasm. “Grog, brandy or Madeira, pick your poison. I suppose I could have the ship’s cook boil water for tea, if you want it,” he added grudgingly.

“Madeira will serve, thank you.” Untying her bonnet strings, she added, “I’ve acquired something of a hollow leg over these last six years.”
 

Recalling her legs as he’d last seen them, perfectly shaped and spread wide open to him, Robert felt as if he’d swallowed cobwebs.
 

As if privy to his salacious thoughts, her mouth curved ever so slightly upward. “We’ve a great deal to settle between us, Robert Bellamy, and I expect we shall both find ourselves in need of a strong dose of Dutch courage before this night is through.”

Chapter Fourteen

They sat across from one another in throne-like chairs, the claw feet of which were nailed to the floorboards. They didn’t touch and yet Phoebe felt as if her entire being was awash in Robert—his passion, his secrets, his pain.

She hadn’t spoken in jest when she’d said she’d need courage. Only now that she was here, alone with Robert, did the enormity of what she’d done strike her. She’d cried off her betrothal, her
third
betrothal, and come aboard an otherwise all-male ship to seek him out in his pirate’s lair. Were word to get out, not even her parents’ standing would save her. She’d be a fallen woman, doomed to pass the remainder of her days in social exile. Worst of all, she’d be dismissed from her position at the Foundling Hospital. There was, to put it mildly, quite a lot at stake.

Reaching for her resolve, she swallowed a mouthful of the Madeira, forgetting to sip. The spirit scored her throat, making her feel like one of the fire-eaters she’d seen at Astley’s Circus. A cough escaped her. She covered her mouth with her gloved palm. So much for her attempts to appear as a sophisticated woman of the world.