Claimed by the Rogue (37 page)

Robert, I’ve gone for Pippin. I pray God that by the time you receive this, we will both be safely home. If not, please come as quickly as you can—and forgive me for breaking my promise. Yours Always, Phoebe.
 

Heart in his throat, he handed the note to Lord Tremont. Casting a meaningful look toward Wilson and the girl, he said, “Is there anything else?”
 

The maid shook her head. The butler ferried her out and closed the door behind them.
 

Left alone with Lord Tremont, Robert said, “The maid, Betty, is in league with Bouchart—Trent. I’m afraid Pippin is but bait to draw Phoebe from safety.”

Lord Tremont regarded him with frightened eyes. “Why should he bother when he still believes they are to marry in a month?”

“Phoebe broke off their betrothal yesterday. I imagine he’s feeling desperate.” And a desperate man was a dangerous man, as Robert well knew.

“Where do you think he’s taken her—and to what purpose?”

“I’d wager my last farthing he’s taken her aboard his ship. Once he clears the harbor and reaches open sea… Well, we can’t let that happen.”

“No,” Lord Tremont agreed, expression grim, “we cannot.”
 

Robert hesitated. “I am aware this may well seem premature, even inappropriate, but as Phoebe’s father I would have you know that your daughter has consented to become my wife.”

“Did she?”

Robert nodded. “She did. While we both hope that you will once more grant us your blessing, you should also know that we are prepared to wed without it.
I
am prepared to wed her without it. And this time ’round, I shall dedicate my days to proving myself worthy of her.” Having said his piece, Robert turned to go.

“Bellamy.”

Heart drubbing, Robert turned back. “Yes, my lord?”

Crossing to the foot of the table, Lord Tremont stuck out his hand. “Welcome to the family.”

Feeling like he’d aged to eighty, Lord Tremont took the stairs up to his wife’s room. As he often did, he found her wearing out the Aubusson carpet with her pacing.
 

She caught sight of him on the threshold and paused. “I wish you would speak to your daughter. The wedding’s a fortnight away and so far she refuses to show the slightest interest in the fittings for her trousseau. And the bridal veil—Honiton or Brussels lace, she simply must decide.”

Seeing her still in curling papers and her wrapper, he hesitated and then crossed into the room. “I’m afraid there isn’t going to be a wedding.”
 

Her head shot up. “Don’t be absurd. Of course there is.”
 

“No, there is not.”

“But—”
 

“Beatrice,
sit
.”
 

To their mutual shock she obeyed, subsiding onto the fainting sofa. Once he imparted his news, the furniture might well earn its name.
 

She looked up at him with frightened eyes. “Something’s happened. Tell me…please.”

He settled stiffly beside her and not only because his gout was acting up. It wasn’t often he joined her in her sanctum. Despite thirty years and three children together, he still sometimes felt like an interloper. “Phoebe’s been taken—kidnapped.”

“
Kidnapped
!” The word emerged as a strangled sob. She steadied herself with a breath before asking, “Are you quite certain?”

“Regrettably I am.”

She balled her slender hands into fists. “I’ll have Bellamy strung up and—”

“Bellamy didn’t take her. Bouchart did.”

Her gaze flew to his. “To Gretna Green?”

“To his ship, or so we believe.”

“We?”

He nodded. “Bellamy just left. He and Montrose have been looking into Bouchart’s…background.”
 

Calmer, she rolled her eyes. “As if we should credit the word of either of those bounders. Like as not this…elopement is a misguided, romantic gesture on Aristide’s part to hasten the wedding.”

As much as it hurt to make her see the truth, for all their sakes he steeled himself to do so. “Make no mistake, Phoebe is a hostage, not a bride, and Bouchart is no count but a bloodthirsty pirate by the name of Arthur Trent.” There, he’d said it.

Her face crumpled. “A pirate! Our child is in the clutches of a—”

“Bellamy believes he means to hold her for ransom. If we refuse to pay it, he is likely to…sell her to the highest bidder once he clears British waters.”

Folding forward, she buried her head in her hands. “Our daughter’s life is in danger. She may be lost to us forever, forced into a life of degradation, and it’s my fault.”

“My dear, that’s simply not true.”

“Isn’t it?” Straightening, she fitted a hand over her brow. “She didn’t want to wed Bouchart or…whatever his name may be, but I pushed her. I’ve gone about this marriage business all wrong, and with calamitous consequences.”

Tremont sighed. As was the case with so many top-drawer families, they’d dealt too strictly with the daughters and too leniently with the son. “You didn’t go wrong.
We
went wrong.”

She lifted her head and turned to face him. “But Tremont—”

“No buts, my dear, not this time. I’ll hold my peace no more. I’ve kept silent far too long as it is. If I’d stood up as a man should six years ago, the tragedy might have been averted. As matters stand, it looks as if Phoebe and her young man may have a second chance at happiness, and I mean to see that they get it.”

Her eyebrows shot to her brow line. “Tremont, whatever are you suggesting?”
 

“I’m not suggesting anything. I’m telling you plainly that once we have Phoebe safely back I mean to give her and Bellamy my blessing—and this time I intend to see that it sticks.”

“You wouldn’t!”

“I would—and I shall. Moreover, as of this moment, your meddling machinations shall cease.”

Lady Tremont covered her face with both hands. “Have I been that bad?”

Rather than answer that, he said, “I am as much to blame as you, perhaps more. I have shirked my duties as the man of the house for far too long. Whenever a problem arose, whether it was Reginald being sent down from Oxford or Phoebe threatening to elope, I ran off to my club or barricaded myself in my study and left you to bear the burden alone. For that, m’dear, I am truly sorry.”

Uncovering her face, she stared at him with stricken eyes. “I’m the one who should be sorry. Only mind the mess I’ve made. Our children despise me.
You
despise me.”

“That is simply not so.” He hesitated and then reached for her, his hand hovering above her shoulder just short of settling. “Our children may not like your methods, but they love you.” He drew a bracing breath and added, “
I
love you.”

“You…
love
me?”

He didn’t hesitate. “I do, with all my heart.” His hand met her shoulder, fingers curving around the top.
 

“I…I suppose I love you too.”

He hadn’t expected that. “You do?”

Mouth trembling, she nodded. “Yes, I do.”

They’d shared a roof for three decades and yet neither had said the words until now.

He wrapped his arms about her. “Come here, wife.”

“But, Tremont, ’tis full light.”

“Yes, it is, isn’t it?” Heedless of who might happen by, he took her in his arms and kissed her fully, passionately and resoundingly on the mouth. When he finally released her and rose to his feet, it was with the vigor of a much younger man.

She followed his progress to the door with her eyes. “Tremont, where are you off to?”

“To fetch my old cavalry sword.”

“Whatever for?”

“So I can assist young Bellamy in bringing our girl home.”

Chapter Sixteen

Robert, with Caleb, Anthony and Lord Tremont, stood on the wharf staring at the empty ship’s berth. According to the harbormaster’s log, Aristide’s ship had departed an hour ago. Even though Robert had prepared himself for as much, hearing that his fear was not only founded but the reality came as crushing news.

Cursing a blue streak beneath his breath, he dragged a hand through his hair. “I need a boat.”

Lord Tremont turned to him. “Isn’t yours here in the harbor…somewhere?”

Steeling himself to patience, he shook his head. “The Swan is built for carrying cargo and weathering rough seas over long voyages, not speed. Bouchart has an hour’s lead on us. Even with her hull empty, she’d never catch up, not in time.”

Anthony spoke up. “Will a clipper ship do?”

Everyone turned to him.

“How did you come by a ship?” Robert asked. Chelsea’s husband was a source of seemingly constant surprise.

Expression sheepish, Montrose admitted, “I won it in a game of faro at White’s. Tell your sister I played that deep, and I’ll be obliged to—”

“Where is she moored?”

“Rotherhithe.”
 

“What are we waiting for? Let’s away.”

“What’s your plan,” Lord Tremont asked, hand on his sword hilt.

Robert exchanged looks with Caleb. “I don’t as yet have one,” he admitted. “But while we’re queuing up for clearance to depart, we’ll have ample time to devise…something.”

With the wind in their favor, the lithe little clipper ship overtook Aristide’s frigate by twilight; however, Aristide’s vessel carried sufficient guns to blow them out of the water. As much as Robert might want to board with weapons drawn, he held back.

“How is that plan coming along?” Anthony asked, approaching the wheel.

One hand resting upon it, Robert looked up. “The good news is I have one.”

Anthony cocked a brow. “And the bad news?”

“I’m not at all sure it will work.”

Seated, Phoebe faced her captor across the ship’s cabin, resolved not to reveal how utterly terrified she was.

“What facile dupes you and your fine family proved to be,” Trent taunted, his Manchester accent ringing forth from every vowel. “My one regret is that I must miss the opportunity to kill Bellamy after all—unless he’s fool enough to follow.”
 

Once they’d pulled up anchor, her heart had sunk. As long as she was in London, she’d held onto the hope that Robert would find her or that she would discover a means of escape. Now that they’d cast off and cleared the harbor, she felt adrift in every way.
 

Sending up a silent prayer that her beloved was somewhere safe, she demanded, “What do you mean to do with us?”
 

She cast a nervous look down to the “us” in question, Pippin curled up in her lap. She was doing her best to keep him out of the way. So far Trent had been kept too busy charting their course to make good on his various threats to drown or cook him. Betty had dealt him a kick in passing. The squeal he’d let out had made Phoebe want to tear out every hair in the maid’s head. Were it not for the presence of the primed pistol, she might have done so. As it was, she’d scooped him up into her arms and ran her hands over his body, assuring herself that no lasting damage was done—yet. With the sun fast setting and the rum flowing above and below deck, Phoebe couldn’t say how much longer her or Pippin’s luck would hold.
 

Left alone for long periods, she’d managed to slip the letter opener from her reticule into her bodice. Even to her untrained eye, the hastily mustered crew looked to be a ragtag lot. If she could manage to overcome her captor or even Betty, perhaps the others might be persuaded to turn the ship around or at least to let her and Pippin off at the next port? Unlikely as that scenario was, she refused to give up hope, not now when she had so very much to live for. For perhaps the first time, she fancied she understood something of what Robert must have gone through all those years ago. Every knot they traveled took her that much farther from everyone she cared for and loved.

His gaze bore into hers, his mouth quirking. “Exactly that which I set out to do from the first: marry you.”

After the events of the past twenty-four hours, Phoebe had thought she was beyond shock but apparently that was not so. “You must be mad to think I would marry you now.”
 

He shrugged. “Mad? Hardly. Before Betty left, she slipped my note beneath your dear Papa’s study door. Who knows, perhaps he is even now reading it, including the sum I require to make an honest woman of you.”

“You expect my parents to
pay
you to marry me? You must be even madder than I’d thought. After all you’ve done, I shouldn’t count on receiving so much as a farthing.”

He shrugged. “They are free to refuse, of course. Should they elect to do so, I am acquainted with a certain Middle Eastern pasha who has a penchant for blue-eyed blondes.”

Phoebe lifted her chin. “He could not possibly be more monstrous than you.”

Smiling, he crossed toward her and instinctively she drew Pippin as close as she could. “Trust me when I say that marriage to me would prove the lesser of two evils.” He glanced pointedly down to Pippin. “Along with the flesh of English roses, the pasha has a great appetite for tender little dogs.”