How To Please a Pirate (27 page)

He flopped back on the bolsters and covered
his eyes with his muscular forearm. “Well, for one thing, you’d
never have to wonder if I sought her bed for anything other than an
heir. I thought Lady Harlowe might keep things simple between you
and me.”

Now Jacquelyn raised herself to look at him.
“How do you mean?”

“The woman I wed may have my name, my house
and lands,” Gabriel said as he cupped her cheek. “But you have
me.”

It was the nearest he’d ever come to a
declaration of love. And just when Jacquelyn needed to hear it
least.

She couldn’t bear to look at him, so she
snugged herself next to him and lay her head on his shoulder.

“I think,” she said, willing her voice to
stay even, “that you should choose Elisheba Thatcher.”

Pretty and vivacious, young Miss Thatcher was
Gabriel’s best chance at someone who could bring him both the heir
Dragon Caern needed and a woman he wouldn’t mind making one with in
the least. In time, who knew? It might even grow into a love
match.

Gabriel said nothing. Jacquelyn could barely
stand to breathe.

“Did you hear me?” she finally asked.

“Aye, I heard you,” he said testily. “But can
we please talk about it tomorrow? I don’t mind losing sleep when
you keep me awake rutting you blind. Talking me to death is another
thing altogether.”

He pulled her close again and she let him.
She needed to feel him next to her, to feel his tense muscles go
slack in relaxation.

Once his breathing fell into the steady
rhythm that told her he slept, she rose from his side and
disappeared into the secret passage, hand covering her mouth to
stifle her sobs.

“Yes, my lady, I’m quite sure,” Catherine
Curtmantle’s abigail said for the third time.

Her name was Jane, but Catherine didn’t use
it often. She referred to her servant as ‘girl’ or ‘you there.’
Usually Catherine found the girl’s biddable ignorance irritating,
but Jane had her uses. Gathering up juicy tidbits of gossip from
surrounding estates without being clever enough to guess at her
mistress’s need for the information was foremost on Jane’s very
short list of accomplishments.

“Mrs. Beadle was very keen on that point,”
Jane said with a hopeful expression. In an effort to please her
mistress, the girl had been known to tell only what she thought
Catherine wanted to hear. But Catherine had a heavy hand, so she’d
only done it once. “Mistress Wren has taken herself to Bath, so
Mrs. B says, to buy some new silks for the little misses.” Jane
sighed. “Silk be ever such a lovely fabric, ain’t it?”

“Never mind that. What else did Mrs. Beadle
say about Mistress Wren?”

“She’s expected back any day now. In fact,”
Jane’s face brightened as she recalled more of her conversation
with Dragon Caern’s housekeeper, “Lord Drake is restless as a
penned stallion, Mrs. B says, and may take himself to Bath to see
did she have trouble if she don’t return soon. Oh, and Mrs. Beadle
thanks you kindly for the rosemary. She was nearly out and—”

“Keep to the point, girl,” Catherine cut in.
“When did she say Lord Drake might leave?”

Jane’s cornflower blue eyes slid up and to
the right. “I don’t recollect her naming a day in particular. She
just said soon.”

“And Lord Drake hasn’t settled on any of the
young ladies he’s been courting?” Catherine asked. “No proposition
of marriage to any of them?”

“No, and don’t that beat all?” Jane’s eyes
went round as a fledgling owl. “Seems he won’t even pay court to
them hardly without Mistress Wren to arrange matters. Makes a body
wonder, don’t it? Mrs. Beadle says it don’t hardly make sense for
Mistress Wren to run all over creation for dresses for a wedding
what ain’t even certain yet. ‘Course it’s not for the likes o’ me
to question what turns about in his lordship’s mind, but—”

“Certainly not! In fact, there’s little
enough room in that small brainpan of yours for your own thoughts.
Don’t even attempt to understand your betters, girl,” she said,
looking down her nose at her abigail. “That will be all.”

Catherine waved her away and turned her
attention back to the thick ledger book. Hugh had understated their
income again by a substantial amount. Yet another thing she’d have
to handle.

“Oh, you there,” she called Jane back before
the girl had time to scuttle away. “Find Lord Curtmantle and tell
him I wish to see him immediately.”

At any other time, the sorry condition of
their financial affairs would have sent Catherine into a tizzy, but
she felt confident that positive changes were in the Curtmantle’s
immediate future. Still it wouldn’t hurt to let Hugh think she was
stewing over them. She didn’t look up when she heard his booted
tread on the threshold of her morning room.

“What is it—oh, Catherine, not again. What
did I tell you about troubling your head over such things?”

“It seems to me that someone needs to trouble
over them,” she said primly. “However, our ledgers are not what I
wish to discuss with you. Did you send that note to Cecil Oddbody
as I told you?”

“Yes, but I still don’t see why he’d need to
keep an eye on an aging whore’s house.”

“Isabella Wren is not a whore. She’s a
courtesan,” Catherine said. “Not that someone with your lack of
discernment would know the difference. Any woman can spread her
legs, but few can dazzle a man outside the boudoir as well. But be
that as it may, it’s not Isabella Wren we are concerned with. It’s
Gabriel Drake. I happen to know that he will be on La Belle Wren’s
doorstep within days.”

“In London?” Hugh threw himself into a side
chair and hooked a booted foot over the opposite knee. “Drake’s not
so daft as that. You know what Oddbody said about that. If Gabriel
Drake sets foot within the city limits, he’ll be fitted with a hemp
necktie before he knows it. London is a death sentence to him.”

“Nevertheless,” Catherine said. “He will be
there, mark my words. Now, you need to ride immediately to
Oddbody’s side so you can be there when the arrest is made. You
bungled the last assignment he gave you. We certainly don’t need
that little worm to think he’s accomplished this all by himself. If
you are there when Gabriel hangs, Mr. Oddbody will be hard put to
deny you your due. I’ll order your horse saddled and provisioned.
You leave within the hour.”

Hugh’s lip curled in displeasure. “I can’t
leave now. Linley’s due tomorrow for our annual sport. The game is
thick this season and a magnificent stag has been sighted near our
southern border.”

“Viscount Linley is coming?” She all but
purred, thinking of the lamb’s bladder condom still in her
reticule. “Don’t trouble yourself about him. I believe I can keep
his lordship entertained until your return.”

* * *

After a week on the road, Jacquelyn finally
saw the spires of London ahead. She was satisfied her ruse had
worked. Even if Gabriel became suspicious that her trip to Bath was
taking too long, he’d be heading the wrong way if he went looking
for her.

In time, he’d come to see this was for the
best.

Her head might reason so, but her heart still
rebelled. She lifted her chin. What was it her mother had said
once? Like most of her mother’s sayings, it had made little sense
at the time, but now her words came back to Jacquelyn with
crystalline clarity.

A heart is something which might be ignored
long enough for it to cease to matter.

Her mother was a self-confessed pragmatist.
Jacquelyn squared her shoulders. Isabella’s daughter could be
practical as well.

Her mother lived in Charles Court, a block
off the Strand. It wasn’t exactly Mayfair, the fashionable new
neighborhood that was home to members of parliament and courtiers
alike, but it was certainly several steps up from the sturdy
tradesmen’s quarter of Cheapside. It had been years since Jacquelyn
visited Isabella, well before she took the position at Dragon
Caern. Jacquelyn was forced to ask directions more than once as she
drove the gig down the crooked streets.

Unfortunately, she received different answers
each time. Apparently there were several ways to reach her mother’s
home. None of them direct.

When she heard the chimes of Westminster
sound, she was able to orient herself. Daylight was waning. Link
boys raced to light the way for well-heeled pedestrians and
householders hung the required lanterns outside their doors.
Jacquelyn turned the cart down a cobbled lane, lined with
three-storey houses in the Palladian style. The red brick exteriors
were brightened with white trim and twin chimneys smoked merrily
from opposite ends of each rooftop, like a row of proper English
gentlemen settling in for their evening pipes.

Jacquelyn reined her mare to a stop before a
house with a green door and an intricate stained glass creation
spreading fan-like above it. Because of the unique ornamentation,
Isabella had christened her home ‘Peacock House’—also a sly
reference to the string of dandies and gallants who came and went
with astonishing regularity through that green door.

“Ah, Mademoiselle Jacquelyn, it is you, is it
not?” Nanette, her mother’s French maid greeted her warmly at the
tall front door. “So long it has been,
cherie
. Madame will
be overjoyed to see you. Leave the gig. Jerome will see to your
things. This way,
s'il vous
plaît
.”

Clutching her satchel, Jacquelyn followed
Nanette into her mother’s parlor. Isabella was seated at her
writing desk, quill in hand, peering at the missive before her
through a set of
pince nez
spectacles Jacquelyn had never
seen her wear before.

Her mother’s bone deep beauty was still
there, her cheekbones and delicate jaw sculpted by a Master, but
her skin looked paler by the candlelight than Jacquelyn remembered,
though she was sure her mother wore no rice powder. She sported no
wig. Her own hair was pulled into a thin bun with tight ringlets
laced with silver dangling by either of her lovely cheekbones.
Obviously, no ball or opera this night. Isabella was dressed
en
dishabille
for an evening in. Tiny blue veins could be seen
through the thin skin at her temple. Her long neck, once the envy
of feminine London, sported the tiniest hint of a wattle.

As if sensing eyes on her, Isabella looked
up. Her vibrant smile erased any notion of advancing years.

“Jacquelyn, darling! What a delightful
surprise!” Isabella stood and rushed to her, hands extended. She
kissed the air beside each of Jacquelyn’s cheeks in the French
manner and then drew back to look at her. “A bit road weary, I see,
but my! How lovely you’ve grown.”

“Thank you, mother.”

“Oh, we can’t have that. What if someone
overhears you and realizes that I’m old enough to have a daughter
your age?” Isabella said with a twinkle in her violet eyes. “Call
me Isabella, dearest.”

“As you wish, Isabella,” Jacquelyn said,
feeling every bone-jarring league of the road she’d traveled. She
didn’t want to talk. She didn’t want to think. She wanted nothing
more than a hot bath, a hot meal and a clean bed in that order, but
the news that brought her to her mother’s door was not likely to
improve with keeping. “Just think what people will say in a few
months when they realize you’re old enough to be a grandmother as
well.”

Isabella cocked her head, like a bright-eyed
robin, and swept Jacquelyn’s form speculatively with her
penetrating gaze. “I don’t suppose you’ve a husband stashed in that
satchel, do you, darling?”

Jacquelyn shook her head. She was past tears.
Her mother would not hurl recriminations at her, since Isabella was
fond of saying that folk found it most easy to forgive those sins
which strongly resembled their own. But that didn’t stop Jacquelyn
from mentally flaying herself for allowing her passion to lead her
to this predicament.

Isabella sighed and pulled her into a warm
embrace. “In that case, lovie, perhaps you’d best call me
mother.”

A walk along the beach usually helped Gabriel
put his thoughts in better order. The long roll of the breakers,
the cries of gulls and kittiwakes, the sight of a sail disappearing
over the horizon all soothed him, helped him see things in a new
light. He preferred the fresh snap of a sea breeze, but it was
steep climb down the cliffs from Dragon Caern to the rocky beach
below and he’d already wasted enough time.

As he adjusted the saddle forward on his
gelding’s withers, he decided the scent of warm horseflesh and old
leather had much to commend it for settling a man’s spirit as well.
But his mood was still three points west of foul. Mostly because he
couldn’t get his last conversation with Lyn out of his head.

He’d settled on Millicent Harlowe for a
number of sensible reasons, none of them to do with his personal
comfort or wishes. But Lyn wanted him to marry Elisheba Thatcher.
And he’d cut her off in a tone more surly than he intended. It had
been due to more than tiredness. He couldn’t bear the thought of
wedding anyone but Lyn, let alone someone pretty enough to give her
additional pain.

Then when he roused in the morning, she was
gone. Oh, she’d left the message with Timothy about shopping in
Bath, but he should have known she didn’t mean to return. He
shouldn’t have waited a day.

At least now he was finally doing something
about it. No matter what anyone said, he wasn’t going to marry
anyone but Lyn, and there was an end to it. He stooped to catch the
girth under his horse’s belly and cinched it tight.

“Goin’ somewheres, are ye, Cap’n?”

Meri’s gravelly voice at the stable door
startled him. He’d hoped to slip away unnoticed, but trust
Meriwether to sense he was about to jump ship.