Malia Martin (22 page)

Pru frowned weakly, but didn’t say anything. She rather thought that she would never get Captain Ashley out of her system. Even now she could smell him on her, and it made her want to run back upstairs, lock her bedroom door against the world, and never leave her husband again.

“What is it, Clifton?”

“There’s a problem at Harker’s, and you are the only one who is going to be able to handle it, Lady Pru.”

Prudence made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat.

“The boys are anxious. They need to know that you are going to be able to stay in control.” Clifton lowered his voice. “It seems Captain Ashley has sent communication to London saying that he has taken care of the Wolf. The Marley brothers showed up at Harker’s today.”

Prudence groaned. “Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes.” Clifton nodded harshly.

Pru turned and paced away from her butler, then she whirled on her heel. “I’ll come to Harker’s tonight, late. The only way to show the Marleys that Gravesly is not open for their taking is to get a shipment out.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

“I’ll let them know that I am still in charge, Clifton, give them confidence in that. But I cannot possibly be gone all night. You will have to take care of the shipment.”

“Not a problem,” Clifton said with a tug on his hat. “Do you want some of that sleeping potion from Les … I mean Mrs. Redding?”

“No!” Pru cried, then shook her head and said in a lower voice. “No, I’m sure I can get him to sleep deeply without that vile concoction. We haven’t … that is to say, last night was …”

Clifton scowled. “All right, all right, I understand. He’ll sleep.” Without another word her butler turned on his heel and stomped down the stairs to one of Harker’s old horses that stood munching weeds from the gravel drive.

Pru sighed as she watched him mount the old roan and clop off down the drive. The real world was back—with a vengeance.

James lay on his side, his arm around his wife, her rump snuggled against him and his hand cupping one of her lovely round breasts. He sighed and settled more comfortably into the soft mattress. He had never felt more satisfied in his life.

The world still existed and there were problems in that world he was not sure how to handle, but for the moment in this room, with this woman, James entertained a feeling he had never before experienced. Happiness. James buried his nose in his wife’s hair, inhaled lavender and sex, and closed his eyes.

James came awake slowly, his dream filtering away into reality. He turned over with a contented sigh and stretched. It felt damn good to sleep in a bed that was big enough for his body. The one at Harker’s had been even smaller than the one in Pru’s guest bedroom.

Prudence. With a grin, James reached for her in the darkness. His hand encountered a soft pillow, then the mattress. With a frown, James levered himself up on his elbow and squinted at the bed beside him.

It was deserted.

“Prudence?” he called, but she did not answer. James lay for a moment listening, but he could not hear a thing. There was no sound of footsteps on the stairs or the clanging of pots from the kitchen.

James sat up, reluctantly letting the warm blankets slide away from his body. The floor was cold beneath his bare feet, and he winced as he stood up. He had to admit, though his home in London was not somewhere that he yearned for when he was away, it was awfully nice to live with servants about keeping fires stoked and having a conscientious valet who always kept his wrapper near.

His valet had actually been terribly put out when James had left for Gravesly alone, but he had only just employed the man, and he was not ready to go on assignment with some fluttering servant always about.

James glanced around Pru’s shadowed room. His breeches were slung over the back of a chair, and he grabbed them and pulled them on, then shuffled around looking for his boots. It was a damn nuisance, really. He needed to remember to go into his own room and find his robe and slippers.

He called out once more to his wife, then lit a candle and started for the first floor. The house felt eerily quiet. The storm had died completely that morning, and now there was not even a speck of wind.

James pushed through the door to the kitchen, but the room was dark and empty of any human form. He stopped for a moment and listened again, worry starting to nag a bit at the back of his mind. Worry, and something else he did not quite want to name.

With a shake of his head, James ducked through the kitchen and went out the back door to the garden. The cold air kissed his bare chest, and he shivered. It did not look like there was a light in the barn, but James decided to check anyway. He went quickly to the old dark building, the door creaking loudly when he entered.

The blanket he and Pru had used the night before still lay on the floor, the empty bottle of wine was still on the crate where they had left it. Gooseflesh rose on James’s skin when he remembered how he had emptied the last drops of wine on his wife’s white belly and licked them up with his tongue.

He looked around, and his mind finally registered that it was terribly quiet in the barn. Devil was always quiet, but he had realized last night that Beauty liked to whinny. James let the door bang shut behind him as he went to Beauty’s stall. The horse was not there.

James stood for a moment, staring at the stall, his heart thumping against his chest like a mallet. He closed his eyes, then turned on his heel and strode out of the barn. Without letting himself think anymore, James ran back to his room and dressed, then returned to the barn and took Devil from his stall and headed toward town.

Artie did not run out to meet him when he rode up in front of Harker’s. The place seemed deserted, actually. He rode Devil around the back, dismounted, and led his horse into Harker’s barn. The place was packed.

Beauty stood munching oats in one of the stalls. James felt himself go numb. He pulled his pistol from its holder at his side, left Devil standing in the middle of the barn, and quietly went to let himself into Harker’s.

The door was not locked. James shook his head as he pushed his way into the inn. The front room and public room beyond it were deserted, but now James could hear the rumble of voices. He followed them to a back room, and then down some narrow, steep stairs and into a well-lit cellar crowded with men.

No one noticed his entrance, for they were all faced away from him. They were all looking, in fact, at his wife. Prudence stood on an upturned box, hands on her hips, her delectable body clothed in breeches and a coat.

She was speaking to the men, giving directions, but James could barely hear her, because a great roar had started in his ears. He stared at his wife for a full minute, his mind rushing back in time and seeing, again, the slight silhouette of a man standing in a boat as the
Defender
gurgled her last breaths.

James knew in that moment that he was now looking at the very same person he had spied that dark night.

“The Wolf,” some deckhand had whispered.

He noticed then that the roaring had died down, but so had the voice of his wife. He looked into her face, their gazes locking. And then he glanced around the room and saw that every person had turned to stare at him.

He looked back at Prudence, then he turned sharply and walked slowly back up the stairs into the back room of Harker’s Inn.

He had known. Deep down, he must have suspected something from the first moment, because now he was not as shocked as he should have been.

James sat down heavily on a chair, his mind running over details that now made such sense. The cart, that huge cart and Clifton. James shook his head. And then there was his wife’s body. She had muscles. Where other women were soft and delicate, his wife’s arms were strong, her stomach flat and muscled.

James suddenly felt an intense urge to break something.

“James.”

He closed his eyes. This was not a good moment for his wife to make her entrance.

“James, it’s not …”

“Yes, it is.” He stood and walked away from her voice. He had to put distance between them. She had betrayed him utterly. And the people of Gravesly. James stopped at the thought.

God, the people of Gravesly had made an ass of him. And to make it worse, he had begun to feel like he had finally found somewhere he could be accepted.

“James …”

“Shhh!” he hissed sharply, and whirled around to face Prudence. She stood just past the top of the stairwell, looking incredibly beautiful for one of the most wanted men in England. Even in the face of her betrayal, James itched to reach out and touch her.

Obviously he was possessed by the very devil to think such a thing. “It has all been a charade, then? You wield quite a bit of power in this small town,
Lady
Farnsworth, and not much honor.”

Prudence stood a bit straighter. “And what charade would that be, James?” She propped her fists on her hips. “Do you think I have ordered the entire town to be nice even though they are all truly hard-bitten criminals just waiting to stick a dagger in your back when you turn around?”

James felt as if his heart would cave in on itself. That Prudence could not even understand the depth of his hurt made him want to shake her.

“Oh, yes, that is it. And can you believe that every single person in this town is such a good actor? I say they should all tread the boards, don’t you think?”

James tried to make himself breathe evenly. “Well one of you should, most definitely.”

“I was going to tell you, of course.”

“Of course,” he said coldly.

Prudence huffed a breath of obvious frustration. She took a few angry steps toward him, then stopped. “You talk of honor as if you own the attribute,” she said, her voice shaking. “Well, Captain, you do not know what honor is until you do all that you do for the honor of others, not just yourself.”

They glared at each other.

“Yes, Captain Ashley, I am the Wolf. You will notice that the Wolf came into being two years ago, just about the time my husband died. I have led the smuggling activities in this area since then, and most recently I dispatched your ship to the bottom of the sea.” Prudence advanced on him again. “And I am also, lest you forget, your wife.”

James had never despised a person more than in that moment. He stood slowly and clasped his hands tightly behind his back, truly afraid that he just might reach out and strangle Prudence Farnsworth Ashley.

It
had
been a bunch of lies. Of course the respectable Lady Farnsworth had not ever wanted to become his wife, not him, the Most Delectable Laughingstock of London. She had not wanted him. The town of Gravesly had not brought him, an outsider, to their bosom.

No, he was still very much an outsider, very much the laughingstock.

“Come, James,” his wife said on a sigh, her soft brown eyes pleading. “I am glad you know, finally. I have been wondering how I might tell you, and this”—she fluttered her hands in the air—“is not how I pictured it, but it is out, and I am glad.”

She took another step toward him. “I know you are angry now, but I am sure that once you think on this you will understand. I know that you have come to like the people of Gravesly. And they cannot live without what I have done for them.”

James could barely hear Prudence for the roaring that had begun to rumble in his head. He was reliving every moment of isolation he had ever lived through, and there were many.

Once again his feelings and his manhood could be ripped to shreds because he, as a bastard, did not matter.

“James, you accomplished your goal. You came to find the Wolf.” Prudence held out her hands and smiled. “And you did.”

James shuddered. “Stop speaking, wife, for you make light of something that you do not understand.”

“Oh, do stop being so dramatic, James.”

James took one step forward, wanting more than anything to shake her, but he stopped before he reached her. “You should take your name more seriously, dear, for you show absolutely no prudence whatsoever in your actions, deeds, and words. Have you ever,” he continued before she could speak, “been unsure of your place in the world?”

Pru’s delicate brows furrowed.

“No, or the question would not perplex you so. You have always been someone’s daughter, someone’s wife, or someone’s keeper. You make light of that, act as if it were a burden, but you have never been without a title or a place. Even if I had not married you, you would still be a peer, Lady Farnsworth. A peer in a small town that shunned you, but a peer nonetheless.

“I, on the other hand, was born a bastard. I do not even know my father’s name. The only thing I’ve ever known is that through my actions I could demand respect from those who would never give it to me just because of who I am.

“But even that is constantly ripped from my grasp by you people who think it is such fun to play with the emotions of those you deem below you.”

Prudence glanced down, breaking their intense eye contact. “I never thought of you as below me.”

“Speak truth, Prudence. I am a bastard, an officer in the Royal Navy. And you are a peeress.” The anger building in James’s chest rose, threatening to choke him. He took a deep breath and clenched his shaking fists at his sides.