The Raider (24 page)

With a look of resignation—and what Jess recognized as forgiveness—he held out his arms to her.

She climbed into his lap as if she were a little girl. Somewhere along the way, Alex had become her friend. He wasn't her lover, wasn't actually her husband, but he was her friend. For all his blustering and shouting at her, she'd known he would take care of her. “It was awful, Alex. I was so scared. My hands were shaking so badly I could hardly cut Ethan's ropes. Have you heard anything? What about Abigail and Mrs. Wentworth? You should have seen Abby dance!”

Alex was holding her as tightly as he could without reinjuring her wound. “Eleanor went to the Wentworth house. The admiral pounded on Mrs. Wentworth's bedroom door and Eleanor answered.”

“Eleanor?” Jess gasped. “But I didn't tell her what I was planning to do. I didn't dare since she's bossier than you are.”

“She is a woman of intelligence and common sense, which is more than I can say for you.”

“I came home to you, didn't I? I knew the Raider couldn't help me, so I came home to you.”

“So I could patch you back together,” Alex said softly.

“Oh, Alex, don't get your feelings hurt. The Raider wanted me to go with him but I turned him down.”

Alex's mouth drew into a line. “You turned him down because he doesn't carry a ready supply of bandages for when you do something as stupidly foolish as tonight. Do you have any idea how the admiral is retaliating?”

“No,” she said hesitantly.

“One of the soldiers was killed, by your Raider I presume, so he's determined to find the killer. He said the dead man had a bloody knife in his hand. He thinks the blood is from the Raider, while I foolishly assumed it was Ethan's. To find the killer, he's marching all the young men of town to city hall and forcing them to undress. He'll kill any man who has a fresh knife wound.”

“And the women?” Jess asked.

“All the English soldiers swear they can identify the gypsy women.”

Jessica began to stiffen. “Alex, if they find out about Abigail and Mrs. Wentworth…”

“Perhaps you should have thought of that before you foolishly ran off into the woods and nearly got yourself killed. Now, as much as I love holding you, I want you to sleep.”

“Where are you going?”

“To see what I can do to help.”

Jessica got off his lap. “Alex, you should rest. Your health—”

He didn't allow her to finish as he leaned forward, and nose to nose, spoke to her through teeth clamped shut.
“Now
you worry about my health? You talk my own father into plotting against me, you put me through hell as I sit here all night waiting for you, and then you come home with an open, bleeding wound and now you tell me someone
else
might endanger my health? The English army is nothing compared to the misery you cause me, Jessica Taggert.”

“Montgomery,” she said softly. “You married me, remember?”

Alex leaned away from her. “I may have married you, but I didn't change you. Now, I want you to listen to me. I want you to climb into bed and get some sleep. I'll tell the household you're ill and Eleanor is to take care of you.”

“Alex, wait. Won't the admiral want to speak to me? I know he thinks whoever freed the men was a man, but he might think I was the dancer.”

Alex gave the front of her nightgown a pointed look. “There are some things a woman can't fake. You'll not be questioned.” With that, he left the room.

Jess looked down at the front of her gown and realized that, compared to Abigail, she was flat-chested. With a frown, she climbed into Alex's bed. What did it matter what Alex thought of her physically? He couldn't do anything anyway.

J
ESSIE
.”

Jessica refused to listen to the calls around her. She was sure they were her imagination. She was sure because no one in the world seemed to be still speaking to her after the raid two days ago. Alex was so angry he just looked at her from under black brows drawn together in a scowl. Eleanor lectured her without pause and Nathaniel crawled into her lap and begged her not to get killed. Jess didn't know how Nate knew about her escapade but he did.

So, once again, Eleanor had sent her out to do children's chores—and to think about what she'd done to her family.

Also, Eleanor wanted to keep Jess from hearing the anger of the people of Warbrooke. The admiral was taking his fury out on the shipmasters. He'd already confiscated two shiploads of goods.

Today Jessica had stolen a few minutes to visit Mrs. Wentworth. The admiral had refused to allow Abigail to be interrogated. “Abby's told him she's glad Ethan is gone, that she was made to marry the man, and that she actually prefers older men,” Mrs. Wentworth said. “The old walrus believes every word she says and as long as Ethan stays hidden in the forests, Abby can keep up the charade.”

“At least it's keeping her skin intact. How is Mr. Wentworth?”

Mrs. Wentworth turned pale.

“It's that way at my house, too. Oh, no, here comes Alex.”

The two women parted quickly.

Jessica had nearly run to Farrier's Cove. Eleanor had thought that a day of fishing might clear her head and keep her out of trouble.

“Jessie.”

She spun about on her heel to see the Raider standing in the shadows near the steep bank.

She held her clam shovel out toward him as if it were a weapon. “Don't you come near me. This is all your fault. If you hadn't come to Warbrooke, none of this would have happened.”

“Oh?” the Raider asked, lounging against the bank. “You don't think that by now John Pitman wouldn't have stolen everything in town?”

“Hallelujah, you've replaced Pitman with Admiral Westmoreland. That's like replacing a naughty boy with the devil.”

“Jessie, you really can't believe I'm completely to blame. If you hadn't interfered, I'd have been hanged by the British weeks ago. And releasing Ethan had nothing to do with me. I wasn't planning to try to save those men.”

“That's what Alex said,” she said with some bitterness in her voice. “He said you wouldn't interfere.”

“Coward, am I?” the Raider asked, his fine lips slightly smiling.

She turned her attention to the beach, looking for clams' air holes. “I never thought you were a coward, but rescuing Ethan and the others had to be done.”

“Did it? Abigail couldn't go without her virile young man for a few months? Ethan couldn't have stood a little time in the navy?”

“We had to show the admiral that we won't be taken advantage of. We're not children of the English. We're—”

“You're not using your brain, that's what. Now the admiral is very angry and he plans to punish Warbrooke any way he can.”

“Brain! What do you know of brains? Alex said—”

“Damn
that husband of yours.” He took a few steps closer to her and pulled her into his arms, then kissed her until she felt her body weaken. “Does he make you feel like that? Does he make you cry out in passion?”

“Please leave me alone,” she said, turning her head away. “Please don't torture me like this.”

“I don't torture you any more than you torture me,” he said with feeling. “You haunt my every moment, you fill my every—”

She pushed away from him. “Yet you let me marry another man,” she spat at him.

“Not an actual man, but a—”

“You leave Alexander out of this.”

The Raider's eyes, glittering behind his mask, showed his surprise. “You had me take you home to him. I'm losing you to a rainbow—all color and no substance.”

“Alexander has more substance than you know about. He took on me and the kids. He never loses patience with them, he reads to them, sings to them, bandages their wounds and mine. He gets mad at me when I nearly get killed. He—”

“Does he sleep with you?”

“Heavens no!” she gasped before thinking. “I mean, Alex is my friend.”

The Raider took her arms, his fingers caressing her skin. “But you sound as if you want to sleep with him.”

“Please let me go,” she said pleadingly, not knowing if she could continue resisting. “I'm a married woman.”

“Yes.” His lips were a breath away from hers. “But you're married to a man who can't give you what I can. Let me make love to you, Jessie. Let me make you feel like the woman you are. Forget that peacock you married.”

She tried to push away from him. “You're jealous of Alexander.”

“Of course I am. He has you all day, while I only have you for minutes at a time. How do his kisses compare to mine?”

“Alexander doesn't kiss me,” she murmured. “Only you do.”

He pulled away from her, his eyes open wide in surprise. “He doesn't kiss you? But you want to kiss him, don't you? You
want
to go to bed with him, don't you?”

Jess straightened the front of her dress. “You are losing your mind. Alexander is my friend. I'd as soon let Eleanor make love to me. I'd get about as much pleasure from a woman as from Alexander,” she muttered. “Please go away and leave me alone. I don't want to see you anymore.”

The Raider stood there, hands at his side, his mouth slightly open, as if he'd heard some horrible news.

Jess looked toward the bank. “Go! Someone's coming. It may be Alex.”

The Raider seemed to recover himself. “Maybe your husband has been meeting another woman.”

“Now I know your brain is addled. He couldn't even get a woman to
marry
him, much less go to bed with him. Go! Or do you want to be caught?”

The Raider was over the side of the bank within seconds.

It was only a deer on the side of the cove, but Jessica was glad that something had made the Raider leave. She knew she wasn't going to be able to resist him much longer. Just the sight of him made her body start to vibrate. It had been so very long since a man had held her.

She jabbed at a clam hole. A real man, that is, one who was capable of pleasing her body as well as her mind. She felt a little guilty having told the Raider about Alex but she felt torn between the two men. She was physically faithful to both of them. She wasn't an adulteress and betraying Alex, nor was she sleeping with her husband and thereby betraying the Raider.

“I'm without,” she said aloud. “Without either man.” She jabbed harder at the clam hole.

*   *   *

“Will you stop shouting at me?” Jessica yelled at Eleanor. “I told you. I haven't done anything to Alexander. At least not anything new. I took him his food, I even cut it up for him. I don't know how to be nicer to him. I even told him he looked very nice, that his coat made his cheeks pink and pretty. What else can I do for him?”

“Why is he brooding, then?”

“I don't know. He won't talk to me about his health. Do you think he's in pain?”

“Only what pain you've caused him.”

“Me? I haven't done—”

They were interrupted by the door bursting open and Marianna entering, her face flushed, her eyes alight. “Have you heard? There's an Italian ship docking and someone said Adam might be on it.”

“Adam?” Jessica gasped.

“Oh yes,” Marianna sighed, her eyes closed in ecstasy for a moment. “My eldest brother. Adam the fighter. Adam the handsome. Adam who has come to save us.”

“The English will burn our town to the ground if anyone else ‘saves' us,” Eleanor said.

Jessica looked down at her old, worn dress. “I can't meet Adam looking like this. I wish I had a dress as beautiful as Alex's red coat. Don't just stand there, Marianna, your hair is a mess.”

“Yes, yes, of course.” She started down the hall.

“Don't tell Alex you're dressing up for—” Eleanor called, but Jessica was already gone. “Adam,” she finished and then put her hand to her own head. Perhaps she should have a look at herself before the famous Adam returned.

Jessica opened the door to Alex's room with eagerness on her face.

Alex shut his book. “What's happened?”

“Nothing.” Jess was digging in a trunk in a corner of the room. “Oh, Alex, I wish you'd bought me a red dress like you promised.”

Alex was out of the chair in seconds and grabbed her arms. “Are you meeting the Raider?” he asked, his eyes hard.

“I don't have time for your jealousy now. Marianna says a ship has come from Italy and Adam might be on it.”

“Adam? My brother Adam?”

“Yes, of course that Adam. Alex, go tell your father.”

“Tell him that Adam the perfect will be here soon?”

She shut the trunk. “Alexander, would you please tell me what is wrong with you? You've been biting my head off for days.”

“But that's the only thing of yours I bite, isn't it, my chaste little wife?”

Her face softened. “So that's it. You're remembering when you were a man. Alex, I swear to you that I won't sleep with the Raider or Adam or anyone else. There's no reason for you to be jealous. Have you seen that blue fan that belonged to your mother?”

“You're wearing
satin
to meet my brother? You're going down to the dirty, smelly wharf wearing a satin dress?”

She counted to ten to calm herself. “Alex, you wear satin each and every day. Now, will you help me dress?”

“Like hell I will,” he said and stormed out of the room.

“Men!” Jessica said with contempt and left the room to search for a sister to help her dress.

By the time the ship docked, most of Warbrooke was there to greet the oldest Montgomery son—but he wasn't on board. The captain had never heard of Adam Montgomery and had no news of him.

As a group, the faces of the crowd fell.

Jessica moved away from Alex three times because she couldn't bear his jealous mutterings. Of course, she did feel sorry for Alex because his brother would get the attention Alex should have received. No one was going to laugh at Adam. A disappointed Jess watched as the sailors brought twenty-three leather-bound trunks down the gangplank, followed by three maids.

“Perhaps I should go back so my father can cry on my shoulder,” Alex was saying in her ear. “Or maybe you feel like crying.”

Jessica was about to say something to her husband when they heard a woman's pretty voice call.

“Alexander? Is that you?”

Alex looked past Jess, then his lips curved into a smile of delight. “Sophy,” he whispered.

“Alexander, it is you.”

Jess turned to see a tiny, exquisite, dark-haired woman with a pretty face shaded under a pink, frilled bonnet. She was looking at Alex with anticipation, laughter on her pretty lips.

“Alex, I barely recognized you. Whatever are you doing wearing that wig? And why are standing that way? And that coat—”

She didn't finish because Alex took her in his arms and kissed her to silence.

That effectively brought the crowd to a halt.

“What a welcome,” Sophy murmured.

“Play along with me. Whatever happens, play along with me,” Alex whispered. He pulled away from her.

Jessica was looking at the two of them with great curiosity. Alex had certainly never kissed her like that. Not that she'd ever wanted him to, but she'd never tried to stop him either.

“Jessica,” Alex said, “this is the Countess Tatalini and, Sophy, this is my wife. Sophy and I knew each other before my fever.”

“Fever? Alex are you ill? Is that why you're dressed—”

Alex put his arm around her waist and squeezed hard. “I'm no longer ill but I have been. Jess, could you get some of these layabouts to carry the countess's luggage? You are staying with us, aren't you?”

“Why, no, I'm on my way to—”

“We won't hear of it, will we, Jess?”

Jessica didn't say a word but looked from one to the other.

“Jess?” Alex asked. “We would love to have the countess as our guest, wouldn't we?”

Jess still didn't answer but kept looking at the way the countess was curving her body into Alex's. She didn't seem to mind at all that he was fat, that he slouched, that the color in his cheeks was probably rouge.

“Jessica,” Alex said in a familiar whine, “you have to help me. I feel my strength going. Could you help with the baggage while the countess supports me?”