The Rogue's Return (19 page)

Treadwell was waiting to prepare Simon for bed. Of course, servants.

Jancy backed away. “I'll return in a few minutes.”

Norton went down the ladder, but Hal came to join her at the rail. The last trace of light had faded, making a mystery of the universe. A sailor lit a lantern hanging on the mast, and the
Ferret
rattled down an anchor for the night.

“I'm not used to servants,” she confessed, tucking her hands in her muff.

“You will be. It's like a clean, warm bed—easy to take to.”

Remembering her transformation from vagrancy to middle-class comfort, she was soothed.

“You came here for such a little while,” she said. “Was it worth it, all this traveling?”

“To assist Simon, yes.”

“Did you come to find him, then?”

He was leaning his left hip against the ship, facing her.

“In a way. I had reasons for making the journey, but Simon's parents asked me to seek him out and bring him home.”

“What if he hadn't wanted to?”

“Guilt is a powerful weapon.”

“Why guilt?”

“They want their wandering prince home.”

“Prince?”

“You know that St. Brides tend to stay close to the hive, as Simon puts it?”

“No.” Next to being with Simon, talking about Simon was her most precious delight.

“They're famous for it,” Hal said. “They don't wander. Don't go to sea or into the army, and if the sons choose the church, there's always a parish somewhere within fifty miles or so. The daughters marry into local families.”

“They say that isn't healthy.”

“Not that local, but they don't go to London, meet a gentleman from Sussex, and make their home there. The boys don't go far to school. Simon shouldn't have been at Harrow, but he had wanderlust even then, and his passion for just causes. It really is as well he didn't join the army. Even at school, he was often in hot water.”

He told some school stories that illustrated Simon's tendency to seek out adventure and fight injustice. Stories, like Simon's, full of titles.

Treadwell emerged and went below. It was time to go, but Jancy had to ask, “Simon really is in line for an earldom?”

“Yes. Marlowe. It bothers you?”

“Is that like a clean, warm bed?”

In the weak candlelight she saw him smile. “With rich, heraldic hangings.”

She said good night and went into the captain's cabin. It was lit by a single, glass-guarded candle, which softened the squalor. Treadwell had hung a sheet around a
box that held a basin and washing water. Simon was in bed, lying down normally, with room beside him for her. “Welcome,” he said softly.

This was their first night for going to bed together in a normal way. She smiled at him as she discarded her muff and cloak.

“We should have hired a maid for you.”

“I don't need one.”

“True. I'll be your maid on the voyage, and you my valet.”

It was a delightful prospect. She went toward the shielding curtain, but he said, “Will you undress for me?”

Heat rising, she almost refused. It felt so much more deliberate than their mad stripping the night before the duel. But when Simon looked at her like that, she could deny him nothing.

Exposed in candlelight, she unfastened the front of her gown, her unsteady fingers clumsy. Then she untied the lace that tightened the gown beneath her breasts and took it off, aware of how plain her undergarments were. He didn't seem disappointed.

“You men are easy to please, aren't you?” she teased.

“Of course, but I'm hoping for more.”

Remembering her play with her garter, she took her time about removing her stockings, but then let her shift drop again. She slowly unhooked the front of her bodice, wondering if an ordinary woman, a decent woman, would enjoy this as she was. Would dally, eyes on his, drawing out the moment.

She thrilled to the change in his face as her breasts were freed, even though they were still covered by the shift. When she shrugged off the bodice and dropped it on the floor, his eyes darkened. She covered her suddenly swollen, tingling breasts, not to hide them, but to comfort them.

They couldn't, could they?

He closed his eyes. “Alas, you'd better blow out the light.”

Swallowing disappointment, she washed behind the screen and hurried into her nightgown. She blew out the candle and then slipped into the bed beside him. He took her hand.

“On the
Eweretta,
” he said. “But no more games until then. I don't think I can bear it.”

Commanding her body to calm, she snuggled against him. “This is good, too, though, isn't it?”

“A small compensation. No, more than small.” He kissed her hair. “To be together, in peace, and on our way to a happy lifetime, is almost enough.”

J
ancy woke the next morning to cold air. The stove had gone out, but she didn't care. She was warm beneath the covers, and Simon was by her side. He was right. It was almost enough.

They'd talked in the dark, going over events in York, both recent and distant. He'd told her something of his experiences during the war that made her grateful she hadn't been in love with him then. She gave silent thanks that Britain was now at peace.

She'd told him more of her time in Carlisle, blending her own experiences and Jane's. If this was to work, she had to overcome her squeamishness about lying. It was all true, just not all about her. Now, in the morning light, she felt more rested and at peace than since before Isaiah's death. Even the motion of the ship, now clearly under way again, seemed pleasant.

“Sleeping with you is a cure for all ills,” she told him, rolling to kiss his cheek.

Lazily smiling, he asked, “Should I advertise?”

“I'd have to shoot all customers.” She sat up. “It must be late.”

“Late for what?” His fingers played on her back. “We have nothing to do but be carried by the wind.”

She turned to look down at him. “But we should get up.”

“Why?”

She laughed and kissed him. “Just because.” She escaped the bed. Despite last night, she couldn't feel comfortable about dressing in front of him and went behind the sheet. When she took off her nightgown, she saw a bloodstain. Only then did she feel a heaviness inside. She blushed with embarrassment. Was there a stain on the bed?

And her cloths were in her chest, which was out in the room.

At least her valise was here, so she had a fresh shift. But how was she to wash the other? She couldn't, absolutely couldn't, let Treadwell do it, even if a gentleman's valet was supposed to do such things.

Dressed but without her drawers, she emerged and unlocked her chest. She dug around until she found her cloths and the sling that kept them in place, and then stood to retreat behind the sheet again.

Simon was looking at her. He knew.

“There's a blood spot on the sheet,” he said. “I'm sorry if you'd rather not talk about it, but I think in this situation it would be rather difficult. No child, then.”

A touch of sadness in his voice made her ask, “Do you mind?”

“No, of course not. As you said, you don't want to be with child during an ocean voyage. But our children will be welcome when they come. Will you have a hard time of it?”

“No, but . . . Never mind.”

“What is it?” he asked, so prosaically that she told him.

“I can't imagine how to discreetly wash my nightgown and cloths. And Treadwell will see the sheet.”

“I can't do anything about that, but as for your nightgown and cloths, throw them away.”

“That would be a sinful waste!”

“Slave, your pasha commands. Throw them away. The cloths, at least. If necessary, buy more in Kingston or Montreal.”

“But . . .”

“I can, I believe, afford rags for my wife. I'm not rich, but I'm not a pauper.”

“You don't know the meaning of rich and poor. You have no idea!”

“Oh, don't I? Hal's laying out most of the money for this journey.”

She opened her mouth to score a point, but he quickly added, “But I'm not so poor that my wife needs to launder her monthly rags.”

“And your wife's not so foolish that she'll throw money away!”

They glared at each other, but then Simon asked, “What are we arguing about?”

She straightened. “I'm sorry. I get short-tempered at this time.”

“And I'm impatient with pain and frustration.”

“Didn't you sleep well?”

“I don't think I've had a decent night's sleep since the duel. I'm not complaining, given the perils I've avoided, but it's wearing.”

“I have some laudanum. Playter forbade it because pain would keep you still, but surely your ribs are mostly knitted by now.”

“It's tempting,” he said. “Perhaps too much so. My friend Lord Darius is apparently addicted to opium because of being given too much for too long when injured.”

“A dose of opium to help you sleep is scarcely the same thing.”

“No, but the pain is easing.”

She couldn't insist, so she went behind the sheet and fixed her pad in place. “I'm sorry for being a fishwife.”

“Simply a wife. I rather like it. Marital bickering and apologizing. We've had no chance to be a normal married couple, have we? Imagine if we'd married in England in the usual way—we might never have had a time like this. I'd have my valet, you your maid. We'd have
separate bedrooms and dressing rooms and only see each other at our best.”

Jancy tied the waistband of her drawers.

The usual way.
Would they really have to live separated by servants? She didn't want to be slave to some haughty maid who knew far more about fashion than she did.

When she was dressed, she emerged from behind the sheet. “I'll get Treadwell for you.”

She put on her cloak and gloves and went on deck. She'd once traveled toward a wilderness that had proved to be not at all as wild as she'd thought. She could only pray that the luxury at the end of this journey would be not so grand. Simon's descriptions of cheerful, crowded Brideswell didn't fit with the cold, servant-ruled life he'd outlined. He must have been teasing her.

She found Treadwell and then sat in Simon's chair to watch the forested shore flow by. Trees, trees, trees. Habitations were few, though an Indian in a canoe glided by at one point, ignoring their existence. What had this land been like when lightly populated by people and without the complexities that Europeans took for granted?

Then an eagle circled, plummeted, and rose with a flapping silver fish in its talons. It had been wild, and still was.

She shivered in the nippy air, out of sorts. She should have expected her monthly, but now she was realizing that there'd be another visit halfway across the ocean. She prayed that she wouldn't be seasick at the same time. And how was she to manage it all discreetly now she had a husband and servants?

Throw away her cloths? It went against every frugal instinct drilled into her by Martha, but she was Jane St. Bride now, who would soon have a terrifying lady's maid. Heavens above, that terrifying maid would have to know about her monthly visitor and perhaps deal with her cloths.

If being a good wife to Simon meant she had to get used to having personal servants, however, then she would do it. She would become as haughty as Mrs. Humble if she had to. As Hal had implied, it was hardly a hellish fate. Most people would love to have servants at their beck and call.

Treadwell emerged from the cabin. “Mr. St. Bride suggests you and the gentlemen eat in the cabin, it being cold today, ma'am.”

She went in, finding he'd lit the stove, as well as arranged boxes by the small table as extra seats. Soon the other men joined them for a cheerful breakfast. Then Norton let out a curse, blushed, and apologized, and she was aware of being a solitary woman in the company of three handsome men.

Were there female pashas with male harems?

It was such a wicked thought that she blushed, which made Norton think she was deeply embarrassed, so she assured him she wasn't but then worried that gave the wrong impression.

Laughing, Simon extricated her with a new topic of conversation. Jancy drank her tea, sure that a true lady would not think the idea of a harem of men even slightly exciting.

Of course she actually wanted no one but Simon, but even so, the idea of surveying a group of men like this, all with different charms, and saying, “That one. Bring him to my bed tonight,” made her want Simon even more.

In thinking that, she'd looked at him. Their eyes met and it was as if he knew. She looked away, blushing even more hotly, and then stole a glance to find his eyes dancing at her. Perhaps that was why the other men excused themselves, leaving them alone.