Care and Feeding of Pirates (3 page)

Christopher drained his whiskey and carefully
set the glass on the dining room table. He'd always heard that when
ladies had something to discuss, they brought out the tea. The
woman who'd married James Ardmore had gone straight for the
whiskey. She'd made Honoria drink a slosh as well.

Honoria had taken one sip, set the glass
down, then held on to the arms of the slender-legged Hepplewhite
chair on which she sat as though she were on a ship about to go
down.

She refused to look at Christopher. Or Diana,
or the license. But here was a fact. Honoria had kept the license.
She even carried it about with her.

Honoria's black hair tumbled loose, a curl
snagging on the clasp of her dressing gown. Half dressed and
mussed, she looked good enough to eat.

Christopher had been following her all
evening. When he'd seen her emerge from the theatre, he'd wanted
nothing more than to sprint across the cobbles, snatch her up, put
her over his shoulder, and carry her off. She was his wife. They
could find some cozy inn where they could settle down and become
reacquainted.

He'd discovered this morning the whereabouts
of the house in which she stayed on Mount Street in Mayfair. The
house belonged to one Admiral Lockwood, whose daughter, Diana, had
actually married James Ardmore. Unbelievable.

It had been simple to slip into the house and
quietly climb the stairs to Honoria's bedchamber while the ladies
consumed coffee in the drawing room. Christopher had easily deduced
which bedchamber was Honoria's--the painfully neat one with every
book lined up on the shelves, her pens in an exact row in her pen
tray.

Christopher had truly meant only to speak to,
to break it to her that he was still alive. But watching Honoria
enter the room and undress with the help of a sharp-faced maid had
sent his blood into high temperatures. He'd been surprised the
curtains he'd stood behind hadn't bulged out with his sudden
cockstand.

After the maid departed, Honoria had sat at
the desk, posture correct, primly writing in her journal. She'd
scratched in it for a while before lifting her head and staring off
into the distance.

Her lips had parted, her cheeks coloring, and
Christopher had hoped to God she'd not been thinking of Mr.
Temple-Toes, or whatever his name was, whom she planned to
marry.

Talking had been suddenly out of the
question. Christopher had emerged from the window embrasure,
determined to go to her, pull her head back, and kiss her until all
thoughts of Mr. Toodlewink had been erased from her mind.

Honoria had risen, seen him, faced him, and
demanded to know what he was doing alive. But her kisses were as
sweet as Christopher remembered.

He wondered if Mrs. Ardmore would have shot
him if he hadn't let Honoria go. The look in that lady's gray-blue
eyes said very probably.

Christopher answered her, "It was a condemned
man's wish. The chaplain who visited the prisoners was a romantic.
When I told him I wanted to marry Honoria, he pulled strings to get
the license, and he married us. The next day, I was taken out to be
hanged."

"Which, presumably, you weren't," Mrs.
Ardmore said.

"I was let off at the last minute. But the
magistrates feared they'd cause a riot if they made my reprieve
public, so they put a hood on the next man in line for the noose
and told the crowd and the newspapers he was me. He went out in a
blaze of glory. Poor bastard."

Diana shifted the baby on her arm. He was
asleep, as limp as only a baby safe in his mother's arms could be.
Men slept like that after making love. There was something about
cradling oneself on the bosom of a beautiful woman that gave a man
over to peaceful slumber.

"Then what happened to you?" Honoria asked,
the first words she'd spoken since they'd come down here.

Christopher turned his glass on the table,
the facets throwing spangles of light onto the dark wood. "They
tied my hands and slipped me out the back to a cart. I still
thought I was on my way to be hanged, because I hadn't heard of the
change in order. But things got quieter, and I realized we weren't
anywhere near the gallows. When the cart finally stopped, I was
made to get into a longboat. The jailor with me told me that my
sentence had been commuted, but to keep it quiet. The boat took me
to a ship, and the ship put to sea."

The baby moved his fist, and Diana absently
rocked him. "Where did you go?" she asked, quietly curious.

"China." Christopher pulled the decanter of
whiskey to him and poured more amber liquid into his glass. "The
ship was a merchantman, and I worked as a sailor on it. I have no
idea whether the captain knew who I was. I climbed yardarms and
stood watches like one of the crew."

Honoria managed a faint smile. "I'm surprised
you didn't try to take over the ship."

"Would have, but I didn't have my trusted
crew, and the merchantman had a paltry haul. I didn't mind being a
common sailor for a while."

Honoria said in her quiet, Southern tones,
"After the
Rosa Bonita
, I am certain every haul seemed
paltry."

Christopher laughed. "Ah, yes, the
Rosa
Bonita
. The take of a lifetime."

"I heard about that," Diana said. "The ship
was taken, the pirates who stole it vanished, and the gold was
never recovered. You were the pirate in question?"

Christopher had suspected that the gold had
not been found, but he liked that Mrs. Ardmore confirmed the fact.
"Ardmore never found it?" he asked. "He's going soft."

"James never looked for it, as far as I
know," Honoria said. "He didn't seem to care about it."

"Is that why you've returned?" Diana asked.
"For the gold?"

She was a woman who could keep to the point.
Christopher took a sip of whiskey. "I returned to look for my
wife." He let his gaze rest on Honoria.

"Why were you let off?" Honoria asked,
flustered. "Did the governor decide to be lenient?"

Christopher looked at her in surprise. "It
was your brother's doing. Ardmore got me released. He never told
you?"

Honoria's eyes widened in shock. She hadn't
known. "No."

"Interesting." Very interesting. "I'd have
sent word to you, but I couldn't." For many, many reasons. "Did you
ever tell Ardmore you married me?"

The placket of Honoria's dressing gown had
parted slightly. She hadn't refastened it quite right, and the silk
gaped to show a curve of her bosom. "That is not exactly the sort
of information I could impart to James," she said.

"He's your brother."

"It's difficult to explain. We were never
close."

No, but Honoria now lived with James's wife
in London. Christopher did not know the lay of the land here, and
he didn't like that. He had to tread carefully, and that wasn't
easy with Honoria staring at him while her pretty bosom rose with
her every breath.

If he could have finished making love to her
upstairs, he could have sated himself and turned his mind quietly
to other matters. Instead, he was randy as a sailor who hadn't had
shore leave in six months. He was in a room with a beautiful woman
in dishabille, who happened to be his wife, and he had to sit on
the other side of a wide table and keep his thoughts at bay.

He took another long drink of whiskey.

"Why on earth would James save your life
anyway?" Honoria asked. "He arrested you in the first place. He
took the reward for your capture."

"He owed me a debt."

In truth, Christopher had been surprised at
Ardmore's generosity. Christopher had possessed information that
Ardmore had very much wanted to know. He hadn't realized the
information worth his life.

"So you have been in China all this time?"
Mrs. Ardmore interrupted.

"I worked my way from port to port,"
Christopher said, glossing over disease and hardship, the many
nights he believed he'd never reach home again. "I also spent time
searching the world for my crew. I had a small fleet before my
flagship was destroyed, and my crew had scattered. I wanted to find
out what happened to them." He shrugged. "They're my family."

That was true in the deepest sense, but he
had no wish to become sentimental in front of Ardmore's wife.

"Why did you come to London then?" Diana
asked, rocking her son again. "You had no reason to believe Honoria
would be here."

She might be making small talk at a dinner
party, but Christopher knew she'd report anything he said to her
husband, and he had to answer carefully.

"I'm still looking for the rest of my crew.
My second-in-command is rumored to be in England. My ultimate
destination was Charleston, but now I don't have to bother."
Christopher moved his gaze to the soft flesh he could see of
Honoria's breast, remembering the way her nipples had grown firm
under his touch not a half hour ago. If he saw well enough, the
kissable tips were tightening even now. "Lucky for me, I opened a
London newspaper and saw Honoria's name in it. Announcing her
engagement to another man."

Honoria didn't flinch, though her cheeks
reddened. "I thought we would come to that."

Christopher looked at her fully. "I decided
I'd pay you a call and ask you about it."

"When I accepted Mr. Templeton, I believed
you dead."

"I hope so. Or else you could be arrested for
bigamy."

"You were officially dead and hanged in
Charleston," she said, her voice cracking. "Years ago."

"I was officially transported. There was
never a record of my hanging and death. Didn't it occur to you to
check that before you rushed into another marriage?"

Honoria sat back, anger making her eyes
glitter. Christopher liked that anger--he preferred it to her
weeping or fainting, or telling Mrs. Ardmore to go ahead and shoot
him. "Hardly rushed," she said. "It has been four years. And you
gave me no reason to believe you were alive. I knew only the
newspaper stories. I thought you had been hanged." Her voice grew
more agitated with each sentence.

"But I've turned up again," Christopher said.
"And I claim the marriage."

*****

Chapter Three

Honoria continued to stare at him. Her loose
hair hung down her back in a black wave, a riot of curls haloing
her face.

She had the beauty of a deer--quick, lovely,
graceful. Christopher would give anything to see her run. Along one
of the sun-drenched beaches of a Caribbean island perhaps, and
she'd have left her dress behind. He'd be pursuing her, of course,
and she would not be trying very hard to get away . . .

"I didn't marry you in jest, Honoria," he
said quietly. "I married you because I wanted you. So tell Mr.
Tuppenny that you have a previous contract and are no longer free
to wed him."

"Mr.
Templeton
is a good and
respectable gentleman," Honoria said.

Christopher's famous temper stirred. He did
not release it often, but when he did, lesser fleets sailed for
their lives.

He'd not expected Honoria to welcome him with
open arms. He had been, in fact, surprised to find her still
unmarried. But in that cell in Charleston, when she'd promised to
be his wife, he'd read in her eyes true grief and caring, not just
pity. She'd loved him.

When Christopher had read the announcement of
her engagement in London, his strong reaction had also surprised
him. He didn't blame Honoria for wanting to marry again--no woman
should live her life in solitude because the man who'd been her
husband for one less than a day had vanished.

Even so, Christopher had told himself that
he'd speak to Honoria, discover how she fared, and make
arrangements to release her from their marriage contract so she
could go to her Mr. Templeton.

But when Christopher had seen Honoria
tonight, walking so regally out of the theatre, he'd known he could
never let her go. If this Tuzzlewitz truly loved her, the man would
be magnanimous and not stand in Christopher's way.

"A woman when she marries, agrees to obey her
husband." Christopher said.

"You were my husband for all of one day."

"I have been your husband for four
years."

"In name only," Honoria said, jaw tight.

Christopher smiled. She made his blood hot.
"In all ways, Honoria. You gave me your maidenhead in that cell,
remember?"

Honoria flushed and glanced at Diana. "I was
distraught. I didn't understand what I was doing."

"Really? I believe your words were,
Please, Christopher
."

"If you'd been a gentleman, you'd have sent
me home."

Christopher got to his feet. The whiskey
burned through his veins, and he wanted to laugh, loud and long. "I
was a
pirate
. I was about to be hanged, and you had half
your clothes off. When a beautiful woman wants a pirate, the pirate
obliges." He went to her. "You were made for me, Honoria. You know
it, and your body knows it."

At the head of the table, Ardmore's son made
a small mewl of protest as their voices penetrated his sleep.

Christopher threw Diana a look. "Will you
excuse us, Mrs. Ardmore? My wife and I want to argue."

"I think I had better stay," Diana said.

"Why?" Christopher wanted to laugh and rage
at the same time. "Are you afraid Honoria will try to make herself
a widow?"

"I am not certain what I fear," Diana
answered. "But I will stay."

Honoria shoved back her chair and jumped to
her feet. The chair fell over backward with a bang, and Baby
Ardmore squeezed his eyes shut and let out an irritated wail.

"I beg your pardon, Diana," Honoria said, her
voice ringing. "I certainly will not stay here and embarrass you
further. Please have a servant show Mr. Raine the door. Good
night."

She nearly fled the room, shoving aside a few
more chairs in her haste. The dressing gown slid down, baring her
kissable shoulders. A most enticing picture.