The Pirate Next Door

  When he stood up, her diamond necklace dangled from his hand.

  Her brown-green eyes widened. She clapped her hand to her bare throat. “What are you doing?”

  “Stealing your jewels. It is traditional.”

  She stared at him in open-mouthed shock, outrage dancing in her eyes, then, suddenly, like the sun emerging from behind a cloud, she smiled.

  He clutched that smile to his heart, clutched the diamonds in his hand, and left her.

  Across the Thames, aboard the Argonaut—whose name had been carefully painted over and rewritten as the Carolina—Mr. Henderson toyed with the mother-of-pearl handle of his now empty pistol. Emotion raged inside him, and he did not like emotions. They were inconvenient, a distraction, and a nuisance. And ever since he’d met Mrs. Alastair—if “met” were to proper word for what he’d done—his emotions had plagued him.

  On the other side of the table Captain Ardmore read letters, or whatever the hell papers he was perusing.

  “Finley’s landed on his feet as usual,” Henderson observed glumly. “Damn him.”

  Ardmore did not look up. “What do you mean, on his feet?”

  “Mrs. Alastair. If that isn’t landing on his feet, I don’t know what is.” He added reflectively. “I’d be on my knees, personally.”

  “I agree, Mr. Henderson,” Ardmore said in his Southern drawl. “She is an extraordinarily lovely woman.”

  The usual cold note in Ardmore’s voice had actually softened. Interesting. “You are not going to—ah.” Henderson rubbed the sides of his mouth, which still hurt from Finley’s damned thick fist. “You are going to leave her alone, aren’t you?”

  Ardmore turned another paper over. “If you mean am I going to force myself upon her, no, I am not. If you mean will I take her away from Finley, yes, I will.”

  Henderson set his pistol aside, out of temptation’s way. “I wish you would leave this one alone, sir.”

  Ardmore looked up. Henderson stopped himself from flinching. Having James Ardmore give you his full attention was a situation much to be avoided, but he’d stand his ground.

  “Why?” Ardmore demanded.

  Henderson sighed, then decided he might as well plunge in. It was only his grave after all. “Mrs. Alastair is different. She is a lady. Descended from a duke, for God’s sake.”

  “I come from one of Charleston’s first families, myself.”

  Henderson clenched his hands. When Ardmore chose to be obtuse, it meant he did not want to discuss the matter at hand, and the officer in question should only pursue it at his peril. But Henderson felt reckless tonight. His mouth already throbbed with Finley’s punch. What was a little more pain? “I want no part in whatever you intend for Mrs. Alastair,” he said. “Finley, I will gladly help you hunt down. He is a pain in the fundament, and I would love to see him get his comeuppance. But Mrs. Alastair—” He broke off. Ardmore was simply watching him, giving him the rope with which to hang himself. “I will no longer help you with Mrs. Alastair, sir,” Henderson finished in a rush. “I will not drug her, I will not abduct her, I will not assault her. She deserves none of that, and I am ashamed to have been a part of it.”

  Ardmore’s eyes were as impenetrable as green ice, and just as cold. “Or?” he asked softly.

  “Or what?”

  “You have proclaimed I and my ideas for Mrs. Alastair can go to hell. On what condition? If I continue to insist, what will you do?”

  “I will have to resign, sir.”

  Ardmore said nothing. The silence stretched, broken only by the soft sigh of wind outside the stern windows, the quiet slap of water against the hull. Henderson was suddenly reminded of the summer day, a few years back, when he’d been visiting Ardmore’s Charleston home, where Ardmore’s sister, Honoria, lived. Henderson had been walking with Miss Ardmore in the gardens, and to all of his flirtations-she was a beautiful woman, after all-she had simply given him a green-eyed stare and a raised brow. Her clipped tones had told him what she’d thought of him, an Englishman, trying to make up to her. A true ice queen. He decided that the stare Ardmore was giving him now was the classic family signal that the person who received it was lower than worms.

  Ardmore finally answered. “You know I cannot let you resign while I am in England. You know why.”

  Henderson’s face heated. “I give you my word, sir, I will not betray you. My quarrel is not with you. I simply do not want anything to happen to Mrs. Ardmore.”

  Again, the cool stare, the faint look of scorn. “Nothing will happen to her. I do not harm innocents.”

  “You might this one. Just by being who you are.”

  Ardmore regarded him for a long, quiet moment. “Your objections are noted, lieutenant.” He sat back, steepling his fingers. “Now, tell me more about your chase of Burchard. It looks like we’ll have to kill him again.”

  In other words, subject closed. Completely. Henderson bit back a sigh and launched into his tale, but his inconvenient and troubling emotions still raged inside of him.

  “This is the first time I have been on a pirate ship,” Alexandra said primly, looking into the flustered face of Mr. Priestly. “So of course I do not know.”

  Priestly’s harried look became more pronounced. He had a narrow face, a shock of brown-blond hair, small blue eyes, and a pinched mouth. Alexandra supposed he made a frightening pirate, but at the moment, he seemed frightened of her. Which was all to the good.

  “Mrs. Alastair,” he said in a voice stretched thin. “I really do not understand what you are asking for.”

  “It is perfectly simple, Mr. Priestly. I need to know where the lady’s retiring rooms are.”

  “The what rooms?”

  “Retiring rooms. Where a lady might be private.” She leaned toward him and lowered her voice. “For private necessities.”

  He blinked a few times, and then drew a relieved breath. “Oh, you mean the head.”

  Alexandra dabbed at her mouth with the almost-white napkin he’d managed to find her. It had been the third napkin he’d brought, and he had almost wilted in relief when she’d said, with slight disappointment, that it would have to do. She’d had a breakfast of bread—fresh, not the stale loaf he’d first produced—hot coffee and fruit. Peaches. Fresh, ripe ones from the market on shore. All served in the captain’s cabin on a little folding table covered with a white cloth, no stains. She’d been served on porcelain plates with a silver knife and spoon. Oh, and fresh, cool butter for the bread, please.

  She had bade them bring her a bath-hot, Mr. Priestly, not lukewarm-and she’d dressed again in her silk gown. She’d also combed out her hair and gathered it into a tail. Priestly had proudly brought her a silver-backed hairbrush after a two-hour-long search, holding it out to her like a dog expecting a pat. She’d inspected it in his hand and then asked him to please bring her a clean one.

  She wiped her hands now while he foundered. Inside her, anger seethed and boiled, anger at none other than that rat, Grayson Finley. She’d heard every word of his conversation with officers McDaniels and Priestly through the opened cabin door, including the order to Mr. Priestly to give Mrs. Alastair everything she wanted, but not to let her off the ship. For any reason.

  She needed to return home. She had a soiree to plan. Lady Featherstone would wonder where on earth she’d gotten to. She wanted to see for herself that Maggie had arrived safely home, though she reasoned that Grayson would see to that himself quickly enough. He trusted this Ian O’Malley, though Alexandra was not certain she did.

  Jeffrey would bother Cook and not attend to his duties, and Amy and Annie would find excuses to shirk their responsibilities; Alice had said she’d leave if she had to take up where they slackened. Alexandra had a dozen things to attend to, thank you very much Mr. Pirate, even if they did not involve finding a French king and avoiding pirate hunters. Besides, Alexandra had half a dozen possibilities about that French king floating in her head. She really wanted to discuss them with Grayson, and also with Mrs. Fai
rchild, who knew much about the French and the exiled king. None of which she could do if she were stranded here.

  Anything in the world, he had said. Priestly was to cooperate, or risk a flogging. Well, we shall see about that, Mr. High-and-Mighty Pirate Viscount Stoke.

  Serve him right for making love to her like that, for ripping the cover from her heart and letting emotions she had never intended anyone to see out into the light of day. He had spoken to her the words of her daydream: Lovely lady, may I taste you? And then he’d put his mouth on her and stirred fires inside her that she’d never known existed. She felt all stretched and tired and achy and far, far too pleased. Drat him.

  “What is the head?” she asked Priestly now, curious.

  “It’s—ah—in the bows. You go up, and you sit on the hole—um.” He looked her up and down. She waited. “It is outside,” he blurted.

  She let her brows climb to her hairline. “Outside?”

  “Yes,” he finished weakly.

  “Well, that will never do. Do you not have a watering closet or commode anywhere?”

  Priestly pointed at the door, his feet already moving to his escape. “I’ll just see what I can do, m’lady.”

  He fled. Alexandra set down her napkin. She had not corrected the “m’lady” to “Mrs.” She decided she could only be so cruel.

  Chapter Fourteen

  McDaniels’s shop was unenlightening. By the time he and Grayson reached Marylebone, the sun was high and city traffic was dense. The shop sold little trinkets, snuff boxes, letter boxes, dainty letter openers, and the like, all kept on high shelves on the ground floor behind the proprietor’s counter.

  The proprietor was not there, but his daughter was, to wait on customers. She was pretty, charming, and very French. Though she was young enough to have been born in England after her parents had made the crossing from France, she spoke with a thick accent and fluttered her eyelashes a great deal. She said “zat is so” or “I zink” every other sentence.

  Grayson saw no evidence of a rotund French king stuffed into a back room or looking out of a window next door, but then, he had no chance to search as he liked. He would have to return another time, and either force his way in, or have the Duke of St. Clair charge in with the weight of the Admiralty behind him. The smiling, flirting young woman gave him no clues.

  Grayson pretended interest in nothing except purchasing a pretty ink bottle for Maggie. He chose one with an enameled stopper depicting a pair of young lovers chasing each other through a meadow. Their lacy, old-fashioned costumes were splashes of gaudy color on the green landscape. Maggie would like it.

  Maggie ran to meet him when he entered his house on Grosvenor Street. She threw her arms about him and he lifted her and hugged her tight. He wondered anew how he’d produced this marvelous and beautiful child. That Maggie had been the result of his callow youth still stunned him.

  “Come and see my new governess,” she said. “She is most beautiful. I am glad Mrs. Alastair chose a beautiful governess. It will be much easier to pay attention to her lessons in French.”

  Grayson set her on her feet. “She knows French?”

  “Fluently. She also knows Greek. But the letters are all funny, not at all what the missionaries taught me.”

  Grayson grinned at her. “You ought to see Chinese. They write in tiny little pictures.”

  Her eyes widened. “Truly? Why can’t we write in tiny little pictures? It would be so much easier.”

  Grayson started to agree, then saw Mrs. Fairchild gliding down the stairs to them. She really was an exquisite woman. If Alexandra had not already wrapped herself around his senses, he might have decided her worth pursuing. But he had Alexandra—

  He should be sated, having drunk his fill of her, having driven himself deep inside her. But every memory of her breath on his skin, her scent, her taste, the fires of her touch made his arousal twitch in eager anticipation. When can we have a go again? it kept asking. When, when?

  She was on the Majesty in care of Priestly. Grayson had but to travel back down river, climb aboard and—well, climb aboard. Alexandra was a sweet, delicious woman, and he never wanted her to be more than steps away. But he had too many things to take care of first. Life was not fair.

  He swallowed his frustration. Mrs. Fairchild reached the ground floor and curtseyed. “My lord,” she said in her smooth contralto. “Is Mrs. Alastair safe?”

  He inclined his head. “She is. She’s staying aboard my ship for a time.”

  “I see.” Her expression told him she did not see, and did not like the situation, but was hesitant to say so.

  He went on, trying to think of words an employer might speak to a governess. “Is your chamber to your liking, Mrs. Fairchild? The house is old and dusty, not to mention dismal and dim, but at least the roof does not leak. Is there anything else you need?”

  She nodded politely, light catching in her sleek, dark hair. “My chamber is quite adequate. I need nothing more.” She hesitated. “However, I would like to speak with you on an important matter.”

  Grayson stripped off his gloves and tossed them onto a table. “It will have to be later. I have an unfortunate amount of business to attend. Maggie, where is Jacobs?”

  “Walking about in the garden,” Maggie said promptly. “I cannot imagine why; there are no flowers or anything. Not like Mrs. Alastair’s garden. We will have to ask her who made her garden and hire him to do ours.”

  Grayson nodded absently. “Whatever you like. Mrs. Fairchild, I’ll speak to you later.”

  He strode past them, not missing Mrs. Fairchild’s anguished look. He grumbled silently. Why could she not be sixty and have a mustache? Maggie might want a beautiful governess, but the glum way Jacobs was shuffling through the barren garden made Grayson wish for a hideous one. He did not need Jacobs to be distracted just now. Grayson being distracted by Alexandra was bad enough.

  He watched Jacobs from the dining room window for a moment, then summoned the young man inside and closed the door.

  Jacobs wandered idly about the room, brushing his fingertips to the dark sideboard, the table. “Found the Frenchie king yet, sir?”

  “Jacobs.”

  Jacobs looked up at his sharp tone. It struck Grayson on a sudden just how young his first officer was. Jacobs was twenty-five, and had signed on to the Majesty at the tender age of twenty. Because Robert Jacobs possessed great competence and intelligence, as well as a cool head in an emergency, Grayson had come to rely on him in the most complicated and dangerous situations. He had never stopped to think about how little worldly experience the young man actually had.

  He continued. “Ardmore is going to try to take me down any way he can, bargain or no. Including using Mrs. Alastair to do it.”

  The abstracted look left Jacobs’s face. “I gathered that, sir. Are you still going to meet him as planned?”

  Grayson gave a nod. “Of the outcome of that meeting, I am no longer certain.”

  “Good, sir. I did not like to see you capitulate so tamely.”

  “For Maggie, it was necessary. But you see the problem. You can never be sure what he has in mind. He’s always been a tricky bastard.”

  “You do not have to tell me that, sir,” Jacobs said fervently.

  “What I do have to tell you is that I want Maggie protected. Always. Ian looks after her, but when all is said and done, he works for Ardmore. I want someone with Maggie I can trust with her life.” He stopped. “That is why I am assigning you to stay with her at all times.” Jacobs’s head jerked up. Grayson went on ruthlessly. “You are to sleep in the room next to hers, take your meals with her, and go with her everywhere, whether it’s outings with the governess or shopping for vegetables. I want you her constant companion.”

  Jacobs had whitened during his speech. “I am not certain I am the best person to protect her, sir.”

  “There isn’t anyone better.”

  “Oliver—”

  “Has much to do. He is busy cooking
our meals and looking after us, and besides, I need him for other things.” Grayson paused, and then decided to approach the problem head-on. “Whatever is between you and this Fairchild woman, resolve. Understood?”

  “Sir.” His look was anguished. “She is not just a woman. She is the woman.”

  Ah, here it was. “Explain yourself, lieutenant.”

  Jacobs stared at the tabletop. “Remember when I first joined you, sir? You asked why a lad fresh out of Oxford wanted to go to sea. And I said, to forget a woman.”

  Grayson watched him. “Mrs. Fairchild?”

  Jacobs blew out his breath. “It was incredible, sir. You have seen her. She is even more beautiful now, if that is possible.”

  “She was married?” Grayson asked.

  Jacobs nodded. “Oh, yes. To a don. Hell, he was one of my own tutors. That is how I met her. She was married and ten years older than I.”

  Grayson chuckled. “Good on you, lad.”

  Jacobs flashed a smile that told Grayson it had been all that, and more. “I fell devilish hard. You know what it is like when you’re that young. You met Sara when you were twenty or so, did you not?”

  Grayson nodded. He had been twenty-two when he’d first seen Sara. The South Pacific to him had always been a place of happiness. He remembered the sharp scent of tropical flowers, the warm air on his skin, the tranquil sound of ocean on white sands—all these memories were woven into his first glimpse of Sara. He’d taken one look at her exotic, dark-haired beauty and her flashing, midnight eyes, and fallen hard. Ardmore had introduced her, his arm firmly about her waist, and had given Grayson a look that said see-what-I-caught-you-can’t-have-her. When Ardmore and she had strolled away, Sara had looked back at Grayson, sending Grayson a wink and a promising smile. Three days later, while Ardmore was conducting business elsewhere, Sara had climbed into Grayson’s bed. When Ardmore had returned, he’d tried to kill Grayson.