“You were kidnapped?” He’d finally said something that shook her from that unsettlingly calm demeanor. “Stolen? Forced onto a ship?”
“You didn’t think that I meant to leave England?”
She had. It was hard to believe that porcelain skin could grow paler, but hers did. A flash of sorrow crossed her eyes. For him?
“I was seventeen,” he said. “Short, as you said, and not very good at handling myself. And I was drunk for the first time in my life. I was an easy target for a press gang. We sailed for the West Indies just before dawn on the morning after you and I wed.”
“Drunk? You mean, after you left . . .”
Damned if it wasn’t still embarrassing all these years later. “After the failure of our wedding night,” he said, his voice wry, “I went to a public house and proceeded to drink myself into a stupor. From which I awoke to find myself at sea.”
“We never knew that,” she whispered. “I thought you deserted me.”
He considered accepting her implicit apology, but he had decided long ago that the only way to thrive was by ruthless honesty. “I might have run away if I had thought of it. I got too drunk for anything so coherent.”
“We never imagined that you’d been kidnapped, or we surely would have searched further. My father . . . we thought you couldn’t bear the shame of marriage to a commoner.”
“Is your father still alive?”
She shook her head. “He died seven years ago.”
That made sense; she had waited until her father died to take a lover. For some reason, he found that detail gut-wrenching. Perhaps he should have come home sooner.
“Where are the other children?” he asked, forcing the words out.
“Are you angry?” she asked, ignoring his question. “Many men would be furious to come home after a long absence to find three new additions to the family.”
“I don’t have the right,” he said, knowing his voice was tight.
“Did you father children?”
“No!” The word shot out, unexpectedly violent.
But she didn’t startle. Instead he saw a disconcerting level of sympathy in her eyes, and she leaned forward and covered his hand with her own. “I want you to know,” she said gently, “that your affliction is not unique. You must have realized that during your travels around the world.”
Her words were probably characteristic of her, Griffin thought. She was both kind and restrained, with admirable dignity.
Then he caught her meaning. She thought he was incapable. Not merely of fathering a child, but altogether.
“Is that why you had children of your own, Poppy?” Despite himself, the words came out through clenched teeth.
That earned him a steely-eyed glare. “What are you talking about?”
“The fact you have illegitimate children?” he shot back.
“No, no,” she said, her hand waving as if her children meant nothing. “Why do you persist in calling me Poppy?”
“Because it’s your—it’s not your name?”
“Of course it’s not my name.” She wrinkled her nose. “And I don’t like it.”
“You don’t like it?” He was dumbfounded. He had named his ship after her, after the wife he left behind. The Flying Poppy and then the Poppy Two were dreaded by pirates all over the world.
“My given name,” she stated, chin high, eyes flashing, “is Phoebe.”
He cleared his throat. “Lovely.” He must have misheard during the wedding ceremony. Bloody hell.
“Exactly what are you doing here, Griffin?” The faintest hint of smugness told him that she was pleased that she knew his name.
“I’ve come home,” he stated simply. For all the complications—that Phoebe believed he was impotent, that she had given birth to three children in his absence, and that he hadn’t remembered the name of his own wife—there was something that felt right about her nonetheless. About being here, with her.
“This is my home,” she said.
“But you are my wife.” He gave her a smile, enjoying the way her luscious pink lips pursed. She was a bit stiff, this wife of his. He’d have to teach her to take life more easily.
“I’d rather not.” She said it as simply as if she were declining a cup of tea.
“Rather not what?”
“Rather not be married to you. I’m sure our marriage can easily be annulled on the grounds of non-consummation. Or we could petition Parliament for a divorce based on your profession.”
“Or on the grounds of your three children!”
She blinked. He’d touched a nerve, but how could she be surprised? Surely she was a pariah among the neighbors. “Yes,” she said, almost too quickly. “There are the children. If we divorce, you can have children of your own.”
“ ‘Children of my own’? Did you not just offer condolences for my incapability?”
After a moment she said, with dignity, “I gather from your evident amusement that your problem was due to youth rather than constitution.”
“Or,” he suggested, “the problem might crop up only in your presence.”
Her brows drew together. “What do you mean by that?”
“You’re too beautiful,” he said, starting to enjoy himself. “It may well be that you’ll incapacitate me again. There’s only one way to find out.”
“Such an experiment would be most unwelcome,” she flashed back. “If you, sir, have such worries, it would be better not to put yourself in a difficult situation.”
He leaned forward, ignoring the pain that shot through his thigh. Up close, her skin was like silk, untouched by the sun, the soft color of new cream. “A man could never turn down a challenge of that sort, darling Phoebe.”
“I am not your darling Phoebe!”
“My darling, my wife?”
SEVEN
Phoebe stared at her husband, trying to think of an appropriately mature response, when Nanny McGillycuddy, Mr. Sharkton, and the children topped the little hill, Lyddie drifting behind them like a kite on a string.
Her mind was such a whirl that she said nothing even when they entered the courtyard. Her husband believed the children were illegitimate. He hadn’t known her name. He thought she was some sort of lightskirt, a jade who would . . . would . . .
She hated him.
“Please forgive me for not rising to meet you,” Griffin said to Alastair. “I’ve injured my leg. I have met Colin, but what’s your name?”
“Alastair.” Her three-year-old stood squarely on his spindly legs, gazing at the pirate as if he met men of his cut every day . . . which he did not. They scarcely had a male servant other than two young men who worked in the house when they weren’t in the garden. And the bootblack, of course.
“Do you call yourself Dare for short?” Griffin inquired.
Alastair frowned. “That’s a silly name. My name is Alastair because that’s the name my mama gave me.”
“Alastair is an ancient and respected name,” Phoebe said, throwing Griffin a cold look.
She’d already figured out that her husband wasn’t the sort of man who could be silenced by a glance.
“Alastair sounds a bit silly, isn’t it? But Dare sounds like a fellow who can climb into a tree house. Have you?”
“Have I what?” Alastair asked suspiciously.
“Built a house in a tree. Or even climbed up a tree? That’s a perfect tree for a house,” Griffin said, pointing to an ancient oak on the other side of the courtyard.
“He hasn’t,” Margaret said, elbowing Alastair aside. “But I have.”
Her curls were wild and disordered, and she wore only one stocking. The other was wound around her head and tied in the back.
“Oh, Margaret,” Phoebe groaned. “Why are you attired in such an outlandish fashion? You were fairly tidy an hour ago.”
br /> Margaret fixed her gaze on Griffin and didn’t bother to glance at her mother. “I’m a pirate queen,” she said stoutly. “This is what they wear.” There was a moment of silence. “Well, you’re a pirate,” she demanded. “You should know. Don’t they wear this? It’s called a turban.”
Griffin was in the grip of one of the oddest feelings of his life. There the three of them were, lined up before him: Colin, the stubby but fierce pirate; Margaret, the pirate queen; and Alastair, the wet one. They were all rather grubby. But they were his now. Born under the protection of his name and title. His children.
“I have been a pirate,” he said. “But I’m home now, and I cannot remember what pirate queens wear on their heads.”
Margaret reached out with a slender finger and poked his tattoo. “You’re not supposed to write on yourself.”
“That’s right,” he confirmed.
“Did you kill anyone?” Colin asked.
“Yes.”
“Good!”
Griffin shook his head. “No, not good.”
“Pirates always kill people. Walk ’em down the plank!” Colin clearly had a bloodthirsty side.
“Not the action of a gentleman,” Griffin said, “and that’s the most important rule of all. More important than being a pirate. Kill only in self-defense, only if a man has taken up a weapon against you. No innocents, no women, no children.”
Colin narrowed his eyes, thinking about it.
“Where’s your sword?” Griffin said, turning to Margaret. “A pirate queen should have a sword, it seems to me.”
“We only have one, and Colin has it on Mondays. I don’t get it until Wednesday.”
“Sir Griffin,” Phoebe interjected, “may I introduce you to the children’s nannies?” She sounded rather desperate, as well she might. He didn’t remember his governess teaching him the rules for introducing one’s by-blows to one’s long-lost spouse.
He came to his feet, swallowing a curse as his cane slipped and he lost balance for a moment.
“Mrs. McGillycuddy was my own dear nanny,” Phoebe said, giving him a narrow-eyed look that suggested she’d overheard the blasphemy he’d swallowed.
At least now he knew where Alastair had inherited his critical gaze.
The nanny had hair that presumably had once been red but was now a faded pink. She had a big bosom and a big behind; all in all, she looked nanny-ish to Griffin’s uneducated eyes. His own nanny had been tall as a tree and mean to boot. Nanny McGillycuddy didn’t look mean at all.
“And this is our nursemaid, Lyddie,” Phoebe added, nodding to a young girl, who dropped into a rather flustered curtsy.
“Well, my lord,” Nanny McGillycuddy said in a tone that made it clear she was more than a servant, though not quite the mistress of the house, “should we take your appearance as a sign that you have abandoned a life of crime?”
“Nanny!” Phoebe cried in an anguished voice.
But Griffin liked Nanny. She hadn’t challenged him out of impudence, but because she was saying what needed to be said.
He answered in kind. “I have been given a full pardon by the Crown, and I intend to live a life of impeachable sobriety in the bosom of my wife and our family.”
There was a Napoleonic air about the way Nanny snorted in response to that statement. Griffin had met Napoleon once, and he’d never forgotten the way the Corsican bared his teeth when he’d spoken. Apparently Nanny didn’t think a pirate was suited for the sober English life.
That made two of them.
“Well, now that we’ve all met,” Phoebe chirped, sounding positively feverish, “why don’t we have tea?”
“We’ve had tea,” Colin told her. “And so have you, Mama.”
Griffin looked at his wife. It was a strange thing to discover that she was still utterly beautiful, like coming across a discarded plate and turning it over to find out that it was made of solid silver. Her cheeks were pink with embarrassment, or perhaps anger, and she had the most exquisite skin he’d seen in his entire life.
In retrospect, he had always minimized the role of her beauty in his disastrous wedding night, blaming his failures on youthful ineptitude and nerves. But damn . . . she was exquisite. Enchanting.
More than any woman he’d seen in all his travels.
“His lordship has not had tea,” Phoebe stated, a bit desperately.
He took pity on her. “Nanny McGillycuddy,” he said, “take these piratical rapscallions off to the nursery, will you? My wife and I have to catch up on fourteen years’ worth of conversation.”
The nanny gave him a hard look that said without words that he’d better not make her mistress unhappy, then bustled the children away, the nursemaid trailing after them.
“I’ll go to the kitchens and see about tea,” Shark said, patently eager to escape a round of marital conversation.
“Why no servants?” Griffin asked after Shark disappeared. “No butler, no footmen? We weren’t even greeted by a housekeeper.”
“She must have been busy. I do employ a few manservants, but they’re occupied in the fields or the gardens at this time of day. I don’t keep a butler, because mine isn’t that sort of household.”
“That sort of household?” he repeated, raising an eyebrow.
“A gentry household,” she clarified. “I don’t use my title, and I don’t aspire to re-create that atmosphere.”
“Isn’t life easier with servants?” he asked, genuinely curious.
“A butler who merely stands about and answers the door for a random visitor? Footmen whose only role is to polish the silver?”
He shrugged. It wasn’t something he gave a damn about either way. He himself ran a tight ship, every man assigned to four or five tasks. Noblemen like his father liked to have a passel of servants standing around merely to demonstrate consequence.
Clearly her mind went in the same direction. “Your father will be anxious to see you. Doubtless he saw the same notice in the paper that I did. I am sure that he is waiting on tenterhooks for your arrival.”
“I’m not capable of playing the prodigal son. No regret, for one thing.”
“You sound as if the subject of piracy amuses you. I do not know your father well, but I assure you that he sees nothing amusing in your occupation.”
Griffin shrugged. “We have never shared interests. At sea one soon realizes that titles and precedence don’t matter to a dying man.”
“I don’t suppose they do. But there is a great deal to be said for a fortune that is not built on theft.”
“All fortunes are built on theft of one sort or another.”
Phoebe didn’t seem to be the twitchy sort, but he had clearly made her nervous. She kept clasping and unclasping her hands. “We must talk,” she said finally.
“We are talking,” he said, just to be contrary.
The anger in her eyes woke her up and made her look less like a saint and more like a flesh-and-blood woman.
“Actually,” he drawled, “I think we should be doing more than talking.”
Her brows drew together.
“We are married,” he prompted.
“I know that.”
“Yet our marriage was not consummated.”
She rolled her eyes. “I was there. I remember. And the answer is no.”
Lord, there was something wildly freeing about being in company with a woman who hadn’t the slightest awareness of his fearsome reputation.
“You can’t blame a man for the sins of his youth,” he said piously.
“That’s got nothing to do with it.”
“Does your refusal have anything to do with the children’s father?”
“No!”
The relief he felt was well out of proportion to the situation. But it would have been damned awkward to return after fourteen years and f
ind one’s wife grieving for a dead lover. “Well, then, we’d better get about the business with expedience,” he said cheerfully.
“Sir Griffin,” his wife said, leaning toward him. Her eyes were dark blue, eyes a man could drown in. “You have not been away from England so long that you’ve forgotten your English. I do not want to consummate this marriage because I do not want to be in this marriage!”
Just in case he didn’t understand, she got up and took herself into the house without another word.
After a minute, a capable-looking housekeeper appeared, introduced herself, and escorted him to the master’s bedchamber.
It showed no signs of use. How long had that fellow been dead? Or perhaps she never brought him to the house.
It was all very interesting.
EIGHT
Phoebe fell into her bedchamber and leaned back against the closed door, her heart galloping. In a wilderness of Sundays, she never would have imagined something like this.
Griffin had changed so much. Not even a shadow of the shy boy she’d married remained. This man had an air of danger about him that made her feel like a rabbit in sight of a wolf: frozen, enticed.
When her father had first suggested the match with the future Viscount Moncrieff, Phoebe hadn’t demurred. She had always known that her father would find husbands from the nobility for herself and her sisters. He had the money, and he wanted the bloodlines.
Her primary feeling had been gratitude that he had chosen someone who wasn’t sixty, even though she would have preferred someone a bit older than herself, or at least her age. By the time the young baronet was finally old enough to marry, she had just celebrated her twentieth birthday, and felt sophisticated and worldly in comparison. She had been taller than her fiancé, and certainly weighed more.
But now, fourteen years later, their positions were reversed. He had become a man of the world, a man whose shoulders were twice the size of hers. And she was a country partridge who lived at home with her three children.
This was a disaster.
There had to be some way out of the marriage. There just had to be. He thought she was a loose woman. The idea sickened her. But what if she let him continue in that misapprehension? Surely he would not allow a love child to become the future viscount.