He burst into laughter. She sounded like someone reassuring a merchant awaiting his imports that pirates were far and few between.
“You would be terribly bored here,” she insisted.
There was no doubt in his mind but that he would spend the rest of his days in this precise place. Unless Arbor House became too small for all the children he hoped they’d have. “Perhaps I will pay my father a visit now, as we are not far from Walford Court.”
He watched her eyes lighten and added, “But I will return home for dinner, if you wouldn’t mind holding the meal for me. Would it bother you if my father disowned me? I think there’s a reasonable chance that he will.”
“Not at all,” she said, before adding, “but it doesn’t matter what I think.”
“You are my wife. What you think matters.” Their eyes caught for a moment and he put everything in that look, telling her silently that there was no chance he would leave the marriage. Under any circumstances.
She swallowed, and he thought she probably understood.
“I am your husband, Phoebe,” he stated. “The marriage may not be a legal one yet, but it will become one tonight.”
“Why would you want me?” she whispered. “You . . . the children . . . I’m not a lady, Griffin. I’d make a wretched viscountess.”
He couldn’t help grinning. “Do you imagine I’ll be a suitable viscount? We can cause our scandals together. I would like children of my own blood, but I don’t mind that Colin will inherit my title. Frankly, inasmuch as your dowry brought my father’s estate back out of debt, you should have the right to choose its successor. And you did.”
“About the children—”
He put a finger over her lips before she could make whatever apology she had in mind. He didn’t want to hear about the children’s father, not now. The man was dead.
“I want you, Phoebe.” His voice had dropped to a husky key that spoke for itself.
She responded with a look of panic. Yet the ripple in her slender throat as she swallowed sent another slash of lust through him. He was in bad shape.
“My mother . . . I am . . .” A moment of silence. “All right.”
It felt as if she had accepted his marriage proposal again, not that there’d been a first one. Their marriage had been a business matter settled between their fathers, with talk of jointures and dowries and settlements.
This was a simple matter between a man and a woman.
“It’s a bad bargain for you,” he said, voicing what he was thinking. “I spent years on the wrong side of the law, I’m lame in one leg, and ferocious to boot. Scarred and tattooed.”
She looked him over. “I don’t care about your scars, but there is one thing that concerns me. I have no doubt but that you had something of a harem, Griffin. I will not tolerate it here. You’ll need to stay on the right side of the law, and out of other women’s beds.”
His smile threatened to burst out, but he reined it in. Damn, but she was a tough woman. It was thrilling. “There will never be another woman for me, Phoebe. Not even if I finally meet a woman named Poppy. And I don’t find theft interesting in itself.”
She nodded, and he held out his hand to bring her to her feet. It wasn’t that he hadn’t had women in the last fourteen years, because he certainly had. But not one of those women had moved him like Phoebe.
It must be some odd thing attached to a marriage license.
“Would you like me to go with you to visit your father? As a buffer, as it were?”
That was rather unexpected. “No need,” he said. “I imagine you have things to do here, with the children.” Clearly, she was nothing like his mother. He had been lucky to see the viscountess once a fortnight, if that. Not that he had missed her; how can one miss someone of whom one knows nothing?
“Nanny is more than capable of handling bedtime.”
“I’ll be home for supper,” he repeated.
He shifted his stance, and for once it wasn’t a response to pain. He was hard as rock, for no good reason other than that his wife was looking at him as if she were worried about him.
“Must we do that tonight?” she asked, swallowing again.
Griffin’s mind was filled with images of himself tumbling her onto the bed and tearing off floaty layers of clothing. But even as his mind offered a dozen reasons why he should take her with dispatch, like any self-respecting pirate, her eyes stopped him.
They were dark with strain. Of course she didn’t want to fall into bed with a burly stranger who strode into her house and declared himself her husband.
He could wait. They had a lifetime ahead of them.
He wanted to earn a place here, in this warm, happy house, full of illegitimate children, nursemaids, and one beautiful woman with a stubborn chin. Not to steal it, or force it.
He wanted that—her—more than he had ever wanted anything in his life.
NINE
Biddulph Barry, Viscount Moncrieff, lived in Walford Court, an hour or so from Phoebe’s house. It had been the country seat of the Barrys for generations, the place where Griffin grew up.
Sitting decorously in a carriage—because the very idea of slinging a leg over a horse made him feel faint—Griffin kept thinking about the fact that Phoebe didn’t know his father well. It sounded as if the viscount had not embraced his son’s wife.
He was unsurprised. His father was obsessed by the rituals and traditions of the nobility. It had undoubtedly nearly killed him to realize that he would either have to sell his son to a merchant’s daughter or lose the ancestral estate.
Unfortunately Griffin had lusted after a life in which titles had no meaning, where a man earned honor from use of his own strength and wit.
He and his father had spent his childhood at loggerheads. Consequently, he wasn’t all that bothered when he woke to find himself at sea, under the command of a disreputable scoundrel named Captain Dirk.
Piracy was a perfect revenge . . . an antidote to his father’s vainglorious love of the aristocracy.
In fact, he hadn’t even bothered to write to his father for years after he left England, not until James’s father, the old duke, died. That death had been a shock for both of them, but especially for James, who knew damn well that his father had died wondering whether his only son was dead or alive.
It gave a man to think. Griffin’s father knew he was alive because he had instructed his agent to reassure his family on a regular basis. And he had sent home gold as well. His father had been compelled to sell his son to a merchant; Griffin’s money ensured that his younger sisters did not have to suffer the same fate.
But when James ascended to the duchy in absentia, Griffin realized that perhaps he should be in closer touch with his father. So he had written him a letter, telling him bluntly that he had become a pirate, even though by then Griffin and James were de facto privateers. He didn’t see any reason to sugarcoat the truth.
His reception at Walford Court could not have been more different from his arrival at Arbor House.
His father had always aspired to a dukedom. Apparently he’d used Phoebe’s dowry to good effect; the estate now looked as if aping a dukedom was as good as owning one. No less than six footmen bowed as Griffin entered, not to mention the butler, who’d had another fourteen years to perfect his starched, sour look.
“Good afternoon, Mears,” Griffin said, handing over his greatcoat. “You’re holding up well.”
Mears was far too dignified to respond to a personal comment. Instead, he bent his head a glacial inch, giving Griffin a good look at the powdered top of his wig.
He must have heard about the piracy. Or he didn’t like the tattoo. Or he was just a wizened old bastard with a stick where none ought to be.
“Welcome to England, Sir Griffin,” Mears intoned. “On behalf of the household, may I extend our best wishes on the occa
sion of your return.”
He paused, but Griffin didn’t see any reason to exchange flummeries.
“His lordship is in the study,” Mears stated. “If you will wait in the drawing room, I will inquire whether Lord Moncrieff is available.” His eyes skittered to the tattoo and away again. Too bad Griffin had left Shark at Arbor House; Mears would likely faint at the sight of him.
Griffin considered pushing his way into the library to greet his father. But he was too old to cross swords with Mears.
He had only waited in the sitting room a moment or two before the door opened. He looked up, expecting to see the butler, but his father was on the threshold.
The viscount had grown older. Deep grooves ran along the sides of his mouth. His hair had turned silver. He still stood tall, shoulders squared, and he didn’t look frail.
But he was much older.
“Father,” Griffin said, inclining his head, uncertain what to do.
The viscount walked toward him without a word, his face showing no expression. But then he reached out and pulled Griffin into his arms. “My boy,” he said, his deep voice catching. “You came home. You finally came home.”
His arms were strong, and for a moment Griffin had a fleeting memory of being embraced like this before. But how could that be? He hardly remembered seeing his father, who was always in London, sitting in the House of Lords.
Griffin cleared his throat, feeling distinctly awkward. His right hand was clutching his cane, but he patted his father on the back with his left. “I’m here,” he said, trying for a cheerful tone. “Come home like a proverbial, piratical bad penny.”
When his father pulled away, Griffin discovered to his horror that Lord Moncrieff’s eyes shone with tears. “I thought I would never see you again,” he said, ignoring Griffin’s foray into weak humor. “I imagined you dead at sea, cut to pieces by strangers or drowning in a storm.”
“There were some thorny moments,” Griffin said, “but I’m back.”
His father touched the poppy tattoo. “The mark of your profession?”
“Of my ship. The Flying Poppy.” Griffin hesitated, then added, “I must sit down, Father.”
Lord Moncrieff sprang back. “You’re wounded. You lost a leg!”
Griffin’s smile was reluctant, thrown over his shoulder as he limped to the sofa. “My wife came to the same conclusion. But no, I managed to escape the fate of a wooden leg. I’m merely recovering from an injury.”
“If you lost a leg, I would expect you to replace it with solid gold,” his father said, sitting down opposite. “Mr. Pettigrew has given me biannual reports regarding your estate, as you instructed. It seems there’s a great deal of money to be made on the high seas.”
“Did he tell you that we have received royal pardons?”
“Actually, the Prince Regent did me the favor of forwarding that news himself.” His father’s smile spoke volumes. Griffin had thought his pardon was the result of a very large ruby, but it seemed that Viscount Moncrieff may have played a hand as well.
“I received several letters this morning indicating that the Duke of Ashbrook made a rather dramatic entrance into the House of Lords,” his father continued.
Griffin nodded. He was experiencing something close to vertigo. When he last stood on English soil, he was a youngster, forced to marry a merchant’s daughter whom he’d never seen in the flesh. He had been furious, rebellious, alienated from his father. Now that same father was revealing a dry sense of humor Griffin had certainly never known about.
Oh, brave new world.
“I want to offer my deep apologies, Son,” the viscount said now. “If I’d known how deeply you loathed the marriage, I wouldn’t have forced you to it. I was devastated when you fled the country.”
“I didn’t run away due to my marriage,” Griffin said.
His father wasn’t listening. “I thought about the match very carefully before I agreed to it. Your wife is from the merchant classes, true. But she was beautiful, docile, trained in every possible domestic art. I truly thought she would be an excellent spouse for you.”
Griffin nodded, opened his mouth again.
But his father barreled on. “Of course, now there are the children.”
Griffin would have thought that his father’s reaction to the idea of a cuckoo inheriting the title of Viscount Moncrieff would be near violence.
“I hadn’t kept up more than a remote acquaintance,” his father said, his eyes abjectly apologetic. “The children were presented as a fait accompli.”
“I understand,” Griffin said.
His father leaned forward. “I didn’t think you were ever coming back. How could I tell Lady Barry that her life would be childless? It would be cruel.”
“I understand,” Griffin repeated. But he didn’t. His father didn’t care that his own blood would not inherit the title?
The viscount had always trumpeted their ancient blood, the accomplishments of their long-dead ancestors. Griffin had come to loathe the very mention of the first Viscount Moncrieff, a repellant beast who had slavered at the feet of James the First. In Griffin’s opinion, he received the title of viscount as a direct payment for personal favors of an intimate nature.
His father had never liked that suggestion, though there was a bawdy letter upstairs from the king that confirmed Griffin’s impression.
“I must return home for supper,” he said abruptly. He felt a bit like a man who was addicted to drink. He wanted to go home and see Phoebe.
He wanted to talk her into changing her mind and going to bed with him immediately. Even if that didn’t happen tonight, he wanted to kiss her for the first time since their wedding.
His father’s face fell, wrinkles sagging into place. “Of course.”
“Come with me,” Griffin added hastily. “There are plenty of rooms in the house, from what I saw. Are any of my siblings home?”
“No, they live with their own families now. Your youngest sister married two years ago. They will be very happy to hear that you are home safe.”
Griffin rather doubted that, but he was willing to leave it an open question. The return of a pirate was unlikely to be seen as an unmixed blessing. Except, perhaps, by his perplexing father. “So you live here alone?”
At that, his father smiled. “I maintain a full household, as you surely saw. I’ve been working on a new bill that I’ll present to the House in the next session, so I have a proper component of secretaries as well.”
“Leave them,” Griffin suggested. “Let’s go to Arbor House and see what Phoebe has for dinner.”
“See what Phoebe has for dinner?” the viscount repeated blankly. It was obviously a more informal notion than he had ever considered.
Griffin heaved himself to his feet. He didn’t want to adhere to the foolish stiffness that governed the lives of the aristocracy, and he had a shrewd idea that Phoebe agreed with him. “I want to see her. She’s the only wife I’ve got, and I’ve known her for approximately one day. This afternoon I barely managed to talk her out of annulling the marriage.”
“That would be extremely difficult,” his father said, looking startled. “And ill-advised.”
“So come with me,” Griffin said. “I could use the help. I have no idea how to make polite conversation. We didn’t have any aboard the Flying Poppy, as you can imagine.”
“Actually, I can’t imagine,” his father said. He got up and pulled the bell cord. Mears popped through the door. The butler didn’t even bother to pretend that he hadn’t been hovering within earshot the whole time.
“Tell Crafts to put together a bag, if you please,” the viscount said. “I’ll be joining my son and daughter-in-law for supper this evening. I may stay the night.”
There was a strain of pleasure in his voice that made Griffin smile. When he considered a return to England, he had never
considered that he might find his father lonely, or happy to see him.
“Have my carriage brought around, if you please, Mears,” Griffin bellowed after the butler. The man’s back became visibly rigid, but he turned about and bowed silently.
“Just as if you never left,” the viscount remarked. “Poor old Mears. He has such passion for propriety; must you tease him?”
“Teasing implies affection. We share a mutual loathing.”
“Would you like to visit your old bedchamber? I kept everything just the same in case you returned.”
“Unfortunately, even looking at those stairs makes me sweat. I’m going to save my strength to totter to bed this evening.”
His father frowned. “What caused your injury?”
“A lucky bandit managed to slash James’s throat and my leg just before expiring. He was damn close to taking off my crown jewels. If that had happened, I wouldn’t have come home.”
“Then I’m glad to hear it didn’t.”
Griffin felt a surge of restlessness. He wanted to be wooing his wife, making sure she hadn’t changed her mind in his absence. “Let’s go.”
“Are you that eager to see Lady Barry?”
“Yes.”
His father’s eyes lightened. “I didn’t pick so terribly, did I?”
“No.” There was something raw and powerful in his admission that shocked. “No, you didn’t.”
TEN
Generally speaking, Phoebe ate her meals with the children. She saw no point in dining by herself, and it was much more congenial—if sometimes wearing, given Nanny McGillycuddy’s conversational style—to listen to the children’s chatter. She’d had enough of solitary dining in the first seven years of her marriage.
But Griffin had said he was returning home for supper. She would have a grown-up seated across from her at the dining room table, a rather fascinating idea.
She planned a menu with the cook—three courses instead of her usual two—and instructed the downstairs housemaid to set the table in the dining room. Then she ordered a bath and sat in it for a good forty minutes, trying to calm her mind.