Lord of the Privateers (The Adventurers Quartet)

  She smiled radiantly and knew her heart was in her eyes.

  “What?” He was still frowning at her. “Did you think—”

  She kissed him. Held his face firmly between her palms, planted her lips on his, and kissed him with an intent and a determination that flowed from her soul.

  Enough of words; actions spoke louder.

  Tonight, she wanted to be in charge—to take the reins and show him all he meant to her. To ensure he understood she valued all he was—all and everything that came with his love, even his bouts of overbearing overprotectiveness.

  He, of course, had his own notion of who should script their play.

  The result was an intimate wrestling match the likes of which neither had indulged in before.

  Clothes flew, hands seized and grasped, palms caressed, and lips lingered hot and wet.

  They finally reached the bed—and she won by tripping him and toppling him backward onto the coverlet, then diving atop him and quickly scrambling to sit astride...

  Only to discover he’d sneakily led her on. That he’d plotted to be in this position all along, so he could see her and send his hands searing over every square inch of her skin, caressing, tantalizing, kneading. Possessing.

  She tried to cling to supremacy, to return the favor at least, but in this sphere, he knew her far too well; he reduced her to gasping, throbbing need—to that state where her wits had flown and her senses whirled to a giddy beat and her pulse thundered in her veins.

  Until passion roared, and desire raked her, and she sobbed with wanting.

  And there was only one source of relief.

  She rose up and, in one long gliding slide, took him in—and her world contracted to this. To him and her, joined physically and linked in every other way, together, naked on the fine sheets.

  Eyes closed, her fingers linked with his, she used his support to rise up, and then slide slowly down again, repetitively impaling herself on him. Desire flicked, whip-like, and she shuddered. She used her inner muscles to hold and caress him, and felt every muscle in his long body harden in response.

  She smiled. She kept her eyes closed, her fingers locked with his, and gave herself over to satisfying the demands of her body and his.

  To taking them both up—refusing to let him hold back and observe, but demanding and commanding that he journey with her. In that, she’d learned how to get her way—how to sinuously sway and tense just there, slow and hold, and compel.

  In the end, he surrendered, and they rode on together, both absorbed and caught, immersed in sensation, in the rhythmic, undulating slide of her body over and around his, only to pause here, then there, struck helpless by exquisite, excruciating pleasure, holding tight and still as they savored...until they breathed again and rode on.

  Up, ever upward. Letting the tension coil steadily tighter, higher, until they were moving rapidly, fluidly, their breaths coming in pants, their skins flushed, slick and burning, their bodies striving as one in their desperate race for the peak, for the completion that beckoned, just out of reach.

  The coil snapped, and they soared—high, higher—into the fire of their inner sun, a supernova of their senses.

  Ecstasy hit them and stole their breaths. Had them both arching and tightening, gripping and clinging in desperation.

  The rearing wave broke, roared over and into them. Filling them, easing them, flowing through them.

  They sank back to earth, to the mortal plane.

  To their thudding hearts, to the glory in their veins.

  With pleasure, bone-deep, wreathing their souls, they eased apart just enough to find the sheets and settle themselves in each other’s arms.

  She listened to the slowing thud of his heart. Sensed their mutual slide into oblivion.

  Before they slid over the edge into that most blissful of seas, she found strength enough to say clearly, “You can never lose me because I’ll never let you go.”

  His arms tightened about her. He raised his head and dropped a kiss on her forehead.

  As sleep stole across her mind, she heard him say, “You’re mine, and I’m yours. And nothing in this world will ever change that.”

  CHAPTER 17

  To describe the Cynster ball as an unrelenting crush would be a massive understatement.

  At eleven o’clock the following evening, Isobel stood beside Declan at the side of the huge ballroom and, over the intervening heads, watched the drama unfolding in the rear corner of the room.

  Edwina had just joined them. “I can’t see—tell me what’s happening!”

  “I’d just finished dancing with Harry Cynster,” Isobel explained, “and he was leading me from the floor when a large gentleman came up, bold as you please, and asked—no, that’s too weak a word—he demanded to be told where I’d got the necklace.”

  “And?” Leaning on Declan’s arm, Edwina stood on her toes and craned her neck to see, but was defeated.

  “I was so surprised that I stared at him—and before I’d collected my wits, he started to bluster and said the diamonds were his, that he knew where they came from, and there’d been some mistake, and if I didn’t hand them over then and there, he’d have me taken up...” Isobel shook her head. “He went on and on. It was the most idiotically blatant attempt to get the necklace. Harry and I could barely believe it. Then, to cap it all, when Harry asked him how the necklace could be his, the man—Harry later told me he was the Marquis of Risdale—realized he’d said too much. He swung around, intent on making off—but Dearne was there along with two of the others. They’d come up behind Risdale and had heard all he’d said. Risdale put his head down and tried to plow through them, but they caught him and held him—and now Devil Cynster’s there, and they’re trying to get Risdale out of the ballroom without too much fuss.”

  Declan said, “Wolverstone’s just walked up, along with Minerva. She’s talking rather severely to Risdale—it looks like she’s telling him to behave himself.”

  Edwina grinned. “I’m quite sure she is...oof!”

  Isobel and Declan looked around in alarm.

  Edwina was pressing a hand to the side of her belly and doing her best to wipe the grimace from her face.

  “What’s wrong?” Declan looked ready to panic.

  “It’s just a twinge.” When he didn’t look convinced, Edwina lowered her voice and said, “If you must know, your dratted offspring kicked me. Hard.”

  Declan didn’t look relieved. “Is that normal?”

  “Quite normal,” Isobel assured him. “But why don’t you take Edwina to those windows over there. It’ll be a touch quieter, and your offspring might settle again.”

  Edwina frowned. “We can’t leave you alone. You have to have two people with you at all times.”

  Isobel glanced around and spotted Letitia, Dearne’s wife, talking with Lady Clarice. “I’ll go and join the marchioness and Lady Clarice. The musicians are resting, but they’ll start up again soon, and my scheduled partners will find me. Who knows?” She edged toward the marchioness. “Our luck seems to be in. We might actually succeed in luring the last of the backers out tonight.”

  Declan glanced at Edwina.

  She met his gaze, then looked at Isobel uncertainly. “I would prefer to retreat to the window—it’ll be cooler over there. If you’re sure?”

  “Quite sure.” Isobel waved them away. “It’s a matter of...what? Five yards?” With a smile, she gave Edwina and Declan her back and slid into the crowd.

  Her gown tonight was fashioned from a rich, almost iridescent peacock silk, an intense blue-green hue that brought out the deeper shades in the blue fire of the necklace as it lay against her white skin. If anything, the diamonds made an even more striking display than they had two nights before.

  She smiled and nodded, easing past
shoulders clad in silk and superfine. It was much like tacking through a crowded harbor—this way, then that.

  She was still several yards short of her goal when a youthful dandy stepped into her path.

  “I say—are you Miss Carmichael?”

  She halted; the gentleman—given he was a guest, he had to be that—looked barely twenty. “Yes. I am.”

  “Capital! I told the butler I’d find you—he’s trying to be everywhere at once at the moment. But there’s a messenger in the foyer asking for you. Seems in quite a state—he said something about a search for some boy.”

  Boy? “Oh no.” Every other thought fled her head. Had Duncan somehow slipped past his grandparents? Iona was here, somewhere in the crowd. Was Duncan headed here, or would he make for the docks? Or...?

  Frantic panic unlike any she’d ever known clutched her throat and made it difficult to breathe. She swung toward the ballroom doors; they weren’t too far away. “The foyer, you said?” She sounded breathless.

  “Yes—at the bottom of the stairs. Here. Let me help you get through.” The young man didn’t presume to take her arm, but by walking beside her, he helped clear their path through the throng.

  They finally reached the ballroom doors. The area about the top of the stairs was crowded, but the young gentleman pointed to the entrance hall below. With a weak smile, she edged past various guests and, barely restraining herself from running, started down the stairs.

  The entrance hall was full of guests, both arriving and departing. The exchange of coats and cloaks, hats and canes, some being handed over, others retrieved, created a shifting morass of bodies. She halted on the landing and scanned the crowd, searching for one of Edwina’s footmen.

  The young dandy halted beside her. “He was over there... Ah! There he is.” Half crouching, he pointed out of the open door. “He’s waiting outside on the pavement.”

  Isobel picked up her skirts and, dispensing with caution, hurried down the stairs. She pushed through the people clogging the front hall and rushed onto the porch.

  “He’s over there.” The dandy pointed to the right.

  As often happened at major balls in Mayfair, a crowd of onlookers—maids, bootboys, footmen, and milliners’ and modistes’ apprentices—had gathered on either side of the red carpet to observe and ooh and aah at the guests’ clothes, jewelry, and hairstyles. Isobel saw several footmen who might be from Stanhope Street, but the night’s shadows were rendered blacker by the flares burning so brightly around the mansion’s entrance; she hurried down the steps and turned right.

  The dandy gripped her elbow and stepped close, pushing into the crowd, who glanced at them curiously but readily gave way, their gazes refastening on the open doorway at the top of the steps.

  “Just a trifle farther...”

  She registered the odd tension in the dandy’s voice. Her instincts flared. She halted—but the dandy pushed her on.

  He was stronger than she’d expected; she took several more steps before she locked her legs, wrenched her arm free, and, fury igniting, rounded on him.

  Black cloth fell over her head.

  In the same instant, her hands were caught and swiftly tied in front of her, even as she was jostled farther down the pavement, away from St. Ives House.

  The black material of the hood was impenetrable. She sensed two men, burly and strong, closing tight on either side, then the weight of a heavy cloak settled on her shoulders. She hauled in a breath—

  “If you value your son’s life, don’t scream,” one rough voice told her.

  She shut her lips. Stunned realization bloomed. They—whoever they were—had succeeded in getting her out of the house. Had any of her protectors seen her leave?

  The burly pair herded her on, but they were keeping to the pavement. Where was the dandy?

  Hell—this was Grosvenor Square, the heart of fashionable London. Where was everyone?

  Watching the distraction provided by the guests going in and out of St. Ives House.

  On the thought, the men, each of whom had grasped one of her arms, halted. Straining her ears, she heard the familiar rasp of a door latch, then the men were lifting her up—into a carriage. They bundled her inside. She was too tall to stand upright; she twisted and, with her legs tangling in her skirts and the cloak, collapsed inelegantly onto the seat—the one facing St. Ives House.

  Her knees brushed those of a man sitting opposite. He immediately—politely—moved his legs away.

  The door shut. She shifted and wriggled and managed to sit upright.

  “Good evening, Miss Carmichael. I regret the inconvenience, but if you value your life and wish to see your son again, you will remain still and answer my questions.” The voice was not merely cool but cold, utterly devoid of inflection. “I merely wish to speak with you away from that infernal crush and the oh-so-watchful eyes of your friends.” The man—a gentleman by his precise diction and choice of words—paused, then said, “Pray excuse me for a moment.”

  She waited, but he didn’t leave the carriage. Instead, he lowered the window and spoke to someone on the pavement. The dandy, she realized. She thought of lifting the hood enough to see, but the cloak was wrapped about her; it would take too long to free her hands of the folds, and the man would surely notice. She listened instead, but they used no names. Nevertheless, it was clear that the dandy had been paid to lure her out of the house.

  Chagrin coursed through her. She’d been playing the lure, but had been lured out instead.

  Surreptitiously, she tested the bindings about her hands, but they gave not at all. Foiled on that front, she started cataloging everything she could—all her senses could tell her. The man in the carriage was patently the one in charge—he had to be their sixth and last backer. He was, she judged, of middle years—probably much the same age as the other backers.

  The man dismissed the dandy. The window scraped as he raised it.

  She gathered her wits and, her bound hands in her lap, her limbs restricted by the heavy cloak, prepared to do verbal battle.

  “To reassure you, Miss Carmichael, we aren’t going anywhere. As I said, I merely wish to question you—oh, and to retrieve that lovely necklace, which, as it happens, belongs, at least in part, to me.”

  She heard him shift, sensed him leaning nearer. She locked her jaw and forced herself to remain still as she felt the edges of the hood shift.

  Then the man’s cold fingertips brushed her skin as he searched for the necklace’s catch; she suppressed a shiver.

  He found the catch, released it, and the weight of the fabulous necklace fell away.

  He sat back; she sensed he was holding the necklace up, admiring the stones in the weak light.

  They were still at the curb in Grosvenor Square. She had to admire his sangfroid.

  But surely she would have been missed by now. Her protectors would be searching.

  Royd would be furious and...he didn’t really grow frantic, except perhaps inside. Panic wasn’t something a man as experienced as he indulged in.

  He would come for her. She just needed to buy him, and the others, time.

  “Quite exquisite.” The man shifted on the seat; she imagined him tucking the necklace into his pocket. “Now, to our discussion. No matter the temptation, I most strongly advise you to leave that hood in place. That way, I won’t have to kill you once our conversation is over. However, in case you doubt the sincerity of that threat...”

  She heard the telltale click of a pistol being cocked, the sound loud in the enclosed space. She stopped breathing.

  The man leaned forward. Then she felt the end of the pistol’s barrel press gently between her breasts.

  “That’s where I’m aiming, and at this range, I can hardly miss.” His tone was still cold, but the cadence of his words verged on the conversational. He
drew back, and the pressure of the pistol barrel vanished.

  Her chest felt tight. She managed to draw in a shallow breath.

  “So, Miss Carmichael, please tell me from where you got the necklace. And don’t think to fob me off with some nonsense that you don’t know where it came from—you’re Iona Carmody’s granddaughter, and by all reports, your apple didn’t fall far from her tree. You know all the pertinent details, so if you please, share them with me—I want to hear all you know about these lovely blue diamonds.”

  She’d been thinking furiously about how best to stretch out their exchange. Her heart thudding, she hesitated just long enough to give the impression of consternation, then said, “All I know of the stones will make for a very long story. I could ramble for hours, but that won’t help either of us.” It was easier to manage men if they thought they were in charge. “Perhaps if you ask me what you wish to know, we might be done with this sooner, and you can let me go.”

  Silence greeted her suggestion, then she heard what she took to be a rather dry laugh.

  “I had heard you were a refreshing change from the usual gently bred miss.” He paused, then said, “Very well. Here’s my first question. What do you know of a gentleman by the name of Lord Peter Ross-Courtney?”

  She drew in a breath and prepared to tell all.

  * * *

  Finally!

  Inside the ballroom, Royd stood by one wall and, with Wolverstone by his side, watched the Marquis of Risdale, mute at last but still looking murderous, be led away by Trentham, Carstairs, and Hendon. A carriage with an escort was waiting by a rear door to whisk the marquis into Essex.

  Dismissing Risdale, Royd raised his gaze and looked around the room, searching for Isobel’s dark head...

  He forced himself to complete two visual circuits before he turned to Wolverstone. “Isobel—I can’t see her. I don’t think she’s here.”

  Wolverstone was already frowning; he’d been searching, too. “I can’t see her, either.” The words were clipped.