by Edith Layton
After Magnus himself changed for dinner, he stopped in at the Beefsteak Club and cornered George FitzWilliams before he got too soused to make sense. This time Magnus didn’t drop his cup or trip over his own feet. But only because he was sitting with nothing in his hands.
When he finally left to go collect Cristabel and take her to dinner, he was himself again. But he was also more excited than he could ever remember being—or at least more excited than he’d been since the day that he’d first met her. He believed he had something incredible to tell her, and that it might even be true. And better yet, that it might change their lives for the better.
*
Cristabel wore thin, lime-colored satin and sheer eggshell lace, and the only warm thing about her was her cheeks, when she flushed thinking of Magnus. She didn’t powder her hair because it was so cold out, she was sure that when she took off her hood, it would snow down over her bare shoulders. She didn’t know how ladies of fashion did it, and tonight she didn’t care. He didn’t expect her to be a lady of fashion. She wasn’t sure just what he expected, but for tonight she told herself she didn’t care. Magnus was the first man she could safely dream of desiring. She was sure he was a gentleman, and no matter what he saw in her eyes, he’d always respect anything she said with her lips. She had only to mind herself and she’d be safe.
He hadn’t kissed her since that shattering first and last time. Of course, they hadn’t been alone since then, either. And tonight, she reassured herself, Martin and Sophia would be there too. Cristabel snatched up a fan, put on her cloak, and headed out the door and down the stair. No one else was there. She glanced up at the clock in the hall.
“Eight bells and no one’s here?” she muttered to herself.
But Magnus was due soon. She turned and raced up the stair again, heedless of the way the footmen stared. It would never do to seem to be waiting for him so anxiously, alone by the door. She tapped on Sophia’s door instead.
“The mistress isn’t feeling quite the thing,” Sophia’s maid said when she opened the door.
“What is the matter? Is there anything I can do?” Cristabel asked anxiously. “Is she very ill? I have some knowledge of herbs; it may be I can help.”
“Of course. I’d forgot. The pirate girl doesn’t know a thing about polite excuses; let her in,” Sophia called out in a tired voice.
The maid stepped aside, and seeing her mistress wave a languid hand, left the room. Cristabel stepped in to see that Sophia was dressed, formally and beautifully, from her satin shoes to her little powdered head.
“Oh, I see, a joke,” Cristabel said in relief. “Well, even though it wasn’t funny, I’m glad. I thought you were really sick and I got worried.”
“Indeed?” Sophia said in a cold voice. “Then spare yourself. Of that, at least. No, I’m not sick of anything—but you, my dear unwanted guest.”
Cristabel stared.
“Here’s the truth with no sugar on it,” Sophia said, “since I doubt it matters anymore. Martin has broken with Magnus, and now there’s no need for me to pretend to like what he laid on our doorstep—especially since you’re the reason for that break. Couldn’t you have kept it to yourself? I suppose not, I suppose something such as yourself has no idea of discretion. Martin’s right, it’s not your fault, precisely. I ought to have known. Martin and I had a good arrangement worked out betwixt us; it was none of Magnus’s business, but he makes all our lives his business,” she said bitterly.
“So be it. I’m not married to Magnus, thank the Lord. Martin and I will get on without him. So fly to Magnus’s arms tonight by yourself. I wouldn’t go to the door for him now. Martin feels responsible for you, so stay on here if you wish, but expect nothing but houseroom from me from now on.”
She unfurled her fan and posed for a moment in the mirror, smiling at the effect. Then she glanced at Cristabel. There was no mistaking the loathing in her eyes. “I’m off to the theater and an assembly. I doubt I’ll see you there. Good night,” she said, and turned her slender back on Cristabel.
Cristabel fled to her room, and looked around in wild surmise. There was nothing to pack. She’d been living neatly from her sea chests, for a sailor’s daughter knew the need for a tidy life. And not being sure of her welcome, she’d never settled in for a long stay. There was nothing to do but decide on a destination now—and fast. She couldn’t face Magnus tonight any more than Sophia could.
She knew he could solve all her problems. She knew he’d settle things comfortably for her. Too comfortably. She also knew that she was more susceptible than she’d ever been in her life tonight, and was more vulnerable to a man of decision and power like Magnus than she had any right to be. How easy it would be to say yes to him now, when she was lost and hurting. And how much harder to bear the inevitable loss of his interest and care. It would weaken her forever, because once she’d ceded responsibility for her life to someone, she wasn’t sure she could ever steer her own course again.
As she stood and dithered, she heard a light tapping on her door.
“Tell the viscount I’m—I’m indisposed,” she blurted when she saw the servant standing there.
“’Tisn’t the viscount, miss,” the flustered footman said. “I’ve a note for you, mistress.”
Cristabel snatched up the note and shut the door quickly. She uncurled the paper and read it once, and then over again, both because it was so badly written and misspelled, and because she wanted to delay considering an answer. She closed her hand hard over the note. As a sailor’s daughter, she believed in omens and portents; she believed she could read them as clearly as she could predict the weather from gathering clouds and shifting winds.
She took a deep breath and then picked up her skirt and hoop and checked the dagger and scabbard she always had tied high on her hip. Dropping the skirt so fast the hoop bounced, she then ran one hand into the bosom of her gown and fingered the tiny dirk she always hid there. Then she ran to her trunk and plucked up a small pistol and shoved it into her ermine muff. Only then did she gather up her cloak, race from her room, and fly down the stairs. A glimpse at the clock in the hall showed her she had only minutes to spare.
“Get me a sedan chair,” she ordered the footman, “an’ best make it quick, laddie.”
*
The tavern was in a twisting side alley near the muddiest bank of the Thames, and it was so dark and disreputable that the sedan men hesitated to go down the street that led to it. But their passenger assured them there would be no pay if they didn’t. Finally deciding that running for their lives with pay in their pockets was a better choice than simply trying to escape with their lives alone, they sighed and delivered the lady to the weatherwom door of the Skull and Bones tavern. And then were gone into the night a second after she dropped their coins into their shaking hands.
Cristabel had seen worse taverns. At least this one had all four of its stained walls, and a roof. Without flinching, she opened the door and tried to peer inside. She coughed as she squinted through the thick smoke generated by the peaty fire in the wide hearth, complicated by fumes of tobacco, rum, gin, and unwashed bodies. It was dank and dark and smelly inside, but in many ways Cristabel felt more comfortable here than she had at the grand assembly she’d been to the week before. At least she knew what to expect here. Her knife was in her hand as she swaggered in through the doorway.
A sudden silence greeted her: All the masculine guffawing, shouting, and cursing stopped, a trill of women’s laughter cut off in midscreech. The patrons of the tavern, ill-assorted seamen and dockworkers, mud larks, prostitutes, and petty criminals, were used to many strange and exotic sights. But not that of a fine lady, and a magnificently beautiful one at that, dressed in a gown so wide, she had to edge sideways through the door of one of the lowest taverns in London town. Others simply gaped because they’d never seen a real lady so close before.
Cristabel remembered how she was dressed a second too late. Her hand grew slippery on her knife’s hilt. S
he almost slashed out at the figure who loomed up out of the murk to stand at her side.
“Avast! Lay down your weapon, Crissie!” Black Jack cried, dancing back a step, his hands high in the air, as though he were doing a jig.
“Black Jack!” she said in relief, sheathing her knife. “Lucky for you your tongue’s faster than my hand. I read your note and came right away. What’s this about you being in trouble and needing me? For in truth, Jack,” she said, her eyes searching his familiar face, “I think I need you more than you could ever need me now, old friend.”
“That’s lovely,” he said happily, as he took her hand in his and pushed past the gaping audience they’d attracted. “Just perfect,” he said as he cleared a path to the meager private parlor the Skull and Bones provided. “Because,” he said with a flourish of a bow as he closed the door and locked it behind them, “behold! Your kidnapper awaits your every command, me lady.”
“What?” Cristabel said, stopping and staring at him, since the room was empty except for themselves.
“You’ve not got a thing to worry about no more, no more vexatious decisions to be making to trouble your pretty head. It’s all out of your pretty hands now. Because I’m kidnapping you, me darling,” Black Jack said with a grin, “and not a moment too soon, by the looks of your face.”
“You’re mad, man,” Cristabel said in disgust. “Vexed I may be, but I’m not leaving England, and never with you, my friend. Not that you’re not bonny, mind, nor fun, in your way. But you’re not for me, Jack. I be—I am an Englishwoman now, even if some persons don’t think me a lady,” she said with glittering eyes. “England is where my future is.”
“With the big man?” Black Jack asked, and saw her face blanch. “Aye, I thought not. You’re pretty enough for his bed, but not for his name; that be the way of all grand gents, luv, and—”
“Stow it!” Cristabel shouted. “He wants to marry me, if you must know. ’Tis I who won’t have him. A fine thing, a match betwixt a fine lord and Captain Whiskey’s daughter! I know what he’d suffer if that came to pass, even if he don’t. Ah, but he’s not thinking, he’s reacting, is what the problem be. Suffice it to say, Jack, the man’s not for me. But this country is.”
“This cold, nose-in-the-air town? At least at home the beggars stay warm. You’re just upset, lass. You’ve been turned round one too many times. I’m making it easier for you. I’ve got a place in Tortuga all set for us—all white wood, with a courtyard full of hibiscus, and it sets on a point overlooking the sea. You can have as many servants at your beck and call as any grand lady in this cold town does, and more: horses, dogs, and a goat besides. Ah, we’ll live high, lass, don’t you fear.”
“We will not,” Cristabel said.
“Ah, sure we will. We’ll marry, lass; I’ll not have you else. And I’ll be having you, never fear. You may not think it now, but ’is a long voyage from here to there, and by the time we make land, you’ll be thanking me, that, I promise you.” He flashed her a white-toothed smile, and inflated his chest.
“Only one of us will get there alive, Jack; that, I promise you. Listen, and hear me well: I won’t be taken by pirate means. Oh, you could, no doubt, but it won’t avail you. Take me by force, and you’ll have nothing but hate from me, from now to forevermore.”
“Lasses like fire in a man, though their lips say they want a milksop,” he said, angling closer to her, smiling all the while.
“I’m not a pirate lass, Jack; I’d never forgive it,” she said flatly.
He laughed and reached a hand to her, only to leap back as though stung by a bee, although she only let her knife nip at his shoulder. The bite of it made a tiny pock in his white shirt, and a small wound, so small the blood was slow to well up there. Still, he looked down at his shoulder, frowning fiercely. She paused and craned her head to see if she’d done more damage than she thought. As she leaned forward, so did he. Before she could withdraw, she felt his hand on her wrist. He gave it a quick twist, using only enough strength to make the knife clatter to the floor.
“See? You do care,” he cried exultantly, reaching for her, “otherwise you’d have skewered me without a thought.”
He danced back when he saw what she drew from her bodice. It was a little dirk, but needle-sharp. She was the one to smile then, but not for long. He snaked out a hand and clasped her at the wrist; twist and turn as she tried, she couldn’t get the point of her tiny dirk to reach his flesh.
“Give it up, luv,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you, but you see ’tis futile.”
She dropped the dirk.
“Now, it don’t have to be by force, luv. It won’t be,” he vowed. “I’ll be making it a pleasure for you to agree.”
He clasped her to him. She smelled rum and gin, the salt smell of brine, and a dark note of male sweat mixed with the sweet bay rum in his hair. It was the familiar scent of all the males of her childhood. His body was hard and warm against hers. She closed her eyes, and heard him chuckle low in his throat as he stared down at how her low, square neckline showed off her high breasts, lust and tender triumph in his eyes—suddenly replaced by sheer astonishment.
“God’s blood, Cristabel!” he cursed, “Where did that come from?” he shouted, so close to her ear, she winced.
“Ye be too busy eyeing the goods, Jack,” she said. “Ye should have had a better ogle at the wrappings they was in first. I had it in me muff, Jack, and it be primed and loaded, never fear.” She pressed the small pistol harder into his chest to emphasize the point. “Now, it ain’t the thing for dueling, but this close, it be good enough to do the job, and well ye know it. I’ll do it, don’t doubt me. So. I’d hate to get yer blood on me nice new gown, so step back slow and easy, laddie, slow and easy.”
He hesitated, because he was loath to release what he finally held in his arms. He had her close in a lovers’ embrace. Though she pulled the other way, their straining bodies were separated only by the length of the barrel of her pistol. He weighed his options. He looked down to see her cloak parted to reveal how well her fashionable gown showed off her lovely body. But when he looked up and saw what was revealed in her eyes, he sighed. And then slowly nodded.
But before he could take so much as a step away, there was a loud thump at the door and then another louder one. And then a crash. The door flew open. Both Black Jack and Cristabel froze in place and turned their heads to see who was there.
“A thousand pardons. I’d no idea I was interrupting,” Magnus said in a light voice, although his face was grim and cold. “Is this some sort of pirate mating ritual?”
He stood in the doorway, breathing heavily, one hand fisted, the other holding his sword. He stared at Cristabel with such an expression of cold disgust that she felt sick. Until he saw the pistol. Then his eyes widened and he stepped forward—but not as fast as Black Jack did. He seized the pistol from Cristabel’s numb hand.
“Tsk!” Black Jack said as he inspected the small, silver-handled pistol. “A lady’s weapon. Who would have thought it of you, Crissie?”
She whipped her cape closed tight around her and glared at him.
“Crissie, is it?” Magnus echoed, watching them closely. “I see. Or do I? Would either of you care to explain?” He ran a hand through his hair. That was when Cristabel noticed his soft brown hair was disheveled, half out of its ribbon. His coat was open, and she could see how his labored breath caused his big chest to rise and fall rapidly. It was the first time she’d seen him untidy, and she realized he must have been running hard.
“I came to take Mistress Stew to dinner,” Magnus told Black Jack, “and found her gone without a word, and by herself—not a happy circumstance for a young woman at night in London, you’ll agree. Fortunately, one of the footmen heard where she told the sedan men to take her, although he didn’t believe his ears. And no wonder. Is the food that much better here?” he asked Cristabel with heavy sarcasm. “I wish you’d have left word. I could have come here at a more leisurely pace; I really
didn’t need to tear through town like a madman to build up my appetite. Or would you rather dine with Master Kelly alone? Then I wish you’d have told me that, too, because I hate to impose.”
“That, you do not!” Cristabel said, her temper flaring. “And it’s not true neither! Black Jack here, he—he—” She faltered, looking from one man to the other. They watched each other, tense and taut as a pair of angry tomcats. She hesitated, realizing that if she told Magnus the truth, the two men would probably fight, and she didn’t think she could bear to see it.
“Master Kelly here, he was after kidnapping the lass, m’lord,” Black Jack said, weighing the little pistol in his hand. “She’s here tonight ’cause I sent a note telling her I was in trouble and needed her. Well, so I do, but not in the way she thought. Being a good friend, she come. Then I told her I was taking her home with me, and she…ah…protested. First with a dagger, then with a little dirk, and then with this here cannon. Was there ever a girl like her, I ask you?” he said with admiration, smiling at Cristabel tenderly.
“So put down your sword, m’lord,” Black Jack went on, “’cause I ain’t fool enough to fight a battle I already lost. Though mark me well, ’tis only she that could prevent me. When you come to your senses, luv,” he told Cristabel as he handed back her pistol, “I’ll be here waiting for you. I’m not sailing until the matter’s resolved, y’see.”
“Then I suggest you begin to pack, because that may be sooner than you think,” Magnus said with pleasure. “I’ve some news for you,” he told Cristabel with barely suppressed excitement lighting his eyes, “but it can wait until we’re alone.”
He bent and scooped up the dagger and the little dirk he saw on the floor. When Cristabel was done slipping the pistol back into her muff, she raised her eyes to see Magnus offering the weapons to her. “Your cutlery, ma’am?” he asked sweetly. He grinned at the way her color rose as she took them and slid them into her cloak pocket.
“And now,” he said, offering her his arm, “to dinner?”