“To be honest, I’m surprised you’re doing so well without going into sugar planting,” Liam commented over the light supper they shared as the evening wore down. A late afternoon meal had been enjoyed in the common room of the inn when they had finished their shopping, but it wasn’t enough to sustain a growing boy through the night. Mindful of how a sailor ate and what was craved on shore, Brigid had picked up fresh fruit, bread and meat while they were out shopping.
Donny had taken his plate under his blanket on the floor, but Brigid chose to ignore that. Keeping him happy seemed preferable to interrupting adult conversations by making him sit with them when he had no interest. There would be time enough for behaving like an adult when he was older.
Ann gave her daughter an affectionate look. “It’s largely Brigid’s doing. I think she outdoes her father even when it comes to keenness of mind.”
“Some of the land is rented to people who wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford it,” Brigid explained. “The rest we use for growing food crops. Since so much food is imported and taxed heavily, we do quite well.”
“Clever.” Liam nodded approvingly. “But don’t you have trouble over being a woman doing business?”
“A bit, but I make do. Portraying myself as a moneyed widow makes things simpler than most of my alternatives. I think being Irish does me more damage than being a woman alone. Most Englishmen would sooner think I’m a runaway slave than a free woman.”
As she went back to eating, she mused on how Liam’s family and the ratkin colony he hailed from had arrived in the Caribbean. The surname Lynch could have come from English or Irish roots and his accent was no hint at all. Liam’s voice sounded like every possible English-speaking accent all garbled together at once. Most of the Irish in the Caribbean were either indentured servants at best or more usually full chattel slaves taken to work on sugar plantations in Barbados. It was how both of her parents had ended up in the West Indies and her father apparently had ties to the ratkin colony Liam had come from. The mixed race of the ratkin Mary hinted at her having similar origins as well. Had Liam’s family come from Barbados plantations? Was that how all of the ratkin had made it to the New World?
“And what’s the married name you use?”
Brigid glanced at Liam out of the corner of her eye before looking away. Her cheeks warmed. “Lynch. I thought it important for Donny to have as much of a link to his blood as possible.”
Liam said nothing and silence descended over the table. Brigid took a deep breath and let it out slowly, relieved to have had the subject dropped. The blessed respite didn’t last nearly long enough, however.
“But might it all be easier if you had a husband?”
The question made Brigid pause and look directly at Liam. His face was completely unreadable, much to her frustration. Where that question had come from, he was giving no hints. “In some ways,” she began carefully. “There would be quite a few people more willing to do business with my husband. The trouble would be that the business would then be my husband’s, since a married woman can’t own her own property or wages.”
It wasn’t that she thought Liam wasn’t aware of the custom and common law of coverture, under which any married woman was treated as the property of her husband. It was simply so ubiquitous that she doubted he had ever given it much thought. While a single woman or a widow could keep property and her own income, a married woman by definition had nothing that was solely her own. A husband and wife were seen as one person under the law and that person was solely the husband. Just as runaway slaves could be advertised for their return, so could a wife who left her husband.
Even once widowed, a woman did not regain control of her property. As it belonged to her husband, he could will it to whomever he liked and this was typically to a son. While a widow had a certain level of freedom that other women lacked, a false widow like Brigid had the greatest freedom of all.
Like most young women, she had dreamed about having a love match and setting up house with an adoring husband. Finding herself alone with a babe in her belly and a great deal of gold in her hand had changed her view of things, however. Her mother had suggested she find some man willing to overlook the child and marry her, but she had refused. Everything she had worked so hard to gain would have then been transferred to her husband, for him to squander or enjoy as he saw fit. Taking such a risk would be foolish without at least love to gain by it, and she couldn’t fathom finding love again after Liam.
She glanced at him, her cheeks turning red again as if he could have heard her thoughts. His brows were furrowed from her answer and he was watching her curiously.
After a moment, his hand moved toward hers. Rough fingertips gently traced over her knuckles, sending shivers down her spine. “Matters like this always are more complicated than I expect,” he said.
Brigid nodded slightly, but couldn’t find words to respond. She spared a brief look toward her mother, who was studiously avoiding looking at the both of them.
She took a deep breath, then gently pulled her hand free from his touch. “So. Where have you settled?”
“Ah, well, I haven’t, really.” Liam shrugged with a faint frown. “Mostly, I stay aboard my ship. I’ll go to an inn like this on occasion or I might stay with a friend for a bit. I never felt attached enough to any one spot to make a home there.”
That made her frown, drawing her brows together. “You could afford it, though, couldn’t you?”
“Aye, of course. I’ve invested carefully. It’s just that I’ve never really lived anywhere but on a ship since I was a lad. Making a home somewhere settled hasn’t come easy.”
He didn’t appear to be troubled by it at all, but his explanation made her heart ache for him all the same.
***
AFTER Liam left and her mother and son were asleep, Brigid still could not rest. She sat up by the window, writing in her journal about the day. Too much had happened and she found the majority of it unbelievable, and yet she knew she shouldn’t have been surprised by crossing paths with Liam again. It was quite possible they had been in the same port dozens of times over the years and simply not seen one another. Whether Donny consciously recognized it or not, he had likely found his father by scent. He had never met another ratkin before, but had a talent for finding anything else. Why would his own blood be any different?
With a sigh, Brigid set the journal down on the table and stood up. Clad only in her nightshirt, she crossed the room to quietly let herself out. What she was doing was absolute foolishness. Childish. Dangerous. It had been nearly four years and she was a mother now. Meanwhile, it was clear that Liam had moved on and taken up new lovers, even if he had somehow failed to tell his cook Brigid wasn’t really his wife.
Knowing the stupidity of what she was doing couldn’t stop her, though.
Liam had taken a room just across the hall from theirs, so that he could be close at hand for Donny. Now it made his temptation too powerful to ignore. She knocked quietly at the door.
From within the room, she could hear movement. A moment later, the door was pulled open and Liam stood there, stripped down to his breeches. The irritation in his eyes vanished as soon as they focused on Brigid.
“Everything all right, luv?”
“I couldn’t sleep.” She pressed herself through the gap of the door, then shut it behind herself. Looking at him half nude like that reminded her of the first night they had shared a bed at an inn. She had been worried at being alone with him like that, then paradoxically hurt that he hadn’t tried to take advantage of their privacy. She reached out and slid her hands against his bare chest. He hadn’t been a small man before, but the years had been kind to him as he had grown into the prime of life. The curves and valleys created by muscle silently begged for her touch and she had the perverse desire to trace every muscular line with her tongue. “Were you sleeping?”
His eyes were narrowed when she met them again, hunger burning through them. “Not yet, no. Had to pull
something on before I answered the door, though.”
That look gratified her to her very bones. He still wanted her every bit as much as she wanted him. Leaning in, her lips brushed his in a feather-soft touch. “I’d hate for you to have to stay dressed just on my account.”
She drew back again and—feeling wicked and slightly mad—brushed her nightshirt off of her shoulders to let it fall to the floor. Her heart stopped for a moment as he looked her over. Childbearing had left her with stretchmarks that had faded to white, but were still visible lines in her skin. Her hips had widened and she carried a little more weight than she had before. It wasn’t the body of a nineteen-year-old virgin any longer and when her heart began beating again it pounded in worry. Perhaps this had been a mistake. A stupid, delusional moment of ego had tricked her into thinking she could act as a seductress. He might have still wanted her, but had he wanted the current her or how she had looked the last time they saw one another?
One of his hands reached out to her and he brushed his fingertips gently along the curve of her jaw. “You could join me in bed, then.”
His fingers guided her to him before his lips covered her mouth. This one was no teasing brush. His lips stroked over hers with desperation, forcing them open so his tongue could plunder and claim her once again. One of his hands buried itself in her hair, the other cupping a breast. She moaned under the onslaught of his need, her own arms wrapping around him to keep him closer. His thumb was teasing circles around her nipple, reawakening desires she had left unquenched for far too long. As they kissed, she felt his body pushing her back until she was pinned between him and the wall. His arousal was pressing insistently against her hip as it strained against his breeches.
“Wait.” He broke the kiss, making her whimper. Before she could protest more, his lips pressed to hers briefly to silence her complaint. “How much time do you have?”
It took a moment for her to be able to process something that logical again. “My mother’s with Donny. They’re both asleep. I should be able to stay as long as I like.”
“Good.” Another soft kiss slid over her lips, making her sigh quietly. “Cor, how I’ve missed this,” he muttered, before ducking down her body. Both of his hands raised her breasts up like a pagan offering to the gods and he kissed over them before wrapping his lips around one desire-hardened nub to suck.
She cried out, her body tightening with need as heat rushed through her sex. Her hands moved to bury themselves in his hair and she nuzzled against his temple. Pressed to the wall as she was, she dared to hook one leg around his and hold him close to her, reveling in the feel of his skin on hers once again.
“You should have seen them just after Donny was born,” she teased breathlessly. “Each one was the size of my head.”
“I’m sorry I missed that.” He breathed against her breast, the air chilling her skin and making her gasp. “For so, so many reasons.”
One of his hands slid down her body to cup between her legs, making her groan quietly in appreciation. His middle finger traced between her outer lips, teasing against the slick petals hidden within them. While he was exploring her body, one of her arms loosened its grip around him to move between their bodies. She worked his breeches open with one hand, then reached inside. That he wasn’t wearing drawers beneath his breeches was no surprise, if he had only pulled them on quickly to answer the door. The instant feel of his shaft pressing into her hand made her lips curve with pleasure and she wrapped her fingers around him. He felt hot even in comparison to how feverish she was with need and he was more perfect than any mere memory could be. Her fingers slid along his length slowly, reminding herself of so many touches before. In the grand scheme of things, their time together had just been a blink of an eye, yet part of her always felt as though she was still there in those days. All it would take was waking up the right way, turning the right corner, and it would all continue without change.
His teeth scraped at one of her nipples, tugging lightly and winning another whimper from her. Then he abandoned that breast to move to the other, tantalizing it with slow strokes of his tongue that mirrored the explorations of his fingers between her thighs. Just when she thought she couldn’t handle any more of his lazy pace, his middle finger circled in around her clit and made her cry out, her head tipping back against the wall.
At that, Liam abandoned her breast to move up her body again, smothering any further sounds with a kiss. Her hand in his hair tightened its grip to hold him to the kiss as she parted her lips to his. His tongue immediately pressed into her mouth, tasting and stroking and awakening all of the need she had tried to forget. The hand that had been at her breast moved down her body, then behind her to grip her ass. He kneaded the soft curve as his other hand continued to tease her, making her writhe luxuriously between his body and the wall.
“Do you remember the first time we were together?” he breathed into the kiss.
She gave a small nod, her voice little more than a whisper. “I still dream about it.”
His hands moved to her hips to turn her around and she moved willingly, shivering in anticipation. When she faced the wall, he pressed himself to her back. One of his hands moved around her body, pressing low on her abdomen to make her tilt her hips back toward him. With little more warning than that, she felt him press into her. His hot, blunt head pressing between her folds made her sag against the wall, biting her bottom lip to try to stifle her moan. He moved slowly at first, pressing into her just a few inches to test her reaction. A few times over the years, she had pined for his touch again so badly that she had resorted to her own touch instead. Her fingers could never match the perfection of his shaft within her, or the way he used it.
Liam drew back from her slowly after that first press, then thrust forward and up, burying himself completely inside of her. She swore quietly under her breath, leaning back to meet his thrust. There was little pause before he had drawn away and then thrust again, then again. He quickly found a demanding pace, pounding into her with an almost violent need now that they had given into their hunger.
They had always been passionate together, but she couldn’t remember anything to compare to this. His movements were savage, his arms tight around her as he kissed over her shoulders, then nipped at her flesh with his teeth. If she hadn’t known better, she would have thought that he was the one suffering from four years of celibacy. Perhaps it was just more than physical need, she hoped. Perhaps it was the only way he could express his true feelings.
One of her hands reached back behind her to drag her fingers through his hair as she arched under his onslaught, moaning his name. His hands instantly left her body to snatch up her wrists, then slam them against the wall over her head. Once he had switched them both over to hold with one hand, the other hand slid to hold her hip. The feeling of helplessness in the face of him giving into such overpowering need sent shudders down her spine. She pressed her lips tightly together to muffle her whimpers, not wanting to awaken the entire inn. It might not have been such a terrible thing in the past, but her mother and son hadn’t been in another room then, either.
“Brigid,” he panted in her ear, before his lips trailed down the side of her neck, making her eyes roll beneath her lids.
“Please, Liam.” It was said in a soft exhalation, with little thought behind it but submission. She had no idea what it was that she was begging for; she simply knew that she had to beg him for it.
His lips brushed against her shoulder before he nuzzled her hair aside and then she felt his teeth at the back of her neck. They dug in there sharply, the sudden pain drawing her body tight until the tension snapped. As waves of pleasure washed over her, she rocked back to him frantically, struggling against his body even as she reveled in being so trapped. His thrusts shortened, barely pulling out of her before driving forward again. He jerked forward one last time to press deep inside of her, rocking himself there as he flooded her body. Quiet, masculine groans were muffled against the back of her nec
k as he bit down, the hand holding her wrists reflexively tightening.
They kept moving together a moment longer, trying to draw the moment out just a few more heartbeats, before exhaustion won out. Brigid slumped against the wall to catch her breath, hissing through her teeth when Liam released the biting hold on her. Both of his arms wrapped around her to hold her loosely and she sighed contentedly under his nuzzling.
“We should get married, luv.”
The words couldn’t have been more unexpected than if Liam had suddenly confessed to being the king of England. Brigid turned between him and the wall to look at his face, but saw no hint that he was making some incredibly inappropriate joke. “What?”
“Well, we have a son. We should do things proper and get married.”
She went silent again, waiting, but there was nothing more. No hint of romance or affection. Not even a few extra moments of holding one another with tender kisses. Just a simple declaration of the bald facts. She nudged him back from her, then pulled away from the wall without a word. While she pulled on her nightshirt, she could hear Liam moving behind her, then saw him in her peripheral vision as he closed up his breeches again.
“Do you not want to?” he asked. “Do you have other lovers, then?”
She turned slightly to give him a disgusted look. “No, I’ve never had any lover other than you.”
“Well, what’s the problem?”
“What’s the problem?” she echoed. “What do you think I’d have to gain by marrying you? All that would happen is that I’d lose things. All of my property, all of my freedom, every last bloody doubloon I own.”
He stood there in nothing but a his breeches, looking so beautiful and lost she wanted to scream. “But this morning you seemed upset about not being decent. This sets things right.”
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