Marry in Secret

by Anne Gracie

  “Yes, now that the war’s well behind us we’re getting good French brandy again—legally.” Thomas didn’t drink very much these days, had lost the taste for it, but a good, well-stocked cellar was a necessary part of any gentleman’s house.

  “I heard you found the last seaman’s wife. Good timing that,” Ollie said. Jemmy Pendell’s wife and little daughter had been found at last.

  “Yes, the confusion was because the address was Newport, and we didn’t know which Newport it was, there being several towns called Newport in the kingdom.”

  “That would explain it. Wouldn’t say no to a top-up.” Ollie held out his glass.

  “It was the Newport in Gloucestershire we wanted.”

  “Ah. Well, now that’s done, and you’re all settled in here, you can relax and enjoy the ball.”

  “Mm.” Thomas grimaced. He wasn’t looking forward to the ball. Large noisy gatherings never used to bother him, but these days he found them rather . . . unsettling.

  A little clock on the mantel chimed the hour and Thomas gave a start. “Blast! Rose will be here any minute and I forgot to explain about the color of her dress. If she mentions it to you, just tell her I forgot to tell you.”

  Ollie frowned. “Forgot to tell me what?”

  “The color of her ball dress.”

  “Why the devil should you have told me that?”

  “Because I told her you wanted to know.”

  Ollie’s eyes almost popped. “You told your wife that I wanted to know what color her ball dress was going to be? Have you got rats in your attic? Why the devil would I want to know that?”

  “I don’t know. I just told her you did.”

  “Why?”

  “It was all I could think of at the time.”

  “You know what?” Ollie said after a solemn consideration of the facts. “Either you really have got rats in the attic, or you’ve been hitting too much of this very fine brandy.”

  Before Thomas could explain this aberration, the front door opened and a carnival arrived—at least that was what it sounded like. The entire Rutherford family, including aunts, husbands and dog—as well as a handful of footmen and maids from Ashendon House—swept in like a flood, bearing flowers, food, more champagne and gifts.

  And just like that, it turned into a party. Thomas could see his afternoon in bed with his wife slipping away. Then he realized he would have the whole night with her, their first ever, and cheered up.

  Once the initial excitement had calmed and while the women were off examining every nook and cranny, Ashendon drew Thomas aside. “That marzipan was poisoned, all right.”

  The doctor had said the same when Thomas spoke to him. “What kind of poison?”

  Ashendon’s lips tightened. “It’s not clear. But that lad is lucky to be alive. If he’d only eaten a few pieces, he wouldn’t have thrown up and the poison would have entered his system. As it is, he must have vomited most of it out.”

  “So his greed saved him,” Thomas said. “And not just him—if he’d taken the box home to share, his whole family could be dead.” It was a sobering thought. “Any luck tracing the box and the card?”

  Ashendon shook his head. “The marzipan is from a known confectioner—there is a small symbol imprinted on the underside of the box that we were able to identify and trace—but the shopkeeper has no recollection of who bought it, and the card is not one of theirs.”

  “So we still have no idea, then.”

  “No.”

  * * *

  * * *

  “Our first party. Wasn’t it charming?”

  “Very.” Their last guest had just left. It was Ollie; Thomas practically had to push him out the door.

  “All these flowers, and the baskets of fruit. Don’t you love fresh fruit?”

  “I do indeed.” The day was over, the house smelled of fresh flowers and Thomas was finally alone with his wife. He reached for her. Smiling, she danced out of reach.

  Rose in a happy mood was irresistible. He was feeling rather mellow himself after a brandy, a couple of glasses of wine and some delicious food. His digestion was returning to normal—huzzah!

  “Would you wait down here for a while, please, Thomas?” Her smile was bewitching. She clearly had something planned. “Come up in fifteen minutes.”

  Why not? They had the whole night ahead of them. He poured himself another brandy and settled down to watch the clock. Fifteen minutes later he climbed the stairs and knocked.

  “Come in.”

  Their bedroom was a bower of flowers and light—there were vases of flowers and glowing candles everywhere.

  “Makes a change from groping around in the dark, doesn’t it?” Rose said. He turned to tell her he’d enjoyed groping her in the dark. And his throat dried.

  She was wearing the flimsiest, frothiest, almost transparent scrap of white lace and dark red netting. He stared, unable to summon a thought or a word. The blood had rushed from his brain to his groin.

  She seemed rather pleased with his reaction. “Like it?” She twirled around. “Delightfully improper, don’t you think?”

  His throat produced some sort of noise.

  She giggled. “My dressmaker, Miss Chance, made it.”

  He finally found his voice. “She forgot to add the dress.”

  She giggled again. “Do you object to my choice of attire, sir?”

  “I most emphatically do not.” He flung off his coat and prowled toward her.

  Laughing, she skipped to the other side of the bed. “Good, because I have two more of these outfits. You’ll see them eventually. But not tonight.”

  Which was a good thing because Thomas had no patience for a fashion showing, not right now, no matter how charmingly revealing they might be. He was ready for action.

  He unbuttoned his waistcoat and tossed it aside. “It’s ‘an outfit,’ is it? I would have thought it was more like a handkerchief.”

  She picked up a pillow and smoothed it into place. He had no idea why. The pillows would all be messed up the minute they hit the bed. She held one of them in front of her and plumped it slowly, eyeing him provocatively over the top of it. Ah, that was why.

  He lunged toward her.

  She threw the pillow at him and, giggling, scrambled across the bed, giving him a sight of naked pink buttocks framed in gauzy burgundy froth. It forced a groan from him. He dragged his shirt over his head, yanked off his breeches and boots and dived toward her.

  He caught her and they went rolling across the bed. “So, wench, you would defy me.” Apparently he’d become a medieval warrior.

  “I would, sirrah. You are a brute and a cad and a varlet!”

  He frowned. “Do you know what a varlet is, wench?”

  She paused, sitting atop him, clad in a whisper of nothing, and chewed her lip in a way that had him groaning again. “No, actually, come to think of it, I don’t. What is a varlet?”

  “A very small var,” he said, and rolled over, capturing her beneath him. “Now I have you.” Medieval Thomas was back.

  Smiling, she pulled his head down to lavish luscious, unhurried kisses on him. The taste, the scent and feel of her filled his senses. Medieval Thomas melted away.

  They made love then, with much murmuring and laughter and tenderness. Leaving that flimsy excuse for a nightgown on her, he caressed her through the gauze and lace; a different kind of textural arousal that left her purring and eager.

  She reached for him, sure and confident, smiling with catlike satisfaction when she felt his heat, his hardness, his readiness. She explored his length, squeezing, stroking, driving him to the brink.

  “Now, Thomas.” He entered her slowly, smoothly and felt her thighs lock around him. They had all the time in the world and he wanted to make it last, but she was eager and demanding and his body took over.

&nb
sp; Power and intensity roared through him, and she arched and shuddered around him as he took them over the edge together. And collapsed.

  In silence he gathered her to him, and in silence they lay, entwined. His heart was full to bursting. He had no words.

  All those years, dreaming of Rose, imagining coming home to her . . . He hadn’t known the half of it.

  * * *

  * * *

  Burning . . . he was burning up. The sun, the pitiless sun. Sweat poured from him, dried as soon as it appeared. No wind. And the stench, the endless, choking stench. Men rotting in their own filth.

  They said you got used to it, stopped noticing it after a while. But he never would. Never could.

  His throat was raw. Dry as bark. So hard to swallow. The water bucket . . . When would it come around?

  Two rows in front the Swede was mumbling, raving in his insanity. The whip kept him rowing. For now. Much more of the madness and they’d throw him to the sharks. Insanity was a disease on the galleys; infectious, unsettling. Fatal.

  The man beside him rowed like a grim automaton, a skeleton thinly wrapped in tanned leather, every bone showing, his back a network of silvery scars. He hadn’t spoken a word in months. A Frenchman; they’d been enemies once. Here countries didn’t exist. Were they still at war? Thomas didn’t know.

  Above him the captain called down to him. “Hey, Englishman, changed your mind yet?” Thomas looked up. The rhythm of his rowing never faltered. He knew better than to stop or even slow.

  The captain drank a long draft of water, letting it spill down his neck and chest. Thomas’s dry throat convulsed. The captain grinned knowingly. “Say the word, Englishman, and you could be up here now, drinking as much water as you wanted.”

  Come and be his navigator, he meant. Hunt down blameless ships, maybe even English ships. Join him in murder, and plunder, and rape . . .

  “Thank you, no, Captain. I am content here.” He returned his gaze to the bony spine of the man in front of him and rowed grimly on. He didn’t know the man’s name but he knew every bump on the man’s spine. And every scar on his back.

  “You’re a fool.” The captain poured the rest of the water out on the deck. The men nearest him licked at the escaping droplets in desperation. And received a kick in the face for their trouble.

  Don’t even think about it. If he took up the captain’s offer, he’d lose his soul, lose his humanity. As a slave it was only his body they could torment . . .

  “A sail!” the shout came.

  An English ship? French? Spanish? American? He couldn’t see. Not that nationality mattered to the pirates. Or the slaves.

  “Faster!” The beat increased. His muscles screamed. “Faster!” The lash of the whip snaked across his back. “Faster!” Closing in on the target ship now. Hounds baying for blood. “Faster! Faster!”

  “Thomas!”

  He jerked upright. Faster! Faster!

  “Thomas, wake up.” Soft, fragrant arms closed around him. “You’re having a dream.”

  He blinked stupidly, his heart racing. Disgust and dread and rage still clogged his throat.

  Cool, gentle hands smoothed his damp hair back from his forehead. “It’s all right, Thomas, it was just a dream. You’re home now, safe.”

  Safe. The room smelled of flowers. And faintly of lovemaking. Home. The last few candles were guttering, a whisper of acrid smoke signaling their final passing.

  His pulse slowed. He pulled her against him, breathing in her clean, sweet-smelling goodness.

  “Sorry,” he began.

  “Don’t apologize,” she said softly. “Everyone dreams.”

  Not like Thomas, they didn’t.

  “Do you want to tell me what it was about? It can help, sometimes, I know.”

  “No!” He almost shouted it. God no. To bring that evil place into this . . . haven? He moderated his tone. “No.”

  “Then lie down now and go back to sleep. And try not to think about anything except being here, safe, with me.” She pulled him down on the pillows beside her and drew his head to her breast. He lay in silence as Rose held him and caressed him. Slowly the dream faded, and with it the sense of filth and unworthiness and desperation.

  Thomas slept.

  * * *

  * * *

  The effects of the dream might have passed in the night but the memory of it hung over Thomas in the morning. As soon as he woke, he slipped out of bed and went downstairs, naked—they had no servants as yet—and scrubbed himself from head to toe in the secluded backyard, rinsing off in cold water from the pump.

  It was irrational, he knew, but he needed to clean away the stench of memory along with the sense of filth, and unworthiness.

  Tipping a last bucket of cold water over himself, he shook his head clear, like a dog shaking off water, and found Rose leaning against the doorpost, watching him. She was wearing slightly more than last night, but not much—another confection of lace and gauze designed to go over the original tiny scrap. Or maybe the word was with rather than over, for it hardly hid anything. He was already aroused—despite the cold water.

  “I hope you won’t be wearing that in front of the servants,” he said.

  She tilted her head and eyed him cheekily. “I won’t go wearing this in front of the manservants if you promise not to walk around like that in front of the maids.”

  He glanced down, and she laughed and tossed him a towel.

  “I wish now I hadn’t asked Kirk to collect us here this morning,” she said. “He’ll be here at eight, and we don’t have time to do anything but dress, I’m afraid.”

  They went upstairs to dress. “I’m sorry about waking you last night,” he said as he sorted out the clothes he’d tossed down so carelessly the previous evening.

  “Thomas, darling, dreams happen. You can’t help them.” She slipped her chemise on over her head and fastened the drawstring. “Do you have dreams like that often? Bad ones, I mean.”

  He forced a smile and lied. “No, mostly I dream of you.”

  She wasn’t fooled. “I’m serious, Thomas, how often do you have nightmares?”

  He pulled on his breeches. “Don’t worry, I’ll sleep in the other room.”

  She frowned. “You’ll do nothing of the sort.”

  “I don’t want to disturb you.”

  “It’ll disturb me far more if you sleep in the other room.” She stepped into the skirt of her riding habit and fastened it. “How often do you have bad dreams?”

  He lifted a weary shoulder. “Often enough.” He stamped his feet into his boots.

  “Are they coming more often or less often since you arrived home?”

  He thought about it. He hadn’t had one for a few days. On the fishing boats, and when he first arrived in England, sleeping on Ollie’s chaise longue, he’d been jerked out of sleep a couple of times a night, enmeshed in some frightful dream.

  She could call them nightmares, but the things that came to him in the night had happened, they’d actually happened. Not so much dreams but haunting memories.

  But come to think of it, in the last week or so they’d occurred less frequently.

  “They come and go,” he said evasively. “No pattern that I can see.” Another lie. He knew full well what had brought on last night’s little horror. He’d booked his passage. He was going back there.

  “Perhaps if we look for a pattern we might find a way to make them come less often. It might be something you ate, for instance. You ate more than usual last night.”

  “It wasn’t anything I ate.”

  “It’s worth trying, though, isn’t it?” She did up the buttons of her tightly fitted jacket, then pulled a brush through her hair. Effortless beauty at this time of the morning.

  “What if they don’t go away? What if they keep coming?”

  She sh
rugged. “Then we learn to live with it.” She gave him a stern look. “But you don’t apologize for them, and you don’t sleep in another room, is that understood?” She slipped her arms around him. “We’re in this together, Thomas.”

  Thomas squeezed her tightly. The optimism of the ignorant. No point in arguing.

  “Now hurry up. Kirk will be here any minute. I did say, didn’t I, that he’s bringing a mount for you?”

  “No, you didn’t.” He dragged his shirt over his head, tucked it in, buttoned his waistcoat, and shrugged himself into his coat. It seemed to have a few wrinkles. Lying on the floor all night would do that, he supposed. Normally he was very neat and tidy with his things; most seamen were.

  Then again, most seamen didn’t have to contend with the sight of Rose dressed in nothing but a flimsy wisp of outrageousness and lace.

  He brushed at the wrinkles with his hands. It didn’t make much difference.

  She looked at him and burst out laughing. “We’re going to have to get you a valet, first thing. Today if possible.”

  “It can wait. There’s no hurry.”

  She shook her head. “Thomas, you need a valet now. You’ll need him to help you prepare for the ball.”

  “No, I can manage. I’ll hire someone when I get back. No use having him kicking his heels and doing nothing while I’m away.”

  “Away?”

  “Yes, I’m not sure how long I’ll be. It depends.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Ice coalesced in the pit of Rose’s stomach. He couldn’t mean what she thought he meant. He’d spoken quite casually, as if he were referring to some everyday excursion, popping down to Brighton, for instance, or visiting Bath. But it was no simple trip he was contemplating.

  “Depends on what? Where are you going, Thomas?”

  He turned. “Where do you think, Rose?”

  She bit her lip.

  “Oh, don’t look at me like that,” he said. “You know what I have to do.”

  “You’re planning to go yourself? To the Barbary Coast? But you can’t!”