by Deana James
"Goin' a little bit soft?" Beddoes sneered. "Just say the word and I’ll take it myself."
Piers threw him a disgusted glance. "And just where would you take it, Jack? To some old sailor's rest in Bristol? Or some whore's crib in Cheapside? You'll get good prices for it there."
"Give me the names of the connections," the smuggler whined. "I’ll meet them."
"They wouldn't come within a mile of you and you know it. The Larnaervons have always had exclusive custom. It's why we can make double and triple what others make. And why we purchase quality goods in France."
"God damn it!" Beddoes whirled away, kicking at the remains of a barrel half buried in the sand of the cave. The staves went flying. One of the hoops spanged apart. Another rolled crazily away to end up against a rock.
Piers made no effort to disguise his contempt. Jack Beddoes had been the thorn in his side from the first trip. The man had no sense of caution. No thoughts passed through his mind beyond ways to obtain instant gratification for his body.
Part of Piers's contempt, however, was directed at himself. How could he ever have looked forward to the expeditions on "family business?" Now, not only did he not want to go, he dreaded going. What had once been an adventure now seemed an onerous chore, sour at the onset. He no longer felt the need to exorcise grief, frustration, and anger in intrigue, in wild midnight rides, in danger. Now with his wife's money and holdings combined with his own, the whole thing seemed silly, a waste of time, and, certainly in the light of Beddoes's rather garbled intelligence, an unnecessary risk.
In the spring he would leave the entire thing regardless of what Larne wanted. He glanced upward to the roof of the cave on which by accident or intent long ago builders had constructed the cellars of the house. Somewhere above him hunched the earl, his eyes gleaming beneath drawn white brows.
Say what you will, old man. I'll never be down here again. To Beddoes, Piers sneered. "You're a damned idiot, and the sooner I'm done with you, the better. We’ll leave tonight after midnight. Send Tyler and Jenks ahead with the word."
"Right you are. Now you're talkin'." The smuggler whirled and started for the back wall of the caverns. As he went, he rubbed his hands, grinning in evident delight.
"If we're caught on the road," Piers called after him, "you'll be singing a different tune. Someone might be putting a load in a musket for you right now."
Beddoes came to a halt, his smile turning into a smirk. "Not bleedin' likely, your lordship. More 'n' likely they'll be looking for you. You're the jakey who married the bird and brought the London swells down here snoopin' around. If we meet anyone, they'll be aimin' for you so's they can get her back."
Piers waved him on. "Just send Tyler and Jenks and keep your mouth off my wife."
"Right y' are." Beddoes whipped off his hat and tugged at his forelock in a mockery of subservience. "Oh, right y' are, y' bleedin' sir." He sprang for the ladder and scaled up it and out of sight agile as an ape.
Piers started to follow him, then stopped. A grin spread across his face. Back he went to the piece of sail and tossed it aside. He tossed several bails aside before he found the one he sought. Pulling a knife, he used its o pick the knot on the bindings and opened the oilskins.
************************************
Tyler helped Vivian down at the front steps of the house. When she looked at him quizzically, he shrugged in his cheeky way. "I got 'im there fast, ma'am."
She nodded graciously. The wind whipped her veil and tugged at her skirt. She gathered the heavy velvet over her arm and hurried in through the door that Millard held open for her.
"Ah, back in good time before the storm. Did you have a pleasant ride, milady? Your tea will be served”— he looked at her for confirmation—”in your room. Before the fire."
She smiled as she made a definite motion with her hand, a twist of the wrist with two fingers extended.
Millard watched her, his brow wrinkling. Then it cleared. "For two? Yes, milady."
Time to start using her hand signals. They would have to begin to learn them for the remainder of her stay here. Buoyed by Piers's promise to leave Larnaervon and take her with him, she intended to assume her rightful place as Piers's wife. She was the Viscountess Polwycke and her rightful place was as mistress of his household.
In the hallway at the foot of the stairs, Vivian pulled her notepad from her skirt pocket. Hastily she scribbled more specific instructions for Millard, who accepted them with a smile. As she mounted the stairs, she met Mrs. Felders coming down. The woman's expression was glacial, but Vivian pretended not to notice. She would not let this woman destroy her good humor. Anything could be endured for a few months.
Vivian had hardly removed her hat when Addie came panting into the room having run all the way up the stairs.
"Oh, you've done it again, ma'am. Mrs. Felders is in a taking because Millard is having Cook fix your tea with all the things you ordered. She says we've never had tea before. Nothing except a tray taken up for Lady Georgina, and since she's gone-God rest her toul-there's no reason to start up again."
Smiling at her own reflection in the mirror, Vivian buttoned her jacket and slipped it off her shoulders. Without missing a word of her monlogue, Addie took it from her and hung it in the clothespress.
Answering a knock on the door, the maid ushered in a footman carrying a bowl and pitcher of hot water. "I thought you'd be wanting this," Addie said proudly. "Since you'd been ridin' and all. You like to smell good, you do with clean hands and face. And so I told Millard. Him and me, we put our heads together ever so often now. Mrs. Felders don't like it a bit, but she can't do nothing but suck on a pickle."
Vivian grinned at the allusion to the housekeeper's pinch-purse mouth. Reflected in the mirror, the maid bustled around the room, chattering amiably. Addie bad certainly gotten full of herself. As well as a servant, she had become a loyal supporter.
"Here now, ma'am. You just come and wash, so you’ll be all sweet and clean when his lordship comes back. Watkins is havin' the same brought up for him." Her conspiratorial smile made Vivian blush.
************************************
The earl limped out of the library as Piers started up the stairs. "Dawlish is still in the vicinity. The Singing Herring has a 'secret' guest in the special parlor."
"Special parlor." Piers snorted. "You mean the one where they only sleep two to a bed."
The earl grinned. "Perhaps he has the solicitor with him. At any rate he bears watching. He’ll not let the fortune like the one upstairs slip through his fingers without a fight."
The viscount shrugged. "He's probably just sulking and drowning his sorrows. He’ll leave soon enough. Sebby never had any staying power."
"You remember him from childish games," the earl replied dryly. "For wealth and property such as he was very close to possessing, he might be more determined."
His son glanced upward toward the head of the stairs, then sighed. "There is little he can do."
"Except create trouble for us. I believe he has already set in motion the activity that is plaguing us now."
Piers shrugged impatiently. "Possibly. But only by accident. Sebastian never thought to plot anything that carefully."
"He had her locked up," the earl reminded him.
"Ah, but if he had had any sense at all, he would have courted her and married her." Piers started up the stairs.
The earl's voice rose behind him dripping with mockery. "What a change of tune for you, my boy. Can this be the man who only a few days ago was wondering whether he was being married to a half-wit?"
Piers did not bother to answer. He had little enough time before his rendezvous with Beddoes. Little enough time to do what he wanted to do with surprising urgency. He gave a little shiver of anticipation. He would go and make this last run. Thereafter, the earl could find someone else to do his dirty work. His son would retire to Stone Glenn with his wife and live a life of bucolic respectability and, with any luck
at all, domestic bliss.
As he strode by the door of her room, he thought about how he would approach her. Perhaps a drink first to ease her perfectly reasonable semi-virginal trembling. Then a series of kisses and caresses calling upon his not inconsiderable experience. A gradual sensual softening.
Watkins awaited him. "I've brought water for washing, milord."
Piers's brows drew together. "Water?"
"Yes, for washing. I thought you'd want to freshen up before tea."
"Tea?" Had the man gone mad?
"Well, yes. Millard reported that her ladyship has ordered tea to be served in her room."
Piers grinned. "Oh, she did now. Well, I’ll drink it with her and gladly, but I’ll need more than tea to take the chill off my bones. Pour me a brandy like a good fellow."
He could not fail to catch the regretful expression on Watkins's face as he poured the potent liquor into the glass and brought it. Piers lifted it to his mouth. "Now, I didn't say I wouldn't wash. And I’ll go next door and have her damned tea with her. But for now I need something stronger."
He had barely finished his ablutions before a knock came at the door. A female voice requested that he come next door for tea. He drained the brandy and set it down as Watkins tied a fresh stock around his neck. He cast a quick glance at himself in the glass. The valet had had the right idea about washing. A man should always put on his best appearance when seducing a lady even when she was his wife.
************************************
"Pass the word to the Monk. We'll be movin' the stuff tonight."
"In this weather?" Tyler's weasel nose twitched. "Coo. We’ll freeze our friggin'—”
"If you wanted to work in the sunshine, you should’ve stuck to farmin'." Beddoes cut the little man off with such a vicious tone that Jenks stepped back warily. "The longer we keep the stuff stored below, the more chance that some nose coast guard’ll find it."
Jenks ducked his head and reached for the tack, but Tyler tried again. "Who gave the order for this?"
"His bleedin' milord Polwycke, that's who."
"This afternoon, he sure looked like he was goin' to be stayin' the night with his lady."
Beddoes pushed aside his coat. "I'm tellin' you to climb on that horse and get on up the road. If you want to argue, go roust the old devil out and I’ll send Jenks by hisself. One less split’ll just makes the pot that much sweeter."
Jenks had got the bridle on his horse and was tightening the girth. "Come on," he muttered. "What difference does th' night make?"
"The whole damn coast is crawlin' with law," Tyler protested. "We’ll be spotted before we've gone a mile on the road."
"Then take 'em over the fields," Beddoes snarled. "Stupid sod." He turned and stomped out of the stable.
Tyler shot him a look that would have melted brass but followed Jenks's lead. In a couple of minutes, the two galloped out together.
************************************
Her hair was freshly combed; her cheeks glowed softly pink; a hesitant smile lighted her face. She sat in a chair before a leaping, flickering fire that glinted softly off sterling silver and fine French porcelain. He stopped speechless in the doorway, the decanter in his hand.
Behind him Watkins held the door. Addie slipped through with a tiny knowing simper hastily tucked into her shoulder.
"Vivian." He recovered himself and smiled brightly, then set the brandy down on a side table near the door. "Quite a charming picture. I appear to have brought unnecessary refreshments."
With a smile she indicated the chair opposite her and waited with her other hand on the teapot.
He seated himself, crossing one long leg over the other, and leaned back to drink her in. Her hair had been freshly brushed back from her face and released from its tight chignon to fall in waves down her back. Again he was struck by its silvery color. Light gleamed off her crown as she bent her head.
The room was warm and peaceful, silent except for the spit and crackle of the fire. He felt tension begin to ease from his muscles.
Then she was smiling at him as she extended a plate with a cup of sweetened tea and a variety of delicacies.
His coloring was the most beautiful thing about him, she decided. His hair was the color of fine French burgundy as it poured from the bottle. When he looked out from under his dark brows at her, his eyes were fathomless with points of light reflecting up from their depths. Heat and liquid swirled at the bottom of her belly. She tried to control the feelings by tightening her muscles, but the effort only added to her excitement.
He was staring at her, his long-fingered hands cupped one over the other beneath his chin. She would not shift in her seat. He would know what was happening with her, that he made her uncomfortable.
As she passed him the plate, their hands touched, his shocking her with its heat. She could not help herself. She shifted, squeezing her thighs together. In an effort to conceal the reason for the movement, she reached for her pad and scribbled a note.
He read it and laid it back on the table. He took a sip of tea managing to control his grimace at the taste. "In answer to your question, I must leave tonight. As soon as it is full dark, I'll be away."
She wrote again.
"Yes, before supper. Although that's scarcely a loss. Even though the dinner was much better last night, it still has a long way to go. I’ll leave the efforts in your hands."
By way of comment, she edged a plate of small sandwiches toward him.
"I don't often eat," he said flatly, setting the plate down and rising. "Brandy's the thing to get me through this. The wind's a knife and the sleet hits you in the face until you think you don't have any skin left."
She watched him walk across the room to retrieve the decanter. Her face must have reflected sympathy because when he turned back to her, he smiled.
"Don't worry. It's uncomfortable, but not particularly dangerous. On clear nights the coast roads are crawling with eager troops all primed to catch the evil smugglers that deprive the good, kind king of his taxes. But when the temperature drops and the horses' eyelids freeze shut, they stay home safe and dry."
A vision of MacPherson clad in seaman's clothing searching the rocks below the great house rose in Vivian's mind. MacPherson would not shrink from a night in the fierce elements. Instinctively she knew that the Scotsman would do his duty come storm, come dark, come freezing rain and snow.
She made a movement to her pad, then pulled her hand back. MacPherson had offered her his help. She would not jeopardize his future. If he could catch the smugglers, so be it. Besides, she was sure that her husband knew about MacPherson. If he chose to ignore the man, then her warnings would be superfluous.
Piers resumed his seat and sloshed brandy into his teacup. "Use my own stuff to make this brew palatable."
As he drank deeply, she looked away into the fire letting it mesmerize her.
The silence grew between them. The draperies stirred as a particularly strong gust of wind found its way in despite shutters and sashes.
"Vivian," he whispered softly. "There is one thing I want more than brandy or food."
Her hands had been clasped in her lap, but now she pushed them flat against her thighs as tiny darts like pain shot through her muscles. She took a deep breath.
He rose and came around the table. She did not look up, did not dare. Her body began to shake. The tall columns of his legs clad in black buckskin and black leather boots came between her and the fire.
"Vivian." He held out his hand.
Still without looking, she put her own into it. Not just one hand but two. He must pull her up. Her legs were so weak; she did not think she could summon the strength to push herself to her feet.
"Come. You've no need to be afraid. I promise you. Sometimes, this is the only comfort in this whole damned uncomfortable world. Believe me."
She lifted her eyes to his face then. In the firelight, he saw they were moist, but whether with tears he could not be c
ertain. "You're not going to cry, are you?"
She shook her head.
"Good." He gathered her in against him then, by the simple expedient of straightening his arm down in front of him, and pulling her hands with it. Her skirts billowed between his widespread legs. "Feel me," he urged.
She started and tried to fall back, but he held her fast and guided her. The maleness that had hurt her almost more than she could bear a few days ago was swollen and ready again. Terror came in a wave that made her fling herself backward against his hold.
"Here, stop that." He wrapped his arms around her and dragged her in against him. "Vivian. Vivian."
She was panting, her heart pounding, her body shaking.
But he held her fast, whispering to her, his lips warm, caressing her ear with every word. "Beautiful girl. Beautiful hair. Beautiful body. No need to be afraid. No need. Let go of your fear. Let it leave you. Sweet girl. Beautiful."
Gradually, she was able to master herself and stand trembling and sweating in his arms, sweating and twitching like a horse that had been run hard. The blood that pounded out of fear began to carry totally different sensations beneath her skin.
Still whispering beautiful compliments, Piers lifted her in his arms and sat down in the chair before the fire. One arm went around her shoulders, the other across her thighs. "We won't go to bed just yet, my love. We’ll just sit here in the chair where it's warm and light. And I’ll touch you."