Pirates

by Linda Lael Miller

  Phoebe could no longer hold back her tears, though she wiped them away hastily with the backs of her hands. “Duncan is a fortunate man, to be born into such a family,” she said with a sniffle.

  Her fatherin-law patted her arm. “He is indeed a lucky rascal,” he replied, with a warm smile. “Just look at his wife.”

  13

  The preparations for the grand celebration went on, and still there was no word from Duncan.

  The days were long and sultry, and Phoebe did her best to keep busy, hiding an agony of suspense behind a ready smile and a flurry of frenetic activity. At night, she lay sleepless in her vast feather bed, obsessing, imagining all the ghastly fates that might have befallen the man she loved.

  Lecturing herself on the pitfalls of codependency did no good at all. Where Duncan Rourke was concerned, it seemed, she had reached roughly the same evolutionary level as the jellyfish.

  Guests began arriving ten days after the invitations had been dispersed, rattling up the long driveway in carriages and wagons and carts, mounted on horses and mules, even on foot. The mansion seemed to swell with people, and Phoebe kept a low profile, unsure how to present herself. John and Margaret Rourke seemed proud, even eager, to introduce her as their daughter-in-law, and Phillippa regaled everyone who would listen with the nun yarn Phoebe had made up to explain her haircut.

  When Major Basil Stone arrived in a fancy coach, on the afternoon of the ball, Phoebe was watching from a window in the upstairs hallway and nearly suffered a heart attack. Lucas had told that august and dangerously British personage that she was a mute bond servant.

  She stepped back with a gasp, the fingers of one hand spread over her thumping heart, those of the other crushing the fabric of the curtain.

  Strong hands gripped her shoulders and, for one moment of joyous terror, she thought Duncan had come to Troy at last. But she knew her husband’s touch—it was imprinted on her nerve endings for all time—and no more than an instant had passed before a mingling of disappointment and relief swamped her.

  It was Lucas who turned her to face him.

  “There are shadows under your eyes,” he said gently. He was attentive and affectionate with Phoebe, was Lucas Rourke, but in a brotherly fashion. “The strain of being my brother’s bride shows plainly, I’m afraid.”

  Phoebe sighed and turned her head slightly, briefly, as if to glance at Major Stone through the window glass again. A tremor of dread went through her, closely followed by a flash flood of pure irritation. “Your friend is here,” she said, ignoring his comment about her appearance. “The one who met us when we arrived in Charles Town. I believe you told him I was a mute bond servant.”

  Lucas moved past her to lift the curtain and look out. To her annoyance, he chuckled. “Ah, yes,” he said. “It’s Basil. Oh, what a tangled web I’ve woven.”

  Phoebe took a moment to contain her temper. It would do no good to panic. “Of course, Major Stone will hear a different story from your parents, won’t he? How do you intend to explain my coming up in the world so quickly? Not to mention the spectacular way I’ve managed to overcome my affliction?”

  He turned to look at her over one broad shoulder. There was no fear in his eyes, only amusement and a sort of tender concern. “I’ll simply tell him I lied,” he said, as though the answer should have been perfectly obvious.

  “But he could arrest us both …”

  Lucas smiled. “And spoil my mother’s lovely party? Believe me, Phoebe, Basil has better manners than that.”

  “You are impossible,” Phoebe hissed. The strain of waiting and worrying, compounded by sleepless nights and days of running hither and yon, trying to stay one step ahead of her fears, had stretched her self-control to a thin thread. “We are talking about your brother’s life here, in case you’ve forgotten. That man down there, alighting from his fancy carriage, would like nothing better than to put a noose around Duncan’s neck!”

  Lucas touched her face with light, cool fingertips. “There are a great many people who want to hang your husband,” he said reasonably. “Major Stone will find himself standing in line for the privilege. Still, he who would execute my brother must first capture him, and that task is far beyond lesser men, requiring an equal. For good or ill, Duncan has few of those.”

  Phoebe was only mildly reassured. “He has his weaknesses, like everyone else,” she argued in a hushed voice, remembering that the rooms of Troy were crammed with guests of all political persuasions.

  Lucas arched an eyebrow. “Such as?”

  “Such as this place,” Phoebe whispered. “Such as you, and Phillippa, and your mother and father—”

  “And you,” Lucas supplied thoughtfully. “Yes, I see. A clever enemy might use you—or any one of us, come to that—as bait for a classic trap.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Then we shall have to take great care not to put ourselves in such a position,” he said.

  “Talking to you is like chatting with the Cheshire cat!” Phoebe sputtered, in a fresh burst of frustration.

  “The what?” Lucas inquired, frowning.

  “Never mind,” Phoebe said. “It hasn’t been created yet.” She moved around Lucas to return to the window, but Major Stone had already been admitted to the house, and the coach was being taken away by grooms. “I’ll just have to keep to myself until everyone is gone,” she muttered, speaking to herself rather than to her brother-in-law. In her anxiety, she had all but forgotten he was there.

  He reminded her quickly enough. “Mother and Phillippa will never permit that,” he said. “You, Phoebe Rourke, are cause for celebration.”

  She did not ask him to explain his comment; nothing he’d said so far made sense, and there was no cause to expect any change.

  Phoebe went to her room, locked the door behind her, and proceeded to pace. Her presence in that house could only serve to endanger Duncan, provided he hadn’t already been captured. Perhaps the best thing to do, the only thing to do, was to leave Troy before she could be used to hurt a man she would have died to protect.

  The question was, where was she to go? She knew nothing about the terrain surrounding the plantation, and even if she managed to avoid British patrols, she might still fall into the hands of brigands or hostile Indians. Yes, the twentieth century was every bit as dangerous, but the singular perils of the eighteenth were unfamiliar ones, and that put her at a distinct disadvantage.

  For all her fretting and stewing, for all her pacing, her standing up and her lying down, Phoebe was no closer to coming up with a viable plan at sunset than she had been when she first crossed the threshold of that room. She heard music in the garden and was drawn against her will out onto the terrace, where she stood looking down on a fairyland scene.

  Chinese lanterns glowed in the branches of the trees, shedding jewel-like light on women in gowns of glimmering silk and satin. A thick spray of stars crowded the sky, bright as fireworks, and soft laughter mingled with the chime of costly crystal glasses and the low strains of fiddles and mandolins and dulcimers. The notes of a harpsichord curled out through the French doors below like smoke, seeking the tunes played by the other instruments and drawing them into an invisible, magical dance.

  Phoebe closed her eyes, remembering the thundering, tempestuous music of another harpsichord, so different from the tinkling and merry strains of the one she was hearing now. Remembering the man who had played with such skill, such fire, that he had virtually become the instrument, shaping the sounds inside himself, spilling them through his fingertips like a wizard directing an orchestra of the elements.

  The weight of a man’s hands, coming to rest on her waist, caused her to start and draw in her breath.

  His voice moved softly past her ear, a hoarse whisper underlaid with laughter and mischief, passion and promise. “Come inside, Mistress Rourke, and greet your husband like a proper wife.”

  Phoebe felt a sweet, violent tug somewhere deep inside, and a sort of ecstatic apprehension raced thro
ugh her veins like electricity, raising goose bumps on her skin and turning her nipples hard as buttons under the bodice of her ball gown. She said nothing—could not have spoken if she’d had to—as Duncan eased her backward, over the terrace threshold, into the lonely chamber where she had alternately mourned and cursed him for so many nights.

  The room was in shadow; she saw Duncan’s outline, watched as the shape slowly solidified into a flesh-and-blood man. He was dressed in a farmer’s clothes, a muslin shirt, dark brown breeches of some rough-spun cloth, scuffed boots. He was rumpled and smudged and slightly gaunt, and Phoebe was so glad to see him that she drew back one hand and slapped him hard across the face.

  He grasped her hand, after the fact, caressing the fragile underside of her wrist where, beneath the translucent flesh, a tangle of blue veins still pulsed with the visceral news that he was back. His teeth flashed white and perfect in the sultry gloom of that room, so private and yet echoing with voices and music from the party below in the garden.

  “You’ve missed me,” he said.

  Phoebe might have slapped him again, if he hadn’t still been holding her. She shuddered violently as he raised her wrist and brushed his lips across that warm and pulsing place in a feather-light kiss.

  “Damn you, Duncan,” she managed at last, her voice no more than an anguished whisper, “where have you been? And why did you come here now, of all times? And how did you get into this room, when I locked the door myself?”

  “So many questions,” he scolded, nibbling the fragile flesh he had just kissed, sending shards of fire ripping through Phoebe’s system. “All of them will wait until I’ve had my way with you, Mistress Rourke.”

  Phoebe tried to swallow the soft, murmured whimper that rose in her throat as he lifted her into his arms, but the effort came too late. She was one big melting ache as he carried her to the bed and laid her down. He removed her left dancing slipper and kissed her instep, and she felt herself opening for him, a void yearning to be filled.

  Duncan towered over her, plainly aware of her response to him, enjoying the power he wielded. With a pass of one hand, he caught a curved index finger in her neckline and tugged, causing her bare breasts to spring free of their confinement, full and warm and weighted with the need to nourish him. He chafed each nipple with the callused side of his thumb, preparing them for conquering.

  Phoebe arched her back and uttered a small, strangled gasp. She had had enough, even then, of the preliminaries; if Duncan had raised her skirts and petticoats, opened his breeches and taken her with no further delay, she knew she would have climaxed with the first stroke. She knew better than to think he would appease her so quickly, however, and the knowledge filled her with sweet despair.

  He chuckled, as if he knew her thoughts, knew she was damning him to hell even as she longed to take him deep inside her, and moved away from the bed. He crossed the room, closed the terrace doors, and pulled the heavy draperies into place.

  Now, even the thin, wavering light of stars and Chinese lanterns was shut out, and Duncan was back before Phoebe’s eyes had adjusted. He moved unerringly in the darkness, turning her onto her stomach to unfasten the buttons of her gown, turning her back to pull it down and away.

  Her camisole followed, then her voluminous, ruffled petticoats, then her drawers. He took her stockings last, separately and with excruciating slowness, rolling each one down and down, over her thighs, her knees, her calves and ankles. Finally, she lay naked in the thick gloom, still unable to see Duncan, utterly vulnerable to the skilled motions of his hands.

  She bit her lower lip as he sat on the feather bed beside her, weighing her breasts in his hands, toying with the nipples, finding her waist and her hips, cupping her buttocks and raising her, trembling, off the mattress. His name escaped her in a whispery rush.

  His laugh was low and smoky, curling along her clamoring senses like mist from a genie’s lamp. “I’ve missed you, too,” he said.

  Phoebe was utterly helpless, her resonant body an instrument in the hands of a virtuoso, but the feeling was one of freedom, of splendid abandon. With this man, she could explore the furthest reaches of pleasure, knowing all the while that she was safe, and that he would lead her slowly, tenderly back to herself when they’d both been thoroughly satisfied. “Please,” was the only word she could remember.

  He withdrew just long enough to take off his clothes—she knew what he was doing not by sight, for she was still in darkness, but by sound and the drafts his motions produced in the heavy air. The party noises were muffled and faint, but the music was a presence, entwined about them, part of their lovemaking.

  At last, Duncan stretched out beside her on the featherstuffed ticking, his bare flesh smooth under her palms and fingertips, except for the V of tangled hair on his chest. Phoebe followed it to its apex with her hand, found his member and closed her fingers around it. The gesture was not a caress, but a conquest, a claiming.

  Duncan uttered a low and probably involuntary groan, and when she stroked the tip with her thumb, he gave a senseless exclamation, groped for her shoulders, and thrust her beneath him. Poised over her, he found her mouth with his and kissed her with a depth and thoroughness that left her dizzy with need.

  She said it again, the only word she remembered, the plaintive expression of her need, her yearning, her loneliness.

  “Please …”

  Still, Duncan would not appease Phoebe. He kissed her again, as hungrily, as powerfully as before. Then he traced the edge of her jaw with his lips, the pulsing muscles along the length of her neck, the curve of her shoulder, the slight swelling above her breasts. When at last he found a nipple, ravished it with his tongue, and then took it greedily into his mouth, a new level of arousal struck Phoebe like a careening boxcar turned broadside. He showed no quarter as he plundered her, but his fingers were gentle on her lips, muffling her cries of wanting and welcome.

  Presently, he moved down her body, nibbling, trailing his warm, moist lips between her ribs, over her belly and abdomen, into the delta of curls that sheltered her femininity. When he parted the silken curtain and took her boldly to suckle, she exploded, instantaneously, powerfully, completely, her hips rising high off the bed, her buttocks cushioned in his strong hands, his fingers squeezing them as though they were fruits, ripe with sweet juices. He stayed with her, through all the wild twists and pitches of her release, relentless, gentle, fierce.

  Phoebe’s climax was so shattering that she could not have imagined what lay beyond it. She expected to lie beneath Duncan, replete and sated, while he mounted her, and took his pleasure. She would stroke his back and shoulders, buttocks and thighs with her hands, speaking soft nonsense words, comforting and cajoling, urging him on, floating in the peace he had given her.

  It wasn’t like that.

  He entered her like a conqueror, with a hard, deep thrust that reawakened all her desires at once and brought them surging to the surface like lava in a live volcano.

  She gave a low, guttural cry, one he made no effort to silence, and rose to meet his second thrust, her hunger as ferocious and urgent as his. At her response, he withdrew, but only long enough to turn her over and raise her onto her hands and knees; theirs was the primitive, exhaustive Joining of a stallion and his mare, woven of nature and need.

  Duncan cupped Phoebe’s breasts, squeezing and stroking them, plucking at the nipples as he rode her, and she flung herself back upon him, taking him deep and deeper still. She was ruthless, finally rending his seed from him, along with a strangled shout of satisfaction, and moistening the flesh of his rod and his belly with nectar of her own. He bucked against her as aftershocks rocked both their bodies, then fell upon her, trembling with exhaustion, her nipples pressing hard into his palms.

  They were a long time recovering, and when Duncan finally raised his head, he began kissing the small, jutting bones of Phoebe’s spine. He slid one hand downward, from her breast to her belly and then to the tender and innately feminine place at
the juncture of her thighs. She whimpered into her pillow as he began to tease her with a slow, rolling motion of one finger.

  “I don’t believe this,” she muttered, amazed to discover that she was responding. Again.

  He tasted her shoulder blade while continuing to play with her. “Allow me to convince you,” he said.

  “Are you aware that this house is crawling with redcoats and Tories?” Phoebe demanded furiously, sometime later, when her muscles were solid again and she could trust her legs to support her. She had lighted a lamp and stood at a safe distance from Duncan, out of his reach.

  Duncan remained in bed, lying on his back, his hands cupped behind his head. He was the classic picture of male indolence, contented and damnably certain that he’d given satisfaction. “I noticed them when I came in,” he said. Either he didn’t understand the gravity of the situation, or recklessness had become such a habit that he’d forgotten how to exercise any sort of caution. “We should be perfectly safe, unless someone happened to hear you howling like a she-wolf when we were making love.”

  Color flooded Phoebe’s cheeks. “Okay,” she hissed, “so I made a little noise. If you were a gentleman, you wouldn’t mention such things.”

  “If I were a gentleman,” Duncan countered, with a grin, “you wouldn’t have been carrying on like that in the first place.”

  Phoebe had already donned her camisole and drawers; now she stepped into her petticoats and wrenched the waistband into place. A glimpse of herself in the bureau mirror revealed an incriminating glow to her skin and a sparkle in her eyes, and both had their beginnings in something other than her current exasperation. “How did you get in here?” she asked, attempting to keep her voice down. Now that her mind was relatively clear again, she was afraid. “I know I locked the door.”

  Duncan’s grin broadened. If he was worried about Major Stone or any of the other Englishmen on the premises, he gave no indication of it. “Locked doors are nothing to me, Phoebe,” he teased. “Not when you’re on the other side, eagerly awaiting the attentions of your husband.”