by Kruger, Mary
“I need your help.” His voice was low, but it held strain. “Could you let me in?”
She hesitated. “Around the back,” she said, and closed the window, scurrying quietly into the hall and down the stairs that led to the basement kitchen. When she opened the door under the rear gallery he was there, a dark, looming shape, but she felt no fear. Only exasperation and the anger she had nursed for days. And, against her will, a growing excitement.
“Thank you.” Marcus dropped into a chair at the broad trestle table. “I didn’t think I’d make it this far.”
“Please do keep your voice down. Ruth and Jacob sleep nearby, and I don’t want them telling Father you’re here.” Rebecca lit a candle. “From where?”
“The British legation.”
“But that’s above a mile away—mercy!” She stared at him. He had removed his coat, and in the wavering light she could see a spreading stain on his sleeve. “Brendan!”
He grimaced. “A little mishap. I tried binding it up with my handkerchief, but as you can see, it wasn’t enough.” His eyes met hers as she bent over, to see the cause of the bleeding. “If you call me by that name in front of others, my life won’t be worth a farthing.”
“I am sorry.” Frowning, she studied the jagged tear in the sleeve. “What caused this?”
“Pistol shot.”
“Pistol shot!” Her voice rose, and he quickly put a finger to her lips, hushing her. It felt too good there, too right, and so she jerked away. “However did you manage to get yourself shot?”
“Snooping at the British legation.”
“Snooping—what on earth?”
“Never mind, Rebecca.” His eyes were closed. “If you can just find me something to bind this with, I’ll be on my way.”
“You’ll do no such thing. That wound will need to be cleaned, and you can’t do it yourself. Take off your shirt.”
“Why, Rebecca.” He was grinning at her. “Dare I hope you still care?”
“Do not try any of your foolishness with me,” she retorted. “If Father finds you you’re here this wound will be nothing. Now do take off your shirt.”
“You’re a hard woman.” He pulled his right arm from its sleeve, struggled for a moment, and gave up. “I need help, lass,” he said, apologetically.
“Marcus—”
“I can’t manage it, Rebecca.”
She took a deep breath. “Oh, very well.” After all, hadn’t she taken care of Father when he was ill? This should be no different.
Oh, but it was, it was. To help him slip his shirt over his head meant that she had to stand close to him, between his legs. Her breasts, loose in her nightshift, brushed against his chest as she bent to her task, and they both pulled back. His shoulders were so broad, she thought, dazed, easing the shirt down his arm. His chest, so hard with muscle, and his body so very, very warm. “I’m afraid it’s stuck where the blood’s dried,” she said, her voice unsteady.
“Pull it off if you have to.” His voice was husky, and she looked down to see him watching her with an intent look that was familiar to her. For a moment, all the hurts of the past year, all the anger faded. He wanted her. Uncomfortably warm, she lowered her eyes, only to encounter more evidence of his arousal. Oh, he wanted her, and what was worse, she wanted him. She could feel it in her knees, almost too weak to support her, in her breasts and in her belly, warm and heavy. Thoroughly rattled, she pulled on the shirt harder than she had intended, and he grunted.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I fear I started up the bleeding again.”
“Rebecca.” He caught her hand as she moved away. “We need to talk.”
“Not now.” She freed herself and went in search of a basin and clean rags. Oh, no, not now. She would patch him up and send him on his way, and she would not—would not!—let herself think about how very much she wanted him.
“I think we do.” In the dim light his eyes were dark, unreadable. She avoided his gaze as she set about pumping water into the basin. “You don’t trust me.”
She bustled over to the table, setting down the basin and the cloths she had found, her shawl slipping from her shoulders. “Do you blame me?”
He sighed. “Nay, lass. If anything, I understand. But I want you to know I never meant to hurt you.”
She cast him a brief, cool look, and applied herself to washing the wound. “This will sting.”
Marcus’s lips tightened, but other than that he gave no sign of discomfort. “I hurt you. I made your life hell this past year, and you’re angry. I—”
“Of course I’m angry!” She slammed the rag into the basin, spattering them both with droplets of water. “I mourned you for a year! I thought you dead, and then one day you reappeared. But not the same, oh, no, that would have been too easy.” She paced back and forth, the shawl slipping off completely, and he watched, a slight smile on his face. “No, you reappeared as a different man. Different name, different voice, different mannerisms—and just when I begin to believe you are who you say you are, just when I’m beginning to be attracted to you, you turn it all upside down again! And now you sit there and laugh at me!”
“I’m not laughing, lass.” He was, though, his face stretched wide in a grin. “I’ve missed ye, Rebecca. Missed seeing ye like this, standing up to me, no matter what I’ve said or done. You’re like no other woman I’ve ever known.”
She stooped to pick up her shawl, wrapping it around her and staring at him distrustfully. “You deserve a tongue-lashing for all that you’ve done. But perhaps...” She paused. “Perhaps it wouldn’t matter so, if I only know why. Is it me?” To her consternation, her voice cracked. “Am I really just the type of women men use and leave, and now you’ve decided ‘tis time to use me again?”
“No, lass.” He was across the room to her in an instant, so close that she turned, her back to him. He put his hand on her shoulder, and she shrugged it away. “You mean a great deal to me, Rebecca. You always have.” He paused. “But I wasn’t free to be with you as I wished.” Again, a pause. “I still am not.”
“Oh, God.” She turned to face him. “They say you’re widowed—are you married?”
“No. There’s no other woman for me. And no, I’ve never married, lass, no matter what story was put about. I told you the truth about that.”
Rebecca searched his face, seeing only sincerity there. She wanted, needed, to believe. “What is true for you, Marcus? It seems to change.”
He shook his head. “Not the basics. Not what is inside me. As for the rest.” His lips tightened. “Both stories held truth. Marcus Brand’s more so than the Raven’s.”
“Tell me.” She was begging, but she didn’t care. “Tell me the truth, Marcus. I need to know.”
“Aye, lass.” He touched her cheek with a fingertip, and she moved her head sharply away. “The truth is—”
“Sit down,” she commanded. “I might as well bandage your arm while I listen.”
“Ah, lass, don’t pass judgment on me until you’ve heard it all.”
“I won’t. Now, sit.” She stood in front of him, wrapping a cloth around his arm, forcing herself to ignore its hard-muscled strength. “You aren’t from Ireland.”
“No. Bristol, as I’ve said. My mother’s maiden name was Fitzpatrick, and we were poor connections of the Earls of Brand. And she did die when I was impressed by the Royal Navy.”
Her lips parted in surprise. “But now you work for—”
“You do not know who I work for,” he said, laying his finger across her lips again. So long since he’d touched her, since he’d had her in his arms, in his bed. It might never happen again, if he didn’t convince her now. Abbott be damned, he thought, watching her as she bent over his arm again. After all she’d been through, Rebecca deserved to know the truth.
“I deserted, along with Tyner,” he went on. “That much was true. When I shipped out on American ships, I earned American citizenship, and I did well for myself, lass, earning a master’s rating a
nd finally buying my own ship.”
She tied the ends of the bandage in a neat knot. “There, that should hold. You’ll need to be careful how you use that arm.”
“Thank you, lass. Do you not wish to know the ship I bought?”
She had moved away from him, and was leaning against the hutch. “I expect you’ll tell me, whether I do, or not.”
He grinned at the tartness in her voice. “Aye, that I will. It was the Raven, lass.”
“So even then you were planning to turn pirate.”
“No.” He shook his head, an action he instantly regretted, as hot pain throbbed in his arm. “She was a fine ship, and the coincidence of the name pleased me. I believe I told you once that ‘Brand’ means ‘Raven.’”
“Yes. And Brendan does, as well.”
“Yes.” He nodded. “My ship was stopped at sea once, by the British. I managed to convince them I was American—I was, by then—but some of my crew wasn’t so lucky. The British took them off. God knows what happened to them.” He paused. “‘Twas then I decided to turn spy.”
Her eyes closed. “Oh, God. I knew it—”
“You know nothing about me if you think I’d spy for the British,” his voice grated. “For the Americans. Yes, stare at me, Rebecca, but ‘tis true. I am a spy for the Americans.”
“But—” Her eyes were huge. “I heard you. I heard you telling Mr. St. John you’d spy for him.”
“A ruse, Rebecca. Just as my accent has been a ruse, and the powder to make my hair gray, and the way I dress, so the British would think me a proper gentleman and trust me.”
Her brow wrinkled. “Why in the world would you want that?”
“To feed them false information. And, possibly, to get information from them.”
Her breath drew in. “Is that what you were doing tonight—”
“Don’t ask me that. ‘Tis better if you don’t know. In fact,” he grimaced, “I shouldn’t have told you what I have. But I had to.” He held her gaze with his own, and this time thought he saw the faint, first stirrings of trust. “You know why, don’t you?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know anything anymore. On the Raven—were you spying then?”
He shifted in the chair, trying to ease his arm to a more comfortable position. “In a way. Sometimes there’d be documents or people we couldn’t allow to reach England. That was when the Raven would come out, and only then. The rest of it—all made up, Rebecca, so I would be seen as a fierce pirate. I never went out only to plunder other ships. I regretted anyone who was hurt because of me. I still do.” He watched her. “I was never as black as I was painted.”
Her lips were pursed in a frown. “So that is why you wore the eyepatch.”
Hope rose within him. “As a disguise. Yes. No one ever looked beyond it.” He paused. “Except for you, Rebecca. You don’t know how I hated wearing it around you.”
“Did we have to be stopped from reaching England? Amelia and me?”
“No.” He paused, wondering how much to tell her. “Someone else did, and to cover that, I was told to take hostages. You were a pawn, Rebecca,” he said, gently.
“Oh.” She turned, her arms wrapped around herself. “And when you took me to your bed—was I a pawn then, too?”
“No!” He crossed the room quickly, and this time when he grasped her shoulders, she didn’t turn away. “No, leannan, never that. Never that.”
She gazed up at him, eyes huge, and her tongue flicked out to moisten her bottom lip. The action sent shafts of flame through him. “You never did tell me what that means.”
“Sweetheart.” He gazed down at her lips, full and lush, and, in his memory, so sweet. “Beloved,” he said, and, unable to resist any longer, caught her up against his chest in his good arm, and brought his mouth down on hers.
Chapter Twenty-Three
He kissed her as if he were a starving man, and she his first taste of food. He kissed as if he were dying of thirst, sucking at her lips, drawing the essence of life from her and yet sending it surging through her veins. She responded to his quick hunger, insistent, demanding, pressed against him. His arms around her were rock hard, his chest rock solid, and though she had learned the hard way he couldn’t be trusted, still she leaned against him, a wall sheltering her from all the storms of the past years. She kissed him with all her pent-up emotions, the hurt and the anger, and yes, even the love that hadn’t died. She kissed him and held him with all her heart and body and soul, her arms about his neck, her back bent as he pressed savage, desperate kisses along her throat, the line of her jaw, her mouth again. And she kissed him, at last, with all the passion she had once denied, and the sure knowledge that this was right. This was where she belonged, in his arms. In her pirate’s arms.
“Brendan,” she gasped, when he at last released her lips, giving her a chance to breathe. “Oh, Brendan, I’ve missed you so—”
“Devil take it,” he growled, and in the next moment she was held away from him, his hands gripping her upper arms.
She blinked up at him, coldness already seeping in. “What—”
“My name is Marcus,” he said in that same harsh voice. “Not Brendan. Brendan Fitzpatrick never existed.”
“But he did.” The coldness was gone, replaced by liquid fire. “He does. Here.” She laid her hand over his heart, feeling for the first time in so long the heat of his skin, the crisp curls of hair. “He is part of you—Marcus,” she said, and was rewarded by being hauled into his arms again. Marcus. The name sang through her. Not Brendan Fitzpatrick, the Raven, a pirate, but Marcus Brand, respectable shipowner and spy.
Laughter shook her, and once again he held her at arm’s length, wincing at the motion. “What?” he demanded.
“I—I thought I was in love with a pirate,” she gasped, between bursts of giggles, “and now I find out he’s only a—a spy!”
“It’s not funny,” he said, but she saw the corner of his lips twitch.
“Proper, respectable Rebecca Talbot,” she went on, still helplessly caught in the grip of mirth. “The men she chooses—”
“The man.” He caught her up against him, hands holding her in a fierce, tight grip. She would have bruises on her arms come morning, but she didn’t care. “One man. Say it.”
“One man,” she agreed happily. “Only you. Oh, Marcus!” She threw her arms around his neck, and he grunted, making her pull back. “Oh, heavens, I forgot. Your arm—am I hurting you?”
His eye twinkled. “If you’d kiss me again, I’d forget it, too.”
“Enough of that,” she said severely, though she smiled as she peered at the bandage. To her relief, it remained pristine. “I don’t want anything to happen to you. To have found you again—it’s a miracle.”
“No, it’s not, lass.” The seriousness in his eyes dampened her mirth. “I should have come to you sooner.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Abb- my superior was afraid I’d be recognized. He wasn’t afraid for me, mind,” he said, his lips twisted, “but for his other spies. But, devil take it, Rebecca!” He glared at her as if she were the cause of his anger. “I should have come to you sooner. I should have known I could trust you.”
“Yes. You can.” Her smile was serene. Her last question had been answered. “But what of Amelia, or my father? He didn’t recognize you, but he’d see you dead if he knew. And there’s Lieutenant Dee, too.”
“I know.” Running a hand through his hair, he glanced distractedly about the kitchen. “I shouldn’t stay any longer. I might have been followed here.”
“By whom?”
He shook his head. “Where is my shirt?”
“You can’t put that back on. Go out with that all bloody, and you’ll be announcing to the world that it was you at the British legation. No. I’ll get you one of my father’s shirts.”
“Rebecca.” There was a slight smile on his face. “Are you collaborating with me?”
“Yes. Pray don’t mock me, Mr. Brand. At th
e moment I’m not sure whether to kiss you or hit you! Putting yourself in such danger.”
“‘Tis glad I am to know ye care, lass,” he said, the lilt of the old brogue in his voice.
“You’ll not get around me, Marcus,” she said, her severity belied by the softness in her eyes. “Sit. I’ll find a shirt for you,” she said, and whisked out of the kitchen into an adjoining room. “There’s one here fresh-laundered, and I’ll see what I can do about yours.” She held the shirt out to him as she returned to the room. It was coarse homespun, far different from the fine linen he usually wore, but adequate for the purpose. “You’ll need a sling, too.”
“No.” With Rebecca’s help, he struggled into the shirt. “If Dee sees that, he’ll know for certain he hit me.”
Her hands stilled on his sleeves. “He knows?”
“Not for certain.” He laid his hand over hers reassuringly. “I laid a false trail. But you were right, lass. He does suspect me.”
“He won’t learn of you from me.” Her gaze was clear and steady. “That I promise.”
“I know, lass.” He dropped a quick, hard kiss on her lips. “Help me with my coat, and I’ll be gone.”
“And about time, too. Disturbing my night as you have.”
He grinned. “I’ll disturb all your nights if you like, lass,” he whispered, his mouth deliberately grazing her ear.
“Ooh.” She pushed at his chest, but she was smiling. “You are an arrogant, annoying man, and you should leave—”
“I will.” He caught her around the waist with his good arm. “But not for long, leannan,” he said, bending his head to hers again. A long, slow kiss, with lips moving against lips, tongue almost lazily caressing tongue; a kiss of passion, and promise for the future. “I’ll not leave you this time.”
“I know.” Shakily she clutched at his shirtfront, his sleeves, his hands, as he pulled back, not wanting to let him go; knowing she must. “You’ll be careful?”
“Always.” He kissed her once more, and then stepped back. Rebecca almost cried out in protest. If he didn’t leave now, she would never let him go. “Good night, lass.”