“I didn’t bloody well think I’d have to… though given your very scarce acquaintance with the practice of bathing, I should have,” Declan said. “Did you get the dress from the hold?”
“Aye,” Davies said and pointed to a pile of fabric on the deck.
Declan tipped his now bare face skyward and prayed for patience. They’d be the death of him, surely.
Striding toward the discarded garment, Declan swept it up in his hands and strode toward his cabin. If the water had grown cold, he’d toss them overboard. As he reached his cabin door, he knocked softly and then let himself in. The sight that greeted him would haunt him for the rest of his life, certainly.
Kitty Wyverne was seated in the small copper tub, the tops of her glorious breasts just visible above the rim of it as she poured water over her head, rinsing the soap from her hair. It was no wonder she hadn’t heard him knock. Watching the water and the stray soap suds as they slipped over her perfect skin, dipping into valleys that he longed to investigate himself, he bit back a groan. It had gone from bad to worse.
The slow trickle of water from the pitcher stopped and she sat it down on the floor beside the tub and opened her eyes. Perhaps he made a noise or perhaps some sense of self-preservation warned her of his presence. Either way, she glanced up, saw him standing at the door and froze.
“I came to bring you soap and towels. It seems you’ve found them,” he said, striving for a casual tone and failing hopelessly.
She let out a squeak and sank deeper into the tub though, in truth, there was only so far she could go. “Didn’t you knock?”
“You were rinsing your hair. You didn’t hear me,” he replied. He should walk away. There was no reason for him to continue standing there gaping at her like a green boy with his first glance of a naked woman. And yet, try as he might, he could not make himself leave.
“Well, you’ve done so and you can go now,” she said.
“And I brought you a gown,” he offered, finally managed to turn his face away from her. He walked deeper into the room, deposited the garment over the back of the chair next to his desk. “I didn’t think you’d want to put on your dusty traveling dress.”
“Thank you, but please leave,” she whispered brokenly.
“I’ll leave, Kitty Wyverne, but know this… it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. You’d tempt a dead man, mo áilleacht.” With that truth uttered aloud and hanging between them, Declan turned on his heels and left.
Kitty clung to the side of the tub, her knuckles white as she struggled to process what had just happened. He found her tempting? Not passable because she had a fortune, or tolerable because of her father’s connections, or any of the other things horrid, thoughtless men had said to her over the years. He was tempted by her.
The urge to call him back was combatted only by her embarrassment and the nearly crippling modesty that was demanded of all young ladies of quality. It was a novel thing for her—bluestocking, spinster, lame, and terribly dull all the way around—to tempt a man. Especially one as handsome as her pirate. And he was handsome. In the interim, while she’d been locked in the cabin, he’d shaved his beard and donned fresh clothing that suited him far better than the rags he’d worn on the road. If anything, he was clearly a gentleman pirate and one with an excellent tailor.
Thinking of how he’d looked, Kitty was actually stunned. His dark hair had been swept back from his face, highlighting a broad forehead and slashing dark brows. His jawline had been perfectly square, his chin strong with the barest of a cleft, and his lips had been sculpted perfection. He could very well have been carved by the ancient Greek masters, his bone structure was such perfection.
The water was growing chilled, and Kitty forced herself to climb from the tub. She dragged the drying cloth over her skin and then retrieved her hopelessly dirty chemise and stays. Donning both, her petticoat was next and then the gown he’d brought her. It was a fine garment, the deep green hue one that she would never have been permitted to wear at home. Her father frowned on ostentation in anyone but himself, after all. It was rather daringly low cut, or at the very least had been made for a woman with a much smaller bust. Regardless, Kitty felt rather pretty in it. But perhaps that was just the aftereffects of the captain’s words. What he said to her at the end? Mo áilleacht? What on earth did it mean?
Rummaging through his trunk once more, ignoring the sense of intimacy it stirred within her to be sorting through his things, she located a comb and set about the monumental task of untangling her hair. And when he returned, she’d look as respectable as possible in her borrowed frock and she’d have the truth from him about what he expected from her and why the door was locked. Handsome as he was and all his pretty comments aside, he was still a man and Kitty knew better than anyone that they were not to be trusted.
Chapter Five
If he’d thought himself in an agony of lust for his cart stowaway before, seeing her naked in that tub, beads of water rolling over her silken skin, he now found himself to be in a hell of it. Christ in heaven, if a man could die from wanting he’d have already expired.
But his guest needed more than simply a change of clothes. To that end, he sought out the first mate. “O’Hurley, that comtesse that we relieved of her possessions off the coast of Martinique… do you still have her walking stick?”
“Aye, Captain. Are you injured? I think it’d be a bit short for you,” the man replied.
“It’s for our guest,” he replied. “She has an old injury, nothing that requires tending, but she does need the aid of a walking stick.”
“It’s in my trunk in my quarters. I’ll get it for you, sir,” O’Hurley answered.
“And see if you can’t round up some spectacles. I fear our guest is not blessed with the keenest of vision either.”
“With all due respect, Captain,” O’Hurley interjected, “what, exactly, are we doing with this guest?”
“We’re going to use her as bait for Livingston. We all know how he feels about cheap whores… he turns his nose up at them and thinks he’ll catch the pox from looking at them,” Declan replied.
“Well, he ain’t wrong.”
Under other circumstances, Declan would have laughed at that. In his present frame of mind, he was wishing a pox on all women, especially the one occupying his cabin. “Entirely beside the point, O’Hurley. She might have been a bit rough when I brought her aboard, but our guest is a lady through and through. With the right clothes, and the right incentive—namely the prospect of safe passage back to her home and family—she will get us into his country estate just outside Bodmin. We all know what lies there.”
“Aye,” O’Hurley said. “Doom. Death. Perdition. Captain, you can’t save these men. I know you feel responsible, but the only one responsible is Livingston himself. Stretching your neck won’t save theirs.”
Declan didn’t deny the truth of O’Hurley’s warnings. Instead, he simply said, “I have to try. Honor demands it.”
O’Hurley turned and walked away, muttering under his breath about “bloody honor”, “bloody death”, “bloody Livingston”, and “bloody ladies mucking it all up”. Declan didn’t bother to take the other man to task for his grousing. O’Hurley had been first mate to his uncle when he’d been captain of the Sweet Colleen. Declan had known the man since he was in leading strings.
Declan turned and issued various orders to the crew. The tide was going out and they needed to go with it. It was an efficient process, one that had been perfected over countless years of sailing experience. Everyone had a role to play and they all knew what it was. Sails were hoisted, the anchor raised, and amid the flurry of activity, the ship surged forward with a groan as the wind picked up. They were one with the tide, the coastline growing smaller and smaller in the distance as the waves crashed against the hull and they set out for the open sea.
Once it was done, O’Hurley came forward with the requested items and Declan turned the wheel over to him. He’d take hi
s peace offerings to Miss Kitty Wyverne and try to keep his hands to himself.
He paused at the door, retrieved the key from his pocket and then let himself in with a knock. Kitty was seated in front of the windows, resting on the small window seat there as she dried her hair in the sun.
She stood up when he entered, steadying herself by placing one hand against the wall. A slight wince was the only indication she gave that she was in any kind of pain but even than was too much.
“I’ve come with an olive branch,” he said as he stepped into the cabin and held the walking stick aloft.
“Does it include my freedom? I’ve been held prisoner by one man already and I find that I like it less and less,” she snapped back at him.
“The door is locked, Kitty Wyverne, not to keep you in, but to keep others out,” he said. “Had my unfortunately taciturn crew not failed to explain that to you, I’m sure you’d be much happier with the situation.”
“Am I in danger from them?” she demanded.
Declan considered his answer carefully. “They are men too long at sea. Pirates who, for the most part, only respect the laws set forth by their captain and no one else, not even the crown. But just because I’ve said you are off limits to them does not mean they will all respect my wishes on that score.”
Her eyes narrowed and flashed angrily. “And what of my wishes? Do they mean nothing?”
“To some men, yes… they would mean everything. But not to all men, Kitty, and that is why the door is locked. If you wish to go above deck, I’ll escort you, or my first mate, O’Hurley, will. I don’t intend to keep you locked up here for the entire voyage. But there were matters that had to be attended to immediately so that we could set sail.”
“Such as your beard?”
He grinned. “You noticed?”
“That you no longer look like a bedlamite? Yes, I noticed, Kelly.”
“Declan,” he said. “I didn’t want to use my full name on land in case it was recognized. My name is Declan Kelly, and since you’ll be sleeping in my bed for the next week, albeit without my company, I think you should call me by my given name.”
Na Madrai Mara. The Sea Dogs. Kitty was stunned. He’d told her he was a pirate, but everyone had heard of him and of his ship. They were notorious. But it wasn’t possible, of course. How could he be the Declan Kelly who had been terrorizing the high seas for the entirety of her life when he didn’t look to be more than a year or two older than she was herself.
“That’s impossible! You’d have to be at least fifty to have accomplished all that has been said of you!”
“Five and sixty actually, as was my uncle and namesake when he retired and passed the ship on to me. He now lives in blissful retirement in Cobh, running a not quite respectable but very profitable inn and tavern,” Declan explained. “In truth, I’ve done little in my tenure as captain to hold up his illustrious reputation.”
“Hardly illustrious… infamous, perhaps. Notorious, certainly,” Kitty replied. “How long have you been captain?”
“Two years… and frankly, Kitty, I’m a good captain, but I am a terrible pirate,” he confessed. “That’s why we have to go to Cornwall and get to Livingston before the assizes. If not, four men will hang and it will be entirely my fault.”
Kitty looked at him, really looked at him. There was no beard to hide his face and, somehow, she had accustomed herself enough to his rather ridiculous masculine beauty that she could see past it. His eyes were hollow with guilt. Whatever had occurred, it was glaringly apparent that he held himself to be completely responsible for it.
“Are they guilty of the crime they are to be tried for?”
“Yes and no,” he replied. “We did board another ship without permission, but not for profit. Samford’s uncle… do you know about him?”
“I do,” she said. The scandal had been horrendous. A gentleman of means and title, he’d been supplementing the flagging fortunes of his estates by peddling flesh. Women and children abducted and sold to any that would pay for them, regardless of their intent. “It was a terrible thing!”
“I’ve had my dealings with Samford in the past, mostly for brandy and other French goods. He was there because of me, because of our arrangement. And his men took my niece off the street in Stoke-on-Trent, abducted her in broad daylight. We managed to track the ship they’d sailed on to Cornwall. We overtook it, reclaimed my niece and then when we docked to refill our water stores, those four were recognized and arrested. But I promise you, Kitty, we took nothing from that ship but my kin,” he vowed.
“But these men are being tried for piracy?”
“Yes… though we haven’t been true pirates since my uncle’s day. In his latter years, during the war with Napoleon, he’d been given letters of marque and attacked only French vessels. That’s what this once was. He confiscated it and was permitted to keep it so long as he continued his privateering. If these men are tried and found guilty, I could lose the ship, the entire crew could lose their lives. And four men who did nothing but help rescue a young girl from a terrible fate will die.”
Kitty returned to her seat before the window. “What is it you need to me to do?”
“Flirt. Be delightful. Be charming. Get close to Livingston and keep him occupied so that we might find enough evidence of his own crimes to sway him to our cause.”
It was impossible. He was asking her to do and be things that were not within her nature. She’d tried—and failed—since her debut to be charming and flirtatious. It failed miserably each time. “You ask for something I cannot give. I am none of those things and I lack the ability to fake them.”
“I can teach you,” he offered.
Her eyebrows shot up. “Are you such an expert on being a society miss, then?”
“Yes, I rather am. I wasn’t always a ship’s captain.”
“Pirate,” she insisted.
“Technically privateer, but if Livingston isn’t swayed to our cause, then yes, pirate it is,” he said. “I was in society in Ireland, as were my sisters. I watched them flirt and tease gentlemen until they didn’t know which way was up. It’s not nearly so hard as you think… especially given your attributes.”
“What attributes?” she asked.
His eyes drifted from her face down to her bosom. “If we put you in the right gown, Kitty, the man won’t even know his own name.”
Chapter Six
They began their lessons in flirtation over dinner. Through the window, the evening sky was streaked with pink and orange, the glow of it settling on her skin and highlighting her quiet beauty. Kitty wasn’t the sort of woman to take society by storm, but she was very much the kind of woman that, in a private setting, could stop a man’s heart with her direct gaze or, heaven help him, one sweet smile.
Declan watched as she fluttered her fan. “Not that way,” he corrected mildly. “That is an invitation to do far more than flirt.”
“What?” she gasped.
“That, my dear Kitty, was an age old symbol for ‘please come to my room’. While we want Livingston enthralled with you, we also want him to be kept in public areas. I can’t say what the depths of his dishonor are, but I wouldn’t want you to find out,” Declan replied. He watched the blush steal over her cheeks as the implication of that set in.
“Show me again,” she said and passed the fan back to him.
Carefully, he opened it and with a slight flick of his wrist, set it to waving ever so slightly in front of him. He then demonstrated the snapping closed of the fan. “Just like that,” he said.
“Oh, is that all?” Dutifully, she took the fan back and tried once more.
“Better,” he encouraged. “Much better. The trick to expressing interest is to meet his gaze. Look him directly in the eye, but only for a short moment, then carefully, lower your lashes and duck your head as if you are shy.”
“I am shy,” she grumbled. “How exactly do you know so very much about the way a woman in high society would communicate u
sing her fan?”
“I wasn’t always a privateer.”
“Pirate,” she corrected. “That’s what you said. Not privateer.”
“We’re transitioning to more privateering and less pirating. Privateering and a bit of free trading on the side,” he said. “Truth be told, Kitty, I’m not a very good pirate.”
She blinked at that. “How so?”
“It doesn’t sit well with me to rob my own hardworking countrymen, or even the bloody English for that matter! The French? Now that, I have no problem with.”
“So you can’t steal from the English, but you can bring back smuggled French goods and sell them at exorbitant prices?” she queried, blinking at him as if he were a fool. “And that’s less morally abhorrent to you?”
Declan grinned. “I’m a complicated man, Miss Kitty Wyverne.”
“A complicated man, a privateer, a terrible pirate, a patriot, a smuggler… and a man who knows how to maneuver in society? I must say, Captain, you have a remarkable list of achievements, whether they’ve all been mastered or not.”
He laughed at that, at her dry tone which was infinitely more appealing and seductive than any tittering miss could ever hope to be. Reaching out, he tapped the tip of one finger against the fan. “Show me,” he insisted.
Declan thought he was prepared for the gut punch of it, but he was not. She met his gaze directly. They were seated at his small table, the remains of their evening meal spread out between them. Only a small distance separated them. He could see the gold flecks in her brown eyes, the small freckle just beside her nose. And her lips. They were soft and curved, glistening slightly from the sugared pears that had been served for dessert. He wanted nothing more than to taste the sweetness of her mouth. And as her lashes swept down to rest on her cheeks and she ducked her head very slightly, it was an opportunity he could not resist.
Leaning forward, he captured her lips with his, swallowing her soft gasp of surprise. He could taste the light sugary syrup from the pears and then he could just taste her. Only her. Her lips were pliant and pillowy beneath his. She didn’t welcome him, but neither did she recoil. It seemed that, at first at least, she was too stunned to respond at all. It gave him ample opportunity to learn the contours of her lips, to map them with his own and commit the shape and texture of them to his memory. He imagined it would be something he would revisit frequently in his mind, whether the opportunity to do so in reality presented itself again or not.
The Pirate’s Bluestocking Page 3