They’d traveled via the public stage as it was faster and had arrived in the early hours of the morning. But their first order of business was not the one Kitty had anticipated. Rather than focus on obtaining the necessary garments she would require to attend the assembly and make herself irresistible to Livingston, they’d instead made their way to the church.
Declan paid the fee for the common license and paid a healthy incentive to the vicar to conduct the ceremony before the appointed hours. The end result was that they were married on the spot in St. Hydroc’s Church in a perfunctory and highly unorthodox manner. Even their witnesses were unusual, being comprised of a drunkard plucked from the charity house near the church and the vicar’s very disapproving housekeeper. Dressed in a borrowed gown, dirty and grimy from the road, it was hardly an auspicious beginning. As they’d had no chance to obtain a ring, the one she already wore had simply been switched from one hand to the other to suffice.
“It’s hardly St. Paul’s,” he said.
“No,” she agreed as they walked from the church toward the town center. “But I’m not one for London, at any rate. I prefer Bath, truth be told. It’s quieter and far more suited to my nature.”
“Could Ireland be suited to your nature?”
Kitty glanced up at him as they hailed a passing farm cart and rode back toward the center of the city. “I hadn’t considered it, honestly. I’d never thought of being married to anyone at all, truthfully, and certainly not the more practical aspects of where I would live with a husband as yet unknown to me.”
“Well, perhaps you should think on it now,” he suggested. “Though I suppose we could remain here in Cornwall if you wished.”
Kitty jolted along with the cart as it hit a bump in the road and he reached out to steady her. It unsettled her, his touch. It wasn’t intended to inflame or ignite the passion that had previously flared between them, yet it did. “I have no ties to Cornwall. And in truth, my ties to Bath are tenuous at best. I would not miss my father’s constant censure. It would be a relief, I think, to live far enough from him that he could not constantly press us for funds.” It wasn’t what she wished to say to him. She wanted to tell him that she would go anywhere he asked her to, but such an admission would make her vulnerable in ways she was not yet prepared for.
They grew quiet as the cart neared the city center and the market. There were small shops all along the streets. Declan retrieved a pouch of coins from the pocket of his coat. “Get yourself a suitable gown… and by suitable, Kitty, I mean something entirely unsuitable. Bordering on scandalous, even.”
Kitty glared at him. “In short, you think I should look like a harlot.”
“Not a harlot precisely… more like a woman who, in different circumstances, might choose to be a harlot.”
Kitty sighed heavily. They’d agreed to this and it wasn’t as if she didn’t want to help him free his friends. But the prospect of donning a revealing gown and playing a fabricated version of herself as she flirted with a terrible man—it held no appeal for her whatsoever.
“I will make it up to you,” he offered.
“How?”
His eyes flashed in a way that left little doubt to his meaning. “Oh, Kitty, I will find a way. I assure you.”
She shivered at the sensual promise in his words and his tone. “I suspect that you will,” she agreed. Taking the pouch of coins, from him, she asked, “Where do you recommend I shop for a dress suitable for an almost harlot?”
He laughed then and pointed to a small shop about halfway down the street. “I have it on good authority that is the best dressmaker’s shop in the city of Bodmin. Just be certain she knows modesty is not a priority. Wait for me there.”
When Kitty had gone, walking reluctantly toward the dressmaker’s shop, Declan made his way toward Bodmin gaol. Another coin or two exchanged hands with guards and he found himself standing before a cell that housed four men he’d known for all of his life.
“Bloody hell, Kelly! What are you doing here?”
The question had been voiced by Sean Flannigan, Declan’s friend from boyhood. “Working on getting you out of this mess,” Declan replied. “I mean to search Livingston’s quarters tonight and locate enough evidence to ensure that his determination of your innocence will be in his best interests.”
Sean shook his head. “It’s not just Livingston. His cronies are here, too. I saw them from the window earlier, prancing about in the street like it was a bloody parade.”
“Who?”
“Not Samford,” Sean said. “Burnette is here and some other fellow I’d never seen before. But you know this is a lost cause, my friend. Livingston wants us to hang because we can place him right there with Samford when the bastard was trying to pick up the pieces of his uncle’s business.”
“We have a secret weapon… someone to distract him long enough that I can search at my leisure,” Declan explained.
“And who can we bloody well trust to do this?” Sean asked, his tone laced with sarcasm.
“My wife,” Declan offered. “And she’s got as much reason to hate Samford as any of us ever had. I daresay, her animosity will extend to Samford’s cronies with little effort.”
Sean looked less than pleased, but nodded. “Fine. But I say it’s a lost cause. You should get the hell out, my friend, before you’re swinging with us.”
“It won’t come to that,” Declan vowed. “I will see you free, my friend… one way or another.” Turning on his heels, Declan left the gaol. He could hear Sean calling after him, but he didn’t respond. He wouldn’t be dissuaded from his cause, no matter how lost it seemed.
Making his way back to the dressmaker’s shop, he found Kitty waiting for him on a bench near the door. She had several paper-wrapped packages balanced on her knees. “I’ll take those,” he said.
“Where are we off to now?”
“The inn,” he said. “I’ll arrange lodging for us and then see about getting someone in to play lady’s maid for the evening. It might be someone not entirely respectable,” he warned.
“You mean a harlot,” she said.
Possibly. “More like an actress,” he hedged. “We’ll need someone to do your hair up in a fashion that will become you and that will also draw Livingston’s eye.”
“I thought the décolletage of my newly acquired gown was supposed to do that,” she pointed out rather sharply.
“Your hair, styled just right, will draw his eye, Kitty. Your charming décolletage will keep it,” he answered.
“Am I so very plain otherwise?” she asked.
Declan cast his eyes over her. “Not in the least. You’re perfectly beautiful, but not in a way that says you’re available to be had by a gentleman with the right connections and coin. It’s a fine line we have to walk with Livingston—to make it appear as if you are a woman who would be willing to trade virtue for position.”
“Then get your actress or your harlot or whoever it may be to come in and dress me up like a fox for the hunt,” she agreed. “I want this business done, Declan. I cannot explain it other than to say something about it feels very off to me, as if we were literally walking into a trap.”
He didn’t dismiss her concerns. It was a feeling he’d had himself. “I don’t have a choice, but we will be vigilant. That is all I can promise.”
Chapter Twelve
They reached the inn without incident and were immediately shown to a small but reasonably well-appointed and meticulously clean room. Because of the assizes and the market, rooms were scarce and they were lucky to have found it at all. Kitty strongly suspected that Declan had paid a hefty sum for the chamber, and perhaps even heftier for the service that accompanied it. It wasn’t long after they’d checked in that Declan left her to conduct some “business”. Only moments later, a copper tub was carried in along with buckets of steaming water. A maid came in after and bobbed a curtsy.
“Begging your pardon, Mrs. Flaherty, but your husband said I should assist you with y
our bath,” the girl said, her voice quiet and shy.
How many names did her husband have and use with frequency? He’d signed the marriage license and register as Declan Forrester Mahan Kelly. Was that his actual name? Were they even truly married? “What is your name?”
“Mary, Mrs. Flaherty.”
“Thank you, Mary. If you could help with my hair, I’ll tend to the rest.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The maid was efficient and quick. Kitty was out of her borrowed dress and in the tub in record time. With her hair scrubbed clean and combed out, the maid bobbed a curtsy and left. Kitty was still in the tub, lingering there in the still warm water, when Declan returned.
He didn’t say anything and with her eyes closed, she couldn’t be entirely certain it was her new husband. But she felt it. She recognized the sensation of his presence. Slowly, her eyes fluttering open, she raised her head and met his gaze. It was heated and carnal, a look that she recognized from their previous intimate moments in his cabin. Moments, she thought, that had not been repeated since due to their need for haste and their unusual traveling circumstances.
“Do you have any idea how enticing you look?” he asked. His voice was pitched low, the words uttered whisper soft. But they were no less potent for it.
“I do not,” she answered. Emboldened by his stare and by his obvious admiration, Kitty continued, “But when you look at me in that manner, I feel it. I feel beautiful and desirable, when I never have before.”
“If only time were not so scarce right now,” he said, “I would show you.”
“But it is scarce and we cannot afford to be late.” Disappointed, Kitty reached for the drying cloths beside the tub and rose, wrapping them about herself. She moved toward the fire and began working through the remaining snarls in her hair.
Declan crossed to the window and parted the curtains very slightly, peering out. “We did have a stroke of good fortune. The family that is hosting Livingston while he is here for the assizes lives just one door down from the assembly room. I should be able to pop over—”
“Don’t put it that way. You’re not paying a call. You’re burgling their house!”
He sighed. “I’m not stealing their silver. I’m simply going through Livingston’s things.”
“What do you hope to find precisely?”
Kitty could see the indecision warring within him. It was written plainly on his face. Had his crew not mutinied, he would not have fared well as a pirate. He simply didn’t have the ability to lie well enough.
“I believe that Livingston was in cahoots with Samford who had hoped to take up his late uncle’s less than honorable business ventures.”
Kitty knew of it. Everyone knew of it. Abducting young women and even children only to sell them to houses of ill repute or childless families. The outcome for those abducted had not mattered, only that the people who took possession of them could pay the required fee. “I know Samford’s were to do so. It was why he courted me so vigorously at first. When I refused to be utterly charmed by him, he tried to make me jealous instead but it only turned me off him completely. That’s when he resorted to abduction. But if he was planning to use marriage as a way to plump the purse, why would he engage in such a reckless scheme?”
“He was in debt to his eyes, Kitty. Your fortune, generous as it may be, would have paid off his existing debts and perhaps given you a few years of comfort. But it wouldn’t have lasted. Certainly not with him launching his younger sisters into society. And some people, Kitty, are just wicked through and through. It doesn’t matter what they have. It’s never enough. They’ll always need more and better and bigger… that was Samford.”
“And Livingston’s involvement?”
“It was Livingston to whom he meant to sell my niece,” Declan added. “His henchman as much as admitted it to me before he jumped overboard during our rescue mission. If I can find some proof, correspondence or bank drafts, notes in Livingston’s journal perhaps, about his meetings with Samford… I’ll have enough. I can force his hand into letting Sean and the others go.”
Kitty rose and made her way to the bed where her paper-wrapped packages remained. Untying the twine about them, she unfolded the brown paper and revealed the chemise and embroidered stays she’d purchased. There was a single petticoat beneath them. The other package held a pair of simple kid slippers and a ball gown of royal blue silk. “I know you’re skilled at removing a woman’s clothing, but I thought perhaps you might help me into them instead.”
She was right. He’d helped plenty of women out of their gowns. He’d never, not in all of his life, helped one into them. Slipping the chemise over her head, watching the thin, nearly transparent garment settle over her lush curves, was an exercise in torment. Somehow, the glimpses of the darker-hued skin of her nipples or the shadowy cleft between her thighs were made more erotic by the veil of linen that covered her. The petticoat came next and as he tied it, his fingers brushed against her hips, against the soft flesh of her bottom. He could smell the lavender from the soap she’d just used and her damp hair brushed against his skin.
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” he asked.
“Enjoying what?”
“Tormenting me,” he whispered and leaned in to press a kiss against her ear.
She smiled coyly at him over her shoulder. “Is that what I’m doing?”
“Yes, minx, it is. And you bloody well know it.”
“Perhaps I am,” she admitted. “I’ve never been a minx before, or a bride, or a desirable woman. I’ve only ever been a burden to my family, an embarrassment to my father, and a means to an end for most men that I’ve encountered… those who needed access to my fortune. I believe, Declan, that you are the only man I’ve ever known who desired me solely for me.”
“I am sorry for the pain and disappointment it has caused you, Kitty, but I am grateful for it in this moment,” he said. “But if I don’t get you into this blasted gown, we’ll neither of us leave this room tonight. Now, sit down and let us get your stockings and garters done up.”
Declan knelt before her as she sat down on the bed and rolled the silk over her foot and up her calf. Delicately embroidered garters were tied next, securing the stockings in place. Stays came after, and as he stood behind her, pulling the laces taut, he couldn’t resist taking a peek at her bountiful bosom spilling over the top of it. Even as he cursed himself for a fool, he looked his fill.
“You’re dawdling,” she chided softly.
“You’re distracting,” he answered. “I cannot help myself.”
She reached for the gown and pressed it into his hands. “I’m assuming your soiled dove is on her way to do my hair and make me look like a compatriot of hers.”
“She will be here at six. Which is only a few minutes away.” Declan accepted the gown and slipped it over her head. The silk settled over her skin and he did up the laces in the back. He’d just finished when a soft knock sounded on the door. He let out an aggrieved sigh and said, “And that would be her now. She is punctual, at least.”
As Kitty walked away from him to answer the door, Declan seated himself on the bed. It was a pathetic attempt to camouflage his rampant erection and the effect his bride had upon him.
It didn’t take long for the other woman to dress Kitty’s hair. With curling tongs and a bevy of pins, she piled the dark tresses into a heavy mass atop her head, with curls cascading down. It gave the illusion that the removal of a single pin would let the whole of it tumble down her back like a woman who had been well loved or was about to be.
Declan paid the woman and then quickly donned his own finer clothing. Nothing too high-toned, but something that would allow him to blend with the other local gentry. While Kitty would arrive at the assembly with him, it would not do for them to seem as if they were there together but were merely acquaintances.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
She crossed to the bed and retrieved the fan that had been carefully
wrapped amongst her packages. Opening it with a flick of her wrist that was pure artistry, she said, “What do you think?”
“I think he’ll be dazzled. I know I am.”
Chapter Thirteen
To say that an assembly in Bodmin was a livelier occurrence than one in Bath would have been a gross understatement. There seemed to be a diversity of class in those not quite so grand rooms that would never have been entertained in the city she had called home for so very long. It had its own kind of appeal, Kitty thought, and appeared to be far more enjoyable than the reserved affairs she’d been to previously. It seemed the higher the class of the guest list, the more bored one was required to appear. After all, it was better to appear filled with ennui than gauche enthusiasm. But in Bodmin—farmers, merchants, landed gentry and nobles all mingled in that space with lively music while heavily spiked punch and lemonade flowed freely.
It was exciting. She wished, in that moment, that they were there for different reasons. She wished that the evening was simply theirs to enjoy without the need for subterfuge and plots. It occurred to her that what had been an infatuation with the man who was her husband had deepened into something more. It was not simply attraction, but a need to be close to him, to feel safe in his presence. Perhaps it was a mistake, but as she looked at him, so handsome and strong beside her, she knew that it was inevitable. She was falling in love with him, if she wasn’t there already. He could break her heart or perhaps she could find something with him that she’d never dared even to dream of.
“What is it?” he asked her.
The Pirate’s Bluestocking Page 7