Silence was his answer and so she turned back, hoping he was covered, to find him sitting on the side of the bed, the edge of the blanket thrown over his lap…and a stark look on his face.
“Ioan Rees?” His voice came out in a harsh, nearly inaudible whisper.
A sensation like uncertainty filled her. “Aye,” she answered, wariness in her tone.
He stiffened, his green eyes snapping with a fire unlike she’d ever seen before.
“And this Ioan Rees… Did he ever kidnap a woman by the name of Ilone?”
Struck by his question, and the utter lack of guile in his voice, she quickly answered, “Kidnap? Nay. Marry, aye.”
If she were the laughing kind, she would have chuckled at the look of shock on his face; all color drained away to reveal dark lines and hollows.
“Married?” he asked, his voice a ghost of what it once was. Unsure what to say to help appease him, she only nodded.
“Ioan Rees and…Ilone?”
She nodded again, this time, wrapping her arms around her belly as if to ward off the strange twisting within.
Seeming to have lost his bravado and charm, the man slumped, his great shoulders dipping. And she hated it. A man like this should never know the kind of weight that would break him so.
“And what of it?” she asked, keeping her own voice as even as possible. What did this man know or not know that had made this information like a lance to his soul? “Surely you knew this…”
“I am not a Rees! I am a Bowlin…” The strength of his voice diminished even as he spoke, his words like a dying declaration.
Sighing, Glynnis held out the now cool bowl of stew and waited for his gaze to land on it. She had seen intelligence and keenness in his eyes—he wasn’t touched in the head. So…why did his rejection of the truth sound so…real?
Perhaps he truly doesn’t know. Perhaps…you are wrong.
“It’s best that you eat.” This time, her voice was soft, compelling. “You need your strength.”
Stiffening, the man blinked at her, his gaze slowly sharpening. Her stomach flipped at the sheer power of his gaze.
He reached out and took the bowl from her. “Thank you.”
Unable to trust her voice, she simply nodded then turned to retrieve her own bowl. She sat in the chair across the cottage, nearest the fire. Furthest from him. And they ate in silence, the only sounds were of him swallowing…and she couldn’t help but watch his throat working, the thick cords of his neck moving.
Finally, she set aside her uneaten stew and waited for him to finish his.
“More?”
Wiping his mouth with his forearm he shook his head.
“Nay, but I thank you for the offer,” he replied, his words plunging into the depths of her. She’d never known a man like him to thank anyone for anything—at least sincerely. Not once in their disastrously short marriage—if one could call it that—or their short courtship—which was more a artful deception than a proper courtship—had William ever said thank you. Certainly, he said “please,” he was quite skilled at quirking his eyebrow and getting her to succumb to whatever he wanted, but he never showed any form of true appreciation or supplication.
Stop comparing this man to William. For all you know he is a faithful and loving husband to some woman across the Irish Sea. Then again…would a faithful and loving husband be such an unrepentant flirt with strange women?
And why did the thought of this stranger being married bother her so much? She didn’t even know his name!
“What should I call you?” she blurted then immediately stiffened, the heat of her embarrassment blasting into her cheeks. Pushing her strength to the surface, she asked again, this time with less stammering, “If you are not a Rees, and in fact are a Bowlin, you must have a given name.”
His gaze flicked from her eyes to her cheeks, to her mouth, and then finally back to her eyes. The heat in her cheeks grew hotter.
“Aye. My name is Robbie,” he answered, his black eyebrows arching upward, and that damned smile only just forming on his lips. “Most call me Ravishing Robbie.” There was that teasing in his voice.
Narrowing her eyes, she replied, “Most but not me. I would call you nothing if you weren’t like a babe, dependent on my food and good will.”
A chuckle rumbled from his chest, and she hissed, her anger rising once again to best her wits. “And you best remember that, Robbie. My good will only stretches so far before it snaps like a rope tied to a storm-ravaged sail.” She knew she was being careless with her choice of words, but it didn’t bother her. Much. She needed to regain control of her wits, her body, and her home.
Rather than looking green around the gills as she’d hoped, the blackguard had the audacity to fully unleash his wicked grin.
“Oh, aye, I will remember that…Mary?” He said the name with a quirk of his brow. He was trying to seduce her name from her. The fool. All he had to do was ask politely. “Agnes?” At that name she grimaced. He chuckled and her stomach flipped. “Not Agnes then…” He reached up a long-fingered hand to rub at the newly clean shaven flesh of his angular jaw. “Perhaps your name is Selkie or Kelpie…you must’ve been on the shore to have found me after the wreck. Mayhap you are really from the ocean, only come ashore to beguile and devour helpless sailors.”
That wrested a snort from her throat. “Aye, and my mother was a siren and my father was a seahorse.”
Before he could respond, the door to her tiny cottage burst open, and the last person she ever wanted to see crashed into the room, his sabre gripped in his fist, his face a mask of all too beautiful danger.
“Glynnis…” he drawled, not in the least winded or even visibly guilty for nearly destroying her door.
“Saban! What in God’s name are you doing here?” she sneered, her momentary fear replaced by boiling rage.
Saban waved off her words as though they meant nothing, his ghostly green eyes deadly in their chill.
Chapter Five
Robbie lunged to his feet, the blanket covering his nakedness falling to the floor. Instinctively, he reached to his side for his rapier, but it wasn’t there. It was lost to the sea.
“I see you have replaced William with another,” Saban Rees sneered, his strangely familiar face twisting into a hateful expression. “Lucian said it would take you ten years to find another to warm your bed. I said you never would. I guess neither of us wins the pot.”
Gasping, the woman—Glynnis—stepped toward Saban, murder in her brilliant violet eyes.
“I will kill you both for even breathing my name let alone speaking about me with such disrespect. I might have married your cousin, but you are no family of mine!”
Married your cousin? She was a Rees then… And from the looks of the animosity between her and Saban, she had reason to despise the Rees so much she nearly bit his head off when she thought he was one of them.
His gaze took in Saban’s long black hair, twisted into five braids, his long black beard, and his striking green eyes. Green eyes he’d seen in his own reflection for twenty-five years.
And you just might be… Nay. He was no more a Rees than he was a king.
“You watch your tongue. This woman has done nothing but save me from death after the wreck of the Saint Anne. She has done nothing to earn your spite, Rees,” Robbie drawled, his tone one of depth and danger. Even without his sword, he would kill Saban Rees—it wasn’t the first time he’d faced battle bare-handed. But from the looks of Saban’s wicked sabre, it just might be his last.
Saban grinned, flashing his teeth, like a wolf brandishing his fangs. “I know. I heard all about you from a weasel named Berks.”
The sour bile of betrayal rose into his mouth. Robbie spat. “He should have known to keep his mouth shut.”
Shrugging, Saban loosened his hold on his sabre and crossed his arms over his broad chest—though, not so broad as Robbie’s—dipping his head to one side. “He could do naught but what I wanted. My sabre is sharp and so is my
temper; he was loath to hold his tongue when I asked about the man asking about me.”
“You killed him, then?” Robbie asked, somewhat curious if the traitorous bastard died slow or quickly.
Instead of answering, Saban stared at Glynnis before casting his gaze over Robbie. Robbie had never felt so naked while naked before. Finally, Saban replied, “Nay. I let him scurry off to whatever hole Lucian found him in.”
Lucian. Another Rees, no doubt.
“And what did he tell you?’ Robbie inquired, suddenly hyperaware of his nakedness; Glynnis was standing stiffly, her gaze fixed on the ceiling, her face a wash of red and purple. It was obvious it had been a while since she’d seen a man’s body…or at least a body as…well-made as his.
Fighting back a cocky grin—utterly inappropriate under the circumstances, he knew he needed to do what he could to make Glynnis a little less tense. And the fact that he cared at all was strange to him.
Do not think on it.
Bending, Robbie grabbed hold of the blanket and wrapped it around his waist. It was the least he could do for the woman who saved his life…and brought him face to face with the man he’d been hunting for.
As if sensing his fabric shield had slipped into place, Glynnis let out a strangled breath and turned her head to peer at him over her shoulder. She speared him with narrowed violet eyes…and his heart tripped at the sight.
“The spineless lizard told me you are Ravishing Robbie Bowlin, plunderer of the comely wench, highwayman, thief, son of a once renown knight, a broken bastard who lost his mind searching for my grandfather.”
“You will watch how you speak of my father; he was an honorable man…unlike your grandfather.” Robbie sneered, his body taut with the need to do damage.
Saban returned the sneer, flashing his teeth once again. “So you think my grandfather wronged your father in some way? It is possible. Daid was a bloodthirsty demon…”
Was? The man was dead? Had Robbie’s chance for vindication been stolen from his grasp?
“So…what did my Daid do that made your father so desperate to find him?”
His gaze on Saban’s sabre, Robbie answered, “He stole my grandmother from her husband.” At least…that’s what he thought had happened, but now…after what Glynnis said… He wasn’t so certain.
Saban quirked his lip, his eyes remaining as cold and calculating as any predator’s. “And who is this woman my Daid supposedly stole?”
“Ilone, mother to my father, Ioan,” Robbie answered, and watched the color drain from Saban’s tanned face.
Saban growled. “Your grandmother is a lying bitch.”
Robbie knew the man was trying to push him into action so that he could rightfully use his sabre to cut him down. He knew it, but it didn’t stop the rage that poured from his belly and into his limbs. In an instant, Robbie dropped the blanket and sprang forward to pound the man into meat, but the point of Saban’s blade at Robbie’s throat made him halt before he’d made it two steps.
“Nay!” Glynnis screamed. “You will not shed blood in my home!” Turning to Robbie, she averted her eyes from his nakedness and pinned her gaze to his face. “You will go to my trunk and find a pair of breeches to put on. You seem larger than what may be in there, which is why I hadn’t offered them to you before now, but it is better than you standing there in naught but your skin like some pagan. Lord knows I should have gone into town do find you something suitable to wear, but I have not had the coins to do so.” She pointed to a trunk in the corner by the end of the bed. She turned to Saban. “And you! You will drop that damned sword and turn around and leave my home before I gut you with your own blade,” she drawled, a threat in her voice Robbie couldn’t help but find…intriguing. This tiny woman was larger than she seemed—and much more foolish.
Robbie watched Saban, ready to strike out if the man swung his sword toward Glynnis. Instead of the anger Robbie expected to see at the woman’s outburst, Saban threw his head back and laughed. Tense, he watched as Saban’s laughter died sharply.
“I would like to see you try, Glynnis,” he drawled, making the blood thin in Robbie’s veins. There was an underlying danger in the man’s words that caused Robbie’s heart to pound. But why should he care about Glynnis and her dead husband’s kin? Let them have their family squabble…
You would let him harm her after she saved your life? Nay, he would not. But she didn’t seem particularly frightened of the man who’d burst into her home… She’d seemed more frightened of Robbie’s nakedness then she had been of Saban’s sword.
“Go,” she ordered Saban before throwing a scathing glare at Robbie. “If you are able, come outside—once you are clothed. No need to frighten my pig.” With that, she watched as Saban slid through the lopsided door, and then followed him out into the gloaming.
Chapter Six
Glynnis sucked in a much-needed breath and willed her body to stop trembling—from the wrath at Saban and her unwanted attraction to the stranger she rescued. By the sea gods, the man in her cottage was a prime example of masculine perfection, and his nakedness had been both a distraction and a temptation. The anger and confusion that flashed between Saban and the man named Ravishing Robbie—she’d nearly snorted when she’d heard Saban call him that—was palpable. If they’d been family as she’d first assumed, they were doing an excellent job of acting as enemies.
Snapping her attention back to the belligerent demon before her, she planted her hands on her hips and glared up into Saban’s rugged face.
“Why are you here? And do not tell me you were worried about me. I have heard enough lies from Rees mouths to last me three lifetimes.”
Saban sheathed his sabre and crossed his arms over his broad chest, a chest she’d once admired…before she’d been seduced by William. Oh, what a fickle wench she’d been.
Been? You still are! She’d sworn off men and yet she couldn’t stop thinking about Robbie. Biting her cheek to keep from cursing at herself, she waited for Saban to reply.
“I have men watching the coast. One saw you hauling this man up the shore and toward your cottage. As a caring and protective man, I thought it best if I come offer my aid.”
She scoffed. “So you reduce my door to rubbish and threaten my guest?”
Saban offered a single careless shrug. “I thought it better to be sure.”
Glynnis uttered a curse, one William had taught her, and raised a finger to poke Saban in the chest. “You care nothing for me save how I can assuage your guilt for allowing your cousin to remain a feckless debaucher of women even after he pledged to remain faithful to me.”
The sharp look on Saban’s face told Glynnis she’d hit the truth of it. Just a part of it, at least. There was more there beneath the flickering gray that she couldn’t see clearly.
“And how did you know who that man was?” she asked, poking his chest again. Saban swatted her hand away as if she were a bothersome fly.
“I was not convinced of his identity until I saw him. I’d received word from a man in Cobh about a black haired, green-eyed newcomer asking around about me. The man said his name was Robbie Bowlin, a highwayman with ties to a dead knight. A knight I had heard of previously. He had been searching for Daid for decades, but since Daid has hidden away from us all, it was no hardship for him to remain hidden from the likes of a mad knight.”
“You speak as though you know something,” a deep, dangerous voice said from behind her. She spun on her heel to see that Robbie had donned the breeches as instructed—or commanded, rather—but that was it. His broad, naked chest and hard, ridged belly were still on glorious display.
“Did I utter a falsehood?” Saban intoned, gripping the hilt of his sabre menacingly.
Robbie shook his head once. “Nay.”
“Are you not Robbie Bowlin?”
“Aye.”
“Are you not looking for Saban Rees?” Saban’s gripped tightened on the hilt, and Glynnis could only stare between them, her heart in her throat.
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br /> “Aye,” Robbie answered without hesitation.
“Why were you looking for me?”
“To find the man who ruined my family.” Robbie’s voice was sharp, hard, edged with grief and rage. It was how she sounded when she’d cursed William to hell.
Saban flashed a predatory grin.
“And so, you think to find my Daid and make him pay for stealing your grandmother… Ilone, did you say?”
“Aye.”
“And she bore a son she named Ioan?”
Glynnis couldn’t understand the line of questioning. Why did Saban care about any of that? He could have easily dispatched Robbie before he’d ever set foot on the ship for Port Eynon. So why hadn’t he?
Robbie let out a laden breath, as if his patience had worn perilously thin. “Aye.”
A long, heavy silence stretched out between them.
Saban’s whole demeanor seemed to change before her eyes; his body remained tense and coiled, but his eyes took on a gleam of something…unexpected. Sadness.
“Well then, I suppose I should take you to see him,” Saban finally said, and Robbie’s eyes widened.
“In pieces, you mean?” he said, eyeing Saban’s wicked sabre.
Saban chuckled. “If I wanted you dead…you would be.”
Robbie’s compelling sea green eyes darkened, his lips pulling back into a wolfish mask. Every inch of Glynnis’s body took notice of the way his face changed from simply handsome to devastating. Even when deadly, this man was beautiful.
With another chuckle, Saban turned his back on them and started toward the path that lead to the beach where she’d found Robbie. “Come then, Ravishing Robbie. And I think you should come, too Glynnis. Lucia and Rose have been asking about you.”
Lucia…Rose… The only women Glynnis had ever counted as friends. She’d met them long before she’d met William. They’d been secretive but kind, and they never ceased to stand as her friends, even when their own cousin, her husband, had wandered from her bed and into the bed of another…and another. They’d been stalwart in their defense of her, stating that no woman deserved to be cuckolded. But they’d been William’s cousins. So when she’d broken ties with him, she’d broken ties with them all. And that decision still cut her to the quick. Thinking back on the bright, fiery Rose, and the cool yet clever Lucia, Glynnis’s heart lurched. She missed them.
The Ravishing Rees (Pirates of Britannia Book 10) Page 4