The Unraveling of Lady Fury

by Shehanne Moore

  He raked his gaze downward over her. Of course, he would first admire his handiwork. Before admiring hers.

  She clasped her cloak shut. It was nothing to her that she was seven and a half months pregnant, except it made her feel even dirtier. More slovenly, if that was possible, given what she’d just done.

  “I was wondering that myself.” He yanked the shirt out of his breeches and over his head.

  Fury’s eyes widened. What was this? Some kind of awful duel, where he now displayed his sculpted chest for her stomach’s next heave? And then, removed more?

  “But I worked up the courage.” He balled and tossed the soiled garment out into the passageway.

  “Here, madam.” Susan shoved the chamber pot toward her.

  “Thank you. No.”

  She was not facing him across that. She had her pride. Her dignity. If necessary this would be a fight to the death. He need make no mistake. With what had taken up residence in her heart these last months, she would not settle for less.

  The ship pitched and she grasped the bowl.

  It was better than grasping him. Particularly as he had no shirt on.

  “I don’t know how you have the gall to face Susan either.” She spoke with as much dispassion as she could muster, given she clutched a large white chamber pot in one hand and wiped her knuckles across her mouth with the other. “Kidnapping is a capital offense.”

  “It might be were your shape a little different.”

  “What?”

  Her heart hammered. How dare he? And how dare he kidnap her? For Lady Margaret? For what? Who?

  “But right now—” The monster had the nerve to shoot out his arm and she watched, horrified, as he snapped his fingers at someone out in the passageway. A flash of red was tossed into the room, and he caught it with ease.

  The reason he had dared kidnap her dawned, although how he could do so in her state fell beyond her comprehension.

  From the start she’d known that beneath the casual, lazy manner lurked a ruthless specimen capable of satisfying his every need. But this?

  She straightened her spine, feeling herself stare at the rich vermillion dress in his hands, as if her eyes would swallow it. A weaker woman might have started screaming. She knew they would. But Fury clung to self-possession, although the blood ran from her face.

  “Here, I want you to put that on.” He flung the dress at her. “There’s jewels in the box there.” He jerked his head at the rickety wooden table. “Come to my cabin when you’re done.”

  “When I’m done?” Fury shrieked as the dress flumped against her chest.

  He could not possibly be serious, wanting her to dress up and look pretty for him, as he had before. Dear God, she was pregnant. Yet the dress’s message was unmistakable. It was soft flowing French silk and indescribably beautiful. A piece of shining frippery, costing God alone knew what. Her color too. Although whether it was her size was another matter.

  And he commanded her to his cabin, did he? Thinking what exactly? He could have his ruthless way with her? And she’d fall at his feet, as she had once before?

  Coldness swept her, rising from the pit of her stomach. Taking a deep breath to master her furious reaction, she raised her chin higher. Then she dumped the dress on the cabin floor.

  “Fine then. I’m ready now.”

  “Madam, no.”

  Of course Susan would try planting her stout body in the way. But the pistol hadn’t been invented that Fury couldn’t and wouldn’t shoot herself in the foot with. One only had to consider the way her eyes were primed on Flint and the fact the dress lay on the cabin floor.

  “I’m not afraid of him.” Fury held her spine straight and head high. “He touches me and it will be rape.”

  Rape? In her present state? Was she serious?

  In spite of all the desire for her Flint had experienced since her departure, all the torment, thirst, and hunger, that wasn’t top of his list. Not right now anyway.

  “Yes. You will testify on my behalf, should I return to this cabin in anything less than the state I leave it in, Susan. Take note.”

  That was a tall order. Given the state she already was. Obviously she didn’t understand that was why he’d given her the dress, or she wouldn’t have tossed it on the floor. To think he had suffered more than one sleepless night wondering if it was her size.

  “You want to take an inventory check on that, sweetheart?”

  “What?”

  “Well, you’ve got a dab of sickness there.” While it wasn’t safe to put out his hand, Flint risked it anyway. He even risked his fingers brushing her breast. “And a big splurge there. I’d like to count the creases on that cloak, but, sweetheart, I don’t want to get too close.”

  Maybe it was that her eyes looked like a viper’s. Maybe it was her desire to strike him. Maybe it was her disheveled state. Whatever it was, Flint resisted the urge to grasp her. God knows why he wanted to. But he did. She looked like an outraged kitten standing there. Sweet and endearing. His heart gave a tiny flip.

  It didn’t matter that gut instinct whispered that cats had claws. Even now he knew he must wait his time. Wasn’t the dress on the floor, instead of on her person? Of course, he knew she wasn’t the old Fury. And it was going to take more than a dress to get his way out of this.

  Even so, he’d hoped she might have expressed a little more interest in such a generous gift.

  “Then just you remember it.” She handed the chamber pot to Susan. “Now. Your cabin, I believe you said.”

  * * *

  It disgusted her. Yet what other choice did she have but to hear him out? She’d smacked into yet another brick wall. A moment where she’d then been too stunned and too sick—too a lot of things—to appreciate one vital fact.

  The dress didn’t make sense. None whatsoever.

  Flint’s women were chosen with care. For their pretty faces and trim figures. He wasn’t attracted to whales. He hadn’t kidnapped her for that. No. And she’d be a damn fool to think it. To let the past govern her. A damn fool to let anger govern her, too, when every wave, every pitch, every roll of the boat took her further from the dreams of her future.

  It was the only reason she swept along the passageway behind him, her faltering heels clicking on the wooden boards.

  A single gold hoop glinted in his ear. The English Channel was hardly the place to resume his glittering career. So perhaps she should assume that having flogged off her book to the highest bidder, he now meant to extort money to head back to Jamaica. And that was why he invited her to his cabin.

  Although the dress still didn’t make sense.

  It was difficult of course with his meanness, his lowness, when she carried his child, to be calm, collected—enough to consider his thinking in giving her the dress. Maybe he just wanted her to look pretty while they parleyed. Maybe he thought just because she wanted the Beaumont inheritance sufficiently to enter into a business transaction, a frock would sway her into overlooking the fact he’d kidnapped her.

  Until this moment she had quite hated this baby. Now that she saw he gave less than two hoots about it, she pitied it. Imagine having a blackmailing skunk in one’s family tree.

  He stopped at a door and stared down at her with unwavering intensity. An intensity that made her glad this time her heart wasn’t just covered in frost, but frozen solid. “You’d be a whole lot better to go back and put on that dress. Freshen yourself up that little bit, before you come in here.”

  “Here’s the thing, Flint. I’m not going to. And you can’t make me. Not anymore.”

  “All right. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He opened the door.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It had been seven years since Fury had been in a cabin like this with him, she realized as the door opened on the brightly lit room. And in that time everything had changed. It was why she was astonished by what raked her. The humiliation that scorched all the way from the tips of her toes, to the roots of her hair at the sig
ht of what greeted her. Two women, garishly dressed, sat at his dinner table, as if they belonged there.

  That he should still have the power to do this to her. And worse, since her first thought was to admit he was right. She should have gone back to the cabin and tidied herself up.

  For a moment she hesitated. To do so now though, would be to admit she was wrong, when he was no more than a snake, unworthy of such an act of capitulation.

  Anyway, why the blazes should she capitulate, simply because her cloak and gown had vomit stains, her hair had loosened from its tortuous array of pins, and she smelled?

  She sniffed surreptitiously. She smelled bad. But that wasn’t the point. These women. She strove not to blink. Or show she was in any way affected or outraged by this latest piece of effrontery.

  He wanted money. He could have it. She was uncertain how, because she was uncertain how she was going to explain why he wanted it to Lady Margaret. And already Lady Margaret had accused her of running up all sorts of debts. But surely she would find a way.

  “Do you want to sit down?”

  She didn’t. But her eyes scanned the gleaming table.

  Choosing the place to sit was an exercise in restraint and decorum. It would have been much easier were she under an illusion about what these women were and what they were doing here. And if she was able to eat some of what sat on the table in shining silver dishes.

  But she wasn’t. She trembled, trying not to let her eyes brim. The father of her child, the father of the Beaumont heir, Storm’s father, was a philandering, thieving, kidnapping, blackmailing… While he had never had a father himself, bastard was not the word that came to mind. Neither was skunk.

  “I’m glad you’ve decided to sit down.”

  Was it? She stared impassively at her fork. It would be very nice to jab it in his face. His eye preferably. But she smelled, she was pregnant, and she sat here in vomit-stained clothes. He was minus his shirt. She would not make herself look worse. Not before two trolloping whores.

  “This here’s Louise-Ann, and this is Marigold.”

  She jerked her chin up. Marigold? She was sure, whatever her name was, she had seen Marigold before. That day Fury had looked like a beekeeper.

  “I believe you two might have met before.” He opened the cupboard.

  Please don’t tell her Marigold had been with him since Genoa, sharing his bed. Please don’t tell her Louise-Ann had too. She swallowed. To have been replaced, not just by one woman, but two, was no odds to her.

  Indeed, it only confirmed what she already knew of the man. That he was physically incapable of keeping his breeches buttoned. Any woman believing otherwise was destined for a life of misery. She was glad it wasn’t her. Glad she had not been stupid enough to run off with him.

  Pride commandeered her tongue. “Charmed, I’m sure.”

  “Oh, Marigold and Louise-Ann won’t be joining us.”

  “Oh, but Flintee, you promised.”

  Flintee? Yes this was her.

  “You said we could, eef we were very good. And we ’ave been. We ’ave been saints.”

  Saints? Of what? The trolloping whores?

  “Sorry, girls.” He tugged a fresh shirt over his head. “Not this time.”

  “I don’t see why not.” Fury stared idly at her fork. “Stealing is also a capital offence. I wouldn’t worry about having a few whores present.”

  “That’s the thing. There’s those who might say that about you, truth got out.”

  Blackmail? No, she would not rise to it. Not when it confirmed her expectations. Besides her reputation, while not lily-white, stood unblemished.

  “But, ladies—”

  Ladies? Disinterested, she raised her chin. He always called them that. But the manners, the tidy way he bowed. Had he been taking lessons? How to impress a whore?

  “As ever, it’s been a pleasure.”

  “Nooh, Flintee. Z’at ’as been ours.”

  This was taking it a little far, wasn’t it? Kissing each of their hands in turn. But then why should he worry about catching something when the chances were he was probably riddled?

  “Could we get on with this? After all, you told me to come here. Unless of course, it was to spectate?”

  She didn’t care that they all regarded her in horror. The women anyway. As if this was no way to speak to Flintee. As if they would like to claw her eyes out. It wouldn’t be a first. Not when she thought of some of the places she’d hauled him out of. Of course he’d said he never cheated. And that counted for something?

  He ushered them out, closing the door on their languid protests.

  “You don’t think very highly of me, do you?” His fathomless blue gaze moved over her.

  “Let me consider the reasons for that. We have all night, don’t we?” With difficulty she kept her voice level. She had been angry before, the first time she had faced him in Genoa. Look where it had gotten her.

  Passion had still been in her heart then. Whereas now her heart was empty. Dry and broken as a shattered husk.

  “I hope so. But that depends on you.”

  Oh really? “Let’s start with the misappropriation—”

  “Palerna’s not mine exactly, but I didn’t steal it.”

  “I’m not talking about the boat.”

  His gaze didn’t falter as he ambled across the floor and came to stand beside her, the lantern light glinting on the gold in his ear and casting a sheen over his corn-colored hair, as if it couldn’t help but touch him.

  A weaker woman might have let her gaze cling. But that had been her mistake before.

  She could pretend, of course. She remembered enough of the letters and other items she’d painstakingly gathered to put on a show. Only it would be a hollow one, in danger of having the curtain snapped down on it at any time. That was the fear that now shackled her, because of him.

  “I suppose that depends on what you mean by stealing. See, the law might say what you’ve got of mine there makes this eeksie-peeksie.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  She had never heard such an expression. For that matter it might have been pirate lingo. But she could guess its meaning.

  He sat down in the chair opposite, easing his long legs beneath the table. “So I suggest, we do a deal.”

  A deal? Of course. Now came the list of terms. Sure to be as long as the yardarm. But disgust tightened her throat. Why was he talking about what she had of his, when his seed, for the book, had never been the exchange? It was a new level of low to try and bypass his crimes. Fortunately her heart was already dead. Or she might have felt the dagger this drove into it.

  “So you don’t deny it then?” She let a knowing smile curve her lip. “That you took my book?”

  “Appropriated is a better term.”

  “Theft, whether you steal or you appropriate, is still theft.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Maybe if you’d listened to me, I wouldn’t have had to.”

  “I see. So it’s all my fault you’re a thief?”

  “Let’s just say, it was in aid of a good cause.”

  He reached for the crystal decanter in the center of the table, and she tilted her chin.

  “And what about bringing me here? Was that also in aid of a good cause? Stuffing handkerchiefs over the noses of expectant mothers and their maids is one, I must confess, I have never heard of. Although, of course I don’t know the names of each and every charitable cause in existence.”

  He stilled his hand in a way she’d seen before, if seldom. The betraying drop of claret staining the white cloth had nothing to do with the roll of the ship. Only right here, right now, why would it trouble him that he’d drugged her?

  “If I’d asked the men to hold a knife to Lady Margaret’s throat, you think you’d have just come along?” He sighed. “Hell, you’d have told them to cut it.”

  That was only partly so. Although even partly, in his eyes…

  “How dare you think I care so little for my mother-in
-law.”

  “Oh, you care about her, in that she’s got money.” He filled the two glasses, although she didn’t miss the way his eyes sharpened on her face as he did. “You care about a lot of things that way.”

  “Goodness. Just hark at the pot calling the kettle various shades of black.”

  “That’s why you wouldn’t come with me when I asked you.”

  “You think so?”

  Dear God, it couldn’t be what this was about?

  He was proud. She knew that. And she suspected that, like her, his childhood had fitted him in that mold. But would he go to these lengths because she’d refused him? If he had, there was only one explanation. He’d gone mad.

  “I think I explained all that. But in case you didn’t hear, let me try again. I do love money. It’s the most important thing a woman can have when she’s been left as I was in a strange country. A child on the way. No visible means of support. No family. No friends. No casual acquaintances even. And then years later bled dry.”

  His eyes didn’t even flicker. “You’ve made a good job of naming all my sins.”

  “Not all of them. You’re mistaken if you think that’s the only reason I didn’t come with you. No. The money is one thing. The charming ladies you asked me in here to meet are the main reason I never came with you.” She smiled again. Let him see she’d had enough of this? Not yet. “Now you know, I vow you’d be as well giving me your terms.”

  “I apologize for kidnapping you.”

  “Not just me. Susan too.”

  “The men got confused.”

  “Confused?” She had never heard the likes. Or felt more temporarily incensed. “You mean they can’t tell the difference between a pregnant woman and one old enough to be her mother?”

  “I mean they were rushed.” He shifted, knitting his brows. “And you’re not exactly one to come quietly.”

  A lie, of course. That justified nothing.

  “Anyway, I digress.”

  She regarded the way he got to his feet, in bemusement. What he rummaged for, in the battered wooden chest he dragged from beneath the bed, increased her shock and her surprise. An elegant, lace cravat hung forlornly from his arm, as if it knew she’d be affronted by it.