For Her Love (19 page)

Before Grace could answer, she found her arms filled with a wriggling boy who went instantly from happy smiles to a fretful scowl. A stab of panic went through her. She’d no idea what to do with a fussy baby. Fortunately, Giles came to the rescue. He took the child from her, tossed him into the air and caught him, once again eliciting a cheerful grin along with musical giggles.

Grace turned back to Faith. “Does it pain your father, that you are so far and your children will not learn his trade?”

“He’s sons enough to help in the shop,” Geoff interjected. “The only thing that pains Jonathan Cooper is the fear that I’ve led his little girl astray.” He stepped in back of his wife, wrapped his muscular arms about her waist, and pulled her to him.

Geoff loomed behind her, could have crushed her in an instant, but Faith only reached up behind her and gave the man’s solid, square jaw a playful tap. “Not so! He misses both little Jonathan and me fiercely. And he worries more for your soul than mine. You are a wicked, wicked man, you know.”

“Aye,” Geoff agreed with a grin. “But you’ve more of the devil in you than e’re you’ll admit.”

He leered at his wife in a way that would have made Grace’s blood run cold, but Faith only smiled and blushed in return. “Behave,” she chided lightly.

Eager to distract them, hoping to move into safer territory, Grace asked, “Will your Jonathan be a sailor, then?”

Geoff and Faith answered simultaneously.

“He’s but a babe…” Faith began.

“Aye, the finest,” Geoff boasted.

Grace winced. She hadn’t meant to cause a row. Now the evening would surely be spoiled as the two of them stewed and waited for an opportunity to argue away from their guests. But they only astonished her again by laughing.

“Tell her Giles,” Geoff pleaded, stepping away from his wife. “Growing up a stone’s throw from the wickedest city on earth, and sailing since ere he could walk. He’ll sail for king and country. Outdo his father’s most daring exploits.”

“Oh, nay,” Faith protested. “He’ll return to New England and live among the savages, converting their heathen souls and thereby succeeding with them where I failed with you!”

Geoff’s jaw dropped, and his golden eyes lit with a dangerous spark. Grace sucked in her breath at Faith’s nerve. Even Iolanthe would have known better than to stir up such an intimidating man as this.

Giles laughed boisterously. “She has you!” he called. “Oh, ‘tis good to know that you can still keep him on his toes,” he praised Faith.

Geoff’s indignation turned quickly to sheepish confusion. “You
are
jesting, nay?” he asked.

Faith looked at him with guileless blue-green eyes. “Jesting? Think you not that a fine and fitting profession for our son?”

He reached for her, spinning her about and pulling her close. “A
privateer
with a taste for wenching,” he replied, dipping his head toward hers.

Grace turned bright red and looked away, though a part of her wanted to watch, to see what happened.

There was naught to see. Faith braced her hand against Geoff’s broad chest. “You embarrass our guests,” she chided.

Grace spared a glance for Giles, but he was smiling, obviously at complete ease with the playful, lusty teasing between his friends. She was on the outside, again. Married and yet a virgin, just as she had always been neither white nor black, a daughter in her home and yet not.

Giles looked at her, as well, and she did not miss the subtle yearning in his eyes. This was what he wanted, and aye, it seemed a fine life, but the whole experience was so alien to her. She did not know how to laugh and tease like this.

She joined Faith in the kitchen to help with dinner, fish stew and fresh bread still warm. The air was moist and hot and smelled of fish and onion. The center of the room was taken up by a cook fire and hearth, the surrounding walls lined by cupboards and a table.

“You and Giles are settling in well?” Faith inquired, as she transferred the stew into a serving tureen.

Grace hesitated. She found a shallow basket on the table, next to the bread, and she placed one of the loaves in it. “Aye. Well enough.”

“He’s a good man. I’ve long hoped he’d find a bride, for he’s sure to be a fine husband.”

“Aye,” Grace replied.

“Though I do hope you’ll teach him that a thing or two out of place is no mortal sin. Or has he met his match there? Do not tell me there is another in this world as orderly as our Giles. Even I, who grew up with the adage that cleanliness is next to godliness, am slovenly by his standards.”

Grace had to grin a little. “Nothing in my home was next to godliness. And I fear that Giles may well believe that disorder of the magnitude that I can create is indeed a mortal sin.”

Faith beamed her approval. “Good!” She set the tureen down next to the bread and sprinkled a bit of nutmeg into a pitcher of bumboo, a mild rum concoction. “I think a good marriage requires some difference of opinion. Besides, there’s little nicer than making up after passionate debate.” She flashed Grace a glowing smile, handing her the bread and drink before she picked up the tureen herself. “Come, we’ll take the food in.”

Giles and Geoff were sitting at the table, discussing business, as the women brought in the food. When they were all seated, Jonathan on Geoff’s lap, Faith gave thanks to God for the meal. Throughout, Geoff did not so much as bow his head, but he and Faith smiled at one another after, and in that one shared glance there seemed to be something more sacred than the spoken blessing. Giles had mentioned to Grace a substantial difference of faith between them, but it seemed to cause no tension. Yet another puzzle to ponder.

Giles took a healthy bite of savory stew, made with thick cream and seasoned with pepper, and watched Grace. Her brows were, more often than not, drawn into tiny furrows, as though she could not fathom what she saw. He had hoped that this time spent with a happily married couple might help her to trust him more, to trust that marriage did not have to be what she had seen in her own home. He couldn’t have asked for an evening better suited to his purpose. He could tell that Grace was intimidated by Geoff, but soon even she had to laugh as the man attempted to eat with a tot on his lap. The child repeatedly grabbed for his papa’s spoon just as Geoff had nearly reached his mouth.

“Jon!” the boy would cry, and Geoff would feed him a spoonful.

“Me now?” Geoff would ask.

“Papa!” Jonathan would answer, but he would grab for the spoon all the same. The scenario played itself out over and over until Faith, her own meal hastily finished, took the child into her lap and fed him a bit of stew remaining in her bowl.

“A small concession to marital harmony, and my first piece of official advice to you,” Geoff said to Giles. “Once you have a babe, let your wife eat supper first when you know you’ll be sailing without her. ‘Twill be the last hot meal she gets ere you return.”

“I’ll try to remember that,” Giles promised.

Grace shook her head in wonder. Concessions made for the sake of marital harmony? She could just imagine the snorts of derision such a comment would be met with by her father and his wife. This was a new life indeed.

Once they had returned home, Giles sat at his side of the desk, listening to his new wife’s footfalls on the floor above him, hearing the occasional opening and closing of drawers and trunk lids. Though it cost him dearly, he resisted the urge to go and see how well she was keeping up her newly organized trunks and drawers. She had been unusually quiet on the trip home, clearly deep in thought. It had seemed best to give her some time to herself.

While he waited, Giles opened a letter from atop the pile of that afternoon’s post. Part way through it, he scowled. The letter was addressed to him, but it was clearly a follow up to some previous missive, one that Geoff had intercepted. Correspondence sent to the office was opened by whoever was handy, so Geoff must have received the first letter, one that had apparently asked Giles to come to Tortuga. Tortuga was a small island, just off the northwest coast of Saint-Domingue, and as popular a pirate lair as Port Royal.

What circumstances were drawing Geoff there? Clearly it wasn’t a mere sugar delivery, as Geoff had claimed, although sugar could not be grown on the island made of nearly solid rock, and did have to be delivered. The letter cryptically mentioned that the “situation was getting hotter,” and urged Giles to make haste. The name at the bottom was Captain Henri Beauchamp, a French privateer and mere passing acquaintance. He was also quite illiterate. Giles turned the letter over but could find no indication of the identity of the scribe to whom Beauchamp must have dictated. Neither was there a date. There was no telling how long it had taken for the letter to be delivered. The fact that it was still in very good shape suggested that it had not changed hands very often.

What was the “situation”? Giles rifled through Geoff’s side of the desk in hopes of finding the first letter, but he found nothing but bills to pay and haphazardly scrawled notations of monies placed into their account. There was nothing indicating the nature of Geoff’s trip.

Well, there was naught to be done tonight. On the morrow he would rise early and catch Geoff ere he set sail. Giles folded the letter and placed it in one of his drawers, then picked up his lamp and made his way up to the apartment.

Grace had only just finished washing and had donned a clean, substantial shift. She wasn’t yet ready to appear before him in a thin silk nightdress. Truthfully, she had hoped to hide under the excuse of sleep ere he came upstairs, but she had tarried too long over her evening toilet. From the corner of her eye, she watched him in the lamplight. Casually, he shrugged out of his jacket, then hesitated only a moment before he doffed his cravat and pulled his shirt over his head. He hung the jacket up, folded and put away the shirt and neck cloth, and plucked his nightshirt from a drawer.

Grace had noted before the broad shoulders underneath his clothes, but now she could see the muscles that flexed and bunched in his back and arms, and his skin glowed in the dim light. She was almost disappointed when he donned the nightshirt. But when he shed his breeches as well, she gritted her teeth. She remembered another man in another nightshirt. Spinning away from Giles, she lifted the bedcovers and moved to climb into bed.

“Wait,” Giles said. He had a remarkable knack for making a softly spoken word a command. “‘Tis warm in here yet. Lie atop the covers.”

Grace swallowed hard but obeyed. ‘Twas much better this way, she told herself. The longer they waited, the harder it would become. She stretched out resolutely, staring up at the ceiling.

“Roll over onto your stomach.”

She could feel panic begin to boil up inside of her, but again, she complied. She knew not what she expected him to do to her like this, but it certainly wasn’t what he did. He knelt next to her on the mattress and slowly began to knead the muscles in her neck and along her shoulders. Like divining rods seeking water, his fingers found every knot and kink and worked it loose, and she felt herself slowly turning to butter underneath his attentions. He hit a particularly tight spot in her back, sending a stab of pain though the sinew. Seconds later, ‘twas but a memory.

“Sorry if I hurt you,” he said.

“Only for a moment. Now ‘tis heavenly,” she murmured. She was beginning to feel so relaxed that ‘twas an effort to speak.

“Some things are like that,” he said, “an instant of pain, a goodly span of pleasure.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, bracing herself.

But he just kept massaging, moving down her back with methodical care. His hands lightly skimmed her bottom, raising gooseflesh in their wake, then set to work on her legs.

“I’m afraid that I may have to accompany Geoff to Tortuga,” he said conversationally. “Something has come up that he might need to have knowledge of.”

It was hard to concentrate. His hands moved gracefully and firmly up and down her calves, slipping in under the hem of her shift, the skin of his palms warming her legs. “Mmmm,” she sighed.

Farther down, his thumbs coaxed all traces of stress and tension from the soles of her feet. “Much as I hate to leave you, ‘tis not the best trip to make your maiden voyage, and I wouldn’t be gone long. Would it trouble you overmuch if I had to leave so soon?”

All she could think was that she didn’t at all want him to leave and stop this divine thing that he was doing. No wait, he’d said later this week. Not right now. She buried her smile in the pillow. “How long?” she mumbled.

“What’s that? On your back again,” he instructed, giving her a nudge.

In languid cooperation, she rolled over. What had she wanted to know? The conversation was becoming too hard to track, and her mind was feeling muzzy and fuddled. No, that wasn’t quite right. His hands were traveling up her leg again, still under her shift, bare skin to bare skin. Something was happening, a peculiar tingling in a most peculiar place. He brushed his fingers over the flesh of her inner thigh.

Her eyes flew open, and she saw him leaning over her, towering in the semi-darkness.

“Giles!” she gasped, bolting upright.

“‘Tis all right,” he urged, pulling has hands away. “Had enough?”

“I think so.” She was beginning to tremble, but she wasn’t sure why. For an instant she had been startled, but she wasn’t really afraid.

“May I ask a small thing in return?”

She eyed him suspiciously. “What?”

Now it was he who lay down on the mattress, locking his hands behind his head. “A kiss.”

Small enough. She smiled shyly. “Aye. You may ask that.”

“Not just a peck. A real kiss.”

“Oh, well, I—”

“‘Tis nothing so complicated,” he explained. “Just press your lips to mine. Keep them relaxed and soft. Move slowly.”

She gave him a dubious look. “You’ll stay just like that?”

He nodded, and she thought it wouldn’t be that hard a thing to accomplish. She leaned toward him, but he wasn’t finished.

“Then I’ll open my lips for you. Taste me, Grace. Use your tongue and explore. I am yours tonight.”