For the Love of a Pirate (15 page)

“Tomorrow,” she called back over her shoulder, “we go for the grandfather trout. And if it rains, I'll bake you a pie!”

He laughed in spite of himself, and watched her run away, wishing he could chase her, because he was sure he could catch her if he tried.

They didn't catch the grandfather trout. They caught some others, got chilled to the bone when clouds covered the sun, and ran all the way back to the house, laughing, before the downpour soaked them to the skin. He tried not to look at her in her drenched clothing. She ignored him. Then they changed into warm clothes, and spent time in front of the hearth in the salon, listening to the captain's stories about fish he had caught, had heard of being caught, and wished he had caught. The old fellow was, Constantine discovered, very amusing.

Then they had dinner, and after that, he discovered that Lisabeth could play the pianoforte, and sing very well indeed. He was about to go to bed, when the captain proposed a hand or two of piquet, and Constantine discovered that Lisabeth could play cards even better than she could sing. And although he kept losing and watching the captain, it was a wink from the old fellow that indicated it was Miss Lovelace who was cheating like a bandit.

Lisabeth pursed her lips when she saw his expression and then laughed until she was breathless, but only after Miss Lovelace had gone to bed. The captain left soon after, leaving Constantine and Lisabeth alone before a comfortable fire. It was too comfortable for Constantine. He stood immediately. He'd been going to tell Lisabeth he was leaving the next day, but didn't want to remain downstairs in the night alone with her for any reason. Tonight she'd dressed like a lady, in something green and clinging, though he'd begun to realize it didn't matter how she was clothed. There was always something alluring about her. He couldn't decide if it was her attitude, and so something she did on purpose, or his own confused attraction to her. At any rate, he knew being alone at night with her was no way to find out.

He said good night and went up the stair to his bed. He'd decided there was no hurry about leaving. However he watched, and he did, Lisabeth didn't look at him with desire. That was reassuring. It was also mildly annoying. He went to bed, musing about it.

The next day they rode out and visited with several villagers, Constantine was filled up with stories about his father and his great-grandfather, along with lashings of tea, fresh home-baked buns, and fresh sweet cream. Dinner that night was tasty, but both Constantine and Lisabeth were too full to eat much of it. After dinner, they played a home version of the forbidden game of hazard, where Miss Lovelace again skinned everyone else at the table.

Days passed into a week. And then two. Lisabeth continued to attract Constantine, but he thought possibly not on purpose. He didn't attempt anything but light banter. That amused her. Time flew by. He was scarcely aware of its passing, though he felt as though something were loosening inside him. His tension about his secret family history had vanished; perhaps, he thought, because it was not only
not
secret here, but actually admired. He felt freer, more relaxed, even younger, perhaps, he thought, because of the fresh sea air and exercise and good food. And the good company.

Constantine discovered that Lisabeth loved animals, books, laughter, and wicked men. Lisabeth got him to tell her about his life as a boy, and he was shocked to see the pity in her eyes.

“Your uncle never let you romp free?” she asked one afternoon, while they picnicked on the smooth green grass on a rill near an ancient bridge that crossed over a rushing silver brook.

“No,” he said. “I see now it was because he worried that my wild side, the side he feared, would come out if I weren't under strict control.”

“But you haven't a wild side!” she said. “Poor fellow.”

“Poor fellow?” he said, lifting an eyebrow.

“Well, when we met you were horrified by your ancestors. But now I think that was not only because you were afraid people in London would find out about them, but also because you were just a bit”—she held her thumb and her forefinger a centimeter apart—“afraid that such wildness lurked in yourself. Don't fret,” she said. “It doesn't.”

“You sound disappointed.”

“In truth,” she said, “I am. No, listen. You know how taken I was by Captain Cunning's portrait. Now I realize that was because I was a very lonely, imaginative little girl. Now I can see that your great-grandfather might have terrified me in person. You are, after all, everything like him, and nothing like him, and I find I prefer a mannerly pirate, after all.”

“Lonely?” he asked, focusing his attention on that and trying to ignore the rest of what she'd said. Those were waters too deep for him to measure. Especially with her sitting in the sunlight, her hair sparkling with shifting rainbow lights, her bonnet still tied but resting on her back. He noticed that because the front of her was too dazzling to look at directly.

“Yes,” she said, with a shrug that made him finally look at what he'd been avoiding all afternoon. “Grandy was always off on business. The village children were nice to me, but they had chores and duties. I spent most of my time with Miss Lovelace.”

“An interesting choice of governess companion,” he said carefully.

“Yes. But you mustn't judge her too harshly. I knew what she did to survive, she told me herself. That, I think, was her way of teaching me to never even consider such a thing.” She fixed a direct gaze on his. “You gentlemen think prostitution isn't such a bad thing, well, if you didn't, there wouldn't be any, would there? But it's dreadful. It's what turned Lovey into . . . such an admirer of alcoholic spirits. She told me everything about the trade, with no dressing it up. Running away with a lover was one thing. That happens to both ladies and commoners, and is excusable, I suppose, if their love lasts. But selling oneself day after day and night after night to whoever has a few extra pence in his pocket? That's pure hell, whatever you gentlemen think.”

Constantine couldn't speak. He could never discuss this with a lady. He could, though, he realized, and perhaps had, discussed it with a female who wasn't a lady. She was right, at the same time that she was utterly wrong to talk about it with him. And, he saw from her sudden smile, she knew it.

“Well, the sun is sinking,” she said, rising and putting a hand over her eyes so she could scan the sky. “And the breeze is growing chill, but there's no rain coming. On the way here I noticed that the oaks are laden with acorns. The berry bushes are definitely ready to harvest. We make preserves and jams that are a treat with scones. So, your lordship, do you think you'd care to come berrying with me tomorrow?”

She was smiling at him as though she thought he was too straitlaced to go berrying like a peasant. He'd been about to finally tell her he'd be leaving. But he'd never gone berrying.

Lisabeth hid her smile as they rode back to Sea Mews. She hadn't been so happy for weeks, perhaps in her entire life. He'd changed. It wasn't just that he was no longer the immaculate gentleman of fashion. She'd been impressed at how handsome he'd been when he'd arrived at Sea Mews, like a picture in
The Gentleman's Magazine
. But the moment she'd spoken with him, she'd longed for him to be more accessible, more human, more the man she'd fallen in love with long before she'd met him.

She'd talked with Lovey about it. She hadn't dared confide in Grandy or he'd drag the poor fellow to the altar without further delay. Lovely had led a terrible life, but if there was one thing she knew as well as she knew Shakespeare, it was a man's desires. Even the most reasonable man, Lovey had said, might be ruled by his brain. But he was also steered by his body.

Looking at Constantine now, Lisabeth saw a handsome, athletic-looking gentleman. Even though his breeches had grass stains on them, and his boots were smudged, he didn't seem to care. Perhaps because he knew his valet would correct that. He was well read, he was cultured, he was perhaps still a bit of a prig, but he had a lovely sense of humor and he seemed a genuinely good man. The pirate, she conceded, might not have been. This Lord Wylde was a good deal more of a man than the vague outline of the dashing rogue she had imagined he might be. And for all his prudishness, his kisses and caresses had been sheer magic. She couldn't stop thinking about it.

And when Lisabeth did the things Lovey had recommended, such as flirting just a little, and wearing clothing guaranteed to make him notice her, or saying something off-color and then looking innocent, to put him off balance, she saw more of the man Lord Wylde might be. Because then, if she looked at him when he didn't realize she was watching, she saw a breathtakingly handsome rogue with the hot look of a devil in his eyes—if he was looking at her. He'd changed in more ways than that. She'd seen the prissiness melting off him, his distant manner thawing, as though the tight cage that had been built around his inner self were crumbling.

She didn't know if he knew it. She did though. He was becoming, day by day, the man she'd hoped to find. Now she just had to discover a way to keep him.

I
t rained too hard for berrying the next day. But it was a perfect day to wander through Sea Mews, looking at portraits, hearing stories about the people who were portrayed, riffling through ancient logbooks and maps.

“Your family turns out to be far more moral than mine,” Constantine finally told Lisabeth sadly.

She laughed, but by now he knew her well enough to know he wasn't being mocked.

“Not at all,” she said. “The difference is that my family went about their business in less spectacular fashion. And then too,” she added with a grin, “they were never caught. The family motto was caution. Your family did things in an extravagant way. Every other generation, that is. My people were more consistent. Aside from my poor foolish father, they became practically stolid as time went by.”

“Stolid?” he asked, lifting an eyebrow.

She shrugged. “My grandfather is a pillar of the community.”

He thought a moment. “I see. But you must realize that your community is different from most, and far different from mine.”

She put her head to the side, considering this. “That's true. But now that you're here, can you honestly tell me that your community is so far superior to ours? I do read the London papers, you see. And it seems to me that there's much more scandal involving infidelity, drinking, carousing, even dueling, among the upper classes than in any class here. And as for damage to property and crime in London!”

Constantine went still. She read the London papers! Then she surely must know of his situation. Why had she kissed him? “You read the London papers?” he asked carefully.

“Yes, when I can get my hands on them, and that isn't all the time. Grandy gets them, a day late, of course, in order to follow business trends. If there's a paper that has particular news he wants to save, that's exactly what he does: he saves it. I tell him again and again that I'm too old for fashioning paper boats out of them anymore, but ever since I was six, and did that with an edition that had an article on sugar futures, he doesn't trust me. I must admit,” she said, grinning, “it made a fine boat! Must have got all the way to Spain, or so I imagined then.”

“Ah, I see,” he said with relief. She obviously never saw his engagement notice. Now he remembered that the captain had brought it to London to flourish in his face when they'd met. “But you read the gossip and scandal sheets. I venture to say that if you had such items in your local paper, you'd read much of the same about your friends and other villagers.”

She laughed. “I don't need a newssheet for that! I just drop down to the tap at the inn. You hear everything there. If it isn't spoken aloud at the inn, you can hear it in whispers, over tea in any parlor in town. And I promise you, there's never news of duels and mad bets on horse races, or of some poor fellow blowing his brains out because he lost his family home in a game of chance. There may be talk of someone flirting when they shouldn't, or even whispers about someone considering leaving his wife, or of a wife leaving her husband. If anything like that happened, it would spread across town in an hour. It seldom happens because the shame of it would be unbearable.”

Constantine couldn't tell Lisabeth that London, apart from being bigger, had the same taboos. Because that might mean he'd have to tell her the reason for his visit here, how it had to do with unbearable shame too, and that he'd only come to prevent his ancestors' pasts from becoming gossip that might reach the ears of London.

“And yet your father and mine were considered heroes?” he asked instead.

“Aye,” she said. “Because they were amusing. Everyone had sympathy for your father, and tolerated my father's follies. And too, everyone believed they'd grow out of such antics.”

“But your household staff . . .” Constantine said carefully. “They have histories involving all that and worse.”

“Ah. The vicar told you all,” she said. “But the past is forgiven here. Isn't it so in London?”

“No,” he said simply. Again he wondered when he should leave this place. Surely Miss Winchester must be wondering what was keeping him. He'd written to say he'd been delayed on business. She'd written to say she understood. He hadn't heard from her again. But he'd been drawn to her in the first place because she was, after all, a sensible person. As he had been. He wondered if he still was.

Best if he told Lisabeth he'd be leaving by the week's end, he decided. He'd learned all he'd come here to discover, and she was, even with all her sauciness and strange upbringing, an intelligent, understanding woman. And she hadn't kissed him again, or even looked like she was going to. He knew that—he'd been watching, her lips most of all.