Merline Lovelace (20 page)

“I know.”

His free hand went to the second bow. “I should warn you also, that I plan to attempt a few impossible feats of my own.”

The bow gave, and his hand shaped her breast. Sarah shivered at his touch.

“Like…like what?” she whispered breathlessly.

“Do you want to know its name? Your proper little soul will be quite shocked, wife.”

“Tell me!”

Bending, Jamie whispered in her ear. Half laughing, half groaning, Sarah shook her head in disbelief.

“You’re making that up! There is no way to…We could not do such a…Really, Jamie, you would not…”

“There is. We could. I would.”

Grinning, he tugged the strings of the third bow and gave a grunt of pure pleasure as the silk slipped down
Sarah’s shoulders, baring her to his hungry eyes. Jamie’s stomach clenched with need. Without warning, he caught her wrist with his free hand and slid her arm behind her back. Her second joined the first a moment later.

Startled, she tugged at his hold. He held her easily, anchoring her by her wrists and the press of his body against hers.

“Now, my inquisitive one, I will indulge in my most sinful, sybaritic fancies. You can do your best to try and turn me from them.”

Sarah soon realized that the last thing in creation she wanted was to turn Jamie from his decadent, erotic, incredibly imaginative ways. In her wildest dreams, she had never envisioned a wedding night such as this. It more than made up for the dreams that had fallen, shattered, at her feet in the captain’s cabin this morning.

Her bridegroom abandoned what little pretense he made to civilized behavior. Holding her captive, he used his hands and his knee and his tongue to lave her, stroke her, press against her most sensitive core. Sarah arched under him. Against him. She lost all sense of being. All identity. Her body reacted mindlessly to his touch, to the strong, sure fingers that probed her and primed her and left her panting with need.

Again and again he brought her to the edge of the precipice, but he wouldn’t take her over, nor let her take him. Repeatedly, he ignored her pleas to release her, to let her pleasure him as he was pleasuring her…until finally Sarah accomplished the impossible.

She sobbed his name, and turned him from his sinful
ways. His sweat-slick body stiffened. Releasing her wrists, he took her swiftly into his arms.

“Sarah, sweet, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“You didn’t,” she gasped, wrapping her legs around his hips. “But you will…if you don’t…come to me. Now, Jamie. Now.”

He came to her, and in her. Like a green, untried bridegroom, Jamie surged into his bride and spilled himself almost the instant her tight, rippling sheath gripped him.

Groaning, damning himself for a fool, he forced a rhythm that, thankfully, brought her to immediate release, then collapsed beside her.

His last thought before mindless lethargy claimed him was that the
Phoenix
was well worth the price of taking Sarah to wife.

“Tell me about Denham.”

A prickling sensation rippled down Jamie’s spine, destroying his boneless contentment. For a moment, he thought it was the disgust that went through him whenever he heard Percy Denham’s name. Then he realized that Sarah was trailing her hand down his bare back.

“Tell me,” she said softly. “I want to know about him, and his sister.”

“It has nothing to do with you,” he replied, turning her in his arms so that her head was tucked under his chin. “Go to sleep.”

“It has everything to do with me, and with us. What happened? Why did you make marriage to me the price of his release from a slow death? Why was he willing to pay it?”

Jamie drew in a slow breath that brought with it the scent of roses and lovemaking. He didn’t want to talk about the past. He didn’t want to talk at all after such shattering pleasure. But Sarah was his wife. He couldn’t just roll out of bed, pay her generously for her favors, and stroll out into the night.

She was turning him from his evil ways in more ways than she imagined, he thought ruefully.

“Tell me.”

Surrendering to the inevitable, Jamie told her. About Portsmouth and the gay, desperate days before he left for war. About the night Dorcas had pounded on the door to his rented rooms, her ball gown torn and her arms bruised. How she’d fallen into Jamie’s arms and sobbed out a tale of unnatural jealousy that had burst its bounds.

Sarah moved in his loose hold. “Why did she come to you?”

“I loved her once, or thought I did.”

“I see.”

“Do you?” Jamie stared into the darkness and slowly finished the sordid tale. “Denham came crashing through the door just moments later. The sight of his sister in my arms brought his sword from its scabbard.”

Even now, Jamie could hear the ring of steel on steel, feel the fiery blaze of satisfaction when his blade pierced Percy’s flesh.

“I should have killed the bastard then and there. I would have, if Dorcas hadn’t thrown herself between us and stayed my thrust.”

As ridden with devils as her brother was, she’d sobbed, she couldn’t have his death on her conscience.
Or the banishment Jamie would suffer as a result of killing him.

“Dorcas left Portsmouth the very next day. Denham sailed soon after. I didn’t see him again until we both shipped aboard the
Dove,
years later.”

Sarah drew in a swift breath. “The
Dove.
Commanded by Admiral Cathwright.”

“Aye.”

How ironic, Jamie thought. Each time fate had seen fit to cross Denham’s path with his, three lives had changed forever. Dorcas, Percy, and Jamie had constituted the primary players in the first drama. In the second, Denham had admitted to orchestrating the farcical bedroom scene between Jamie, Admiral Cathwright, and his wife. Now, after so many years, their ways had merged once more. Again, three people would forever bear the mark of this fateful meeting.

Denham, who was dead.

Jamie, who considered the world well rid of him.

And Sarah, whom the bastard had made Viscountess Straithe with his last, gasping breaths.

Of the three cataclysmic meetings, Jamie suspected the last would have the most impact on his life. Tucking Sarah closer into his side, he began to tell her of his plans for them when they reached England.

“Oh, Jamie, no! You cannot sell the
Phoenix!
”

“I must, Sarah. It is well known in sailing circles as a fast ship. Even more important, it has a reputation as a lucky one. It will bring enough to refurbish Kerrick’s Keep and make a home of it for you and Abigail and the boys.”

She pushed herself up on one elbow. Her hair fell over her shoulder like a river of darkness.

“You would do that? You’d sell the ship that is your life to make a home for Abigail and the boys?”

“I would do it for you, sweeting.”

She caught her breath. “For me?”

“Aye.” Smiling, he pulled her back down into his arms. “For you. Only you.”

It wasn’t a passionate declaration of love. Nor a promised of undying devotion. But it would do, Sarah thought with a swell of tenderness that misted her eyes. It would most certainly do.

Her heart ached with the realization that he would give up the sea and the ship he loved for her and her family. He would never regret it, she vowed fiercely. She’d make a home for him, as well as for Abby and the boys. The kind of home Jamie had never had. She’d fill Kerrick’s Keep with love and laughter and sunshine and, she prayed, children. Boys with their father’s dark hair. Girls with his heartbreaking smile.

She snuggled into his side, her determination searing into her very being. She’d make him forget he ever walked a deck or laughed in the face of a storm!

S
arah Abernathy, unmarried daughter of a Presbyterian missionary, had slipped aboard the
Phoenix
to go in search of her missing parent on a steaming August afternoon.

Lady Sarah, Viscountess Straithe, walked down the gangplank of a merchantman and stepped onto the stone quay at Portsmouth on a chill, rainy April morning.

She clutched Jamie’s arm as the toe of her kid boot touched the slick cobblestone. After three years in India and almost six in China, followed by weeks of being marooned on a tiny atoll, then almost eight months of zigzagging, wearying travel aboard a series of ships, she stood on English ground again.

She expected to feel a leap of joy. A thrill of homecoming at her return to the land of her birth. Instead, she experienced only rack after rack of shivers from the chill, damp air and the crushing weight of her anxiety.

“Do you think your man of business will have word of the
Phoenix?
”

She’d asked the same question with increasing frequency
for the past several months and weeks. Jamie answered patiently, as he had each time before.

“Bickersford will know the whereabouts of the
Phoenix
if anyone will.”

Sarah gripped his arm as he guided her through the throngs of canvas-coated stevedores waiting to unload the ships that had come in with the title.

“We must send a post to Harry and Giles at once.”

“We will, Sarah.”

“Their school is only a day’s coach ride from London. We’ll follow the post with a visit, won’t we?”

“We’ll go to Barrowgate as soon as we ascertain the whereabouts of Abigail and Charlie.” He covered her hand, frowning at its clammy chill. “Our first order of business, though, must be to purchase you some warmer garments.”

Sarah wanted to protest both the delay and the expense but her teeth were chattering too much to disagree. She’d forgotten how sharply the English mists could penetrate.

She would, indeed, need a gown or two of warm merino wool, a heavier pelisse, and far sturdier footwear than her lavender kid boots. Jamie had insisted that she purchase the boots and several equally frivolous pairs of silk stockings the day after the
Constant
had limped into safe harbor at Bombay. The shops that catered to European residents of that most international of ports had also yielded several gowns of the finest percale and lisle whose hems, shockingly, rose well above Sarah’s ankles. She still felt a twinge of uncertainty every time she caught a glimpse of her fanciful stockings below her skirts.

Jamie had outfitted himself as well, taking advantage of the nimble-fingered tailors who served the English
sahibs.
He looked resplendent, Sarah thought. Quite the gentleman in tight-knit trousers of a soft, pearl gray, a vest of embroidered satin, and a midnight blue frock coat that lay smoothly across his broad shoulders. A curly brimmed hat of sheared beaver sat at an angle over his brow and shadowed his eyes. Jamie had brushed aside her protests over the necessary, but extravagant purchases. He’d used his position as master of the
Phoenix
as surety to secure a loan from a shipping house in Bombay. He had enough blunt, he’d assured her, to outfit his bride with a proper trousseau and pay for their passage home.

Their short stay in Bombay brought changes to more than just their wardrobe. Lieutenant Fortengay had been hailed as a hero for bringing the severely crippled ship safely to port. In both verbal and written reports, Fortengay underscored Lord Kerrick’s invaluable advice and assistance. To Jamie’s cynical amusement and Sarah’s fierce satisfaction, Admiral Lord Bentwater had hosted a dinner in his honor aboard his flagship. The ex-naval officer who’d been considered a pariah for so many years was toasted by the entire mess.

A week later, they sailed aboard a merchantman traveling in convoy first south to Sydney, then to England. The ship seemed ponderously slow to Sarah after her weeks aboard the
Phoenix,
but now, at last, they were home.

Home.

Another bout of shivers shook her.

“Here, wait inside.”

Jamie handed her into one of the two-wheeled hansom cabs that lined the busy quay. While he pointed
out their few bags to the driver, Sarah gripped her lace-mittened hands tightly in her lap.

What news awaited them here, at home?

Surely, surely Jamie’s man of business would tell them that the
Phoenix
had preceded them into port by some weeks, or even months. That Abigail and Charlie were well cared for and living with their Moreville cousins in Sussex. That the crown was holding Jamie’s ship and property in escrow, awaiting determination of his legal status after being lost at sea.

As the cab clattered into the city, Sarah paid scant attention to the sights and sounds of Portsmouth’s famous Broad Street. Dubbed “Spice Island” because of its colorful mix of architectural styles that were once home to countless sailor’s pubs and brothels, the crowded thoroughfare bustled with life. Bowlegged sailors in brass-buttoned blue jackets, their pigtails still showing faint streaks of the tar they used to keep away lice, strutted the narrow walks. Maids and merchants rubbed elbows with the seamen. Shop windows displayed jewel-toned silks from India and Chinese Blue Willow porcelain.

At any other time, Sarah might have delighted in the way the shop’s upper stories leaned at odd angles, almost touching each other above the busy street, or in the so very British accents that rose all around her, shouting warnings to be ’ware or calling greetings to friends.

Today, she barely heard them. In a fever of impatience for news of her family, she counted the numbers painted above the doors. At last, the cab pulled up before Number Twenty-Seven Broad Street, where Mr. Bickersford, Jamie’s man of business, kept his chambers.

To Sarah’s crushing disappointment, they soon discovered that they would get no news of either the
Phoenix
or her passengers from Mr. Bickersford. The man had expired some five months previously, or so the barrister who’d moved into his chambers reported.

Jamie’s jaw knotted. “Bickersford’s dead?”

The barrister, Thomas Huddington by name, nodded, causing the moldy wig that sat atop his bright gold locks to tilt alarmingly. Straightening it with a quick tug, he related the details.

“A wine cask rolled off a carter’s wagon on Dock Street and crushed him. Flattened old Bickersford like a cockroach, it did. I heard he spilled his brains—” He broke off, recalling himself with a start. “Oh, I say, I’m sorry, Lady Kerrick.”

Ignoring his stammered apology, Sarah turned anxiously to Jamie. “Didn’t he have a partner, or a staff of clerks? Someone who would know of his business matters?”

“His partner died some years ago, and I don’t know the name of any of his clerks. I’ll have to contact the banks he did business with and find who’s handling my affairs.”

Huddington cleared his throat. “Er, perhaps I may be of service in that matter, sir.”

Sarah tried to contain her impatience as Jamie gave the young man a considering look. All thin, gangly bones and nervous energy, he wasn’t much older than Abigail. Sarah wondered when he’d finished reading at law. Not long ago, she guessed. Nor had he attracted much business since hanging out his shingle, if the threadbare black gown and much-used wig he’d pulled on at their unexpected arrival were any indication.
Whatever Jamie saw in the young man’s face reassured him far more than it did Sarah, however.

“All right,” he said briskly. “Let us draw up a document granting you the authority to make inquiries on my behalf.”

“Yes, sir!”

Almost tripping over the trailing edge of his robe in his eagerness, the barrister hurried to a dusty refectory table piled high with books and the remains of his lunch. He shoved aside a pewter mug of ale and a slab of bread topped with slices of bloodred beef in search of a quill. While he scratched out the particulars that Jamie dictated, Sarah paced the small, second-story chamber.

Huddington watched with an eager expression as Jamie signed the document with a flourish, then carefully dated it and affixed his own signature. “I’ll start the inquiries at once.”

“We’ll be at the Royal Arms, if they have rooms. If not, I’ll send you word of our direction.”

“Very good, sir.”

Sarah waited until they had reclaimed their waiting cab to voice her dismay. “Of all the unfortunate circumstances! Must we wait idly while Huddington makes his inquiries?”

“No, sweet. Before we can do anything else, though, we must engage a set of rooms and buy you some warmer garments.”

“Have we funds enough?”

“We’ve funds enough.”

“Then we’ll go to Barrowgate?” she asked, her brown eyes anxious.

“Then we’ll go to Barrowgate.”

Jamie sat back in the musty cab, his gaze on Sarah’s
profile as she worried her lower lip with her teeth and stared unseeing out the window. He knew her thoughts were on Abigail and Charlie and the older boys, Harry and Giles. If she could, she’d order the cab driver to bypass the hostelry and take the post road to Barrowgate immediately.

In the past eight months, Jamie had come to appreciate the heavy burden his wife had shouldered for so long. At an age when she should have been laughing and flirting and going on picnics with eligible young men, she’d been raising a sister and three brothers and ordering her father’s household. Where others had the stability of friends and familiar surroundings to support them through life’s daily crises, she’d made a home for the Abernathys in India and then in China. Now, he would make a home for her. And with her.

Their long, slow journey aboard the sluggish merchantman should have driven him to distraction. Instead, he’d used those idle weeks to come to know the woman who was now his wife. The laughter that was never far from her eyes had become a mainstay of his days, and of his nights. Her surprised gasp each time he introduced her to a new, sensual delight was burned into his heart. Her unwavering sense of responsibility made him feel acutely his own lack in that regard.

He’d once thought he loved a girl with a mischievous, elfin smile and a mass of soft brown hair. He now recognized that emotion as the youthful infatuation it was. Dorcas had stirred his young man’s passion. The women he’d been involved with since had stirred his senses.

Sarah stirred whatever was left of his soul.

Jamie shifted on the shabby leather seat. His hands curled with the need to take her in his arms. To kiss
the worried lines from her brow. She didn’t want his comforting, however. She wanted her family.

When her husband handed Sarah down from the carriage he’d hired to convey them to Barrowgate the next afternoon, her gloved hand trembled in his. Under the brim of her warm felt bonnet, lavishly decorated with quail feathers, her eyes searched the empty environs of the Barrowgate School for Young Gentlemen.

No boys marched across the courtyard to classes under the watchful eye of a tutor. No shouts or laughter rang from the cricket fields beyond the buildings of mellowed brick. No headmaster came hurrying to greet them.

Sarah surveyed the deserted schoolyard, her fingers digging into Jamie’s. “If we learn the headmaster died of a colic of the stomach or a blow to the head or some other tragic accident and all the boys have been sent away, I shall…I shall scream!”

Master Tipton-Smythe hadn’t expired, his elderly assistant soon informed them, but he had departed Barrowgate to spend the Eastertide holidays with relatives, as had most of the boys.

“My brothers?” Sarah asked, hope and dread clutching at her heart. “Are they here, or have they gone to Sussex to stay with their sister and their cousins?”

“They’ve gone, but I don’t think…” The elderly educator tapped a finger against his wrinkled lips. “No, no, I don’t think they went to Sussex. I shall have to ask their form leader to be sure, but I think, yes, I think, they went to Ryde.”

“Ryde?”

Sarah stared at him in confusion. The Abernathys had no kin in Ryde that she knew of, and she couldn’t think why the boys would have gone there for their holidays.

“Who conveyed them to Ryde?”

“Well, I can’t be certain until I ask their form leader, but I believe, yes, I believe the woman presented herself as a member of the family.”

Sarah clutched her throat. “Who? Who was it?”

“I can’t say with absolute assurance until I ask their form—”

“Who?” she shrieked. Flinging off Jamie’s restraining arm, she advanced on the educator. “Who was the woman?”

The man stumbled back. Surprise and trepidation sent his busy gray brows to the crown of his balding head. “I believe…” He gulped. “Yes, I believe, she gave her name as Mistress Burke.”

“Burke?”

While Sarah gaped at the quaking man, stunned, Jamie stepped into the breach. “Was this Mistress Burke young, with fair hair and sea-blue eyes?”

The gray-haired educator sighed. His seamed face folded into soft, nostalgic lines. “She was the most heavenly creature ever to set foot in the Barrowgate School for Young Gentlemen.”

Feeling much like a puppet with its strings cut, Sarah sat numbly beside Jamie as they traveled yet again on what was beginning to seem like an unending journey.

The seaside village of Ryde sat on the Isle of Wight, almost directly across the sound from Portsmouth. She and Jamie had wasted a full day coming north, and
now would have to turn around and travel straight back.

“Mistress Burke?” she murmured as their hired coach rumbled south. “Poor Abigail. She must have been so frightened, so desperate, to wed Liam Burke.”

“She could do worse, Sarah. Much worse.” Stretching out his long legs, Jamie regarded her from the corner of the coach. “Liam’s a good man.”

“I know he is! I grew quite fond of him while we were aboard the
Phoenix.
But…”

“But what?”

“But he’s a sailor,” she answered on a sigh. “He’s gone more than he’s home. How can he ensure Abby’s comfort and safety if he’s always at sea?”

In her agitation, she didn’t notice a muscle tic in the side of Jamie’s jaw.

“Liam lost one wife to death,” he replied calmly. “He’ll do all he can to keep this one safe and well.”