Pirate's Bride (Liberty's Ladies) (49 page)

Her husband, the man she had loved so desperately, had been unfaithful to her. With herself! Dear God, she was jealous of herself.

The worst part of the whole mess was that she still loved him. No matter his treatment of her, she would always love him, but she knew with no uncertainty that she would have to leave him and make a new life for herself. She’d be unable to look him in the face now without remembering this night, of how he had made love to the Dove. Herself!

She waited until he fell asleep. Then she quietly dressed, slipped outside, and returned to Edgecomb.

23

Annie removed Bethlyn’s gowns from the wardrobe and laid them on the bed. A flurry of activity descended upon the room when Sally ordered the two servant boys who followed behind her, lugging a large trunk between them, to set the trunk on the floor.

“What do you suppose has happened?” Annie asked Sally in a worried whisper after the boys had departed. “The missus ain’t said a word about returning to England before today.”

Sally shrugged her plump shoulders. “I don’t know. The comings and goings of the rich are a mystery to me.”

“Pearl said that the master has a woman he meets on the sly. I ain’t certain why he’d want another lady when his own wife is so beautiful and kind.”

“Ah, just kitchen gossip,” Sally uttered, and began to fold the gowns for packing. “I don’t believe a word of it. Now hush and get on with your work. I hear Mrs. Briston coming.”

Like a small tornado, Bethlyn streaked through the room, issuing orders to Annie and Sally, finding fault with each and every thing they did. Finally Annie burst into tears, unused to being chastised by Bethlyn, and fled before she could disgrace herself further.

Bethlyn looked askance, then she realized she’d been acting like a dictator since early that morning. She hadn’t meant to hurt Annie’s feelings, or anyone else’s, but her pent-up frustration and hurt over what happened at Simpson House the night before had turned her into a miserable and shrewish woman.

A heavy feeling in her heart forced her to sit down on a large, cushioned chair. “You may go for now,” she said to Sally, and managed a small smile. “Please tell Annie that I didn’t mean to scream at her.”

“She knows that, ma’am. Annie will get over her hurt feelings and will have forgotten all about it by day’s end. Is there anything else you’d like?”

“Nothing for now. Just please have all my belongings packed by tomorrow night. The ship leaves early the next morning.”

“I will, ma’am.” Sally curtsied and left Bethlyn to her thoughts.

Day after next she would leave Edgecomb and never return. She planned to visit Mavis before she left, but right now she didn’t have the strength to walk down the stairs. Ever since last night she’d felt emotionally and mentally drained, pushing herself to supervise all of the packing and to discover when the first available ship left Philadelphia for London.

She grimaced because the ship wasn’t owned by Briston Shipping, a good omen in its way. At last she’d be free of everything that had to do with Briston Shipping and Ian. Before the day was over she’d see a lawyer about contacting Ian for a divorce. She felt cowardly, not wanting to see him and tell him in person. But she didn’t think she could bear looking at him again.

Suddenly a great sleepiness overtook her, having not slept a wink last night. Closing her eyes, she drifted off to sleep, and sometime later she dreamed she woke to see Ian standing over her, his arms placed on either side of the chair, imprisoning her.

“Wake up, sleeping beauty.”

Instantly she started at the sound of his voice, coming to the realization that this wasn’t a dream. The lines on the sides of Ian’s eyes crinkled into a heart-stopping smile.

“You’ve been a busy little bee this morning,” he noted, his head inclining to the dresses and her trunk. “Going somewhere?”

The frosty contempt in her eyes chased her sleep away. “Please move so that I may get up. I’ve quite a lot to do, so I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t bother me.”

When she reared upward, Ian drew away and watched as she wrenched her toilet articles off of her dresser top to throw them into a small wooden and porcelain-inlaid case.

“You’re going to break something,” he warned.

 “If I do, I’ll replace it.”

“Well then, have at it.”

“What do you want?” she snapped. “I have a great deal of packing to do before the ship sails in two days.”

“Bethlyn, where are you going?”

“To London and I shan’t return.”

Ian quietly studied her, his face showing no expression.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving?”

Bethlyn chunked the case down on the floor, not caring that her expensive perfume bottles clattered and broke with the fall. “Oh, you horrid man! Why should I tell you anything I plan to do? Since I’m unimportant to you, then my leaving you will have no effect upon you whatsoever. Go to your darling Emmie for comfort when I’m gone, go to the D—” She broke off, feeling ridiculously foolish to even think of saying it. He couldn’t possibly seek out the woman he’d been with the night before because she’d be long gone. She hoped to soon stop being jealous of an identity she herself had created. Instead she gave him her back and said, “Find a woman whom you can love.”

“But I already have found that woman. Do you want to hear about her?”

He’d come up close behind her, his breath warm on her neck, ruffling a few strands of honey-brown curls. A knifelike pain seared through her at his words. Ian loved another woman. Was it Emmie? The Dove? She didn’t want to know, and like a child she placed her hands tightly over her ears and shook her head from side to side. “I don’t want to hear any of this!” she cried.

Ian pulled her arms down, clamping them to her sides with his own.

“No! I don’t want to hear!” Her protest and the subsequent wriggle to break free met with the stone-like resistance of his chest. He’d ensnared her with his superior strength. It wasn’t fair of him to do this to her, to humiliate her in this way, but she had no choice. Hot tears scalded her eyes to believe how much he truly must hate her.

“You shall listen to me, Bethlyn. What I have to say is of great importance.”

“I hate you.”

“Right now you do, but hear me out.”

She heard him take a deep breath, and for a second she wondered if he was going to speak at all, but when he did, his voice trembled for an instant before coming out clear and strong. “I will tell you about the woman I love. I hasten to speak about her, because she has brought me unbridled happiness and passion, two things on which a man places merit.”

“How thrilling,” she broke in, feeling his chest shake with suppressed laughter.

“This woman,” he continued, “is beautiful and loving, filled with such warmth that she melted my cold heart. I never thought to feel this way about any woman, but, alas, she owns me body and soul. Her lovemaking can be gentle or filled with fire and her total abandon in my arms makes me feel strong and tall and humble. I am her willing captive. Of course, we’ve had our problems, but I still love her and will always love her.”

“Please, Ian—”

“Shh, let me finish. This woman who stole my black and frozen heart sometimes thinks the way I do. Then again, I appreciate her intelligence to make up her mind and follow her own path. I’ve begun to realize that loving her doesn’t mean we must think alike. In some ways her differing views make her all the more appealing to me. I’ve discovered that two people don’t have to be alike to complement the other. For instance, her soft body, her warm essence complements my hardness and cynical view of life. Sometimes it is a man and woman’s differences which make them fit together, come together in love. Don’t you agree, Bethlyn?”

His voice was warm on her neck, but she felt horribly chilled. Couldn’t he see she was dying here? Didn’t he care? “No!” she spat out defiantly, hoping Ian would end this sick game.

His arms tightened on hers like two lengths of steel, rushing the chill from her body. “Ah, I hoped you would agree, but, if not, I hold your opinion in deep regard. You see, Bethlyn, sometimes we are of the same thought, but not always. Still, we’re good together. In fact it is our differences which complement each other, because something in you fills a void in me, and you need parts of me to make you whole. We’re so opposite that in a perverse way we do complement each other like—” He paused.

“Like what?” she babbled, hating the words for spilling out because now he’d know she was listening to him.

“Like a hawk and a dove,” he whispered huskily into her ear.

Bethlyn sucked in her breath. Had she heard him correctly? Dear God, had Ian known all of the time she was the Dove?

She didn’t realize that Ian had turned her around until she saw his face, smiling down at her and wreathed with so much love and desire that she started shaking.

“How … how did you know that I … I was the Dove?”

“I didn’t know at first. I read your poems and was impressed,” he explained, and gently kissed her forehead. “Then I found a letter you were writing to Molly, and you’d made up an endearing and sweet poem. Well, then I knew that you and the Dove were one and the same. Your style is very easy to recognize, Bethlyn. I decided that I hadn’t truly known you. I arranged to meet the Dove because I was curious about why you’d changed your views. Somehow I knew you’d open up to Hawk. I had closed my mind and wrongly accused you of spying.”

“And now?” her voice sounded small and weak.

His expression was gentle but filled with pain. “Now I know you weren’t guilty, and I can never forgive myself for hurting you. I beg your forgiveness, my darling.”

She did forgive him. Nothing seemed to matter any longer, because she knew he loved her as she’d always known she loved him. Still a doubt nagged at her.

“Are you certain that you knew when you made love to the Dove that she was me?”

“Of course.”

“But I disguised my voice and wore a wig. How?”

Ian tilted her chin. “‘Because of your delicious stutter, my love.”

“I really must try and curb my nervousness,” she said as Ian pulled her into his arms, ready to claim her lips with a kiss. However, she stiffened and peered suspiciously at him. “What about Emmie Gray?”

“Emmie who?” he asked and, like the hawk he was, he swooped down and kissed her, stilling any further questions and driving any lingering doubts from her mind. He belonged to her, they belonged to each other. Nothing would ever separate them again.

Carrying her from her cluttered and dress-strewn bedroom, Ian kicked open the door into his and laid her on the large bed.

For the rest of the day and late into the night, the Hawk and the Dove touched and soared together, ever higher, into a bright and brilliant dawn.

~ ~ ~

Happiness. What a wonderful feeling, thought Bethlyn many times over the next few weeks. She was totally, completely and deliriously happy· Her world revolved around Ian. Each evening she waited for the sound of his footsteps coming up the stairs, and each day she met him on the landing, laughing and clinging to him as he lifted her from her feet and carried her to the bedroom where they didn’t come out until the hunger pains grew too strong to resist the tempting delicacies on the dining-room table.

Visiting Mavis, however, was the thorn in her perfect world. She loved Mavis, more than pleased about her friend’s pregnancy, but she couldn’t help but wish she were the one who waddled around the house and laughed at her own clumsiness as Mavis did. Mavis and Marc reveled in each added pound, each added inch to her waistline. Every slight change in Mavis’s figure heralded that glorious moment when she and Marc would welcome their first child into the world and their lives.

One night Bethlyn lay in Ian’s arms. Their bodies were still flushed with passion, but both of them knew that their rest would be brief. The fires still flared within them, and with each act of love, the flame intensified instead of dwindling. But Bethlyn was unusually quiet, and Ian was troubled.

“Don’t you feel well?” he inquired, and kissed the tip of her nose.

“Yes, that’s the problem.” Her voice shook. “I’m in perfect health, and I shouldn’t be. By now, I should have morning sickness and be growing as large as a toad, but I’m not. I’ve … failed … you.”