The Pirate's Secret Baby (16 page)

Lydia could not stay silent. "Is this how you will teach your daughter? By robbing ships?"

St. Armand's entire body stiffened, and he did not turn and look at her. "It is a short walk to starboard and into the ocean, Miss Burke. If you do not wish to experience it, I suggest you keep your opinions to yourself."

"She's right."

Both Lydia and St. Armand looked at the mate, whose lugubrious face was turned to his commander. Fuller kept his voice low so the men would not overhear their discussion.

"We are closer to England and you know what is waiting for you at the end of this voyage. If you are taking the child with you, you must think of the future."

"Do you have any idea of the value of that ship's cargo of rum, Mr. Fuller?" St. Armand's eyes were narrowed and white lines of anger bracketed his unsmiling mouth. Both men appeared to forget Lydia stood there, hardly daring to breathe as she watched the argument.

"Yes. You must choose, Robert. Booty, or being the father you need to be. You cannot have both, not today."

Lydia jumped at his use of the captain's name, which brought St. Armand's anger to focus on her, and it felt like he was looking at her down the barrel of a rifle.

"Orders, Cap'n?" called the helmsman.

"Steady as she goes, Mr. Conroy. Mr. Fuller, you have the command."

Lydia's questions for Mr. Fuller were forgotten when a hard hand clamped down on her arm.

"Come with me."

"Captain--"

"Not another word, Mr. Fuller. You have said enough for one day."

He pulled Lydia behind him, allowing her down the companionway before he slid down after her, forgoing the shallow steps, pushing her into his cabin and slamming the door behind him.

"How dare you question my commands in front of the crew?"

Lydia's knees quaked as he paced before her like a panther eyeing an interloper in its territory. She had no weapons except her conviction that she was correct. She straightened her back and clasped her hands before her.

"I dare because I am the person you made responsible for teaching your daughter. A governess teaches values as well as arithmetic and geography. I would be failing in my task if I did not concern myself with her moral welfare."

"Her moral welfare? You are interfering with my ability to provide for her physical welfare! You do not have the right to tell me what to do."

"Yes, I do. I earned that right when you forced me aboard the
Prodigal
to care for Mathilde."

She did not mention Mr. Fuller backing her up. The way St. Armand looked she was not sure the captain wouldn't grab a pistol and shoot the mate, then grab another one to finish the job on her. She turned her back on him and started to pull the cabin door open to escape, but a hard hand shot out and slammed the door, so hard it quivered in its frame.

"You are unwise to turn your back on me, Miss Burke. I am not finished with you, not yet."

He was standing close, too close. Lydia refused to flinch, or move away from him. She looked straight ahead and his voice at her ear was light, pleasant, even.

It froze her blood.

"You are not wearing your cap today. Did you mean to court my favor? Not having to see that hideous rag on your head is only the beginning of what it will take to restore me to a good mood after your puling morality robbed me of a tidy cargo."

She swallowed and stood there knowing one could not display fear to a predator. There was no place to run, no place to hide from the pirate who stood so close the fabric of his coat brushed against her back. She arched away, but a hard arm clamped around her waist and pulled her up against him, his heat surrounding her, burning away the ice in her veins from her fear of him disposing of her over the side. It would be so easy for a governess who annoyed the captain to have an unfortunate accident.

What she didn't know was if she feared him as much as she feared her response to his toying with her, alone in his cabin, helpless in his floating world.

"If you were in my keeping I would dress you in satins and creamy silks so that the sight of you would not depress me. Perhaps you would be dressed in nothing at all."

He kept one arm around her while the other came off the door to trace along her trembling arm.

"We have been together on this ship for many days, Miss Burke. Many days and many nights when I could imagine you draped in pearls, adorned with gold, your long limbs entangled with mine. Do you share those thoughts? Do you ever think of how easily you could slip into my cabin in the dark?"

A warm finger traced the outline of her ear and followed the line of her artery down her throat to where her collar rose up, hiding the rest of her from his gaze. It was empty armor, for with one tug she'd be stripped and at his mercy. She quivered, eliciting a low chuckle from her captor.

"Scared, little governess? You don't need to be frightened, but you should be begging my forgiveness for your insolence. I can be magnanimous...given the right motivation. Can you motivate me?"

His lips brushed against her nape, just above her neckline, and the hairs stirred as a treacherous fragment of her mind whispered,
Oh yes, do that some more.

"Do you want me to forgive you?" he whispered, placing a kiss along her jawline. "Do you want me?"

She moaned, a broken sound wrenched from deep within her.

"Do you want?"

She wanted. Her body knew her wants, her nipples hardening as his lips explored the small area of exposed flesh above her collar, her breath hitching as his teeth nipped softly at her earlobe. Liquid heat pooled between her legs.

She craved him. Even now, even with his threats, she wanted, wanted him in all the ways a woman can want a rough man, one who seized what he desired. She was so sure he would leave her wants satisfied, breaking down her careful façade of respectability.

And that was why she had to reject her body's needs and choose safety.

"Captain St. Armand," she said, her voice low, but thankfully, steady. "You can have an unwilling bed partner, or you can have a governess for your daughter. You cannot have both."

As soon as the words left her mouth she realized they echoed what Mr. Fuller said earlier about the choices St. Armand--Robert--had to make. She could not call the words back, nor did she wish to.

He stood behind her, still, and the moment dragged on an eternity.

"Unwilling?"

It was a dark whisper in her ear, then a chill at her back.

"Get out."

She blindly fumbled with the latch before managing to wrench the door open and escape to the small safety of her cabin and the child napping there.

* * * *

Lydia tried not to think about him the rest of the afternoon, but it was impossible. She dug her cap out from the bottom of her trunk, secured her hair and tied the cap on. That pirate did not own her.

Her traitor mind conjured images of what it would be like to be owned by the pirate, to have her keeping in his care, to not have to worry, and hide, and scheme for her future. But she also knew the reality of such a life was not as Captain St. Armand said. Nanette was a rare exception, a woman whose protector set her up in comfort so she did not have to return to her former life, though it was really Nanette's hard work building on what she'd been given that assured her and Mattie's comfort. There were women who would have let the money run through their fingers like beads falling from a broken string,

When Mattie awoke, the day was stormy as the ship tossed in a fast-moving Atlantic squall. At suppertime, trays of cold meats, cheese and bread were brought to their cabin with instructions to stay below. Conroy assured them it was a minor blow and nothing to fret about, and his relaxed demeanor calmed Lydia. She was fortunate she and Mattie were both good sailors with strong stomachs, though she ate sparingly to not risk fate.

"Eat some bread now and save the rest for later, Mattie. If you keep a small amount of food in your stomach it is easier to handle the ship's motion."

"Did you ever get sick from the sea, Miss Burke?"

"Yes, on the voyage to the islands, but I found my 'sealegs' within a few days and now I tolerate the ocean well, but it's a good idea to plan ahead."

"Papa never gets seasick, but he says cats make him sneeze and that is why I cannot have a kitten. I do not get seasick and cats do not make me sneeze," she finished on a satisfied note.

The image of dangerous Captain St. Armand felled by a sneezing attack brought on by a soft, fluffy kitty tickled Lydia and she was smiling as the door to their cabin was rapped upon, followed by the captain himself entering a moment later.

He stopped in the doorway, looking at her intently, and the smile flowed off her face under his gaze.

"Papa!"

Mattie threw herself at her father and he scooped her up in his arms, careful of her head not hitting the deck above. The man was a mass of contradictions to Lydia. One moment he was preying on her, or on some hapless merchant ship, the next he was the doting father.

"Did Norton get a brace of pistols for spotting that ship, Papa?"

Lydia inhaled sharply, but St. Armand did not look at her.

"No, Mattie, he did not get a reward because that ship was not a prize."

"Too bad. Maybe the next ship will be a prize. Have you come to read to me?"

"Of course, Mattie. How could I sleep without a bedtime tale?"

She giggled at this silliness and Lydia stood, brushing down her skirts.

"I will leave you two to read--"

"No, stay, please! Tonight we are reading more about Anne Bonny!"

"Yes, stay," Captain St. Armand said, but when he said it, it sounded like a command. "You would like this tale, Miss Burke. Anne Bonny was a wild child who likely did not listen to her governess."

Lydia did not want to be anywhere near the captain, but she saw no way to politely extract herself, especially since Mattie was nodding at her father's words, her curls flopping about in silken corkscrews.

"Very well," she said, reseating herself and putting her hands in her lap. He sat on Mattie's bunk and picked up Captain Johnson's book.

"Her father was an attorney at law, but Anne was not one of his legitimate issue..."

"What does that mean, Papa?"

"It means Anne Bonny's papa was not married to her mama. He was married to another lady when Anne was born."

"So she is a bastard like me?"

Lydia gasped, and her hand covered her mouth.

"Where did you hear that, Mattie?" her father asked. He closed the book with his finger inside.

"The children in town. They used to say that about me, and I heard two ladies say it when
Maman
took me to church. Afterward, on the church steps
Maman
, said things to them that would have gotten my mouth washed out with soap!"

She did not appear upset at her illegitimate status, but Lydia knew children could be good at hiding their true feelings.

"Come sit on my lap, Mattie."

The little girl climbed into her father's lap and he put his arms around her. Lydia had the stray thought that Mattie's legs were growing and she would be a tall woman, taking after her lean papa. Watching the two of them together, so close, the rich dark hair and features so similar, she couldn't help but think pirate or no, Mattie was fortunate to have a father who cared for her so much.

"It is true your mama and I were not married, and in the eyes of the law, that means you are a bastard," he told the child calmly. "However, the law has nothing to do with how much I love you, for you are my own sweet Mattie."

"Did Anne Bonny's papa love her?"

"As I recall the tale, he did. Sit here next to me and I will find out."

He set her next to him and, reclaiming the book, flipped a few pages then smiled.

"See here, Mattie? It's a picture of Anne Bonny sitting on her papa's lap, just as you sat on mine. Yes, according to Captain Johnson, he 'had a great affection' for the child, but he dressed Anne as a little boy to fool his wife, who'd heard about the birth of a daughter that was her husband's child. He began living with Anne's mama and then took them to Carolina where he prospered."

"Was he a pirate in Carolina, like Blackbeard?"

"No, a merchant and a lawyer, though given those two professions, he may have had some of the pirate in him."

"I am wondering if this is the best bedtime reading for a child."

He looked down at Mattie. "Well, child? Is it a good bedtime story?"

She nodded vigorously. "Yes! I want to hear more about Anne and her pirate ways!"

"There you have it, Miss Burke. 'She was of fierce and courageous temper...and she was so robust that once, when a young fellow would have lain with her against her will, she beat him so, that he lay ill of it a considerable time.'"

"Captain St. Armand!"

"You are interrupting, again. If you cannot refrain we will never get this finished."

Lydia snapped her mouth shut, but really, what a story to tell a young girl! However, Mattie straightened her back and said, "It is good Anne knew how to fight, because her papa was not there to protect her."

"Exactly, Marauding Mattie. Even Miss Burke would agree a woman needs to know how to defend herself in a difficult situation. Swooning and waiting to be rescued is not a good way to deal with attacks."

They both looked at Lydia, who nodded, once, only a tad reluctantly.

"See? Here is a picture of Anne, with a pistol and dressed as a man. She looks strong, doesn't she?"

Lydia's curiosity grew the better of her and she rose to look at the picture too. The woodcut in Captain Johnson's book showed a robust young woman with long locks flowing beneath her hat, her outstretched hand firing a pistol as a ship loomed in the background. Her shirt was open, exposing her breasts, no doubt to ensure there was no confusion about her gender. Titillating the largely male reading audience and selling more copies was an additional benefit any good author and publisher would leap upon.

"What happened, Papa? How did she become a pirate?"

"Let us save the rest of the tale for tomorrow night, Mattie. I will tell you it starts out as these stories so often do. Anne Bonny ran off with a worthless man, marrying him against her wise father's wishes," he finished sternly.