“Yes?” He wasn’t really listening, concentrating on making her come before he completely lost his claim to manhood.
“We’re having a baby,” she cooed.
“You choose now to make your announcement? Now?”
Her hands were clutching his shoulders, and he saw her eyes go luminous, pleasure-filled. He lost control then, but it was all right, because they reached that moment together and tumbled down into a river-soft silence together.
And then when he had carried her off the boat—with a leg that was stronger than ever—he laid her gently on the grass and whispered, “So we’re having a baby?”
Her eyes were tender and unbearably loving. “Yes.”
“Our fourth,” he said, stretching out beside her. “Do you think we have a boy or a girl in here?” He cupped her stomach.
“I don’t know. A little viscount, perhaps?”
“I would like Colin to be the viscount,” he said, feeling a prickle of guilt. Colin was his right-hand man.
“Colin would hate to be a viscount,” Phoebe said with a laugh. “He is going to sea, Griffin. You know he is. You simply need to concentrate on making sure that he never becomes a pirate.”
“Of course not,” her husband murmured.
And distracted her again.
EPILOGUE
It was fair to say that the courtroom of the Justice of the Peace for Somerset County was infamous. Certainly among smugglers, solicitors, and ne’er-do-wells. Sir Griffin Barry, Justice of the Peace, had a way of talking to a man who’d been hauled in for beating his wife that could make a hardened criminal turn ash-white.
“He’s a maverick,” Mr. Calvin Florand said to his young associate, Mr. Edwin Howell. Howell had just entered the Inns of Court, and Calvin always made a point of taking a new associate down to Shropshire for a few days. They spent their days observing the court, and their nights pulling apart flagrant violations of law resulting from the doling out of justice. Calvin reckoned that Howell would learn more about justice—and the limits of the law—in three days of watching Justice Barry’s court than in a whole year of sitting in a classroom.
Just now Howell was watching Sir Griffin with round eyes. His Honor never looked precisely justice-like—how could he, given that tattoo?—but he looked particularly dangerous today. He wasn’t clean-shaven, and his wig, rather than giving him the air of an English gentleman, made him look like a lion at a costume ball.
“Does he always look like this?” Howell asked in a low voice.
They watched for a moment as Sir Griffin leaned over the bench and gave the defendant a hard stare. The clerk had just read aloud a criminal complaint against one Charlie Follykin, who was charged with buying three and a half “tubs of spirits” for thirteen shillings a tub in France and transporting them across the Channel, with intent to resell them in England for four pounds each.
“How do you plea?” demanded the clerk.
“A pox o’ your throats!” Charlie spat.
The prisoner looked like a man who expressed his appetites with abandon. He had a large stomach, a large mustache, and a glossy sheen to his eye that suggested unswerving overindulgence in spirits.
As the silence wore on, Sir Griffin leaned over and said, “Did you drink half a tub before or after selling it?”
“Never drink what I could sell,” Charlie assured him. Apparently, even Charlie understood that insulting this justice would not be a good idea.
“Then you meant to sell it. He enters a plea of guilty,” Sir Griffin directed. The clerk scribbled on the court docket.
“I’m curious, Charlie,” the justice said, fixing the prisoner with a gimlet eye. “Exactly how did you get to France?”
“Get to France?” Charlie said, letting fly with a tremendous belch. “I never do. I won’t. I’ve been drinking all night, and I’m not fitted for it.”
“You must answer His Honor’s questions,” admonished the clerk.
Charlie looked blearily up at the bench. “I’ll not go to France, even if you beat my head out with billets.”
The clerk was clearly distressed at this lack of reverence, but the judge merely looked amused. Finally, when it seemed that Charlie was getting the better of the court, Sir Griffin stood up. He walked down from his seat, carefully turning back the wide velvet sleeves of his robes.
The clerk faded backward, leaving Charlie mumbling to himself and looking at the floor.
“You!” said the Justice, when he was standing before the prisoner.
Charlie jumped. There was something about that voice which clearly woke him out of his trance. “Huh?”
“Do you want me to knock you into next Monday?”
“No,” Charlie said hastily.
“Tell me why in the blazes you are in this court on a trumped-up charge.”
Charlie peeked at the Justice, then looked back at the floor. “I was supposed to guard the tubs,” he muttered. “Eight shillings a night.”
Sir Griffin walked around and climbed up onto his chair. “Right,” he said briskly. “The prisoner changes his plea. Not guilty, here by reason of collusion. Who turned you in, Charlie?”
Silence. The clerk darted forward and poked the prisoner in the back.
Charlie just looked confused.
Sir Griffin leaned over, and a flash of real annoyance crossed his face. “Follykin, this is the eleventh time I’ve had you before the bench in the last four years.”
“Not that many,” Charlie said, looking rather appalled.
“My wife gave birth to a baby yesterday. Do you think that I want to be here, breathing the foul air coming from your mouth?”
Charlie shook his head.
“Babies cry all night,” the Justice said reflectively. “I know what happened here, Follykin. Your friends talked you into taking the fall for the smuggling because you fell down on the job of guarding the tubs, drank the brandy, and then let the assizes find you.”
“Only had a sip or two,” Charlie protested.
“You didn’t mind because you like the jail, don’t you? I’ve heard the jailer’s wife has a rare hand with a pasty.”
“She does,” Charlie agreed.
“Right.” The Justice slammed his hammer onto his table. “The prisoner is condemned to four days hard labor, not for importing spirits, which he didn’t do, but for the crass stupidity of wasting my time so he can get his hands on some Cornish pasties. The four days hard labor will be carried out in the children’s foundling home, where I would expressly note that after being given a thorough cleaning, the prisoner should be put to rocking babies. All day. And most of the night. He can bed down in a storage closet.”
Charlie looked up at the judge, a tragic look crossing his face. “Don’t do that to me, Your Honor,” he begged.
The clerk prodded him with a stick. “Move along, Follykin. You know His Honor doesn’t ever change his mind.”
“Why should you have a better night than I will?” the judge demanded. He took off his robes, tossed them into the hands of a waiting clerk, and left the courtroom without further ado.
“That’s bollocks,” the young lawyer whispered. “There wasn’t any procedure. He threatened the prisoner. He sentenced him to hard labor even though he was innocent, or at least partly innocent. And that kind of hard labor . . . I’ve never heard of it. A storage closet isn’t jail!”
“Right,” Calvin said. “Now I happen to know that the jailer’s wife provides the very inn we’re staying at with pasties, so let’s retire, shall we, and discuss the finer points of the actual use of English law in our courtrooms.”
Outside, Griffin climbed rather stiffly into his carriage. These days his leg gave him a twinge only when he was dead tired.
He was dead tired.
Fred had come into the world screaming as loudly as he could, and he hadn
’t stopped yet.
When Griffin reached his house, Fred’s wailing had upset his sister Sophie, who was crying as well, and what with one thing and another, Alastair and Colin were up, too. The only child peacefully sleeping, in fact, was Margaret. Griffin appeared at the nursery door only to find that his poor wife had the desperate look of a woman in need of rescue.
Griffin took Fred and popped him into the cradle; wonder of wonders, he fell asleep. Nanny took charge of Sophie, Lyddie took Alastair to the kitchens for a glass of milk, and Griffin picked up his poor wife, tired as she was, and carried her all the way down the hill to the river.
They sat there for at least an hour, just staring at the water and ignoring the faint sounds of mayhem that continued to issue from the house. The moon turned the water into a shimmering silver plate.
Griffin thought there was probably nothing more lovely than to have his wife’s round bottom in his lap and to rest his chin on her hair and feel her breathing against his chest.
After a time Colin came trotting down the hill with a bundle in his arms, trailing a bit of pink blanket.
Phoebe rose and took Fred—crying again—then settled down in a different chair to feed the child, who appeared to have the appetite of a future giant.
Colin leaned against his father’s shoulder in a companionable sort of way.
“I like the way you brought Fred down here,” Griffin said, winding his arm around his eldest son’s shoulder. “Good man.”
“Had to be done,” said the pirate.
“A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.”
Fred burped, and Colin wrinkled his nose. “Do you think he’ll sleep any better tomorrow night? He doesn’t seem to sleep at all.”
“Probably not,” Griffin said. He looked over at his wife’s bright hair. He could just see the curve of her cheeks as she murmured to their new son.
“Do you suppose you could stop having babies now?” Colin asked with a sigh. “There are five of us, you know. It seems like an awful many.”
Griffin’s heart swelled with the pure joy of the moment. All those years on board ship, he’d grappled with adventure and death and mayhem. He thought he was proving himself, but he didn’t really understand what it was to be a man until he returned home.
“Five seems like a good number to me,” he said, hauling Colin’s lanky body over the side of his chair and into his lap.
“I’m too old to sit in your lap,” Colin protested, his skinny legs flailing a moment. But then he settled against Griffin’s shoulder, and two seconds later he was asleep.
Griffin reached out and took his wife’s hand. “I love you,” he said quietly.
Phoebe smiled at him. She was more beautiful than she’d been when they married, more beautiful than she’d been when he returned from the sea. She would only get more lovely every year . . . and he would only love her more.
“Damn,” he said quietly. “I don’t even know what to do with the way I feel for you, Phoebe.”
She smiled again, her eyes luminous in the moonlight. “Just love me, Griffin.”
He raised her hand to his lips. “There’s no question of that, my darling.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t you dare . . .”
“My darling Poppy,” he said smugly.
A NOTE FROM ELOISA
There’s nothing more irritating than a story that ends with a loose thread! So, you may be wondering, who won the bet? Which pirate proved the more seductive, Griffin or James?
The answer can be found by comparing Griffin’s success here to James’s success in The Ugly Duchess, my most recent fairy tale. That novel is spun, obviously, from Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Ugly Duckling.” My version puts together a duckling and a pirate, with a touch of “Cinderella”—and a dash of Coco Chanel. Theo, the duchess in question, is a witty, lovable heroine. And of course, James (and Griffin) sail the seven seas, tattooed and muscled and altogether delectable. Want to read the first three chapters? They follow just after this letter. I do hope you enjoy The Ugly Duchess!
If you like rewritten fairy tales, I’d love to introduce you to my series. So far I’ve written A Kiss at Midnight (a version of “Cinderella”), When Beauty Tamed the Beast, and The Duke Is Mine (a version of “The Princess and the Pea”). The last fairy tale is probably the least well known. Remember the story of a princess who arrives at the castle gates in the middle of the night and is put to the test to see if she is a “real” princess—by sleeping on one hundred mattresses and a pea, among other things? I had a great time figuring out how to get those mattresses into the plot. (And the pea! The pea was another challenge.)
That’s probably the most fun aspect of rewriting fairy tales: how does one take the structural underpinnings of one story and weave an entirely new, fresh story around them? I’m very happy to announce my next fairy tale will be a version of Rapunzel, the story of a golden-haired girl locked in a tower. Mine is called, quite fittingly, Once Upon a Tower.
If you enjoyed the length of “Seduced by a Pirate,” I have quite a number of novellas that make perfect reading in a waiting room (I’ve taken to reading on my phone, and I love it). Two are loosely connected to my version of fairy tales, “Winning the Wallflower” to The Duke Is Mine, and “Storming the Castle” to A Kiss at Midnight. “A Fool Again” is another e-novella, connected to one of my earlier novels called Fool for Love. Of course, all my novels are available in electronic form. Want to read more about them? I have excerpts, inside information, and even some photos that inspired my characters on my website, www.eloisajames.com.
And, as always, you can find me either through email (
[email protected]) or on Facebook: www.facebook.com/eloisajamesfans. Please check in and tell me what you thought of “Seduced by a Pirate!”
Yours,
Read on for a preview of the first three chapters of
The Ugly Duchess
Available now from Avon Books
ONE
March 18, 1809
45 Berkeley Square
The London residence of the Duke of Ashbrook
“You’ll have to marry her. I don’t care if you think of her as a sister: from now on, she’s the Golden Fleece to you.”
James Ryburn, Earl of Islay, and heir to the Duchy of Ashbrook, opened his mouth to say something, but a mixture of fury and disbelief choked the words.
His father turned and walked toward the far wall of the library, acting as if he’d said nothing particularly out of the ordinary. “We need her fortune to repair the Staffordshire estate and pay a few debts, or we’re going to lose it all, this town house included.”
“What have you done?” James spat the words. A terrible feeling of dread was spreading through his limbs.
Ashbrook pivoted. “Don’t you dare speak to me in that tone!”
James took a deep breath before answering. One of his resolutions was to master his temper before turning twenty—and that birthday was a mere three weeks away. “Excuse me, Father,” he managed. “Exactly how did the estate come to be in such precarious straits? If you don’t mind my asking.”
“I do mind your asking.” The duke stared back at his only son, his long, aquiline nose quivering with anger. James came by his temper naturally: he had inherited it directly from his irascible, reckless father.
“In that case, I will bid you good day,” James said, keeping his tone even.
“Not unless you’re going downstairs to make eyes at that girl. I turned down an offer for her hand this week from Briscott, who’s such a simpleton that I didn’t feel I need tell her mother. But you know damn well her father left the decision over who marries the girl to her mother—”
“I have no knowledge of the contents of Mr. Saxby’s will,” James stated. “And I fail to see why that particular provision should cause you such annoyance.”
“Because we need her damned fortune,” Ashbrook raged, walking to the fireplace and giving the unlit logs a kick. “You must convince Theodora that you’re in love with her, or her mother will never agree to the match. Just last week, Mrs. Saxby inquired about a few of my investments in a manner that I did not appreciate. Doesn’t know a woman’s place.”
“I will do nothing of the sort.”
“You will do exactly as I instruct you.”
“You’re instructing me to woo a young lady whom I’ve been raised to treat as a sister.”
“Hogwash! You may have rubbed noses a few times as children, but that shouldn’t stop you from sleeping with her.”
“I cannot.”
For the first time the duke looked a trifle sympathetic. “Theodora is no beauty. But all women are the same in the—”
“Do not say that,” James snapped. “I am already appalled; I do not wish to be disgusted as well.”
His father’s eyes narrowed and a rusty color rose in his cheeks, a certain sign of danger. Sure enough, Ashbrook’s voice emerged as a bellow. “I don’t care if the chit is as ugly as sin, you’ll take her. And you’ll make her fall in love with you. Otherwise, you will have no country house to inherit. None!”
“What have you done?” James repeated through clenched teeth.
“Lost it,” his father shouted back, his eyes bulging a little. “Lost it, and that’s all you need to know!”
“I will not do it.” James stood up.
A china ornament flew past his shoulder and crashed against the wall. James barely flinched. By now he was inured to these violent fits of temper; he had grown up ducking everything from books to marble statues.
“You will, or I’ll bloody well disinherit you and name Pinkler-Ryburn my heir!”
James’s hand dropped and he turned, on the verge of losing his temper. While he’d never had the impulse to throw objects at the wall—or at his family—his ability to fire cutting remarks was equally destructive. He took another deep breath. “While I would hesitate to instruct you on the legal system, Father, I can assure you that it is impossible to disinherit a legitimate son.”