And not succeeding.
Griffin was her husband, and he didn’t want to break off the marriage. She could already tell that what Sir Griffin Barry didn’t want to do, he didn’t do. She could see it in every lineament of his body, in the set of his jaw.
She raised her knee in the bath and watched water roll off her knee and down her leg. It had been one thing to face her wedding night when she was twenty, with the confidence of feeling both delectable and young. She had been utterly certain that her young husband would find her enticing.
There was something smoldering in Griffin’s eyes that told her he still felt that way, but she was no longer so assured.
She soaped her knee for the fourth time. Two thoughts kept chasing themselves around her head: the first was a memory of her mother talking of tearing pain. That didn’t sound any better now than it had fourteen years ago. And the second and more important was that she was old. Practically wizened. Dried up. Over thirty.
It made the blood roar in her ears to even think about that number. On her marriage night her breasts and her waist had been perfect. Now her hips were rounder, and her bosom was larger. Her breasts hadn’t kept the teacup shape they’d had at seventeen.
Griffin, on the other hand, had only improved over the years. He was everything a woman ever dreamed of in the privacy of her own bed. His eyes, shoulders, even thighs, even . . . She had seen what he looked like from behind.
Now he was the delectable one.
She swallowed hard.
“Are you ready for me to wash your hair?” her maid asked, jolting her out of that train of thought.
“Yes,” she murmured.
“An exciting day,” May said, as she poured jasmine soap onto her hands and then began massaging it into Phoebe’s hair.
“Yes.”
“If you don’t mind the presumption, my lady, Sir Griffin is as handsome . . . well, as handsome as ever a man was! Even Nanny said as how he was fine looking.”
“Nanny? Really?”
May laughed. “She said a man with those thighs could father ten children and we’d have to teach you how to plead a sick headache.”
“Hush,” Phoebe said, and May quieted, which just meant that Phoebe went back to worrying.
By the time her maid was rinsing her hair, Phoebe had reconciled herself to the fact that her marriage was going to be consummated that very night.
For all Griffin had promised to wait, she wasn’t stupid. Everything about him was strung tight. She was a challenge that he meant to conquer, his feelings all the more acute for the debacle of their wedding night. There was something hungry in his eyes that sent a thrill right down her legs. He craved her.
She felt as if her blood was overheating. She stood up, determined to put on clothes before May noticed that she was trembling slightly.
Then it struck her that she didn’t have any seductive clothes, gowns designed for a man’s appreciation. All of her clothes were retiring, costumes that informed the world that she was not a debauched woman, even though she had no husband.
May handed Phoebe a length of toweling and then turned to the wardrobe. “The blue gown will be just right. I’ll remove the fichu that tucks into the bodice.” Her smile was naughty, which made Phoebe wonder.
Her maid was not married. Phoebe had never seen her smile like that.
The blue gown was made of the lightest of lightweight cottons, so thin as to be transparent, although of course it had an underskirt.
It had an underskirt, because even as she watched, May began ripping the lining away. Too busy pulling out the small stitches, May didn’t even look up at Phoebe’s gasp.
“He’s a pirate, my lady. A pirate. You have to make him stay in England. We need a man about the house. You can’t keep a pirate at home by wearing a little cap on your head and pretending you’re as bloodless as a Quaker.”
Anxiety spilled into Phoebe’s stomach again. Even her household didn’t think much of her chances of keeping Griffin interested. Not given that she was an old woman of thirty-four, likely infertile, probably wrinkled in places she had never thought about.
With a silent groan, she straightened her shoulders. If only he’d come home five years ago. Or even four years ago, when she was thirty. Thirty seemed better. Vastly younger than thirty-four.
“No corset,” May said, “and no chemise, either.”
Phoebe had never dreamed of such a scandalous way of dressing. She opened her mouth to refuse—and paused. What did she know of these matters? Nothing. Maybe wives seduced their husbands nightly by leaving off their chemises.
What couldn’t be avoided must be endured.
She allowed May to dress her in the remains of a perfectly good gown, without a scrap of underclothing, which made her feel the veriest trollop. And reminded her that she had to inform Griffin about the children’s parentage immediately. The moment he came in the door.
May piled her hair on the top of her head in a disheveled bun, leaving strands to curl around her ears. Then she produced a little box.
“What’s that?” Phoebe asked suspiciously.
“Kohl,” May said. “We’ll brush it on your eyelashes.”
“No.”
“But my lady . . . look, I have some lip color as well.”
“No.” There was no question in Phoebe’s mind about this. She wouldn’t disguise what she was, and who she was.
Obviously, Griffin intended to sleep with her. But if she didn’t quicken with child after six months, he might well leave. Meanwhile, she wasn’t going to pretend to a youth she no longer possessed.
But at least she would have him first. For a time. Under her anxiety was a kind of brewing excitement. After all, she’d been alone for years. When male eyes met hers on the street, she turned her head instantly. Part of the reason she avoided society was because men, even gentlemen, tended to assume things about a woman whose husband lived overseas. Or, in this case, on the sea.
They assumed she was lustful and lonely, and desperate for marital pleasures. She had never been such, and had received any such advances with disdain.
But now . . . slowly . . . she was realizing that no matter the reason that Griffin wanted to consummate the marriage, it meant that she could try those things. Perhaps she would have a child of her own. Perhaps it wasn’t too late.
May adjusted Phoebe’s necklace and stepped back. Without a fichu tucked into the bodice, her gown barely skimmed her nipples. If she pushed her knee forward, she could clearly see the shape of her thigh.
She began to shake her head, but May overrode her. “This is what you’re wearing, my lady.”
Phoebe frowned. Had she really lost control of her household to the extent that not only Nanny but also May felt free to order her about?
“You look beautiful,” her maid said. “Just look at yourself, my lady. Really look.”
Phoebe really looked.
She was beautiful. That is, still beautiful. She had grown up with her father’s confident belief that he could barter her face and dowry against a title. But her mother had never fostered vanity. “The tilt of your nose is nothing to be proud of,” she would say. Phoebe had grown accustomed to ignoring her appearance.
Looking critically at the glass, she could see that while her air of dewy youth had evaporated, there was a kind of sensuality to her lips and her breasts and even the curve of her hip that made up for it.
“Yes,” May said. “There you are.” She sounded as smug as a preacher on Sunday afternoon. “You’ll do. That pirate’s a lucky man, and he knows it.”
Phoebe needed to go downstairs and check with Cook, see if the table had been set properly, make sure the children were tucked into bed. But she turned at the door and took a final look at the mirror.
Her father had bought Griffin the first time, but it was up to her this time. Sh
e wasn’t bartering herself for a title.
She wanted the body behind the title.
She wanted Griffin at her side, for as long as she could keep him. She wanted a man—Griffin—to look at her with bold hunger, even if he tossed her on the bed, for all the world as if she were a possession rather than a woman.
The air she drew into her lungs felt overheated, bringing with it a swell of agonized longing.
To belong to him. To own him. To caress and explore him.
She had never looked at men’s bodies closely, but somehow she had done so to Griffin. After only an hour or two in his company, she could trace the shape of his chest in her mind, the way it swelled from a narrow waist. The shape of his arse, muscled and powerful and altogether male.
Sensual images shot through her mind. It was as if a dam broke somewhere deep inside and a flood of erotic longings broke free. She could imagine herself caressing all that golden skin. Kissing it. Putting a hand between his legs, where no good woman ever even glanced.
Kneeling before him . . .
She hurried from the room so that May wouldn’t see her face.
All this wild energy couldn’t be normal. Men and women couldn’t walk about feeling this madness racing up their legs.
Now her imagination had broken free, it was offering her image after image. She saw herself running to greet Griffin at the front door. He snatched her into a kiss so fierce that her head bent back against his arm. Their desire was so heady that they sank down in the entry, right there, on the floor, and she pulled him on top of her, shameless and joyful.
She was tempted to slap her own cheek. This was lunacy. As if something like that could happen. What about the children? The servants?
Had she lost her mind? She felt like one of those widows whom the ballads made fun of, the ones who walked about ogling young men.
Yet she didn’t want to ogle young men.
She only wanted one man, one pirate with a tattoo and a limp.
Her husband.
ELEVEN
Griffin was rather shocked to discover that he enjoyed talking to his father during the carriage ride to Arbor House. The viscount was fascinated to hear that Griffin and James had imported curry and lumber to England, birdcages and silks to Spain.
“So you really weren’t pirates,” he said finally.
“I started out that way,” Griffin said frankly. “I was never the yo-ho-ho, walk the plank type of pirate. But I captured many a ship, took everything of value, and sailed away.”
“You made your first fortune as a highwayman,” his father said, the corner of his mouth twitching. Then: “Was there anything I could have done to steer you into a more ethical profession?”
“I doubt it. There’s no way for an aristocrat to prove his manhood here in England, let alone to win that manhood. My future was handed to me on a silver platter, bound up with a royal patent. I wanted—no, I lusted—to pit myself against other men. To fight.”
His father sighed. He was tall and lean and scholarly by bent. Clearly, he hadn’t the faintest ambition to take on a man in a battle to the death.
“I must resemble Mother’s side of the family,” Griffin said cheerfully. “At any rate, piracy proved the life for me. I fought with every possible sort of weapon, and survived sea battles, not to mention storms. I can sail and steer a boat around the most dangerous shoals in the world.”
“How on earth are you going to live in England?” his father asked, his tone bleak. “There’s nothing to pit yourself against here. Is this a mere visit?”
“No,” Griffin said. “I’m wounded. At thirty, I’m ready to rest on my laurels. I’m not fool enough to try to man a ship with a bad leg. Pirates fight like trapped badgers, and I’d be dead in six months.”
“His Royal Highness told me that you and the Duke of Ashbrook were responsible for dismantling a number of ships involved in the slave trade. A disgraceful, disreputable business.”
“Yes.” Griffin hated to think of those particular ships. What they found there made them sick at heart, even after he and James sent the human cargo back to their own shores with a heap of gold coins and the slavers’ ships to boot.
“You’ll need something to do,” the viscount said. “I’ve a judgeship open. Justice of the Peace for Somerset. You can do that.”
“Something to do,” Griffin echoed. “Why, aren’t gentlemen supposed to do nothing, Father?”
His father raised an eyebrow. “I busy myself.”
“In fact, we rarely saw you, if I remember correctly.”
“My work is important. The nobility of this land stand at the monarch’s shoulder to rule with him, and beside him. But I do wish I had seen more of my children.”
“I can’t see myself a judge,” Griffin remarked. “From criminal to justice overnight? It doesn’t seem possible. I know nothing of English law.”
But his father grinned. “You were captain of a ship for over a decade, Son. There must have been many a sticky situation for which you acted as arbiter. The prosecutor for the Crown will inform you of the relevant laws.”
“Ah.”
“You can begin on Monday. There’s a backlog of cases, since Pursett died last month. I’ve been dragging my heels about appointing another justice.”
“Monday!” Griffin exclaimed. “Where does this court meet?”
“A mere half hour from Arbor House,” his father said, a distinct note of satisfaction in his voice. “We’ll have the formal investiture, such as it is, at eight in the morning, and you can begin listening to cases at nine.”
“Nine in the morning? The same morning?”
His father looked at him. “There are men sitting in jails across the county because no one has been sworn in to listen to their pleas.”
Griffin suddenly broke out in a howl of laughter.
“What?”
“There’s the father I remember. You always had a way of pointing out the right and moral way to do things, Father. In your eyes, there was never a different way.”
“I hardly think—,” the viscount began.
“It’s all right,” Griffin said. “I’m old enough. I ran off and became a criminal under all that pressure, but I believe I’m old enough to live up to your expectations now.”
“Are you saying that you took up a life of piracy in reaction to my—to me?” His father looked horrified.
“Absolutely not.”
The viscount lapsed back into the corner of his carriage, looking shaken. Griffin had always been a good liar, and clearly that hadn’t changed. It was not easy to be raised by a nobleman who put his duty before his family. But it did explain why his son became a criminal famous through three seas, if not seven.
Not that it’s an excuse, Griffin thought to himself. Just an explanation.
In fact, it was time for amends. Likely he would be in the courtroom at 8:00 a.m. on Monday.
But at the moment . . . there were different amends that he had in mind.
TWELVE
Phoebe had rarely been so horrified as the moment when she realized that one of the gardeners—stuffed into livery for the occasion—was ushering not just Griffin but also Viscount Moncrieff through her front door. She had been sitting in the drawing room, sipping a glass of sherry and trying to distract herself from the kind of heated images that, she was quite certain, no proper lady would ever entertain.
She had been failing miserably, immersed in an absurd fantasy in which she happened on Griffin while he was bathing, when she startled back to attention as the door opened—and she heard the aristocratic tones of the viscount.
Terror struck her heart. She was wearing a transparent dress, with little more than a ribbon keeping her nipples from the open air.
She started to her feet too late.
Griffin was at the drawing room door, tossing
his greatcoat behind him to the footman. He surged into the room, brewing with energy.
Phoebe’s heart sped up and her whole body tightened.
He froze for a moment and a look flashed through his eyes, too quickly for her to read. Was it shock? Surely it wasn’t horror. Though perhaps one didn’t expect one’s wife—
When had she become such a worrier? She pasted a smile on her face and moved toward her husband and the viscount, who had nudged his son to the side and entered the room. “Lord Moncrieff, it is indeed a pleasure to see you. I wish the children weren’t asleep so that they could greet you as well.”
She didn’t see Griffin’s father very often, but they had achieved a kind of easy distance. They didn’t understand each other, but they respected each other.
Though it would all be different now that Griffin was home. He was the glue that would either bind the viscount into their family, or allow them to fall apart again.
“An astonishing and happy day for both of us,” the viscount was saying as his hand briefly tightened on hers and then let go. “You look lovely as always, my dear.”
“Ravishing,” Griffin said. The word calmed her worries. For today, for tomorrow, for a time at least, her husband wanted her.
By the time they reached the supper table, she would have revised that statement. Her husband was consumed by lust. Griffin kept brushing her hand. His touch made her shiver, and then he would laugh, a full-throated pirate’s laugh. They were seated opposite each other, as was only proper, but somehow his foot kept straying toward hers.
And his eyes . . . the way he looked at her! She never dreamed that it was possible to say so much with one glance. She could have sworn that he saw straight into her mind and stole those fantasies that her imagination kept throwing at her.
After the first course, his glances became like some sort of drug. Every one intoxicated her, made her heart beat even faster. All her woman’s parts grew hot and tight, but when she shifted uneasily in her chair, he took note and her restlessness by answered by the flare of pure lust in his eyes.