by Edith Layton
“But she is a lady. I told you she is.”
“Look lad,” his brother said, turning from the window, “a man’s perceptions change with his circumstances. When you’re in the country, the local squire seems to be a fine gentleman, doesn’t he? And he is, compared with the farmers and yeomen who work in the fields. But when he comes to London, it’s clear he’s a country gentleman and suddenly he seems very rustic compared to what you usually think a fine gentleman is, doesn’t he? He hasn’t changed. You have. How many fine ladies are there in a pirate’s lair? Exactly. No, your pirate lass may have seemed a lady in Port Royale, compared to the native girls, serving wenches, and whores there. But she wouldn’t strike a London innkeeper as one, would she? That’s what’s troubling me.”
“You’re wrong, and you’ll soon see.”
“Shall I?” Magnus wondered.
“Well, maybe not soon,” Martin conceded. “She may be out till all hours of the night. Why don’t we go home and come back in the morning?”
“Yes. To find her gone. Once she hears someone’s asked for her, she’ll leave. No, here she may be and here we will stay until we know. All night, if we have to. Send Sophia a note, if you want.”
“No need. She’s knows I’m with you,” Martin said blithely. When his brother looked at him oddly, he laughed. “She thinks no harm can come to me when I’m with you. Don’t frown, that’s what everyone in the family thinks too. So if I get my throat cut, you’ll have a lot of explaining to do.”
Magnus laughed. He was about to answer when he heard the inn door open and the landlord greeting a guest. He stepped out of the parlor, and stared at the woman who had just come in.
She was dressed in black from her voluminous hood to the hem of the cape that brushed over her slippers. The cape was an expensive one, and the woman did have a cross and tired-looking maidservant standing behind her. A fine lady indeed. Magnus smiled.
But then he heard her voice.
It was low, and sweet, and she spoke in measured, musical tones. A real lady then, Magnus thought with a sigh, and started to turn away. Whoever this lady was, she was no pirate’s daughter.
And then, warmed by the fire that blazed in the hearth, she threw back her hood. Magnus froze.
She was magnificent. She bloomed, he thought, like some rare flower in the midst of London’s gray winter. His breath stopped; he thought it might be that his blood did, too, for it certainly was not flowing to his brain. It was all flooding his heart, and other lower parts. He had to remind himself to take another breath when his chest grew tight. He stared at her. He had thought other women beautiful. He had never felt it before.
Her silky hair was in disarray from being pent up in her hood, and when she shook it out, he saw it was all the colors that flickered in the hearth: red and bronze and gold, with some strands that were even that astonishing white that’s born in the heart of fire. Her face was pale, but her cheeks were flushed to rose with the cold. Her nose was straight, her chin determined, and when she blinked and then turned to stare up at him as if she’d felt his eyes upon her, he saw that her long-lashed eyes were warm and gold. A copper russet lady of fire, he thought, enchanted.
“Cristabel!” Martin said.
Those remarkable eyes widened, she gasped, then turned and raced out the door. She got only so far as the step. Magnus was there first, his big hand on her shoulder. He stopped her by simply touching her and letting her feel the strength of that touch.
“No,” he said, “that’s foolish.”
She stopped, head down, and nodded. “Yes,” she said, “you’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
She shook her shoulder gently, as though to dislodge the few water drops that had settled there. He removed his hand and she straightened both shoulders and looked up at him again.
“His brother, I suppose?” she sighed. “The famous Magnus?”
He nodded, and bowed. Then he gestured to the door. “Talking is better done inside, and in private,” he said.
He was very tall—he must have learned early on how to duck his head when he came in and out of doors, she thought inconsequentially. He’d certainly moved out of the inn door faster than she could have imagined. He was big, even bigger than her father, and lean besides. He had wide shoulders, a trim waist, and long legs. She had learned to evaluate men in a place where men were judged by their size and strength as well as wit. She assessed him to be both quick and dangerous. Those sleepy gray eyes didn’t fool her. His brother had been right, this was a formidable fellow—who had every reason to be furious with her. After all, her father had kidnapped his brother, thinking he had kidnapped him.
He was dressed like a fine gentleman, though it wasn’t his attire that impressed her; he could have commanded in rags. To call that strong, wide face handsome wouldn’t be wrong, but it wouldn’t be fitting either; it would be like calling the sun “handsome.” He was young, but exuded power by giving off an air of total and complete confidence. This big, elegantly dressed man was as dangerous as any sword-rattling, pirate rogue she’d ever met.
Cristabel was brave, but she’d lived her life among violent and dangerous men. She knew there was no shame in surrender if she was outgunned. She also knew when it was time to stop fighting and start thinking.
She took a deep breath and let her fluttering pulse slow. He was, after all, she told herself, a nobleman and an Englishman besides, and so probably wouldn’t do most of the things the men she’d known in her past did when they were angry. Or so she hoped. Other than her days spent with Martin, she had no experience with gentlemen. What frightened her most was the thought that she was more afraid of this calm, elegant man than any pirate she’d ever met.
It made no sense; it was strange and made her feel odd.
After all, they both wanted the same thing. His quarrel was with her father, not her. All he needed from her was what she was anxious to give him, her promise that she had no claim on him, and would never make one. She’d gladly give him what he sought, her admission that he had no responsibility for her at all.
He waited. She nodded, raised her head, picked up her skirts, and swept through the door like a queen—even though she had the strangest feeling that she was stepping off the end of a dock, into the jaws of a waiting shark.
CHAPTER 5
“Wait outside,” Cristabel instructed her maid before she entered the private dining room. Magnus raised an eyebrow. He paused at the door. “Is that wise?” he asked.
“I thought ye said you only wanted to talk with me,” she snapped, wheeling around to confront him. Seeing his brow go higher, she winced at what she’d said.
“I was thinking of your reputation, not rape,” he said as he closed the door behind them.
“Oh, aye,” she muttered, so vexed with herself and him that she forgot her ladylike accents again. “Be perfeckly understandable, that: a viscount being careful of a buccaneer’s daughter’s reputation; makes perfect sense, it do.”
She plopped down in a chair, accepted the mug of hot punch Martin handed her, and stared up at his brother.
“Well,” she said bravely, “I’ll say it straight out, and be done with it. I’m sorry me…my father abducted your brother, sorrier than I can say. He knows it, and if he says else, he’s a god-rotted liar!” She glared at Martin.
Magnus’s lips quirked. He stood by the mantel and looked at her. He felt as though he’d trapped some wild, exotic creature. She wasn’t like anything he’d ever seen, but she reminded him of something wonderful he’d seen. That lovely little face belonged on an Italian cameo; her hair was out of a painting he’d seen in a chapel there, and he’d seen statues in Greece that tried to capture the loveliness of her figure, though her wonderful, slender but generous female shape was covered by a fashionable, if drab, gown. The fashionable effect was ruined by the way she sat sprawled with her legs apart, one elbow on each knee as she cradled her cup of punch between them, and scowled at him. A minute ago he had tho
ught she was a lady; now it sounded like he was talking to a sailor. He was as charmed as he was amused. But his face didn’t show it.
“Hold your fire, my dear. He doesn’t say otherwise,” Magnus said calmly.
“Oh,” she said. “I apologize, Martin. Well then,” she said, staring up at Magnus again, “what do you want from me?”
He couldn’t tell her here and now. He was shocked when he realized just what it was that he wanted. Her. And not just in his bed. He wanted to know her, although he felt as though he already did. It was a curious feeling. He wanted to take care of her and ravish her all at the same time, and then talk to her for hours, to find out everything about her. He would get to know her, he resolved on the spot. He’d have to be very careful. Not of his heart, which was halfway in her pocket already. But of his head, which he had to keep clear. For now, he meant to enjoy himself by simply watching and waiting. Whatever happened was sure to be worth waiting for. He turned an impassive face to her even though his pulse raced from just looking at her.
“Your father’s men discovered me in another lady’s chamber, or rather, leaving it,” he said, “and then tried to dismantle all evidence of the supposed crime—to wit: me. It was not the lady they were looking out for. It was you. They seem to believe that we are husband and wife.” He stopped, liking the way the words sounded.
“Oh!” she said, sitting up straight. “That’s terrible. I hadn’t thought—we can’t have that. Look,” she said, rising and pacing in agitation, “I’ll get word to them. Better yet, I’ll scratch out a note someone can read to my father—and you get it to them. I’ll tell the truth, and there’s an end to it. He knows my mark; he’ll be vexed at being diddled so neat, but he’ll take it like a man.”
“That will do, I think,” Martin said worriedly, looking at his brother. “Won’t it?”
“No,” Magnus said.
“Why not?” Cristabel demanded. “A hard man is Captain Whiskey, and none say else. But a fair one…in his way,” she added honestly.
“I’m sure,” Magnus said calmly, “but it isn’t your father I’m concerned about.” She cocked her head to the side, and he had to wrestle with an urge to kiss that bemused expression off her lovely face. “It’s you,” he said simply.
“Well, then, there’s no problem,” she said with relief. “I won’t bother you a bit. I know what you must be thinking, me being a brigand’s daughter and all. But I assure you I have no designs on you or your brother.” She lifted her head proudly. “My mother was an Englishwoman and a lady. A true lady. My father may be many things, but he brought me up in a way to make her proud. And she would be, if she was still with us, that is. So I know the right thing to do, and I’m going to do it. I’m going to live simply and quietly here in England. I won’t even tell you where because I mean to never get in your way again, in thought or deed.”
“I’m afraid that won’t do,” Magnus said.
“Don’t you believe me?” she cried in a challenging voice.
“Yes, I believe that’s what you mean to do,” Magnus said.
She gazed at him, confused.
“It’s not what you want to do that worries him,” Martin explained. “It’s you—being on your own in London and all.”
She look so perplexed, so honestly puzzled about why anyone should worry about her, that Magnus felt his heart contract.
“How old are you, my dear?” he asked.
“One and twenty,” she said quickly, “old enough to look after myself. And I’ve got money, heaps of it. So you see, there’s no need to trouble yourself over me.”
“I see,” he mused. “Martin told me you’ve never left the Islands before and that these are your first days in London. Have you any family here?”
“No,” she said.
“What about your mother’s family?” he asked.
She stiffened. “My mother left us when I was a tyke. She were—was a fine lady!” she said defiantly, lifting her chin. “Lady Elizabeth Ann Edgerton; a lady, she was. Of a fine old Canterbury family.”
“An old Canterbury family?” Magnus asked thoughtfully. “And yet you say you have no relations here in England?”
“Nor do I!” she spat. “Her family were—was so angry at her alliance with a pirate, they dropped her as completely as she did them. Not a word from them when she went neither, nor since, and they knowed—knew she had a babe. Even if I knew who they were, I’d not want to see them.”
He looked thoughtful. Then he shrugged. “That’s your decision,” he said. “You are one and twenty, as you say. But you are also singularly alone. And you plan to go on this way? By yourself? I see. So of course, you have no worries about being a wealthy young woman alone in a strange city in a new land.”
“I won’t be alone. I’ll have a maid with me, and not that sour-faced nag out in the hall”—she paused, remembering how the girl had smirked when she’d heard Mistress Elphstone’s tirade—“but another, for certain. And I’ll get a companion,” she said, her voice growing lower, remembering the companion she wouldn’t have. “I’ll hire a good one too. So I won’t be by myself.”
“I see,” he said, “so then certainly you’ll have no worries about the wisdom of becoming known as a rich, beautiful woman who lives by herself, surrounded only by servants, without a family or a man to protect her? In a city where any man could notice her beauty and accost her, or lie in wait to ravish her?”
“Well, just let him try!” she cried. “I’m as quick with a dirk as any man, and a fair shot too. It would be the last time he’d accost a woman, that I be promising ye. Oh, but I’d like to see him try, I would! But,” she said more quietly, seeing a peculiar expression, half-smile, half-frown, flit over the big man’s face, “I doubt I’d have to. This is England, after all. I’m in London at last, and safe as houses.” She said that and looked quite pleased with herself.
He thought he would choke on his suppressed laughter, but he knew laughing at this odd, lovely girl would hurt her. His laughter faded when he thought about the other things that could hurt her worse.
“Yes, London,” he said sadly, “where half the population is starving and the other half live in terror of the ones who are able to survive. Have you been too busy looking at our landmarks to see what lies in our streets?”
She remembered the beggars and all the thin and ragged men and women who watched the crowds with calculating eyes, as well as the packs of ferret-fast thieving children she’d kept her own eyes open for. But she’d seen worse.
“Yes. But as I said, I’m wide awake.”
“Wide awake enough to fight off several men?” Magnus asked. “Wide awake enough to be on guard all the time? And even if you are skilled enough to fight them off, random mischief wouldn’t be your only concern.”
“Did ye not hear me, man?” she cried in frustration. “This be London town! Not Port Royale or New Providence or Madagascar! There be civilization, morals, and laws and such, here!”
“Yes” he said unperterbed, “interesting laws, at that. A rich young woman living by herself, with no male kith or kin to protect her, doesn’t have to worry about one man—or even a pack of them trying to ravish her here in London. If you insist. But she might be wise to take a minute to worry about just one of them overpowering her and carting her off to the Fleet Prison, where he could ply her with drink or drugs and then tie her into a quick and unholy marriage. Of course, then she wouldn’t have to worry anymore, because he would have absolute control over both her body and fortune—for life.
“Yes,” he said, as she stared at him, her golden eyes growing wide, “interesting laws, indeed.”
“It’s true?” she asked Martin, confronting him. “They can do that?”
“True enough,” he agreed, “it’s been done. Footmen have married ladies that way. It doesn’t happen to wise women, of course. Only those foolish enough to believe a sweet-talking rogue.”
“Or ones who have no men to protect them from being forced to it,”
Magnus added.
“Why didn’t I hear of it before?” she wondered aloud. “I was very well educated, and none of my governesses ever told me about such things.”
“Most likely they didn’t think it would ever be a possible danger to you,” Magnus said gently, “or it might be that it was the furthest thing from their minds, for it was the least thing likely to ever happen to them.”
She grew very still, thinking about that. Most of her governesses had been abducted and ravished, but not for their money, and certainly not for marriage.
“I’ll handle it,” she finally muttered, but she said it as though to reassure herself. “I’ll hire on a footman, too, maybe a brace of them, seeing as how they’re so popular here,” she said bitterly.
“Anyway,” she continued after another moment, in a softer, resigned voice, “it doesn’t matter. I’ve set my course and I can’t turn back. If I go back to the Islands, my father would just find me another unwilling mate. The next one might not be as safe or as kind as young Martin here. There are a few fellows of the Brotherhood who have their eye on me too. I don’t want them. Whatever the risks, I reckon I’m safer here than there. So I thank you for your concern, but please let me be now.”
“Be what? That’s the question,” Magnus said gently. “None of the obvious answers pleases me. I’m sorry, my dear, but I can’t let you be. My conscience, my honor, and my word as a gentleman prevent me.”
She stood facing him, her small hands knotting to fists. Martin spoke up quickly. “See? Just as I said, Cristabel. He thinks he has to carry the world on his shoulders. Listen to him—he’s right.”
“No decent female is going to call you friend, living alone and unregarded as you will be,” Magnus said.
“I’ll say I’m a widow,” she shot back.
“With no family or relatives to see to you? No, that would never work,” Magnus said sadly.
