The Pirate and the Pagan

by Virginia Henley

  The Countess of Shrewsbury knew her friend Barbara was hardly interested in sapphires. No, it was Helford’s bride’s rubies she had her eye on. Barbara had a small collection of rubies and her fingers fairly itched to add to that collection.

  After a very short time of play Barbara began to win every hand. There was absolutely no way Summer was going to lose the Helford rubies to Barbara, so she began to cheat blatantly. Barbara didn’t dare accuse her of dealing from the bottom because that’s exactly what she had been doing herself, though less skillfully.

  After an hour’s concentrated play Summer became the new owner of Barbara’s topaz necklace, Anne’s sapphires, and Anna Maria’s pearls. Only Lady Anne looked worried. “What in blazes am I going to tell Lord Carnegie when he asks where my jewels are?”

  “You know I rather like men, but husbands are a breed apart,” drawled Barbara. “Tell him what we all say when our jewels go missing … tell him they were stolen by a highwayman.”

  “The practice is common enough he just might believe it,” agreed Anne Carnegie, looking relieved.

  “Did you go to see Gentleman Jackson, the famous highwayman, hold court at Newgate last month?” asked Barbara. “I swear he had a greater audience than Charles that day. Gads, it was the drollest thing I’ve seen in an age and more than one titled lady gave him ‘come hither to bed’ invitations.”

  Anna Maria’s coarse laugh rang out. “Perhaps I should give him a try. We’re all looking for that one man in a million who can produce the triple orgasm. How was that contortionist from the circus, darling?” she asked Barbara spitefully.

  “Shut your mouth, Anna … anyway he was a trapeze artiste.” She changed the subject back to highwaymen. “Did you hear that the Duke and Duchess of Mazarin were stopped and the damned fellow took the duchess in the bushes. When he was finished with her, he relieved the duke of fifty pounds for doing his drudgery for him!”

  Anna Maria’s great whoop of laughter rang out and she begged, “Stop it, Barbara, before I pee myself.”

  Ruark and Jack Grenvile strolled toward the ladies. Jack said, “You’re a lucky devil, Ruark, she makes all the other women look well used and shopworn.”

  Ruark stopped behind his wife’s chair and cupped her shoulders in his hands. “It’s after midnight, darling.”

  “Gads, in London we’d just be starting to wake up. After we tired of gaming, we’d dance till morning,” complained Barbara.

  “You forget, Lady Castlemaine, they are on their honeymoon.” Jack Grenvile laughed. Though he was her host, Barbara was none too pleased that he had been created Earl of Bath. “If Lady Helford is as good in bed as she is at bassette, then you both have the devil’s own luck,” Jack went on.

  Ruark’s manners were impeccable. Not for the world would he make a surly remark to mar the hospitality of his host and friend. He drew Summer from her chair, bowed low to the ladies, and bid his friend good night.

  Just as they were about to ascend the stairs Summer spied Lady Anne Carnegie looking rather woebegone. On impulse she took the sapphires from her bag and handed them back to the overpainted young woman. “I would not like to cause trouble between a husband and wife,” she whispered.

  Lady Anne, her mouth open, was bereft of words, but her eyes bespoke her gratitude. Summer felt much better about the whole thing. Her own relationship with her new husband was almost perfect and she could not bear the thought of causing angry words between another husband and wife.

  The maid and manservant sat awaiting them in the blue and gold chamber. Summer wanted to dismiss them immediately, but Ruark was busy giving his valet instructions about which clothes to lay out for morning, so she did the same and told her maid she would be wearing her cream velvet walking suit, trimmed with black braid. She would also need the matching hat with its sweeping black ostrich plume and the fur muff. She would not bother with a face visor which she rather thought was an affectation of London. She heard Ruark tell his man that he would need his magistrate’s wig and robes packed, then he poured them each a glass of white Rhenish and waited rather impatiently for the man to finish his duties. When the maid began to take the pins from Summer’s hair, Ruark dismissed her with three words. “I’ll do that.” The valet set the traveling case beside the door, and Ruark slipped a couple of gold coins into his hand then turned to smile at his wife.

  Summer’s conscience had begun to nag at her. “Ru, there’s no need to go all the way to Plymouth tomorrow if you’d rather be here with your friends. I suddenly find extravagance fills me with guilt.”

  “I’ve had word that I must go to Launceston Castle for the assizes tomorrow. The town prison is inside the castle and at the moment it’s holding some very important prisoners. You can watch me hold court tomorrow if you like. After we’re done it’s just a short sail down the Tamar River to Plymouth.” He drained his wine and came to stand before her. “You are so unearthly fair.” He bent to brush his lips across hers and her mouth opened slightly to receive his kiss. “You are generous enough to give me everything I desire,” he said huskily, removing the pins from her hair so that the silken mass fell over his hands, “so why shouldn’t you have everything you desire?”

  She sighed. “I think perhaps I already have that.” Her head fell back in sweet invitation. Never had he felt a desire like the one that overpowered him now. He wasted no time removing his clothes then he lifted her dress over her head and buried his face in the exaggerated upthrust of her breasts before he removed the tiny busk. He lifted her onto the bed, still adorned in her rubies and her lace stockings and garters, and murmured thickly, “You may keep your stockings on now to make up for this morning when I robbed you of them.”

  He towered above her, gazing down at the desirable picture she made against the silken sheets. “You look absolutely decadent making love in your jewels and lace like some goddess queen.” His lips traveled to all his favorite places until her skin became so sensitive his mouth felt as if it was burning her, setting her whole body ashiver. He lifted her breasts with his palms and his tongue teased her ruching nipples, then licked the silken skin beneath each delicious globe. His lips traced her rib cage, and his hot mouth trailed down across her belly to tongue her navel. Then he kissed her lacy knees and traveled up to the bare expanse of thigh where her stockings left off. Finally he rained kisses on her swollen mons, his lips teasing the dark curls between her legs.

  “Ru!” she cried in protest. His head lifted and he raised himself above her so his mouth could plunder her lips again and taste his name, which she cried out with such yearning.

  Their needs became a greedy search for more and her heart cartwheeled over as his plunging hotness penetrated her like a flaming blade. With avid arms she pressed him close, then her hands slipped down over his hard flexing buttocks and her mouth sought out his small, flat nipples and sucked until they became diamond hard.

  His body was fiercely demanding and his blood sang with delirious excitement. She cried out as she reached her climax, but Ruark ignored her plea for him to stop. He scythed deeply in and out until she thought she could not bear it, then miraculously she began to build again. Her cries of “stop” changed to cries of “please don’t stop.” He urged her on with heated love words, blushingly intimate and explicit. Now his hands reached beneath her to perfectly cup her bare bottom and help lift her to meet his savage downward thrusts and she cried out into the velvet darkness as she peaked again. He was teaching her boldness.

  He rocked against her pulsing erect bud just below her mons and she began a countermovement against him, twisting and writhing to escape his demanding shaft, but then deep within her something blossomed like a flower, unfurling its petals and then its center core. He withdrew his erection all the way, arched himself high above her, then plunged, sheathing himself to the hilt and crying her name with a hot rasping sob as his burning seed spurted high inside her.

  To be part of him like this was all she would ever ask of heaven. It was a long,
languorous, delicious spiral back down to earth. She smiled with deep satisfaction as she now realized what Shrewsbury had meant when she had spoken of triple orgasm.

  Ruark handed Summer down from the carriage in the square bailey of Launceston Castle. The shell keep had stood since the twelfth century. Royal troops had been garrisoned there during the Civil War and it had changed hands no less than four times.

  “This place used to be dubbed Castle Terrible because of the filthiness and squalid conditions of its jail.” His face was grim as if the castle held bad memories for him, and yet, Summer reasoned, he would only have been about fifteen when Cromwell’s army had forced the Stuarts from Cornwall.

  She saw that the town of Launceston was shaped like a camel with two humps. The two hills were called St. Thomas and St. Stephen, and she now understood why this town was called the gateway into the rest of England.

  She looked up at the castle and indeed its bluestone and shale tiers gave it a menacing quality. Summer was surprised that the townspeople were gathering and realized they had come to sit in the court over which Lord Helford would preside. Before he left her in the crowded great hall, he put his fingers beneath her chin and looked into her eyes. “That rakish ostrich feather is so damned fetching I want to kiss you right here before the whole court.” She stepped away from him quickly because she had learned he was fully capable of taking liberties while people gaped.

  A short time later when he took the dais, she hardly recognized him in his magistrate’s wig and robes. The prisoners were led out. There were twenty-five men, all in shackles, but one stood out from all the rest. The first man was corpulent with a jowly, red face. His clothes, though filthy from his imprisonment, were expensive and fashionable. The other two dozen all looked alike to Summer. They were thin to a man, with a mean, sly look about them like a cur that you would not dare turn your back upon. She could not stifle the urge to shudder, so loathsome did they appear, and when the Crown read out the charges, she understood the reason for her revulsion. They were wreckers!

  The corpulent man was William Godolphin, who owned tin mines in the area. There were many witnesses to give testimony against the wreckers who hid in the mines while ships were lured onto the rocks, then emerged to murder and plunder as the helpless ships were smashed to smithereens on the jagged coastline. None of the witnesses was brave enough to give evidence against William Godolphin, but he had damaged himself by being found in possession of over ten thousand pounds’ worth of cargo from wrecked ships.

  Ruark’s face was hard and set in grim lines as he listened to the evidence given in court. Then an eyewitness to a wrecking began to give lurid details of how the ship had come aground in the shallows and its passengers, though terrified, were halfway to saving themselves and their children by wading in carrying their little ones on their shoulders. The wreckers had stoned their victims, breaking their arms and legs with cruel, jagged rocks so that they drowned in four feet of water rather than let there be witnesses to their filthy trade.

  Ruark’s countenance was black with suppressed fury. He banged his gavel heavily. “Bailiff, clear this court of women and children before any more evidence is given,” he ordered.

  Summer was trembling. It had brought the horror of Lizard Point back to her vividly. Her heart went out to Ruark. His appointment by the King was not a pleasant one. She went up upon the ramparts where she could see for miles each way along the freshwater shore of the Tamar, which almost severed the rough triangle that was Cornwall from the rest of the country. She could see the Tors of Dartmoor, those massive sentinels of stone which had stood there since the hand of God had created them. They had such strange shapes, those long stones which stood on end as if they were leaning against the wind.

  The moors were untamed and dangerous, fit only for wild ponies and sheep, ravens and buzzards, and yet their solitary beauty tore at her heart. She closed her eyes to let her soul fly free and was immediately comforted.

  Ominous dark clouds swept in and she felt the first sharp needles of rain. She ran down to the coach, and when she saw their driver huddled in his greatcoat, she took matters into her own hands. “Is there not an inn where we may be comfortable until Lord Helford is done with his business?”

  His face brightened then fell at what his lordship might think of allowing his new bride into a common inn, but Summer insisted and he had no choice but to obey her orders. They went over to the square, to a coaching inn named the White Hart with its magnificently arched Norman doorway. Summer ordered plain fare for ’twas what she liked best. Hot, mulled cider and Cornish pasties arrived and soon the coachman’s diffidence at dining with his mistress melted away as their bones warmed in front of the inn’s peat-turf fire.

  It was midafternoon before Ruark was finished with the business of Launceston. His face had a closed, forbidding look about it when he joined her and she chose not to question him. After a large mug of cider, however, he gave her a small regretful smile. “I’m sorry your promised day in Plymouth didn’t materialize, darling.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Ru,” she assured him.

  “It matters very much. Drink up and fetch your muff—there’s still time to take a barge down the Tamar to Plymouth Sound. We’ll stay over tonight and go back to Stowe tomorrow.” He bade his coachman stable the horses and take a room for himself at the White Hart.

  “I brought nothing with me, Ruark, for an overnight stay,” she half protested.

  The darkness in his face lifted at last. “You have lace stockings? And rubies? What more do you need?” he teased.

  She laughed with him, happy that thoughts of her were strong enough to lift his black mood.

  They stood together at the barge’s railing, his arm cuddling her to his warmth. She took off her pretty wide-brimmed hat, lest the wind steal it from her, and let it raise havoc with her black tresses: She almost reached up to snatch the black ribbon which clubbed back Ruark’s hair so severely, but then decided a lord should not abandon decorum as she was wont to do.

  When she saw the large harbor that was Plymouth Sound, it took her breath away. There were more ships anchored here than had been in the Pool of London. Ruark’s knowing eyes scanned the vessels, taking a quick inventory. “Hello, what’s this?” he said almost to himself.

  “What?” asked Summer.

  “Yonder is one of my ships on loan to the East India Company. Looks like she’s limped into port.” A frown creased his brow as he scanned the double-masted cargo vessel which was bristling with guns.

  The Golden Goddess rode at anchor between two royal vessels belonging to the King. Ruark gave orders for the bargeman to pull alongside his ship and he cupped his hands and shouted, “Ahoy there!”

  The next thing she knew Summer was climbing up a rope ladder and being pulled aboard ship with eager hands. The ship’s master, Captain Hardcastle, had a bushy brown beard and prickly eyebrows above pale blue, twinkling eyes. He was a barrel-chested man, his shoulders humped with muscle like an ox.

  “What happened?” asked Ruark with concern.

  “The bloody Dutch is what happened, beggin’ yer pardon, ma’am,” said Hardcastle. “Three of us convoyed for safety; would have made it through the Channel and up to London if it hadn’t been for the bloody Dutch, beggin’ yer pardon, ma’am. They chased us all the way from Java.”

  Ruark grinned. “Didn’t catch you, though!”

  “Too bloody slow to catch a cold, beggin’ yer pardon, ma’am, then the cheeky bastards sailed right into the Scilly’s after us … imagine … right into our own waters. They’re proclaiming themselves ‘Lord of the Southern Seas.’” Captain Hardcastle spat deliberately.

  “Well, they may have put a hole in your side, but they didn’t get the cargo,” said Ruark happily.

  “Bastards sank one of the East India ships, though. We saved most of the crew and t’other ship’s on its way to London.”

  “Bloody Dutch!” echoed Ruark. “I don’t know why the hell we don’t de
clare war on them … it’ll come to that in the end anyway.”

  “Well, war or no war, the bloody Dutchman who was greedy enough to tail me into the Scilly’s found a watery grave.”

  “You sank her?” asked Ruark.

  He nodded. “With all hands.”

  “Good man. The King’s here in Plymouth. I’ll tell him what you did. Let’s see what you’ve got,” said Ruark, taking Summer’s hand to guide her belowdecks.

  The air was redolent with the heady tang of spices. “I’ve never smelled anything like this before. What is it?” she asked curiously.

  “I’ve no sense of smell, ma’am, but they do say cloves and nutmegs are the strongest.”

  Ruark sniffed the air. “You’ve got cinnamon and green ginger and frankincense and what’s that drug called … camphire, that’s it.”

  “I’ve got everything—pepper, mace, aloes, tea.” The captain nodded.

  “Oh, how wonderful; may I have some?” asked Summer.

  “Get one of the men to pack my wife some of each,” instructed Ruark.

  “Oh, I only meant tea—not everything,” she protested.

  Ruark grinned, delighted that he could give her the riches of China and the Indies. “This is nothing, darling. Wait until you see the bales of silks and damasks. Have you any fashions the London ladies are demanding?” asked Ruark.

  Captain Hardcastle winked with relish and took them to a storage cabin. Summer couldn’t believe her eyes. There were trunks filled with mantuoes—gowns worn open down the front to show a flash of elaborate petticoat. Other trunks held Indian gowns called negligees of the finest cobwebbed cotton embroidered all over with pearls and crystals. Ruark told her to choose and after great deliberation she picked a turquoise mantuoe and a pale green petticoat embroidered with silvery thread.

  Ruark picked up another mantuoe which he said was melon color. She had never seen a melon, but the color looked like a sunburst. He piled her arms high with Indian gown negligees before they moved to another cargo hold which contained hundreds of bolts of cloth. A sigh of wonder escaped her lips as she drank in the exotic colors and textures laid out before her. They were so fine she hesitated to even reach out a hand to touch them until Ruark took some of the great bolts and unrolled them across the floor.