He would never be good with figures.
But he already was a damned good privateer, and before the war was over, he’d be a famous one.
Chapter 17
He took her to the same little cove where they had spent the forbidden nocturnal rendezvous that had landed them in such trouble. Boating the oars, he let the forward momentum carry the little craft smoothly onto the beach, where its bow crunched against the sand and lurched to a halt.
In daylight, Rhiannon saw that a small headland extended out into the sea for a distance, shielding the cove from the gazes of anyone who might be watching from ships in the harbor; a thick tangle of exotic trees screened the cove from Sir Graham’s house, and there was nobody here except a colorful parrot squawking from a nearby branch.
At night this had been a somewhat frightening place, the water deep and mysterious. Now, she could easily see the bottom, and the play of morning sunlight sparkling over the surface of the sea was soothing. Pretty.
Connor helped her out of the boat and pulled the little craft farther up onto the beach. She watched the play of strong, hard muscles in his arms as he worked, and the way his rich chestnut hair curled against the back of his neck beneath the brim of his straw hat. She wanted to touch him. To feel his arms around her, his lips against hers, and that delicious, intoxicating sensation of having him on, alongside, inside her, surrounding her with his strength and protection once again.
Yes, she wanted to touch him.
And, as he straightened up after beaching the boat, she did.
Just her fingers, reaching up to trace the hard bulge of his forearm, the crisp hairs there that lent roughness to the texture beneath her fingers.
He paused, and that slow, slightly lopsided, and altogether charming grin that did strange things to her insides curved one corner of his mouth.
“Well, now,” he murmured softly.
She smiled.
He reached down and pulling off his shirt, balled and tossed it into the boat.
She pressed closer to him, shyly sliding her hand up past his elbow and to the rock-hard muscles of his upper arms. The base of his neck. The side of his jaw, slightly bristled beneath her palm, hard and scratchy and manly.
“You look like a pirate,” she said.
“And you look delicious.”
“Will you kiss me, Connor?”
“You have to tag me, first.”
“What?”
He laughed, and moved backwards into the water until he was thigh-deep in the gently rolling surf.
“That’s not fair.”
“You want to learn how to swim, don’t you?”
“Of course, but you have an advantage!”
She lunged forward, the water roiling around her knees and soaking Toby’s cut-off pantaloons, but he just laughed and moved farther back.
“Connor!”
He stood there with arms crossed, waist-deep now, the gentle swells swirling around his navel. His smile grew.
“Ah, the water is nice,” he mused. “You really should join me.”
“Come back here!”
“No, you come and get me.”
She waded farther out. He let himself fall backward until he was floating quite happily on his back, wiggling his toes at her as the waves moved past him and toward the beach.
Rhiannon waded farther. She could feel the water up around her rib cage now, her breasts. Her husband was tantalizingly out of reach, looking up, briefly, to check on her progress before folding his arms behind his head, gazing up at the cloudless blue sky and every so often, kicking a little to stay just out of reach.
Rhiannon was in up to her collarbone now; the waves were coming up to and lapping her throat, her chin, and suddenly a particularly large one lifted her straight up and off the bottom for a full second.
She stifled her cry of fear and surprise, her feet on the sea bottom once more. Connor eyed her from a few feet away, and turned agilely in the water until he was treading it.
“Feel the power of the sea?” he asked, knowing what had just happened.
“I feel it, and I’m frightened by it.”
“There’s no need to be frightened. It’s a wonderful and magnificent thing, the sea, and you know I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Rhiannon stood there for another moment, rising up on her tiptoes to try to keep her chin above every swell that washed past on its way to shore.
Connor turned on his side and kicked a slow circle around her.
And behind him Rhiannon saw another wave coming, larger than the one that had stolen the bottom out from beneath her feet for that frightening moment, a wave that moved beneath him, lifted him up, and now came straight at her.
She felt its immense power, felt it shove her straight up with it. Her arms flashed out to retain her balance, the bottom dropped away from her feet and a moment later, Rhiannon was swimming.
Swimming.
“Keep your fingers together,” Connor called, deliberately moving away but paralleling the beach. “Cup and push the water past you. Stiffen your legs. That’s it. Yes! Yes, Rhiannon! You’re doing it!”
And she was. She felt her fear suddenly become joy, and her joy become exhilaration, and then she was laughing as she paddled clumsily toward her husband.
“Trust the water, Rhiannon. Trust yourself. Feel it buoy you up, as salt water does, and stop stretching your neck up and out but just relax, let the water come up around your chin, your ears; you won’t sink.”
“Promise?” she gasped, breathlessly, as she paddled closer to him.
“I promise.”
She swam to him. She swam with him. He taught her how to turn in the water, to flip over onto her back, her side, and back to her stomach again. She followed him out into the cove just a little farther, and as they swam slowly over a coral formation some four or five feet down, she tucked her chin and tried to see it.
“It’s a beautiful world down there, Rhiannon.”
“I wish I could see it.”
“You can. Follow me.”
“Underwater?”
“Yes.”
“But how am I going to be able to see?”
“The same way you see on top of the water. By opening your eyes.”
And then, before she could protest more, he took a breath and angling his body, dived beneath the surface.
Trust him.
Rhiannon took a deep breath, pinched her nose shut with two fingers, and ducked her head into the water; at first she was afraid to open her eyes but curiosity got the best of her, and when she did, she realized that she had entered a whole new world.
She let herself sink down, and holding her nose with one hand, letting her feet rest on the rounded surface of a huge chunk of coral that looked like a brain, realized that there was a beautiful yellow and blue fish swimming just inches from her nose.
It stared at her.
She stared at it.
And realizing she was getting short of breath, pushed herself to the surface.
Connor was standing only a few feet away, his grin about as broad as she had ever seen it.
“I am so proud of you,” he said, and beyond his grin, beyond the way his eyes crinkled at the corners with a roguish merriment, she could see the heat building in his gaze and knew that he wanted her.
As she wanted him.
He moved closer to her, swam past her, and headed inshore.
She followed.
Well past the coral, he stood up in waist-deep surf, the water streaming down his chest and sparkling in the sun.
Rhiannon joined him.
He caught her as she moved close, pulling her wet body up against him, sliding his hands around the small of her back and pressing her hips against his own. Desire flared in her as she felt his arousal stabbing against her belly, and despite the lingering soreness between her thighs, she felt herself wanting him all over again.
His hips still against hers, his arms still around her lower back, he gazed
down at her.
“I want you, dearest wife.”
“Here?”
“Why not?”
“Because . . . someone might see?”
“They can’t see what happens underwater,” he said wickedly. He moved backward and as he did, his hands moved lower, curving over her bottom, squeezing her. She gasped and glanced nervously toward the beach, but he was right. They were alone. There was nobody there.
Considerate as always, he turned her so that the rising sun was behind her and not in her eyes; then, lowering his head, he kissed her.
His lips were wet and salty, hard, demanding, and hungry. Her breasts were crushed against his bare chest and her heartbeat began to bang out a frenzied beat as his tongue swept into her mouth and his hands drew her hips even closer, pressing them hard, hard into himself until she was grinding shamelessly against his thick and swollen member. She groaned deep in her throat as his hands moved lower, finding her cleft beneath the fabric of the old trousers, stroking it and causing her to catch her breath in surprise and wonder.
“You are a wicked man, Connor Merrick,” she managed, pressing her forehead against his wet shoulder.
A gull winged past but he only laughed, found the buttons of her pantaloons, and in one quick move, had them unfastened and in the water around her knees.
“Connor, someone will see!” she squealed.
“Who?” He walked a step or two backward, allowing the rising water to shield them further, to shield what his fingers were doing beneath the surface to the soft, sensitive skin of her inner thighs now that he had full access to them, tracing up and down, coming a little closer to her slit with each upward pass.
“S-Sir Graham . . . someone in a boat . . . the—oh!—the fishes, oh, oh, please—”
He spread his fingers, forcing her to widen the stance of her legs, and there, deep underwater, he ran his hand back up her thigh. As she struggled to keep her feet, he played with her silken curls, teasing and touching her most sensitive parts until she was gasping, and then inserted a finger between the inner lips and pushed it deep inside her.
Rhiannon cried out and he quickly silenced her with his mouth, his fingers plunging further into her, beginning to stroke the innermost wall of her pelvis until she felt herself squirming, pleading, frenziedly biting at his mouth as he brought her closer and closer to release.
And then with his fingers still stroking deep inside her, he pressed his thumb against her swollen bud. Her knees buckled and with a cry she spasmed against his hand, and it was only the arm he had locked around her hips, and the hand that was bringing her to such sweet torment, that saved her from slipping beneath the surface and drowning right then and there.
She hung there, shaking and convulsing, and then he withdrew, waded farther out into the surf, turned her so that his own big body shielded her own from the beach and unbuttoning himself with one hand, allowed her to feel him.
He swelled against her, huge and hardened and completely filling her hand, and as he bent his head to kiss her once more, he put both hands beneath her, lifted her up with the help of each incoming wave, and planted her firmly atop himself.
“Oh . . . oh, Connor. . . .” She felt him sliding deep, deep, deep inside of her, touching areas inside of herself that she didn’t know existed, and then he was lifting her up with strong hands and, to the rhythm of the incoming tide, he began to move inside of her.
Up and down, deeper and deeper until—
He suddenly clenched his teeth and tipped his head back, holding in his own hoarse cries as he spilt his seed deep within her and she climaxed once again, her body convulsing around his shaft. For a long moment they both stood there, he on shaky legs, she with hers wrapped around the back of his thighs, her cheek pressed against his chest and his heartbeat thundering like a racehorse beneath her ear.
Chapter 18
“Don’t you two have a honeymoon to be off on?” asked Alannah, who looked up as Connor strode boldly onto Sir Graham’s verandah, his new wife in tow.
“We’re hungry.”
“And soaked. Did you two fall off the boat or something?” She peered at Rhiannon in horror. “What on earth are you wearing, Rhiannon?”
“Connor gave me a swimming lesson,” she chirped, and slid a coy, worshipful gaze toward her grinning husband. “It was fun.”
Maeve was sitting in a nearby chair. “Honestly, Connor, why you didn’t rent a room at one of the hotels in Bridgetown is beyond me.” She eyed her brother with disapproval. “You took her to Kestrel for your wedding night, didn’t you?”
“It was romantic,” Rhiannon piped up, coming to Connor’s defense. “The beauty of the night beneath the stars, the ship all to ourselves. . . .”
“Bah,” Maeve spat. She got up, her hand going to her belly and rubbing it absently. “He’ll be taking you privateering, next. Damn, how I wish this baby would come. He’s kicking a hole through my blasted gut.”
“Must’ve inherited the Merrick restlessness,” Connor said. “Is there any food around here, Sis?”
“Go pillage the kitchen. But Mother’s baking. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Connor visibly paled. “God help us.”
“Aye, isn’t that the truth.”
“She’s not expecting us to eat it, I hope.”
Rhiannon glanced from one sibling to the other. “Why such trepidation?”
Maeve was shaking her head. “We don’t eat Mother’s cooking.”
“Hazardous to one’s health, it is.”
“I should go change, first,” Rhiannon said. “I don’t want to face your mother wearing boy’s clothing and looking like a drowned rat.”
“You’re fine just the way you are,” Maeve said off-handedly.
“And I’m starving,” Connor said. “Let’s go see what’s in the kitchen.”
The smell of something burning grew stronger as they moved toward the back of the house, and by the time they entered the kitchen, a thick haze of smoke was wafting through the open door. Inside, they found Ned hastily fanning the smoke to try and chase it out the windows, and his grandmother at the hearth, struggling to close the great bake oven set into the bricks and cursing like a seasoned pirate while more smoke roiled out and around her.
“Mother, what are you doing?” Rushing forward, Connor gently pulled his petite mother out of harm’s way and slammed the iron door shut with a poker. “Honestly, you’re going to burn down the house.”
Grinning happily, she straightened up and passed the back of one hand across her soot-stained forehead. “Ned and I are makin’ molasses cookies.”
“Making them, or burning them?”
“Oh, you mean the smoke? That ain’t from the cookies. We tried to make a tart earlier, and I think I put too much fruit in it. It overflowed and got into the oven and now it’s the spill that’s burnin’.”
“So where’s the tart? I’m starving.”
“On the work table there.”
Connor glanced in the direction his mother indicated. Something unrecognizable sat smoking in a deep pan, with a blackened top that might once have been a pastry crust.
He sighed. “So where are the cookies?”
“Still in the oven.”
“Mother, they’re going to taste like smoke. You have to take them out.”
“Now Connor, don’t you be telling me how to cook. I’ve been doin’ it all my life.”
“Aye, and poisoning people the whole time through,” he said. “Why don’t you and Rhiannon go have a cup of tea and Ned and I will finish up here?”
“I’m trying to be a good grandmother, Connor. Grandmothers make cookies with their grandchildren!”
“You are a good grandmother. Isn’t she, Ned?”
The boy, who’d been watching this exchange with uncertainty, nodded. “The best!”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” Mira said. “I burned my finger on that tray earlier and I’m afraid I taught Ned a new curse word.”
&nbs
p; “Oh, no, I already knew that one from my mother,” Ned assured her. “But if you have any other curse words that a good sailor should know, Grandma, I would be in your debt if you would teach them to me. See, Uncle Connor? She’s a wonderful grandmother!”
“And she’s a wonderful mother, too,” Connor added, gently guiding Mira toward the door. “But there’s a time and place for everything and your place, Mother, is not the kitchen. In fact, why don’t you practice being a good mother-in-law and go help Rhiannon find some dry clothes? I believe her trunk is still upstairs in her old room.”
“Speaking of that trunk, we should probably have it brought to Kestrel,” Rhiannon said.
“No, I think it should stay here.”
“Why?”
“Because when I head off to work, you’ll be staying here, that’s why.”
Rhiannon frowned. “Work?”
Ned piped up. “Uncle Con, are you going privateering?”
“This is a discussion best had at another time,” Connor said, noting his wife’s sudden frown. “Mother? Please?”
Rhiannon was still thinking about Connor’s cryptic words when his mother turned to her and for the first time, noticed what she was wearing. But instead of shocked disapproval, the other woman only laughed. “Why, look at you! Are those Toby’s clothes? Do you know, I spent months foolin’ your father-in-law back in the Revolution, dressed as a boy and pretending to be a gunner on his ship. Time of my life, it was.” She turned to her son as he wrapped a heavy cloth around his hand and, choking on smoke, pulled a tray of blackened discs out of the oven. “Connor, I’ll leave you and Ned to finish up here, and Rhiannon and I will see you out on the verandah. Don’t forget the cookies!”
Connor set the tray on the wooden worktable and gazed ruefully down at the ruined treats. “I think, Mother, that you already have.”
* * *
Like all large houses belonging to people of means, the Falconer mansion had a sizeable staff. It was a good thing, too, because when Rhiannon, now dressed in a pale rose gown, reappeared on the verandah where Mira, Maeve, and Alannah were already gathered, she noticed that food had been put out—and it wasn’t burned tart or blackened molasses cookies.
Lord Of The Sea Page 19
