However, an aristocrat could take a mistress. That would solve the problem for them both.
Chapter Thirty
BRONWYN PULLED her cloak tight around her body and stared at her shoes, embarrassed by her confession and Jon’s continued silence.
“Obviously, encouraging you to captain the Marguerite would not have made you love me, but it would have prevented you from marrying her. It was small, petty revenge, Jon. I am not worthy of bearing your name. I am not even worthy of your friendship.”
She attempted to bolt away but Jon caught her arm and pulled her back. The words she could not say shivered in Bronwyn’s bones. There was no way to bridge the distance between them, though she tried. She struggled to tell him everything, but how does a curate’s daughter tell a viscount who is about to marry a fine lady that she loves him? How could he not think it was anything but the worst sort of conceit? No, her pride would not allow it.
There, you may add the sin of pride to the growing list, Bronwyn thought miserably.
“You will not kiss me good-bye then, as an old friend?”
Her heart lodged in her throat. “I want to kiss you,” she said, hardly able to breathe. “But not as a friend. It is a desire I must stand strong against. You don’t know what it is like for me to be near you … the effect you have on my judgment.” She could not meet his eyes. They were too beautiful, too serious. “Mr. Garnett told me what you did for me. You struck a bargain with your father in exchange for my release.”
“Garnett said more than his share for one night. He ought to keep his mouth shut.”
“And you ought not to have given up the Black, the crew and your whole way of life for me! It was too great a sacrifice to make.”
“Should I have let you die and dumped Roddy in an orphanage?”
“No. No.” She gazed at him helplessly. “But it shouldn’t be a life sentence for you too. I want—more than anything—I just want you to be happy.”
“I don’t think about being happy anymore. Do you?”
“No,” Bronwyn admitted. “I was happy once. When I was with you I was happy. Our time together was brief but I think of it often … more than is good for me.”
Jon fingered a curl of her hair that had escaped her maid’s cap. “You say what is in your soul. I’ve never known any man or woman to do that. You are fearless, Bronwyn Barlow.”
“I am fearless?” she repeated in disbelief. “I am not, Jon. I shake with terror every day. It is you who is fearless.”
“Perhaps we are frightened of different things.” He bent and kissed her neck, nibbling the soft skin below her earlobe and sending delicious thrills through her body.
“What are you going to do, Jon? The launch is waiting.”
“That depends on you. If I decide against the Marguerite, do I have your blessing to marry Cecily?” His warm breath tingled against her throat. “She doesn’t love me. I wouldn’t have asked her to marry me if she had a heart to wound. I’m not such a devil as that. I don’t blame you for thinking I am. I’m only clever with words when there is something I want to steal.”
His lips traced her collarbone, and then down to the rise of her bosom. Bronwyn burned with desire for him to do more, and more, until there was nothing left of her to ravish.
“We are too much alike, Jon Stag,” she breathed. “That is what I would have said if our situations were reversed. Fortunately, I am too jealous to make the distinction between an engaged man who is loved by his bride and an engaged man who is not. It is all one—you asked for her hand.”
“I did. This is true.” He kissed her neck.
“I am tormented by jealousy imagining the moment you took her in your arms as you are with me now. It makes the task of leaving you that much easier. My heart is as cold and calculated as yours is, Lord Stagholt, even though I am a curate’s daughter.”
He had bent Bronwyn back over his arm and his lips traveled lower still to the white mounds of her breasts. His grip was tight and impossible to escape. To her shame, Bronwyn did not even make the attempt. She was already nearly lost, overcome by the power of Jon Stag’s desire to have her.
“I shall have to marry her, Bronwyn. Do you imagine I can go to sea now that I’ve seen you again and I know where you are?” His baritone voice was ragged. “I want to make love to you right now and for as long as I live. I want to make love to you over and over again. You are an essential element of my being. I have not been able to draw breath until now. I want you, Bronwyn. I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth but I must have you.”
His words were like a cold slap to the face, waking her to the dangerous game they were playing. She found the will power to push out of his arms and stand, shaking, at a distance.
“Then you had best go to sea,” she said in furious anguish. “Let that be the reason you break your vow to your bride—not me. Yes, you had better go after all! You will only tempt me into committing a terrible sin. Go. Go! I cannot bear the sight of you!”
Jon flung his tall strong body away from her as though waking from a trance. He reached out for the stone balustrade for balance and gazed with hard eyes over the water.
“If I see you,” he began haltingly, “I shall want to have you in my bed, but you are telling me that is not possible. By the same token, I can’t leave you here unprotected in the event my father decides to punish me by having you arrested. Yes, that is something he would do if provoked and my running off to sea would provoke him. However, staying in his good graces would mean I remain here, panting after you like a dog in heat. I didn’t lie—I would seek you out, Bronwyn, and I would do everything in my power to seduce you. You would consent eventually, but you would soon learn to despise me.”
He turned to her. His handsome perfect face was alive with suffering. “Is that a fair assessment of our situation?”
“Yes.” Her eyes burned and her chest ached, crushed.
“There is one thing I’ve forgotten to say in all this.” Jon closed the gap between them in two strides. “I am in love with you, Bronwyn. Walking away from you the first time was the worst hell I’ve known and now you ask me to do it again. Damn you, I love you! I love you!”
The shock of hearing the words spoken aloud shook her deeply. Her heart was pounding, her mouth was dry. “I am in love with you too. I love you, Jon. I love you so very much.”
His eyes glittered and she thought he was going to kiss her again but he did not. “Then I am sorry for us both,” he said softly. The wry grin was gone. Jon Stag had disappeared. “Come. We had best go in. You must be freezing.”
The snow had been falling steadily, but Bronwyn had not noticed the cold until now. Nothing had changed. Their lives would continue as before, only with the agony of knowing the other was nearby and utterly out of reach. The only solution was to leave the Governor’s mansion. She would find another position elsewhere, and this time, Jon would not find her.
They parted at the top of the path. Jon walked toward the French doors that opened onto the ballroom. Bronwyn would return to the house via the alley. She watched her beloved until he was out of sight. Lanterns glowed from the windows of the great mansion and the strains of music poured forth. The dancing had started.
Bronwyn began to shake all over and thought she might be sick. She could not summon her thoughts and emotions to feel righteous about losing him a second time. Cecily would be waiting for him and he would be guiltless. Bronwyn ought to be glad to have done the right thing.
She began to move with a heavy step back to the house. It was nearing midnight. The guests would be expecting a late-night supper.
§
JON PACED the study waiting for his father, Cecily and her father. His godfather would likely also be with them; Jon would have to choose his words carefully.
“What is this about, Jonathon that it could not wait?” His father entered with a beaming smile on his face as if expecting good news. “Your godfather has guests.”
Jon exchanged a glance wit
h Cecily who smiled vacantly and he was relieved to see that his assessment of his fiancée’s affection for him was not wrong. She would not grieve his loss once he made his announcement. “Forgive the interruption of your party, General Gage. I’m afraid I have bad news. I have to be away by midnight. I am going to sea. I must go, Cecily. I’m useless in this place. In these times, a man cannot call himself a man if he does not fight.”
“What the blazes are you talking about? Going to sea! You will not,” the viscount thundered.
“Jon, what are you saying?” Cecily ventured a pouting smile. “Darling, you cannot go to sea. We are about to be married.”
“I am sorry, Cecily. I’m leaving within the hour.”
“Jon, son—” Thomas Gage broke in. “I don’t disagree with your passion, indeed I applaud it, but under whose orders are you sailing? I was not aware there was a sea campaign underway.”
Jon met his godfather’s eye steadily. “You will be informed in due course, sir. I only received word a few hours ago myself.”
“I forbid you to go! Gage here will get you out of it.”
“No,” Jon said firmly. “I will not be on the sidelines in this conflict. I’m going half out of my mind as it is. I’m leaving tonight and that’s an end to it.”
His father bellowed. “Damn your hide—we had an agreement! If you do this I’ll cut you off without a penny. I’ll disinherit you and the title will die out with me. Don’t think I won’t.”
“I have no doubt as to the force of your conviction, Father. I am going anyway.”
“Jon!” Cecily faced him, horrified. “Jon, please!”
Mr. Knowlton stepped up to Lord Stagholt, blustering and red-faced. “With all due respect, if your son is not in line to inherit—well—that changes things. You must see my position, sir. My daughter wants a title and I intend to give my little girl what she wants. A man with no title—a sea captain, no less—well, that is not what I bargained for.”
Cecily’s father was an industrialist; a man accustomed to buying and bullying to get his way. Quite frankly, he expected everything to turn a profit—including his son-in-law. Knowlton was buying a title. Social climbing was the only ladder he had left to scale in his pursuit of power.
“Did you hear that, Jon? Did you?” His father swung up into Jon’s face. “I’m warning you. You forget yourself. Whatever the hell you are playing at stops now! You forget what I can do if you go back on your word. I’ll find her and when I do, I’ll see her hanged. You won’t be able to save her a second time.”
A hush fell over the room.
Cecily had paled and clutched her father’s arm. “Papa, please remove me from this place. Jonathon Stagholt, I release you from your obligation. Under the circumstances I am certain you will not make a respectable husband. I am sorry but I must obey my conscience, sir.”
Cecily was escorted out of the study on her father’s arm. To her credit, his ex-fiancée did not go so far as to counterfeit tears, Jon observed drily.
The viscount threw up his hands. “That’s it then. Congratulations, my son. You have destroyed your father with this news. And I will take steps—oh yes—I will take steps, see if I don’t. You will do as I say, boy, or there will be consequences.”
His godfather came forward and clasped his hand. “You mustn’t mind your father. He’s only just got you back and is taking your news hard. He’ll come around in time. Take care, Jon. And Godspeed to you.”
“And to you, sir. Thank you for everything.”
Lord Stagholt had slumped to a chair near the fire, his head in his hands. Jon turned to his father. “I will not take my leave of you, sir. You are owed no courtesy from me.”
“You will be killed,” he moaned, “and four hundred years of family nobility will be wiped out. I imagine you dying in battle at sea, your body sunk to the bottom of the ocean, and it strikes me with terror. I can’t help it. I’m an old man. I don’t want to die alone.”
His father lifted his ravaged face to Jon’s. “Maybe that is all I deserve, but I’m begging you, boy—I am begging you not to go. Marrying whomever you like if that’s what ails you, but do not sail off to fight in this war. I can’t lose you again. Please. I am begging you for my sake.”
Chapter Thirty-One
THE WORDS plucked at Jon’s memory. There was a time when he dreamed of hearing his father beg for his help and the revenge Jon would have when he denied it. And here it was, handed to him on a platter.
He squatted at his father’s feet to see into his eyes. “Our lineage means that much to you?”
“Too much perhaps,” Stagholt admitted. “I am a proud man and I take too much pride in a dusty old title. This world is changing too fast for me. I want to hang on to the old order for a little while longer.”
“Why did you leave me to die nine years ago?”
Stagholt flinched at Jon’s blunt question but he did not shrink from answering it. “I thought it was my duty to teach a pirate a lesson in respect. I was wrong. It was a terrible mistake from the beginning. Our family never recovered. Nate never forgave me and your mother lost the will to live after you were gone.”
His father clasped Jon’s hand as he had done when Jon was a little boy, Roddy’s age. It was so far in the past … Jon had forgotten his father had been a father to him once.
“I was wrong nine years ago, but I will not be wrong a second time. I will pay whatever ransom you demand for your life, Jonathon. You are my son and I love you. Tell me how to make you happy. Tell me how to make this right.” Stagholt buried his face in his hands and wept.
Jonathon sat back on his heels, quietly considering his father’s words. The fire crackled at his back and the snow continued to fall. His old stratagems for revenge seemed hollow now. He thought of Bronwyn and her wish that he would choose her, a path that had been impossible only ten minutes ago. Now, the path was suddenly free of obstacles. He only had to walk it.
“My ransom price is to be sent back to England, sir. I’ll require full passage for three on one of your merchant vessels in the harbor, preferably one sailing at dawn.”
Stagholt sat up straighter. There was a gleam of hope in his eye. “That is easily arranged, and gladly. I’ll write the letter now. Who will you be traveling with, son?”
Jon raked his fingers through his hair, for the first time in doubt about what he had planned.
It was too bold and the potential for misunderstanding was high. “I’ll be sailing with the curate’s daughter. I mean to marry her, but she’s likely to say no as I’ve already proposed once to another lady and she took offense. I may have to kidnap her little brother to pull it off.”
Lord Stagholt had been startled by his son’s remark but wisely hid his shock. Nor did he venture to question his son’s choice of traveling companions. A massive burden of guilt and grief had been lifted off his chest and his heart was bursting with joy. It obliterated every impulse he had to dictate the terms of his son’s life.
He knew the girl Jon was after and did not approve of the match but on this subject, Stagholt would hold his tongue until the end of his days. If she gave him grandsons, it mattered not a wink who their mother was—the line and legacy of the Stagholt family would go on.
“I wish you and the young lady every joy, son.”
The look of suspicion on Jonathon’s face wounded Stagholt’s pride, but only briefly. They had been nine years estranged; it would take many months to restore his son’s confidence in him. As for Stagholt, he knew he was a changed man. Nothing could have worked this miracle but nearly losing his son a second time and being given the chance to do better.
“I have one last demand. I want to open Huntington Hall and make it our home.”
Stagholt beamed with relief. “You have it, Jon, with my blessing. But I should warn you—there is no money for its upkeep. The capital is gone. That is why I pushed you to ask for Miss Knowlton’s hand. We have only the house and the title left.”
His son grinned, a
smile eerily reminiscent of the seventeen year old boy he had once been. “Father, didn’t you know? Your son is the richest pirate in the Seven Seas.”
§
WITHOUT WASTING a moment, Jon made for the stables wondering at the ease he felt in leaving this life behind. He pulled at the lace that was wound around his neck like a noose and would have wrenched free of his velvet coat as well if it were not so damned cold.
Roddy was sleeping in the far corner of the room near the stove. The hay motes in the barn and the wood smoke in the carriage house could not be good for his lungs, Jon thought as he roused the boy.
“Come on, lad. I have need of a cabin boy. Are you interested?”
Roddy’s broad grin told Jon that he was doing the right thing and Bronwyn would agree—if she didn’t kill him first.
§
BRONWYN CARRIED a roll wrapped in paper and a pat of butter out to the stable. The hour was early. Pre-dawn. It was still dark and bitterly cold. The stable boys had already been given their breakfast before their day began but she was concerned it wasn’t enough.
“He ain’t here, miss.”
“What do you mean he isn’t here? Where would he be?”
“Dunno, miss. He wasn’t in his bed when we got up this morning. We figure he’s run off, miss.”
The boy went back to grooming the horse.
Bronwyn left the roll for the boy and walked on shaking legs back to the house. She entered the kitchen just as Mrs. Langley came down.
“Good, I’ve found you, Barlow. I am afraid I have some bad news. Your services will no longer be required. That young scoundrel, Lord Stagholt has run off and no one knows where. The Knowlton party will be leaving as soon as their horses are put in harness. Consequently, I am sorry to say, without the lady your services will no longer be required.”
The Pirate Lord: Aristocrat. Rogue. Spy. Page 20
