Pirate's Rose

by Janet Lynnford

  No matter how hard he tried, Kit couldn't understand it. When he'd fled West Lulworth, swearing never to return, he'd found his freedom on the open ocean and used his keen sense of observation there instead. He had thrived because his ability to read men translated into gold. As a merchant he plied this skill until eventually it became sec­ond nature—to watch, to listen, to learn everything about a person. You could make men do many things if you knew them well enough. Or women. Many women had succumbed to him, since he knew just what they liked. Reaching for the silver sandcaster in his writing set, Kit sprinkled a liberal dose of sand on the document and watched the ink dry. His efforts to control certain people hadn't worked today. He'd wanted Cavandish to hire his ship, but it hadn't happened like that.

  "She agreed to meet with me," Courte had reported back about Rozalinde. "Not Master Cavandish, but the young Mistress Cavandish. Can you imagine? She turned me down. She refused The Raven." Courte was clearly outraged. "'Not enough cannon,' she said. 'To small.'"

  Kit's eyes had widened in surprise. Then he'd broken into hearty laughter. Wasn't that just like Rose to refuse his best ploy. All he'd wanted was to protect her, but naturally she'd refused. Almost as if she'd known he was behind the offer.

  Now he sobered, stared at the scattered sand on his list and thought of her ship—the one she'd used for her last cargo. After overhearing her, he'd gone to see it. It was hidden away in a secluded cove, as if someone didn't want others to see it. An ugly cannon hole gaped in its side. 'Twas that which ruined her cargo. The captain and his crew scarce escaped with their lives. And it wasn't just this once, but several times in the past. "Who attacked you?" Kit had asked the captain as he sat morosely on the dock. The answer had been evasive. Clearly the man was afraid to tell. Just as clearly, Rozalinde Cavandish had enemies. Or her father did. Someone who meant business. Kit smoothed his beard and pondered the problem. He had sent Courte and his new steward, Browne, to listen around town, and what did they hear? Rozalinde Cavandish was courted by the master alderman, a butcher who was making gold in piles from supplying the London market.

  This was assuredly the man who'd troubled her at the revel. Kit made a decision to keep an eye on him in the weeks to come.

  Then there was Rozalinde's plan to take cargo to Ant­werp. She'd told Courte as much, and it made Kit furious. She wouldn't do it, of course. She wouldn't dare after he warned her not to, as he intended. She was too damned independent, this maid, an unacceptable trait. Then why did he still feel interest? She was impossibly stubborn, drove a hard bargain, and insisted on her rights. Just like a man, she was. Kit stopped abruptly in midthought, astounded at the idea. Could that be what he liked about her?

  Picking up the paper before him, he blew at the sand vigorously and watched it scatter across the table. His feelings, too, were scattered tonight, and he puzzled over them. If he found her attractive, and there was no question about that, then why did he act the way he did around her? Not at all like he would around a beddable wench. But then he had to admit he got more satisfaction from one of her smiles than from a hundred beddings. Still, it was odd. He'd wager his father had never felt like that, about Kit's mother or anyone else.

  The thought of his father turned Kit's mood sour again. His mouth went down at the corners in a sullen grimace, just as it had during his childhood when his father accused him of some transgression. Never would he let himself be bound in the suffocating ties of marriage and family. It destroyed a man's character, forced him to do and say things he didn't enjoy. He'd hated his father for being an unbending tyrant. Yet he could not believe, did not wish to believe, the powerful earl had chosen consciously to live like that. Something must have driven him.

  But what? Kit shook his head and put down the piece of vellum before him, smoothing the fiber of its rough edges with his fingertips. He would never know. His father had talked to him not at all during his childhood, and by the time he was grown, it was too late. There was no opportu­nity to understand him. Yet marriage had unquestionably had a bad effect on him. And having children was the worst part.

  Then there was his father's opposite, the Beggar King. Since their meeting the other night, Kit had felt exultant. Courte had warned him not to meet with the pirate, yet he had done it and they had become allies. His own daring made him feel as buoyant inside as a new-filled sail. The queen didn't authorize his joining forces with the Netherlands. But Gloriana often said one thing while meaning another, and Kit knew, in his heart, this was one of those times. She wanted to aid the Netherlands but not be caught doing it. So he undertook the task, on his own incentive, at his own expense. But to him, the reward was more than adequate.

  Opening a drawer in a small rosewood table, Kit pulled out the bag of powdered cloves and inhaled deeply. The forceful grip of the Beggar King's hand on his warmed his memory. Nay, not the Beggar King. No need to think of him by that name anymore. He was Phillipe, Count of Hoorne. A man to be admired for his courage, a man of flesh and blood, with a history and a name. And now that the pirate proved to be a real person, Kit could assume his mysterious identity, become the fascinating Beggar King who roamed the sea and knew no master. Again the exhilaration of the night at the cove claimed Kit's consciousness. He had been worshiped by the people of Dorset, and they'd given him a gift—one of their own, the maiden symbolizing fall the women who yearned for his magic. Rose. The moment he'd singled her out and kissed her, he'd felt alive and free, in a way he hadn't felt for years.

  His thoughts were interrupted by a tap at the door. "Come," he called absently, expecting Browne, his new steward, to reply.

  The tap repeated itself. Kit looked up at the door as he dropped the cloves back in the drawer and closed it. "Come in, Browne," he called more loudly. "You'll not disturb me." Pulling himself to his feet, he strode to the door, rubbing his back and straightening his black leather jerkin. He pulled the door open and stared into the dark passage. No one was there.

  Perplexed, he turned back to the room. Come to think of it, that knock hadn't sounded on wood.

  Pulling the door shut behind him, he studied the great oriel window on the south wall. Sure enough, a face showed at the glass. And not just any face. It was adorned by two thick braids.

  "God's wounds!" He started, realizing who it was. Simul­taneously a jolt ripped through his brain and traveled at breathtaking speed to his loins. It spread in the most deli­cious tendrils of desire, accompanied by a single thought— she wanted to see him again.

  But a second later he hesitated, then cursed. Why would she come here to his window? During their last encounter, he'd agreed not to tempt her. Yet here she was, doing the tempting. She was nothing but trouble, he decided, remembering how she'd refused his ship. By God, he wouldn't be tempted. He would send her straight home.

  Leaping to the window he nipped up the catch and swung the pane wide. "What in God's name are you doing here, Rose?" he admonished. "If my steward had been about, you might have been shot."

  A disheveled-looking Rozalinde frowned up at him. "Such a greeting! I knew you'd be surprised, but in truth, I had hoped ..." She tsked with her tongue reprovingly. "I had hoped at least for politeness, but I suppose you won't even offer your hand. Ah, well." She shot him a look of reproach. "I'll do without."

  Ignoring his shocked expression, Roz braced both hands on the window ledge and gave a little hop. She levered herself off the ground and swung up to sit on the sill. "I can't help what you think. I decided to come and warn you," she panted, breathing quickly from her exertion. "You must hear my news before you send me home."

  Kit looked baffled. He had thought to send her home. But now he couldn't, after a statement like that. "All right," he said grudgingly, "come in. Though I should not let you. What if you've been seen?"

  Rozalinde wasn't listening. Struggling to get her feet over the sill, her legs twisted in her bunching skirts. She teetered and started to fall.

  "Here, you'll tear something." Without preamble Kit leaned
over and tumbled her into his arms. Lifting her easily, he carried her into the room.

  "Stop!" Rozalinde thrashed both arms and legs, outraged at his presumption. Picking her up like a sack of grain, indeed! He was always intruding on her affairs when it wasn't his business. "Put me down at once."

  Kit obeyed abruptly. Setting her down with a thud on her feet, he hurried back to the window and concentrated on swathing it thoroughly with the heavy drapes.

  "Troth," she muttered, rubbing one hand where a thorn had pricked her. Most likely he was going to be difficult. Mayhap she shouldn't have come.

  Outside, Trenchard shifted his position in the shrubbery of Lulworth Castle. He had headed for town, then doubled back. Sure enough, a girl about Rozalinde's height and weight had climbed the hill to Lulworth Castle. He'd watched for some time, questioning what he saw. Now he questioned no longer. The girl at the earl's window had used Rozalinde's favorite oath. Deliberately he raised his vast bulk to his feet and made his way around to the castle's back door.

  "Well, now, let's have it." Kit turned from his task of covering the window. "What news is so important you come climbing in my window at night? Mutilating my best rosebush in the process, no doubt."

  "Blast the rosebush," Roz told him indignantly. "Your idiot plant wasn't injured. It near ripped me to shreds. Just look." She held out one arm to show him.

  "You're bleeding." Kit's heart stumbled in midbeat at the sight of blood welling up from a wound. He caught her by the wrist and pulled back her sleeve. The movement exposed the inner side of her slender white arm where a trail of crimson liquid showed. It oozed slowly onto his hand.

  Ruefully, she wrinkled her nose. "That's hardly the worst. Look what your bush did to my stocks. And they cost me two shillings apiece."

  Right there, standing in the middle of Kit's best Persian carpet, Roz pulled up her kirtle skirts to reveal her slim legs. Through her torn, snagged stockings, he could see her bare flesh.

  The sight of it caused his heart to beat with mighty strokes. Blood rushed to his head. Heat poured through his veins, riddling his body with wanting. Pressing her down on a stool, he knelt before her, unable to tear his gaze from the graceful curves of her slender ankles and calves.

  He wet his handkerchief with his tongue. "You must let me staunch that bleeding," he told her, taking her foot gently in his hand. He applied the linen firmly against a wound.

  Carefully he cleansed her skin, tucking up her kirtle skirts to expose her legs further. She stared at him helplessly, let him minister to her hurts.

  "Poor Rose," he whispered, gently removing her shoe. "'Tis my fault this happened." Her garter slid off easily, followed by her stock. Cupping her bare instep in one hand, he absorbed the blood that oozed from the gash.

  Roz gripped the edge of the stool tightly—the intimacy of his hands was excruciating. The resolve she had brought with her floated away, subsumed by the powerful effect of his touch. "It's not so bad," she protested weakly, thinking she would never deliver her message. "I beg you, leave off."

  Grinning up at her, he ran one finger down the slanting plane of her shinbone, then wrapped his thumb and forefinger around her ankle. "Nay, you must permit me one small favor and I will be content."

  "What favor is that?" Roz nervously wet her lips with the tip of her tongue.

  He didn't answer. Instead, with maddening slowness, he leaned forward and pressed his warm lips to her flesh, just at the place where her calf joined the thigh.

  It was a madly sensitive spot, and as he touched it, Roza­linde felt a flash of excitement invade her. How did this man know so much about her? Easily he discovered every vulnerable spot she had. First her worst tickle spot, now this. Unfamiliar feelings roiled through her body, twining themselves insistently around her heart, then spreading lower, setting off that strange tingling deep in her belly. Against her will, her hands reached forth to tangle in his hair. That sweet-smelling, waving hair—she buried her fingers in it. Her head tipped back and an anguished sigh escaped her lips.

  "Troth," she whispered, "why do you do this?" She could feel him raise her skirts higher, slide his other hand around her waist outside her clothing as he kissed the smooth flesh of her outer thigh.

  "Because you are my flower, Rose. Whenever I see you, I want to touch, to taste, to smell the sweet scent of you, to feel you in my arms. This is meant to be, sweetling. Why don't you try to relax?"

  "Nothing is meant to be if I don't want it," she argued trying to subjugate her senses. "Your logic is faulty. You must stop."

  But he was caressing her legs, making those odd new feelings coil and weave their way through her body. Up and down his fingers traveled, leaving their trail of enchantment, stroking the outside of her legs. He buried his face at her waist. "Do not question passion when it finds you. You must obey its call."

  "Nonsense," Roz muttered, getting a better hold on her desire as she realized he might see clear up her skirts. "We have important business." But his face was buried in her bodice, and she could hardly bear to stop him. He was tenderly releasing the first button that closed her smock. "I must tell you," she gasped out, "about the chief alderman. He's been made deputy lieutenant of Dorset."

  "So?"

  As he applied his lips to the cleft of her breasts, a heat seemed to penetrate. An unbearable urgency gripped her, to do what, she didn't know. But she could feel her nipples harden, straining against her linen smock, and she felt a wild, urgent wish to tear it off.

  "'Tis only that..." Roz struggled against the heady sensation caused by his nearness, her thoughts had become a hazy mass of incoherent flame, waving and dancing. "'Tis only that he wants you caught."

  "Not surprising." He stroked her thigh in a long, lazy caress. Not so high as to reach between her legs, but tantalizingly close. "Say my name, sweetheart. Call me Kit. You must always call me Kit."

  "Kit," she moaned, closing her eyes. She hoped it would make things easier, but it made them worse. It heightened her awareness of his touch. She snapped them open again. "Why won't you listen? He's got a ship. At least he'll get one if he needs it. He plans to catch you. Don't you see?"

  Kit stopped. He sat up straight on the floor and stared at her. "He's got what?"

  At last she'd gotten through to him. And with his lips withdrawn, she finally could speak. "He has a ship—that is, one of the Lord Admiral's, but for his work he says. He's to capture the Sea Beggars if they come near our coast. He has many cannon." She shuddered as she said the words.

  "How big a ship?" Kit demanded urgently. "How many ton?"

  Roz shook her head desperately, her mind growing clearer by the moment. "I didn't hear that part. But you must be careful. You truly must."

  "Careful?" Kit laughed recklessly. He felt reckless, hav­ing her here alone, kissing her as he had. "You are the one who should be careful, climbing in a man's window at night. Did you ever think," his hands tightened on her waist again, "that you might be compromised? What if I were not a gentleman? What if I took you to my bed?"

  "There's no danger of that," she scoffed. "It would never happen unless I wanted it. And I don't."

  She bent over for her stocking. As she leaned, one of her braids fell across her shoulder, and for the first time Kit noticed it reached clear to her waist. A wish stabbed through him—a wish to unbind those thick, glossy braids and twine that rich chestnut hair in his hands.

  "Besides," she was saying, calmly pulling on the stocking, "I had a task to accomplish tonight and I did it. There's no use worrying about what other people think or want. We can't control things like that."

  "You'll get yourself in deep trouble some day, if you think that way," Kit rapped out at her as he stood up. She'd made him as hard as a stone, then didn't worry about consequences. "Listen to your passion for a change. Your thinking leads you wrong."

  "There's nothing wrong with the way I think," she told him indignantly, standing up and stepping into her shoe. "Logic told me you needed this information
, so I brought it to you. It was the right choice, too, because this man could cause you difficulty, without a doubt. I know what you're up to—"

  "You're not to go to Antwerp," Kit interrupted, deflecting the conversation away from the dangerous subject. He didn't dare talk about his piracy. "You can't trade there. Antwerp is held by the Spanish."

  Roz stopped in midphrase and looked nonplussed. "Who told you I was going? Did I say that?"

  "Never mind who told me." He gave her a stern stare. "You must stay at home. You're not to go."

  "I have always traded with my father—" she began.

  "But your father will not accompany you, will he?" Kit insisted. "No, but—"

  "But nothing. It's grossly improper for a woman to travel alone. I forbid you to do it. You must remain in West Lulworth."

  Roz frowned at him. He could see her lips press tightly together. "And who will see my cargo to the Netherlands? Who will ensure it gets there whole? What about the return goods? You don't understand that our business is at stake. Things will arrive safely if I am along—"

  "It's dangerous out there," he said harshly, losing patience. "You could be set upon by Spanish patrols. Worse, you could be stopped by men who would—"

  "Nonsense," Rozalinde told him decidedly. "I intend to have a bigger ship this time, one with cannon. No one will dare approach."

  "They will if you sail for Antwerp. You'll not make it. You can't go around acting like a man because you're not."

  "I'm not acting like a man." Roz stamped her foot, pushed beyond her usual endurance. "I am acting like a logical human being. Whether I am a woman or a man plays no part in it. Why should my actions be 'acting like a man,' just because it's what you'd do. One might say you were acting like a woman if you chose something I would do. It's all the same."