The house itself was spacious, and Brendan and his wife shared it with not only a dozen cats, but Mira’s father Ephraim Ashton, a crusty old sea captain who, Nerissa decided, must have suffered hearing loss from the close report of too many cannon over his lifetime. Any hearing loss he hadn’t suffered was certain to be inflicted on others, as he was loud, cantankerous, argumentative with his daughter and quite happy to let Nerissa and Andrew know just what he thought of the British.
Her ears were grateful when he went to bed. Even Andrew, clad in a borrowed banyan, his eyes drooping after his own hot bath and the splendid feast that had been served earlier, seemed to let out a sigh of relief.
Now, they all sat around a fire in the great hearth, letting the stuffed turkey and roasted yams settle as refreshments were brought around. Outside, the wind gusted around the windows. The silence was heavenly.
“Don’t mind my father,” Mira muttered, getting up to stab at a few half-burned logs with a poker. Sparks showered up into the great chimney, and she stuffed a fresh log beneath the graying, charred chunks of wood that were doing their best to warm the room on what had turned into a cold, wet and windy night. She went back to the sofa and sat down next to her husband, snuggling up against him in an open, unfettered display of relaxed affection that would have been quite shocking in the sort of company Nerissa was used to keeping. “He’s all bluster and perfectly harmless.”
She had shed her boyish seagoing clothes and made as pretty a lady in an embroidered short jacket and dark plum wool petticoats as Nerissa supposed any colonial woman could be; a miniature of her handsome husband hung suspended from a ribbon around her neck, her dark brown hair was swept up atop her head, and her green eyes were bright and completely unapologetic at such an open display of love for her man.
Her husband didn’t seem to mind, either. He just hooked an arm around his wife’s shoulders and snuggled her close. Sparks popped in the hearth. Andrew’s eyes lost their battle to stay open and he quietly drifted off in his chair. Nobody disturbed him. Talk moved to ships, the war, and politics. The wind moaned around the eaves outside. There was something lonely about the sound and unbidden, Nerissa thought of home.
Of Blackheath Castle, three thousand miles away. Of dear Charles and Amy, of Gareth and Juliet, of Lucien and Eva and Andrew’s poor wife Celsie, who must be worried sick about her husband. And her little nieces and nephews and even her dog.
Oh, how I miss you all.
She wondered if she would ever see them again.
Movement beside her. She looked up to find her husband eyeing her keenly. “How ye keepin’, lass?”
“Still a little under the weather,” she confessed.
He picked up a cup of hot mulled cider from the tray that the housekeeper had brought in and set it on the little table beside her. “Here. Drink up. Ye didn’t eat much at supper and unless ye want me to start worryin’ about ye, ye’ll have a go at some of this.”
“Still not feeling well, lass?” Brendan asked, his warm amber eyes concerned.
“I’ll be all right,” Nerissa said, not wanting anyone to worry about her.
“Hasn’t got her land-legs back yet,” Ruaidri said, coming around behind her to lay a reassuring hand against the inside of her shoulder. His fingers were cool against her neck, soothing, and she leaned slightly into his touch. “Ye’ll be fine, won’t ye, mo grá?’
“If you say so,” she said.
Brendan plucked a tiny cake off the tray and washed it down with cider. “My cousin’s right. It takes time for the body to make the adjustment from sea back to land. I’m sure you’ll be fine by morning.”
So said the two sea captains, who surely knew about such things. Mira, however, just eyed her speculatively and reached for her own drink, a little smile playing around her mouth. “It won’t cure whatever ails ye, Lady Nerissa, but if ye like to ride, I’ve got horses. Once this gale blows itself out to sea, should be a fine day tomorrow for a blistering gallop along the beach and a ride around town. I’d love to show ye Newburyport. Your brother, too, if he’s inclined. Sound good?”
If nothing else, it would take her mind off her family back home. “I would enjoy that, Mira.”
“Good. We’ll play it by ear as to the time. We don’t hold with formalities around here.”
Unless someone came in during the day to do cleaning and other domestic work, she didn’t hold with servants either, aside from a matronly housekeeper who seemed to do duty as both cook and family friend. Which left Nerissa with the dilemma of how to lace her stays, style her hair, and go about the business of dressing and undressing herself—all tasks that, up until the moment she’d been abducted, had been done by her maid. How did one go about being a lady in this place? But Mira had no maid, and she seemed to manage….
And if Mira can manage, so can you. Your life as a pampered pet is over. You wanted to be freed from your cage, to really get the chance to live. You have it, now, and if truth be told, you’re doing quite well.
Lucien, of course, would not approve.
Don’t think about him.
Brendan leaned forward and poured himself another mug of hot cider. “So tell me more, Roddy—”
“Ruaidri,” her husband interrupted. “I stopped being Roddy three years ago.”
“Faith, old habits die hard,” his cousin said with an apologetic smile. “So tell me more about what you’ve been up to since we last saw each other what, three years ago now? Four?”
“Four, I believe. Went back home after that business here in Boston, got bored, ended up back here and when John Adams tapped me on the shoulder, I answered the call. Had nothin’ to lose and everythin’ to gain.”
“Happy in the new navy, then?”
“Aye.” Ruaidri pulled his chair closer to Nerissa and took her hand. He looked over at her, his eyes all but undressing her and promising untold delights later on when they finally ended up in the big, soft bed that awaited them upstairs. “I’ve come out on the lucky end of things, I’d say. Could’ve done without the injury, but I’m still here and ready and willin’ to make plenty of trouble if they need me to.” He told them about the fight with Hadley’s frigate and how the ship had been taken and his men imprisoned below. “But for the courage and cunning of my lovely Nerissa here, I’d have been swinging from Hadley’s yardarm or a rope at Tyburn. I owe her my life.”
Nerissa picked up her cup of cider and stirred it with a stick of cinnamon. But as she took a sip, her stomach rolled under an unexpected wave of nausea and she quickly put the cup down. Dear lord, how long would it take her to get her land-legs back?
Mira was eying her closely. “So what’d ye do, Lady Nerissa, to save the day?”
“Just ‘’Nerissa,’” she said, her hand on her belly. “If you’re not inclined to stand on formality, I’m not either.”
The other woman grinned. “Right. So what did you do?”
“Not much,” she said. “I simply freed Ruaidri and his crew so they wouldn’t all die.”
“She doesn’t give herself enough credit,” her husband said fondly. “I was near to dyin’. Took a musket ball in the back of my leg and must’ve hit my head when I went down, ’cause I remember none of it. The Brits threw me into the hold with the rest of my men after they took Tigershark as a prize, and this little lass here—” he lifted her knuckles to his mouth and kissed them—“betrayed both her king and country to save me. Knocked the sentry over the head, crept belowdecks to the hold, forced the prizemaster at gunpoint to release my crew and allowed us to retake the ship. I wouldn’t be here if not for her.”
Mira was staring at her with amazement and a new respect. “You did that?”
Nerissa idly stirred her cider, wishing the nausea would pass. “Well, I couldn’t just let them all die.”
“Nearly died anyhow,” Ruaidri said. “A month and a half ago now it happened, and I still tire faster than a racehorse runnin’ through mud.”
Andrew, who’d been dozing nea
r the fire, cracked open an eye. “You lost a lot of blood. It takes time for the body to build it back up. Count your blessings that you’re even alive.”
“It’s been over six weeks,” Ruaidri said impatiently. “How much longer does a body need?”
“As long as it takes.” Andrew stood up, politely suppressing a yawn. “I beg your forgiveness for retiring early, but I’m done for.” He bowed politely to the ladies and excused himself. Nerissa wondered if he wanted to write a letter home to Celsie before crawling beneath the covers of a real bed for the first time in a month and a half. She knew how much her brother missed his wife and daughter, but he’d been stoic about this whole thing and had not complained, perhaps, she thought ruefully, because he wanted to be near his little sister to keep an eye on her. She watched him go.
Brendan contemplated his cider for a long moment. Andrew’s footsteps receded and a door shut somewhere upstairs. Something was troubling the chestnut-haired Irishman, and now he looked up at Nerissa, frowning slightly. “A fine fellow, Lord Andrew,” he said quietly. “But I’ve met your other brothers, including your oldest one, and he didn’t strike me as a man to take kindly to the abduction of his two youngest siblings. I can’t help but wonder, lass…where is the duke in all this?”
The question was spoken without judgment or force, and yet it penetrated the armor with which Nerissa had girded her heart, armor that protected her guilt at feeling, somehow, that she was quite justified in fleeing England, fleeing Lucien, even. After all, he had made such a total cock-up of her life with the way he’d arranged it, arranged others within it—most notably, Perry—that there was a part of her that felt that her manipulative, Machiavellian older brother had got exactly what he deserved. Had he worried and fretted and sworn with helplessness after she’d been abducted? Was he tearing his hair out and suffering the grief that he had caused others, most notably herself? Good, a little voice in her mind had said. Good, because that’s exactly what he deserved.
But here, three thousand miles away from home and all that was familiar, sitting in a strange, wooden-framed house amongst people she barely knew and everything—with the exception of her dear, beloved Ruaidri and Andrew, who surely wouldn’t be with her much longer—she had ever known and loved gone, the little voice of her conscience was persistent and loud. A wave of homesickness assailed her, and she wished, oh, how she wished, that she had the same brazen and carefree manner that Mira had. She wanted nothing more than to just crawl into Ruaidri’s embrace and let him hold her. Just hold her.
She cast a longing glance over at him. His freshly washed hair was a damp riot of wild, spiraling curls spilling across his broad shoulders, his jaw newly shaven. He had shed his naval uniform for civilian clothes—worn leather breeches tucked into boots and a dark gray coat open to show an embroidered waistcoat of sage-colored wool. He looked relaxed and at ease. He looked delicious. Oh, she couldn’t wait to be in his arms, in a real bed, with a solid floor beneath them instead of a rolling deck.
The reminder that the floor beneath her wasn’t moving made her remember all over again that she felt queasy.
“So you’re recently married, too?” Mira asked.
“Six weeks.”
“And you forgive this Irish rascal here for bringing your brother to John Adams?”
Brendan, his feet thrust toward the fire and his thoughts his own, raised his head. “Mira, stóirín—”
“It’s quite all right, Captain Merrick,” Nerissa said reassuringly. “I’ve spent a lifetime around people who have treated me like a fragile teacup. I am not fragile. I am not a teacup. In the past two months I’ve survived a fall down a flight of stairs, an abduction, a sea-fight, the near loss of the man I love, and a rigorous trip across the Atlantic filled with storms, saltwater, and food crawling with vermin.” She smiled at the American woman. “Your wife’s bluntness and candor are actually quite refreshing. They make me feel as though I’m being respected.”
Mira grinned, and Nerissa got the feeling that beneath her rough manners, Brendan’s wife was actually a very perceptive soul. “And look at ye, stronger, I expect, than ye were before ye met Ruaidri here and got subjected to such a barrage,” she said, her eyes bright above her cup as she sipped her cider.
“Well, perhaps I’m stronger than I was two months ago, but that doesn’t keep me from worrying about Andrew once Ruaidri turns him over to your John Adams.” She looked at her hosts. “Do you know the man?”
“I’ve met him,” Brendan said. “He commands the utmost admiration, as does his wife. A credit to America, both of them.”
“Is he likely to harm my brother in his attempts to get the formula from him?”
Mira guffawed. Brendan lifted a brow and Ruaidri, his lips twitching, stifled a yawn. “Saints alive, Nerissa, if I thought that Andrew would come to any harm at Adams’s or anyone else’s hands, I’d have left him back in France. Adams is a good lawyer and, as my cousin says, a credit to America, but even he’s not able to get blood from a stone. I’d lay money on it that he’ll try every which way but sideways to get Andrew to give him the formula, try again, and finally decide he’s better off tradin’ him for high-rankin’ American prisoners held by the British than wastin’ his time on somethin’ Andrew will never give up.”
Brendan shifted the position of his long legs. “Aye, lass. Adams is a good man. Your brother’ll be on his way home to England before you know it.”
Outside, a gust of wind hit the house, rattling the windows in their casements and causing a downdraft to push at the fire.
Nerissa stifled a yawn, but her husband’s sharp eyes caught the subtle gesture.
“Time to call it a night, I think,” he said, getting to his feet and collecting everyone’s empty cider mugs. He set them on the tray so they could be easily carried back to the kitchen. “My poor wife has yet to gain her land-legs. She needs rest, and much as I wish otherwise, so do I. Maybe tomorrow ye can show us around Newburyport? Nerissa and I’ll need a place to settle, and it looks like this one has a lot to offer.”
“I should hope that existing family and friends would top that list of what it offers, mo chol ceathar,” said Brendan warmly. “Besides, our wives seem to be getting on famously, and you can be in Boston in the time it takes to set your tops’ls. You could find worse places to settle, but none better.”
Ruaidri, who’d noted his wife’s well-concealed sadness earlier in the evening and correctly guessed the reason for it, laughed as Nerissa all but leapt to her feet. “Oh, Ruaidri—I would love it if we made this place our home. Could we?”
Ruaidri laughed. “Let’s have a look at it tomorrow. Plenty of time to make up our minds.” He wrapped a hand around her waist. Goodnights were said, and before they were even halfway up the staircase, he had lifted his wife in his arms and carried her the rest of the way.
She was asleep before he even peeled the covers back and gently lowered her down to the sheets. She might protest that she was no china doll, but in some respects, Ruaidri mused, he would always treat her as one—worthy of the utmost care and protection.
His care and protection.
How he loved her.
Loved her.
His eyes filled with sudden, unexpected emotion as he looked down at her, sleeping. They were safe here in Newburyport, with a solid roof over their heads and the end of his mission in sight. A nice little town, this one, and his cousin was right. They already had friends and family here. It was as good if not better a place than any to settle down and begin their lives together. Ruaidri stripped off his coat, breeches and waistcoat, and clad in just the long linen shirt, climbed carefully into bed beside his wife.
He was already growing hard, and he ached to make love to her.
And then he remembered her pushing her food around on her plate and knew that her needs—a good night’s sleep—were far more important than his own.
Curling his body around hers to keep her warm, he wrapped her in his hard, strong arms, buried
his face in her hair and fell asleep to the sound of the wind whistling around the eaves as the gale built outside.
Chapter 29
Nerissa awoke several hours later.
The room was still dark, save for a single candle that had burned low on the highboy a few feet away. Outside, she could hear rain lashing the windows, hammering them in wet sheets of fury. It was a miserable night out there and she was glad they were here in a warm, dry house as opposed to what would be the damp discomfort of Tigershark’s cabin in such “dirty,” as Ruaidri would call it, weather.
His warmth surrounded her, encompassed her, and she became increasingly aware of something hard pressing into her backside. She turned over and found him awake, his wildly curling black hair in sharp contrast against the pillow in the room’s faint light as he lay on one elbow gazing down at her. He made no apologies for his bulging arousal, and she stretched her arm out beneath the blankets and found him beneath his bunched-up shirttail. He was rock-hard, and she gently stroked him as they lay quietly together.
“Mmmm,” he murmured, with a sigh of relief.
“Why are you awake?” she asked.
“Why are you?”
“I’m hungry.”
“No surprise there,” he murmured, his voice deep and warm in the near-darkness. He traced the curve of her cheekbone with his fingers. “You didn’t eat much at supper, lass. Feelin’ better, are ye?”
“Yes.” She brushed her thumb over his velvety knob, loving the way he filled her hand. “But that doesn’t explain why you’re awake in the middle of the night.”
“Maybe it’s because I want ye.”
“You can have me. Any time you like.”
“Ye were asleep.”
“I’m not, now.” He grew restless as she continued to touch him, and her own blood began to ignite at the thought of him being inside her, filling her, loving her with all the strength in his big body and holding her protectively in his arms. The warm glow of the candle softened the hard, angular cast of his features and he smiled at her, drinking her in with his eyes before reaching up to clear a thick tress of long blonde hair away from her face.
The Wayward One Page 29
