Hot Silk

by Sharon Page

  Dash rested back, his dark looks dramatic against her ivory settee. He’d worn all black today, which once had reflected his torment but now meant that he intended to indulge in some naughty games with Maryanne all night. It was one of their secret codes, and Venetia smiled.

  She did so want Grace to be happy. She’d just wanted to see Grace happy and safe.

  But perhaps, even after all she’d learned about partnerships and trust and love, she still needed to recognize when to let go.

  “There’s a way, I think,” Dash drawled, “to give Grace exactly what she wants.”

  “What is it?” Venetia almost leapt upon him. What had he thought of?

  Dash looked to Marcus. “Do you believe you could convince the crown to forgive Devlin his crimes?”

  “With both of us working on it—given the fact I loaned our king a lot of money while he was still regent—I think it could be done.” He rubbed his jaw in the way that Venetia loved. She loved to see him lost in thought, planning. “So, a marriage between Grace and a freed Devlin could go ahead, but she’d still be marrying a man known to be a pirate and thought to be a highwayman—”

  Dash held up his hand. “Grace needs her adventure. I say we give her one.”

  Marcus groaned. “Damnation, I think I see where your mind is going, Swansborough.”

  Venetia gaped at both men. She knew they had conspired together to ensure she and Marcus could find happiness, and she saw the devilish grin first come to Dash’s handsome mouth, then slowly, seductively, spread across her husband’s beautiful, enticing lips.

  Marcus’s turquoise eyes lit up and Venetia felt her breath whoosh from her chest. He still did that, her handsome husband—he still took her breath away. And he told her, when he whispered by her ear when they were in bed together, that she still did the same to him.

  She held Marcus’s gaze, so aware of him—of the strong line of his jaw, the smooth, lightly tanned skin of his throat, the beautiful lines that framed his mouth and his eyes.

  Maryanne clapped her hands, and Venetia snapped out of studying her husband’s gorgeous darkly lashed eyes. “I think this is going to be one of our best plots!” Maryanne exclaimed.

  And Venetia saw then what a happy family was about. It wasn’t guiding the people you loved into the places you felt they should be. It was about accepting, helping, and loving.

  “We will be helping our sister marry a pirate,” she cautioned, but she knew it was too late. She couldn’t object to Grace being happy and neither could anyone else.

  “But really, Venetia,” Maryanne protested with a mock air of hauteur, “whatever good is marriage if not with a man worth taming?”

  “Do you think he can be tamed?” Venetia threw out.

  “Not in the important ways.” That teasing comment came from Dash, who was grinning at his wife. “And he doesn’t need to be tamed in the others. He’s like all wild men—he was looking for a woman he had to fight for.”

  “Fight? But who—the only ones he has to fight are us, isn’t that so?” Venetia asked. “Because we are the ones who should not approve.”

  Marcus shook his head. “I understand what Dash means. He means that Devlin had to fight within himself to find the strength to claim Grace—he had to fight his own demons.”

  “Demons that have led him to break the law his entire life,” Venetia pointed out. Could Devlin Sharpe, who had retired from life as a pirate to become a highwayman, change? “How does allowing himself to be arrested mean he is fighting for Grace?”

  “He’s trying to make himself honorable, and for his entire life, I believe that’s something he felt he could never do,” Marcus explained. As always, his deep voice rippled over her, like a warm caress against her skin.

  “Grace thinks he’s a hero.”

  “And Grace needs to be a heroine,” Marcus said.

  Venetia threw up her hands. “All right, I agree to this, whatever scheme you have in mind. But I think the truth here is that neither of you men, both of you fathers now, have ever really grown up!”

  “Of course not,” Dash drawled. “And isn’t that why you love us?”

  20

  “Are you going to shoot your way in?” Bess asked as she brandished a silver pistol and waved it around to show it off to the circle of women.

  “No! And put that away!” Grace glanced down Newgate Street toward the imposing stone façade of Newgate Prison.

  “Stay in the shadows,” Grace warned, but Katie, another of the six women of Devlin’s gang, was bouncing up and down with excitement, her blond curls dancing. The women would not listen to her warnings. At least they lurked in the shadows cast by the buildings at the corner of Newgate Street and Old Bailey as she’d insisted, but they were not being cautious, quiet, and circumspect.

  Katie grasped her arm, her bosom jiggling, and confided, “Devlin has escaped from jail before, but I don’t know exactly how he did it!”

  A hand fell gently on her other arm and Grace turned to meet Lucy’s wide eyes filled with guilt and worry. “Thank you for letting me help, for letting me come with you, Miss Hamilton. But after how I betrayed you, I don’t understand why you would.”

  Was she mad for asking Devlin’s “harem” of six women to help her free him from jail? Her family thought so. Devlin’s own men did—they thought her insane for relying on a bevy of beautiful women they saw as playful courtesans. But Grace understood why Devlin had taken the women in, why he took care of them. They all deserved to be something more. Each woman deserved to play a part in the world. To direct her own life.

  That was what he had wanted for her—to find her courage, to carve her path.

  “Devlin would believe you deserve a second chance,” Grace said.

  “Then you know Devlin far better than I do, Miss Hamilton,” Lucy whispered. “I believed he would never forgive me.”

  Ensconced in the long fingers of dark shadow, Lucy looked uncertain and frightened. Grace saw the nervous glances Lucy threw toward the other women and the cold, awkward way they behaved around Lucy.

  Had she been wrong? Would the women’s unspoken anger and Lucy’s guilt cause them disaster?

  Grace knew there was no more time to talk, to linger, to delve into worries and concerns. She gathered the women around her. All wore breeches and tight-fitting white shirts. None wore corsets, so their abundant bosoms bounced freely beneath the snug lawn. The women had left their shirts open and the array of shadowed cleavage was rather mesmerizing.

  “Do you all know the roles you are to play?”

  Each woman—Lucy, Bess, Katie, Annie, Sally, and Nan—nodded. Each woman glowed with pride and excitement.

  “Then we go,” Grace said.

  She had never known such a thrill—except when making love to Devlin. This was almost, but not quite, as delicious as that. She was in charge, just as she had been in her dream when she was at the wheel of Devlin’s ship. She felt exhilarated enough to fly! She could understand how Devlin had vowed he would never give up being a pirate to become an ordinary man.

  Grace walked up to the door. It was late summer and the stench of the prison turned Grace’s stomach. Some of the cells were reputed to contain rotting corpses waiting for relatives to find the money to pay for their release. God, it was so horrible to think Devlin was in there.

  She lifted the black knocker on Newgate’s door and let it fall. The hard thud vibrated through her feet and up her spine.

  “Who goes there?” demanded one of the guards as he came out of the guard hut to see who was at the outside door. He was a portly man and as Nan and Katie, both blondes with large breasts, strolled forward cooing and offering him drink, he couldn’t tear his gaze away from their curves. The second guard was younger, and he had been slumped against the stone wall inside, but he promptly straightened up.

  Katie now stood in front of the older guard, so close that his nose almost grazed her bosom.

  She pointed to Nan, who invitingly stroked her hands over
her full hips. “My friends wish to see their men, who are locked up in here. There’s no harm, is there? And we’ll make it worth your while to help us.”

  Nan held up a bottle of fine brandy.

  The guard warred with duty for only seconds. “Come ’ere, my lovelies,” he crooned.

  Katie snatched the bottle from Nan, took a convincingly large swig of the potent liquor, then sashayed forward. “Indeed we will, sirrah,” she answered cheerfully.

  “You, Thomas.” The guard gave his young partner a shove toward the door. “Escort the lasses in.”

  “What’s in it for me?” Thomas demanded.

  Bess rushed forward to press her body against his. “If you’re a good fellow, you’ll get your reward,” she whispered, her voice a sultry purr against the hot night air.

  “It stinks in there,” he argued. “I’d need a good reason to go in.”

  Grace saw Bess’s hand abruptly cup the young man’s crotch and caress it through his trousers. He gave a shocked squeak, surprisingly high pitched; then he moaned.

  “Shall I lead you by these,” Bess teased.

  But he pushed away her hand. “I don’t want a prisoner’s whore—”

  Katie pouted at the other guard. “If you gents won’t help…”

  The guard planted his booted foot against Thomas’s backside. “Get moving, you whelp.”

  Grace planted herself in front of Thomas and pressed a few gold guineas into his palm. “Enough to make you forget the smell?”

  The angular youth nodded, flashed a grimace that revealed a few missing teeth, and pocketed the money. He drew out his key, attached to his waist with a glinting chain. Grace held her breath as the key turned in the lock and he hauled open a heavy wooden door. She was so much closer to Devlin, but she still had to get him on this side of that door.

  She still had to get him outside the stone walls, the barred windows, and the thick oak doors.

  Distracted by two beautiful women, the older guard never even glanced their way. Grace sighed with relief as they plunged through the doorway and within the stone walls that held Devlin captive. She almost gagged on the smell rolling down the corridor.

  “Which ones do you want?” the young man asked sullenly.

  Bess squeezed his bottom and a flush hit his pockmarked cheeks; then she tugged at her open neckline to give him a glimpse of her breast.

  Grace took advantage of Bess’s show. “Mr. Devlin Sharpe.”

  She expected Thomas would refuse, that he would claim he could not let them go to that particular prisoner.

  But he gave her an indifferent stare. “And who else?”

  “No one else,” Bess answered. “Just Devlin.”

  “All of you? For him?”

  “We’re his harem, lad,” Annie said, winking. He stared at the long waves of vivid red hair that flowed loosely over her shoulder.

  “Now, look here,” Thomas protested, waving his precious cell keys. “I don’t believe you—”

  “Oh, we all know that the men who can afford it have their women in here,” Annie snapped as she pressed both hands to the young guard’s thin chest and gave a frustrated shove.

  “Enough,” Grace warned. Her heart beat so loudly in her own head she was certain the sound must be echoing off the stone walls. She pulled out a few more coins, the gold glinting even in the dim and dusty light, and held them out. “Just take us to his cell.”

  “Bloody women,” Thomas muttered, but he crooked his finger. “This way and keep your mouths shut.”

  Shuffling his feet, he led them to a narrow staircase, and he slowly hauled his feet up each step. Grace had to bite her lip to keep from screaming at him to move faster. She stayed close to Thomas, in front of the other women, ready to hand him more money if necessary.

  The stairwell closed around them like a tunnel leading to hell, even though they were climbing upward on chiseled stone steps. Shrieks and groans echoed through the small space, the sounds thrown about crazily by the stone walls. Grace swallowed hard—she remembered that night when Devlin had returned her to her room through the secret stairways of Lord Wesley’s home.

  She owed Devlin so much.

  He had been the first to give her a glimpse of adventure.

  Ahead, Thomas stopped at a cell door, drew out his ring of keys and put the key in the lock.

  “We’ll let you watch if you’re a good boy,” Annie called out.

  That got the young man’s attention. Red-faced, he jerked around, but Sally, who had the strongest swing, hit him in the back of the head with a cosh. He slumped to the ground in a tangle of limbs.

  Grace walked around him, fighting the surge of guilt. “You didn’t kill him, did you?”

  “I’m no amateur,” Sally protested, “I’ve coshed many men in my lifetime. I know just how to do it.”

  “Ladies, what in the blazes are you doing here?”

  At Devlin’s voice, Grace found herself racing forward through the narrow opening in the iron bars. But Lucy, Bess, and Annie were already in his cell, and Bess pointed to her the instant she stumbled in. “It was Miss Hamilton’s idea. We’re your rescuers.”

  Devlin blinked. “Grace? You arranged this?”

  He looked well; he looked safe. His face was unshaven, covered in toffee-colored stubble, but his skin was surprisingly clean. Loose, his hair fell around his shoulders, but it wasn’t tangled and unkempt. He wore his trousers, shirt, and boots, and though they were streaked with dirt and they smelled, he filled them out robustly.

  True, he’d been in prison for only two weeks, but she’d had fears that he’d already contracted gaol fever and was wasting away.

  Thank heaven he hadn’t suffered.

  Then she saw he was looking at her.

  His gaze swept over her, lingered on her, feasted on her. He looked at her clothes—the snug white shirt and skintight breeches—with a hunger he had not shown any of the other beautiful women who crowded his small cell.

  “A private cell. And they gave you washing water.” It was as though she had not seen him for years and she was hiding behind inanities.

  “I have money, love. And someone was paying to ensure I was well treated.”

  He prowled forward, and her heartbeat sped faster with his every step until he swept her off her booted feet into his embrace and she was certain her heart had stopped. The other women surrounded them with sighs and “aahs” as his lips came down over hers.

  Grace threaded her arms around his neck and wrapped one leg around his, holding him tight. She loved this—her breasts squashed against him, his erection crushed against her.

  Devlin drew back. She knew his expression—the sharp lines of lustful agony around his mouth, the brilliant blue fire of desire in his eyes. “If you don’t start rescuing me, we might end up on that bed there, love.”

  She gripped his hand. “Then come on.”

  “What’s your plan?”

  “Distraction and bribery.”

  Devlin laughed wickedly, exactly like a pirate should—as though he had the world at his feet and he knew that he’d flaunt death and survive. “An excellent plan.” But he caught hold of her wrist. “Grace, I cannot put you at this much risk. I told you I would not come to you as a wanted man.”

  “And I’ve come to you. You are a wanted man—wanted by me.”

  When he frowned, she faced him, seriously. “This is what I want, Devlin. I would rather be a fugitive than live without you. I cannot let you go.” She cupped his stubble-covered cheek, smiling at the rasp of his whiskers against her palm. “This is my path, Devlin. Adventure and you. I’ll take the path of adventure without you if I have to, but come with me. You belong with me and I with you.”

  “I want to follow you on your path, Grace.”

  She glowed at that, at his simple statement telling her that he wanted to be with her. She nodded. “But I am in charge. Do remember that, Captain Sharpe,” she teased. “You have rescued me enough times. Now it is my turn.”
/>   “I won’t forget it, Grace,” he murmured. “Rescue me.”

  Shouts and cries echoed down the corridor. A few other prisoners had awoken, some close enough to see the women. Sally and Annie had dragged in the fallen guard, but the other male inmates had glimpsed enough female flesh in tight clothing to be aroused and aggressive.

  They smashed the bars and hooted and howled at the women. Begged them to come over. Some, the more deranged, the ones who had been in so long they had begun to forget they were human, screamed insults or just shrieked.

  Escaping through this was going to prove bloody difficult. But Devlin knew they had to get out—he couldn’t let Grace be arrested and locked up for an attempted escape.

  Though it cost him precious seconds, Devlin bent down to the guard and pressed his fingers into the throat to find a pulse. It flickered against his skin, slow and faint, but there.

  He looked up to see lines creasing Grace’s forehead and her mouth stiff with doubt. “Is he—?”

  “Unconscious, but alive, and I wouldn’t envy him the sore head he’s going to have.”

  Sally held the keys. “Let’s hurry,” she urged from the cell door. She leaned out and looked up and down the corridor. Bars rang as men hammered their cups, their feet, their arms against the iron.

  Grace slanted him a glance as they hurried behind Lucy, Bess, and Annie through the door. “I was hoping at this point you would know the way out—the best way. Since you’ve escaped from here twice. Though I did study the layout of the prison. Marcus acquired copies of the building plans.”

  Devlin felt his brows launch up. “Your brother-in-law, an earl, gave you building plans?”

  She nodded. “My family supports this.”

  “Your family must be mad,” he muttered. It couldn’t be so. The Earl of Trent and Viscount Swansborough had allowed Grace to put herself at such great risk?

  Impossible.

  Annie shoved his back from behind. “Get moving, Dev, you great lummox. Otherwise we’ll be caught.”