Finally, Brendan nodded. “Aye. We all have, one time or another. They like to poke the dragon, taking Welsh ships and flooding our smuggling ring with poor goods.”
“So they can muddy your reputation?”
“Aye,” Brendan replied, “and so they can thumb their noses at Saban, the vengeful bastards.”
Bracing an elbow on the railing, Robbie determined to open the door, even a crack, and see what lay beyond. “Did you know my grandmother?”
The question seemed to strike Brendan between the eyes, he flinched but then shook his head.
“Nay. She was here and gone before even Saban was born.”
“Has Ioan…Daid…ever spoken of her?” He didn’t know why he cared, but he did. Ilone was his connection to the family he’d been raised to believe were his enemies. What would father say if he were to learn that he hated his own flesh and blood?
Brendan pushed away from the railing and crossed his arms, peering at Robbie in turn. “Not to me, nay. But we have all read the letter.”
The letter…the one Ioan had insisted he read.
“Your father…he did not know the truth, I take it…” Brendan speculated…correctly.
Nay, his father had not known the truth, that his own mother had lied about who his father was and how she’d ended up in England, unlawfully married to the Earl of Heathcombe.
“Nay. But if he had…things would be different.” He’d have been raised to understand where he’d truly come from. He’d have known his cousins, and his own father wouldn’t have wasted away to nothing, despising a man who already despised himself.
“Look, Robbie… This is all new to us, we have never known Ilone, and so we never thought to meet her kin. Daid, especially, had given up hope. But…now that you are here, aye, things will be different…” He stopped, eyeing Robbie expectantly. “…if you choose to stay, that is.”
Stay?
Before he could even ponder the surge of longing that rose into his chest, a shout off the bow made them both turn. A torch flickered in the distance, toward shore, and Brendan cursed, a slow, menacing smile growing on his face.
“They are here.”
Robbie immediately knew Brendan was speaking about the Spaniards, it was in the dangerous grin and the malice in his voice. He’d wondered why they’d loaded the ship but hadn’t weighed anchor. It must have been a trap set for greedy pirates, and the bastards had fallen right into it.
His heart thudded, the rush of the challenge bleeding through him.
“I am ready, Cousin.”
Brendan’s grin grew as he tossed Robbie a sword. Robbie welcomed the weight of the sabre, how it felt in his grip, how he felt with the weapon in his hand. This was a sensation he was used to, and it was one he relished.
The report of a gun was the first of many as row after row of blood-thirsty men climbed over the railing.
With a shout, Robbie leapt into action, a smile on his face. He didn’t even know he’d been stabbed until he’d felled his fifth marauder and felt the warm slide of blood down his back.
Chapter Fifteen
In reality it had only been three days, but it felt like lifetimes had passed since Robbie had left her, in their bed, replete and worried, to hie off with Brendan, Lucian, Saban, and their crew.
Their bed… When had she begun to think of the cottage bed as hers let alone one she shared with Robbie—a Rees? She’d practically been forced to follow Saban and Robbie that night so many weeks ago, and she’d been so eager to leave them all and go back to her life of seclusion and barely surviving.
And now…she couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.
“Now, Annabeth, you must wait your turn. There are plenty of ribbons to use. Let Bonnie choose hers first, her dress is smaller,” Glynnis said, offering a gentle, patient smile to the little girl who was sitting, cross-legged, in a circle of other little girls who were staring up at Glynnis. Since the men had left, Rose and Lucia had seen fit to move the families of the crewmen into Dwyn Twll. With their men gone on whatever mission of revenge the Rees had planned, their families were vulnerable. And so, they were brought to the safest place in Wales to hide until the men returned.
If they returned…
Forcing that thought from her mind, she handed a bundle of ribbons—more than likely stolen and then smuggled—to the little flaxen-haired Bonnie. Bonnie chose a silk ribbon in a pale blue to go with the dress she was making for her doll. Annabeth chose three ribbons; red, yellow, and blue, for the dress she was making for herself.
To keep her mind and hands busy, Glynnis had volunteered to help keep the little girls occupied so as to give their worried mothers time and space to think and plan… just in case the worst happened.
Is it time to admit that you have painted all the Rees with the same muddy brush as William? Aye. It was. William had soured her against his family, but his family didn’t deserve her bile. Despite their criminal livelihood, they truly cared about the people who’d taken up the banner of the Ganwyd o’r Mor. She’d heard from a few of the wives that Saban sold the goods to merchants in London and then used some of the money to help repair their cottages, buy their seeds for planting, and keep them in fabrics and furs.
The Rees were generous in their criminality.
And one particular Rees had handily stolen her heart.
“They have come back!” A young boy, no older than Annabeth, came barreling out of the tunnel from the cliff entrance. He was gasping and huffing, trying to catch his breath. “The ships, they are anchored in the harbor!”
Surging to her feet, Glynnis couldn’t stop herself from running even if her legs were broken.
She rushed through the tunnel and into the clearing through the wall of trees and bushes. Indeed, the Seren Mor and Torriwr were anchored in the harbor, but where were the men?
Had something gone wrong?
“I believe the man you are looking for is coming in on one of the boats.” Glynnis spun to find Rose leaning against a tree. “They will want to bring their spoils in through the sea cave entrance and into the lagoon.”
Glynnis didn’t wait to thank Rose but fled back down the passage.
She skidded to a halt, nearly falling on her face, when she saw the women and children clustered around one side of the cavern, the lagoon side. They were cheering, and some of the children were thrown into the air by a few of the men who had disembarked first.
He is home!
Driven by the urge to see Robbie, to know he was well, to touch him and kiss him, Glynnis pushed through the throngs of happy people to the shore of the lagoon. The boat was laden with crates and sacks… But there were no men left in that one.
Sighing, Glynnis swallowed down the rush of abject disappointment.
He is home…he just wasn’t in that one.
And she said the same thing as another four boats arrived, carrying goods and men. Brendan and Lucian arrived on the fifth return trip.
“Brendan,” Glynnis planted herself in front of the large man as he tried to make his way through the men unloading the boats. “Where is Robbie?”
Brendan’s face fell, and the whole world began to tip, sucking the air from her chest and the heat from her skin.
“Brendan… tell me…”
Brendan bowed his head and broke eye contact. “He was…wounded in the fight on the Torriwr.”
Nay! Not Robbie! She stopped breathing.
“He…he saved my life, Glynnis,” Brendan murmured, his tone a mix of awe and regret.
Glynnis wrapped her hands around her belly as her heart plummeted into it.
“Nay…do not tell me…” She couldn’t get the words out. It couldn’t be true. Robbie couldn’t be dead.
“Tell you what? That blackguard better not be trying to steal you away from me,” a deep, familiar, teasing voice said from behind her. Again, she stopped breathing, but this time it was relief that made her heart drop.
“Robbie?” she whispered as the man she loved grip
ped her arm to spin her into his embrace. She shuddered.
“Aye, love. Returned as I promised,” he said, pressing a kiss into her forehead.
Suddenly livid, she pulled away and stamped her foot. “Why you damn ass!”
Brendan snickered.
“What?” Robbie asked, his dark brows arching in surprise. “Did I do something?”
“Aye! You left me and then you did not return for three days—and Brendan said you were wounded!” She didn’t know why she was yelling, but it felt good to yell, to rid herself of the three days of worry and frustration and yearning for the man she loved.
She loved him, dammit!
Robbie chuckled and drew her back into his arms, encircling her with his strength. She melted into him, the fight leaving her as the desire and need for him began to grow.
“I missed you, too, my love. And I was wounded. I was stabbed, right here”—he pointed to his left shoulder which was covered in a large white bandage, leaving the rest of his burnished chest and torso bare. “But it looks a lot worse than it is. Barely a nick. I should be back on deck in no time at all.”
“Back on deck?” she retorted. “You mean you are going to turn to smuggling and piracy with the rest of the Rees?” She’d known it was a possibility, that he would choose to stay and turn his skills as a highwayman to robbing ships and not carriages. But…she’d hoped he’d choose to stay because of her.
“Aye,” he replied, smiling down at her. “How else will I support my wife and our wee babes if I do not rob from the rich and give to my beloved?”
Robbie wanted to laugh at the look of confusion on Glynnis’s face, but he knew laughing would only rile her—which he wanted to wait to do until they were alone…and she was naked.
“And before you threaten to gut me, know that I am speaking about you, Glynnis.”
Her gaze sharpened and her mouth dropped open. “You mean…”
He bent his head and brushed a much too gentle kiss over his lips.
“I mean that I love you and I want to make you mine…for always.” He couldn’t pinpoint when he’d fallen for her—it was more than likely when she’d said her father was a seahorse—but he did know that on the ship, once all the smoke had cleared and the plan had been a success, the only person he wanted to see was Glynnis. She had become his everything.
“Oh…Robbie, you damn well better love me, because I love you, and I nearly died with worry for you.” She threw her arms around his neck and pulled his head down into a deeper, hungry kiss.
It was some time later, after they’d stumbled their way to their cabin and made passionate, hasty love against the wall, that they lay in the bed, tangled in each other’s arms.
“What happened? Where did you get all those crates from?” Glynnis asked as she twirled a finger along Robbie’s taut belly.
He groaned, more than happy to let her finger wander a little further south.
“Those crates are goods we brought in from a storage house in Port Eynon. Saban had the men stash the goods there over the last month as a way to draw in the enemy. It helped that we also loaded the Torriwr and then left it—like a plump grouse—in the harbor.”
“So, the plan was to draw them out…and then what?” Glynnis propped herself up on an elbow which gave Robbie a tantalizing view of her glorious breasts. “Had Saban planned for the direct attack on the Torriwr?”
“Aye. He and Lucian were waiting on the Seren Mor, which they’d anchored out of sight on the other side of the harbor. When the attack began, Jaimie, Brendan’s first mate, signaled them with a torch. It was no more than thirty minutes before the deck was swarming with Spaniards and Ganwyd o’r Mor fighting for their lives. By the time the Demonios sounded their retreat, there were more than twenty of them dead on the deck. Saban took one of the more feisty ones captive.”
Glynnis trembled against him, and he pulled her down until her cheek was against his chest…against his heartbeat.
“And you were hurt.”
“Tis nothing I have not felt before, and it will not be the last, I assure you,” he said, teasingly, hoping to allay some of his woman’s fears. “But…when it the time comes to make my own mark as a Rees, I have three other men at my back, and two frighteningly clever women—do not tell Lucia and Rose I said any of this—at my side to help me survive long enough to make you mine.”
If only Father could see me now… His father, the great knight of the Homme du Sang, had died heartbroken and head sick, but Robbie…he now knew the truth that had been denied his father. And it was a truth he would share with his own sons, if only to save them the pain of a broken life.
Glynnis rubbed a hand over him, stroking him and purring.
The thought of planting his seed inside his woman sent a surge of nearly unbearable need through him.
“Mine,” Robbie drawled, reaching over to cup a globe of Glynnis’s breast.
Glynnis snorted. “Who said I would have you?”
He growled, twisting to pin Glynnis beneath him. He kissed her, stealing her breath and swallowing her moans. When he came up for air, he grinned down at her.
“I am the Ravishing Robbie Rees; how can you resist?”
Epilogue
Glynnis wiped her sweaty hands on the fabric of the long dress she was wearing—one given to her by Lucia who said she’d borrowed it from a captain who had one too many wives. Glynnis had long known to not ask detailed questions about where any of the Rees “borrowed” goods came from. She was happy enough to don the beautiful, high-waisted, low-bodiced, burnished copper-colored dress for her wedding.
A wedding that—just three months ago—she’d never imagined having. She’d been a sack of sorrow, living on the scraps of life and hoping her damn pig would feed her for a few measly months. A wedding she could hardly believe to the man she’d pulled from the wreckage of a ship. A wedding to a man who loved her beyond human reckoning. And whom she loved just as deeply.
A wedding that was there and done in the blink of an eye. Ioan had come out of seclusion to attend, his once glowering face shone with true joy as he walked Glynnis from her cavern cottage to the makeshift dais were the parish priest stood, a little uneasy about his abduction. Once Ioan had given her hand to Robbie, he’d disappeared…and she’d hoped it wasn’t the last time she’d see him. Over the last two months, she’d gotten to know the old hermit better; visits with him were often short but enjoyable. He’d share about his life, she’d tell him of her life before meeting William—all the sadness and stark hopelessness of being a plague orphan left to molder on the Church steps—and Robbie would…well, Robbie would tell the most outlandish stories of highway robbery and some brute named Braw Bruce who could fell a man with a single glare.
Robbie and Ioan were so much alike—and not just in looks. They were two men broken by circumstance who found healing in forgiveness, understanding, and copious amounts of wine.
In such a short time, both men had become like home to her; Ioan the father she’d wished she’d had, and Robbie…the man she was truly meant to be with. Forever.
Her heart pounding in her chest—from glee and not fear—she gazed out over the crowd of people who were laughing, dancing to music provided by a few crew members of the Seren Mor and eating and drinking until they fell flat from the richness of it all.
Beside her, leaning against one of the large boulders left uncut by the intrusion of the sea, Rose was laughing, loudly, and staring at Glynnis.
“What are you sniggering on about, Rose?” Glynnis asked even as her smile grew.
Rose snickered again, tossing her rope of red hair over her shoulder and winking at Glynnis.
“I did not think I’d live to see the day that you married another Rees,” she answered, her voice light with humor—something they all needed.
Glynnis waited for the bitterness to rise, but when it didn’t, she just continued smiling. William was long dead, and it was way past time for her to learn to live without the anger—toward the
Rees family…and herself.
“Well, how could I not?” she teased. “He is the Ravishing Robbie Rees!” Her voice carried across the short distance to where her husband was standing, his glorious green eyes on her, dancing with mirth. And simmering with desire.
She shuddered.
Robbie came to stand beside her, drawing a line of hot need across her cheek with his lips. “I like the sound of that name on your lips, love,” he murmured into her ear, filling her blood with licking hunger.
“Later,” she snapped, slapping him on the forearm, her face warming from the glances and none too innocent grins from the people around them.
“Bugger that!” Brendan interjected, raising a golden goblet into the air. “I am a Rees, too, goddammit! And I am nothing if not ravishing.” He threw back the wine in the goblet and struck a wide-legged pose, with his shoulders back and his chin thrust into the air.
“Aye! Aye!” shouts rang out, echoing through the gathering.
“We are all Rees!” Saban joined in, raising his own goblet, his knowing gaze landing on Robbie. A glimmer of something Glynnis couldn’t catch flashed between the two men. Saban cast his gaze over the group gathered in Dwyn Twll for the ceremony binding Glynnis to Robbie. There were more than one hundred people there—crew and their wives and children—and Glynnis had never known such fulfillment. “We are all of us Rees…blood or no.” Saban’s rich, deep voice filled the sea cave, drowning out the crashing of the waves just outside.
“The Ravishing Rees!” Rose yelled, raising her own flagon of whatever she’d wrestled from the man beside her.
“Here! Here!” they all cheered.
Robbie’s hearty chuckle vibrated through her and she laughed along with him, her heart light. Oh, a group of ravishing Rees, indeed.
About the Author
Rosamund Winchester is a determined and overwhelmed mother of four children. If she didn’t have writing to focus on, she’d spend all day staring into space and pondering the mysteries of the universe.
The Ravishing Rees (Pirates of Britannia Book 10) Page 10
