All he’d had to do was row the skiff further along the coast to make good on the escape. He’d considered it that morning, when the disdainful way she’d treated him, coupled with her decision to think about giving him a boat instead of just handing one over, so prickled his hackles he’d nearly left there and then.
“Rum, sweetheart, you got any?”
The barmaid was olive-skinned beautiful with the hottest blue eyes he’d seen this side of the equator. The hottest pair of something else too. But he didn’t even feel a flicker.
“Rum, per fervore.” He sighed and set his hat on the table. “You know where I can get a room ’round these parts? Una stanza. Per—per—” Christ, his Italian stunk.
No wonder she curved her lush lips upward. “Per stanotte?”
“Ci. Yip, that’s the one. Stanotte.”
He bared his teeth. But not with you, sweetheart.
The rum arrived at the table, and he threw a few of the coins down he’d kept from haggling down the price of the boat from the larcenous keeper. This notion that he felt protective toward Fury, because Malmesbury got bossy and she’d a few bruises on her shoulders, was absurd as seeing a bucket load of fishes dance on deck in fancy costumes and things.
He sank a glass of rum. Then he sank another.
But he did, didn’t he?
It was more than a few bruises. It was the notion someone had done that to her. And she stood so tall about it. For the first time he could understand her pride.
Raising his head, he glanced around the low-roofed cavern. There was always a boy in a place like this. A wharf rat who ran errands. Took money. Carried notes. Arranged assignations with suitable whores.
“Hey.” He was almost surprised to hear his own voice.
A boy in the corner looked up. “Signore?”
“You got paper? Pen?”
The boy scratched his head and Flint made a play of writing on the scored tabletop.
“Oh. Ci.” The boy nodded his dark head. “Documento? Per caro?”
“Hmm.” Flint gritted his teeth. Caro wasn’t it exactly. Still he nodded. “Ci. That’s what I need.”
He did, didn’t he? In more ways than one.
The thing Flint wanted most in the world, after the long, tortuous affront to his pride and dignity this entire year had been, the thing he believed would make him feel like a man again, the thing his hunger for amounted to starvation was to stand on the deck of the Calypso, wind in his hair, spray in his face, deck swaying beneath his feet, breathing that cool sea air.
But Fury Fontanelli’s disdain for him was like a gauntlet. The more she faced him down, the more he started to feel that the thing—the only thing—that would come anywhere close to making him feel like a man was actually for her to look into his eyes. Deep into them, as she once had and make him believe he was the only man in the world. For her to part her thighs. Not as she parted them now, with every type of damned, ball-breaking condition she could think up on her lips. To want him. Really, truly want him. In every respect. As a man. As a lover. As a person she somehow cared about. Not just his seed.
Try as he might, he could ignore it less than he could the gut-wrenching fact that he couldn’t determine if this was just some stupid hole in his masculine pride, some deep-seated need in him to tick off that particular box with her, or something more.
Something far deeper. Something that had always been there.
But it felt as though he were swimming hopelessly, not just against the tide, but a tsunami.
Why not just up anchor and walk away? He could, of course, and there was nothing to stop him. Except, in a confused way, it didn’t feel right. In life you did things because they felt right. Felt proper.
He’d given his word. He didn’t know if he could break it to a woman who stood as she had earlier.
There was also the matter of confirming there was no lower form of animal life.
But because he couldn’t seem to stop himself getting into wars with her, and these wars seemed destined to conflict him further, he needed to find somewhere else to stay.
There was no way on the face of the earth he wanted the Calypso sailing on its way without him, leaving him shackled to a life of domesticity he dreaded.
* * *
The sharp rat-a-tat at her chamber door jerked Fury from her edgy contemplation of herself in the mirror. Setting the hairbrush down, she raised her chin. “Come.”
It was absurd the way her heart hammered. Unless Flint could walk through walls, it couldn’t be him.
The door creaked open, and she was appalled to find herself on her feet. Her heart sank. “Susan.”
Was she stupid? Flint hadn’t come in. She’d lain awake all night, listening. Some of the time with the pillow on her head so that she wouldn’t.
“Madam.”
“Has he…”
She’d been to his room, too, this morning. Twice. The bed hadn’t been touched since yesterday. Of course it was to be expected of a lowdown dog like Flint that he was probably in some whorehouse sleeping off the money she’d given him. She just hoped he’d gotten rid of Thomas first and not left him in his wrappings in the street. She didn’t want the authorities at the door.
She dabbed a drop of cologne behind her ears. “I mean, I know he’s not here. So I was dressing.”
“Who? James?”
The familiarity rankled. Well, she’d thought, hadn’t she, that Flint might be better to conceive the heir with Susan. No doubt they wouldn’t have surfaced for days. Setting her lips in a smile, she padded across the floor in her bare feet.
At least her hair was combed. She didn’t want Susan to know anything of the knot that had formed in the pit of her stomach. The coldness that swept her skin. Older but no wiser wasn’t the way to appear here. Not when Susan already suspected too much.
“Yes, James. I thought I might wear this. The purple.” She dragged a gown from its hanger. “And call on Malmesbury.”
“Malmesbury?”
“There’s no need to sound surprised. I could have told you James was hardly reliable. I thought I’d give the poor beggar a chance. But now I see how misguided that was.”
If she’d been a fraction less self-possessed, she’d have sunk beneath the weight of her own folly. Something burned behind her eyes. Not tears exactly. She wasn’t going to cry. She had never imagined Flint would do anything other than abandon her—again. She was just appalled to feel anything, as if the test were one she had failed.
She held the purple satin against herself. “You can see how I am repaid. At least Malmesbury won’t require us to pawn any more of Signor Santa-Rosa’s candlesticks, will he? He’s hardly short.”
Malmesbury. She shrank from the thought. But what other choice did she have?
“But James has sent a note, madam.”
Fury stared at the crisp piece of paper Susan clutched. What kinds of things would that contain? She hardened her jaw. If it came from where she thought, all kinds of awful things. But a note? How unusual.
“He brought it himself. Not half an hour ago.”
And didn’t bother to speak to Fury.
“Tear it up, will you?”
“Tear it—”
“Yes. Now.” She stepped into the gown, the material cool against her hot palms. Her theatrical behavior didn’t bother her. In some respects it offered as much refuge as cool, clinging satin. What was there to read after all? Her wish was granted. She was rid of him.
“I have more pressing matters to attend to. You see the embarrassing position he has put me in? And not for the first time.”
“But madam, if you go to Malmesbury—”
“You honestly think I care I might not know who the father of the Beaumont heir is? Now, fasten my dress.”
“Madam, you—‘Dear Fury…’”
To her horror Susan had torn open the letter.
“Give me that!”
“‘Sorry on account of you receiving this from Frau Berthe’s down
on the harbor—’”
The thought arrested her mid-lunge.
“Isn’t she that German woman, madam?” Susan held the letter out of reach. “‘But I prefer it here, to there.’”
At those words Fury’s hands clenched, around nothing in particular since Flint’s neck was not present. The damn cheek. If she had the letter she would tear it. Or better still, light the candle to turn it into blackened moth’s wings.
“Isn’t that nice? James always was a man of quite unusual tastes.” She rummaged in the wardrobe. “Now. Which hat do you think—”
“He says here he wants to see you.”
In a whorehouse? She would not countenance such a thing. Her face flamed. For a second it flamed so badly, she thought she might burn to moths’ wings if she did not calm down.
“To spare you being in Malmesbury’s debt. You can’t go to Malmesbury, madam.”
Fury swallowed the constriction, choking and flaming, in her throat. The purple bonnet was perhaps a little fussier than the cream, and the black, a far better fit, but she did not want to look like a crow.
“I can do what I damn well please. Captain Flint Blackmoore does not own me.”
“Captain?”
That Susan would find out who he really was, was worse. She must regain control. But she seemed momentarily to have lost it. And no matter how she looked, it wasn’t even within her grasp. Like the end of a ball of wool that had spun somewhere, beneath the chair there—or worse, to Frau Berthe’s whorehouse.
Susan passed her tongue over her lips. “Madam, if that is who he is, and he doesn’t want you in Malmesbury’s debt, won’t you at least hear what he has to say?”
Fury rather thought she had. She wanted not to have to do this. If there was one thing yesterday morning had shown her, it was that she’d prefer not to go to Malmesbury. If there was one thing the afternoon had, it was that Flint could not be trusted.
Was a known devil better, though? Or worse? As the evening before that had so clearly demonstrated, she was perhaps a little guilty of leaping to quite monstrous conclusions. That he had forced her to get on top, for example. When all he had done was suggest it.
“Very well. But he will see me out of Malmesbury’s debt here. If he thinks for one moment I am visiting him in some ghastly harbor-front whorehouse, belonging to some German fraulein, he is not only mistaken, but out of his mind.”
* * *
Rounding the bend in the stairs, Fury did her best to keep her gauzy veil intact. Frau Berthe’s was not the place a woman of any standing should be seen in. Alive or dead. But since she began to think she had none, she had gone past caring whether it mattered.
In any case not only was she veiled, she was cloaked. So long as Lady Margaret never found out Fury had set foot in a whorehouse. And how the blazes would she? Fury had been very careful coming here, turning at every corner to make sure she wasn’t followed and that Susan had trailed at a discreet distance.
Flint wanted to stay here. She was here to tell him he couldn’t. She could not afford even the extravagance of a whorehouse. Signor Santa-Rosa’s belongings couldn’t be pawned further.
Besides, she’d made it clear. Flint in a whorehouse was like asking a bear to remove its paws from the honey jar and keep them out. She didn’t want him—or the Beaumont heir—afflicted with some hideous disease. All caught through his association with some whore.
He would agree to return with her now. If he did not… She straightened her shoulders.
Flint reminded her of so much, for all she’d vowed to remain unmoved. The familiarity of his body made it difficult in that regard. But, having allowed what she could of herself to become reacquainted with it, God alone knew what another man would be like in bed. In all her life she’d known two men, Flint and Thomas.
A faint trembling shook her. Nerves and stress and perhaps a twinge of fear. Something no one around her seemed even remotely capable of understanding. As if playing this game were easy. And so was trying to conceive a child. It wasn’t easy. But straightening her spine she knocked on the door.
The baby, when it was born, would be proud and strong. It wouldn’t know a thing of its mother’s unhappiness. Heavens, she didn’t want it suffering from a nervous disposition because she felt flummoxed.
Of course, she had still to conceive the baby. She would. When she got Flint back home. This wasn’t the time to think please, oh please, let him do that. This was the time to think he will.
A soft creak caused her to tighten her jaw. Footsteps, not exactly alacritous ones, eased across the floor behind the door. They paused and she fought to still the desperate beat of her heart. He was playing this for what it was worth, wasn’t he?
A head appeared out a door further along the open landing, and she turned the other way. Even if her face couldn’t be seen, she didn’t want to be spotted. Genoa was a large place. And she and Thomas were barely known. Even so.
She raised her hand and knocked again.
“That you, Fury?”
Flint’s voice was gravelly. And rich. That low timbre sometimes sounded as if it came from his boots.
“Who do you think it is? Your—” she paused on the word whore, “mother?”
She had no qualm of morality about herself or what she did in that regard. Too much was at stake. Besides, she was paying him in a way. He had his freedom and now, if she did not prevent it, he’d have this room here, instead of with her. And whores. Whores galore.
What he did afterward when she was pregnant, well, she’d promised him something, hadn’t she? She supposed she’d have to stand by her word. Take back the decision about the quarter halfpenny’s worth.
“Now, open the damned door. People are watching. Maybe you want them to see me and ruin my reputation?”
The door creaked open, and he surveyed her for a moment with his shadowed eyes. “You think my mother would come to a place like this?”
She clutched her reticule. He hadn’t shaved since yesterday, and the stubble darkening his jaw made her want to rub her fingers over it. Fortunately though, she both wore gloves and had a reticule to control.
“If you are casting aspersions about me, then cast.” After all the remark about reputation was one she was surprised she had the temerity to utter. “Otherwise, good morning, James. If you are taking visitors, I should like to come in.”
It wasn’t that she desired to. But she wasn’t going to discuss something so perilously dear to her heart as the conception of the Beaumont heir on one of Frau Berthe’s multitude of doorsteps. People were listening. And she didn’t want them listening to some unseemly row between herself and Flint if he tried digging his heels in.
He wouldn’t. If she had to offer her body in fawning supplication he wouldn’t.
“Be my guest.”
There was no point asking what the lazy bow denoted. Not when the fathering of the Beaumont heir must be above suspicion. And the irritation that sparked in her said she might lose her temper and say things she knew she would regret. She would sweep in, she would sweep out. With him.
“Thank you.”
Tilting her chin, she glided past him. A perfectly ordinary room greeted her. Very plain for a whorehouse. Although, of course Frau Berthe was German and perhaps they did things differently there. Either that, or there were hidden mirrors and things that came out the walls later at the cranking of some mechanism. But of even seedy, disgusting bedding, and grimy lower-class furnishings, there were none. Just white walls and the faint tang of ocean spray wending through the wide-open shutters. The door creaked shut behind her.
“It’s a plain lodging house, by the way.”
“And you would be doing what in a plain lodging house?”
He ambled, in that way that always worked such magic on her heart, to stand before her. “What you asked me to do.”
She hoped the noise that emanated from her throat betrayed her doubt, not her surprise. Was she meant to be pleased with this?
Fl
int the-suit-himself Blackmoore was not the kind of man to do any woman’s bidding. Least of all hers.
So it was unlikely he did it now, and she must be careful when he stood there, the deep ocean blue of his eyes intensified by sunlight, golden as his skin, not to believe so. She’d come to take him home. She wouldn’t settle for less. Anyway, what was he really doing here?
“What I asked you to do? And why would you stay away from whores to please me, when you like them so very much?”
“Don’t you like to think so?” He’d the temerity to grin.
“I don’t actually. Indeed I find it sad that a man so besotted with his manhood can give so little consideration to its welfare, as to parade it through—”
“I never cheated on you, Fury.”
She swallowed the gulp. There was no point losing this on a triviality. How he saw things and how she did. A suspicion grew in her mind. That was what he wanted. Her to lose this. She wasn’t going to.
“Well. Certainly not once, James.”
“Looking isn’t the same as touching. You should know that, intelligent woman like you. No. You just liked to think I did.”
Lie? He did it through his teeth. With the skill and temerity not just to believe himself but to put the onus back on her. So she was the bad one for not believing him. The poor misunderstood Captain Flint.
“I could have. I could have plenty. That time in San Domingo. In Trinidad. Hell, let’s not even mention that pretty little blackamoor floozy you nearly swiped the face off in Martinique.”
Her? The fine hairs rose all along the back of Fury’s neck. Her breath puffed faster than usual.
“But I didn’t.”
She could settle this. She would have to. “Then what were you doing in all those whorehouses then, pray tell? Admiring the view?”
He slanted her a long, narrowed gaze. “I thought you killed Celie. All right?”
She had known that but for him to confess it, and that this was why he had pretended…
“I thought you killed her. But, even then, it wasn’t as simple as that.”
Not as simple. God, the rage she tried to master in that instant was too great to govern. It burned from the tips of her toes, all the way up her shaking legs, through her churning stomach, to her fingertips. To her very reticule. Which descended on his chest. Followed by her fists.
The Unraveling of Lady Fury Page 13
