The Piratical Miss Ravenhurst

by Louise Allen

  ‘It is all right, Mr—I mean, Captain Stanier can show me.’ There was a gasp from the maid. ‘Eliza, I’ve been sharing his cabin for nights, it is all right.’

  Without waiting she turned and climbed the stairs. After a moment she heard footsteps behind her and smiled. Thank goodness, she had been afraid he was going to treat her like a society lady the moment they were free.

  ‘The door on the right.’ It was a simple room, but clean and the wide bed with its white mosquito net sat serenely in the middle of an expanse of polished floor.

  ‘Oh, a real bed. Bliss.’

  ‘Then sleep.’ Nathan was standing in the doorway, watching her.

  ‘No. Not until we talk.’ She held out a hand and he came in and took one of the rattan chairs. Clemence curled up in the other, noticing with a pang of anxiety that he stayed sitting upright, not letting his back touch the chair. ‘Tell me who you are and how the men from the hold are.’

  ‘We’ve lost some of them, but the survivors are, on the whole, all right, although some have fevers and all are badly malnourished. There are eight of your men safe. As for me, I am part of a mission to eradicate pirates in the Caribbean.’ Nathan steepled his fingers and looked as though he were about to present a formal report. ‘We deprived McTiernan of his navigator in a brothel about a week before he took me on; it took a while to spread the rumours about me, enough for him to get interested, but not suspicious.’

  ‘The Orion is your ship?’ She imagined the elegant, white-sailed frigate, Nathan on the quarterdeck.

  ‘No, Melville’s. I haven’t a ship at the moment, I was detached for the mission. You can guess the rest—the disabled merchantman was the first intended honey-trap. When that didn’t work, we set up the sand-bar trap with a supposedly secret bullion ship as bait.’

  ‘How did you communicate?’ Clemence watched him, noticing the cut in his hairline, bruises on his cheek, the edge of a bandage showing beneath one cuff.

  ‘It was pre-arranged, most of it. Contingency plans for every eventuality we could think of. I knew about the sandbar, I only pretended to find it when we were up on the headland. While you were setting out the food, I was signalling with a mirror.’

  ‘It all seems very efficient,’ Clemence observed, wondering as she looked at him now, with his austere manner and his spare reporting, how she could ever have thought him a suspicious rogue. ‘I must have been a nuisance. Why didn’t you tell me the truth?’

  ‘I wanted you to react to things as naturally as possible.’ He shrugged. ‘And instinct told me that the less you knew, the safer you were.’

  ‘I see. And when I saw you this afternoon?’

  ‘Yesterday by now, I would guess.’ He glanced at the clock. ‘Yesterday I had been helping salvage what we could of Sea Scorpion, searching for survivors, which was why I looked as I did. I wasn’t chained in the middle of those men, but I was talking to them, trying to sort out the ones it was safe to try and have reprieved. There are some good seamen amongst them.’

  ‘And when you saw me?’

  ‘I did not know what was going on, the Governor’s men were armed. I couldn’t risk shooting starting. When Eliza came tumbling out into the yard after you, I got the whole story out of her.’

  ‘So what was I doing in the hospital?’

  ‘That was a mistake, no one knew who you were. Melville just grabbed you when I threw you at him, and anyway, he got knocked unconscious when that cannon went off and I didn’t speak to him again until after I had seen you.’

  It seemed that all she had to concern herself about was her own future. ‘It is all under control, then? All shipshape and navy fashion?’ He nodded, smiling, and got to his feet. ‘And what about me?’

  ‘I’ll talk to lawyers tomorrow, and then the Governor. We’ll get your inheritance back, Clemence, never fear. We’ll find you somewhere to stay safely until it is all over.’

  She stood up. ‘And when it is?’

  ‘I meant it, Clemence. With the best will in the world, I don’t think your reputation is going to survive this scandal. We’ll go back to England and I will marry you.’

  ‘Out of the goodness of your heart?’ she enquired, trying to keep the bitter edge out of the question. No, it would not happen. He was going to put all this into the hands of lawyers, sail off and leave her, and she would never see him again. Because marrying a man who proposed to you out of decency and kindness was impossible, even if—especially if—you loved him.

  ‘Because I would like to.’ He frowned at her as though the sincerity in his own voice had taken him by surprise. ‘Clemence, you have come to matter to me. You know I desire you, that has never been in doubt. I’m too old for you, of course—’

  ‘Nonsense!’ The protest was jerked out of her before she realised how betraying it was. Nathan looked down into her face and took her hands.

  ‘Ten years and a great deal of experience older than you, sweetheart.’

  ‘I don’t consider that,’ she murmured, suddenly shy. ‘Isn’t there anyone else?’

  ‘No one, I swear. England will be difficult, I know, but you will come to like it, make friends. Won’t you take pity on me?’

  ‘Take pity on you? Your friends will say you are the one to be pitied for marrying a ruined woman who had been on a pirate ship.’

  ‘No, my friends will love you.’

  And will you love me? she wondered, her hands curling into his. Would he learn to love her? She would make him a good wife and perhaps he would, in time. She had never been able to envisage the man she would marry; now, here was one she desired, one she liked and she loved. It seemed he shared the desire and the liking. Was that enough? It was more than many couples had, she knew.

  ‘If…Yes. Yes, I will marry you,’ she said, suddenly as dizzy as if she had thrown herself from the peak of the mainmast.

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘Clemence.’ It was a sigh, and on the breath Nathan kissed her, his mouth certain, his grasp that of a man claiming what was his. Passive, unsure of what he expected, she let him explore her mouth, his lips shifting over hers, his tongue fretting over the join of her lips until she parted shyly for him. And then that shaft of desire pierced her, just as it had when they had kissed in anger and passion on the ship and she opened for him, drew him in, tasted and savoured and arched herself against the maleness that was going to be hers.

  His hands cupped her behind, lifting her to him on tip-toe so she was in no doubt of how aroused he was as he shifted against her, setting up a rhythm that made her moan against his mouth.

  Her hands went to his head, her palms tingling with the friction of his unfamiliar, short hair, traced down the tendons of his neck, then up, skimmed lightly, tenderly, over the wound on his forehead, found the strong whorl of his ear and played for a moment with the lobe, wondering hazily at her own desire to take it between her teeth and nip. There was so much to learn and Nathan was going to teach her and the lick of fearful anticipation only added a delicious edge to that thought.

  The half-awakened sensuality Nathan had stirred in her, her own imaginings, the heat and strength and sureness of him were coming together to transform her body that she thought she knew so well into an aching, urgent, desperate thing of liquid heat and tingling nerves. And this, this dizzying sensation, she knew was only the beginning.

  Slowly, he lowered her so her feet were flat on the ground and freed her mouth. Clemence opened her eyes and found his, looking as dazed as she felt.

  ‘I think,’ Nathan managed, sounding like a man who had been running, ‘that we may find we are very compatible in bed.’

  ‘Isn’t it always like that?’ Her fingers had curled around his forearms, seemingly of their own volition, but he did not seem in any hurry to move away.

  ‘Not in my experience,’ he confessed. ‘Clemence, I must go.’

  ‘Must you?’ she murmured, unable to free either her hands or her eyes.

  ‘If I do not go now, I will not be able t
o.’

  ‘Then stay.’ The blue of his eyes darkened, whether with doubt or desire she was not sure. ‘Nathan, we are going to be married and I do not want to be alone tonight.’ She managed a smile, a quite successful one under the circumstances, she thought. ‘I am used to sleeping with you now.’

  The way her lower lip quivered into a smile undid him. It was all there in that smile and in her green eyes, locked with his. Innocent passion, trust, the need for comfort. Who was he protecting by rejecting her, leaving her to face her memories alone while he walked off to his room in the smug certainty that he had done the right thing, the virtuous thing?

  Nathan wrestled with the doubt that he was justifying doing what his own desires were clamouring for. He had got the strength to walk away, he decided. If he wanted to.

  He freed her hands from their grip on his arms and went to the door. ‘Good night,’ Clemence whispered behind him.

  ‘I hope so,’ he said, turning the key in the lock and coming back to her, seeing her face light up. ‘A very good night, I hope.’

  The sudden doubt flickered behind her eyes. ‘I don’t know what to do. I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed.’

  ‘Well, fortunately I do know, and I do not think you could disappoint me, Clemence.’ It was more his fear of disappointing her, Nathan thought wryly, finding the buttons either side of the waist of her gown. One virgin in a personal history of long periods of abstinence at sea interspersed with intense relationships with expensive, but highly skilled chères amies. And that virgin, his wife, had been a confident, passionate little temptress without, he was convinced, a nerve in her body.

  And not one woman before had looked at him with such trusting expectation, which only made the pressure worse. Slowly, he told himself, easing the gown from her shoulders, bending to kiss the tender skin exposed just above the small breasts her corset lifted to him, like a gift.

  She gave a little gasp and managed to find room to begin unbuttoning his shirt. Then she found the bandaging beneath and remembered, pulling her hands away. ‘Nathan, I’m sorry, I forgot your back. How could I have been so thoughtless? Forgive me.’ She tried to edge away, but he held her, his palms cupping her shoulders.

  ‘I will be fine, Clemence, I promise. Look.’ He shrugged out of his shirt, turning to show her. ‘See, no more bleeding.’

  ‘And there’s a cut on your arm, and your stomach and bruises. Nathan, you should be in bed, resting, not—’

  ‘Not making love to a beautiful woman?’ He smiled at her blush and the definite shake of her head in denial of the compliment. ‘Isn’t the warrior deserving of a reward?’

  The look she gave him in response to that question was pure Clem, but she stood still for him to unlace her corset, standing in her shift and stockings, her hands clasped shyly as though afraid to touch him now. ‘The mosquitoes are getting bad,’ she murmured ‘Perhaps we should get under the net?’

  Fighting one’s way under a mosquito net, working all round trying to tuck it under the mattress from inside, and then pursuing the one buzzing menace that had managed to get in with them, might not have been the most erotic prelude to lovemaking, but it broke down the last vestiges of reserve.

  Clemence came into his embrace willingly as he lay back on the soft white covers and curled up, her head on his shoulder. Let her set the pace, his instinct told him, let her relax.

  ‘Oh, the bliss of a proper bed,’ she sighed, her exploring fingers wrecking havoc with his pulse rate as she stroked the skin exposed by the bandages over his shoulders.

  ‘Your uncle certainly gave you a beautiful bedchamber,’ Nathan remarked, set on talking until she was at ease. Discussing furniture seemed as good a way as any to keep his own arousal in check. He ran his fingertip along the upper edge of her shift, watching the betraying little peak of her nipple hardening beneath the fine lawn. ‘And the house was far finer than I had expected, from what you had told me about him.’

  ‘But Raven’s Hold is my house,’ she said, lifting her hand and stroking lightly over his evening beard, her fingertips running along the edge of his jaw in a way that made him shiver. ‘Uncle Joshua and Lewis moved in when Papa died and just took over.’

  ‘Raven’s Hold?’ Memory was stirring, claws of apprehension tightening in his gut. He knew he had heard her name before.

  ‘Called after the family castle in Northumberland,’ she was saying, now seemingly engrossed in tracing the line of his collarbone.

  Nathan jolted up on his elbows, forcing her to roll onto her back. ‘Clemence, what is your surname?’

  ‘I told you, Browne.’ She was teasing him.

  ‘No, your real name.’ Something in his tone reached her and she sat up, her eyes puzzled and wary.

  ‘Ravenhurst.’

  Nathan closed his eyes for a moment. ‘The Duke of Allington is your cousin?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said smiling. ‘Do you know him? I haven’t met any of my cousins. I was going to London for next year’s Season when Papa died. But I’ll meet them now we are going to England.’

  ‘I met Lord Standon and Lady Dereham, whose husband is an old friend, in London when I was on leave, before I sailed for the West Indies. They were expecting Lord Sebastian Ravenhurst and his wife, the Grand Duchess Eva, to join them in a few weeks. I have not met the Duke, no, nor your uncle the bishop nor any of the rest of them—they were presumably too busy occupying their niche at the pinnacle of society at the time.’

  ‘Nathan? You are angry—what is it?’

  ‘I told you who I am—were you not listening? I am the younger son of an impoverished baron. I am a career naval officer with no land of my own, no prospect of a title and advancement other than what I can earn myself in a dangerous profession. I thought you were the daughter of a modestly well-off merchant and that, by offering you marriage, I would save you from the consequences of the situation you found yourself in, that the life I could give you would not be materially worse than you were used to.’

  ‘Yes, but I would not be worse off! You are saving my reputation, you are taking care of me and we have my inheritance—when the lawyers manage to untangle it.’

  Nathan sat up, trying not to wince at the strain on his back. Ignoring wounds when sexually aroused was one thing—now every laceration and bruise seemed to be alive and protesting. ‘Just what, exactly, does your inheritance consist of?’

  ‘Six merchantmen—it was seven before Raven Duchess was taken.’ She began to count them off on her fingers. ‘Princess, Lady, Baroness, Marchioness, Belle Dame and Countess. Then there are the warehouses, Raven’s Hold, the house in Spanish Town and three penns, all with free labour, two in Port Royal parish and one in St Andrew. They supply food for the household really, not income.’ She was studying his face now, her expression anxious. ‘And the investments, of course.’

  ‘Of course,’ Nathan echoed. ‘The investments. Clemence, listen to me. You do not need to marry me, all you need to do is to arrive in London, put yourself under the protection of the Ravenhursts and everything will be all right. They’ll send out lawyers who will eat the Naismiths alive and so cow the Governor that not a whisper of this will escape—their influence in society is such that your name will be completely untarnished.’

  ‘But, I would like to marry you, Nathan.’

  ‘You said yourself that there was no one to whom you were attracted on the island, so no wonder you are willing to marry me now. When you get to London you will have the choice of every eligible man in society. You do not need to throw yourself away on me,’ he added harshly.

  ‘But I wouldn’t be! How could I throw myself away on a good, courageous, honourable man?’

  He hugged those words to himself for a second, then put them away somewhere to recollect when she was gone. ‘Because you can do better,’ he said harshly.

  ‘Nathan—’ Whatever it was she had been about to say was cut off. Clemence shook her head, as though arguing with herself.

  ‘Clemence, I have
only the money that I earn myself—my pay and prize money. I was, seven years ago, so well off from prize money that I felt it safe to take a wife.’

  ‘A wife? You have been married?’

  He nodded. ‘She is dead. I did not take enough care of her. And she was very expensive—the money is gone.’ There, now she knew.

  ‘Did you love her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So you are a widower, you can marry again.’

  ‘I am trailing the scandal of her death,’ he said tersely and something in her expression showed she recalled a conversation they had had before.

  ‘The duel you fought?’

  ‘With the man who intended to become her lover,’ he said, heedless of the blow to his pride that admission caused. ‘You see how desirable I am? If we lived quietly, that would hardly matter, but you have a position in society. I do not relish taking on the mantle of the fortune hunter who brought about the downfall of yet another well-bred virgin.’

  ‘So you do not wish to marry me at all, really?’ Clemence slid back so she was against one of the bedposts. ‘You were just doing the honourable thing to save my reputation.’ She waved a hand at the rumpled white bedding. ‘And I suppose, at least, once you had taught me to be less ignorant, you would not have minded bedding the wife you took out of kindness.’

  Nathan wanted to protest, to tell her he wanted, not just to bed her, but to discover her in his bed every day. That far from forcing himself to do the honourable thing, he now found he was having to use all his will-power not to act dishonourably and take her, here and now, and keep her. Because Clemence Ravenhurst had got under his skin and into his heart in a way that he had thought would never happen to him again. If he were not careful, he would find himself fancying that he was in love with her and that was only a delusion, for that part of him was dead.

  ‘You are too young,’ he tried. ‘If you had more experience of the world, you would understand…’

  ‘I am too young, too rich and too well connected. I see,’ Clemence said, her voice flat. ‘What it boils down to is that you do not care to face my relatives and risk what they might say of you. What I am, as a person, does not count in this equation. Very well, I understand that a man’s honour is a very touchy and particular thing. And I am so very sorry about your wife. Please…’ she gestured towards the door ‘…please do not let me keep you from your rest.’