Claimed by the Rogue (17 page)

Drawing back, the pirate captain sent him a satisfied smile. “Now there will be no question tomorrow that you are my property and you, mate, will have a permanent memento to remember me.”

Not until later, when a vinegar-soaked sponge carried him back to consciousness, did Robert look down to the initials blackening his outer thigh.

AT—Arthur Trent.

Robert bolted upright, the sudden motion driving a shaft of pain into his battered right side. Cursing, he eased back against the headboard, swiping a bandaged hand across his sweat-beaded brow.
 

Another nightmare, and just as he’d begun hoping he might finally be free of them.

The evening at Almack’s culminating in the fall from his horse had dredged up all the old anxieties. Feeling powerless even for an instant invariably hauled him back to that hellish time of being tortured and trussed, taunted and denigrated. Likely it always would. But he was stronger now. He couldn’t control the nightmares, but he could control his actions in their aftermath. Unlike the times before, he wasn’t going to bury himself beneath self-pity or piles of blankets. He wasn’t going to get drunk. Now that he had Phoebe to fight for, he was going to persevere, to push through the mental anguish and physical pain for her sake as well as his own.

Resolved, he lowered his stiffened legs over the bedside and stood. Shuffling over to the washstand, his bruises made him move like an old man, but he swore to shake off the temptation to slacken. Rather than ring for hot water, he made do with cold. Sluicing his swollen face, he allowed that the cuts would likely mean eschewing shaving for another day. Still, he dressed with care, making himself as presentable as he might before heading downstairs. The savory scent of sausage and kippers and coddled eggs steered him to the breakfast room.
 

Seated at the cloth-covered table, Chelsea looked up when he entered. Unlike the previous day, she barely blinked at the black-and-blue sight of him. “Children, bid your Uncle Robin good morning.”

Two bright-eyed imps looked up from pushing food about their plates. “G’morning, Uncle Robin,” they chorused, staring at him as though he were a carnival curiosity.

“Children.” Favoring his right side, he approached the table and dropped a kiss atop each tousled crown.

“How are your boo boos, Uncle Robin?” Daphne asked, her blue eyes mirrors of concern.

“Much better today, thank you, poppet,” Robert answered. Looking over the child’s crown of copper curls, he shared a smile with her mother.

Daphne was the very image of Chelsea, while Tony’s brown hair and acorn-colored eyes favored his father. Seeing them looking like miniature adults brought home yet again just how very much he’d missed. But now was not the time to indulge in maudlin musings. He made his way over to the sideboard. Lifting the lid on the first of several chased silver rashes, he found it brimming with bacon. Of all the foods he’d missed during his years away, English bacon crowned the list. Ever since his return, he couldn’t seem to stuff himself with sufficient. He picked up a juicy slab and folded it into his mouth.
 

From the corner of his eye he caught his sister scowling. “Why not make yourself a plate and sit down with the rest of us?” She cast a pointed look to Tony and Daphne, regards riveted on his greasy fingers.

Sucking his glistening thumb, he accepted the napkin she passed over. “You sound just like Mother used to.” Locating the coffee urn, he poured himself a cup. Finding it strong and black, just as he liked it, he took a bracing swallow.

Tony piped up, “When I’m grown, I’m going off to sea and be a pirate like you, Uncle Robin.”

Robert nearly spat coffee onto his shirtfront.
 

Shooting him a warning look, Chelsea turned to her son. “Your uncle is a merchant, not a pirate. They’re two different occupations entirely, aren’t they,
Uncle Robin
?”

“Er, quite.”

“I don’t care what ’tis called so long as I can go to sea.” Gaze mutinous, the boy put down his fork, picked up the remains of his sausage and crammed it into his mouth.

Expression alarmed, Chelsea’s reached across to wipe his mouth. “Don’t be silly, darling. You’re going to stay on English soil with Mama and Papa and the other normal people. And by the by, use your cutlery as Mama has taught you.”

Lower lip protruding, Tony announced, “But being a landlubber is
boring
.”
 

Dodging Chelsea’s dagger look, Robert choked back a chuckle.

“May I at least wear an earring, Mama?” Tony persisted, staring pointedly at Robert’s. Despite his concessions to London’s more subdued men’s fashion, keeping his earring proclaimed that “Captain Lazarus” wasn’t entirely dead and buried.
 

Chelsea clanged her teacup in its saucer. “Not while I live and breathe, my precious.”

Daphne, quiet until now, dragged her gaze from Robert to her mother. “I want to be a pirate—pardon, Mama,
merchant
—too. Only he—” she lanced her twin a barbed look “—swears I can’t on account of being a girl.” She swiveled her curly head back to Robert. “There are girl pirates, too, aren’t there, Uncle Robin?”

“Indeed there are,” Robert replied, dodging Chelsea’s dagger looks. “There was Grace O’Malley and Anne Bonny, both Irishwomen who did quite well for themselves, certainly for a time. But by far the greatest female pir—er,
merchant
was a beautiful Chinese woman by the name of Cheng I Sao. Ten years ago, she retired from the trade richer than Croesus despite starting out as a lowly prostit—”

“Children, that will serve,” Chelsea broke in, pinning Robert with a gimlet gaze. “Your uncle has an important engagement and you have lessons with Nanny. If you’ve finished your breakfasts, you are excused.”

The twins set aside their napkins and scooted out of their seats. Padding toward the door, Daphne turned back. “Shall we see you at tea, Uncle Robin?”

Robert hesitated. If all went as he planned, he would be sharing the midday meal al fresco with Phoebe. “I’m afraid I have an appointment to attend.”

The children’s smiles dipped.

“But I shall see you for supper,” he put in swiftly. “And afterward, I shall tuck you in and tell you a story—one that meets with your mama’s approval, of course,” he added, shooting his sister a wink.

Spirits restored, the twins padded out. Once their footsteps had faded, Chelsea said, “I fancy I now know how Mother and Father must have felt when I announced my plans to decamp to Epsom and earn my bread as a jockey.”

“A case of tit for tat, indeed,” Robert agreed. “You were about their age, I believe, and Mother and Father not much older than we are now.”

She arched a roan-colored brow. “Wait until you have a family of your own, and then you’ll—” She stopped in mid-sentence. “Oh, dearest, I am sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“It’s fine.” He set his half-drunk coffee down, the beverage suddenly seeming to have turned bitter. “I do want a family, but that rather depends on Phoebe.”

“And if she won’t be dissuaded from this marriage to Bouchart?”

He shrugged though he felt the farthest thing from nonchalant. Bouchart was at best a bounder after her fortune, at worst something far more dangerous. “I’ll go back to sea, I suppose. Salt air’s wonderfully good at healing wounds.”

Visibly bristling, Chelsea shot him what he was coming to think of as The Look. “So that’s the plan, is it? Live out your vagabond life as little better than a pirate until your luck runs low?”

“I believe the proper term is
merchant
, but yes, that’s the basic notion. And why the devil shouldn’t I go where the trade winds blow me? If Phoebe won’t have me, what’s left for me here?”

Chelsea slammed her teacup into its saucer. “Thanks a bloody lot. What of your niece and nephew, the babe on the way, me for that matter? Are we mincemeat?”

“I didn’t mean… Christ, Chels, don’t you be angry with me too. You must know I worship those children and…well, as sisters come, I suppose you’ll do.”

Her scowl eased. “Then why not stay on with us? The children adore you. Despite that ridiculous earring, I’m rather fond of you myself. As for Anthony, the two of you appear to be growing upon one another.”
 

“And so we are. It’s only that—”

“Yes, yes, I know, land is
boring
. But then perhaps you’ve yet to give terra firma a fair chance, hmm? Surely playing hazard with your life by haring off to parts unknown must become boring, too, after a while?”

Torn between exasperation and amusement, he shook his head. Once Chelsea fixed her mind upon something, in this case keeping his prodigal feet planted on English soil, she was implacable as a boulder. Then again, he supposed the same could be said of his resolve to reclaim Phoebe.

“I appreciate the invitation, Chels, and I love you for it, but I won’t feed you false hope. If Phoebe goes through with this marriage, I’ll be pulling up anchor as soon as the ship is provisioned. Staying on and crossing paths with her as another man’s wife would be beyond bearing. Surely you of all people can comprehend that?”

Exhaling heavily, she nodded. “Years ago when I thought Anthony had gone through with marrying Phoebe, I couldn’t think beyond getting clear of London as quickly as I could, so yes, I do understand. That doesn’t mean I have to like it. Or,” she added, brightening, “give up hope of changing your mind.”

“You, give up! Perish the thought.” Shoving away from the sideboard, he reached out and gave her shoulder a squeeze. “It’s early days yet, sister dear, and mark me, I mean to use every weapon in my arsenal to win Phoebe away from that Frog fop.”

Chelsea nodded. “Barring kidnapping, I’ll help you in any way I can and not only for your sake. Phoebe doesn’t love Aristide, I know it. As for the count, though I’ve no reason to disparage his character, I only know I cannot like him.”

He studied her. “Why is that?” Something about Bouchart had never set well with him either, but until recently it had been a simple matter to fob off his ill feelings as bias born of their rivalry.

She shrugged. “’Tis nothing I can lay my finger upon, more of a sense I have that won’t go away. Anthony teases me about my ‘woman’s intuition’, but I’ve never been able to bring myself to trust the man. I fear he may try to provoke you into an open quarrel or worse.”
 

Robert thought back to the other night at Almack’s. His cinch hadn’t cut itself. Someone had tampered with his tack, a deliberate act meant to see him injured or worse. Beyond Aristide, who in London had cause to wish him out of the way? Phoebe’s mother came to mind, but much as he disliked the woman, he couldn’t see his way to laying such a foul deed at her feet.

Nor could he accuse Bouchart openly. The Frenchman had been in plain view all evening. But men such as the count didn’t soil their hands themselves. They employed others to do their dirty deeds for them. Not for the first time, Robert recalled the gold-toothed groom. His gallows face was more in keeping with an inmate of Newgate Gaol than a servant in St. James’s. Robert would wager The Swan that the man was no stableman but a henchman planted there to make mischief. When he’d returned to Almack’s the previous day to inquire more closely, none of the footmen or groomsmen on duty could recall ever seeing a groom fitting that description anywhere about the premises.

Eyeing him, Chelsea said, “You never did say how you came to fall the other night.”

Robert shrugged. “It was a careless accident. I took the turn too fast, nothing more.” Another lie, this one in the service of sparing his pregnant sister undue upset.

She hesitated, biting her lip as though she were the one of them holding something back.

“What is it?’ he asked, glimpsing tears gathering.

She paused, taking a long, trembling breath. “I never told you this, I thought it best not to, but the carriage accident that took Mama and Papa from us was no accident at all. Before he died, Squire Dumfreys admitted to soring the lead horse.”

Besotted with Chelsea to the point of obsession, the squire had been the one behind Robert’s and Phoebe’s kidnapping six years ago, but he’d never considered that the man’s treachery might extend to murdering their parents. Had poison not already placed the villain beyond his reach, Robert would have gladly made murdering him his life’s mission.
 

Once again he was too late.
 

He scraped a hand through his hair, belatedly recalling his bruises. “Dear God, I had no idea. Why didn’t you tell me before?”
 

She swiped a hand over her eyes. “What was the point? Telling you wouldn’t bring Mama and Papa back. And you’d been through so much already with being kidnapped and held that I thought you deserved a chance at being happy.”

Emotions cinched his throat—shock, anger,
betrayal
. “They were my parents too. I had the right to know.” Were it not for her pregnancy, he would have said more.

She hesitated, blinking back fresh tears. “I suppose I was trying to protect you. I only bring it up now because… Well, you’re an awfully good horseman to lose your seat as you did the other night.”

He opened his mouth to admit the cut girth when his gaze alighted on her protruding belly. “My tumble the other night was an accident and nothing more. Pray put it from your thoughts.”