The Pirate and the Pagan (44 page)

When they awoke, Ruark’s hot cheek was pressed to her breast. She stirred, luxuriating in his warmth, and immediately she was assailed by nausea. She groaned, and when he sat up to look down at her with concern, she said, “The fish I had for dinner didn’t agree with me, I’m afraid.”

His dark eyebrows drew together immediately. “Why are you lying to me?” he demanded.

“What do you mean?” she asked, desperately trying to control the nausea.

“You are having my child,” he stated.

“Whatever makes you think that?” she asked lightly.

“Because I made love to you day and night for two whole weeks when we were married.” His eyes narrowed dangerously. “You weren’t going to tell me, were you?”

“There’s nothing to tell,” she insisted. She could contain it no longer. She reached under the bed and was indelicately sick in the chamber pot.

“Lil told me,” he said quietly, bringing her a towel to wipe her mouth.

“Is that what this reconciliation is all about?” she demanded angrily. “If I bear you a son, you’ll reconsider annulling our marriage?” she flared.

He gripped her shoulders and shook her angrily. “You came to London knowing you were with child. I should take my belt to your bottom. I’m sending you home to Helford Hall today. There’s plague in London, it isn’t safe for the baby.”

She shook off his hands and stood defying him, stark naked. “You are
sending
me home today?
Sending
me home? I don’t believe I heard you correctly, Lord Bloody Helford!” The nausea vanished in the face of her anger, “Well, let me make something perfectly clear to you—I won’t be sent anywhere. You can take Helford Hall and you can take your precious marriage and you can shove them where the monkey shoved his nuts. This child is mine … this life is mine … I’ll decide where we’ll live and where we won’t live. And since you insist there be no more secrets between us, let me confess what you forced me to do. When you swore I’d get none of your money and you told me to get my own, I did exactly that. I took to the road, I dressed as a highwayman. I robbed your guests of their money and jewels until I had enough to pay off the mortgage on Roseland.”

“Oh, my God,” he ground out.

“I am the Black Cat. Your bloody Sergeant Oswald arrested the wrong St. Catherine.” She sneered.

Ruark’s face was dark with fury. He began to threaten her. “I’ll take the child away from you.”

She bared her teeth like a female wolf protecting its young. “Then I’ll have to prove that it isn’t your child!”

The palm of his hand made contact with her cheek in a stinging slap. She sank to the bed and spat, “Whoreson, I’ll never forgive you for that.”

In a murderous mood he dressed and quit Whitehall.

S
ummer looked around the chamber until her eyes picked out exactly the right objects. She picked them up and hurled them against the wall. As the pair of priceless Ming porcelain figurines shattered into a thousand shards she felt even worse. She was thoroughly sick and then she fell to the bed and sobbed her heart out. Damn, damn, damn—they’d patched things up so beautifully last night, why did all the seams have to come unglued in the bleak light of day?

In the privacy of the night he’d told her how deeply he loved her, missed her, needed her, and then at dawn he’d lost his temper and actually struck her. Well, she was really finished with him this time. Now she was the one who wanted an annulment.

By the time she bathed and dressed and walked back to Cock-spur Street, Spider had arrived. She did not fall upon his neck and sob her relief but put up her chin and said, “I see you found the new clothes I bought for you. I hope you deloused before you put them on.”

He grinned at her cheekily and said, “Give me a few pounds for a stake, I’m about to embark on my new career. I’ve heard of a fashionable gaming house in Bell Yard.”

She gave him the money but not without a warning. “If you intend to follow in your father’s footsteps, don’t be stupid enough
to get caught. I don’t want you coming back feetfirst with a lead ball in your gut.”

“How elegantly you put it, Cat.”

“If you want elegance, you’ve got the wrong woman. At least try to act civilized while we’re under Auntie Lil’s roof. Perhaps I should get us a place of our own.”

“Then I can act uncivilized?” he questioned innocently.

“Since you’re a bloody man, I have no doubt of it,” she retorted.

“Ah, you’ve obviously had an encounter with Lord Helford recently. Only he can manage to put you in such a bitch of a mood.”

“I’m sorry, Spider, you’re right, of course. Oh, God, I was just sick when that swine Oswald sent you to Newgate. Rory brought me to London on the
Phantom
in the dead of night. I saw the King about getting you released and he told me Ruark had already arranged it. I was so very grateful to him and we almost got to the point where we were acting civilized toward each other again. Until he found out about the baby. We ended up threatening each other, as usual.”

“You’re having a baby, Cat?” asked Spencer with concern.

“I wish to God I wasn’t!” she whispered.

He was shocked. “You don’t want your baby, Cat?”

“Oh, Spider, of course I want my baby, it’s just that—well, I don’t know exactly … which Helford is the father.”

She stole a glance at his face and saw that he was more than shocked, he was appalled at her promiscuity.

“Oh, what does a fifteen-year-old know about these things anyway?” she said crossly.

He stiffened. “I know what’s more or less right is more or less right. What the hell will you do if the child’s Black Jack’s?”

“There’ll be no trouble if it’s Rory’s,” she said defiantly.

“Oh, really? He has to sail into London in the dead of night. When do you suppose you’ll see him again?”

She picked up his plumed hat and handed it to him. “I think we’re both adult enough not to interfere in each other’s lives, don’t you?” she asked pointedly.

    Lil would not hear of Summer getting a place of her own. “Darling, what could possibly be more convenient for you? This house is in the most fashionable part of town and it’s within spitting distance of Whitehall. Whenever you’re at Court late at night, you can stay there in Helford’s rooms.”

“But Lil, are you sure you won’t mind having Spencer live here? He’s used to coming and going at any hour he chooses and he’s likely to have disreputable friends,” warned Summer.

“Darling, I’m particularly partial to attractive men, especially young ones.”

“And what about when the baby comes?” Summer asked bluntly.

Lil Richwood clapped her hands. “At last we are making progress. At least you admit there’s going to be a baby. We shall pick you a good midwife, and when the time comes, you’ll have your lying-in there at her house, and when the child is old enough to go abroad, it shall come to live with us. We’ll be a family, with a nursemaid and everything.”

Summer hugged her warmly. She was the most generous woman Summer had ever encountered. Some way she intended to get Roseland back. She wasn’t quite sure yet how she would accomplish such a feat, but she vowed that by fair means or foul, she would get it back. After all it was Spencer’s birthright, and though the young wretch seemed years away from marriage, when he did take a wife, Roseland should belong to Lord St. Catherine and his heirs.

Since Lil had been so accommodating and Summer knew she was dying to go to a court reception, she invited her aunt to accompany her there tonight. A reception and ball were planned for each night that Charles’s mother and sister were in England.

    Lil consulted with both Summer and Dora, the mistress of her extensive wardrobe. Finally a royal blue taffeta with yards of silver ribbon was chosen. “A woman nearing fifty shouldn’t wear ribbons, but I don’t give a damn,” declared Lil. “You don’t think I’ll look like mutton dressed as lamb, even though I am exactly that, do you, darling?”

At the ball Charles introduced Summer to his little queen Catherine. Her heart went out to the sallow-faced young woman who skillfully plied her fan so that when she smiled, it covered her prominent little teeth.

Catherine said, “We have much in common, Summair … your husband and mine are far too attractive to other ladies, no? Is your husband faithful to you?”

Summer was slightly taken aback at the Queen’s frank question, but obviously fidelity occupied most of her thoughts and brought
her much misery. She chose her words carefully. “Yes, Lord Helford is a tall, dark cavalier like His Majesty but I have never asked myself if he is faithful. Probably he is not, but I am wise enough to know that brief encounters or even longer liaisons are no threat to a wife if her husband treats her well.”

The Queen put her head on one side and said, “There is someone I want very much for you to meet with. She is called Frances Stewart. My husband thinks he is in love with her. After you meet her I want you to tell me honestly if you think she is his latest mistress.”

Summer was amazed to see how young Frances Stewart was. She was a tall, painfully slim girl with pale blond coloring. Catherine invited Summer and Frances to accompany her to a play the next day and left them to become acquainted. Summer found her puzzling. On the surface she seemed nothing more than a simple girl; for one who had spent years at the dissolute French court she seemed naive in the extreme.

“You are so lucky to be married, it is the one dream I cherish in my heart,” said Frances.

Just then Summer noticed Barbara Castlemaine with three gentlemen in tow enter the card room. She stopped to greet Summer, swept her dark eyes over Frances in an insolent examination, and invited, “Come and play dice, Lady Helford, I’m determined to have those rubies off you before I’m done, y’know.”

Frances whispered behind her fan, “Oh, Lord, I wish she hadn’t stopped to speak with us. My reputation will be smirched forever.”

“Lady Castlemaine is the King’s mistress, there’s no dishonor in that at this court,” explained Summer.

“Lady Helford, I am a maiden. If my name is not totally unblemished, I will never receive an offer of marriage.”

“I see,” said Summer, trying to keep from laughing. “Who is the lucky gentleman?”

“Why, any gentleman of the court who is in possession of a title and unencumbered by a wife,” confided Frances.

Later Summer told the Queen, “Your Grace, I can assure you Frances Stewart will never become any man’s mistress. She is obsessed by the notion she must keep her reputation spotless so she will receive an honorable proposal of marriage.”

The Queen said, “How clever you are. You shall be my spy.”

Summer groaned inwardly. She longed for adventure and intrigue and the delicious danger connected with spying, but the only
spying she had been asked to do was to find out who was sleeping with whom. From personal experience Summer felt such intimate information was nobody’s goddamn business but the lovers’ themselves!

Thus began a social whirl for Summer whereby she rode in the park each morning, saw a different play each afternoon, and spent her evenings at Court getting up to nonsensical escapades with the Queen and her ladies. They went about on what they called “frolics.” They thought it the height of daring to dress up as orange girls and go abroad pretending to sell their wares to the cheeky Londoners. Along with the rest of London they flocked to see a baboon brought from Guinea and thought it could be taught the King’s good English.

Summer was growing weary of the whole pointless rigmarole. Here was Frances Stewart being a silly professional virgin, making the King jump through hoops, and there was Barbara Castlemaine opening her legs and holding out her greedy hand at the time so he’d pay her gambling debts of thirty or forty thousand, while children picked rags for threepence a bushel and the plague was devastating the poorer districts, which were a breeding ground for rats and vermin.

    The war was spoken of quite openly now. Ships were being built and fitted out for war as fast as the money could be found. Prince Rupert fit himself out with a ship named
Henrietta
after the King’s mother and Lord Sandwich escorted Charles’s sister and mother back to France while it was still safe to cross the Channel.

Charles received the Dutch ambassador to warn him that England had been pushed too far and intended to retaliate. Reports came in that England had beat the Dutch at Guinea and also in America at New Netherlands and in fact were doing the Dutch fleet damage all over the world.

Uniforms were seen everywhere. Companys of soldiers in white doublets roamed the streets of London, navy garb was seen everywhere, and one company of the militia actually dressed like Turks. Naturally fashion was influenced by all the talk of war and navy blue and brass buttons and jaunty red jackets were worn to court functions. On slim ladies the male attire was provocative, but on the majority, whose figures tended to be on the plump side, the fashions were disastrous.

It was fashionable to speak of war, but not to speak of plague, so
people spoke in whispers. A tally had begun to be taken, because the dreaded scourge had begun to seep into some of the fashionable districts and it seemed like the church bells which tolled for the dead were ringing night and day. Now when the courtiers went to the theater in Drury Lane, they could no longer close their eyes to the red crosses on the doors and their breaths caught in their throats as they read the pitiful signs scrawled across houses that begged, “Lord Have Mercy Upon Us.”