The Pirate and the Pagan (45 page)

Whispers were turned into full-voiced concern, then became loud cries. Plague! Plague! Suddenly it became apparent that death played no favorites. London could not stop the Reaper whose skull grinned and gave the gravediggers employment.

The theaters began to close. Ships’ crews were kept aboard and not allowed to roam London’s taverns, and the King decided to remove his court from Whitehall to Hampton Court away up the Thames past Richmond.

Fanatics preached that it was a divine judgment being handed down from above because the whole court was profligate and infected the whole of society. Others blamed the populace at large for its loose morals. It was said that all Londoners had murderous tempers, would cheat even a blind man, and steal the copper pennies from the eyes of a corpse. It was all true, of course, but Londoners, be they prince or pauper, did not mend their ways. Rather they became almost frenzied in their pursuit of pleasure and dangerous diversion.

Summer had deserted the bland company of Queen Catherine and Frances Stewart for the faster crowd of Barbara Castlemaine and Anne Carnegie. Accompanied by Buckingham and big-headed Henry Jermyn, they took a boat over to Southwark one evening to attend something reported to be very exciting. It was a knife fight, much more bloodthirsty than cockfights or bear baitings. The preliminary bouts were sword fights where first blood drawn won, but the main bout was whispered to be a fight to the death!

Their party arrived accompanied by a dozen swaggering gallants, all laughing too loudly. Linkboys with their flares led them from their boat to the secret place of the knife fight. Summer wore a hat with a sweeping feather which concealed her left cheek, and she had stolen a page from the book of Black Jack Flash and wore dramatic black and white. The very air was charged with excitement and Summer could feel her pulses racing. This was a welcome
change from the company she usually kept. They had become dull as a damned sermon.

She had just accepted a silver flask from one of her admirers and was about to tip its fiery contents down her throat when a powerful hand took her wrist and made it immobile. “Hell and furies,” she swore, “let go or I’ll have you beaten and kicked!”

“Indeed, madame?” said Lord Helford in a voice so menacing, a shiver ran up her spine. “I don’t believe a knife fight is a fit place for the mother of my child … or have you conveniently rid yourself of it?” He sneered as he raked her slim figure from head to toe.

His words cut her to the heart. “What makes you such a cruel bastard?” she asked low, her throat swollen with unshed tears.

Desire flared in him. She was more temptingly beautiful than she had ever been. She was still extremely slim-waisted, but her breasts could only be described as voluptuous. He pictured her naked and ached to experience her new ripeness. His green eyes glittered with suppressed fury. “I didn’t mind your frolics with the Queen, she is always well guarded and chaperoned, even when she isn’t aware of it, but the company you keep tonight is unacceptable. If you are allowed to associate with such, you will become as notorious as the whores you are with. I’m taking you home.”

“Plague take you, Helford!” It was a most obscene epithet to throw at him in such times of horror.

“It may take you, madame. I hear pregnant women are particularly vulnerable.”

She gasped. Real fear had been with her for some time now. He took her elbow in a firm grip.

“Take your hands from me, sir,” she ordered angrily.

“If you don’t come willingly, I shall simply carry you off. The choice is yours,” he said in a tone that brooked no denial. She glanced about to see who was watching her encounter with her husband and thought better of refusing him. Helford was capable of any atrocity that crossed his mind. He had his carriage waiting. He helped her inside and she sank back against the velvet squabs. Being confined together in such a small space was almost unbearable. The very air between them was charged with sexual tension until finally, when she could bear the silence no longer, she spat, “I hate you!”

His deep voice filled the coach, filled her very head. “The opposite
of love isn’t hate, Summer—it’s indifference—and indifference is one thing we’ll never feel toward each other.”

“How could you say such a thing to me about the child?” she asked in anguish.

“Because I wanted to hurt you, of course. I don’t think for one moment you would ever do such a thing,” he admitted. His voice hardened again. “You heeded me not about leaving London.”

Her mind working like quicksilver, she said, “If Roseland were still mine, I would consider going there to get away from this terrible plague …” Her words hung in the air. As he turned toward her in the dark coach, his hand brushed her breast and she cried out as if she had been scalded. Suddenly she found herself enfolded in his embrace; his arms were like steel bands crushing her to his heart, his mouth fused to hers as if he had been starving for her. “Ru,” she cried breathlessly, uncertain if it was lust or love that drove him.

“My darling, my honey love,” he said hoarsely, “why do we torture each other so? When I see you out with other men, laughing up into their faces, I want to kill them—aye, and kill you, too,” he said fiercely.

Her guilt over Rory overwhelmed her. “I would much rather be home in Cornwall where there is no danger.”

His arms tightened. “No danger? Wherever you are there is danger. If I sent you home the minute you got bored, you’d be dressing up as the Black Cat,” he accused.

“Soon I’ll have too big a belly to play highwayman.”

“I hope so,” he said, his hands roaming her belly and thighs possessively.

“If I’m being truthful, Spencer would be better off at home. London has been a very bad influence on him.”

“What’s the young devil up to now?” he demanded. “Oh, nothing,” she said faintly.

“Whoring, gambling, drinking, I have no doubt. Worrying you half to death, I suppose.”

“No, really, it’s his friends who are such rakes,” she protested.

“Like your own friends?” he pointed out.

“Damn you, Ruark, you must be the only man on earth arrogant enough to insult me while trying to make love to me!”

Her words fueled his need for her. “Stay with me tonight at Whitehall,” he demanded.

She pretended indifference. “Why on earth would I want to do that?”

“We have an unquenchable thirst for each other,” he said, rubbing his thumb across a taut nipple. “You might,” she said lightly.

“We need to lie naked in each other’s arms all night.”

“You might,” she repeated. But he had a power over her that set her shivering.

“We’ve always been more like lovers than husband and wife,” he murmured against her neck. He ached to be deep inside her and vowed to have her this night. He knew he’d give much if she’d yield to him. “All I ask is one night.”

She pulled away from him, truly offended now. “How dare you treat me like a strumpet?”

“God’s flesh, Summer, what do you want? You won’t behave like a decent wife and go home where you belong, so I’m reduced to begging your favors one night at a time. You lure me then rebuff me, daring my manhood. I don’t know whether to strangle you or ravish you, or both.” He tipped her face up to his and kissed her gently. “Come to Whitehall with me … on your own terms.”

“Absolutely not,” she said without hesitation. “You will take me to Cockspur Street or you can set me down in the street here.”

“Dammit, Summer, why are you so willful?”

“If I were a passive woman, you’d crush me in a minute.”

“Little chance of that, you’re headstrong as ten men.”

The coachdriver slowed at Whitehall, but Ruark instructed him to drive over to Cockspur Street. He helped Summer out of the carriage and instructed his driver to leave him.

“I didn’t invite you in,” she said pointedly.

“I don’t need an invitation, you are my wife.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you to expedite that annulment,” she said in a brittle voice.

He clamped his hand around her arm and half dragged her up the front steps of the house. “You are the most maddening creature a man was ever cursed with,” he swore.

“Then why do you bother with me? I thought it was over.”

They stood in the entrance hall at the foot of the stairs. “It will never be over between us.” He entangled his fingers in her hair. “You’re still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. I bought you a waterfall diamond necklace for our first week’s anniversary, but we couldn’t even make the honeymoon last one week without
savaging each other,” he said with deep regret in his voice. “If you let me stay with you tonight, it’s yours.”

“I don’t bribe so easily. Now, if you were thinking of offering me Roseland, I might reconsider.”

He swept her up into his arms and carried her up the stairs. Her protests availed her nothing. He was finished asking. He was a man, she was his wife. He had decided to exercise his rights. He set her on her feet when he entered her bedchamber and began to remove his clothes.

“No, Ruark! I won’t! I’ll fight you.”

“The choice is yours. I intend to have you, willing or no,” he said quietly.

She backed away from him across the room, watching him undress in a leisurely fashion. She told herself not to be a fool. She could get Roseland deeded to her if she played her cards right.

When he was naked, he began to stalk her as if she were his prey. Summer knew he was dangerous, but danger always excited her. She ran from him, but watched over her shoulder in a most inviting way his pursuit of her. When his arms closed about her and he tried to remove her gown, she struggled so fiercely they fell to the carpet and rolled about. In less than a minute he had her pinned down and began to remove her clothing in as leisurely a way as he’d removed his own.

Her breasts were full and sensitive and she moaned helplessly as he dipped his head to tongue the rose-pink crests. She struggled again and managed to get to her feet, but he clasped his hands tightly behind her thighs and forced her forward until his mouth touched her most secret part. She arched forward so he could taste her and cried over and over “Ru, Ru.” Then they were lost in each other, exploring and reexploring all the different ways they’d discovered to love each other.

Suddenly there was a crash, followed by a lot of giggling. They both sat up in bed and Summer searched frantically in the dark to find her bedrobe. They stared in disbelief as their door opened and three figures staggered in. “She’s not here, I tell you, she’s at Court.” The man’s words were so slurred they were almost indecipherable.

Ruark lit the bedside lamp and its light illuminated Summer’s brother, dressed like a town gallant with his arms about two young street prostitutes. Ruark confronted him instantly. “What the hell is the meaning of this drunk and disorderly display, Spencer? How
dare you worry your sister like this! I can’t believe you’d bring these drabs to defile your sister’s bed.”

“Well, well,” said Spider, swaying on his feet, “if it isn’t the Helford brothers’ whore.” He bowed to her mockingly.

Ruark’s fist smashed into his face and he went down into unconsciousness. His companions had run from the house the moment they’d seen Lord Helford’s fury.

“Ruark, don’t! My God, you’ve killed him, you brute,” cried Summer, going on her knees to cradle Spider’s bleeding face.

“Get up, dammit, he needs a good thrashing. It’s obvious you can’t handle him. He’s out of control, sowing a crop of bastards across London, bringing the pox home to you.”

“It is you and your temper that’s out of control. He’s only a boy, did you have to be so brutal?” she cried.

His fury was only exacerbated as he saw her pity for the young lout. “He needs discipline. By God, I’ll have him impressed into the navy. I’d soon whip him into shape if he served on one of my vessels.”

“Get out—get out now! I hate you.”

He turned on her angrily. “You, my lady, can get your things packed. You’re going home!” His voice was so implacable, it was an order, and she was too distraught to argue. “I’ll give you twenty-four hours.”

L
ater, as she bathed Spider’s black eye and tried to sober him up with a foul-smelling concoction of Auntie Lil’s, she wished she had taken her pistol to Ruark Helford. He had given her an ultimatum and there was no way she was going to be meekly packed off home, wherever that might be!

Spider was sullen. They exchanged unpleasant words until finally he informed her he was taking rooms in the city where he’d be free from damned meddling women who clocked him in and out like a felon on parole. She argued with him, threatened him, and saw he would do exactly as he pleased, no matter what she said. “Spider, I won’t try to stop you if you promise to let me know where you are living when you get settled,” she bargained desperately. He left without committing himself. “Typical male behavior,” she raged aloud to the empty room. “Ruark Helford is the author of all my problems. I hope he rots in hell!”

Lil Richwood, dressed to the nines, swept in with a dramatic announcement. “Forgive me, darling, I didn’t want to interrupt your delicious rendezvous with your husband last night; I thought the reunion was heaven-sent. How was I to know it would degenerate into a brawl before daylight?”