In Like Flynn, page 28
“You have a few more weeks to rest, wife, and then I’ll begin to claim my husbandly rights.”
“Every night?” she asked with a devious giggle.
“And sometimes in the morning, the afternoon . . . just before dinner . . .” He smiled roguishly at her and then kissed the tip of her nose.
“Very well . . . I shall remember to give in to your demands, husband.” She snorted out a laugh and then added, “As long as I am able to claim my wifely rights as well.”
“You will find, madam, I am most eager to submit to any and all of your desires.”
“Is that so?” she asked with wide and guileless eyes. “Because I rather liked it when you were chained to the wall of my cabin. I never did have the opportunity to enjoy it the way I should have liked.” She feathered a kiss along his jaw. “Can you imagine how I might’ve taken you into my mouth, on my knees, and you would have been chained, helpless, only able to enjoy anything that I might offer?”
Nicholas bit back a curse as white-hot desire burned through his body.
“And I imagine,” he growled as he fisted his hand in her hair, which was loosely coiling down her neck and shoulders, “that I should very much like to do the same with you, my pirate queen. To chain you to our bed and pleasure you in a thousand ways until you are hoarse from screaming in ecstasy.”
Brianna’s breath caught, and her rebellious pirate eyes flashed up to his as she gave him that saucy grin that delighted and maddened him.
“Now that is a torture well worth submitting to. I’d better go bother Joe to find a pair of manacles . . .” She turned to leave, but he pulled her into his arms again.
“Later, my pirate wife. Later.”
CHAPTER 23
Cornwall, England
Three months later
* * *
Dominic’s ship, the Robbie Darling, sailed into a port off the coast of Cornwall on a clear, sunny morning in the early fall. The emerald hills, sheer cliffs, and rocky shores were the first sight Brianna had of Nicholas’s home.
She leaned against the rail of the ship, taking it all in. Her bright skirts billowed around her legs and Nicholas’s as he stood on the deck beside her. She peeped at him beneath her lashes, noting how the tension she had seen so often on his face had finally vanished. The sun illuminated his blond hair, and the wind tugged playfully at the long strands around his forehead. The gaunt, weary, wounded man she’d known the last three months was finally gone. He had left his cane back in Jamaica, and apparently his worries too.
Brianna nudged his arm with hers. “Are you glad to be returning home?”
He grinned bashfully at her. “I am,” he admitted.
She was glad he was so happy. She had done her best to conceal her own fears until today, about whether she would find a life for herself here. But his optimism buoyed her spirits.
“There’s nothing to fear, Brianna.” He took her hand in his. His hold was firm and grounded her like an anchor dropping beneath the waves. She let out a breath as some of her own tension faded.
“What will your parents think of me? Surely they weren’t happy to find out you’d married a former pirate, not to mention a veritable hoyden.” He’d confessed to her that he’d written them a few letters and they knew the entire story of her background. She’d been horrified at first, but he’d assured her—or rather, tried his best to convince her—that his parents wouldn’t care about any of that. She still wasn’t sure she believed him.
“Not that it matters, but they already love you.”
Nicholas seemed so sure of that, but she wasn’t. “What? How could they?”
Nicholas’s lips curved into one of her favorite smiles. Tender, full of satisfaction and certainty. It was the smile he gave her whenever they made love, which was almost daily. She had never known a man with such desire or stamina. Luckily for him, she was a “lusty wench,” as he so adoringly put it when she demanded he bed her.
He cupped her face with his hand, his blue eyes as clear as the sky above.
“Love is simple. They will love you because I do.”
Love is simple. Her father had said something similar to her what felt like a lifetime ago.
Her hand went to her stomach, a sudden need to hold her palm over her womb where the tiny life grew inside her. She hadn’t yet told Nicholas he was going to be a father. She wanted to wait until the right time.
He lowered his head to hers and kissed her. “You’re brilliant, brave, and beautiful. What’s not to love?” Whistles and good-natured jeers from the crew made them laugh and pull apart from each other. Dominic laughed along with his men.
“Don’t you all have a ship to dock?” she yelled at Dominic and his crew mockingly. It was hard to remember that this wasn’t her ship and she couldn’t give the orders.
She and Nicholas always seemed to lose themselves in each other in front of others.
Dominic leapt down the steps from the upper deck to where they stood as crew began to toss the lines out to the men waiting on the dock. “Are you two ready?”
Soon, the gangplank had been lowered and the crew were carrying their trunks down to a waiting coach in the distance.
Her husband turned to her, offering his arm and echoing Dominic’s question. “Are you ready?” She had a strange moment of déjà vu, remembering that long-ago day in the Port Royal market with Joe when she’d imagined herself doing this very thing. Walking as a fine lady on the arm of a gentleman. Only Nicholas was infinitely more wonderful than any fantasy nobleman she could have dreamed up.
The ride to Nicholas’s home was not long, and yet during that half hour in the coach, she managed to work up her nerves again to the point that she nearly ruined the fine silk of her gown as she twisted it in her strong hands. Noticing her distress, Nicholas gently freed her skirts from her fingers.
The coach rolled to a stop, and her heart began to pound against her ribs.
“There’s nothing to worry about.” He pulled her onto his lap while they waited for the footman to open the door and lower the step for them. “You have faced far worse dangers than this. Just imagine you won a battle at sea and now you’re boarding the enemy vessel.”
“Hardly. I actually want your parents to like me, not steal their jewels and cargo.”
Damn the man, he dared to laugh in light of her distress.
“You are without a doubt the most ador—”
“If you say adorable, I will punch you, husband,” she warned, quite seriously, but his smile only grew, and he hugged her closer.
“I know you will, love. Then I’ll kiss you afterward to make you feel better.”
His reactions to her temper always distracted her. Instead of insisting she bury her rages, he embraced them with her and promised to love her afterward. Somehow that in and of itself always seemed to defuse her anger.
“Just remember to breathe.” He kissed the tip of her nose and then set her on her feet so that he could exit the coach first to assist her. Etiquette aside, she still wasn’t completely comfortable in these skirts.
She held her breath again despite him reminding her to breathe. Sometimes it was quite impossible to breathe when she was worried about something else. When she finally stepped out of the coach and looked up, a man and a woman stood on the steps of the stately manor house made of gray stone. Nicholas wove her arm through his, and she let him escort her up the steps to meet the couple waiting for them.
“Nicholas!” his parents exclaimed together and embraced their son eagerly. Brianna watched with an almost violent pang of longing for her own father.
“This is Brianna, my wife.” Nicholas beamed at her, and for a moment, she forgot all of her fears. “Brianna, allow me to introduce you to my father, Daniel, and my mother, Julia.”
“Brianna! Oh, she’s even more beautiful than all your letters said.” Nicholas’s mother wrapped her arms around Brianna in a warm hug before Brianna could react. Julia was a striking woman with flaxen hair and gray eyes. Much of Nicholas’s fine looks clearly came from her.
“Let her catch her breath, my love,” Daniel teased his wife.
“Oh, I’m so sorry.” His mother released Brianna and smiled as though she was sincerely glad to meet her.
“Now it is my turn.” Daniel was a dark-haired gentleman with intense blue eyes much like his son’s. He came forward and embraced Brianna with far more gentleness, like a father should, warmly, all encompassing, and she immediately felt safe in this man’s arms.
“Thank you for bringing our son back and saving his life.” Nicholas’s father said the words softly in her ear so that she was the only one who heard. Then he stepped back and said for all to hear, “Welcome to our family, Brianna.”
“Th—thank you.” She could barely get the words out. She was stunned by their welcoming her and even more stunned to find that she already felt like part of this new family.
“You’re just in time, Brianna. Your father arrived yesterday,” Daniel said.
She gasped. “My father is here?”
Her father had gone ahead to England a few weeks before them in order to look around Cornwall for a place to settle down.
“I am,” Thomas Holland announced from the open doorway. Brianna’s control over her emotions failed her. She rushed toward her father, and he caught her in his arms, holding her tight, and she felt that pang of longing vanish. He was here—her father and Nicholas’s family were all together, and it felt . . . wonderful.
“We settled him on the bordering estate. Lord Faulkin died six months ago and left no immediate heirs. Since the estate was handled by his solicitor, it was quite easy to manage the sale of the house and land for your father.”
“And I’m grateful for all of your help, Daniel,” Thomas said. “It is exactly what I had hoped to find.”
“You’re truly staying close?” Brianna asked. She and Nicholas had discussed remaining at the family home until they could find their own house.
Her father chuckled. “I’ll be close enough.” He winked at her. “Nicholas, your father is quite the fellow. We’ve been out hunting pheasants and drafting new plans for the crofter cottages I’ve inherited with my land purchase. He’s been an immense help to me.”
“I’m glad to hear it, sir,” Nicholas said with pride as he looked between their fathers.
Brianna had worried that the life of a country gentleman would bore her father, but it seemed that she had been wrong. There was a peace to Thomas now that was undeniable. He was ready for this phase of his life.
“Why don’t you both come in? We’re expecting guests for dinner this evening.”
“Guests?” Nicholas asked.
“Yes. Brianna’s uncle, aunt, and cousin will be staying the week with us. They arrive tonight.”
“So soon?” Brianna clutched Nicholas’s arm, surprised that she needed to feel him so close, but his presence always comforted her.
“Your family—your other family—is most anxious to meet you,” Julia said. “We were worried it might be too soon, but the Duke of Essex is hard to say no to.”
“Nicholas, why don’t you take Brianna upstairs so she can rest and change for dinner?” Julia suggested. Brianna flashed her a grateful look. She was overwhelmed at the moment and needed to be alone with Nicholas for a short while to process everything.
Nicholas escorted Brianna through the light and airy corridors of his family home, and she was soon lost in the paintings and fine furniture.
“Not what you expected?” he asked with amusement in his eyes.
“I’d always heard Cornwall was cold, stormy, and gloomy, but this is beautiful. The house is light and so full of windows, and I can smell the sea from here.”
“It can be stormy and gloomy,” he admitted. “And those nights are best spent by the fire, wrapped in the arms of one’s spouse. It’s even better if we’re naked.”
She laughed at his sensual teasing. “I see.”
The atmosphere here was different than on the islands. The humidity there could often feel cloying, and now she felt strangely free. She could breathe in the air here forever.
“It smells like rain,” Brianna said as she and Nicholas stopped near a bedchamber at the end of the east wing.
Nicholas chuckled. “It’s England. Even on sunny days, it smells like fresh rain.” He paused, resting his hand on the door handle. “Do you hate it here? Please be honest with me.” He looked so worried, so uncertain, but Brianna would never lie to him.
“I’ve always loved the smell of rain.” She nodded at his hand on the door handle. “Well, aren’t you going to show me our bedroom?” She raised an eyebrow, and his face split into a grin. If she seduced her husband right now, she wouldn’t have to think about meeting her family in a few hours.
Nicholas had learned one very important thing about his wife in the last three months. She always lured him to bed whenever she desperately needed a distraction. He didn’t mind indulging her desires, not when she was so tempting, but he would have to talk to her afterward about her fear of meeting her family.
They stepped into his bedchamber, and he closed the door. She walked around the room, her fingertips trailing over the coverlet and around the spindles of his four-poster bed before she paused in front of the bookshelves. Tucked between the spaces of these texts were fragments of his life. A rabbit’s foot that was older than his father, a set of fishing hooks he had made himself, dozens of seashells, and other odds and ends children collected as they explored the world. She touched each one, her smile a little sad as she finally looked his way.
“I didn’t . . . I didn’t have many of these growing up.”
He came a few steps closer to her. “Why not?” He often wondered about her childhood and what it had been like. She said so little about it.
“My father had his home in Saint Kitts,” she said after a long pause.
“It wasn’t your home?”
She shook her head. “I lived there, but we so often went to sea that I grew up more on ships than in houses. There’s only ever been one place that was truly mine.”
He knew instinctively what she meant. “Your ship.”
“The Sea Serpent was my world, but even then I couldn’t keep too many things in my cabin. Pirates must be ready to move quickly. We can’t afford to be sentimental.” She chuckled softly, but the sound was also full of sorrow. She suddenly thought of the old wooden mermaid in the corner of Gavin’s cabin. Perhaps she was lying to herself. Pirates were possibly far more sentimental than she’d ever wanted to admit.
“What?” Nicholas asked.
“My friend Gavin Castleton—he’s sentimental, too much so for a pirate. I worry about him sometimes. His family hails from here. He left home to go to sea when he wasn’t much younger than you were, and it caused a great rift between him and his brother.”
“That’s the fellow your father chose as the new Admiral of the Black?” Nicholas asked. “You were close to him?”
“He was one of the few men that I was able to build a friendship with, but . . .”
Nicholas didn’t indulge in any jealousy. He knew how Brianna felt about him and was confident in her love, but he was curious as to what she would say. “But what?”
She turned away from the bookshelves and looked at him. “No one ever eased my loneliness until you.” Her eyes were bright as flames, and he had the foolish desire to compose sonnets to those eyes.
“You’re my home, Nicholas. Wherever you are, that is home to me,” she said, and her heart shone in her lovely green eyes.
Unable to speak lest his voice break, he pulled her into his arms and held her tight, so tight he feared he might crush her, but he needed to feel her in his arms and hold the most precious gift life had ever given him.
“My life at sea has taken so much away from me. But the sea also gave me you, and that has more than made up for it. You are my gift, a shining pearl, a treasure every pirate dreams of finding. You are everything to me. I will go wherever you wish. If you want to live on a ship the rest of our lives, sailing around the world, then my heart leaps with joy at the thought, so long as you are there with me.”
Tears soaked his shirtfront as she rubbed her cheek against his shoulder.
“You wouldn’t make me stay here and play the role society demands of me? I am the niece of a duke. What if . . . ?”
“As the niece of a duke, you can do whatever the bloody hell you want,” he laughed. “And I’ll lay flat anyone who dares to argue otherwise.”
She laughed with him, but it came out more as a sob. “I was so afraid that you wouldn’t want that.”
Nicholas kissed the crown of her hair. “You are what I want. Damn the rest.”
She smiled through her tears. “Truly?”
In answer, he lowered his head and kissed her. For a long while after, neither of them worried about anything—except perhaps missing dinner.
CHAPTER 24
“They’re here,” Nicholas called from the doorway as he came to check on Brianna. She had decided to wear her mother’s silver-and-blue gown, and her hair had been pulled up into a mass of curls and waves. Julia’s lady’s maid had threaded pearls onto strands of Brianna’s hair, making it look as though Venus had left the sea to sprinkle the sea’s treasures on Brianna’s coiffure. Brianna drew in a deep breath and faced Nicholas. She prayed she looked fit to meet a duke and duchess.
“How do I look?” she asked nervously.
With a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, her husband pretended to scrutinize her appearance.
“Well, you’ll have to do, but I much prefer my pirate queen in breeches and wielding a brace of pistols.”
She scoffed at him as though offended and tried to march past him, chin raised haughtily. He caught her arm and pulled her back.
