In Like Flynn, page 29
“You are the single most stunning woman I’ve ever seen,” he whispered and kissed her soundly.
Lord, when he kissed her like that . . . she forgot everything whirling around in her head in that moment. There were just his lips on hers, his breath against her skin, and the feel of passion that burned like a well-kept fire.
They broke apart at the sound of a polite cough. Her father stood in the corridor, watching them with no small amount of amusement.
“Plenty of time for that later, Flynn,” Thomas said.
He had been transformed into a country gentleman, wearing fine buckskin breeches, a waistcoat, and a dark-blue frockcoat embroidered with gold. At his side stood Elida in a deep-purple gown that accented her raven-black hair. Brianna had learned only a short time ago that her father had married his Spanish housekeeper and brought her to Cornwall with him. It filled Brianna’s heart with joy to see them together.
“You look wonderful, Elida,” she told her new stepmother, and they hugged tightly.
Elida cupped Brianna’s face in the way she’d done for so many years. “So do you, darling child.” She studied her with a motherly eye. “Have you’ve been crying?”
“Only from happiness,” Brianna admitted.
“Hmm, that is well, then,” Elida said with a nod. “Happy tears are good tears.”
On that, Brianna agreed.
“Well, shall we all go down?” Nicholas asked. “I imagine the cook will be fussing about us attending dinner on time.”
“We had better,” Thomas laughed. “It isn’t a good idea to upset one’s cook.”
At the stairs, they saw Nicholas’s parents speaking with a well-dressed middle-aged couple and a younger man around Brianna’s age.
The Duke of Essex and his family were here. Her family.
They turned to stare up at her when they heard them on the stairs, and Brianna’s heart stopped.
Two pairs of bright-green eyes exactly like hers gazed up at her. Her uncle and her cousin had her eyes. Something about that, the connection to a lost family she’d never known she’d needed, clicked into place.
She and Nicholas came down the stairs first, and her uncle, the Duke of Essex, Michael St. Laurent, stepped forward first, his gaze sweeping over her as he swallowed hard. He was tall and quite handsome, with dark hair streaked with silver at the temples. Yet she saw in that face a man who was not to be ignored. He had power, influence, and yet there was a softness to him as well as he looked at her.
“My God,” he said half to himself. “You truly are my niece. There’s no mistaking it.” He reached into his frock coat and withdrew a pair of miniature portraits, holding them out to her, his mouth still agape as he offered them to her.
Brianna let go of Nicholas’s arms to take the portraits. Her gaze widened as she took in the likenesses of her parents’ faces in painted porcelain for the first time, their features small but expertly done.
“I have large portraits of them at the Essex estate, of course, but these were easy to bring tonight. I thought you might want . . . to see them.” Her uncle’s voice was suddenly rough, and he cleared his throat awkwardly.
“I . . .” Brianna’s mind went blank; she was suddenly unsure of what to say. She looked up into her uncle’s face, seeing the likeness there so clearly between Lord Essex and her natural-born father. Then she stared at the beauty who was her mother. A shiver stole through her as she imagined, not for the first time, what her life might have been like if they had survived. As much as their deaths filled her with a deep and terrible sense of loss, she knew that if they hadn’t died, Thomas wouldn’t have found her, and she never would have met Nicholas. That trade of her parents’ lives in order for her to find Nicholas would always be with her and remind her of how much Nicholas meant to her.
“Is it too much?” her uncle asked.
“No. I’ve just never seen them before, and it’s . . .” She sniffled. “Thank you so much for bringing them. Would you tell me about them?” She felt incredibly shy as she asked this of the duke.
Her uncle smiled. “I would be honored to tell you everything about them. Now, I believe introductions are in order.” He glanced over his shoulder. “This is my wife, Edwina, and my son, Evan. Evan has just turned twenty-one.”
Her cousin beamed at her like she was a treasure found. He was as handsome as his parents, and a hint of mischief gleamed in his eyes. She knew at once that she and Evan would get along famously. She’d always had a knack for making trouble. Perhaps it was something she’d inherited from her family.
Edwina, her aunt, was a beautiful brunette with kind brown eyes. She stepped forward and embraced Brianna without hesitation.
“Your mother was one of my dearest friends in all the world. When you came down the stairs just now, I thought perhaps she had somehow come back to us.” Her aunt’s eyes sparkled with tears as she paused, sniffed, and then continued. “I will tell you everything you want to know about her and your father. Everything I remember.”
“Thank you, Aunt Edwina,” Brianna said. Her throat grew tight as she tried not to cry.
Her uncle then turned to Nicholas. “You must be Brianna’s husband?”
“I am, Your Grace.” Nicholas stepped forward, and the pair shook hands.
“I admit, I’m sad to lose her to you. I was hoping to have her under my roof for a while,” her uncle said. “Perhaps I can prevail upon you to come visit us often?”
With a look at Brianna, Nicholas replied, “As often as Brianna wishes to see you, we will go. I have a feeling that will be quite often.”
“Your Grace . . . ,” Brianna began. She’d had to learn how to address a duke in the last few hours and was still nervous about getting it right.
“Please, it’s Uncle Michael to you, my dear.”
“Uncle . . . Please let me introduce my father, the man who raised me in your brother’s stead—Thomas Holland and his wife, Elida.”
Her uncle straightened his shoulders as Thomas stepped forward.
“Nicholas has told me everything through his letters, Mr. Holland. You came to my brother’s rescue and tried to save him and his wife. He told me that you delivered Brianna and . . .” Her uncle swallowed hard. “It is thanks to you that she is the woman she is today. A woman to be proud of.”
Thomas shifted on his feet, and his face reddened. “She was an honor to have in my life, Your Grace. I wish every day that I had arrived in time to save your brother and his wife, but the moment your brother entrusted his child to me, she became a gift beyond all measure.”
Brianna had to clutch Nicholas’s arm again as she fought to hide such powerful emotions that she feared she would weep before all these people who already seemed to love her so much even though they had just met. Was it possible to perish from sheer, blinding joy?
“Now this, was given to me to prove who you were, and I believe, as Hugh’s child, it should be returned to you.” Her Uncle removed one more thing from this coat. Her father’s signet ring.
“How did you get it? I feared I lost it!” Brianna gasped.
“Mr. Holland wrote to me of your existence before you sailed here and sent the ring as proof.”
* * *
Thomas stepped forward to address the duke. “Your brother gave it to me, Your Grace, and I kept it safe until it was time to tell Brianna of her birth. I didn’t know at the time who her family was. I would have contacted you years ago, had I known.”
Her uncle held the ring for a long moment before he took Brianna’s hand and placed the ring back in her palm and closed her fingers around it with his own.
“I gave Hugh that ring when he turned twenty-one. It was a gift from me, brother to brother. It is yours, my dear.”
Brianna clutched the ring to her chest and bit her lip to keep from crying.
Nicholas’s mother cleared her throat. “Perhaps we can go on to dinner and hear all those wonderful stories about Brianna’s parents?”
Everyone murmured their agreement. Nicholas held Brianna back a moment while they allowed the others to proceed to the dining room ahead of them.
“Are you all right?” he asked as he cupped her face in his hands.
She grasped his wrists and nodded, blinking away fresh tears.
“Yes. I’m more than all right . . .” Now was the right time to tell him. “We’re all right.” She gently pulled one of his hands down to lay it on her belly. “We’re wonderful, in fact.”
Nicholas’s eyes grew round as saucers. “We? You mean . . .”
She laughed at his expression of shock and wonder. “Yes. The three of us . . .”
Nicholas’s face broke into a boyish grin, the one that had made her realize she loved him all those months ago. It was like the sun breaking through the clouds and a healthy wind filling the sails of her ship . . . like a splendid day for sailing toward far-off horizons.
“We shall tell our children tales of pirate queens every night,” Nicholas said.
She laughed. “Is that so?”
“Yes. They’ll need to know all about their mother and how incredible she is. How she is far fiercer than Grace O’Malley.”
“Flatterer,” she said unable to deny the bubbling joy inside her.
Her husband just continued to grin at her, the delightful rogue.
Nicholas’s father returned to the doorway of the dining room. “Will you two be joining us?”
She and Nick shared a secret smile. “Yes, we will. All three of us.”
“Three?” his father asked in confusion as they walked past him.
Whatever came next in her life, Brianna would not face it alone. She had a man who loved her fiercely, and she loved him fiercely in return. She had her father and stepmother and so many new relatives that it felt as though she might be dreaming.
But no dream could be this good, this real, this wonderful. She might have been brought into the world during a storm, but the horizon before her held nothing but beautiful, endless light.
EPILOGUE
It was a fine day three weeks later when Nicholas took Brianna riding. They had been doing a lot of that lately, riding all over the nearby countryside. It was a good thing his wound had healed and he was feeling like himself again. Sometimes they walked and talked, and sometimes they rode at breakneck speed until their horses needed to rest.
Nicholas knew his wife was suffering from a restlessness, a need to keep moving, to explore rather than be confined to a life in drawing rooms and ballrooms. Once, he would have sworn that he could have returned to Cornwall and stayed there forever more, satisfied with retiring from his adventures. But that was no longer true. He understood that hunger Brianna felt to continue to sail into fresh winds and visit foreign shores. It was why he’d managed to arrange for a special gift for his wife today—not that she had any idea he was up to anything.
He guided his gelding in the direction of the port, and Brianna kept pace with him. She wore a pair of breeches and a waistcoat as well as tall black riding boots as he did, but her hair was held back with only a ribbon. She cared not about any gossip she caused. She had even laughed and said, “If my family knows I’m a pirate and they don’t mind, what’s the harm in wearing a pair of breeches?”
Nicholas didn’t mind. He’d much rather have her comfortable than fashionable. He was also rather partial to the way her backside looked in her snug breeches.
As they reached the port, they slowed their horses and meandered toward the docks. A dozen ships in the harbor soon came into view. He kept his face neutral as they toured the port, but secretly he was taking in every expression on her face, not wanting to miss one instant of when she saw what he was hoping she would see soon. Brianna let out a soft, dreamy sigh. Then she reached out and grasped his arm.
“Nick!” She pointed at one of the ships, and he grinned. It had been hard to keep this little gift a secret, but he’d done well. Dominic would be proud of him.
“Why not have a look?” he urged, and she leapt into motion, spurring her horse forward. He followed behind slowly, his smile widening as he finally caught up with her.
She slid off her horse and gave the reins to a young lad to hold for her while she marched up the gangplank of the nearest ship. He came aboard after her and stopped on the waist deck, admiring her as she examined the ship from stem to stern before she turned to him, a hopeful question unspoken in her eyes.
He answered with a nod.
She ran toward him, and he caught her in his arms, twirling her about as she laughed in joy. The Sea Serpent and her captain had been reunited at long last.
“Oh, Flynn!” she breathed in a husky whisper. He nuzzled her nose with his, adoring how she called him Flynn. It had in the last few months become an endearment rather than an admonishment.
“Happy?” he asked. He could see from her face that she was, but he wanted her to understand in this moment what this ship meant, not just to her but to the both of them. They both belonged together, and that meant the sea was to be a large part of their lives. His pirate queen’s story was far from over. Someday, they’d tell their own child stories of their mother’s legendary life, and that child, boy or girl, would grow up with waves and the cries of storm petrels as their lullaby, just as Brianna had.
“Yes. But how did you find her?”
“Some arrogant arse who owns King’s Landing bought it after the navy acquired it during a raid. He thought it might make an excellent wedding present for you. Since I am best friends with said arse, I agreed.”
She stared at him in equal parts wonder and gratitude. “Dominic rescued my ship?”
“Of course he did, my darling. He knows how important a captain’s ship is. He would never let the Sea Serpent stay long in enemy hands.”
She gave him a delightfully sinful look. “Well, I ended up in enemy hands, and I can’t say I’m complaining.”
“Oh? Like being in enemy hands, do you?” He chuckled and stole a kiss that made him forget they weren’t alone, and he couldn’t resist cupping her bottom and giving it a generous squeeze that made her moan against his mouth. Several sailors started to whistle at them.
Half a dozen men were staring at them, their tasks on the deck forgotten. Patrick, Brianna’s cabin boy, fresh from New York, was among them, and he grinned at the pair. Next to him, a taller, older seaman who was new to the crew blinked owlishly at their behavior.
“That’s our new captain? Bit of a rogue, ain’t he?” the man asked Patrick.
“Oh, he isn’t the captain,” said Patrick. “She is. He’s the first mate.”
Brianna, with a gleeful grin at the man beside Patrick, said, “Don’t worry, I’m tough but fair.” Then she turned to Nicholas. “We had better test out the captain’s bed. Come, Flynn. Time to do your duty.” She sauntered past the crew, leaving more than one man’s mouth agape at her swaying backside in those tight breeches.
“Yes, Captain,” Nicholas called out after her and went to do his duty most thoroughly.
Sometimes it was good to be Flynn.
Eight months later
Gavin Castleton wasn’t sure he would survive the night. As the storm pounded the rocks where his rowboat foundered, he stumbled wearily from the boat and sank hip-deep into the icy water near the shore.
Teeth chattering, he forced himself to keep walking along the rocky beach toward the cliffs that hid a dark passageway. It was his only refuge, his only chance to survive, if he could but reach it.
He braced himself against the wind as he finally reached the hidden entrance. Then he was inside, safe within the natural shelter of the stone passage. The wind and rain died away but still howled angrily in the distance, as though furious he’d managed to escape their wrath.
He had to make it just a little bit farther . . . A bit farther, that was all.
His cold, numb hands trailed along the walls of the passageway as he found his way in the enveloping blackness. The floor beneath him slowly angled upward, and at last he found the door handle that he sought and tugged on it.
The ancient oak door gave way, and he stumbled into a dusty, darkened room that was nearly as black as the passageway he’d just left. Shivering violently, he frowned at the cold hearth of the forgotten bedroom. Lord, he wished someone would have lit a fire. Not that anyone had expected him here in this room, especially not tonight.
He dragged his aching feet across the room until he reached the next door and opened it. The corridor outside the room was dark, not a single lamp lit. Lightning from the storm flashed outside, illuminating his family’s ancestral home through the windows. He hadn’t been back in more than a year, but he would have known this old manor house’s halls even if he had been blind.
Pain radiated from his shoulder where he’d taken a knife wound. His blood-and-rain-soaked clothes were starting to stiffen around him, dragging him down and choking him.
Gavin bit back a groan as he fought to ignore the pain in his body and counted the doors as he moved. He had to find his brother, Griffin. When he reached the third door on the left, Griffin’s bedroom, he fell against it as he turned the handle. The door swung open beneath his weight, and he staggered toward the sleeping figure in the bed.
“Griffin,” he groaned, and grabbed his brother’s shoulder, shaking him awake. “Griff . . . help . . .” Gavin slid to his knees, too weak to do much more than collapse onto the floor.
A woman’s frantic voice broke through the haze in his mind. “Who are you?” He looked up to see a woman light a taper and bring it to a lamp at the side of the bed. Golden light softened the room, and he stared in shock at a beautiful brown-eyed young woman in a filmy chemise.
“Where’s . . . Griffin?” His words came out breathless.
“Griffin? You mean Lord Castleton?”
Gavin winced. Lord Castleton . . . The name that was his by birthright, but he had turned his back on it.
“Aye, bloody Lord Castleton,” he gasped. At last his body surrendered to exhaustion, and he fell back onto the floor.
