Claimed by the Rogue (16 page)

“Mama, Aunt Tottie, Mrs. Whitebridge and her set all assured me that men were put off by women who speak their minds too freely or show themselves to be overly clever. I’d like to say they were wrong, but I’m not so certain they were. In truth, when I recall my coming out and our courtship, I cannot recall all that many men enthusing over the machinations of my mind—you included.”

He shot her an exasperated look. “Certainly I never expected you to simper and pout, to pretend to lose at cards or laugh when my jokes fell flat.”

The portrait he painted was the farthest thing from flattering. It was also deserved, or at least it had been. And yet despite his protestations, Phoebe remained skeptical. “Are you quite certain?”

“If you must know, it annoyed the hell out of me.”

His admission was akin to a slap. Clearly she hadn’t been the only one of them playacting six years ago. He’d read his role equally well. Just how much of what they’d had had been real versus artifice? Presently it was impossible to parse.
 

She shook her head, which had begun aching. But instead of seeking cloths soaked in lavender water and soothing cups of tea as once she would have, what she sought now was the truth. “Why didn’t you tell me so? Never say you feared to injure my feelings!”

“In part,” he admitted. “And because all the things I loved about you, the qualities that were so inestimably wonderful so far outweighed the paltry few annoyances that it would have been unconscionable to complain.”

The latter sufficed to take away some of the sting, but only some. Wistful, Phoebe sighed. “What a pair of pretty fools we were. And now we meet again after all these years almost as strangers.”

He shot up his head to stare at her. “How can you say that? How can you
know
that? We’ve scarcely had time alone to find out.”

She shrugged. “Our lives have taken such separate courses. You’ve traveled, had experiences…taken lovers,” she added, a shameless fishing expedition and yet suddenly she had to know. The man who’d flirted so smoothly with Lady Morton the other night at Almack’s was clearly well at ease with women.

The ruddy color running into his cheeks proclaimed the answer to be precisely that which she didn’t wish to hear. “In the Orient, it’s not unusual for a man to have more than one wife and several concubines.”
 

A wise woman would let the topic die, but Phoebe had never been that, not where Robert was concerned. Determined to draw him out, she trailed a finger along the edge of the Chippendale library table. “Surely it’s no affair of mine, and yet I can’t help but wonder. Have you ever…seen the inside of an actual…harem?”

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught his half-hidden smile. If her prurient question amused him, so be it. “Barring eunuchs, men are not allowed within—and I assure you, my curiosity does not extend nearly so far. But I did have the pleasure of making the acquaintance of one of its inmates, the Princess Nadia, the sultan’s favorite daughter. I blush to say it, but she developed a
tendre
for me.”
 

She brought up her head so swiftly she wouldn’t have been surprised to find it flying off. “Do…that is to say, did you…return her sentiments?”

He paused as if pondering. “Princess Nadia’s charms
were
considerable. I cannot say I was indifferent to her, but there could be no notion of our marrying.”

Phoebe dug her nails into her palms. “Because of you being a commoner? Certainly with you and her papa, the pasha, being such chums, you might have found a way ’round that.”

Gaze honing on hers, he said with seeming sincerity, “Princess Nadia may be a royal princess but you, Phoebe, have always been the queen of my heart.”

Refusing to be so easily mollified, she shot back, “And was I still the ‘queen of your heart’ when you were…disporting yourself with the princess?”

Robert’s straight face suffused with laughter. Great guffaws burst forth from his chest, obliging him to brace a hand upon his no doubt cracked ribs.

Blushing profusely, or certainly it felt as though she must be, Phoebe pitched her voice above the din. “I fail to see what is so amusing.”

He lifted his good hand and scoured it across his damp eyes. “Princess Nadia was… Well, to be fair, she did have a sweet face if the missing front teeth might be overlooked.”

Wondering if she might have misheard, Phoebe echoed, “Missing front teeth?”

He nodded. “The ones she’d kept were various shades of brown—she’d a great fondness for chewing tobacco.”

Phoebe rested her hands upon her hips to keep them from pummeling him. “Do go on.”

“Well, hmm, let me see. As I recall, her considerable
charms
owed to her being rather a large lady overall.”

“How large?”

“Were I to hazard a guess, I’d wager fifteen stone, give or take.”
 

She swung away to the mantel. Snatching an arrangement of roses from one of a brace of urns, she turned about and struck him atop the one body part that had heretofore escaped hurt—his head.
 

Ducking the shower of petals, he said, “Ouch, what was that for?”

“For you being a rogue and a bounder. I thank my lucky stars you left before I could make the biggest mistake of my life.”

No longer laughing, he asked, “If that is indeed the case, then why are you so angry?”

“Because…because I’ve let you gull me yet again.”

Brushing away bruised buds, he tossed the broken bouquet to the floor with a curse. With his good arm, he reached for her. Phoebe might have moved away in time only she didn’t. Melting against him, she laid her cheek against his chest and let him hold her.

His sigh rose above her head. His lips pressed against her scalp, which like the rest of her felt tingling—alive. “It wouldn’t have mattered if Princess Nadia had the body of Venus and the face of an angel. She could have performed the Dance of the Seven Veils beneath my very nose, and it wouldn’t have made a bloody bit of difference. Yours is the only face I see before I close my eyes at night, the only one I want to wake up to every morning.”

She lifted her face to look up at him. “You make very pretty speeches.”

“It’s no speech—it’s the truth—even if you do scowl overmuch.”
 

Caught by surprise, Phoebe drew back. “I do not.” Perpetual scowling was her mother’s province, and above all Phoebe had sworn to herself she would never,
ever
follow suit in becoming like her mother in that regard.
 

“Oh, but you do.” He traced his thumb along the curve of her bottom lip, drawing a shiver. “It seems to me these very pretty lips don’t smile nearly enough.”
 

Wary, she searched his face for signs he might be toying with her. Finding none, she said, “Has it occurred to you that perhaps I haven’t had all that much to smile about?”

“I could change that…if you’d give me leave.” Gaze holding hers, he added, “Give me leave, sweet Phoebe. Give me leave to make you happy again.”
 

Tears pricked her eyes. She inhaled his scent, that of six years before and yet subtly changed, and suddenly she wanted nothing more than to kiss and be kissed by him.

As if sensing the shift in her, he laid a hand along her nape, guiding her to him—only Phoebe didn’t require guiding. She angled her face to meet him, her mouth a hairsbreadth from his, their breaths an invisible comingled cloud. She could all but taste the anise he always took after meals in keeping with the Eastern custom, the exotic scent yet another bittersweet reminder of that part of his history to which she would never belong.
 

The past was fixed, irreversible, done, the future a foregone conclusion. Eventually she would return to her senses and wed Aristide and Robert would sail away to his next adventure. Whatever they were, whatever they felt, belonged to the present, this glorious, fleeting meantime moment, a moment that suddenly seemed far too rare and precious to waste on words alone.

Knocking from outside saw them separating. Smoothing a hand over her hair, Phoebe darted a look to the door. “Come in,” she called out, hating that her voice hitched, shaky and uncertain.

The door opened, and Mary entered. Stopping on the threshold, she took in the scattered petals and bent stems, her eyes widening. Saucer-like gaze going back to Phoebe, she said, “Lulu and Fiona were playing outside, and Lulu fell on the oyster shell path and cut her knee. I tried to comfort her, but she only wants you.”

Guilt struck Phoebe. While she’d dallied with Robert, one of her charges had fallen and hurt herself—and not just any student, but her dear little Lulu. Feeling more a mother than a volunteer schoolmistress, she sidestepped Robert and hurried toward the door. “Take her to the infirmary directly. I’ll join you straightaway.”

“There you are, sweetheart, all finished,” Phoebe soothed, finishing spreading salve on Lulu’s skinned knee. If only a hurt, confused heart might be as easily sorted. “And now we shall seal that cruel cut with a kiss,” she added, blowing a buss in the vicinity of the wound.

Seated at the edge of a straight-backed chair set close to the sink, Lulu lifted her tear-streaked face to Phoebe’s. “Boo-boo throbs, but not as bad.”

“Good,” Phoebe said, feeling relieved. Not for the first time since walking into the infirmary and scooping a wailing Lulu into her arms, she reminded herself that sustaining scrapes and bruises were childhood rites of passage, and yet…
 

The salving had been the easy part. Cleaning out the dirt and debris had tested Phoebe’s courage as much as it had Lulu’s. Even though the little girl had been admirably brave and mostly still, hurting her even in her best interest had been hard on Phoebe.
 

Robert shoved away from the corner to which Phoebe had banished him and came forward to join them. “It will stop soon enough, poppet.”
 

He’d followed her to the infirmary, not that Phoebe had asked him. Whether she needed him or not, whether she wanted him or not, he seemed determined to be there for her.

The problem was she did want him, apparently too bloody much to trust herself alone in his presence.

Stiff though he was, he went down on one knee, putting himself on eye-level with the child. “I took a tumble myself the other day, and my…
boo-boos
hurt like the dev…dickens, but I’m feeling ever so much better today.”

“Did milady kiss you all better too?” Lulu asked with the utter innocence of children.

Angling his face to Phoebe’s, the smile Robert sent her was anything but. “Not quite yet, but I remain…hopeful.”

“Since you’re here, you might as well make yourself useful and hand me that bandage roll,” Phoebe snapped.

Not bothering to hide his smile, he did as she bid.

Watching her wrap the child’s knee in the clean linen, he added, “Lulu, if you could have anything you wished for, what might it be?”

Lulu didn’t as much as pause. “A mummy and papa.”

Robert blanched. Looking up from tying off the bandage, Phoebe shot him a look.
What are you doing!

Recovering smoothly, he said, “I was thinking something more in the way of a treat, a reward for being such a brave child today.”

Sucking on her lip, this time Lulu hesitated. “I should like a picnic like little children sometimes have in the storybooks.”

“A picnic, that sounds simply managed. Let’s have one, then.”

“Truly?” Lulu asked.

“I can’t see why not.” He shifted to Phoebe. “Are there any rules against holding picnics?”

She hesitated. “Honestly, I shouldn’t be surprised if there were.”

Standing stiffly, he answered, “In that case, tell those fusty directors of yours that your latest benefactor absolutely insists upon it.”

“Please God, no more. No more!”
 

Robert’s voice rasped from a throat left raw from thirst and screaming. Blood from his reopened wounds dripped onto the cabin floorboards. Tomorrow they would make port in Madagascar. Once there, he would be taken to market and sold. In light of that, he’d assumed they must be finished with torturing him. Stripped of even his smallclothes and strung up like a beast to be gutted, he felt fear turning his bowels to water.

In giving up Phoebe’s name, he’d proven himself less than a man. Was he now to be unmanned in truth? He’d heard of brawny men being made into eunuchs so that they might serve as harem guards. Not for the first time, he cursed the ship’s doctor who’d stitched and bandaged the wrist he’d used a rusted bit of razor to rent.

The pirate captain turned away from the fire, his features bathed in flickering flames and engulfed in shadow. “Alas, my friend, giving
more
is what I do best.” His dark, waist-length black curls brushed Robert’s cheek as he came around to his front.

Seeing what he held, Robert struggled against his shackles. “No, not that.”

Thick lips pulled into a pretend pout. “Indeed, I am afraid it is necessary.”

“Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh.”

Pain seared Robert’s right thigh. His skin sizzled, the charring stench invading his mouth and nostrils.