He smiled. “I want to introduce a guest who will be staying with us.” He drew Arianna to his side. “This is Arianna. She will remain with us until…” He glanced at her. “Until I can take her back to England.” She stiffened.
“She is wearing pants.”
“Why is her hair so short?”
Arianna blushed. “I tried to make the pirates believe I was a boy.”
His sisters’ eyes widened. “You met the pirates? What were they like?”
“Were they mean?”
“Did they make you walk the plank?”
Again they asked questions at the same time.
Arianna laughed, and it sounded like birds singing in the springtime. “They didn’t force me to walk the plank, but they stranded us on an island. They were mean, but the three of us were victorious over them. They didn’t scare us at all.”
“Not at all?” Sarah, the youngest, asked.
Arianna spread her thumb and forefinger slightly apart. “Maybe a little.”
“Sarah, Ann, and Elizabeth, don’t you have chores?” Morgan asked.
“No, we finished them,” they chimed in together.
“Arianna just arrived and already you are bothering her.”
“They’re not bothering me.” A smile wreathed Arianna’s face.
He was delighted they made her happy. Hopefully, staying here wouldn’t be a trial for her. His sisters were sometimes overeager but pleasant, and Elizabeth was close in age to her. He just had to find a way to make Arianna remain without restraining her.
“Give her time to settle in and rest. The trip was a long one.” He ushered them into the house.
“Harry, why don’t you tell them and Aunt Margaret about our trip while I see to Arianna.”
“I’ll be glad to explain how you were captured and I rescued you.”
Again his sisters’ eyes widened. “You rescued Morgan?” Sarah asked in wonder.
“I want to hear this,” Ann said.
Morgan scowled. They would be thrilled to discover how their demanding, older brother had been captured. Sarah, Ann, and Elizabeth followed Harry into the circular parlor. “Don’t forget to clarify I did so to
rescue
you
,” he called after them.
Having his family together again and their chattering, laughter, and questions surrounding him lightened some of the darkness and tension that had settled on him. He breathed easier. If only his mother were still alive and his marriage to Susan didn’t loom in the future. But it did, and there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn’t go back on his word.
Aunt Margaret appeared beside him. “I could show Arianna to her room.”
“Thank you, but she is my responsibility.”
She smiled at Arianna. “If you need anything, let me know.” She crossed the marble floor of the entrance hall and joined the rest of the family in the parlor.
He turned to Arianna and donned his emotionless mask. “Allow me.” He swept his arm toward the stairs.
“Please don’t do this. Let me go now before your sisters and aunt learn of the situation. I can find my way back to the docks. You could tell them I changed my mind or something came up.”
He shook his head. “My honor won’t allow me to do so.”
“Where was your honor when you lay with me while promised to another?”
Her eyes shouted the turmoil and sadness mixing and tumbling within her. But also the love. She wouldn’t say it, but he witnessed it play across her expressive face and felt the emotions exuding from her when he had taken her in his arms for the last time and kissed her. The hunger in the kiss told him all. He escorted her up the curved staircase. But would those feelings survive after imprisoning her? He couldn’t bear to dwell on her hatred for him.
Turning to the right on the second floor, he guided her down the long corridor and stopped before the last door on the left. Facing her, he stared into her mesmerizing eyes and then raised his hand and caressed her cheek, as soft and smooth as he remembered. He feared she would back away, but she stood her ground and leaned ever so slightly toward him. “Everything will work out. You will see.”
She straightened, her body rigid as his words drew back the reality of what he was about to do. “I am sure of it. You will marry and raise a family, and I will return to England.”
Not a palatable existence. Every aspect of it repulsed him.
He opened the door and waved her inside. She slowly stepped over the threshold.
“Will you promise me you will stay in this house until I can make arrangements for your return?”
She shook her head. “Sorry, I can’t do that. You have your life to live and so do I. Why don’t we start now? Why torture ourselves further?”
Impossible to answer. He hated the agony he inflicted. But better him than ruffians who would kill or rape her without a care.
“I will have a bath and food sent up.” He snatched the key from the lock. “I hate to lock you in—and this time I have the means to do so—but since you will not give me your word, I have no choice.”
****
The sound of metal on metal grated on her nerves and clogged her throat. The tears Arianna had suppressed for so long flooded and overflowed her eyes, streaming down her cheeks in a torrent. She stumbled across the gold and blue Aubusson rug and collapsed onto the canopy bed.
She wanted to go home. To nurse the hurt within her in the comfort of familiar surroundings. Away from here. Away from Morgan.
And yet she didn’t.
But how much longer could she be brave when near him and not succumb to his alluring presence?
She jumped up and paced to the window, hoping activity would ease the tension coiled within her. Looking out, she spied a beautiful carpet of colorful flowers below. She wished she could pluck them from the ground and immerse herself in their heady fragrance. But like the relationship between Morgan and herself, they would die in the end.
Maybe she should agree to become his mistress. Then she could hold on to him and their love for a while longer. If only to ease his pain. Agony ravaged her, but its savagery doubled because Morgan fought the same demons that attacked her.
She leaned her forehead against the cool pane. What was right?
****
To avoid his family, Morgan headed toward the back of the house, but Harry caught him as he exited the rear door.
“Going for a ride?”
“Yes.” He increased his stride.
“I’ll join you.”
Attempting to dissuade him was a useless endeavor. Harry had often followed him in their younger days. Even when Morgan had tried to lose him, Harry tracked him down like a faithful dog.
“Is Arianna settled?”
“I had a bath and food sent up to her room. I hope she will rest afterward.” Morgan prayed she wouldn’t cause a commotion. Sleep would relieve her mind of her troubles for a while.
“What do you plan to do with her?”
Morgan didn’t want to talk about it, but he needed to release his feelings. He had never felt the urge to confide in another, but his emotions were eating him alive. He had always looked at Harry as a member of his family he needed to protect and take care of, not the other way around. But it seemed Harry’s time aboard the pirate ship had matured him and sharpened his senses about the world. “After I marry Susan, I am returning Arianna to her family.”
“What will Susan think when instead of a honeymoon, you sail away with another woman?”
They entered the dark interior of the barn, and Morgan paused to allow his eyes to adjust. “She will be my wife. She will have no say in the matter.”
Unlike Arianna, Susan was a biddable woman.
Poseidon nickered, and Morgan crossed to his stall. “Did you miss me, boy?” He rubbed the horse’s soft muzzle, and Poseidon huffed.
A stableboy hurried up. “Would you like me to saddle the horses, Mr. Danvers?”
“No, we can do it ourselves, Thomas. Return to your chores.” Morgan wanted to keep busy.
“Yes, Mr. Danvers.” Thomas sauntered away.
Harry took up the conversation where they left off. “What you say is true, but it isn’t right to start your marriage that way.”
Morgan glanced at Harry, then threw the saddle over Poseidon’s back and tightened the girth. “In what way? I am behaving honorably.” His muscles clenched on the last word. Lately, honor battled with his heart for supremacy.
“What is honorable isn’t always what is best.”
Said the man who courted and dropped females as often as a woman changed her clothes. Poseidon stamped his feet in impatience as Morgan fit the bit into Poseidon’s mouth and then guided the crownpiece over his ears. “It has always served me well.”
“Has it really?”
Morgan grabbed the reins and led Poseidon out of the barn into the sunshine of the day. The angry, dark clouds had floated by. Harry raised an interesting point. He always struggled to act in the proper manner as he had in this case, but he was miserable. And so was Arianna. Even though he’d try to be a good husband and shower Susan with everything money could buy, he could never offer her the love she deserved. Arianna had stolen his heart.
He mounted and thundered off at a gallop, striving to leave his troubles behind. The fresh, cool wind buffeted his face, and he leaned lower over the horse’s neck. His powerful muscles worked and gripped as he savored the freedom, but it wouldn’t last.
Horse’s hoofs ate up the ground behind him, and he wished it were Arianna joining him. He yearned to feel her beside him. Desired to show her his country and the places where he played as a child.
He could still do it before she left, but it wouldn’t be the same when he would soon lose her forever. Morgan reined in before he exhausted Poseidon, and Harry trotted up beside him.
“I would have beaten you if you hadn’t had a head start.”
Morgan patted his horse’s sweaty neck. “You will never outrun Poseidon.”
Harry grimaced. “One of these days I will find a horse that will do just that.”
They walked their horses in silence as the songs of chirping birds permeated the air. That was one sound he missed while on a ship in the middle of the ocean. But he had heard it on this voyage. Arianna’s laugh had taken their place.
Water gurgled in the distance, and the horses headed toward it without direction. When they reached the stream, Morgan dismounted, and Harry followed suit.
“Do you think Arianna will be at the house when we return?” Harry asked. “She wasn’t pleased with your decision.”
Morgan closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath of fresh air scented with pine and moist earth. He couldn’t look at his brother while he confessed. “I locked her in her room.”
“Morgan, you didn’t.”
“She wouldn’t stay unless I did. She is determined to sign on another ship returning to England. I couldn’t allow her to do so.”
Harry dropped his hand to Morgan’s shoulder and looked straight into his eyes. “Morgan, marry her.”
“I can’t. I promised Mother. I made a vow long ago I would never disappoint and hurt her like our father did.”
“Morgan, mother always wanted the best for us. What would make us happy. Susan isn’t right for you. You need someone who can challenge and stand up to you. Not another person to take care of. You are miserable and so is Arianna. Mother would understand.”
“But I bedded Susan. If it is found out, her prospects will be slim if not nonexistent.”
“You did the same to Arianna. Because you loved her. Not because you were drunk.”
His words held truth and filled him with hope. He bowed his head. And despair.
“What if Susan is pregnant?”
“What if Arianna is pregnant?” Harry shot back. “You worked long and hard to support us after Father left. Don’t you think it is time you did what you really want?”
Was it possible? Could he make it work? He needed to speak with Susan.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Freshly bathed, Arianna paced across the lavish room, a lavender, muslin skirt swishing around her legs instead of pants. She reached the satinwood secretary supplied with paper and quills situated before one window, pivoted, and marched back, passing a brocade settee and cushioned chair sitting around the fireplace and the inviting bed that could easily hold three people. She glanced at and dismissed the barely touched tray of chicken, fish, peas, and bread on the round tea table. Everything had been provided for her comfort, but she felt caged and bored. She needed to escape.
When the key was inserted in the lock, Arianna swung toward the door. Was it another servant who would discreetly study her while performing her duty, wondering why Morgan had imprisoned her?
Morgan stepped into the room. He was the last person she wanted to see, even though he was the only one who could release her. She turned her back to him and stared out the window, not seeing the beauty below, her senses tuned to the man who had stolen her heart and then crushed it beneath his heel.
The door quietly clicked closed. She glanced at Morgan over her shoulder. Apparently, her snub hadn’t deterred him. “What do you want?”