Of Noble Birth (47 page)

Alexandra took frequent
breaks to spoon broth into Nathaniel’s mouth. After the food he had
been fed in the hulks, he couldn’t tolerate much at first. By the
evening of the second day, however, he was beginning to want
something more satisfying.

“You’re recovering
quickly,” Alexandra told him, stropping the razor Trenton had
acquired for her. Nathaniel’s stubble was quickly turning into a
full-blown beard, and she had immediate plans to shave
him.

“Have you ever done this
before?” he asked, obviously more concerned with the blade she
wielded than with chronicling his recovery.

“I used to shave Willy
sometimes, when he was too drunk to do so himself.”

“Which means he was too
drunk to feel whether or not you did a good job.” He smiled
ruefully.

“And drunk enough to get
mean.” Alexandra didn’t know why she added that. She had purposely
not thought of Willy since the day Nathaniel had asked her about
him.

She felt Nathaniel’s hand
on her arm and glanced up. He didn’t say anything, but the look in
his eyes was somehow gratifying, as though he empathized with her
pain without pitying or blaming.

She offered him a smile.
“I don’t think about it very often. Neither do I miss
him.”

Nathaniel brought her hand
to his lips. “I’d like to pay him a visit—”

“No.” Alexandra shook her
head. “He’s just a miserable old man. What good could you do? It’s
enough that I’m away from him. Promise me you’ll leave him
alone.”

Nathaniel watched her
thoughtfully. “That’s a promise I can’t make. The thought of him
hurting
you...”

Alexandra pressed her
mouth to his lips. “I’m all right,” she said, then lathered the
shaving cream onto the lower half of his face and guided the blade
around the contours of his jaw. The cleft in his chin proved a bit
difficult. At one point, he tried to talk and received a small nick
for his efforts.

“Hold still,” she told
him, “before we have to remove the bandages on your back and use
them on your face.”

“How am I supposed to stay
still when you’re so close?” he murmured.

Alexandra glanced toward
Trenton, who tactfully pretended not to hear. “You’re a rogue, my
pirate captain,” she said, letting her voice drop to a whisper. “I
think my first impression of you was more correct than ever I
realized.”

“Where you are concerned,
I cannot pretend to think only chaste thoughts.” His gaze lowered
to her breasts while the quirk of a smile turned up his
lips.

“Promises, promises,” she
murmured, teasing him. “You have yet to keep a bargain with me on
any count.”

His eyes narrowed
dangerously. “Don’t tempt me too far, Alexandra. I’ve never been
known for my scruples. “

Trenton cleared his
throat, probably hoping to end their lovers’ repartee while in his
presence, and Alexandra smiled.

“There,” she said,
speaking louder as she toweled his chin dry. “With that face you
could capture the heart of every woman in London.”

“But I want only one,”
Nathaniel said softly.

* * *

The Marquess of Clifton
sat in the noisy tavern across the table from Captain Rene Montague
of the
Eastern Horizon.
A glass of brandy stood in front of him; the
captain had preferred a pint of gin. Clifton swirled the amber
liquid, raising it against the light before turning his attention
back to Montague.

“The other shipment
reached Russia?” he asked.

“Of course. Without one
single problem.”

“Good. Then why did you
want to meet me?”

Montague played with his
glass. “We’ve found the guns.”

“You’re sure?”

“Mais oui.”

“How?”

“I have had my men
searching Bristol ever since you told me Nathaniel’s ship put in
there. We could find nothing at first. I was about to give up when
I heard tale of an old couple who were attempting to sell a
warehouse full of guns. Their son was recently killed in the
infantry. They wanted to move to the country and had no response to
the notices they sent their lessor. When I confirmed the details, I
knew we had found the rifles at last.”

Clifton took a sip of his
drink. “And the details are?”

Montague, looking
irritated, waved a hand. “They are inconsequential. The important
thing is that the guns are in a warehouse just off the docks at
Bristol, and Mr. Kent will undoubtedly try to use them against your
father, if he can.”

“It sounds as though you
think Nathaniel’s alive despite the knife wound he received when he
escaped.”

“He has never struck me as
an easy man to kill. But I am only going by what you told me—that
he did indeed escape. We want the guns regardless, no?”

Clifton swallowed the
brandy he had been holding in his mouth, savoring the gentle burn
as it descended to his stomach. Alcohol was his only balm against
the pain he felt in a hand that no longer existed. He found himself
craving more and more of his favorite spirits. “Of course. And we
must move quickly, before anything else can go wrong.”

Montague nodded. “I’m
heading to Bristol at first light. Are you coming?”

The marquess considered
the question. If the guns were in Bristol, chances were good that
Nathaniel would go there to retrieve them. And Clifton wanted
nothing more than a second chance at his half brother.

“I’ll go,” he said, “for
several reasons. First and foremost, I need to make sure Nathaniel
is as dead as we hope.”

* * *

“They fit.” Nathaniel
teetered near the bed, on his feet for the first time in a week,
trying on the trousers Alexandra had sewn for him. His pale face
still looked drawn, but his strength seemed greatly
replenished.

Alexandra handed him the
shirt she was making so he could try it on, too, admiring the way
the trousers hugged his long legs and narrow hips. She remembered
the fabric she had found in his chest aboard the
Vengeance.
How her
fingers had itched to sew for him almost from the beginning. She
knew even then that she’d need no pattern. With very few
measurements, she had created clothes that fit him
perfectly.

Thoughts of Nathaniel’s
sea chest reminded her of the small picture she had found hidden in
the folds of the fabric. She frowned. The lady in that picture had
haunted her dreams more than a few times. At odd moments, she
worried that he was holding out for that woman, and now that
Alexandra knew her time with Nathaniel was coming to a close, she
ventured the question she had always wanted to ask.

“You know that portrait
you keep in your trunk?”

He glanced up at her and
grinned. “You mean I had more than rats going through my things
aboard the
Vengeance?”

Alexandra felt herself
flush. She was tempted to explain, except that she
had
been going through
his belongings. “Who is she?”

Nathaniel chuckled and
arched one brow. “Jealous?”

Alexandra started to deny
that she felt anything so base, then shrugged in acknowledgement.
“She’s beautiful.”

“I’ve always thought so.”
A far-off look claimed Nathaniel’s features. “When I was a child, I
used to pretend that smile was meant specifically for me, though
I’ve never seen it, except in the picture. Somehow it made life
easier to believe she would have loved me, had she been given the
chance.”

“She was your mother?”
Alexandra asked softly.

He nodded. “Martha managed
to acquire the picture from a friend who worked for my father long
after we left. The duke hated her, you know.”

“Who?”

“My mother.”

“It seems he had no more
affinity for his next wife.” Alexandra hesitated, wondering if
Nathaniel already knew of his father’s sexual exploits, and whether
or not the knowledge would bother him. “Your father prefers
prostitutes and easy women to highborn ladies. At Greystone House,
I found a locked metal box that I hoped might contain information
on what the duke had done with you. Instead it held a letter from
Lord Clifton and Lady Anne’s mother, claiming he gave her syphilis,
though he didn’t seem ill when I was there.”

Nathaniel shook his head.
“Selfish bastard,” he said. “For all his arrogance, he chases
barroom wenches about the taverns of London by night, eh? God, my
poor mother.”

He chuckled, and Alexandra
laughed with him, but her mirth didn’t reach her heart, which was
filled with sadness. The beautiful woman in the portrait could have
changed so much for Nathaniel. If only she had lived.

* * *

By the time Alexandra woke
the following morning, Nathaniel and Trenton had gone out. Where,
she didn’t know, but that Nathaniel was strong enough to venture
beyond the room left her with a feeling of dread. Their time
together was dwindling, falling by the wayside like the shavings of
a whittler. And like the whittler’s wood, Alexandra felt helplessly
acted upon, unable to control the paths their separate lives would
take.

While grateful for the
fact that Nathaniel was getting better, she knew it was only a
matter of time before he left to take care of the guns at Bristol.
The Lord High Admiral expected to see the rifles in a few days—and
she knew Nathaniel would retrieve them without her. He had to. His
patriotism demanded that he stop his father, and with the duke
shadowing his every move, Nathaniel believed she wasn’t safe with
him. He thought she might never be.

Alexandra buried her head
beneath her pillow, longing for the situation to be
different.

A tear squeezed out from
the corner of her clamped eyelids. God help her, she loved him. The
mere sight of his tall, muscular body, the briefest glance from his
blue eyes, the honey-rich sound of his voice in her ear, made her
tingle with a response that was as immediate and natural as the
pealing of a bell follows a pull of its ropes. Deep down, she
wondered if she could ever feel such an intensity of emotion for
anyone else—no matter how steady, no matter how safe, no matter
what.

Cursing the vicissitudes
of life, Alexandra flung her pillow to the floor and rose from the
bed to finish sewing her dress. Could she bear for him to kiss her
and leave, without so much as a promise?

Her heart twisted at the
thought. She couldn’t endure good-bye. She couldn’t stand idly by
and wave as he and Trenton started off. She had to leave on her
own. She had to dredge up the strength to make things easier for
both of them. But how, when the very core of her being rebelled at
the thought?

Alexandra jammed her
needle back into the hem of her dress. A breeze whispered through
the open window, carrying sounds from the street outside: the
voices of children as they ran about, the cackling of hens, the
grate of cart and wagon wheels. It was a humid day, though
otherwise mellow—a perfect day to look for work, Alexandra decided
as she tied off the final stitch to her dress. Though her
experience with Gunther had frightened her, she was wiser now. And
she was definitely stronger.

Determined to take control
of her mutinous emotions at last, Alexandra paid the obese
innkeeper to locate some lackeys to haul water for a bath. Then she
hired a small boy, who stood selling flowers on the sidewalk with
his mother, to retrieve the clothes she’d sent to the laundress
down the street. She’d been wearing the shirt and pants Mrs. Tuttle
had loaned to Nathaniel since the day before, and was eager to have
her underclothes back.

By midmorning, Alexandra
had her hair twisted into an attractive style with ringlets framing
her face. Her new dress had a basquine body that was open to the
waist, worn over a chemisette, with pagoda sleeves. The perfect fit
of her costume made her feel absolutely luxurious as she twirled
around in the matching slippers she’d found when she’d purchased
the fabric.

She wondered if Nathaniel
would appreciate the transformation in her appearance, then
attempted to rein in such errant thoughts. She couldn’t think about
him now. She’d never leave if she did. And she wanted to go before
he returned. She had delayed too long already.

* * *

Nathaniel was feeling
tired and weak by the time he and Trenton returned to the inn. He
turned the key in the lock and swung the door open while speaking
to Trenton over his shoulder.

“The newspapers make no
mention of my escape from the
Retribution
?” he asked, crossing the
threshold.

“No.” Trenton followed him
inside, where they both stopped and turned around in surprise. The
room was empty.

“Where’s Alexandra?”
Nathaniel asked.

Trenton shrugged. “She’s
probably just picking up our clothes from the
laundress.”

Nathaniel strode across
the room to the bed, where the laundry Trenton had mentioned
waited, neatly folded and stacked.