Pleasing the Pirate: A Loveswept Historical Romance (21 page)

She was fire. Fire and smoke and heat so hot it scorched him. But like a moth drawn to the flame, he was unable to resist, didn’t want to resist. For once he enjoyed being powerless.

She rubbed up against his enflamed cock, her breath deepening. Oh, she was hot, all right. Unlike last night when she was so nervous, this was a different woman tonight.

With trembling hands she unbuttoned his shirt, smiling shyly up at him with gleaming
eyes full of excitement. He’d unearthed her inner woman and was damn proud of himself for it. His only regret was that he would not be around to watch her blossom more.

His only comfort was that with his new plan she would not have to go to MacGowan. There was a certain sort of satisfaction in that thought. A satisfaction that teetered on the edge of gloating. That he’d beaten his enemy even though he’d never met the man and MacGowan probably didn’t even know Phin existed. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that Phin had made arrangements so that Mairi would not have to wed MacGowan unless she truly wanted to.

Then again, neither would Phin marry her.

He kissed her hard, his need a pounding force within him. He’d been gentle both times last night. Even so, he knew she would be hurting, but he wanted more tonight. He wanted fast and furious and hard and demanding. Then, later, he would be slow.

He was grateful that she’d come to him in her robe. He yanked it apart, revealing a chemise that barely hid her hard nipples. With a deep groan he suckled those nipples through the fabric, nipping and nuzzling. She held his head between her hands, arching into his mouth and rubbing her body against his.

It seemed she wanted fast and furious as well.

Abruptly she pulled away from him and whipped her chemise over her head. She was gloriously, deliciously naked underneath and he simply stood there and stared at her, his cock so hard it was straining, hurting in a way that only Mairi could soothe.

Her fingers tangled with the buttons of his breeches, rubbing against his engorged cock until he feared his knees would buckle. He helped as best he could. They chuckled at their sudden ineptness to undress.

“I can’t be slow like last night,” he said.

“I don’t want slow.”

Good God but this woman undid him.

The breeches fell to the floor and he stepped out of them. He nudged her backward, bringing her up hard against the wall. He didn’t even want to wait to reach the bed.

In one thrust he was inside her. She gasped, her eyes widening.

“Sweet Mary and Joseph,” he said. “You’re wet and hot.”

She held on tight, panting with each thrust. “I’ve been thinking about this all day,” she said.

He nearly went cross-eyed at the thought of her walking around like this all day. “Do me a favor …” He thrust a few more times, biting the inside of his cheek to keep from making too much noise and waking the entire house. “Next time … Let me know … I can remedy that situation.”

She smiled, arched her back and rode him hard, pulling his hips in to rub against him.

When she came it was just as hard, as fast and as furious as he’d hoped it would be. A keening cry built inside of her and erupted just as she clenched around him.

It was too much. He couldn’t hold back any longer and thrust forward one final time. His release seemed to go on forever as she milked every last breath, every last groan from him.

Mairi awoke alone in Phin’s bed. To go from the wondrous night she’d just had to awaking completely alone and naked was a bit jarring. The warmth generated by their lovemaking had cooled, leaving her shivering in the chilled morning. Before she was caught by a servant in Phin’s bed, she dressed quickly in the gown she’d worn the day before. Her hair a wild mess, shoes in her hand she snuck through the hallways.

They’d alternately slept and made love throughout the long night. He’d been gentle one moment and demanding the next. She hadn’t minded. She loved every side of Phin Lockwood. Although she’d hoped to erase the grief in his eyes she had been unsuccessful. Whatever had happened in his study, it had stayed with him through the night and he wouldn’t tell her what it was.

It made her stomach twist in apprehension, but there was not much she could do if he wasn’t willing to confide in her.

She dressed in the same gown she’d worn a few days ago. Somehow, someway she would repay whoever loaned her these gowns. She wasn’t a charity case.

Rebecca had already come and gone so Mairi simply braided her hair and let it hang down her back. It wasn’t as if she had to look presentable to the callers that frequented the house because there were none.

The house was strangely quiet, even more so than normal. Mairi found Susan in the drawing room curled up on the window seat and staring morosely out the window. The sun was weak but it wasn’t raining and suddenly Mairi knew exactly what she wanted to do. She tapped Susan on the shoulder and waited for her to turn around.

“Let’s go for a stroll in the square.”

Immediately Susan perked up and nodded, a wide smile spreading across her face.

“We’ll take Annabelle, too.”

They gathered up Annabelle, who was excited to go on an adventure. Were these poor people forced to stay inside all the time?

Of course there was Ezra to contend with when they were ready to leave. He was
standing in front of the door with his arms crossed and a mutinous expression.

“Ezra, we are going for a stroll in the square,” Mairi said in her best authoritative voice.

“Does the cap’n know about this?”

“If the captain was about, I would surely tell him, but he’s nowhere to be found.”

“He left earlier,” Ezra said.

“Well then he’s not about for us to tell, is he? It’s just a stroll, Ezra. There is nothing wrong with a stroll.”

Annabelle began hopping from foot to foot, anxious to leave. Susan appeared to be confused.

“He said to watch out for you.”

“Did he say watch out for me or watch me?” She quirked an eyebrow and Ezra squirmed. “If you’re that worried, then come with us as our escort.”

“Oh. Well. I don’t know.”

“Would Captain Phin rather you guard an empty entryway or guard his sister, daughter and me?”

He apparently had to think about that for a moment. “All right, then,” he said with a sigh. Apparently sitting in the foyer was more appealing than walking two women and a little girl through the square.

Mairi gave a passing thought of leaving a note for Phin telling him where they were going, but surely they would return before he did. All she wanted was to walk a bit around the square and look at something other than these four walls and the garden out back.

Ezra shuffled behind them as Annabelle skipped between Mairi and Susan, holding each of their hands and chattering away. Susan obviously could not hear the little girl and wasn’t in a position to watch her lips so it was up to Mairi to answer with an occasional, “Mm hm” or “Yes, indeed.”

When was the last time the poor child had been outside the garden walls? She looked around avidly, taking in the street vendors, the nursemaids pushing prams, the finely dressed women in the arms of equally finally dressed gentlemen.

The people of Bedford Square weren’t the quality that strolled through St. James, where Sebastian and Gabrielle lived, but they were well-off and their clothes indicated it. Annabelle was enthralled.

Susan, although quiet, seemed equally enthralled as she took in all the sites.

Mairi wished she had money with her to purchase a sweet from one of the vendors for Annabelle. The child would have been over the moon. But her money was still sewn into the hem of her old gown that was in the bottom of the armoire at Phin’s house. How depressing that she couldn’t afford to purchase even a small sweet for Annabelle. The entire time she’d been here she’d been a charity case and she hated that thought. When she returned to Scotland she would send something nice to Susan and Annabelle as a thank-you. And Gabrielle as well. She couldn’t forget Gabrielle.

She shook away such melancholy thoughts and concentrated on this day. On the weak sun, on the green grass, on the puppy that raced past making Annabelle clap in joy and Susan smile down on her daughter. At the new friends she’d made.

Mairi fervently hoped that one day Susan and Annabelle would be able to embrace their true connection to each other. She had a feeling that only when that happened would Susan fully recover. But it wasn’t up to her and this family was not her family and what happened to them in the future would not concern her.

They reached the end of the square and turned around to head back. Annabelle had stopped skipping and wasn’t chattering as much, but her eyes were still wide and she still took everything in.

They were walking near the street on the opposite side of Phin’s house. The homes were well-built town houses, redbrick with climbing ivy and large windows that overlooked the street. While Scotland would always be Mairi’s home and the first place she would want to live, she wouldn’t mind living in one of these homes, either.

A clatter of hooves had her ushering Annabelle and Susan farther off the road. Ezra was a few steps behind her, still grumbling about being a nursemaid. She was sure it was humbling to go from sailing large ships to nannying two women and a child, but that was something he had to take up with Phin, not her.

The clattering hooves stopped and the hairs on the back of Mairi’s neck rose. She turned to find the coach pulled up right behind her. There was nothing exceptional about the conveyance. It appeared more of a hack than a privately owned coach. The driver was clothed in black and looked straight ahead.

She herded her two charges toward the middle of the square.

The door to the carriage opened and a man stepped out. He was very large, his shoulders incredibly wide, his face broad beneath his hat and his eyes so dark they appeared black. She’d never seen anyone quite so big before. She squeezed Annabelle’s hand, her heart pounding. There was nothing untoward about any of this, but something inside her told her to keep watch on the man.

“Hey now.” Ezra took a few hurried steps to catch up. The man punched Ezra in the nose, knocking him to the ground where he didn’t move.

Mairi shoved Annabelle toward Susan. She turned to run but was brought up short when she was grabbed by her braid and yanked back.

“Run!” Mairi screamed at Susan, even though she knew the woman would not be able to hear her.

Susan pulled the screaming Annabelle toward her. Ezra was on the ground, unconscious.

The man holding Mairi pinched the area between her shoulder and her neck. The pain was immediate and so severe that her knees instantly buckled. She cried out, but the sound was cut off when the man put his hand over her mouth and swooped her up into his arms.

Annabelle screamed her name and lunged for her but Susan yanked her back. Mairi wanted to scream at them to find Phin, but her words were trapped in a world of pain and Susan wouldn’t have heard her anyway.

She was shoved into the carriage and the door closed behind her, trapping her inside.

* * *

“Where is Miss McFadden?” Phin asked Mrs. Horton as he entered his house. He’d spent a frustrating morning trying once again to locate Grant McFadden, but the man was nearly impossible to find.

Phin was beginning to suspect that he had fled England altogether, and that thought had his anger boiling. Not only because he needed to find Grant, but what sort of cod’s-head abandoned his sister in the middle of a foreign country when she clearly needed his help?

He was beginning to despise McFadden more and more each day. The man didn’t deserve a sister the likes of Mairi. He had no idea what prize he held and he was so selfish that he didn’t seem to care, either.

Mairi would be much better off without him. It was obvious he had no inclination to return to Scotland. All of this talk of fighting for Scotland was balderdash according to Phin. Grant was fighting because he couldn’t face the demons inside of him or face what had happened to his people and his fiancée.

But convincing Mairi that she was better off without the bottle-head would be nigh on impossible. However, he understood her motivation. Her choice was Grant or MacGowan, which really wasn’t any sort of choice at all.

“They’ve gone for a short stroll,” Mrs. Horton said as she took his coat.

The weather was turning. Already it was colder than it had been this morning. A brisk northerly wind had blown in bringing with it the scent of winter.

A cold chill raced up Phin’s spine that had nothing to do with the weather. “They?”

“Miss McFadden, Susan and Annabelle.”

“Alone?”

“Nay. They took Ezra with them. He wasn’t pleased to be chaperoning the women, but he went.”

Phin relaxed a bit. At least they’d taken a guard. Ezra would protect them, and if Grant were to show himself, Ezra knew what to do.

He headed toward the drawing room, thinking of the brandy that awaited him. Over the past few days Mairi and Susan had become thick as thieves.

At first Phin had been uncomfortable with the fact that the two women in his life were fast becoming friends, but then he saw a change come over Susan, a light come into her eyes that had been absent for far too long. She laughed when she hadn’t laughed before. She smiled and this time it reached her eyes.

Had he made the right decisions when it came to Susan? Should he not have claimed Annabelle as his own and allowed Susan to raise the little girl as hers? That would have left virtually no future for Susan, but then what sort of future did she have now? She saw no one, especially no eligible men to marry. Most didn’t know how to speak to a woman who couldn’t hear and of course there were those who saw her disability as a defect rather than just something different. Fatheaded fools.

The front door was flung open and Susan stumbled in, supporting Ezra, whose feet were dragging, his head hanging and blood dripping from him. Annabelle was behind her crying so
hard she was hiccupping.

Phin rushed forward, taking the burden of Ezra from her. “What happened?”