Seduced by a Pirate

TWELVE

Phoebe had rarely been so horrified as the moment when she realized that one of the gardeners—stuffed into livery for the occasion—was ushering not just Griffin but also Viscount Moncrieff through her front door. She had been sitting in the drawing room, sipping a glass of sherry and trying to distract herself from the kind of heated images that, she was quite certain, no proper lady would ever entertain.

She had been failing miserably, immersed in an absurd fantasy in which she happened on Griffin while he was bathing, when she startled back to attention as the door opened—and she heard the aristocratic tones of the viscount.

Terror struck her heart. She was wearing a transparent dress, with little more than a ribbon keeping her nipples from the open air.

She started to her feet too late.

Griffin was at the drawing room door, tossing his greatcoat behind him to the footman. He surged into the room, brewing with energy.

Phoebe’s heart sped up and her whole body tightened.

He froze for a moment and a look flashed through his eyes, too quickly for her to read. Was it shock? Surely it wasn’t horror. Though perhaps one didn’t expect one’s wife—

When had she become such a worrier? She pasted a smile on her face and moved toward her husband and the viscount, who had nudged his son to the side and entered the room. “Lord Moncrieff, it is indeed a pleasure to see you. I wish the children weren’t asleep so that they could greet you as well.”

She didn’t see Griffin’s father very often, but they had achieved a kind of easy distance. They didn’t understand each other, but they respected each other.

Though it would all be different now that Griffin was home. He was the glue that would either bind the viscount into their family, or allow them to fall apart again.

An astonishing and happy day for both of us,” the viscount was saying as his hand briefly tightened on hers and then let go. “You look lovely as always, my dear.”

Ravishing,” Griffin said. The word calmed her worries. For today, for tomorrow, for a time at least, her husband wanted her.

By the time they reached the supper table, she would have revised that statement. Her husband was consumed by lust. Griffin kept brushing her hand. His touch made her shiver, and then he would laugh, a full-throated pirate’s laugh. They were seated opposite each other, as was only proper, but somehow his foot kept straying toward hers.

And his eyes . . . the way he looked at her! She never dreamed that it was possible to say so much with one glance. She could have sworn that he saw straight into her mind and stole those fantasies that her imagination kept throwing at her.

After the first course, his glances became like some sort of drug. Every one intoxicated her, made her heart beat even faster. All her woman’s parts grew hot and tight, but when she shifted uneasily in her chair, he took note and her restlessness by answered by the flare of pure lust in his eyes.

All that time, the three of them talked decorously of the viscount’s upcoming bill in Parliament and his plan to appoint Griffin as Justice of the Peace—which, frankly, Phoebe couldn’t imagine. The viscount renewed the gentle request he always made, that she begin attending the assemblies in Bath, and she refused.

And then suddenly remembered that she had a husband who presumably had an opinion of his own, but he was laughing silently. He didn’t care about assemblies.

He would never care about the assemblies.

She let her gaze thank him, let her smile take on a kind of Cleopatra knowing that wasn’t drawn from anything but the erotic pictures she saw in her mind.

The viscount dropped his napkin and, in the absence of footmen, bent to retrieve it himself. Griffin caught her eyes and deliberately, slowly, licked the slice of pear he held in his fingers before slipping it into his mouth.

Phoebe blushed, feeling her body tighten until it almost hurt.

Finally it was time to retire to the drawing room. As Griffin came around the table to pull out her chair, leaning on his cane as he walked, she had the impulse to rise and walk toward him, but she thought better of it. Wounded lions didn’t like to be reminded of their limitations.

He brought her to her feet, and then, turning his back to the viscount, said quietly, “I don’t know about you, but I just spent that meal thanking God you aren’t a virgin.”

Hush!” Phoebe yelped, her cheeks undoubtedly as red as an apple.

I’ll be lucky if I make it out of the drawing room without backing you against the wall and taking you right there.”

You mustn’t say such things,” she scolded, glancing at his father. The viscount was smiling obliviously from the door, and she could hardly acquaint her husband with the truth about her lack of experience before an audience.

Once in the drawing room, Griffin sprawled on the small sofa beside her, his broad thigh pressed against hers. She was breathless, giddy with excitement. But somehow she managed to keep her voice to its usual cadence, even though every time he shifted and pressed his leg against hers, she felt a melting wave of desire.

They talked of the estate attached to Arbor House, of the fields and men whom she employed. Griffin casually put a hand behind her back. Callused fingers played with her curls and then stroked her neck, caressing her, teasing her. Phoebe pressed her knees together tightly, feeling herself turning pink once again. She was amazed that the viscount peacefully talked of crop rotation without catching the tension that sang in the air like a high note of music.

Griffin talked of farm work too, but in his mouth it all took on a different intonation. The viscount talked of crops; Griffin turned to fertilization, a smile curving his bottom lip. He had no shame, flicking glances at her under golden eyelashes that told her without words that he was more interested in plowing her than the north, or south, or west fields.

What’s more, his clever fingers were making the wanton imagination that she’d suddenly discovered spark with images of him touching her in places where she had never imagined a man would touch, or would want to touch. Finally she leapt from the sofa and announced she had to fetch her knitting.

What are you making?” Griffin inquired, as seriously as if she’d betrayed a talent for architecture.

A vest for Colin,” she told him. “He is growing terribly fast.”

The children are a credit to you,” the viscount said, smiling.

Griffin frowned, seeing that smile. He would have sworn that his father would never praise children got illegitimately, no matter how charming.

But then the viscount was standing, claiming to be tired, and Phoebe was issuing a charming refusal to even think of his leaving the house at this hour. It would have taken a stronger man than his father to reject her appeal.

Griffin had the sudden feeling that he would spend the rest of his life doing whatever she asked him to do. So much for the captain of the Flying Poppy, the man who answered only to the wind and the waves.

Oddly enough, he didn’t mind the idea. There wasn’t room for regret, not when hungry yearning filled every inch of him.

He didn’t crave only her body, either. He wanted all of her, the sweet elusiveness of her, that drop of melancholy, the bright intelligence with which she countered his father’s arguments.

All of it. All of her.