Seduced by a Pirate

SIXTEEN

The story thus far has taken but a single day . . . but this final chapter happens later, after days had blurred together like shining beads on a string: luminous, joyful, slipping from pleasure to pleasure, into a memory of the best summer of their lives.

Even in all that joy, one night stood out. It was in the dog days of summer, when September was still breathing sluggish, summer dreams, and snow seemed like an old wives’ tale. The lake water was warm even in the morning, and the lawn of Arbor House was burned by the sun and disheartened by the pounding of little slippers up and down its slope all day long.

Far from keeping the children out of the lake, Griffin encouraged amphibian habits. This particular day, court had been in session only in the morning, and he had the children in and out of the lake all afternoon. By now they had all learned to swim, though none as well as Colin, who was a veritable fish. Shark had tied a wooden seat to a willow tree; it swung out over the lake and they took turns dropping, screaming, into the water. They raced little wooden boats back and forth and quarreled over a dead fish that Alastair discovered floating belly up.

By six o’clock, when Phoebe and Griffin came around to give goodnight kisses, all three children were already dreaming, brown as berries, exhausted and happy. Colin, Margaret, and Alastair had changed since June. When Griffin first met them, they had been scrappy but vulnerable, with the wariness of children who aren’t entirely sure that the world is a safe place.

Now they swam and ran and played with a blithe sense of invulnerability. They were the pirate kings and queen of their world. They had Papa to protect them against everyone, including and most especially pirates, and Mama to cuddle them (when Papa wasn’t), and Nanny to scold them, and Lyddie to ignore them, so they could get into mischief now and then.

To their minds, their parents had no greater ambitions than to wrestle and play and soothe them.

But, of course, their parents sometimes waited impatiently for bedtime, played chess with an eye on the clock, stole kisses that no one saw, and counted the minutes until twilight fell.

This evening Griffin kept Phoebe and Viscount Moncrieff in stitches with tales of the idiot prosecutor for the Crown, one Barnardine Hubble.

So Hubble looks down at Margery Bindle and he says, with all the pompous clearing of his throat and twitching of his wig that you can imagine, ‘Miss Bindle, can you confirm that you believe your baby was conceived on the evening of August eighteen, when the defendant came through Bath in company with his theater troupe?’ ”

Poor woman,” Phoebe said. “Caught by a player. Some of them are wickedly handsome.”

The sideways glance her husband gave her, which said without words that she was not to ogle good-looking actors, was quite satisfying.

So,” Griffin continued, “Margery agrees that the baby was conceived on the evening of August eighteen, and Hubble demands, ‘What were you doing at that time?’ ”

Phoebe broke into giggles, and even the viscount smiled. “The chamber went into an uproar,” Griffin admitted. “I couldn’t stop laughing myself, and afterward Hubble huffed around the back rooms complaining about a lack of dignity in the courtroom.”

He’s right. There is no dignity in your court,” Phoebe said, putting down her fork. If she didn’t stop eating, she’d be as round as a church steeple in a few months. “Tell your father what happened last week with the doctor.”

Griffin and his father were becoming fast friends, though naturally they never said such a thing aloud. They were too used to considering each other enemies, when to Phoebe’s mind they were more alike than different.

Dr. Inkwell is fascinated by dissection,” Griffin said, waving a paring knife as if to illustrate the doctor’s technique. “Alas, a Mrs. Crosby claimed that he dissected her husband while still alive, even though the man’s death was attested to by two doctors.”

Poor woman,” his father observed. He was peeling an apple in one neat spiral.

Only Hubble would be fool enough to prosecute the case. He began by cross-examining the good doctor. ‘Before you began the dissection, did you check for a pulse?’ The doctor said no. ‘Did you check for breathing?’ The doctor said no.”

Shouldn’t he have checked something of that nature?” the viscount asked.

Hubble asked if it’s possible that the patient was still alive,” Griffin continued, “and Dr. Inkwell said no, because his brain was sitting in a jar on his desk.”

A slow smile curled the viscount’s lips, the same smile that Phoebe saw countless times a day on her own husband’s face.

And then Hubble asked, without skipping a beat, ‘But could the patient have still been alive?’ ”

This is the part I love,” Phoebe put in.

‘Absolutely,’ snaps Dr. Inkwell. ‘Mr. Crosby is undoubtedly alive and practicing the law.’ ”

They frightened a sleeping sparrow with their laughter. She started from her nest and flew in a circle around the courtyard before settling in the old oak.

They had been dining early so the viscount could take himself back to his own house and spend the next day working on the most important bill that the House of Lords would see that quarter.

Tomorrow,” Phoebe called, blowing her father-in-law a kiss as he took his leave.

There were no lonely corners of Griffin’s heart anymore, but had there been, his father’s grin as he left would have soothed them.

Griffin had a family now. Hand in hand, he and Phoebe wandered down the lawn to the water, and from there climbed into the flat-bottom rowboat, and from there ended up in mid-lake. They began with a twilight swim and ended up naked in the boat.

It was that sort of evening.

He was lying flat on his back, enjoying the slosh of warmish water that was playing around his back. Phoebe was on her knees, perched over him, and he knew that any moment now the queen of the pirates would make him happy.

But probably not until he begged.

Which he was going to do, as soon as he’d had enough of stroking those luscious breasts, and then down the slope of her stomach, and . . .

The slope of her stomach.

Phoebe?” he asked. “Is there something you forgot to tell me?”

She looked down at him, tossed her hair over her shoulder in a way that made her breasts plump in his hands. “Sir Griffin, have you noticed that I like to choose the right moment to make important announcements?”

I have.”

I have no time for that now.”

His hands slid down, into the hottest, wettest place on the whole boat. His wife gasped and dipped to kiss him.

He kissed her hard, saying without words what was in his heart.

Then she straightened and let him guide her with strong hands, let him drop her at just the right angle, let her cry echo across the rippling water and into the quiet night.

You are my heart,” he said, thrusting into her, fierce, out of control as always, beside himself.

She smiled down at him, hair wet and finger-combed, looking like Venus perched on a clamshell rather than atop a battered pirate. She looked like a boy’s wet dream. She looked like his wife.

I love you,” she gasped as he thrust up, at just the angle that he knew she liked the best. “And, Griffin?”

Yes?” He wasn’t really listening, concentrating on making her come before he completely lost his claim to manhood.

We’re having a baby,” she cooed.

You choose now to make your announcement? Now?”

Her hands were clutching his shoulders, and he saw her eyes go luminous, pleasure-filled. He lost control then, but it was all right, because they reached that moment together and tumbled down into a river-soft silence together.

And then when he had carried her off the boat—with a leg that was stronger than ever—he laid her gently on the grass and whispered, “So we’re having a baby?”

Her eyes were tender and unbearably loving. “Yes.”

Our fourth,” he said, stretching out beside her. “Do you think we have a boy or a girl in here?” He cupped her stomach.

I don’t know. A little viscount, perhaps?”

I would like Colin to be the viscount,” he said, feeling a prickle of guilt. Colin was his right-hand man.

Colin would hate to be a viscount,” Phoebe said with a laugh. “He is going to sea, Griffin. You know he is. You simply need to concentrate on making sure that he never becomes a pirate.”

Of course not,” her husband murmured.

And distracted her again.