A Pirate's Wife for Me (16 page)

She struggled to remove her hands from his. "Don't say it!"

He was relentless. "Whether you like it or not, on a bright morning in Oban, we stood in that tiny church and said our vows before that old, old clergyman."

"Don't remember!"

"Don't remember?" He was incredulous. "I can't forget. My darling wife, in the eyes of man, and law, and in the eyes of God, we
are
married."

CHAPTER NINETEEN

This was what Cate had dreaded
since the moment she had seen Taran. This nugget of truth, hidden from the world, known only to the two of them. She stopped struggling and stared urgently into his gaze. "No one need ever know."

"We know." His voice curled around her mind like sweet, thick applewood smoke, confusing her, making her tremble. "That minister knows."

"He's dead." God forgive her, she'd been glad to hear that that sweet, fragile old man had gone to his reward, for she had wanted no one to know the depths to which her idiocy had descended. "I lived in fear he would realize who I was, but if he did, he never told anyone, and now he's dead."

"
God
knows."

She took hard, desperate breaths, trying to bring in enough air to banish this faintness that threatened to bring her to her knees. "Then it's between you and me and God. I don't want the world to know. I can't believe you do, either."

"How desperate are you to keep it a secret?" Taran murmured. "What will you pay to make sure I tell no one?"

Her voice rose. "I'm not fornicating with you!"

A few of the men looked around, grinning.

He didn't smile as he shushed her. "Fornicate with me? As a bribe to keep me quiet? Certainly not. You'll fornicate with me because you want to. I meant — will you take me along as your husband because you're told to, or will you take me along as your husband because I am?"

She had no choice. She knew it. He knew it. But she would bargain anyway. "So if I take you as my husband, when this mission has been completed, do you promise to let me go my own way without interference from you?"

Throwing back his head, he laughed long and hard. "A woman without a husband is like —"

"— A bird without a corset."

He cocked his head, a faint smile still caressing his lips. "That doesn't make sense."

"Isn't … that … the truth." She didn't need a man. She'd proved it time and time again. Now she had to prove it to Taran, that ultimate arrogant male beast.

"You'll take me with you to Cenorina, because it's the best chance the mission has of succeeding."

"You'll disappear from my life when Davies had been captured?"

He stroked one side of her jaw with the backs of his fingers. "I suspect I can safely promise that."

She considered him suspiciously. Was that good enough?

Probably not.

Would she get more from him?

Definitely not.

But why did he look like that? As if he'd been presented a choice between a cup of poison and a rusty blade? "I want more. I want your vow that you'll disappear from my life forever. I want never to see a man who resembles you. I want never to hear a voice that reminds me of yours. I want to know —"

Sliding his arms around her waist, he swung her body up to meet his. "You never did know when to shut up."

He leaned her back and kissed her with all the finesse of a pirate intent on victory, with his tongue and, when she wouldn't cooperate, with the gentle scrape of his teeth against her lower lip.

The taste of him. The scent. The warmth. The texture of his lips, the nubby surface of his shirt beneath her fingertips, the press of his chest against hers.

All around them, the party continued, but they were instantly, totally involved in each other. She wanted him, now, on the bench, on the floor, in her bedchamber …

Dimly, in the recesses of her brain, she heard the slam of a door.

The roar of a gunshot sliced across the squall of the accordion, through the singing and the thumps of men's boots.

Chips of wood and plaster fell like hail.

Silence descended.

Taran lifted his head and stared down at Cate, and for a moment he looked as dazed and overwhelmed as she felt.

Reality returned in a rush.

She gasped and shoved him away.

He smashed her against the wall and swung to face the room. She could see nothing of the tavern but Taran's back. But she did hear the scrape of knives being drawn. The click as pistols left their holsters.

A harsh male voice shouted, "I 'eard there were terrible pirates in Cleary's pub, but I see only cockless cowards too afraid to dance with wenches."

Cate strained to peek around Taran's shoulder.

As a group, his men stepped forward and in front of her.

Only Taran hung back to thrust a pistol into her hand. In a low voice, he commanded, "Get to your room as fast as you can." Then he shoved his way through his men until he reached the front.

In a voice as loud and rough as his unknown assailant, he roared, "Gerry Williams. You worthless arse-sucker! I should have known you were in town. I smelled the stench of rotting fish."

Cate sidled over to the stairwell. Sliding inside, into the dim interior, she stood on the lowest step and looked over the top of the men.

An enormous, bald, bug-eyed pirate stood just inside the taproom. His hands were the size of serving platters. His still-smoking pistol was twice as long as Taran's. His clothes were every color of the rainbow, but smudged and torn, and blood smeared his face. His teeth were black, his scowl dreadful to behold, and in his ears he wore delicate gold earrings. Incongruous, but all the more frightening because of that.

Surrounding him stood two dozen of the dirtiest, meanest-looking sailors she'd ever seen. They, too, looked as if they'd fought other battles this night. One man's eye was swollen shut, another had a cut across his cheek. Knives hung in a shining array across their chests, except the ones they clutched in their hands.

"Your ship is called the Floating Twigger." Taran's voice dropped to a sympathetic croon which he somehow managed to project through the pub. "But tell the truth. You haven't had a stand out of old Horny since dirt was young."

"Oh … yeah?" The pirate fixed his bulging gaze on Taran, and if looks could have killed, Taran would have exploded into bloody fragments.

Taran swaggered toward Gerry Williams. "You've got no money in your purse, no ink in your pot, your sails are limp and your mast is broken. You couldn't board a ship, must less occupy a woman. That's why you came looking for a fight, you –"

With a roar, Gerry threw himself at Taran.

Taran's crew flung themselves at Gerry's crew.

They clashed amid shrieks of rage with knives and punishing blows.

Cate lifted the pistol, prepared to defend her men, but she couldn't see Taran, couldn't tell one pirate from another. The noise was deafening as they overturned tables, threw chairs, broke glasses.

Mr. Cleary came rushing in from the kitchen, waving a towel, and went down under the mass of humanity like a sand flea beneath an ocean wave.

Every other moment, Cate saw one or the other of her pirates, swinging his fists with a madness that looked like pleasure.
Was
pleasure. Her mouth puckered. Yes, she'd grown up with enough boys to recognize when they were having a good time. They punched each other's brains out with glorious good will. She craned her neck, trying to get a glimpse of Taran.

The crowd parted.

Taran fought Gerry Williams like a man baiting a bear. Gerry outweighed him by four stone, and one good blow would have finished the fight. Instead, Taran danced in and out, slapping him, tweaking his nose, and occasionally giving him a good clobber on the ear. Gerry shouted and fought, punching at him, but never landing a straight hit. One blow, even half-struck, from that beefy fist would have knocked Taran into next week. Gerry never had a chance to land that blow.

At the same time, both men observed the brawls going on around them, for occasionally they would step into another fight and knock the stuffing out of someone else.

It was, Cate decided, like the dance, only without rhythm or beauty.

Taran was good. He was accurate. He was savage. He fought as he made love, with precision and grace. He made every movement count, and Cate's mouth dried as she stared. Every time she met him, she recalled how good it had been between them, and once again she wanted him. Every time, the desire increased, smoldering like a spark ignited by bellows. If she didn't stay away from him, she would willingly step into the fire and be incinerated by the passion between them.

Taran's fist met Gerry Williams's face, knocking him flat onto his back. He slid along the floor, right into the shadowy stairwell. Head back, face bloody, he looked upside-down at her. Smiling his black-toothed grin, he roared, "Hey, little lady, come out and play!"

She lifted the pistol, cocked it, and pointed the barrel right between his eyes. Some hint of her cool intention must have percolated through to his pirate's drunken brain, for his eyes widened, he got to his feet, and he flung himself back out into the fight.

She heard him shouting unintelligibly. "Female! Damned red-haired female! Almost blew me head off!"

Taran skittered into the stairwell. "Blast! Cate, can't you ever follow directions?"

She glared at him. Blood oozed from his swollen lip. He had the beginnings of a black eye and he sucked on his bleeding knuckles.

It wasn't fair, knowing what she rejected, seeing how he moved … knowing he was right, that the two of them together made a team that would avenge her brother's death and bring the traitors to justice.

So he would go to Cenorina as her husband. She would do her job. And if he tried to take advantage of their proximity, she would utilize the knowledge Blowfish had taught her. She couldn't kill Taran. Oh, no. But she could knacker him and throw his acorns to the pigs. She nodded. "Yes, I will."

"Get upstairs!" he shouted, and jumped back into the fray.

Carefully, she eased the flintlock back into place, pocketed Taran's pistol, and on wobbly knees went upstairs to bed — alone.

No matter how he kissed her, no matter how incredible the heat between them, that was the way it was going to stay.

Nine years ago, he might have wed her before bedding and abandoning her. But she'd changed in nine years. Now she was determined to preserve her sanity and her virtue. He would never again share her bed.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Nine years ago…

Nine years ago, when Cate and Taran left the isle of Mull for their lovers' rendezvous, Cate had wanted to scamper away from Castle MacLean.

Taran insisted they stroll as if they were going for a walk. Taran carried a leather bag with him.

Cate wondered what wonderful gifts he had obtained for her.

He allowed her to hire the fisherman to take them to the mainland. He had arranged for a frail old minister in a village outside of Oban to wed them, and that moment, as they stood in his parlor while he blessed them, had been the happiest of her life. She would never forget the way the daisies trembled in her arms or the single, passionate kiss of claiming Taran pressed on her lips.

Then he insisted they separate and make their way to their rendezvous separately.

She was glad to do anything he asked. Their flight had all the earmarkings of an escape. She thrilled at their great adventure, for she knew, without a doubt, how it would end. With happily ever after.

Now Cate chuckled bitterly. Down in the taproom, the fight roared on. Without taking off her clothes — one never knew if the idiots downstairs would set the place on fire — she reclined on her bed and covered her eyes with her arm.

Nine years ago.

Nine years ago, she had been so incredibly, mightily naïve, that even now it hurt to remember. She tried never to recall those moments, but now … between Taran declaring himself and the flutterings of her own foolish heart, she forced herself to remember all the passion, all the recklessness … all the pain.

Years of pain. Years of loneliness.

Nine years ago …

Granny Aileen had died, leaving a well-tended valley hidden in the folds of the mountains. Kiernan stocked it with firewood and dried food in tins, intending it as a refuge for travelers. Birds nested in the orchard, and deer brought their young to feast on the new young buds. Few human travelers followed the path here, but when they did they were rewarded with a sense of security, of eternity captured in one protected corner of the earth.

As Cate slid down the steep path, she smelled spring green grass and heard the tinkling of the tiny spring into the sand-lined pool. The gentle sunshine caressed her face, and for the first time since her father had died, she was totally, completely happy. She loved Taran with all the passion of her young heart, and now she had him for her own, forever and ever.