Lady Pirate (20 page)

“Not good enough.” Whirling away, he continued his walk to the sideboard, poured himself a nice stiff drink, and downed it in one gulp.

“Thurborne!” she snapped again, stomping a foot in impotent rage.

Daniel turned to glance at her, then wheeled abruptly back to the sideboard. Damn, she was a sexy little bundle when she was furious! “Call me Daniel,” he called over his shoulder. “We know each other well enough for that, I should think.”

Instead she called him a string of words that he had never heard put together before. Actually, he decided, tossing back another drink, he had never heard a lady say even one of the words she had just uttered, let alone all of them together in such a creative manner.

She was still muttering some inventive, though not very pleasant, things that she would like to do to him a moment later when the rustle of clothing made him glance back to see that she was donning her gown. Even that action was sexy, he thought glumly, turning
back for another gulp of brandy before reaching up to straighten his own clothes. He had barely finished doing so when there was a tap at the salon door and it was pulled open by Henry. The man peered hopefully inside.

His expression drooped immediately upon seeing the two of them standing so far apart; then his gaze narrowed on Valoree.

Daniel glanced toward her to see that while her hair was a touch disheveled, her dress was back in place. She also looked as sour as a lemon, however, and was glaring daggers in his direction. Ignoring her, Daniel smiled pleasantly at Henry. “Come to join us?”

“Nay.” he glowered at them. “The next suitor's here.”

“Hmmph.” Valoree started for the door even as Henry pulled it open and stepped aside. Daniel couldn't at first see the man in question. He did, however, see Valoree's response to him. She stumbled to a halt, her eyes widening slightly, then flashed a brilliant smile and moved forward again, holding out her hand. A figure immediately stepped through the door to take the proffered appendage, lifting it for a kiss.

Daniel stewed. Henry had let him know shortly after the incident that had left Valoree lying unconscious on the floor in the kitchen that his hope was for Daniel and Valoree to come to an understanding. It had happened after Valoree had been carried to her room and while the women were undressing and tending to her. The two men had waited in the salon, and Henry had confessed as much, then informed him of her first suitors and their intended activities. He had also said that there would be an hour between the first two and the third fellow that Daniel could take advantage of, but he had not mentioned who the next fellow was. Now Daniel nearly groaned aloud as he recognized the
golden-haired man with the winning smile.
Hawghton. Of all the bloody luck!

“My lord.” Valoree moved a step closer to the man as he released her and straightened, and Daniel felt his hands clench at his sides.

“Lady Ainsley,” Hawghton purred in his perfect voice, flashing her his perfect smile. “I must say that your beauty is a pleasant surprise. I fear the rash you were sporting yesterday did not show you off to advantage.”

Daniel grimaced at that. She
was
looking lovely today. Her face was free of makeup, and completely recovered thanks to his mother's miracle salve. Probably one of the only times that one of her damn salves had actually worked, too, he thought bitterly. That figured.

“Thank you, my lord. It is
so
kind of you to say so,” she purred, then tossed a glare in Daniel's direction, as if to underline the fact that he had not.

“Oh, Thurborne,” Hawghton greeted, as if just noticing his presence. “I did not see you at first, old man.” Then a concerned expression crossed his face. “I am sorry, did I get the time wrong? Mayhap my appointment was not until later.”

“Oh, do not mind
old
Thurborne.” Valoree's voice was heavy with disgust. “He's a friend of Uncle Henry's.”

Daniel glanced at her sharply and she smiled at him in a cold-eyed way that told him she had guessed from the start how he had “just happened” to be in the park. Well, he supposed he should have known she would figure it out.

“I see,” Hawghton murmured, his gaze moving between the two of them. Then he seemed to come to some decision and turned on his most charming smile. “Well, then. I thought mayhap we could attend the theater this afternoon. They are performing Sir George
Etherege's “She Would If She Could.” It is supposed to be quite amusing.”

Nodding, Valoree started toward the door. “I shall just go fetch my aunt and uncle and we can be off.” Then she paused to examine Daniel pointedly. “Shall I see you out, my lord? You
were
just leaving, were you not?”

Nodding, Daniel set the drink he had been holding down, then moved silently toward her. She didn't wait for him, but stepped out into the hall, leaving him to follow. By the time he had reached the hall, she was at the front door and pulling it open.

Pulling the door to the salon closed with a snap, Daniel crossed to Valoree determinedly, caught her about the waist, and drew her against his chest. She tried to bring her arms up, but he had pinned them nicely to her side. Then she opened her mouth, probably to bestow upon him a few more of her colorful endearments, but he covered her mouth with his own, taking full advantage of the moment.

Valoree didn't crumble right away—she did have some backbone to her—but when he pushed the door closed with his foot, caught her hands, and held them behind her back with one of his so that the other could roam freely over her breasts, she at least stilled and stopped struggling. It took several minutes of thorough kissing and fondling before she actually began to kiss him back, but only a moment or so more after that before she was as liquid fire in his arms and moaning into his mouth. That was when he stopped.

Taken by surprise, she sagged against the wall and watched blankly as he straightened his cravat and cuffs.

“I just thought I would leave you something to remember me by,” he said with a wink, then opened the door and slipped out quickly. A growl of rage slid from
her throat and she grabbed a vase from the table beside her. Daniel pulled the door closed and chuckled as he heard the smash of glass behind it.

The battle lines, it seemed, had been drawn.

“I cannot believe you did that!” Meg snapped, climbing into the carriage and seating herself across from Valoree so that she could glare at her through the darkness. “What on earth is the matter with you? Are you deliberately trying to ruin any possibility of finding a husband and claiming your inheritance? Because if you are, you are doing a fine job of it!”

“There is nothing the matter with me,” Valoree snapped impatiently. “Scrantom was feeling me up with his stinky old foot under the table!”

“What?” Meg blinked in amazement, seeming at a loss for a moment; then she sighed impatiently. “Well, that may be, but an old man playing a little footsie—”

“Footsie?” Valoree snorted her disgust. “He had his foot under my skirt, halfway up my thighs, and was still moving upward until I put a stop to it.”

Meg bit her lip. “Oh.”

“Aye, oh,” Valoree said in a snarl, turning her head to glare out the window of the stationary carriage. It was stationary because they were waiting for Henry and
him
to come out.

Him
was how Valoree thought of Daniel Thurborne now. Just
him
. The man was a canker on her butt. A wart on her nose. A pus-ridden carbuncle on her arse.
In short, he was making her life absolute hell. He was everywhere she went. There wasn't a moment's peace from
him
. Every walk, every dinner, every
anything
one of her suitors chose to do during their appointed times with her…
he
was there. Which might not have been so bad had he simply been present. More often than not his wit and charm turned what would have been hellacious hours spent in the company of boring, whining, or just plain weak men into bearable chores.

Unfortunately he did more than that. He teased, and chatted, and made her laugh, waiting the whole time like a vulture. And the moment the opportunity presented itself, he pounced, taking her in his arms and making her dizzy with passion, working her into a frenzy of want, then stopping and walking away, leaving her a bundled ball of knotted nerves. And it was hell.

He didn't even have to kiss or touch her anymore. The moment she saw him, Valoree's body began to hum with want. Should he brush against her innocently in passing, a jolt of desire shot through her like lightning. And forget fighting it. At first she had tried to avoid any situation he might take advantage of, but now she sought them out. Now she looked for them. He had worked his frustrating magic on her behind trees, in hallways, under stairways, and even, once, in a closet. But all each episode did was make her more miserable. And she was reaching the breaking point. Even losing control of her life didn't seem like such a horrible price to pay to gain release from this terrible frustration. And that scared the devil out of her. Back-from-the-Dead Red, scourge of the Caribbean, the pirate feared by the Spanish, French, and Dutch alike, was laid low by the need for a man between her legs.

Not just any man.
Him
. Only
he
would do. Oh, she had tried kissing her various suitors, and even a bit more on the less repulsive ones. But it was like trying
to substitute wine for rum. Wine was sweet but not very strong; rum was spicy and had a kick. Valoree wanted the damn kick! But she didn't want to have to marry the kicker.
What a pain
.

A titter from Meg drew her head around, and Valoree peered at the older woman in question. “What is so damn funny?”

“Oh, dear. I was just thinking of Lord Scrantom's face when you slammed your knife into the table beside his hand. I think he relieved himself on the spot.” She covered her mouth to keep a laugh in, then shook her head. “Then when you pulled it out—”

She began to laugh helplessly, and Valoree smiled slightly as she recalled the moment. It
had
been rather funny, now that she thought of it. She had tugged the knife out of the table in the sudden silence, nonchalantly turning it over, to hold it half an inch in front of Scrantom's quivering nose so that he could see the decimated insect on its end. “A fly,” she had said, as if that explained everything, “Pesky little things. They like to crawl up under a lady's skirts and tickle her legs.” Then she had shot her gaze to him coldly and added meaningfully, “I hate things that crawl up my skirts and tickle my legs.”

The man had gone into a dead swoon. Valoree had wiped the fly off on his sleeve and stood to leave the room, saying, “Cross him off the list, Henry. He wouldn't survive long enough to get me with child.” Then she had come out here to wait in the carriage for them to join her, which Meg had done almost right away. Daniel and Henry, the only other guests at Scrantom's dinner, hadn't yet come out.

“Where is Henry?” she asked impatiently.

Meg leaned forward to peer through the window at the town house. “I am not sure. I thought Henry was right behind me, but—Oh, here they come.”

Valoree leaned forward to see the men chatting as
they walked toward the carriage. They parted at the end of the walk, Thurborne moving toward his carriage, and Henry hurrying over to where Meg and Valoree waited.

“Come on,” he said cheerfully, pulling the door open. “I invited Thurborne back for something to eat, since Scrantom's shenanigans cheated us out of half our dinner. He's offered us a lift in his carriage.”

Valoree blinked in surprise that Henry had known what the man was about, then frowned as what he said sank in. “What's wrong with
our
carriage?”

“Nothing, if ye don't mind riding in a sea of silk,” Henry muttered in disgust. “It's too damn small for the three of us, let alone all four.”

“Well, he can just follow in his carriage,” she argued, but not with very much force behind it. A moment later, as Henry pursed his lips and looked down his nose at her, she heaved a sigh and started out of the carriage. Satisfied by her agreement, Henry turned to tell No-Nose the change of plans.

She supposed she wasn't really fooling anyone by such a weak protest, at least not Henry. He knew her too well to be fooled by it, but she felt better that she had at least made the effort. Valoree attempted not to look too eager as she walked from one carriage to the other. She even muttered something unpleasant under her breath when Daniel winked at her as he helped her inside. A heartbeat later, they were all seated, and Valoree was cursing herself for her weakness as the carriage they now rode in moved out to follow the rented hack home.

The Thurborne carriage
was
larger than the one the men had rented for their stay in London, but Daniel didn't seem to be aware of that. He was sitting squeezed up against her, his hip and outer thigh pressed against hers, and his arm rubbing hers with the movement of the coach as he chatted with Henry. It
was all what she had hoped for, of course, but it was sheer hell anyway. Amazing, the things that you could learn about yourself when put into new situations. For instance, until she had come to London and met Thurborne, Valoree hadn't had a clue that she had such masochistic tendencies.

She was berating herself for a fool when there was a sudden shout of warning, the shriek of horses, and a loud crash. The carriage lurched violently, throwing Valoree against Daniel, but a glance out the window showed a wagon tipping on its side even as it was pulled past by two panicked horses.

“Are you all right?” Daniel asked, helping her to sit up again once the carriage had stopped.

“Aye,” Valoree assured him, then peered out the window as Daniel turned to check on Henry and Meg. Her gaze moved toward the road at the back of Thurborne's carriage, the direction the wagon had gone. She saw the vehicle had stopped some distance back, lying on its side in the road. The driver was whipping the horses, trying to get them to move anyway, to drag the wagon away. When they wouldn't budge, he gave up, and ran off down the road. Muttering under her breath, Valoree then turned to glance to the expanse of road at the front of Thurborne's carriage. What she saw there made her blood run cold and had her scrabbling to get outside.

“What is it?” Daniel asked, noticing her panic, but Valoree didn't stop to tell him. Stumbling from the carriage, she ran toward the wreckage of the hack her men had rented.

“One-Eye!” she yelled, hurrying toward the first man she saw. Flung to the side of the lane, he sat up slowly, shaking his head as she dropped to her knees beside him. “Are you all right? What happened?”

“Don't know,” he answered dazedly, shaking his head again. “I guess we crashed. There was a bang;
then I got thrown from the back of the hack.”

“Is anything broken?” she asked worriedly as Daniel reached them.

“Don't think so.” He moved one limb, then another with caution. “Nay, I'm fine. What about the others?”

“You stay here and rest a minute; I'll go see.” She patted his back, then stood and moved toward the front of the spilled carriage, aware that Daniel was following her. She heard him curse as he looked over what remained of the rented hack, but didn't look herself. She had seen the wreckage when she had peered out the window of his coach. The hack had tipped, smashing into the stone wall along the front of a town house. The top had been torn off, its sides had caved in, and the bottom was twisted. She doubted anyone would have survived had they been inside.

She found Bull and No-Nose off to the side at the front of the carriage. Bull seemed fine as he knelt by the other man, but No-Nose was not. His leg was broken, the bone poking clean through the skin.

“Sorry, Captain,” No-Nose apologized. “That wagon came out of nowhere. Headed straight for us. I tried to move out of the way, but…” He shook his head.

“Shut up, No-Nose,” Valoree muttered, kneeling by his injured leg and beginning to rip at the hem of her petticoat. “Help me here, Bull. We have to straighten this out. Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“Nay, I—Aaaahhhh,” he screamed, then began to curse a blue streak as Valoree and Bull set to work on him.

Valoree pressed her lips together and did what had to be done, or at least as much as she knew. Scratchy would have to have a look at it when they got him back to the ship. He was the doc. But she knew No-Nose would be lucky to keep the leg.

“Damn,” Henry swore upon spotting No-Nose's in
jury as he and One-Eye reached them. “How the hell did this happen?”

“A wagon came around the corner, pointed straight at us,” Bull rumbled. “No-Nose tried to get us out of the way, but the other fella was comin' on too fast. We couldn't avoid getting hit, and we both jumped off just before it hit.”

Henry blew out a breath, then asked, “He gonna be all right?”

“He'll live,” Valoree answered shortly, unwilling to make promises about keeping his leg. Her gaze moved to Bull. “I can finish up here. You and One-Eye go tip that wagon back on its wheels and see if it will move. If it still works, bring it back here. You'll need it to take No-Nose back to the ship.”

“I'll give 'em a hand,” Henry said, chasing after them as the two men hurried away.

Daniel shifted, drawing her gaze to him. She had quite forgotten he was there.

“No-Nose?” he said softly, raising one eyebrow. “Ship?”

Lips tightening, Valoree turned back to trying to stanch the flow of blood from No-Nose's leg.

“Here.” Meg was suddenly beside her, ripping a length of material from her own petticoats and offering it to Valoree, even as she attempted to reassure the man. “You will be all right, Robert.”

Even in pain as he was, the man managed to grimace at the use of his proper name.

When she had done the best she could for him, Valoree glanced around. Daniel had moved off to help the men. They had the wagon back on its wheels, but instead of bringing it back, had paused to chat with a stranger. The four men she knew were standing in a semicircle, apparently listening to the other, who was gesticulating wildly.

Clicking her tongue impatiently, she stood and
roared, “Quit yer lollygagging, ye shiftless bastards! I've a wounded man here!”

Jaw dropping to his chest, Daniel wheeled around to peer at her in amazement. One-Eye and Bull, however, rushed to the wagon and leaped onto the driver's bench, immediately turning it to ride back toward her. Henry stayed, though, apparently trying to soothe the stranger. The man was getting more excited by the moment.

“Sorry, Captain,” One-Eye apologized, holding the horses steady as Bull leaped down to lift No-Nose into the back of the wagon. “That fella back there is the owner of the wagon.”

“Oh, he is, is he?” she said in a snarl, turning to start toward where Henry was still talking with the man.

She was given pause when One-Eye called out, “Aye, but he weren't driving it. Some fella stole it from him on the next block. He chased after him on foot and came on the accident after it happened.”

Valoree hesitated, her gaze moving to where One-Eye was struggling to control the horses. The man was a sailor. He didn't know the first thing about driving. As far as she knew, Skully and No-Nose were the only members of her crew who had any skill with the beasts. Sighing, she turned back toward the three men still talking down the street. “Henry! Bring that man over here!”

Henry glanced toward her, hesitated, then started to lead the man back. He was about Henry's height and nearly as muscular, his face covered with soot. He had been delivering coal to the town houses when his wagon had been stolen, she guessed. The bottom and sides of his conveyance were stained black from the dust of the coal.

“This is your wagon?” Valoree asked as soon as he was close enough to hear without her having to shout.

“Aye. The dirty blighter stole it. I—”

“One of my men is injured,” Valoree interrupted shortly as he stopped before her. “I need to get him to the docks. Can you take him?”

The man hesitated, displeasure shifting over his features. “Why can't ye just take him in
your
damn carriage? He not good enough to dirty the seats?”