Holly Read online

  “Oh.” Holly’s hands unclenched. She studied his grim scowl. Could it be her earlier suspicions were true? “Good God, Captain, are you . . . jealous?”

  Royce slumped into the chair Charles Everard had vacated, head down, staring at the floor. Except what met his gaze wasn’t the carpet but a fast-crawling baby aimed straight for his boots. Tiny fingers cast smudges on the polished surface, pulling, climbing . . . and then Andrew was up, tiny hands braced on Royce’s knees, blue eyes shining with triumph. “Da? Da?” The baby smiled, and if Royce had been guilty of male posturing before, now he was well and truly caught. Father for life.

  Across the room, Holly bit back a sob. Relief? Gratitude? A cessation of fear? Likely all three. The captain had returned home to find her entertaining her former lover. Marriage or no marriage, he could have thrown her out in Charles’s wake, leaving her penniless on the streets of London with no choice but to return to her old profession. Or slink back to the shelter of the Academy, a total failure. The best Lady R could do for her would be the life of a farmer’s wife, gathering eggs, slopping pigs . . .

  And, oh dear God, the captain would have every right to keep the children, who were legally his since they’d been born after their marriage. He’d even told her he wanted a family . . .No. Captain Royce Kincade was a shrewd, calculating man who accepted his courtesan wife and her children in return for his precious Venturer. An honorable man, he would stick to his bargain, no matter what. At least until that blasted ship was his. So . . .she had at least another year of respite.

  Unless he decided to beat her. Visions of Cecilia’s tale of being beaten by her lover whirled through her head. The captain wouldn’t . . . would he? Cecy hadn’t thought the marquess capable of such a thing either. Holly’s stomach roiled. Truly, she barely knew the man. A sailor hardened by world travel might be capable of anything.

  “Missus? Missus?” Dragged out of her uncomfortable reverie, Holly looked up to find Tildy gazing at her with considerable anxiety. “It’s that Fetch, Missus. He’s here and he ain’t a bit happy cuz Mrs. Balfour said as how Jesse had to stay in the room with him and our Cathy.”

  Dear Lord, not now!

  She should make the captain do this. But no. Fetch might be a young rooster, but he was no more likely to back down than the captain was. Particularly when his temper had yet to cool after his confrontation with Charles Everard. Another acrimonious exchange they did not need. Holly heaved a sigh and headed toward a modest-sized room that served as study, library, and sewing room, and now as a place where Fetch and Cathy could meet, as long as Jesse stayed with them.

  Holly paused in the doorway, struck by the sight of an unusually strong spring sun haloing Fetch’s blond hair. He was standing, head thrown back, hands fisted at his sides, like some young Viking raider gathering his inner forces before storming an unsuspecting village. If that village hadn’t been named Holly Kincade, she would have been all admiration. Nick Black had certainly known what he was doing when he snatched this one off the streets.

  “I’ve got no quarrel with you, missus,” Fetch ground out, his sky blue eyes gone stone cold. “It’s the captain I want to see.”

  “Best you talk to me,” Holly said, pleased that her voice didn’t waver. She peered around Fetch to find Cathy hovering behind him, as if using her long-time protector as a shield. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, sit down, the pair of you. No one’s going to eat you. I even have more than a little sympathy. So sit. Now! You too, Jesse,” she added, nodding toward a straight chair in the corner.

  With only a slight lessening of the stiffness in his shoulders, Fetch seated Cathy in the chair behind the desk, which effectively created a barricade between Holly and his dollymop. Again, she had to give him credit for thinking on his feet. He settled himself on a corner of the desk, crossed his arms, and challenged, “So let’s hear it then.” Insolent eyes swept her from head to toe. “Got the captain wrapped round your little finger, have you?”

  Calling on every lesson in deportment she had been forced to endure while at the Academy, Holly walked across the room like a lady of the manor and sat down in her favorite sewing chair.

  Fetch’s eyes narrowed as he realized she had deliberately given him pride of place, allowing his head to tower considerably higher than hers. “What’cha up to, missus?” he demanded, his hard-earned accent slipping more than a little.

  Up to? If she only knew. It would be fatal to start this conversation with “When I was your age,” but what else could she say? She’d been just as young, just as sure she knew exactly what she was doing. Just as confident nothing could ever go wrong.

  “A year and a half ago,” she said at last, “I had everything I had ever dreamed of. A fine gentleman to love me, clothing, jewels, servants. I was at the pinnacle of my profession, indulged, pampered, sparkling with life. Admired by men, envied by other women. After years of struggle, I’d made it to the top. Nothing could go wrong.”

  Good. She had their attention, even Jesse’s.

  “But we are all human, after all. Emotions—passion, arrogance, selfishness—are powerful things. They seize us tight, cloud our minds. It’s so easy to be careless. And then, poof, it’s all gone, and we discover we have feet of clay, just like everyone else.” Holly studied the three young people, one at a time. Fetch’s defiant features had eased into a thoughtful frown. Cathy, eyes wide, appeared stricken, Holly’s message resonating loud and clear. Jesse seemed to be examining the carpet, but his head was nodding, as if to say he, too, understood.

  “But, missus, a soft voice whispered, “we ain’t never . . .”

  “I ain’t stupid,” Fetch declared when Cathy’s words trailed into silence. Defiance radiated from every pore.

  “Nonetheless,” Holly shot back, “you’re reaching the age when it will become more and more of a problem, and I doubt you want to see your Cathy with a full-blown belly for many a year yet.”

  Fetch slid off the table, standing tall and proud. “I kin take care of me own.”

  “You’ll bloody well take care of your own by keeping your prick in your pants.” They all gaped as the captain strode into the room, dwarfing the rest of them with his presence.

  “Go away!” Holly cried. “You’re the bull in the china shop. You’ll spoil it all.”

  To everyone’s astonishment, Cathy suddenly threw herself forward, dropping on her knees at the captain’s feet. “Don’t send me back, Cap’n. I swear we won’t do it ’til I’m growed. I seen too much grief to do that to m’self. Much worse than whut happened to the missus. Please, Cap’n. Let me stay.” She raised a tear-stained face to the captain, revealing lovely but stricken features that Holly suspected the Devil himself could not have resisted.

  In one sweeping motion the captain picked the child up and deposited her in Fetch’s arms. “Bloody hell, I never said you couldn’t touch the girl! All I’m asking is that you have someone with you to keep in check what we all know is bound to happen when lust takes over. Well, boy, do you want her belly full sail before she’s fourteen? Do you?”

  Fetch wrapped his arms around Cathy, eyeing the captain over her shoulder. “You know I don’t. And I’m not some weak-kneed gentleman who has no control or don’t give a shite about nobody but himself.”

  “No, you’re not,” Royce agreed. “But you’re still not seeing her alone. If you care for her, you’ll give her the respect the nobs give their women. She’ll be chaperoned at all times or you don’t set foot over this threshold.”

  Holly winced. When her da had said something similar, she’d run off to London. Would these children be wiser?

  “Do you want Cathy to go back to the orphanage?” the captain inquired in a soft tone that nonetheless sent shivers up Holly’s spine. “For that’s the third choice.”

  Fetch tightened his grip on Cathy as a sob punctuated her silent tears. Slowly, he shook his head. “No wonder you and Nick get on so well, Cap’n. You drive a hard bargain.”

  Royce nodded. “A
ship’s captain must have a talent for it.” And then, blast them, they exchanged the look that excluded females of every age, size, and description merely because they were the wrong gender. Sorry, my dear, ours is a world you’ll never understand.

  Well, by God, two could play that game! With a huff of disgust, Holly strode out of the room, leaving the men to sort out the details of poor Cathy’s life. Which led to guilt gnawing at her for the remainder of the day. She was responsible for Cathy. The captain would soon be leaving, with nary a backward glance for the motley family in Marigold Cottage. For all his moralizing, what use would he be a thousand miles out to sea?

  By nightfall, Holly had worked herself into a seething bundle of righteous indignation. One look at Charles and the captain had assumed the worst. How could he possibly think her so weak-minded she would tumble back into Charles’s arms at first sight? Miserable mawworm that he was. And how dare the great Captain Kincade interfere in her conversation with Fetch and Cathy? She’d had the situation well in hand, and he’d barged in, all flags flying, cannons roaring, blustering over them like . . . like a ship’s captain accustomed to being obeyed.

  Holly heaved a heartfelt sigh and eyed her bed with unease. The captain would come, of course he would. The moment he did not find her in his bed, he would come looking for her. The man wanted a family of his own, he was home for three weeks. What else could she expect?

  Sitting at her dressing table, Holly shut her eyes tight and struggled to recall her vow of gratitude, her determination to be a good wife. But her temper kept trumping her common sense. This was her house. Charles’s money had paid for it, and God knew she’d earned it! Not just with lust and the sexual flexibility taught at the Academy but with the mental anguish, physical suffering, and sheer courage that came after Charles Everard abandoned her.

  The captain gave you his name, allowed you to hold your head up in a world quick to censure.

  He didn’t buy my soul!

  Legally, you’re his, stock, lock, and barrel. To do with as he pleases.

  Never!

  ’Ware, hot-head. Good men can be as stubborn as the worst of villains.

  Be quiet!

  Fool! You’ve made your bed, now lie in it. And don’t expect to be alone.

  Holly, who could match anyone, including the captain, for stubbornness, ignored her inner voice, jumped up, pacing her bedchamber, fury building with each step. At the click of the door opening, she swung round and demanded, “How dare you interfere in a situation I had well in hand?”

  Chapter 14

  “Oh, you did, did you?” Royce almost laughed out loud. “A lad even Black sometimes finds too hot to handle, and you plunge right in, thinking you can fix it, all right and tight.”

  “Fetch was angry because I doubted him,” Holly cried, “not because he didn’t see reason. He was listening, truly he was.”

  Arms folded over his chest, Royce slowly shook his head. “For a woman in your profession you surely don’t know much about men, young ones in particular. They can just look at a girl and go off like a rocket.”

  “Which won’t do either of them a bit of harm.”

  The captain’s banyan gaped open as he rocked back on his heels, his hands dropping to his hips. Cool air struck his already shriveling prick, even as his temper flared. “Good God, woman, the way you think! They’re children, and you’ll bloody well see that they stay that way.”

  “They’re London street children, and it’s far too late to wrap them in cotton wool and cast halos over their heads.” To his astonishment, Holly gulped back a sob that seemed to come out of nowhere. “As it’s too late for me, for all I have a ring on my finger. I am what I am. A fallen woman with two bastards. Or they would be, if not for you. And just because I’m so foolish as to lose my temper, don’t think I’m not grateful. I am! It’s just that you’re such a saint I don’t know how you stand me, even for the sake of your precious ship.” She took two shaky steps toward her dressing table and collapsed into the chair, head hanging down like a whipped dog.

  Hell and damnation! What did he do now? Half-way through his first true week of marriage, and it had come this. Black had warned him that courtesans were a cut above, many of them women who treasured their independence. Women who wanted to control their own lives instead of being under a husband’s thumb. And clearly Holly was as independent as they came. Something he had not seen when the final days of pregnancy had swallowed her spirit.

  She fought him because she had to. Because for all the previous months of their marriage she had managed alone. And managed well, if he didn’t count the debacle the day he arrived home. Marigold Cottage was indeed her house, the servants hers to command as well. He needed to leave off being captain as soon as he walked through the door. Not that there weren’t a great many male tyrants in the ranks of husbands, but, by God, he didn’t want to be one of them.

  Royce tightened the belt on his banyan and walked up behind his wife. Gently, he slid his hands onto her shoulders, waiting to see if she would jerk away before he slid his fingers through the long straight length of her dark hair, which shimmered in the candlelight. Oh yes, this is what he’d dreamed of, not just on the final weeks of the voyage home but every night since the reality of speaking his vows had made him fully realize what was happening. He was married. He had a wife. There would be someone waiting when he arrived home.

  A pale, slim hand reached out, slipped into his. He clasped it tight, holding on, willing his good intentions to travel from his heart and head to hers. He meant well, he truly did, although she was likely quite right when she called him a bull in a china shop.

  And then somehow her hand was gone. She’d turned in the low-back chair, her face mere inches from his sex, which was suddenly surging back to life. A tiny smile—secretive?—curled her lips as first one hand touched him, then the other. He groaned, hardening so fast his wife actually chortled her satisfaction. Devil take it, this is what made courtesans so lethal. They were so very skilled at their jobs. One minute flat, and she had him purring. His mind went blank to everything but sensation as soft fingers teased their way from tip to crotch, feathering back down before suddenly gripping him in a slow squeeze, fingers pulsing rhythmically, flesh turned to stone, his mind to mush.

  With heroic effort and a strangled moan, he grabbed her hands and held on tight. “Not. Like. This.”

  She laughed. The devil woman laughed! Thrusting his hands aside, her mouth followed where her fingers had been, Licking, sucking, moving inexorably higher, higher. Swallowing him whole. And there he stood, hands fisted at his sides, eyes closed, lips pressed together, lost in hellfire, forever condemned by a trick that should be left to molly men or French whores. But, oh God, it felt so good. So bloody good.

  Convulsions tore through him. No! Horrified, he staggered back, sperm spewing in the air, falling onto the carpet. Grabbing a bedpost for support, he stared, speechless, as his wife offered what now struck him as a sly smile, as if to say he was mere putty in her hands.

  Rage put steel back in his legs, brought out the worst of a sea captain who was absolute master of every soul under his command.

  “Is that what they taught you at whore school?” he asked, his words soft but sharp as a dagger. “My wife, the courtesan, adept at every trick of the trade. Particularly the ones that keep her belly flat. That’s it, isn’t it?” he added, his voice rising, blue eyes taking on a nasty gleam. “Are you afraid of birthing another, or are you punishing me for wanting to run my own household? For being a man, expecting my woman in my bed , expecting her to give me the family I want? Well, speak up! Are you whore or wife?”

  Holly blanched. Oh, dear Lord, what had she done? She’d hoped to turn him up sweet. Hoped to make them both forget their quarrel over Fetch and Cathy, their struggle for supremacy in running the household, and . . . And it was like bringing the wrath of God down on her head. She should have known. Wasn’t she the one who’d been scandalized when she’d first seen a demon
stration of fellatio at the Academy. She could still remember what she said. Frenchie stuff, she’d declared, adding, Lady R’s gone mad if she thinks we’re gonna do that.”

  Clearly, the captain agreed with her old self. Englishmen simply didn’t do that. Too bad. She had a few other things she’d like to teach him. One would have thought a sea captain . . .

  Was she supposed to apologize?

  Not bloody likely. He’d enjoyed it, she knew he had.

  Dear God, he must have really wanted that blasted ship, for clearly he had been appalled by the thought of marrying the likes of her. And just when she’d begun to hope they would muddle through. When she’d been tempted to relax into the feeling of safety, the warmth of companionship. The sex. When she’d begun to believe they’d get past the struggle for power, find a compromise. After all, he’d soon be gone, and life would return to normal . . .

  Except normal was lonely. Very lonely.

  Neither of them had moved. The captain’s harsh pants no longer split the air, but she was still sitting in her chair, staring at the carpet. Tension thickened the air, a barricade flaring between them, growing stronger by the moment. No, it isn’t supposed to be like this!

  Her fault, her fault. But why did he have to be so upright and unbending? How could he expect her to be comfortable with a saint?

  Three days, that’s all it had taken to prove their marriage a farce, fit only to be satirized at Drury Lane. She could hear the laughter now. A courtesan married to a Scots Presbyterian sea captain, living in a household with four bastards and visited regularly by the apprentice to the king of London’s underworld? Ripe pickings for ton and commoner alike. The gossipmongers would love it, the broadsheets and chaunterers spreading the news on every corner.

  Hell’s bloody hounds! She’d been a fool from the day she was born. After the captain took her in, she thought she’d learned her lesson, but this time, as she teetered on the brink, she knew he wasn’t going to catch her. He was going to leave her to wallow in her own stupidity. And, yes, deep down she admitted he was right. As much as she’d vowed to please him, she wasn’t ready to birth another child. Not yet. Even though she knew the window of opportunity was so small. Surely he could wait . . . just a few more months. Truthfully . . . more like a year. When neither of them was getting any younger.