Lady Reluctant Read online

  After looking about him, he crossed the sand and silently watched as Monsieur finished draping an awning over his accounting stand.

  “Ye recollect what I told ye?” Squinting, Beau Billy inspected the awning with an expression of distaste. He had never quite abandoned the habit of judging things against his idea of how a pirate should and ought to live or behave. Silk awnings did not impress him as a fitting image to impart, but Monsieur would have his shade. And it had to be done in a manner appealing to Monsieur’s fastidious sense of taste. Today, the awning was fashioned from a length of billowing silk dyed a yellowish-green that made Beau Billy think of baby piss. The color, no doubt, was fashionable in France. How Monsieur learned of such things mystified him.

  Monsieur’s long thin nostrils pinched in a sniff and he drew to his full, diminutive height. Sunlight flashed from his wire-rimmed goggles.

  “Have I ever failed you, Mr. Morgan?” he asked in an aggrieved tone. His enormous powdered wig trembled with indignation. “Have I ever disobeyed a single instruction?”

  There were few men under God’s heaven whose stare could make Beau Billy Morgan wilt with discomfort. But Monsieur was such a one. The little man with his oversized wig and his undersized legs, his barrels of books and his bright, bright eyes made Beau Billy acutely aware of his own ignorance and rude mind.

  He looked away from Monsieur’s quivering nostrils and stubbornly repeated his orders. “If the Duke brings chests of women’s clothing, yer to select the finest pieces for the Mite. Dress ‘er proper like, now. Don’t forget the small clothes, the garters and such.”

  A pained look pressed Monsieur’s lips. “I know which items are required.”

  So did he. If there was one thing Beau Billy was likely to know, it was what went into dressing a woman from the skin out. “Ye’ll look for books and forget the Mite’s gowns.”

  The little man’s brocade-clad shoulders stiffened in outrage. No one effected outrage quite as eloquently as Monsieur. “Never, sir. I know my duty.” Nose in the air, he settled himself on a tapestry-covered chair he had placed on the sand behind the plank that served as his desktop. After positioning his ink pot and quill just so, he straightened a yellowing cravat and opened his ledger. There he began a new page by lettering “The Duke” in his neat, precise hand.

  Beau Billy turned to face the cove waters and fingered the heavy gold disk suspended against his chest. “Ye be certain Lady Katherine is alive and well?”

  “I have confirmed this with my own eyes the last time you sent me to London.”

  “And she has the blunt to launch the Mite?”

  “The Earl of Ditshire’s death left her with a fortune.” Monsieur glanced behind, then lifted his gaze to the broad back in front of him. “It’s the right decision to send Blusette to Lady Katherine,” he offered quietly. “Blusette is intelligent and well tutored, if I dare say so. But she lacks any semblance of social grace. We’re agreed she has no future here on Morgan’s Mound. She must go to Lady Katherine.”

  Beau Billy didn’t turn. Dogs yapped along the shoreline, roosters and pigs quarreled in the square. Men cursed and sweated over the barrels they were stacking near the wharves. Life was raw here, base and uncultured. Brawling and cock-fighting were the entertainments of choice; whoring and drinking ran a near pursuit. He knew he had to let her go.

  “Is she still beautiful?’ he asked eventually, his voice soft.

  “Yes. Lady Katherine is still beautiful.”

  It wouldn’t do to ask more. It was enough to know she was as he remembered. He nodded once, then straightened the faded knit cap he wore and strode forward to welcome the Duke.

  He knew the Duke largely by reputation, though Beau Billy thought he remembered having met him once or twice on Tortuga, where he had left the message that the Duke was to come to him. He knew the Duke was English and likely of genuine aristocratic birth. He was a privateer rather than a pirate, although the distinction was not sharp and clean. Pirates recognized no flag; privateers chose their victims on a selective basis. It was said the Duke passed English and Colonial shipping unmolested, but few French or Spanish ships slipped within his sights without tasting a bite of his shot. This indicated the man had principles. Principles were a dangerous quality in a man, but it also meant a man could be used. And occasionally trusted.

  Unfortunately, principles did not guarantee a long life. Sooner or later, Beau Billy suspected that the Duke’s principles would stand him on the wrong side of the mast and someone would have to kill him. Perhaps it would be Beau Billy himself, though he hoped not. He rather admired the lad.

  He watched as the William Porter anchored in the slip and listened to the hiss of ropes snaking through the air. As always, he experienced a moment of longing for the days when he, too, had captained a ship. Those had been the good days, the best days. The days of sea and wind in his face, and fire in his gut when a sail broke the horizon. The exhilarating days of pitting his skill and daring against that of an opposing captain. And when he, an English shipbuilder’s son, won the ensuing battle, he experienced a feeling of triumph like no other on earth.

  But fathers of small daughters did not go marauding upon the seas, leaving their daughters to an unpleasant future should they fail to return. The good days had ended when Blu was six and he could no longer risk her aboard a pirate ship, nor could he risk leaving her behind.

  Hearing his unconscious sigh, Blu looked up at him. “You didn’t put on your patch,” she said, teasing him.

  “And ye didn’t put on a fresh shirt. Yer still bloody.”

  “I want the Duke to know he isn’t invited to bed a coward.”

  Blu had noticed that most of the women had donned their finery and some had tucked bright blossoms into their hair. She had considered doing the same, then weighed against it. She didn’t want the Duke to think she was like the regular whores. She wanted him to comprehend that she was as brave and valiant in her way as he in his. She wanted him to understand that if he soured her forever, he would regret it. She was prepared to run him through if he bungled the job.

  As she waited impatiently beside her father, the gangplank cracked down against the graying boards of the wharf, and after a moment, the Duke himself descended. Blu sucked in a hard breath. God’s teeth, he was a fine-looking specimen. Beau Billy moved forward and the two men bowed, then shook hands warmly. The Duke showed no fear or apprehension and Blu admired him for it.

  But then, she conceded, she liked everything about him. Observed at close quarters, he was even more handsome and exciting than he had appeared in the glass. A white linen shirt fluttered over broad shoulders before tapering to a slender hard waist. Black kicks molded his hips and curved down to shapely legs. He wasn’t barefoot like the men on the island; he wore knee boots made of Spanish leather. The knee boots would be troublesome in the sand, but she thought they looked very grand. She decided he had been aptly named, and she congratulated herself on her choice.

  As the Duke and her father approached, the official request for safe harbor having been asked and granted, Blu noticed the ribbon tying back his dark hair was made of silk, and he really and truly did have eyes as gray as Black Bottom’s kitchen cat. But most amazing of all was his naked mouth. Viewed up close, his mouth was even more unnerving than it had appeared through the glass. His lips were full, almost sensual, while at the same time being firm and unyielding.

  She was still staring at his mouth when Beau Billy waved a hand and said, “This is me daughter, Blu.”

  The Duke swept a plumed hat from his head and bowed to her. He bowed to her. Blu’s cheeks flushed bright with pleasure that swiftly turned to embarrassment. To save her bloody soul, she couldn’t recall what was expected at such a moment. Casting an anxious glance over her shoulder, she attempted to catch Monsieur’s eye, but Monsieur was absorbed by his ink pots and ledgers. She would have to manage as best she could with a mind that had gone hazy and a body that had turned as limp as hot straw.

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sp; Imitating the Duke, she bent from the waist and returned his bow, vaguely aware she erred but hoping the Duke would not notice. As she straightened, she opened her lips to show him her teeth were white and straight, then she leaned forward, straining for a glimpse of the Duke’s teeth. He raised an eyebrow and smiled, but he smiled with his lips closed.

  “I’ll be obliged for a sight of your teeth,” she said as politely as Monsieur could wish.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Oh, she loved his voice. It was low and cultured and it sent cold shivers down her sweating back. Such a voice could have charmed a wild boar out of the forests. “Your teeth,” she said, wishing he would speak again. “I need to see how many are rotten, if you please.” By way of explanation, she added, “I have my standards.”

  Actually her standards were beginning to seem of less importance. What was one or two blackened teeth, after all, when measured against those marvelous lips and a voice that made her feel strange and melting inside?

  The Duke’s gray eyes twinkled and he laughed, the laugh baring his teeth. “Is this a new welcoming custom?” he asked Beau Billy, who shrugged and grinned.

  He had the whitest, most perfect teeth Blu had ever observed. Stepping forward, so close she could feel the heat of him, she lifted on tiptoes and inserted her finger into his mouth. Pulling back his cheek, she peered at his back molars then ran the tip of her finger over them. A back molar was missing from his lower right jaw. Otherwise, he not only met her standards, he hugely exceeded them.

  “What the bloody hell?” The Duke jerked backward, made a spitting noise, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  Blu followed him. “Now I have to smell you.”

  “Smell me?”

  Before he could react, Blu gripped his shoulders and jerked him down to where she could bury her nose in the crease at his neck. She inhaled deeply. He smelled as good as Monsieur, she decided happily, only without the perfumed scent. The Duke smelled like salt breeze, and sea air, like strong yellow soap and sun-dried linen. Lord, lord. She could hardly wait to see him naked, to touch him and smell him all over. It was going to be wonderful.

  The Duke’s fingers pressed into her forearms and he thrust her roughly away from him. “What is this...?”

  “One last thing I must know.” She gazed up at him with eyes shining in eager anticipation. “Are you skilled in bed? And do you mind cracking a virgin?” According to Isabelle, her source for such matters, some men shied away from virgins altogether, preferring experience to an untried squab. “You won’t sour me forever, will you?”

  His wonderful gray eyes swept her hair, her bloody shirt, the kicks molding her hips and legs, and finally circled upward to rest on her face. His lips twitched in an expression that suggested distaste but resettled into amusement.

  Neither response approached the eager acceptance Blu had expected. Perhaps she should have allowed him a moment to quench his thirst. Or perhaps he was a bit beef-witted. Possibly God had granted him a beautiful face and an exciting body, but had shorted him on the topsail. She concluded she wanted him so badly she didn’t care. Wit would have been appreciated, but it wasn’t a priority.

  “Well?”

  “Forgive my ignorance, Miss Morgan, but I haven’t a notion as to the direction or intent of this discourse.”

  She glanced at her father’s grin, then explained with great patience. “You meet my standards, and I’m offering you my bed.” Even a complete cank could surely grasp the honor she bestowed by presenting him first crack at Beau Billy’s daughter.

  “You are asking me to take you to bed?” He stared at her before unmistakable amusement curved his lips. He flicked a glance toward Beau Billy, then leaned into another deep bow that Blu suspected fell just this short of mockery. “Your offer is greatly appreciated, Miss Morgan, and I am vastly flattered, of course. But I must decline.”

  Shock rounded her eyes and her mouth dropped. There was not a man on Morgan’s Mound who would have dared refuse her if he had been fortunate enough to be her choice.

  Such an insult was not to be borne. Spinning on her heel, Blu started toward the sword she had left sticking in the sand at the edge of the wharf, her expression as black as thunder.

  But Beau Billy’s large hand dropped on her shoulder, halting her progress. Throughout her inspection he had remained silent, watching and stroking his beard. When he spoke, his low snarl raised the hair on the back of Blu’s neck.

  “Are ye refusing me only daughter?”

  Turning, the Duke stared into Beau Billy’s threatening scowl. Blu noted with satisfaction that his amusement had abruptly faded.

  “I certainly would not presume to repay your hospitality by despoiling your daughter.”

  “Ye appear to be missing the thrust, lad. Me daughter wants ye. She’s chosen ye as her first.” The words themselves were mild enough, but the menace wrapped around them would have shaken the knees of many a man. “‘Twould grieve me sorely to see me only daughter suffer an insult at yer hands.” Clearly, Beau Billy Morgan considered a rejection of his daughter as a rejection of himself. Heavy muscles swelled along his arms and his fingers dropped to the hilt of the dagger struck through the rope at his waist.

  “I’m beginning to understand,” the Duke said finally.

  He scanned the provisions stacked along the shore, lingered for a moment on the barrels of fresh water, the crates of vegetables. He studied Monsieur’s silk-draped accounting stand, took a swift count of Beau Billy’s men. Behind him, his own men lined the ship’s rails in tense silence, waiting to learn if he would bed Beau Billy’s daughter or if they would have to fight their way out of Morgan’s Mound. The men standing before the warehouse doors had lowered their muskets and held them at the ready.

  Lastly, he inspected the girl and swore under his breath. There was no choice.

  Grinding the teeth she seemed so interested in, he stiffened his shoulders and accepted the inevitable, then he bowed low before Beau Billy’s daughter. God’s breath. She was dressed like a man, in clothing that was bloodied, ripped, and none too clean. Her face and skin were so grimed with dirt that he could form no true idea of what she might look like. Her hair was as wild and tangled as a kelp bed, and a dark line rimmed her ragged fingernails. As far as he could determine, the only item to recommend her was a figure as lush as any he had seen. At least she had that, God help him. Her breasts were full and firm, her hips rounded and provocative.

  He cleared his throat. “Upon reflection, Miss Morgan, I would be honored to bed you.” The words were as astonishing as the fact that he spoke them in front of her father.

  Beau Billy clapped him on the back and grinned broadly. “Rum all around!” A cheer erupted from the ship’s rails. “Now to business. What treasures have ye brought us, lad?”

  Scowling, he allowed Beau Billy to lead him toward the accounting stand. A miniature man wearing an enormous matted wig regarded him through cracked spectacles, then stood beneath the awning and bowed low.

  “I am most pleased and honored to make your acquaintance, Your Lordship. You may begin off-loading at your earliest convenience. If it pleases you, you may stand here beside me—in the shade—and together we shall fix a value for each item. When we are agreed, the price shall be entered into the ledger and the item taken immediately into the warehouse.”

  The accent was French, the gestures almost obsequious. “Agreed,” he said, turning from the little Frenchman to look back at the girl standing on the wharf. She had as much blush in her as a black dog. She stared at him with predatory eyes, not a semblance of modesty in her gaze.

  “God’s teeth!” he muttered, staring back at her.

  He signaled the ship’s master with a swift gesture and, immediately, crates and barrels began moving down the gangplank. When next he looked toward the wharf, the sand was strewn with treasures and the girl had gone.

  ~ ~ ~

  “Isabelle, I have to know what to expect!” Wringing her hands, B
lu followed her friend to the well near the water tank. She paced the wooden walkway laid over the sand while Isabelle lowered a bucket into the water. Her nerves felt as if they jumped on the surface of her skin. “Jesu! Did you see him? Have you ever in your life seen a prettier man?”

  When Isabelle laughed, her enormous breasts bounced and jiggled. Her dark Spanish eyes danced. “He is very pretty, your Señor Duke.”

  Blu wrapped her arms around her ribs and hugged herself tightly. “I can’t wait for tonight! I want to see him naked and touch him. Oh Isabelle, he smells like sunshine!” Her eyes popped open and she stared. “What will happen?”

  Isabelle waggled a plump finger. “You know what will happen. You have peeked in the huts often enough.”

  “It isn’t the same. Will it hurt?” Sometimes the shouts coming from the huts sounded more like pain than pleasure.

  “For a moment. But if this Señor Duke is as skilled as I think, the pain will last only a moment.”

  “How can you know? What makes you believe he is skilled?”

  Grinning, Isabelle tossed her braid over her shoulder. “You ask me that? Me, who all the men ask for first?” Pride swelled her bosom to impressive proportions. “I can tell. It is in the eyes, in the walk. This Señor Duke of yours, he is not the man to turn a woman sour. This I know.” She winked before she bent to haul up the bucket. “If you change your mind, I gladly take your place with that one.”

  “Never!”

  When she remembered the Duke’s firm naked mouth and the way his breeches curved over his thighs, Blu’s stomach flipped over and she felt hot inside. The sensation was not unlike that of eating bad pork. Her innards felt queasy and her skin almost clammy. She welcomed the distraction of bare feet padding along the planking even when she saw it was only the boy, Gandy, coming toward them.

  He pushed a folded paper into her hand. “From the Duke,” he announced grandly, proud to have been chosen for the errand.

  Her fingers trembled so violently Blu could hardly open the page. Quickly she read the note, then read it again more slowly. The Duke invited her to sup in his cabin. To sup. She didn’t know the word. Over the years, she had heard a dozen euphemisms for engaging in sexual intercourse, but she had never before heard it referred to as supping. After a moment’s consideration, she decided she liked the word. It sounded rather soft and cultured.