The Ravishing One Read online

  “It sounds to be a pleasant time but I’ll likely spend the evening with Pip,” Thomas said.

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” groaned Johnston. “Grant that poor family a temporary reprieve. They must be nigh well sick of seeing you.”

  “Come, Johnston,” Thomas replied. “I’ve visited five times in the past two weeks. I’m hardly living in their pockets.”

  “Loath as I am to point it out to you,” Johnston said, his tone growing mild, “as Miss Sarah’s former—if undeclared—suitor, your presence in her home can only cause her embarrassment.”

  Thomas frowned. He wouldn’t knowingly cause Sarah Leighton distress. In his concern for Pip had he been lax in his sensitivity to her situation?

  “Blast!” he muttered. “How blind an oaf can one be?”

  “Exactly,” Robbie said approvingly. “So now that you won’t be going there this evening, you might as well come with us.”

  Thomas did not reply at once. The repairs on the Alba Star were taking longer than expected. At this rate it seemed unlikely he’d be able to deliver the cargo by New Year’s Day as he’d promised.

  Perhaps he could persuade James to take the route round the Cape of Good Hope on his new ship, the Sea Witch. Then, once the Alba Star was seaworthy again, he would take James’s shorter route along the northern coast of Africa. It was an idea worth pursuing—and one he would pose when next he saw James. His expression grew grave.

  He’d seen little of James since they’d parted company the morning of his assault on Fia’s house—no, he corrected himself with brutal honesty, his assault on Fia. His actions had been inexcusable. Once more his passionate distrust of the Merricks had cost him some of his hard-earned self-esteem.

  Yet he’d only to see Pip’s drawn face to feel again the wrath that had led him to Fia’s door. ’Twould be best if he never saw her again, and he’d sought these past two weeks to ensure that he didn’t.

  “Come on,” Robbie urged. “ ’Twill give you something to tell Pip about during your next visit.”

  Thomas looked up. “Why would Pip be interested? Will Lady Fia be there?”

  Robbie blinked. “Lady Fia? I don’t think so. She ain’t been seen in public for over a week now.” He chewed on his lower lip. “Layin’ low, most like, what with those nasty rumors circulatin’ about her and—”

  “And whether she was responsible for Pip’s misadventure,” Johnston hastily cut in.

  Thomas turned his gaze on Johnston. Johnston smiled blandly, not fooling Thomas for a moment. Johnston had heard about his visit. Well, Thomas needn’t give a damn about Fia—as long as she didn’t embroil James in any of her schemes.

  In the meantime, if he had an opportunity for a night of good-natured revelry and one where he could be relatively certain of not seeing that black-hearted siren, he might well take it. He was accomplishing nothing by hanging about the dockyard.

  “Will I need a costume?” he asked.

  “Good Lord, no!” Robbie exclaimed, laughing. “You can go just as you are and people will think you a splendid specimen.”

  “Specimen of what?”

  Robbie and Johnston looked at each other and grinned. “A pirate,” they answered in unison.

  The Portmanns had devoted eight years to the construction of their enormous Palladian home. Unfortunately, by the time Tiburn House had been completed the popularity of its architectural style was already waning. At least the Portmanns could congratulate themselves on its site, that being less than a half mile north of Grosvenor Square.

  It would only be a matter of time before the city overtook Tiburn House and the flat, unadorned sheep fields surrounding it were filled with a swarm of fashionable squares and streets. But for now Tiburn House marked the exact point at which countryside met city, its front facade greeting its urban neighbors while its back overlooked a great, dark, rural expanse.

  Johnston’s reports proved accurate. Beneath an indigo sky, striped pavilions had been erected. Farther out, winding paths had been mown in the grass. Tall wands, top-heavy with glass globe lanterns, illuminated various vignettes, a company of actors posed in tableau vivant, and a troupe of minstrels.

  A short distance from the back gardens a large circle had been cut for country dancing. Around its perimeter, bull’s-eye lanterns directed rays of light across the center, to be caught by mirrored lanterns and returned. Thus the whole circle was crisscrossed with brilliant beams, and the dancers in their shimmering silks and glistening brocades flickered in and out between the slender threads of light like silver minnows in some giant fisherman’s seine.

  Thomas stood back, nursing the cup of negus a harried servant had pressed into his hand, and watched the crowds disperse and regroup. There were easily five hundred people in the field and probably half again as many in the house. All of them were in costume, including amongst their numbers a half-dozen Cleopatras, twice that many Spaniards, several Chinamen and Indian princesses, a disconcertingly large number of men in women’s garb, and a full complement of pirates.

  Thomas had bowed to convention by clubbing his hair, clipping on a gold earring, and donning a nobleman’s ragged coat, stripped of its ornamentation, that he’d found in a Cheapside market. Most of the revelers had much more elaborate disguises. Though Thomas knew that Portmann’s guests would have hotly denied the word “disguise” as being misrepresentative, he could not put the term from his mind, for all about him the anonymity afforded by masks and dominoes and face paint had purchased licentiousness.

  Already the wine flowing from fountains and the potent punch passing amongst the revelers had affected the mood of the crowds. Gaming tables had been hauled out of the house onto the back-facing balcony. Laughter erupted, flushed like grouse from little queues of guests, and the dancers reeled in each other’s arms even though the current dance called for no “reels” at all.

  “Damn poor excuse for a costume,” a slurred voice hailed him. Thomas turned to find a portly figure draped in a red toga weaving his way.

  “Do you think so? And here I’d thought I made a right nasty-looking pirate.”

  “No,” the man sniffed. “Just look disreputable. I came afoul a pirate once meself, so I know, y’see.”

  “Don’t say,” Thomas murmured, trying to place the man. He’d the look of a banker, complacent and shrewd.

  “Mmm.” The fellow nodded. “Off the north coast of Madagascar. A pirate vessel overtook the ship I was on. I, of course, wanted to fight but the captain would have none of it, and so we were boarded.” He paused to belch.

  “Heathenish creatures they were,” he continued, “a menagerie of nations and types. Foul, hard, and”—he peered woozily at Thomas—“as brown as you. Very well, I grant you’re the proper shade, but a real pirate would never dress so shabbily.”

  “Really?”

  “Ought to be wearing your booty, or whatever you call it. Ought to be showin’ off.”

  “Perhaps I’m not a very successful pirate,” Thomas demurred.

  The man leaned forward and pressed a stubby finger to the side of his nose. “That’s not what I hear.”

  “Oh?”

  “I hear”—the man cast a furtive glance to his left and right—“I hear that you do right well by yourself—and some”—his smile grew unctuous—“lucky investors. Perhaps I ought to hire your vessel for my next shipment, eh? Double me profits like our most ravishing toast has done.”

  Thomas smiled mildly as every one of his senses sharpened. Over the last few days he’d overheard dozens of such mysterious allusions. But each time he’d confronted the speakers they’d backtracked and feigned ignorance. This was the first time he’d come close to any real information.

  “I’m afraid I don’t take your meaning.”

  The fellow scowled and peered more closely at Thomas’s face. “Blast me. You ain’t Barton, are you? Oops.” The man hid his smile behind his hand, like a naughty child. “Well, damn me for a loose-lipped limpet. No offense meant. Thought I
was talking to your partner. Both of you bein’ the same color and all …”

  He scurried off, leaving Thomas to consider whether to follow and press him for more information. But a party was hardly the place. He would have to wait.

  Preoccupied with his thoughts, he continued along one of the dark, winding paths.

  “Such a terrible scowl, Monsieur Buccaneer,” a French-accented female voice whispered behind him. Before he could turn around, the end of a pistol barrel prodded him in the back. He’d felt that distinctive impression too many times to be mistaken. He stood very, very still.

  “Tch, tch. Nothing to say?” she asked.

  He forced his shoulder muscles to relax. “Indeed not. Not yet.”

  “Oh? Then you foresee a return to eloquence in the near future?” The end of the pistol jabbed him again.

  “I don’t know that I can promise eloquence, milady, but certainly some few words.”

  She laughed, and he smiled involuntarily.

  This was madness. Not only that she’d provoked a smile in the midst of threatening him but that she threatened him at all. They were only a few yards from other people. She couldn’t possibly seek to rob him here and get away with it. But what better place for a thief to ply her trade then at night at a masque held in an open field?

  He lifted his hands from his sides. “May I turn?”

  “Certainly,” she whispered. He turned slowly around and found himself looking at the ivory-knobbed handle of a closed fan—the “pistol” barrel. He raised his gaze to an extraordinarily gorgeous pair of blue eyes.

  Their brilliance was only slightly dimmed by the shadow cast by her artfully wrought silver mask. It covered her upper face and left exposed a luscious and naughtily curving mouth, a delicately angled chin, and a long graceful neck—a neck he’d dearly love to set his hands about.

  “I hope you enjoyed yourself, Fia.” He would have known her anywhere.

  “Not Fia,” she said. “But yes, I did.” She snapped open her fan and flirtatiously covered her mouth.

  A soft, slender egret’s feather dangling from her ear caressed her bosom, drawing attention to the creamy skin embraced by a low-cut black bodice. Black and silver composed the entire gown, the ebony material some matte, light-eating fabric, the silver so reflective that it gleamed like a mirror. Shadow and starlight, darkness warring with light.

  His gaze traveled up and for the first time he noted that she’d completely covered her blue-black curls with an elaborate silver-lacquered wig bedecked with black roses.

  “Do you want to know my name?” she teased in a sultry voice. “Do you want to know who I really am?”

  She moved closer on a whisper of taffeta and velvet. Slowly, purposefully, she raised an elegant hand as though to touch him. He waited, suddenly restive to discover what so many other men before him already knew. Her hand hovered. Neared …

  The blue gaze lifted to his. Her lips formed a slow, all-too-knowing smile. Her hand dropped to her side.

  “I have many names.” She stepped back and he followed, drawn in spite of himself. “The Queen of the Night. The Black Damsel …” Her eyes glittered with merciless amusement. “Lady Longing.”

  She moved past him, leaving him behind as she drifted out of the torchlight’s range and into the shadows beyond. He waited. Watched. Her heavy skirts bruised the midsummer grasses, bringing forth their rich, sweet scent. She paused and curtsyed deeply, the silver in her dark robes gleaming and disappearing. “Good night, fainthearted pirate.”

  She was mocking him. In a few broad strides he caught up with her, took hold her arm, and spun her to face him. He expected her to resist. Instead, she tumbled easily into his embrace, as though she’d expected it.

  He should release her. Walk away. Damn her provocation and her triumphant smile. But she’d nestled close—or had he pulled her there? Either way, he held her hand tight against his heart.

  He looked down into her masked and upturned face. She did not look frightened. The blue eyes gleaming up at him held a rich, complicated brew of humor and anger and triumph. But no fear.

  Impression after impression crowded his senses. The scent of her seductive, night-blooming perfume, the silken texture of her skin, the flavor of her warm breath, and the overriding realization of how very small she was, how light and petite.

  It would be so easy to hurt her.

  To stop her.

  To kiss her.

  He dropped her hand. She laughed again, as though she’d foreseen this, too. And why not? She was an expert in such matters. She played him as easily as she did Barton.

  “I’ve no taste for this game, Fia.”

  “Why do you persist in calling me Fia when I’ve told you that I am not the lady you assume me to be?” she asked with sly merriment.

  “Well, there’s one way to find out, isn’t there?” He raised his hand to her mask. Her smile froze. Her breath grew shallow.

  “You won’t unmask me,” she whispered.

  “Why not?”

  “Because you came willingly to a masque and thus have tacitly agreed to abide by the rules, the most important of those being never to expose one unwilling to be exposed.”

  His finger stroked a ruffled black feather edging her face mask.

  “And,” she said quietly, “because I’ve asked you not to.”

  “You’re very certain of me.”

  “I know your kind.”

  “And that is …?”

  “Why, you are a gentleman.”

  He laughed at that. Perhaps this woman wasn’t Fia after all, for once upon a time, at Wanton’s Blush, Fia Merrick had witnessed him at his most un-gentlemanly when he’d betrayed her brother’s friendship. Surely Fia, of all women, would never have mistaken him for the role his ancient proud lineage ordained but which raw experience had forbade him.

  And she did not act like Fia who, however outrageous in her behavior, moved and spoke and gestured with exquisite and ladylike grace. This woman moved like a gypsy … and laughed easily and brightly. And her eyes, though they might have been the same color—hard to say, shaded by her mask as they were—sparkled and shimmered with blatant amusement. Fia’s eyes were bright but deep, like glass over dark water—impossible to plumb.

  She reached up and caressed his cheek with the back of her fingers. Desire, red-hot and rapacious, instantly awoke and he resented it and she read that, too.

  “Faint heart ne’er won a lady, Lord Pirate. Why stop now when we are so close to an understanding?” The whispered voice taunted, yet beneath it lay some other emotion. His anger thinned as he considered the implications. He looked down at the masked countenance, searching for clues as to the identity of its owner.

  Was she Fia? And if she wasn’t, what did she seek from him?

  “What understanding would that be?” he asked.

  “Why”—she tilted her head to a saucy angle—“the understanding that all men strive for and to which all women are eventually privy: You understand how to fulfill your desires and then share your knowledge with me.” Bitterness now, and no attempt to mask it.

  “And what of your desires?”

  “What manner of man ever troubled himself with such concerns?”

  “If you think that which might exist between a man and woman ends at the man’s procurement of his pleasure, why would you seek to further the ‘understanding’ between us?”

  Her soft, pliant mouth grew taut. She’d not foreseen him questioning her, Thomas realized, and it displeased her. “Fie, sir,” she said irritably, turning away. “You would make labor out of simple pleasure.”

  “Something informs me, madam, that no pleasure would be simple with you.”

  She turned back smiling, her moods as mercurial as the shifting darks and lights of her gown. “Mayhap, sir, you are right. But pleasure hard won is more oft savored than pleasure chanced upon.”

  “You speak obliquely, madam. I pray, be forward.”

  “Now of that,” she purred,
setting her hands on her hips, “I have oft been accused.” A sudden gust of wind whipped her dark raiment about her legs and teased a nimbus of silvery gilt from her head.

  “But if forthright speaking you would have, then here’s what I have in mind. A game of chance. A card game.” She gestured toward a lonely, unattended bench a short walk away. “Loo.”

  He glanced sideways, instinct urging caution. Be damned, the woman had to be Fia. No other female could have set his skin prickling in equal parts awareness and wariness. “And the stakes?”

  She touched her lip, posing at rumination. Thomas was not fooled. He was certain that she’d long since decided on the stakes, as he was that every line she’d spoken and every line he’d returned had been if not preordained at the very least anticipated, and that all that had gone before had led him to this place, to making this wager. He disliked the idea of being manipulated so adroitly.

  “I know,” she said with no convincing attempt to convey sudden inspiration. “Since you are so certain I am a lady of your prior acquaintance, if you win you have my leave to remove my mask.”

  “And should you win?”

  “Then”—the torch guttered in brisk wind—“then I win the right to kiss you.”

  He smiled wolfishly. “The stakes are patently lopsided. How can I lose?”

  Her answering smile was just as smooth as his voice. “Such facile gallantry, sir. I had hoped for more. Though not expected it.”

  Her words pricked … as he was sure she’d meant them to. “You don’t warrant kissing you a prize? You value yourself too little.”

  “Ah!” She wagged her finger playfully. “How like a man to hear what he wants to hear and not what is said. I said I would kiss you. Not the other way around. You must remain absolutely still.”

  His gaze grew hard.

  “What say you?” she asked.

  At least she’d chosen a game without bias toward the dealer. He’d never have played her at a game of faro. Carr’s daughter had been raised at the gaming tables, and Fia, if this lady was indeed Fia, already had too many advantages.