Stephanie Laurens - Lord Of The Privateers

She frowned. “Duncan.” After a second of staring into space, she refocused on his face. “Do you think there’s any viable way to send him back to Aberdeen?”

“Quite aside from the battle you would have to pry him from the ship, I can’t imagine any way I would want to risk it.” He paused, then said, “He stowed away. From what I gathered, he managed the feat of escaping Carmody Place and all those who no doubt keep an eye on him there and managed to get himself to the docks and aboard The Corsair all by himself. If you try to send him home now, after he’s had his boots on my deck, what do you think is most likely to happen?”

She grimaced.

Dryly, he added, “You only need to consider how his parents would react in the same situation. He is, after all, both of us combined. Attempting to send him home at this point will be wasted effort—and, incidentally, effort and time neither you nor I have to spare.”

Isobel stifled a sigh. “You’re right. If we try to send him home in the care of anyone but you or me, I wouldn’t put it past him, glib-tongued and quick-witted as he is, to slip his leash and board some other ship bound for Freetown...and the risks of such an action don’t bear thinking of.” She paused, then refocused on Royd. “So what do you suggest?”

He told her.

Of course, he’d already seen the potential problem and had worked out a solution.

She had to admit it was a workable plan, one that would assuage her motherly concerns while at the same time allowing Duncan to do what he now needed to do—namely, to get to know his father. And that was best done on The Corsair. Regardless of what happened between her and Royd, Duncan’s relationship with Royd was now a nascent reality, one that needed to be given time to develop and evolve.

She’d always felt deeply guilty over denying Duncan the father he’d desperately wanted. Now that, viewed through his ship-mad boy’s eyes, he’d discovered his father far surpassed most normal mortals, she couldn’t in all conscience deny him more time with Royd. And she harbored no doubts that on The Corsair, Duncan would be safe.

“All right.” She thought, then added, “If you can convince him to stay aboard while we go to London, we’ll follow your plan.”

That plan hadn’t specifically covered what to do with Duncan while they detoured to London, but Royd nodded. “While in London, I’ll need to focus on the mission, on learning everything I can and dealing with Wolverstone and Melville. Especially Melville and his political pressures. I assume you’ll be similarly involved in pursuing all pertaining to Katherine and her whereabouts. Leaving Duncan in the care of people he doesn’t know, and with whom he shares no affinity, would be senseless, and neither you nor I will need the additional distraction of having to explain his existence to Declan, Edwina, and Robert at this time.”

As usual, he saw the situation as she did. She was well acquainted with his natural protectiveness; she could rely on him to ensure their son was safe. Truth be told, it was something of a relief to have someone she trusted with whom to share parental responsibility—a lightening of the burden she’d carried entirely by herself since Duncan was born.

Although Royd had remained leaning against the washstand, as far from her as he could reasonably be in the confines of the cabin, even though she’d left the door to the main cabin open, she was nevertheless intensely aware of him, his physical presence—that he was just a yard or so away and she was sitting on his bed. A sort of sensual fluster, a tempting distraction, had risen inside her, but she’d be damned if she let him see any hint of her abiding susceptibility. She fought to maintain her expression of calm focus. “Very well.” She raised her gaze and met his eyes. “When in the morning will we reach Ramsgate?”

He almost gave her the time in bells; she saw the fractional hesitation as he worked out the hours. The instant his boots hit a deck, he converted to ship’s time, but she’d never been able to keep ship’s bells in her head.

“About ten o’clock. It depends on the tide.”

Deliberately regal, she inclined her head and rose. “In that case, I’ll start packing.” She walked to the door to her cabin. She paused in the doorway; without looking back, she said, “Thank you for telling me about the mission.” She tipped her head. “Good night.”

She walked into her cabin and closed the door on his low-voiced, darkly sensual “Good night.”

And only then allowed a reactive shiver to course through her. His tone had evoked memories of sliding sheets, naked skin, hot hard muscles, and bone-deep pleasure.

Frowning, she banished the images and busied herself getting one of her trunks ready for a short sojourn in London. She wished she’d asked Royd how long he thought they would be there, but suspected even he didn’t know. If they were waiting on Caleb and The Prince to return from Freetown, there was no telling how long that might be.

Later, after she’d changed into her nightgown, turned out the last lamp, and slid between the sheets, she lay on her back and stared at the starlight washing across the cabin’s coffered ceiling.

She didn’t try to stop her mind from replaying their recent exchanges. In looking back over the years, at a past she now knew a great deal more about, it seemed as if their handfasting had attracted the notice of some malignant Fate—one that had arranged for the mission that had called him away and ensured he hadn’t been able to come home or to contact her. His absence had allowed her doubts to rise and gain strength. And because she had doubted herself so much, she hadn’t believed in him. She’d lost faith in what had been between them, had convinced herself the link was too weak to sustain a marriage.

But what lay between them had been far stronger than she’d thought—it had sunk its claws into him as much as it had her—and it had never eased its grip. It certainly hadn’t died. It hadn’t even withered from neglect.

That bond still thrummed and thrived—in every glance, every touch. In every meeting of their minds.

And now there they were, setting off on a different yet similar mission, this time together with their son by their side and her cousin, by all accounts, among the captives they would fight to free.

“Fate,” she murmured, “moves in decidedly cynical ways.”

But it wasn’t Fate that occupied the center of her mind. It wasn’t even Duncan.

Royd was there again. He’d never slipped from her mind entirely, but he hadn’t commanded that central position for the past eight years. Now he’d reclaimed it, becoming the lynchpin in the wheel of her existence.

And the revelation of his other life—of the missions he’d run, the dangers he’d faced, the risks he’d taken for king and country—had only repainted her long-ago, somewhat-faded picture of him in bright, intense hues. The Royd of now was infinitely more vibrant, vital, and virile than her memories.

He was everything she’d dreamed he might grow to be, and more. He now possessed dimensions that hadn’t been there before, and they called to her even more powerfully.

He’d reclaimed that place at the center of her soul as if by fiat—by right.

The irony of it was that it had been she who had marched into his office and insisted he deal with her on a personal level again—she who had invited him to resume that dominant position, not that she’d imagined he would reclaim it, much less so effortlessly.

That hadn’t been a part of her calculations at all.

Thinking of calculations...she wasn’t at all sure what his were—exactly what steps he had in mind. He’d made her privy to his past, something he hadn’t needed to do, yet had. He’d allowed her to see more than anyone would have expected him—a man like him—to reveal of how their fraught past had affected him. Then he’d shared all he knew about his current mission before she’d asked, and topped it off by readily acquiescing to her accompanying him to London and—although they hadn’t specifically discussed the point—insinuating herself into the mission, by his side.