Pleasing the Pirate: A Loveswept Historical Romance (17 page)

“And where do you live?” Susan asked.

“Scotland.”

A cloud passed over Susan’s face. “Did your family suffer during the uprising?”

Mairi’s heart clenched and a familiar pain swept through her. She nodded and looked away. Susan patted Mairi’s knee and when Mairi looked up, Susan was watching her with sympathy.

“What about you?” Mairi asked. “What do you do for fun?”

Susan turned her face to the side and stared out at the garden. Was she looking at her boundaries? At a gilded cage where she could walk no farther than the high walls? She placed her chin on her fingers and seemed to think deeply about the question. After a moment she shrugged. “There is not much to do around here. I get lonely.”

Mairi was raised in a clan. Her entire life she’d been surrounded by people. Rarely did she get a moment alone, and there were some times when she yearned for just that. Susan led an entirely different life and Mairi wasn’t sure it was a life she would want.

Why did Phin keep this vibrant woman here? It was so obvious that she hungered for something more.

The object of her thoughts appeared from inside the house.

Since Susan was facing in that direction she saw Phin first and smiled at him, holding out her hand for him to take. Immediately he went to Susan’s side and helped her stand.

Mairi stood as well, smoothing her skirts, suddenly uncomfortable. Susan’s face lit up when Phin was near and Phin got a light in his eye when he saw Susan. Mairi felt like an outsider, and despite the firm lecture to herself to keep her distance, she also felt desolate.

It wasn’t so much that Phin and Susan were devoted to each other but that Mairi wanted someone in her life who looked at her with tenderness and care, as Phin cared for Susan. All she had was MacGowan, who she was certain would never look at her as anything but the woman who gave over her land to him and possibly served as a brood mare for his children.

“I’m glad you brought Mairi here,” Susan said to him.

Phin shot Mairi a wary glance.

“I should be going.” Mairi waved her hand toward the house.

“Don’t go,” Phin said urgently, quietly.

Susan was watching them, her brows furrowed and her gaze jumping from Phin’s lips to Mairi’s.

What was this game he was playing?

Susan touched Mairi’s hand. “I think I’ll rest for a bit. Will you be down for dinner?”

Mairi shot Phin a questioning glance. Would she be down for dinner? So far she’d not eaten in the dining room. But Phin’s expression gave her no answer and Susan’s expression was so hopeful that Mairi didn’t have the heart to tell her no.

“Of course.”

Susan smiled in delight. “I will leave you and Phin alone, then.”

She disappeared into the house and for a moment Mairi and Phin looked at the closed door before Phin cleared his throat.

“She’s lovely,” Mairi said.

“Thank you for entertaining her. She gets few visitors.”

“I was hardly entertaining, and besides, I think we’re both a wee bit desperate for companionship.” If there was censure to her words, she couldn’t help it.

Phin looked at her sharply, no doubt hearing the censure.

“I hope you don’t mind that I’ll be joining you for dinner.”

“Not at all.” But the words weren’t as convincing as Mairi would have liked. Was he embarrassed she was here? Did he not want she and Susan to converse?

“Will you walk with me a bit?” he asked.

“I don’t—”

“Please.”

She sighed, defenseless against his plea, and even though her head told her not to, she said, “For a bit.”

Phin placed his hand on the small of her back and directed her onto the path that led deep into the garden. His touch made her shiver inside. The warmth of his fingers reminded her of things they had done that they shouldn’t have. He pulled his hands away and tucked them behind his back while he looked at the ground as he walked. She’d seen him in that pose on the
Wanderer
. Whatever he was thinking, they appeared to be serious thoughts.

“You should take Susan to London,” she said.

“Mmm” was his only response.

Suddenly Mairi stopped, weary of whatever game Phin seemed to be playing. He walked a few paces before he realized she wasn’t beside him. He stopped and turned back to her.

“Who is Susan to you?”

He hesitated.

“No fabrications. No prevarication. I want the honest truth, Captain.”

Still he hesitated, looking at her with an expression she couldn’t decipher.

Finally he sighed. “She’s my sister.”

Seeing his two lives clash made Phin uneasy. It was his fault that he’d brought Mairi here and if he’d thought he could keep her and Susan apart then it had been a ridiculous though the had been a fool. He’d assumed they would meet, but he hadn’t expected his reaction to their meeting.

He owed Mairi an explanation, but he didn’t know how to explain Susan.

“Sister?” she whispered. “You’re
siblings
?”

He frowned, confused by her reaction. “Who did you think she was?”

Mairi looked away, her face turning a violent shade of red.

“Mairi?”

“But Annabelle … is your daughter.”

He reached for her, but she shied from him. “Mairi, Annabelle isn’t my daughter.”

“You told me she was. I don’t know what to believe.”

He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“To the outside world I am Annabelle’s father.” The words came unbidden and without thought. He’d never actually said this to anyone and yet it felt right that Mairi was the first to hear the truth from him. For so long he’d lived this lie. He needed someone to know the real story. Someone other than the Hortons and Susan.

“We didn’t always live on Bedford Square,” he said, letting the memories flow, warmed by some of them, chilled by others. “We used to live in a much larger home in Stratford. About four years ago, when we lived in Stratford, Susan was walking to our neighbor’s house. She was alone. Normally she didn’t go anywhere alone, but no one could go with her that day. Her maid was sick. Mr. Horton had gone into town. Susan thought it was safe enough to walk the short distance.”

He paused, finding it difficult to breathe as the memories overtook him. And the guilt. The guilt was unbearable, something he lived with daily. His anger returned as it always did when he thought of that time. He wanted to hit something but settled for curling his fingers into fists.

“When she didn’t arrive home that evening Mrs. Horton sent Mr. Horton over to our
neighbors to fetch her. He found her alongside the road. She had been beaten, raped, then left for dead.”

Mairi jerked. Her eyes widened. He was fully aware of how much their stories resembled each other. Aileen and Susan. Both raped and beaten. Aileen’s assault had ended in death, Susan’s in banishment and an unwanted pregnancy. Mairi blinked back her tears and swallowed.

Phin took a labored breath. It felt as if a boulder was sitting upon his chest. “I was sailing through the Mediterranean at the time. It took many months for Mrs. Horton’s letter to reach me, and many more months for me to sail back. By the time I returned home Susan was heavy with child.” His voice cracked and he cleared his throat.

“With Annabelle?” she asked.

He glanced at her but his gaze slid away as he nodded. “The bastard that attacked her had hit her over the head so severely she was unconscious for several days and when she awoke she was deaf.”

“Oh, Phin.” She touched his arm. Even through the layers of clothing his skin burned. He covered her hand with his and squeezed, grateful for the contact. He should stop his story now, before it got too dark, but once the story was started he found it oddly difficult to stop.

“Mr. Horton made inquiries and discovered the name of the bastard who’d …” He shook his head, cleared his throat again, and blinked because suddenly his vision was blurred. “One of the first things I did when I returned home was find him.”

She turned her hand around and wove her fingers through his. “And you told everyone that Annabelle was your daughter?”

He was grateful that she didn’t ask the real question. Did he kill the bastard? Yes, he had and he wished a thousand times that he could do it again and again and again.

“We wanted to preserve what was left of her reputation. We told everyone she was on holiday at the coast. She had Annabelle in June. They left her with a wet nurse and a few months later I brought Annabelle home, claiming her as my own. It was the least I could do.”

“The least you could do?”

Phin shrugged. “My father’s lifelong dream was to become landed gentry. He was very, very close to achieving his dream but he and I looked at the world in different ways. He was … driven. And strict. We didn’t get along. As soon as I could I ran away to the sea and took up piracy. Obviously a son who was a pirate was not looked upon kindly and it ruined any chance
he had of rising in the world. He died without his title. My mother followed two years later, ashamed and angry at me.”

“I don’t understand what that has to do with claiming Annabelle as yours.”

“I ruined the family’s chance of rising in society. I wasn’t about to let Susan be ruined because of this. I took her away from Stratford and moved her here, where no one knew her or her circumstances.”

“And you kept her from society.”

There was censure in her tone, but she didn’t understand, didn’t know what it was like to have people whisper about you behind your back.

“Do you believe it’s your fault this happened to Susan? Because you weren’t there to protect her?”

“If I hadn’t run away and become a pirate then my father would have had his title and they would have moved to London sooner.” He turned away from her, but she stepped around to face him.

“It’s not your fault, Phin. It’s not Susan’s fault. It’s the fault of the miscreant who happened upon your sister.”

“No.”

“Yes, Phin. Yes, it is.”

“If I had not acted out against my father, if I had fallen in line with his plans, things would have been different.” He pounded his fist in the air, his teeth clenched against the onslaught of emotions battering him.

“Phin—”

“I’m the head of the family now, Mairi. It’s up to me to protect them.”

“It could just as easily have happened if you were there.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“You can’t blame yourself.”

“She’s my sister. My responsibility after my parents’ death.”

Mairi jerked back, his words chilling as unbidden thoughts whispered in her mind. Would Grant feel the same? Did Grant blame himself for what’d happened to their people? Would he feel the guilt as Phin felt if something happened to her?

She tried to absorb her revelation and bury the pain her questions caused, because in her
heart she feared he wouldn’t. He was too blinded by his mission—his cause—to think of her as anything but a way to infiltrate his enemy and gain information. Phin took the responsibility of his family so seriously and her brother did not.

Despite the fact that he was English and her enemy and wanted to toss Grant into prison, he was a much better man than her brother. And there she went, opening her heart to the man again.

“Annabelle is a constant reminder to Susan of what happened and how much her life has changed,” he said. “Not only because of the hearing loss. Before the … incident … Susan was engaged to marry a man the next town over—a barrister who was on his way to becoming very successful. Of course he called it off.”

Mairi’s heart hurt for her newfound friend. Poor Susan. Everything taken from her and none of it her fault. Just like Aileen. Just like her. How very strange that their lives were so much alike and yet they were enemies.

“Obviously her hearing loss has had an impact on her social life,” he said. “It’s difficult for her to visit friends because following multiple conversations is nearly impossible. She really does not want to go out in society. She’s happy here.”

“Is she? Or is that what you decided on your own?”

He shot her a dark look. “You know nothing of us, Mairi mine.”

“I know more than you think. She’s lonely.”

“Then I’ll hire her a companion.”

Mairi shook her head but she was beginning to understand Phin Lockwood more than he understood himself. “It will take more than a companion, Phin.”

He appeared confused and angry so she changed the subject, knowing it would take more than one conversation to change his mind.

“So you returned to pirating?” she asked.

“We needed the money. Living here, even if it’s not St. James, is expensive.”

She saw the furniture, saw the clothing that Susan wore, and ate the food that was served to her. Everything was of the highest quality. She could well imagine it cost a goodly sum, but she also had a feeling that Phin could easily afford it.

“Did it work?” she asked.

He looked at her blankly. “Did what work?”

“Did running away to become a pirate ease your guilt, make you forget?”

His face tightened in anger, but his anger didn’t frighten her. “You know not what you speak of.”

“Grant did the same thing. He ran away after Da’s death and continued to run after Aileen’s death. I don’t think it helped him and I don’t think it helped you. You didn’t keep pirating for the money because you have plenty of it. You continued because you feared facing your sister. And your guilt.”

With a stony expression he pointed a finger at her. “That is enough.”

They stared at each other for the longest time and in the end they had come to an impasse. Phin would never believe that what happened to Susan was not his fault. He would carry around his guilt like a battle wound.

And she feared Grant would do the same.

* * *

The next morning Mairi was informed by Mrs. Horton that Phin would be in meetings all day. Susan was nowhere to be found. As it was drizzling outside and the weather was not fit to go out in, Mairi found herself in the library, halfheartedly perusing the many shelves of books, when she heard the excited chatter of Annabelle. She was pleased when the little girl burst through the door and barreled into the room.