Christmas Wedding Belles: The Pirate's Kiss / A Smuggler's Tale / The Sailor's Bride

‘My dear Mrs Melville, you look blue-devilled!’ a warm female voice beside her commented, and Lucinda turned to see the Duchess of Kestrel smiling sympathetically at her. She followed Lucinda’s gaze to the couple on the dance floor.

‘Matter for concern, do you think?’

‘As a chaperon, I would say most definitely,’ Lucinda said. She hesitated. ‘As someone who would wish to see Miss Saltire happy, perhaps not.’

Sally Kestrel’s green eyes focused shrewdly on her face. ‘You think that Miss Saltire will be making a mistake in marrying Mr Leytonstone?’

Lucinda shrugged a little awkwardly. She was acutely aware that in her youth Sally Kestrel had chosen the rather more solid merits of Stephen Saltire above the dashing brilliance of Justin Kestrel, and that it had been twenty years before they were reunited. Their glowing love for one another now was plain for all to see, and was something else that made Lucinda feel even more cold and alone.

‘I think that Stacey should marry for love, not money,’ Lucinda admitted reluctantly. ‘Though it contradicts my duty to say so.’

Sally Kestrel smiled understandingly. ‘We do not wish to see others make the same mistakes that we did,’ she said. ‘I have already tried to speak to Cousin Letitia, but she is adamant. They have no money and Mr Leytonstone is very rich.’

‘And Mr Chance, I suppose, is not?’

Sally Kestrel shook her head. ‘He is better born, but he has no fortune. And I fear that Cousin Letitia values fortune above all things.’

Lucinda glanced towards the doorway, where the Master of Ceremonies was announcing a late arrival. The knot of people gathered by the doorway parted to allow the newcomer entrance.

‘Mr Jackson Raleigh!’

Lucinda’s breath caught in her throat. She dropped her fan and had to rummage under the rout chair to find it again. She felt hot and cold all at the same time, shaking as though she had a fever. Raleigh, she remembered, was the name that her good friend Rebecca de Lancey had used when she had lived in London before her marriage. It was the name of a famous sailor whom some might say had been a privateer…

She straightened up. Daniel De Lancey was coming directly across the room towards her. He looked spectacular, in evening dress of a stark severity that emphasised the breadth of his shoulders and the hard, strong lines of his body. His step was light, and his demeanour one of confident charm that, Lucinda sensed, drew the eye of every woman in the room.

She tried not to look at him, afraid that if she did it would in some way give him away. She was surely the only one present who knew his identity. A little flicker of anger heated her blood to think that Daniel was taking her silence for granted, that he believed that she would not betray him. He had the audacity of the devil himself, and a part of her thought he richly deserved a fall. Another part of her was terrified that he would be found out.

‘My dear Mrs Melville,’ the Duchess of Kestrel was saying. ‘You have gone very pale. Are you quite well?’

‘I am very well, thank you,’ Lucinda said, recovering. ‘I feel a little chilled. It is a cold night.’

‘You should dance, you know,’ Sally Kestrel said, smiling. ‘Just because one is a chaperon…’

‘Oh, I do not dance these days,’ Lucinda said.

‘Not even when the most handsome man in the room is intent on asking you?’ the Duchess enquired.

Lucinda looked up. Daniel was now cutting a very determined path through the small crowd towards her. He was looking straight at her, with a mocking challenge in his eyes. He was taunting her, daring her to denounce him. Lucinda drew herself up a little straighter in her chair.

‘Madam,’ he was bowing over her hand now. ‘Allow me to introduce myself to you—’

‘I remember you,’ Lucinda said, before he could finish. ‘We have met before.’

She savoured the first faint sign of wariness that she saw in his dark eyes and smiled. ‘How do you do, Mr Raleigh?’

He raised her hand to his lips in an old-fashioned gesture and pressed a kiss against it—a real kiss rather than a formal brush of the lips. Her skin tingled, and she tried to withdraw her hand, but he held her fast for a long moment.

‘I am flattered that you remember me, madam,’ he said.

‘Oh, I had all but forgotten you until you walked in,’ Lucinda said airily. ‘But then I thought that you seemed vaguely familiar. Pray permit me to introduce you to Her Grace the Duchess of Kestrel. Your Grace, may I introduce Mr Raleigh?’

Daniel bowed, smiling, and Sally Kestrel looked delighted. ‘Mrs Melville! You did not vouchsafe the fact that you and Mr Raleigh were already acquainted. How do you do, sir? What brings you into this part of Suffolk?’

‘Business,’ Daniel said promptly. He smiled at Lucinda, a smile of cool confidence, and to her annoyance she could feel herself blushing like a schoolroom miss.

‘But when I saw Mrs Melville across the room,’ Daniel added, ‘I was tempted to renew our old acquaintance and mix business with pleasure.’

‘A capital idea,’ Sally Kestrel said promptly. ‘I was remarking to Mrs Melville only a moment ago that it is an evening for dancing…’

‘My sentiments precisely, Your Grace,’ Daniel said. He held out a hand to Lucinda. ‘If you would do me the honour, madam?’

‘I am here to chaperon Miss Saltire, not to dance myself,’ Lucinda began, but Sally gave her a gentle little push with her fan.

‘I will watch over my cousin, Mrs Melville. What could be more appropriate? You and Mr Raleigh must have a deal of news to catch up on.’

Daniel’s fingers were insistent against hers. ‘Come, Mrs Melville. It is the waltz, I believe, and I am sure that you were given permission to dance it many years ago.’

‘More than I care to remember,’ Lucinda said. She allowed him to draw her onto the floor and into his arms. ‘You are insufferable!’ she added in an undertone, as the music struck up. ‘Why not tell me I am at my last prayers and have done with it?’

Daniel smiled broadly. ‘Oh, I do not believe the case to be quite as bad as that.’ He sobered, though the smile was still in his eyes. ‘Truth to tell, you look very beautiful tonight, Lucinda.’

Lucinda stamped down hard on the little quiver of awareness that his words caused within her.

‘Truth, is it?’ she said coldly. ‘I thought the truth was that you had no desire ever to see me again? You certainly went to a great deal of trouble to make me believe so when last we met.’

The smile died from Daniel’s eyes. ‘Oh, I had the desire to see you,’ he said quietly.

Lucinda met his eyes very directly. ‘Then why try to drive me away?’

A rueful smile twisted his lips. ‘I was trying to do the right thing for once, Luce. Belatedly, cruelly and probably pointlessly, but for the right reasons all the same.’

His use of her old nickname tugged at her heart. ‘Because…?’ she whispered.

‘Because you know it is too late.’ Daniel’s eyes were very dark, his tone a little rough. ‘You said it yourself, Lucy. It was over a very long time ago.’

Lucinda swallowed hard. ‘So why are you here tonight?’

‘I came to say goodbye.’

Lucinda had almost been expecting it, but now that he had said the words she felt swamped by a loss and a loneliness that made her catch her breath.

‘You are insane to take such a risk,’ she whispered.

‘I know.’

‘Why did you do it?’

‘I had to.’ Daniel’s eyes were very dark. ‘I wanted to see you one last time.’

Lucinda’s heart was beating fiercely in her throat. ‘There is no point,’ she said harshly. ‘Ever since we met we have known that what was once between us cannot be rekindled. Why risk all for one last meeting?’

Daniel shrugged. ‘Because I like the danger? And because I…’ He hesitated, and for one mad moment Lucinda thought he was going to tell her that he loved her.

‘And for one last dance,’ he said, drawing her closer. His cheek brushed hers. She could feel the beginnings of his stubble and it sent a long, cool shiver through her.

‘The least you could do was shave if you were planning on attending a social gathering,’ she said sharply, to cover her feelings, and he laughed and rubbed his cheek against hers again.

Lucinda struggled with her emotions. The intimacy of their encounter, here in a ballroom with fifty other people, seemed extraordinary. She was aware of nothing other than the touch of Daniel’s hands as he steered her through the waltz, the brush of his body against hers, the smile that was for her alone.

‘For the duration of this one last dance, then, the least you can do is tell me the truth,’ she said, and felt him stiffen a little.

‘The truth?’

‘Yes.’ Lucinda looked up into his eyes. ‘Surely the truth is not so alien to you that you cannot recognise the concept? Since we are not to meet again—’ she threw down her challenge ‘—the least you owe me is to answer one question honestly.’

‘What is the question?’

She could feel the tension in him as he waited for her to speak.

‘Since I saw you last I have heard things,’ Lucinda said. She looked around, keeping her voice low. ‘I have heard that it is Sir John Norton who is the traitor and French spy whom Owen Chance currently seeks, not the notorious Daniel de Lancey—though de Lancey is still a wanted man. And some say—’ she lowered her voice still further ‘—that de Lancey is not even a pirate, but a privateer secretly in the pay of the government.’ She glanced up and caught the look of brilliant intensity in his eyes. ‘What do you say to that, sir?’

Daniel’s hands tightened on her waist for a moment and he bent his head close to hers. ‘I say that you should forget you heard those words,’ he said softly. ‘It might have been true once, but not now. Not any more. Now I am a wanted man.’

Their eyes met. His were restless and heated, and there was something there that stole her breath.

‘Don’t ask any more questions about me,’ he said. ‘It is too dangerous.’

Lucinda’s heart pounded. ‘But I have to know—’

He touched a finger to her lips in a fleeting gesture, and she felt the echo of that touch through her whole body.

‘You are too loyal,’ he said, ‘and too passionate, Lucy.’

Lucinda shook her head. ‘No! If I have misjudged you—’

He did not let her finish. ‘You did not,’ he said. ‘Not in any way that matters. I am sorry, Lucy, but I am not the man you would wish me to be.’

Lucinda understood at once what he meant. She had wanted to exonerate him, to think him true and good and honourable. But he was refusing to allow that, and she knew there was no going back for them—no matter what the truth was. Too much had changed.

‘But for tonight,’ Daniel said, ‘I wish it were not so. I never thought to say it, but I wish I could turn back the clock.’

His words silenced Lucinda for a moment, bringing a longing so potent that she could not speak. It was madness, yet instinct deeper than reason, deeper than sense, made her want this man with every bone in her body. She fought the primitive urge that beat in her blood. The touch of his hands burned her through the silk of her dress, the brush of his thighs against her skirt distracted her, making her want to press closer with a shameless, wanton longing. She almost missed her step, and his hands tightened for a second.

In this moment, she thought, in this one dance, she would forget all that had come between them and give herself up to the here and now. Soon, she knew, Daniel would be gone, and this brief time would be no more than a dream. She closed her eyes and allowed the music to sweep her up, and thought of nothing but the pleasure of being in his arms.

‘Why do you wear that foolish turban?’ he asked softly, his breath brushing her ear. ‘I want to see your hair, touch it like I did that night in the moonlight…’

Lucinda’s heart raced. She could feel herself shaking a little. ‘I wear it because, as you so rightly pointed out when we first met again, I am a respectable widow, not a flighty girl. You should remember that too.’

He laughed. ‘You are still the wild country girl I knew all those years ago, Luce. You may hide it well most of the time, but I saw you trying to jump ship. I know you are still a hoyden.’ He ran his fingers caressingly over her wrist where the pulse beat erratically. ‘I know you,’ he repeated softly.

‘You knew me,’ Lucinda corrected, against the fierce beating of her heart. ‘Like you, I have changed.’

‘Not so much as you pretend.’

Lucinda looked at him and felt swamped by the same hopeless rush of feeling she had felt upon first meeting him again. She knew that there was a wanton, sensual and reckless side to her character. Daniel was the only one who could arouse it in her. She had locked it away for so long, but now he had awakened those feelings again and they troubled her and gave her no peace. But soon he was to be gone again, vanishing from her life again like the spectre he was. So it was easier by far to be angry with him and keep those other treacherous, terrifying emotions out—for this Daniel was a man to the boy he had once been, and she knew he could demand a response from her that was every bit as fierce as the one she had given him all those years ago when they had been young.

‘De Lancey!’

The shout cut through the web of emotion that had engulfed them, causing them both to jump violently. The music wavered and died. Lucinda saw Daniel swing round on instinct—but there was nothing surprising in that. Everyone in the Assembly Rooms had frozen at the sound of that name, then spun around to confront the person from whom it had come. Searching feverishly through the shocked faces of the crowd, Lucinda saw Owen Chance striding forward. He had what looked like a letter in his hand, and he was making directly for them.

‘You are Daniel de Lancey,’ he said.

Lucinda felt all the blood drain from her face. For a moment she thought that she was about to swoon for the first time in her life. It was purely emotional, purely instinctive. She felt terrified at the danger Daniel was now in. No one in the Assembly Rooms had ever seen him before, so she knew someone must have informed on him. She looked at the letter in Owen Chance’s hand, and then up into his face with a sort of despair.

Daniel was made of sterner stuff, she realised. Her face looked pale and stricken in the long mirrors that lined the ballroom, but he was standing there with the cool of the devil himself, one brow raised in polite enquiry, a look of amused tolerance on his face as he confronted Owen Chance.

‘I beg your pardon,’ Daniel said, ‘but I fear there is some mistake. I am Mr Jackson Raleigh, of Ludlow in Shropshire.’

The room had erupted into a torrent of whisper and speculation. Someone had moved to the door as though to guard it. Out of the corner of her eye Lucinda saw one of the redcoat captains draw his men closer. She saw the easy amusement in Daniel’s eyes turn to calculation as he looked around for an exit. Her heart swooped into her satin slippers as she realised that there was nowhere for him to go. There was no escape.

Their eyes met for a long second, and in that moment she knew exactly what he was going to do.

‘I am sure that Mrs Melville will vouch for me,’ he said. He held Lucinda’s gaze very directly. ‘She knows me well. We were children together.’ He looked around the circle of amazed faces. ‘In fact she is my betrothed.’

Chapter 5

‘OF ALL the unpardonably dirty tricks!’

The door of the room was locked and the guard’s footsteps receded along the corridor. Lucinda grabbed Daniel by the lapels of his jacket and shook him hard, her weight carrying them both backwards onto the dirty pallet bed in the corner of the room.

He went down with a thud, banging his shoulder against the wall, all the breath knocked from his body. Lucinda was no lightweight. Now she was sitting on top of him, just as she had when they had fought as children, in the days before their youthful feelings had turned to something deeper. Daniel shifted beneath her. No. On second thoughts it was not quite as it had been when they were children. Now Lucinda’s silk-clad legs were pressing against the side of his body, the warm juncture of her thighs was brushing a rather delicate and responsive part of his anatomy, and as she leaned forward, her wrathful face only a few inches from his, he caught a tantalising glimpse of the curve of her breasts beneath the silk ballgown.

He did the first thing that came into his mind.

He seized the hateful turban from her head and threw it into a corner of the room. Lucinda’s hair tumbled down to her shoulders, sticking out from its pins in charming blonde disarray. Daniel smiled.

‘That’s better.’

Lucinda made a noise like an enraged kitten and beat her fists against his chest.

‘Beast! Hateful, lying, deceitful, manipulative, traitorous beast!’

Daniel laughed out loud. ‘Don’t hold back, Lucinda!’

‘I hate you! You ruined my life once before, and now you have ruined me! I detest you!’ Her voice broke. To his amazement, Daniel realised that she was on the very edge of tears, his indomitable Lucinda. He had never, ever seen her cry—not even when her pet slow-worm had died when she was thirteen.

His hands gentled on her shoulders. He felt a huge wave of remorse, sobering him, humbling him. He got into—and out of—situations like this every day of his life, but Lucinda did not. In his careless, selfish disdain for her feelings and her future he had indeed ruined her.

‘I am sorry,’ he said slowly.

Her eyes were very bright with unshed tears as she looked down at him.

‘Why did you do it?’

Daniel shrugged uncomfortably. ‘It wasn’t supposed to be like this. We weren’t supposed to be locked up. I thought that Chance would believe me. My plan was for him to back down and apologise, and for everyone to congratulate us, and then we would simply walk out of there—’

‘And you would walk out of my life. Again. Leaving me to explain—again—the disappearance of my fiancé.’

There was a silence.

‘Something like that,’ Daniel admitted.

Lucinda straightened, moving away from him. Daniel swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat next to her. They were in a hastily converted office on the first floor of Woodbridge Gaol, detained at His Majesty’s pleasure whilst Owen Chance sent to Shropshire for urgent confirmation of Mr Jackson Raleigh’s identity. The door was locked, and a soldier was on guard at the end of the corridor. The Riding Officer had been apologetic but firm. Clearly he had not thought he could consign to the filthy cells a couple who might just possibly be all that they seemed—outraged gentry caught up in a case of mistaken identity. Even so, their situation was not a comfortable one. The room had one pallet bed, a desk, a wooden chair, a bucket, and that was all.

Daniel could not see Lucinda’s face. The unruly strands of hair that he had released now masked her expression from him.

‘You have never cared about anyone else in your life,’ she said slowly. ‘It is all of a piece.’

When he did not reply she glanced sideways at him.

‘Why do you not answer?’

Daniel shook his head. He felt cold within. ‘I have no defence against your words. You are correct. I thought only of myself and how I might escape.’

‘You abandoned me without a word when I was seventeen,’ Lucinda continued. ‘Tonight I almost forgot all of that, and was nearly seduced into caring for you all over again. But you—you care for no one but yourself, Daniel. You always have and you always will.’

Daniel made an abrupt movement of pain and frustrated rage. Until recently he had been his own sternest critic. Sometimes in the dark hours he struggled with his guilt, but that fight was his alone and he never spoke of it. That had changed when Lucinda had burst into his life again. She had confronted him and made him face up to the hurt he had dealt her in the past. And now he had hurt her all over again.

‘Why did you not denounce me?’ he said now. ‘Why did you lie to save me? Why did you not tell them at once that I was using you?’

She shot him a look from her very blue eyes. A tinge of colour touched her cheek. She caught her lush lower lip between her teeth.

‘Because I find that I am not as ruthless as you.’ She knitted her fingers together. ‘I did not want to see you hang.’

‘Thank you.’

She glared at him. ‘Oh, I wanted to denounce you for ruining me. Don’t mistake me. It is simply that I do not have the necessary hardihood.’

Daniel winced. ‘Well, thank you anyway.’

Lucinda turned her head slightly towards him. ‘Is there someone in Ludlow who can vouch for you?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Nor anyone else who will come to our aid?’

‘No.’

‘The Duchess of Kestrel might try, for my sake.’

‘She cannot do anything to help.’ Daniel rubbed his brow. ‘I dare say she realises that I am indeed de Lancey, but she will not intervene. I have worked with Justin Kestrel for the past five years, but he cannot save me now. He offered me a pardon only a few weeks ago and I turned him down. It is understood that if I am captured I am on my own.’

Lucinda was staring. ‘You have worked with Justin Kestrel?’

‘Yes.’ Daniel paused for a moment, but he knew that this was hardly the time to keep any further secrets from Lucinda. ‘You mentioned tonight that you had heard I worked for the Admiralty. Well, it is true. I am no traitor, Luce. I have worked for this government throughout the war.’

‘Then you are no spy?’

‘I spy for the British, not the French.’

‘And the piracy?’

‘I certainly harry the French fleet as much as I can.’

‘And the smuggling?’

‘I have helped smuggle fugitives from Napoleon’s regime.’ Daniel shrugged. ‘And I also smuggle good French brandy, so it is absolutely true that I am a criminal.’

‘Oh, Daniel!’

For a moment he thought Lucinda was going to throw herself into his arms, but being the woman she was she swallowed hard and glared at him instead.

‘Why did you not tell me the truth before? Why did you want me to think the worst of you?’

Daniel shifted a little. He took her hand. ‘Because I had to drive you away, Luce. It is not as simple as you think. I may have worked for the Admiralty, but I have crossed the line many times. By any definition I am a criminal now. That was what I meant when I said that you had not misjudged me.’ His grip tightened on her hand. ‘All the things of which you accuse me—the selfishness and the recklessness and the love of danger—they are all true.’

Lucinda’s eyes flashed. ‘But it is iniquitous for the Admiralty to treat you so when you have worked for them! Justin Kestrel should be ashamed if he leaves you to hang!’

Daniel’s lips twitched. ‘Your sense of fair play is admirable, Lucy,’ he said quietly. ‘But in your haste to acquit me do not forget that I have ruined you. I am as bad as you have painted me.’

‘That’s true,’ Lucinda agreed. ‘You are still a lying, deceitful and manipulative beast, even if you are not a traitor.’

Daniel smiled at her. ‘Thank you.’

Lucinda fidgeted and looked away, though she allowed her hand to remain in his. ‘So, if Justin Kestrel will not come to our aid, we have a couple of days of this…this purgatory…until they get word that you are not Mr Jackson Raleigh and then we are both hanged.’

‘That’s about the size of it.’ Daniel’s squeezed her fingers. ‘But we shall escape before that.’

Her eyes flew to his. ‘Shall we?’

‘Of course. In fact we are about to do so. It is always best to escape early on, with the element of surprise.’

Lucinda raised her brows. ‘I see. And I admire your confidence. So how is this cunning plan to be achieved?’

‘I am not sure yet,’ Daniel admitted. ‘But I know I will think of something.’

Her shoulders slumped slightly. ‘How reassuring.’