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PART II

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MAY, 1780
MAYFAIR
LONDON, ENGLAND

THAT EVENING, ELLIOTT flitted about Lady Grisham’s parlor flirting with and giggling at people as he usually did, though with less tension. He had found his masquerade more and more amusing as he settled into the rôle. Even he had underestimated the haute ton’s ennui with its dissolutions such that this mad, depraved monstrosity he had created could be the most sought-after bed partner of the Season.

It was doubly amusing, considering that though he had yet to bed any of these people, his reputation for delicious perversions grew by the day—none of which included his two actual perversions, which would eclipse anything he was said to have done.

Even young Vickers’s dam had been casting lascivious glances at him. She was, in fact, present this evening and making her studied lazy way toward him. If Vickers hadn’t informed her of his demand, Elliott would be hard put not to laugh. If he had, Elliott would have to think of something even more outrageous to put them both off.

“Ah, Countess Jarls,” Elliott cooed when the woman reached him. He took her hand and bent low over it, then pressed his lips to her knuckles. Her breath caught when he touched his tongue to her skin.

“Might you be free this evening, Tavendish?”

The heat in her voice could melt a block of ice. “I might,” he returned in like fashion. “Has your son spoken to you with regard to an offer I made him?”

She blinked, suddenly confused. “Ah … no. What has the boy been up to now?”

He grinned wickedly and leaned into her so his mouth was touching her ear. With a deliberately salacious whisper, he relayed the bargain.

Her breath hitched and her hand crept toward her mostly exposed bosom. “He— He— He—”

“Oh, come now, Josephine,” Elliott simpered, “surely you cannot begrudge the boy his tastes when I know you have a fondness for watching men together.” He snickered cruelly at the flush that showed under her face powder.

Her protest was weak. “But me and—”

“At the same time,” he purred.

She gasped and stepped away from him in mixed horror and fascination. “My God. You are vile! Worse than they say.”

He grinned. “You have no idea. Take it or leave it, my lady.”

Though he had expected her to flounce away, she said nothing for a full ten seconds, then murmured, “I shall consider it.”

Elliott could not restrain his laughter, and it was then she stormed away. Bloody hell, did these people have nothing better to do?

’Twas a rather hushed affair, this salón, as the book under discussion had been outlawed. Thus, there were relatively few people in attendance, twenty if that, and only the most scandalous of the ton had been invited, thus his route of flirtation had lasted mere moments.

The Rathbones were, at this moment, having supper at Admiral Bancroft’s home, and had been gone from the house when Elliott had called for Celia and Lady Hylton. Lady Hylton had cried off, citing her declining health and her conviction that Celia could not possibly come to any harm with Lord Tavendish.

The marquess and marchioness would likely be infuriated to know how their naïve niece had been cozened into presenting such a scandalous topic. Naturally, if the marquess called Elliott out for being party to it, he could simply relay to Rathbone that he and Lady Hylton had been misled as to the nature of the gathering and he had called a halt to it as soon as he realized Miss Bancroft had been the subject of a prank.

Now, after having handed Celia over to Lady Grisham for last-minute instructions before the presentation, he was feeling more lighthearted than he had the day he and Fury had discussed the very book under scrutiny tonight. It was not a chore to act happy when, after he had finished outlining his plan for Papadakos not quite two hours ago, the man had proffered the opinion that Fury would be very pleased with this turn of events—once she learned of them.

Please do not expect anything soon, though, Captain. I have not been able to get her your last message yet. She has … obstacles … preventing regular rendezvous with us.

Why are you leaving? … … … … Officer, I know you are authorized to speak and act for her whilst you’re here. Please take pity on me.

Very well. Those same obstacles also prevent her from accomplishing the task she is here for, and we do not see an end to this. There is no reason for her to be here if she cannot work toward its completion, and being cut off from us makes her nervous.

As well it should. Is she spying for Washington?

No. She is here at Captain Hollander’s request. What he has asked her to do, I will not divulge.

Understood. Tell her I will give her safe harbor so she can do her work.

It will be of no help. To finish, she must remain where she is, but she cannot remain where she is without certain discovery. Your plan is fortuitous and will serve our purposes as well as yours.

He could only hope.

But upon reflection, every decision he had made since he was released from Newgate as to the direction of his life had born good fruit. Now he had only to wait for a response from Fury to see if his luck held.

It was a dangerous plan—more so even than her blaze out of Chesapeake Bay. If she was amenable to it, the feat would be to enact it without getting anyone killed, namely himself or Fury.

Sharp claps called the room to attention and each of the two dozen took a comfortable seat somewhere in the room. Elliott, having noticed several people beckoning him to sit on diverse sofas with them, chose a singular chair closest to the small dais erected for Celia.

Soon Lady Grisham welcomed her guests with a bit of a titter concerning Celia’s presentation, at which Elliott raised his brow. She cleared her throat and continued her introduction. “Come, Miss Simp—Bancroft, please,” she said, holding her hand out to the side where Celia stood unnoticed in a gown that blended in with the décor.

She did not appear to be troubled or wracked by any degree of nerves, standing in front of such a gathering, but then, Elliott should not have expected her to be anything but her normal, vacant self. She was, in fact, quite relaxed, staring vaguely at the back wall of the parlor, her arms loose and her hands linked primly in front of her.

“Miss Bancroft,” Lady Grisham cooed, rolling her eyes over at her conspirator, who giggled, and set the rest of the room to giggling. Celia blinked languidly. “You may begin.”

As Elliott had instructed whilst in the coach, she waited until Lady Grisham and Mrs. Aynesworth had seated themselves and everyone was comfortable. There were stirrings and rather loud whisperings of contempt and degradation, which made Elliott regret not putting a stop to this the moment he learned of it.

Why he hadn’t, he could only ascribe to his certainty that Celia was not the imbecile everyone thought she was.

She cleared her throat in the manner of one requesting attention.

“I am grateful to Lady Grisham and Mrs. Aynesworth for asking me to present my thoughts on Fanny Hill, which story consisted entirely of Miss Hill moving house quite a lot, abiding with different gentlemen who appeared to treat her reasonably well, and losing her possessions each time she changed abodes. I found that rather discomfiting, as I should not like to lose my things at all, much less so many times in a row.”

That was an inauspicious beginning and most certainly unexpected. She had already said as much to him, though he had assumed she might glean something … deeper (he smirked) … once she thought on it.

He waited for more.

So did everyone else.

Celia remained on the dais, her mouth closed, her eyes riveted on that point she had not relinquished sight of since she was introduced.

Whisperings and rustlings ceased.

The silence in the room grew and grew and grew until it was utterly profound.

“Miss Bancroft,” Elliott blurted, “are those the entirety of your thoughts on the subject?”

Celia’s chin lowered slowly until she was looking at him, her expression still blank. “Yes, my lord.”

Everyone shifted and fidgeted with great discomfort. This was, by any standard, disappointing.

“You did note that Fanny ends the book a wealthy woman with possessions aplenty, did you not?” he pressed.

She nodded sagely. “Thank you, Lord Tavendish, I did, but what she left behind was irreplaceable.”

A statement of simple fact or entendre? He couldn’t tell. No one else could, either.

“Why, Miss Bancroft,” came a female voice from the back of the room, “every woman leaves that behind at some point in her life. And the sooner, the better.” The room erupted in laughter (more for relief than amusement at Celia, Elliott thought), but Celia’s expression never changed. “I dare say you left yours with your pirate captors, didn’t you?”

The gasp was so great it near rippled the Persian rug. Elliott turned to see Mrs. Aynesworth preening at her cleverness.

Elliott opened his mouth to give her a good set-down, but Celia merely droned, “Did you lose your family, too, Mrs. Aynesworth? ’Tis a terrible thing, to lose the people you love.”

The rustlings turned to ones of discomfort. Mrs. Aynesworth’s angry flush could be seen through her light application of powder.

“Now, see here,” Elliott chirped, “we are discussing the book, are we not? Miss Simp—er, Bancroft’s tragedy is, I’m quite sure, titillating in the extreme—”

“If she can remember it,” Lady Grisham crabbed, then said, “No, Miss Bancroft, Mrs. Aynesworth did not lose her family, although at times I wish I could.” There were titters, but not directed at Celia. “Did you understand anything of the story other than that?”

“No, my lady.”

“Then what the devil are we doing here?” Elliott asked grandly, slapping his thighs. “Hestia, Connie, really, this was not well done of you. At least you could have ascertained beforehand the gehl would say something suitably risqué. Did she not request your assistance?”

Their expressions said everything: They hadn’t given her any.

The rumblings grew and most of the gathered turned to cast a skeptical eye at their hostess. He almost laughed, as she would be de trop for the rest of the Season, if not the next as well. He turned to begin his flounce, and caught the most minute twitch of Celia’s lips as she watched Hestia and Constancia looking flustered and angry in the midst of others who had already begun to flounce.

He knew that twitch.

Bloody hell. He was going to kill her.

Right after he fucked her.

“Say, Miss Bancroft,” he said loudly enough to still the impending exodus. He smiled benignly at her when her eyelashes fluttered. Despite her drastic weight loss, there was a reason her profile was so familiar—and matched her mother’s.

Oh, what a deceitful, perfectly matched pair of wonderfully wicked women.

“Yes, Lord Tavendish?”

“Would you mind reading some passages of the book aloud and explaining what you think those passages mean?”

Her eyes narrowed slightly and he grinned at her.

“Of course I would not mind, my lord,” she returned flatly, “if I had a copy of the book, but I did not bring it.”

“Oh, then! That is a situation easily rectified, after all. Hestia, darling? I know you must have one somewhere in this lovely home. We may get something juicy out of the gehl yet.”

“Yes, yes, Tavendish,” said the hostess with great relief, rushing out of the ballroom.

Elliott continued to study his lover, allowing her to see his distaste when he raked her with his gaze. The slight tightening of her jaw made him snicker.

He had known from the moment he’d noticed her eyes. While his mind still could not parse out how it could be, his instincts had not led him astray.

They never did.

“And whilst we await our hostess,” Elliott purred, “I would like to know, Miss Simpleton—” Another gasp. He was about to destroy or enhance his own popularity, but it mattered not. He’d found Fury. It was no great loss to be able to put off his masquerade and devote himself to perfecting his elaborate plan. “—why, precisely, all those gentlemen were taking Fanny in.”

“I believe she rendered service to them, my lord.”

She was going to play. Elliott’s delight knew no bounds. “And what … service … do you think that was?”

The room was still now, but she maintained her persona. He noted that she fixed her gaze upon his chin or his forehead, but not his eyes. He knew why: She would be too tempted to laugh and laughter, he also knew, was the only weapon he had with which to defeat her.

“I believe she may have cleaned the gentlemen’s jewels, my lord,” she returned. “The men all seemed quite well endowed with them.”

Everyone laughed, but she acted as if she could not hear or see them. She met his look and he knew his challenge had not only been accepted, but if he were not careful, she would beat him at his own game.

“Is that so? What sorts of jewels?”

“Mostly rubies,” she answered promptly. “Ruby heads. I have never heard of such a shape, but I presume it must be large. Could you describe it for me, Lord Tavendish?”

“Oh, none of that, Miss Bancroft. I shall take you to a jeweller’s and demonstrate, in fact.” There were squeals of delight and choking laughter to greet that. “Was she well paid for cleaning their jewels?”

“I am not certain that was her sole duty. She might have cooked for them, as there were many references to food.” Her brow wrinkled. “Mostly to bags of sweets.”

The room was roaring with laughter Elliott was hard pressed not to indulge in himself. Whichever of the two of them laughed first would lose. Then again, she had more at stake than he did, and her acting was impeccable. It was possible she could go on like this all night without once smiling.

… feigned a swoon …

Ah, but there were a few ways she could surrender that would be entirely in character and allow her to keep her composure. She had known him for Judas the moment they were introduced, and clearly she had been angry with him enough to let him stew in his confusion and frustration, watching him try to solve the riddle she had set him.

“Here I have it, Tavendish!” Lady Grisham chortled as she swept into the room. It was only when he turned to take the book he noticed she was the one with the Thunderstorm skirt, complete with open gunports.

“Say, Hestia,” Elliott drawled. “What in God’s name do you mean, parading around like that, you and the other ladies paying homage to an enemy of England. I’m appalled.”

She sniffed. “As if you don’t know.”

“Speaking of fashion, Miss Bancroft,” Elliott said smoothly, dismissing Hestia most rudely. “Other than the ruby heads, mayhap was haberdashery involved?”

“Yes, my lord, in fact there was. Thank you for bringing it up, as it confused me most dreadfully.”

“Do tell.”

“I find it curious Miss Hill would note about one of the gentlemen that he wears no bonnet. Men do not, in my observation, wear bonnets at all, so I don’t understand why she would remark upon it.”

“Was the gentleman a Jew?”

“It was not noted to be so, my lord. Why would you think so?”

“Because Jews do not wear bonnets, Miss Bancroft.”

“I am told Jews wear hats.”

“Otherwise known as French letters.”

“Would French Jews write letters in languages other than French?”

The woman was out for his blood. “Have you … known … many Jews, Miss Bancroft?”

“Only one.” That would bear examination later. “That I know of.”

“Ah. And did he wear a bonnet?”

“No, my lord. Nor even a hat.”

“Then what’s all this folderol about men and their bonnets?”

She looked at him with perfectly crafted confusion. “I have no idea, Lord Tavendish. You’ve got me all topsy-turvy.”

“I intend to make you more so. Tell me,” he rushed on, having found the precise passage he knew would strain her control beyond bearing, “what you make of this: ‘Sometimes she would stoop to meet his kiss: but presently the sting of pleasure spurred them up to fiercer action; then began the storm of heaves, which, from the undermost combatant, were thrust at the same time, he crossing his hands over her, and drawing her home to him with a sweet violence: the inverted strokes of anvil over hammer soon brought on the critical period, in which all the signs of a close conspiring extasy informed us of the point they were at.’”

Elliott looked up just in time to see her lips press together in so small a degree no one but he would see it. He smirked. She averted her eyes to his shoulder and her mouth relaxed. “I must admit, there was altogether too much violence in the book for my liking. I rushed over such passages because … ” Then she heaved a longsuffering sigh and the room’s tension faded into pity. “Lord Tavendish, if I may?”

That shocked him, to see her holding her hand out for the book. He arose, stepped to her in such a manner so as to shield her from the audience, and whispered, “Well done, Madam. I am adequately chastened and look forward to being thoroughly punished.”

Her expression did not change, but her mouth trembled so that she could barely speak and she did not raise her eyes above his throat. “Do you want me to whip your arse, you will cease this instant.”

“Here you are, my dear,” he pronounced, and turned away quickly so that if she broke out in the laughter she was already struggling to contain, she would do so in front of the audience.

She hunched over the book, flipping through it once, then back again, then forward again for an interminably long time until she could gather herself. Those members of the ton so lucky as to be invited to this little gathering were shuffling and whispering, chuckling and snickering, yet patiently awaiting more unintentional entendres.

Elliott snorted. If they only knew …

“Though I had meant to ask someone about a particular passage beforehand,” she said abruptly, quelling all motion and talking in the room, “I forgot.”

“We forgive you, my dear,” Elliott purred.

“Thank you, my lord,” she returned without looking at him. “Thus, I must count on your good will to assist me. I found it a curious thing. Here: ‘He made me fully sensible of the virtues of his firm texture of limbs, his square shoulders, broad chest, compact hard muscles, in short a system of manliness, that might pass for no bad image of our ancient sturdy barons, whose race is now so thoroughly refined and frittered away into the more delicate and modern built frame of our pap-nerved softlings, who are as pale, as pretty, and almost as masculine as their sisters.’” She did look at him then and blinked owlishly. “I am not certain, but I believe that to be an insult to the nobility, my lord, and I cannot understand why, because I am particularly fond of pale, pretty, effeminate nobles.”

Elliott’s mouth slowly dropped open. “You wouldn’t,” he whispered.

“I am so very grateful for your friendship, my lord, because you could never be mistaken for a pirate and so I have nothing whatsoever to fear from you.”

Elliott’s laugh was louder than everyone else’s. He was mortally wounded in this skirmish, true, but he could not care, as he was so delighted to have found this woman. Aye, he had been looking for Fury, but after all he had witnessed of her and shared with her, he had still managed to underestimate how utterly glorious she was.

He only had one weapon left.

When the laughter had died down, there stood Celia Bancroft, as pathetic looking as ever, vague confusion tingeing her features.

“Ah, Seeeeeeeeeeleea,” he purred, “one last question.”

Her eyes narrowed the teensiest bit. “Yes, my lord?”

“Do you recall the phrase ‘engine of love assaults’?”

She gulped. Hard. “I do, but I’ve no notion what it could possibly mean. Could you explain it to me?”

“Refers to a man’s nether parts.”

“A man’s nether parts?” she repeated dumbly. Loudly. She stood stone-faced, looking at him with not so much as a whisper of bemusement, but she swayed. She was on the verge of surrender. “Could you be more precise, my lord?”

He arose to put his hands to the buttons of his falls, which was fortuitous, since at that moment, she decided to surrender.

He caught her when she swooned.

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If you don’t want to wait 2 years to get to the end, you can buy it here.
Pirates!