He glanced again at her face, then reached up and caught her wrist, lifted her limp hand from his shoulder, drew it down, and pressed her palm, closed her hand, about his erection.

She heard the sharp intake of his breath, sensed the sudden leaping tension as she boldly obeyed and caressed him.

From beneath heavy lids, eyes gleaming, he watched her, shifting his hips, thrusting languidly into her hand. “Strange to tell, those sirens were like you.”

He bent his head and found her lips, teased, taunted, while his hands ministered to her breasts, fracturing her senses.

She drew back, gasped weakly, “Like me?”

Beneath her hand, his erection felt like iron-heavy, hard, and rigid.

“They looked like you.” Releasing her breasts, he framed her face, tipped it up, searched her face, her eyes, then bent his head and took her mouth in a searing kiss that abruptly plunged them back into dangerous waters. Into the dark, swirling promise of what might be.

Into the realm where fantasy and reality wove one into the other and back again.

His hands drifted from her face, gripped her hips; he shifted into her, pressing her to the wall, impressing his hard, flagrantly masculine body on hers. Insinuating one hard thigh between hers, he lifted her until she rode the steely muscle, potent threat and promise combined.

Brusquely, he pulled back from the kiss, murmured against her lips, “Like you, they were always wild.”

His lips returned to hers, dominant and commanding, rapaciously plundering; she met him, matched him, and refused to yield. Boldly challenged him instead, then shuddered under the onslaught, the undisguised, unrestrained, elemental passion he unleashed.

Abruptly her wits were spinning beyond her control, her senses dragged down, immersed in the greedy heat pouring from him, in the furious clash of desire and need. Her limbs weakened, her flesh softened, waiting, wanting, yet still daring to hold against him; with every passing second, the empty ache burgeoned and grew, and drove her to surrender.

Then she felt her nightgown shift, realized he was raising it. Without conscious thought she eased her grip on him, drew her palm slowly, tauntingly, up his length, then searched for the buttons at his waist. She found them, flicked them free, pushed aside the folds of his clothing, and found him.

Closed her hand and slid it down his length, hot, hard, burning. Clasped, lightly scored. Deliberately incited him.

He dragged his lips from hers, dragged in a labored breath. Muscles bunched; he yanked her gown to her waist.

“Like you”-his words were almost too deep to make out, gravelly, grating, dark with forceful menace-“they were always in need of claiming.”

He reached down, gripped her naked thighs, and lifted her.

Excitement, flaring anticipation and relief rushed through her; giddy, she closed her eyes, sucked in a breath, grabbed his shoulders for balance. Head back, braced against the wall, she felt him nudge into her softness, ease in just a fraction-then he stopped.

Held them both on the brink, nerves coiled, clenched, waiting…

She raised her lids, through the dimness found the dark glint of his eyes. Held them for a pregnant second, then provocatively murmured, “And did you claim them?”

He thrust into her, and filled her, not slowly, not fast, but powerfully, forging in, the latent strength in his body, so much greater than hers, blatantly evident. She couldn’t have prevented him, denied him her body, held him out had she wanted to, not by any physical means.

He thrust deep, impaled her fully, then leaned close, and whispered against her lips, “I tried.”

Her lips curved in response.

Physically, she was his. Emotionally, he was hers.

As if in acknowledgment of that truth, his gaze lowered to her lips. “I was never sure I succeeded.”

He kissed her rapaciously, and their ride began. More forceful, less civilized, more real than before. The sense of being a figment of the other’s fantasy released what little inhibitions they possessed, unlocked and let fall the last restraints.

Let them both be as they dreamed of being, a revelation deeper, more intimate, more telling.

He held her against the wall, supporting her weight, and thrust heavily into her. She gasped, clung to his shoulders, gripped his hips with her knees, and rode every deep penetration.

When she broke from the kiss on a sob, he bent his head and feasted on her breasts. Took all he wished without quarter.

Ravished her, body, mind, and soul.

Even while her body shuddered, racked by a superbly gauged intimate assault wholly focused on bringing about her surrender, the elements of desire their roles revealed spun around her, through her.

Slowly coalesced even while he drove her to the brink, and over.

Until she screamed his name on a breathless cry, and shattered.

He withdrew from her and carried her to the bed, tossed her across it, stripped her nightgown away, stripped off his breeches, and joined her. Trapped her beneath him, with his thighs spread hers wide, settled between, caught her hands one in each of his, raised them level with her head, then pressed them to the coverlet as he braced his arms and rose over her, held her down as with one powerful surge he joined with her.

And took more. Demanded more, every last gasp, every last sob of helpless desire she had it in her to give.

Heat poured from him, turned their skins slick, burned through their veins, and still she met him, matched him, stayed with him. Gave all he asked, took all he gave in return. Exulted as from under weighted lids she watched him above her.

Hot, relentless, unforgivingly hard-and hers.

He drove her ruthlessly up and over the peak; her awareness fractured into slivers of glowing gold. She felt him follow hard on her heels into physical oblivion; he slumped atop her and she freed her hands, slid her arms around him and held him close-and that power that had grown immeasurably in the last weeks rose up and engulfed them.

In that moment of blessed peace, a sense of certainty bloomed and burgeoned within her.

Long moments passed before they eventually moved, just enough to find the pillows and slip under the covers, not enough to disturb the heavy pleasure that lay upon them, that had sunk to their bones, and deeper.

Curled within his arms, her head on his shoulder, she felt her lips curve as, borne on the cusp of sated slumber, the truth gleamed, clear, in her mind. Her fantasy had been an extension of their real lives-lord and lady-that was who they were. His fantasy, however…in it was embedded the real truth of what they were, what they meant to each other.

He was the pirate who had captured her.

She was the siren who, his captive, had captured him.

CHAPTER 20

THE NEXT MORNING, WHEN THEY GATHERED FOR BREAKfast, Nicholas was much improved, yet to his irritation was straitly informed by Charles, Jack, and Gervase that he could not stir a foot without a guard.

As their clear message was that they wouldn’t permit him to stir that foot, he had no option but to acquiesce.

“The patrols I set in place-in light of your arrival”-Charles looked at Jack and Gervase-“I’m calling them off. Normal enough seeing we’ve gone two days without incident. If he’s scouting about, he’ll doubtless wait another day or so for all alarm to subside before making his move.”

“Regardless,” Jack declared, working his way through a plate of sausages, “we’ll be here.”

“I need to go into Fowey and check what my sources there have unearthed,” Charles said. “It might not be anything, but we can’t afford to miss whatever scraps fate deigns to throw us.”

Gervase and Jack nodded. Nicholas looked resigned. “Perhaps I should show these two the priest hole?”

Jack brightened. “Good idea.”

Penny set down her teacup and pushed back her chair. “I’ll come with you, Charles-I want to speak with Mother Gibbs.” She rose with a smile for the others, but didn’t catch Charles’s eye. Turning to the door, she spoke over her shoulder, “I’ll change into my habit and meet you in the stables.”

She could feel his gaze narrowing, arrowing on her back; blithely ignoring it, she glided out of the dining room.

He was waiting when she reached the stables; from the look in his eyes, he was less than impressed. She held up a hand before he could speak. “If I stay here, I’ll be forced to go for a walk-I’ll be safer with you.”

The comment gave him pause, then, with a grimace, he surrendered and lifted her to her saddle.

Neither they nor their mounts had been out for two days; they took to the fields and galloped, eager for the exercise. When the outskirts of Fowey lay ahead, they reined in to a sensible pace.

In perfect empathy, they trotted toward the town. That empathy was deeper than before; from the moment she’d agreed to marry him, regardless of her qualification, she’d sensed the change in him. The absolute, unshakable confidence that she would be his come what may. Initially, she’d been suspicious, but there was no denying he knew her and her stubbornness well; after last night, his rock-solid confidence in their ultimate outcome had infected her. It could only mean that he was sure he could meet her condition, was committed to meeting it, confident he would. Which meant…

A frisson of expectation, of shining hope, surged through her; she glanced his way, let her gaze slide over him, then looked ahead. Perhaps, at last, their time had come…but first they had to catch the murderer.

They left their horses at the Pelican, took the downhill lanes to the quay, then wended up the familiar alleys to Mother Gibbs’s door.

Even though it was midmorning, Charles had to knock three times before a towheaded lad opened it. Recognizing the youngest Gibbs, Charles asked for his mother, only to be informed in an uncertain tone, “Ma’s in the kitchen givin’ the others merry ’ell.”

Charles blinked; sounds of a shrill altercation drifted up from the depths of the house. “Dennis and your brothers?”

The boy had recognized him; he nodded.

“We’ll go in.” Charles grasped Penny’s hand and towed her past the lad, who blinked in surprise.

“Close the door,” Charles reminded him.

Shaking free of his stunned stupor, the boy jumped to obey.

The kitchen lay at the end of the corridor that ran the length of the house. Penny ignored the closed doors they passed; the nearer they got, the louder and shriller the argument became. Charles ducked his head and they stepped down into the kitchen.

Mother Gibbs stood before the stove, in full flight, punctuating her statements with a heavy ladle that she banged on a chopping board on the table before her. Ranged on the other side of the table were her three eldest sons, all hulking, brawny sailors who towered over her, yet all three appeared to be trying to make themselves small, an impossible feat.

Glimpsing movement behind the wall of her sons, Mother Gibbs shifted, saw Charles, and broke off in midharangue.

The three brothers followed her gaze to Charles and Penny; Penny could almost hear their sighs of relief fall into the sudden silence.

Charles took in the situation in one glance; he held up a placating hand. “My apologies for interrupting, but I need to speak with you all, and time is short.” When no one responded, just stared at him, he shifted his gaze from Mother Gibbs’s florid countenance to Dennis’s studiously blank face. Charles paused, tasting the silence. “Has anything happened?”

“I’ll tell you what’s happened!” Mother Gibbs thumped the ladle down. “These numbskulls sent my sister’s boy off to keep watch somewhere and he’s not been home and his mother’s been here whining all morning.”

She brandished the ladle at Dennis. “You know what I’ve told you ’bout getting your cousins involved-they’re younger’n you lot. And now here we’ve had spies this and spies that for the last week ’til Sid’s up and told Bertha he was out to keep watch last night, and he’s not been back since.”

Leveling the ladle at Dennis, she narrowed her eyes. “So you just get on out there to wherever you’ve sent him and tell him to get along home sharpish, or I’ll have Bertha here whining over our teatime, and that I won’t have, do y’hear?”

“Yes, Ma.” The words were uttered in unison by all three brothers.

Dennis slid a harrassed look at Charles, then looked, somewhat sheepishly, at his mother. “Did Aunt Bertha say where he’d gone?”

“’Course not!” Lowering the ladle, Mother Gibbs opened her mouth-then registered the import of the question. She stared at her eldest son. “You know, don’t you? You sent ’im-”