The Raider Read online

  Jess pushed away from Eleanor. “We Taggerts don’t take charity.”

  “But it won’t be charity, my dear, it will be all in the family.”

  Eleanor was pulling Jess from the room. “Thank you, Alexander. God will seat you at his right hand for this act of generosity.”

  “And, Eleanor, clothes for everyone. I don’t want children in my care dressed in rags.”

  “Yes, Alexander. Bless you, Alexander.” Eleanor closed the door behind them.

  Chapter Fourteen

  JESSICA sat on the floor of the Taggert house, facing the fireplace, roasting a fish stuck on a long stick over the little fire. The house seemed oddly silent with the children gone. No one was laughing or crying; no child was jumping on her back or begging her to give him a ride. She should have been enjoying the quiet but, instead, she missed the children—she even missed Eleanor. Or at least the old Eleanor who wasn’t always shouting at her.

  Two days ago, the very evening of Alexander’s proposal, Eleanor had packed what little they owned and moved into the Montgomery house.

  Jessica had refused to go with her. She had said she had no intention of marrying Alexander and therefore she was not going to move into his house. Eleanor had screamed some things that surprised Jessica; she wondered where her sister had learned such words. Eleanor had said she’d have to come to her senses sooner or later and that she and the kids would be waiting for her by Alexander’s side.

  So, Jess had remained alone since then. Alexander—the presumptuous ass—had sent a town crier about to announce his engagement to Jessica. When some of her more persistent suitors refused to leave, that arrogant Russian of Alex’s had played a few tricks with the men’s clothing with the tip of his sword. Jessica came back from fishing to see a suitor—the one who’d offered the pig for her—running away as he clutched his trousers on.

  She barely glanced at Nicholas before slamming into her house. Alexander—the coward—was nowhere to be seen.

  So here she sat for a second night alone, the wind whistling through the cracks in the walls, with nothing to eat but roasted fish, since it was the only thing she knew how to cook.

  A crack of thunder outside and the ensuing downpour of rain made her feel even more lonely and isolated. She didn’t hear the door open.

  “Jessica?”

  She glanced about to see Alexander standing there, his bright yellow coat shimmering in the darkened room. “Go away.”

  “I brought some food,” he said, holding out a basket. “Some of Eleanor’s pasties. With beef. Not a fish in it.” He put the basket down, then removed his yellow coat and carefully spread it on the floor to dry.

  She didn’t answer him, just kept her eyes on her fish.

  “And cheese and bread and a bottle of wine and…” He hesitated. “A piece of chocolate.”

  The chocolate did it. She dropped her fish in the fire and held out her hand to him and he put a piece of real chocolate in it. She began licking it. “What do I have to do to pay for this?”

  “Marry me,” he said, sitting down and then clamping his hand on her shoulder to keep her from leaping up. “Jessica, we have to talk about this. You can’t remain in this house sulking. Two more days and Westmoreland will be here to get you.”

  “He’ll not find me,” she said, her jaw stiff.

  Alex began unloading the food from the basket, his eyes downcast. “Do you hate the idea of marriage to me so much?” he asked softly.

  She turned to look at him. Without his coat, he didn’t look so preposterous. His big white shirt was gathered and the dampness made it cling to his shoulders. Although she knew him to be fat, from this angle, he looked almost slim.

  “I don’t like to be forced into anything,” she said. “Women don’t have too many choices given to them in life, but who they marry should be one of them.”

  He unwrapped a pastie—meat and vegetables in a crust—and handed it to her. “I guess desperate times call for desperate measures. Jess, you have to be practical. Either you get married within the next couple of days or you’ll have a half-wit forced on you. I may not be much to look at but I do have all my wits about me.”

  “Alex, you don’t look so bad, especially when you’re not wearing one of those hideous coats.” She nodded her head toward the shimmering pile of satin behind him.

  Alex turned and grinned at her. “Have some wine, Jess,” he said jovially. “I stole it from my father’s private stock. He brought it from Spain ten years ago.”

  She smiled back at him and accepted the mug of wine, loving the clean, sharp taste of it.

  “To business,” he said. He was roasting cheese over the fire, removing it just before it dripped. “You don’t want to marry me, your Raider hasn’t even shown up and you have two days left. What do you plan to do?”

  “I can’t go off and leave the children,” she said, “or else I’d leave town. Someone has to support them. Eleanor can’t do it alone. And no other men seem to consider the idea of taking me and the children.”

  “I see. Maybe I’m to win you by default.” He put a piece of cheese on bread for her.

  “Alex,” she said pleadingly. “It’s not you so much as it is that I don’t want to marry but one man.”

  “Your elusive Raider.”

  “Yes.” She finished her wine. “Besides, there are things about me you don’t know. You wouldn’t want to marry me if you knew them.”

  “All right,” he said, refilling her mug. “I’m prepared for the worst. Tell me what horrible secrets I don’t know.”

  “I…I’m not a virgin,” she whispered, her head down.

  “Neither am I. What else?”

  “Alex! Didn’t you hear me? I said I’d been with another man. I can only marry him.”

  “Would you like more cheese? Stop looking at me like I’m an idiot. I know what you’re saying. I also know you’ve lived all your life in this little town. There are some places where it’s not unusual for a woman to be married and have two or three lovers at the same time.”

  “Really?” Jess asked, interested. “Tell me.”

  He smiled at her. “I don’t think a man should tell his wife-to-be about adultery. All right, you’ve told me you’re not a virgin. I assume it’s this Raider.”

  “Yes, he and I—”

  Alex put up his hand. “I’d prefer not to hear the details. I’m sure it was a moonlit night and you found his black mask fascinating. Here, eat this. I don’t like skinny women.”

  She accepted the cheese. “Alex,” she said softly, “how did you lose…I mean, who was the woman who was…your first, you know?”

  He leaned back on his arms. By a trick of the light, she could barely see the mound of his big belly surrounded by the lemon yellow satin of his vest. “Remember Sally Henderson?”

  “The seamstress?” Her head came up. “But she was my mother’s age. She left town when we were children. Alex, you’re lying.”

  He turned and grinned at her in a way that made her relax her muscles. She sprawled on the floor a few feet from him. “Sally Henderson,” she murmured. “You must have been a boy.”

  “Old enough, I guess.”

  “And no one since then?” she asked, eyeing him. He certainly did look different in this light. He didn’t have on that wig with all the curls, but, instead, wore the small one tied by a black ribbon at the nape of his neck. She’d never noticed before how the whiteness of the wig contrasted with the black of his brows.

  “A few here and there,” he said, grinning at her over his shoulder. He turned onto his belly and looked at her. “I was pretty rotten to you when you came to my room with Eleanor, Jess,” he said. “I never met anyone with the ability to make me angrier than you. A man doesn’t like to be called a piece of seaweed when he’s just asked a woman to marry him.”

  “For the kids’ sake.”

  “What kids?” he asked.

  “You did ask me to marry you because of the children, didn’t you? And also