The Raider Read online

  So, once again, Eleanor had sent her out to do children’s chores—and to think about what she’d done to her family.

  Also, Eleanor wanted to keep Jess from hearing the anger of the people of Warbrooke. The admiral was taking his fury out on the shipmasters. He’d already confiscated two shiploads of goods.

  Today Jessica had stolen a few minutes to visit Mrs. Wentworth. The admiral had refused to allow Abigail to be interrogated. “Abby’s told him she’s glad Ethan is gone, that she was made to marry the man, and that she actually prefers older men,” Mrs. Wentworth said. “The old walrus believes every word she says and as long as Ethan stays hidden in the forests, Abby can keep up the charade.”

  “At least it’s keeping her skin intact. How is Mr. Wentworth?”

  Mrs. Wentworth turned pale.

  “It’s that way at my house, too. Oh, no, here comes Alex.”

  The two women parted quickly.

  Jessica had nearly run to Farrier’s Cove. Eleanor had thought that a day of fishing might clear her head and keep her out of trouble.

  “Jessie.”

  She spun about on her heel to see the Raider standing in the shadows near the steep bank.

  She held her clam shovel out toward him as if it were a weapon. “Don’t you come near me. This is all your fault. If you hadn’t come to Warbrooke, none of this would have happened.”

  “Oh?” the Raider asked, lounging against the bank. “You don’t think that by now John Pitman wouldn’t have stolen everything in town?”

  “Hallelujah, you’ve replaced Pitman with Admiral Westmoreland. That’s like replacing a naughty boy with the devil.”

  “Jessie, you really can’t believe I’m completely to blame. If you hadn’t interfered, I’d have been hanged by the British weeks ago. And releasing Ethan had nothing to do with me. I wasn’t planning to try to save those men.”

  “That’s what Alex said,” she said with some bitterness in her voice. “He said you wouldn’t interfere.”

  “Coward, am I?” the Raider asked, his fine lips slightly smiling.

  She turned her attention to the beach, looking for clams’ air holes. “I never thought you were a coward, but rescuing Ethan and the others had to be done.”

  “Did it? Abigail couldn’t go without her virile young man for a few months? Ethan couldn’t have stood a little time in the navy?”

  “We had to show the admiral that we won’t be taken advantage of. We’re not children of the English. We’re—”

  “You’re not using your brain, that’s what. Now the admiral is very angry and he plans to punish Warbrooke any way he can.”

  “Brain! What do you know of brains? Alex said—”

  “Damn that husband of yours.” He took a few steps closer to her and pulled her into his arms, then kissed her until she felt her body weaken. “Does he make you feel like that? Does he make you cry out in passion?”

  “Please leave me alone,” she said, turning her head away. “Please don’t torture me like this.”

  “I don’t torture you any more than you torture me,” he said with feeling. “You haunt my every moment, you fill my every—”

  She pushed away from him. “Yet you let me marry another man,” she spat at him.

  “Not an actual man, but a—”

  “You leave Alexander out of this.”

  The Raider’s eyes, glittering behind his mask, showed his surprise. “You had me take you home to him. I’m losing you to a rainbow—all color and no substance.”

  “Alexander has more substance than you know about. He took on me and the kids. He never loses patience with them, he reads to them, sings to them, bandages their wounds and mine. He gets mad at me when I nearly get killed. He—”

  “Does he sleep with you?”

  “Heavens no!” she gasped before thinking. “I mean, Alex is my friend.”

  The Raider took her arms, his fingers caressing her skin. “But you sound as if you want to sleep with him.”

  “Please let me go,” she said pleadingly, not knowing if she could continue resisting. “I’m a married woman.”

  “Yes.” His lips were a breath away from hers. “But you’re married to a man who can’t give you what I can. Let me make love to you, Jessie. Let me make you feel like the woman you are. Forget that peacock you married.”

  She tried to push away from him. “You’re jealous of Alexander.”

  “Of course I am. He has you all day, while I only have you for minutes at a time. How do his kisses compare to mine?”

  “Alexander doesn’t kiss me,” she murmured. “Only you do.”

  He pulled away from her, his eyes open wide in surprise. “He doesn’t kiss you? But you want to kiss him, don’t you? You want to go to bed with him, don’t you?”

  Jess straightened the front of her dress. “You are losing your mind. Alexander is my friend. I’d as soon let Eleanor make love to me. I’d get about as much pleasure from a woman as from Alexander,” she muttered. “Please go away and leave me alone. I don’t want to see you anymore.”

  The Raider stood there, hands at his side, his mouth slightly open, as if he’d heard some horrible news.

  Jess looked toward the bank. “Go! Someone’s coming. It may be Alex.”

  The Raider seemed to recover himself. “Maybe your husband has been meeting another woman.”

  “Now I know your brain is addled. He couldn’t even get a woman to marry him, much less go to bed with him. Go! Or do you want to be caught?”

  The Raider was over the side of the bank within seconds.

  It was only a deer on the side of the cove, but Jessica was glad that something had made the Raider leave. She knew she wasn’t going to be able to resist him much longer. Just the sight of him made her body start to vibrate. It had been so very long since a man had held her.

  She jabbed at a clam hole. A real man, that is, one who was capable of pleasing her body as well as her mind. She felt a little guilty having told the Raider about Alex but she felt torn between the two men. She was physically faithful to both of them. She wasn’t an adulteress and betraying Alex, nor was she sleeping with her husband and thereby betraying the Raider.

  “I’m without,” she said aloud. “Without either man.” She jabbed harder at the clam hole.

  * * *

  “Will you stop shouting at me?” Jessica yelled at Eleanor. “I told you. I haven’t done anything to Alexander. At least not anything new. I took him his food, I even cut it up for him. I don’t know how to be nicer to him. I even told him he looked very nice, that his coat made his cheeks pink and pretty. What else can I do for him?”

  “Why is he brooding, then?”

  “I don’t know. He won’t talk to me about his health. Do you think he’s in pain?”

  “Only what pain you’ve caused him.”

  “Me? I haven’t done—”

  They were interrupted by the door bursting open and Marianna entering, her face flushed, her eyes alight. “Have you heard? There’s an Italian ship docking and someone said Adam might be on it.”

  “Adam?” Jessica gasped.

  “Oh yes,” Marianna sighed, her eyes closed in ecstasy for a moment. “My eldest brother. Adam the fighter. Adam the handsome. Adam who has come to save us.”

  “The English will burn our town to the ground if anyone else ‘saves’ us,” Eleanor said.

  Jessica looked down at her old, worn dress. “I can’t meet Adam looking like this. I wish I had a dress as beautiful as Alex’s red coat. Don’t just stand there, Marianna, your hair is a mess.”

  “Yes, yes, of course.” She started down the hall.

  “Don’t tell Alex you’re dressing up for—” Eleanor called, but Jessica was already gone. “Adam,” she finished and then put her hand to her own head. Perhaps she should have a look at herself before the famous Adam returned.

  Jessica opened the door to Alex’s room with eagerness on her face.

  Alex shut his book. “What’s happened?