“No.” He slid the small box into his jacket pocket. “Susanna should be the first to see her own wedding ring.”
Charlotte pouted a bit at his comment, but Daniel leaned over and kissed her pursed lips. “He’s right. You can see it when they get back.”
“Fine. Be gone with you then Pirate Miles.” She wrinkled her nose. “You haven’t got a very piratical name.”
“As long as she agrees to marry me, she can call me whatever she likes.”
*
Eliza Dearborn tiedthe belt of her dressing gown into a neat bow as she looked out the window at the full moon. The moonlight shone bright across the back lawns of the house, and sparkled almost like daylight on the pond. A movement caught her eye and she watched in shock as a tall figure rounded the corner of the house carrying what looked to be a ladder. The figure stopped right under their daughter’s second-floor room. He gently laid the ladder against the windowsill. Eliza swung her own window open to lean out to see him better. The man looked up to the window above him and his features were illuminated by the moonlight.
“Nathaniel,” she called back over her shoulder to her husband who already lounged on their bed. “Lord Hawksridge is climbing a ladder to our daughter’s room, dressed as a pirate, no less.”
“Yes, I know. He came to see me this afternoon. We worked it all out,” her husband replied sleepily.
She turned to glower at him. “You are just going to let him steal into her room in the middle of the night?”
“He is stealing her away to elope to Scotland. And good riddance, the girl can be his headache now,” he grumbled.
“Elope?” She swiveled back to the window. “Oh well, isn’t that romantic.”
Her husband grunted.
He was still upset with Susanna for the debacle in Brighton, but he would forgive her eventually, he had a terrible soft spot for their daughter’s audacious spirit. Pleased as punch that the boy turned out to have some rogue in him after all, Eliza pulled her window shut and went to bed.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Susanna cocked herhead at a muffled thump that came from outside her window. After a moment when she didn’t hear any other sounds, she went back to reading her book. Then the candles in the candelabra next to her flickered as a breeze slid through the room. Had she left the window open? She set down her book on the table and stood to go investigate.
She crossed the room to find the window wide open. As she reached to pull it closed a large hand slid across her mouth from behind. She froze in fear, a scream stuck in her throat. But then the familiar scent of cloves pierced her bubble of panic, and a short beard scratched against the skin at her neck.
“Arrrgh, I am the pirate king. You’ll come with me or suffer the consequences,” a familiar deep voice rumbled in her ear. The hand on her mouth slid down to cup her jaw, his other arm encircled her waist. “What say you, siren of the sea?”
“But why do you want me, pirate king?”
His lips brushed over the shell of her ear sending a tingle down her spine. “Because you’ve become my whole heart and I’m here to take it back.”
“Oh Miles,” she sighed and leaned into him. Her back collided with hard metal. She turned in his arms. “What are you wearing?”
He took a step back and struck a pose, his hands on his hips, his chin jutting up. “I told you I am the pirate king, here to make you my prisoner.”
She laughed out loud. He wore a large tricorn hat with a red feather pinned jauntily to the right side. His coat was embroidered velvet and lay open revealing a crossbody holster that held the two pistols against his chest. With his scruffy beard growing in, he looked just a bit dangerous. Susanna put a hand to her brow dramatically. “Oh no, I shall swoon.”
He laughed as well. The sound was so sweet to her ears she felt as though her heart would burst. He was here in her room dressed as a pirate for goodness’ sake. He must truly love her. Mustn’t he? Closing the distance between them, she ran her hand down the leather of the holster across his chest. She didn’t have the courage to look up at his face though and concentrated instead on the mother-of-pearl inlay of the pistols. “Miles, does this mean you forgive me?”
He put a finger under her chin and lifted her gaze to his. “Almost immediately. But you ran away again.”
“You said I had trapped you.”
“I know. I’m sorry, that was my fear speaking. You see I have been trying hard for quite a while to not fall in love with you. Well, with anyone, but somehow I knew you would be my downfall from the moment we met.”
She reached up, removed his hat, and threw it onto the window seat. “And I have been reading those beautiful letters waiting for someone to love me with such ardor. And it was you all along.” She pushed the jacket off his shoulders. “You surprised the hell out of me when you kissed me.”
He grimaced. “I don’t usually lose my temper like that.”
“I like it when you lose your temper. When you let your emotions loose.” She unbuckled the holster.
“And I like when you run.” His eyes heated and he shrugged out of the holster letting the guns fall to the floor with a thump.
