Seduced by a Pirate - By Eloisa James Page 0,8

he himself had. That she might have a child. A son. A boy who would inherit his title and be viscount someday.

He’d stayed at sea for years precisely because he loathed his father’s obsession with titles, nobility, standing, et cetera. He couldn’t start caring about that claptrap now.

Where the hell was the boy’s father? The pirate was a smart, scrappy little fellow who likely hadn’t been told he was a bastard. He would learn that later, in school.

Actually, he wouldn’t, because the pirate wasn’t illegitimate. He was born within the bounds of marriage; in fact, he stood to inherit a viscountcy. Griffin’s mouth tightened.

A smaller version of himself in more ways than one.

“You’d better not swear like that in front of yer wife,” Shark observed. “She won’t like it.”

FIVE

Lyddie brightened up, screamed, and very nearly fainted when Colin ran down the hill and gasped out the news that there were two men in the front entry, and one of them had skin with pictures drawn on it. Actually, he thought they both did. And one had a cane.

“A cane!” Margaret cried, jumping up and down. “It’s a pirate with a peg leg! Let’s go!” She and Colin were obsessed by pirates, which Phoebe, who had never breathed a word to her children about Sir Griffin’s profession, had thought a rather humorous coincidence. It didn’t seem so amusing now.

Nanny McGillycuddy grabbed Margaret’s arm just in time. “No, you will not,” she said, in the tone of voice that none of the children—nor indeed Phoebe—ever disobeyed. “Your mother shall speak to the gentlemen by herself.”

“You’d better get up there, Mama,” Colin cried. “These men are big. Big! So big.”

“How big?” Margaret asked, sounding cheerfully interested rather than dismayed. That was Margaret. She would ask questions of a highwayman demanding her money.

Phoebe rose and collected her parasol. She didn’t want to go up to the house. With every particle of her being, she didn’t want to climb that hill.

“Huge!” Colin answered. “They could have eaten me up. Though I had my sword, of course. They would have eaten you,” he said to his little brother. Alastair gave a shriek and hid behind Phoebe’s skirts.

“Colin,” Phoebe said sharply, “you are not being helpful. There are no cannibals in England.”

“These men aren’t like everybody else! What’s more, they can’t be from England, because no one has drawings on their skin here. So they might be cannibals.”

Phoebe knew that she was white as chalk. But as her mother used to say, what could not be avoided must be faced. She had made it through her parents’ and sister’s funeral, and she could make it through this.

“Children, stay with Nanny.”

“Mama, you shouldn’t go,” Alastair whispered, hanging onto her skirts. “They might be bad. Bad men.”

“I told you that we needed a butler,” Nanny put in unhelpfully. “I’d best come along.”

The words of the Morning Chronicle were seared in Phoebe’s memory, and she knew precisely who was waiting for her at the house. “Absolutely not, Nanny. Please remain here and make sure Alastair doesn’t wade back into the lake. You may join us in . . .” How long did it take to greet a husband one didn’t know? Ten minutes?

And after that greeting was dispensed with, how long should one wait before informing him that he had three children?

“Fifteen minutes,” she decided. “Please bring the children to the house in a quarter of an hour.” With that instruction, she headed reluctantly toward the house.

Her temples were throbbing.

What if he rejected her children?

She would leave him, of course. Thanks to her father’s careful stewardship, the estate was thriving, her jointure along with it. She could more than afford to scoop up the children and buy a house. Her mind reeled. What was she thinking?

This was her house. If he rejected the children, she would order him to leave.

She paused at the top of the hill to allow her breathing to return to normal before she walked through the courtyard and into the house. She was making too much of it. After all, she remembered Griffin clearly. He had been thin, small, and rather shy. Even in the scant light of just two candles, she remembered how red his face had turned.

Men didn’t change. Everyone knew that. She merely had to be polite but firm. He would leave again. A criminal would not be allowed to stay in the British Isles, no matter how powerful his father.

Thankfully, the resulting scandal would have no effect on her life. The thought