"Is it so hard to believe?" she asked, gently teasing. "Of course, you can be a bully and a brute and you're jealous and you have a vile temper, but there's no accounting for tastes, after all."

He closed his eyes, pulling her to him with shaking hands. She felt his mouth on her hair, and slid her arms around his waist, holding him tightly. He was murmuring love words, promises, endearments to the top of her head. They were all a low jumble of pure happiness to Cathy. She snuggled against his hard muscles, her mouth adoring his silk-covered chest, pulling his shirt out from the waistband of his breeches with hands that were not quite steady. She touched his warm flesh, ran her hands over the muscles of his back, her sensitive fingertips feeling the ridges of the scars he would carry with him to his grave. Her hands stroked lovingly, then stilled. He couldn't still believe. . . .

"Darling, you believe me now, don't you?" she whispered, pulling back from him a little so that he could hear her. He had to bend his head to catch her words.

"About what?" he smiled when she repeated her words. Cathy leaned back in the warm circle of his arms, studying his face lovingly. His eyes glowed at her, his expression gentler than she had ever seen it. She had tamed an eagle, she thought, intoxicated by the look and feel and smell of him, taught a fierce gray timber wolf to feed from her hand. The sensation was indescribable, the smile she returned to him dazzling. She was tempted to letall the unanswered questions slide until later, but she wanted to be sure that all the unhappiness was behind them.

"About what happened to you in prison," she persisted softly. The muscles in the arms holding her tensed, the old guarded look returned to his eyes. Her heart was in her eyes as she watched these changes, andafter a moment he relaxed with an effort and smiled down at her, although his face was still somewhat strained.

"You don't have to find excuses for what you did," he said steadily, his eyes burning with the flames of pa.s.sion."Ideserved it, I know. What I did to you-kidnap, rape, forcing you to be my mistress-was unforgivable. If you love me now, that's all that matters. We'll never speak of what's past again."

Cathy uttered a sound that hovered somewhere between a laugh and a cry.

"But, Jon, darling, I promise you thatIhad nothing to do with it! I didn't even know you were in prison, I swear. The 'Lady Chester' sailed for England the day after you escaped! How could I have known?"

"AfterIescaped?" he repeated disbelieving, his black brows drawing together in a frown. 'What are you talking about?"

"After we were married," Cathy reminded him patiently, but accompanied the words with a reproachful look. 'You escaped. You can't possibly have forgotten!"

"My love, after we were married, and your father very properly knocked me unconscious for daring to snarl at you, I was in no condition to escape anywhere. I spent the voyage in the 'Lady Chester's' brig. When she docked in Portsmouth, I was taken in chains to London and thrown intoNewgate Prison. A couple of days later I was informed that I had been sentenced to death for the crime of piracy without even the courtesy of being allowed to be present at my own trial. If not for my men, I would even now be rotting in a limestone pit in the prison yard. The only escape I made was in London, that night I came to your aunt's house."

"But I thought. . . ." Cathy's mind was in a whirl. How could this be? Before she could get her thoughts sorted a hard knock sounded at the door. Jon's arms tightened around her, his eyes questioning. "Are you expecting a guest?"

"No, of course not.It's probably Martha-or my father."

"Ah, yes.Your father. I have something I want to discuss with him."

This speech was decidedly odd coming from a man who had only met her father once under unfavorable circ.u.mstances. There was something here that she did not understand. Cathy's face puckered in a puzzled frown as she went to open the door.

"Daughter, I need to talk to you. There's something you should know. . . ." Sir Thomas's voice trailed off as his eyes went past Cathy to touch on the tall man who was regarding him coolly from the other side of the room.

"Hale. I want you to know I would have sent for you. That's what I was coming to tell Cathy."

"Papa, what are you talking about? Why would you have sent for Jon?" Cathy asked, bewildered, as she stood back to let her father enter. Sir Thomas ignored her as Jon's eyes bore into his.

"It was a lie, wasn't it? She had nothing to do with it, knew nothing about it."

'Yes." Sir Thomas's face was ashen, his eyes almost pleading with the implacable figure before him. "She knew nothing."

"Good G.o.d, man, I might have killed her!" The words were hissed from between clenched teeth.

"I know." Sir Thomas sounded very tired suddenly. "I was almost out of my mind when she disappeared. I'd just been informed that you had managed to escape, and I knew you had her. I thought. . . . G.o.d, what Ithought! But you didn't harm her, and I thank G.o.d for it."

"You should. It was touch and go. I wanted to, but I couldn't. But. . . ."

"For goodness' sake, will one of you please tell me what this is all about?Papa? Jon?" Cathy looked from one to the other of them. Their cryptic conversation could have been in Greek for all the sense it made to her.

Both men looked at her, small and fragile-seeming in the dim lamplight, long golden hair swirling about her blue silk-clad form, a frown marring her lovely brow. Jon's eyes softened, glowed. Cathy smiled at him, a small intimate smile that she was barely conscious of. Sir Thomas watched them both, his eyes deeply troubled.

"I've done you a wrong, daughter." Sir Thomas said heavily. "But please believe that at the time I thought I was acting in your best interests."

He paused, seeming to search for the necessary words. Cathy stared at him, faint suspicion crystallizing into a certainty. Jon crossed the room to stand behind her, his arms sliding around her waist as he pressed her back against him. Cathy's eyes never left her father as she leaned back against the hard wall of her husband's chest.

"Jon didn't escape on the 'Lady Chester,' did he, Papa? You lied to me." She knew it was true even as she said it. The slight inclination of her father's head was unnecessary confirmation.

"Tell me, Papa." The words were quiet, Cathy could feel tears p.r.i.c.king at the backs of her eyes as Sir Thomas described in a halting voice how he had had Jon imprisoned in England, arranged for his trial and his subsequent death sentence. When he came to the part about the beatings he had ordered and paid for while telling Jon that they were Cathy's doing, she let out a little shocked cry. Jon's arms tightened around her waist, and she could feel his lips in her hair. Sir Thomas looked wretched.

"And then, when I finally traced you to Charleston, I found my daughter looking physically well, although she was emotionally upset," Sir Thomas concluded, addressing his remarks to Jon over Cathy's head. "I managed to glean enough information from her to conclude that she felt herself to be unloved. After seeing how well you had treated her under the circ.u.mstances, I knew that that wasn't the case at all, so I agreed to help her leave you while intending to get in touch with you and tell you the truth. I thought that you would take it from there. But from what I've seen tonight, you've already managed to get things straightened out without me. I deeply regret any pain I may have caused either of you, and I hope that you'll find it in your hearts to forgive me."

His tired blue eyes rested on Cathy sorrowfully as he finished, and she could not bring herself to ignore their silent appeal. She pulled away from Jon's hold and crossed the room to her father, putting a gentle hand on his arm and reaching up to press a soft kiss to his cheek "Of course we forgive you, Papa. I know you only did it for me." She slanted a pleading look over her shoulder at Jon, who stiffened, then sighed and very slowly crossed the room to extend a hand to Sir Thomas. The older man grasped it eagerly, and Cathy nearly cried herself when she saw the suspicious moisture glistening in his eyes.

"I suppose we'll have to learn to tolerate each other," Jon said dryly, extricating his hand finally from Sir Thomas's rather frenzied hold. "You're the father of my wife, the grandfather of my son. And as I intend keeping them both, and even adding to the fold, we'll likely be seeing quite a bit of each other. If you can stomach a reformed pirate for a son-in-law, I guess I can live with a devious Earl for a father-in-law."

Jon smiled as he spoke, and Sir Thomas fairly beamed in return.

"I'm proud to have you in the family," said Sir Thomas. He hugged his daughter, shook hands with Jon again, and took himself off. As the door closed behind him Jon leaned against it, looking at Cathy with glowing eyes.

"Well, my love?" he asked softy. She flew across the room to him, burying her face against his shirt front. His arms went around her, holding her close.

"You must have hated me, Jon," she murmured. He smiled a little, pressing his face into her bright hair, savoring its softness, the sweet smell he always a.s.sociated with it.

"I did-but only because I loved you so much I couldn't bear to think that you would do such a thing to me. I was just beginning to think you cared for me, you see, when everything blew up in my face."

"Cared for you?" Cathy laughed with a slight catch in her voice. "By that time I'd been head over heels in love with you for weeks. I would have told you, but I was so afraid that you didn't love me. I thought you just wanted me for . . . for. . . ." She broke off, her face blushing rosily. Jon held her a little away from him so that he could see her expression. He grinned at her heightened color.

'You were right," he told her wickedly. "I did want you for . . . for. . . . I still do. But I also love you more than I ever thought I could love anything or anyone in my life. And if you let me I'll spend the rest of my life proving it."

These last words were said very quietly, and Cathy practically melted at their tenderness. She smiled at him lovingly, going up on her toes to touch her mouth to his. Jon's arms tightened gently around her, his mouth parting over hers. He kissed her hotly, but with a new reverence that thrilled Cathy to her toes. When she finally pulled back from him to catch her breath, she was trembling, her cheeks rosy and her eyes languorous with love. He continued to press kisses over the silken flesh of her throat, his mouth trailing down the deep plunge neckline of her wrapper to burn in the valley between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Cathy held him to her, tenderly stroking his black head. He loved her, and she loved him. Nothing could ever go wrong between them again.

"Darling, what you said to my father about adding to the fold-did you mean it? I-I know you weren't too happy when I told you about Cray . . ." she broke off as he raised his head to look at her.

"Sweetheart, you can't think I didn't want Cray, can you? I love you. I'll love any children you give me. I was just so afraid of losing you. . . . I was afraid you would die. I couldn't stand the thought. That's why I said what I did, when you told me about the baby."

"Oh, Jon," she sighed, pressing herself against his rapidly hardening muscles and running her hands caressingly across his broad shoulders. "Will we have many children?"

"Dozens," he breathed, swinging her up in his arms to hold her cradled against his chest, his eyes burning hotly as they met hers. "At least two score. I'm making a project of it. And I suggest that we'd better begin work right away if we hope to meet our goal."

"Here?" Cathy asked faintly even as she melted against him. "But, darling, shouldn't we go home first? I. . . ."

"Right now all I can think of is how much I want to make love to you," he said against her ear, his mouth doing funny things to her insides as it nibbled and nuzzled. "We can go home tomorrow."

And they did.

end.