The Pirate's Duty (Regent's Revenge #3)(47)
Deserting the Roost, her home, was out of the question. It belonged to her. Her mother had given Oriana life there and sacrificed her health and happiness for it. She’d endured her father’s cruelty in exchange for running the tavern. The inn was all Oriana had left in this world to remind her that she had once been loved, for however brief a time.
A tiny part of her, however, wanted to run to John, to implore him to take her away from this agony. Including him in her plans, however, was a sure way to enrage Charles and get John killed. How could she knowingly put John’s life in jeopardy? No, her family had used her as a pawn all her life. She had lost the ones she loved, and she—
Oriana gasped. She didn’t, couldn’t, love John. It was much too soon for that, wasn’t it? And yet, she’d never done anything by half measure.
Mere moments of sexual pleasure were better than dying hopelessly bereft of kindness, weren’t they?
She closed her eyes against the sun, putting the events of the morning and all her cares out of her mind as memories of John’s kisses inundated her senses. His touch and the pleasure she’d discovered in his embrace had unlocked a world of passion and promise she’d never fully understood before.
Silly fool.
She wasn’t completely naive, of course. She’d heard talk of the bedding from regulars who frequented the tavern, and she’d been privy to sounds in the night coming from her guests’ rooms.
Now, blessed with firsthand carnal knowledge, she craved more, desired to please John just as he’d pleased her. An urgency to do that very thing pulsed through her veins, leaving her breathless. Her knees quaked, the very apex of her thighs throbbing, as her heartbeat fluttered like hummingbird wings.
By the saints, she’d had little to enjoy in life. The independence she’d earned these last few months, and the liberation it had given her, brought new meaning to a cruel world where poverty and loneliness stripped orphans and children like Nicholas of warmth and nutrition.
If it was the last thing she ever did, she’d leave a legacy that amounted to something more than death and destruction, and Charles’s gold was the key.
Oriana opened her eyes and shifted positions on the wagon seat as the brisk wind tugged at her long hair beneath the mulberry beaver hat pinned to her head. Thankfully, the upturned brim was fastened by a looped button that prevented the destruction of the slender braids she’d arranged at her crown. Upon her person, she’d combined the purplish-pink Portuguese sarsnet gown with a mulberry, twill-woven spencer ornamented with matching silk buttons. She felt like a colorful bird calling attention to itself in early spring. Restlessly, she smoothed her fancy skirts with matching kidskin gloves as the wagon cart jostled to and fro, her spirits soaring. If today was going to be her last, by the saints, she’d make the most of it.
Smiling to herself, she clutched the velvet purse tightly between her fingers. Thanks to Old Bailey and Samuel’s performance, she now had twenty pounds to offer Mrs. Pickering for the orphanage.
The wagon jolted. She righted herself, feeling as awkward as a cow with a musket as they rolled over ruts on the uneven, hard ground.
“The Newcombs’ cottage is up ahead, Miss,” Nicholas said, finally slowing the wagon.
Oriana pulled out her silver pocket watch—one of the first things she’d purchased with her own funds—and glanced at the time. Eleven o’clock. “We’re on schedule, Nicholas. If we keep this up, we might even be early to Talland Church for once.”
“Mrs. Pickering promised me meat and taties.” Nicholas smacked his lips. “Oh, I can taste them now.”
“On a full stomach?” she asked, impressed by the boy’s appetite.
“Me father says I have a hollow leg.”
That she understood. She thought the very same thing.
Laughter died inside her as the squalid whitewashed building that was Mrs. Newcomb’s cottage came into view. Ill-fitting shutters were pulled wide to let in the light, and laundry hung behind the house, popping and slapping in the brisk wind. A scrawny goat tied to a post chomped merrily away on ivy, swallowing a hedge wall that separated the cottage from the sprawling pasture beyond.
Small surface stones made of cob and slate had been erected hastily, and the thatched roof needed repair. Cornish law stated that anyone who built a house in one night retained a freeholder’s claim on the land from that moment forward. Few were able to accomplish such a feat, but Newcomb had done so before a mining accident had left his wife alone with four children to raise, the homestead, and little else to benefit her. In order to help her survive, Oriana had employed Mrs. Newcomb to knit frocks in trade for food and coin.
Nicholas brought the wagon to a stop before the lonely cottage.
“Thank ye, Nicholas.” Oriana climbed down from her high-perched seat. “Never ye fear, my insatiable boy. Mrs. Pickering sets aside plenty of food when you’re about.”
“’T’ain’t the reason I enjoy this job, Miss.” Nicholas’s eyes shone with pride.
“Ye cannot fool me into believin’ it’s for the coin.” She winked, grabbing a linen-lined basket tied with ribbon and filled with food, and a brown paper package from the back of the wagon. “Wait here, Nicholas. I’ll be back in a flash.”
“Aye, Miss.”
She decided to bait him further. “Why don’t ye pass the time thinkin’ about a pasty as long as Old Bailey’s fiddle.”