The Iron Rose (The Pirate Wolf series) by Marsha Canham

Author:Marsha Canham [Canham, Marsha]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Marsha Canham
Published: 2011-06-16T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Juliet was wakened by the pungent smell from the large booted foot that was planted with a deliberate lack of care beside her nose.

She opened her eyes and followed the leather trail up to the amused face of her brother Gabriel. He, in turn, glanced wryly at the nude body of Varian St. Clare and murmured, “I suppose this helps to explain why Jonas and I could not find you last night.”

She yawned and stretched, then pushed herself up on her elbows. “How did you manage now?”

“Nathan told me what happened on board the Rose, and when I couldn’t find you at the house, I thought you might have come here... though I confess,” he said after a pause, “I didn’t expect you to have company.”

She threw a scowl over her shoulder as she stood and waded into the pool. Gabriel looked away with brotherly disinterest as she rinsed the sand and moss off her body and focussed his attention on Varian St. Clare instead.

Varian had come awake when he had heard their voices, and when he recognized the intruder as Gabriel Dante, he searched unsuccessfully in the shadows for his discarded clothing. His shirt lay like a pale blot against the darker green and it was Gabriel who spied it first and plucked it off the moss with the tip of his rapier.

“I don’t believe we have had the pleasure of a formal introduction,” he said, conveying the garment on the point of his sword. “But then my sister often neglects her manners.”

Juliet emerged from the water. “Varian St. Clare, his grace the Duke of Harrow: my brother, Gabriel Dante, his grace completely lacking.”

Gabriel executed a formal bow, something Varian could not do with a bundle of crushed linen clutched about his waist.

Juliet pulled her own shirt over her head, then found her breeches. “Your concern for my well-being warms me, brother dearest.”

“You require further warming?” He glanced idly at Varian, who sat immobilized on the mossy bank. “Does he speak, at all, or is that another of his appealing qualities?”

“I am quite able to speak,” Varian said coldly. “It’s just that you have appeared rather suddenly, and—”

“And now you fear you are in mortal peril of being driven to the chapel at the point of my sword?”

Varian’s jaw muscles twitched while he groped to find an appropriate response, for that was, indeed, one of many disjointed images that had flashed before his eyes.

Gabriel did not wait for Varian’s tongue to become unglued from the roof of his mouth before he cocked an eyebrow at his sister. “Good God, Jolly, if you were to marry the swiving fellow, that would make you a duchess, would it not?”

“The Devil himself should geld you,” she said on a sigh, “and slice off your tongue while he is at it, for I would sooner hang all day in a suit of tar and chicken feathers as deal with your misbegotten sense of humor. Furthermore, it isn’t as if you have never been caught with your breeches down around your knees, brother dear.

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