Claiming His Ward: Sweet & Sexy Read online

  Yet another expansive milling of bodies opened before them. Hundreds upon hundreds of seats with men and women in glorious gowns and colorful suites shuffling between rows. Private balconies rose three stories high. Eve tilted her head up and up, taking in the glittering gold, the railings of the balconies the young men and women hanging over them and waving to friends below. It was an atmosphere of festivity and frivolity. She was intoxicated.

  And then she saw him. Leroy. He was strikingly handsome in his evening dress. Thin, lean, the picture of a gentleman. His bowler was set at a rakish angle, and his thin mustache was impeccably trimmed. He was dressed to a T, down to his white kid gloves. Eve's heart fluttered. The kid gloves that he extended it to her. The heat of anger began to wash over her. She recognized her. It was one of Josie’s acquaintances. One of the gold digging, rank seeking, good for nothings who frequented the parlors of the open minded – the well to do. Good for nothing strumpet. She took Leroy’s fingers and then his arm. Leroy waved to a balcony and pointed at his female companion. Eve’s eyes followed his gaze to a group of young people. One of the group recognized Leroy and motioned for them to ascend. She was beside herself. She was going to a balcony seat. Leroy raised her hand to his lips and kissed. He slid a hand around her waist and caressed her hips as he guided her from the rows of seats. He leaned into her ear and whispered. A smile glistened on both their features. Her eyelids sunk, and a sultry flirtation played on her lips.

  The heat of her anger boiled over. They were all correct. Her father. Her stepmother. Theo. Damn that woman. Damn him. She had defended him. She had told her family they were wrong. And now here she was, Theo a witness to her shame. They were barely inside the interior of the theatre, but her temper broke there and then. Her jaw ached; her teeth clenched shut.

  She didn’t start with a whisper or a subtle accusation. No, she broke out in a yell. “You scoundrel. You good for nothing scoundrel.”

  The murmur of voices quieted. Heads turned. The ensemble of fine ladies and gentlemen sought the source of the disruption. She didn’t care. Blast them all. She was focused on Leroy. Her beau also turned to seek the female voice. His eyebrows were raised, and there was a rigidity to his body as though he recognized her voice already. They made eye contact. Leroy blanched. The color drained from his face, and his hand slipped from the hip of that strumpet.

  “How could you? You good for nothing louse.”

  Eve moved quickly. Theo grasped at her, but she was already darting through the crowd and toward Leroy. The din of voices began to pick up again — some horrified at the outburst, some delighted at the addition to their night’s entertainment.

  “You promised me. You said it was only me. You promised.”

  She looked for something to hurl at him. Empty seats. An expanse of carpet. Nothing came into view, but there were the cinnamon almonds in her hand. She ratcheted back her arm to pitch the bag at his head. Her swing was arrested in midflight – her wrist caught in a firm grasp. Theo wrenched the bag from her hand and spun her to face him. Eve let loose on him. She struck his firm chest. The hardness under the wool naval uniform stung her palm. She didn’t care. The pain fueled her fury. Her temper was high and raging.

  She struck again and again. “Let me go. Let me go.”

  Theo’s jaw set. His eyes burned with a barely restrained anger. His words came out in a hissing whisper. “You will compose yourself. Do not make a scene in front of all these people. You are a lady; act like it.”

  His words enraged her further. Men. All of them. They ruled the world and told her how to behave. They controlled her, and they let their fellow brotherhood gallivant about the night with any strumpet that would have them. How dare they? How dare he? Eve balled her fingers into a fist and stuck over and over again on Theo’s broad chest. “I said let me go. Let me go. How dare you?”

  With alarming speed, Theo dropped to a squat. He wrapped his arms around her thighs, yanked her body to his, and lifted. Eve screeched and lost her balance. The crowd roared. Her cheeks flared with the heat of anger and embarrassment. Theo slung her over his back. Her waist creased over his shoulder, her body draped over his front and back. He held her fast by the back of her legs. She howled in rage. She beat at his broad back. Theo turned and strode out of the theater. She continued to strike him. A hard, painful slap descended on her rear end. She whelped in surprise. Laughter rang in her ears. Another strike. She squirmed and cried out.

  His voice was still a mask of anger. “You keep hitting me and making a scene, and I won’t put you down until we reach our front door. You are a spoiled child. Behave yourself.”

  Another hard to swat to her backside. Eve cried out and steeled herself, becoming suddenly aware of all the staring eyes, all the upturned lips, all the laughter directed toward her display. She jostled back and forth on his shoulder. “Let me down.”

  Theo thundered through the lobby, heads turning with murmurs of amusement as they passed. “You will behave yourself if I put you down. That is not a request. It’s an order. Understand?”

  She stilled again. He was powerful. He could have his way with her, and she couldn’t stop him. He was proving himself a brute. An officer is a gentleman, indeed. Her only choice at this moment was obedience. For now. She set her teeth and growled. “Fine.”

  He didn’t put her down. “I want to hear you say it.”

  Her rage flared anew. She planted a palm on his shoulder blade and pushed herself from his body. “Say what, you brute?”

  “I want to hear you say you understand.”

  She smashed into his firm back with her balled fist one final time, pouring as much anger and aggression into the attack as she could. “I understand.”

  They had returned to the entry of the lobby, ready to leave the theatre. Theo set her on her feet. No. She wasn’t finished. One last assault. She reared back and struck his chest as hard as she could, her lips pursed with ill restrained anger. Her fingers ached. She snarled with the pain.

  Theo, the smug little cockscomb. That cocky, crooked grin slipped back onto his lips. “I thought you said you would behave yourself. Do I need to pick you up again?”

  Her rage boiled up. She knew he was good for his word. He would carry her all the way home. “No.”

  Theo cocked an eyebrow at her. “Does that mean for the entire walk home, you will be a lady?”

  She gritted her teeth, looking straight into his eyes. It was the sneer that could cow her father. It was the air that could silence a parlor full of her friends. Theo smirked. He was impervious. The beginnings of a pout came over her. “Yes.”

  “Yes, what?”

  She teetered between the pout and her anger. She determined whether to wage another assault. The satisfaction may be worth it. Theo was not to be cowed. He had won this battle, but just this one. “Yes, I will be a lady.”

  “Thank you.” Theo – a picture of the gentleman he most certainly was not – offered his arm. “Shall we?”

  If there was one thing the last three weeks in his new home with his new family had taught him, it was that his new stepsister was a spoiled brat.

  Her father had not instilled discipline in her. She was his only daughter, his youngest child, and his only child all wrapped up in one. She had learned to have her way with her father, and yet, her father tried his best to keep a patriarch’s iron grip on her. To watch the balancing act the two engaged in was to watch a fencing match on a high wire.

  Eve trudged along next to Theo. She had refused to take his arm on the way back from the theatre, and she spent the entire walk with a pout on her lips. It was a woman’s refined version of a tantrum. Not very ladylike, but it was the best he would be getting from her for the remainder of the evening, he had learned that much over the past three weeks as well. In the end, Eve always found a way to win an argument. She’d convinced him to accompany her to the theatre to meet her beau, hadn’t she?

  He may be wearing the uniform tonight, but he was lost in the role as
a civilian gentleman. He had enrolled in Her Majesty’s Royal Navy at a very young age. He was only fourteen when he had first set sail. Eleven years had passed, and he had filled every position available onboard. He had cooked. He had mended sails. He had earned his officers uniform where others had purchased it. And in those long years, he had seen his fair share of insubordination. He knew how it was dealt with when it came to men and sailors. Her? He knew his way around a woman, but he had no idea how to handle Eve. He was a brother to her, not a commanding officer, and most certainly not a lover. There were no decks for her to swab. He did not have the authority to cut her rations. And he positively could not tie her to the mast and apply the lash, no matter how dearly he wished it to be so at the moment.

  He harbored the distinct sense that lifting her over his shoulder and bodily removing her from the theatre had been a step too far. No, not a step — a leap. It wasn’t the first time he had executed the maneuver, but his previous situations were drunken sailors and seaside bars. He had dealt with the situation quickly and effectively, but he had embarrassed her to an enormous extent in doing so. A civilian gentleman, he was not. He had removed her from the situation by a feat of strength, not because cool heads prevailed. Her anger toward him was justified. That did not mean her behavior was acceptable. Nor did it mean that he could, even in retrospect, think of a more gallant response on his part. To cry out in a crowded building accusing a sweetheart of infidelity, it was the pinnacle of indiscretion. He may not have handled the aftermath as a gentleman, but she was certainly no lady.

  He halted and swept his arm toward the front door of their home. Eve was evidently consumed with her own inner turmoil and hadn’t realized she had passed their destination by. She took three steps further, comprehended where they were, glossed him over with a hearty look of disapproval, and stomped toward the front door. He knew well enough to hold back the laughter. It would only provoke another public assault on his person – the thought of which was no aid in his attempt to restrain his humors.

  They both entered the front hall, and her father poked his head from the parlor. His eyebrows turned up in surprise. His shock faltered when Eve’s tumultuous air filled the hall. No, her was no longer astonished. His expression settled into a practiced stoicism. He spoke with a curt certainty, forecasting he already knew the answer to his own question. “What happened?”

  Eve continued to storm down the wall. “Nothing happened. It was a wonderful show.”

  Her father turned to watch her go. “You’ve barely been gone an hour. You didn’t watch the show.” Her father turned again and settled his gaze on Theo. “What did she do?”

  “Her sweetheart was there.”

  Theo’s mother appeared in the parlor entry. Her lips were turned up in amusement. “I thought that was the point.”

  “He was not alone.”

  Eve halted on her path to her chambers. Her father’s brow knit together with confused consternation, but Theo’s mother understood. Her lips pressed into a thin smile which harbored disappointment. “Ah, I thought as much. A man who does not state his intentions has no good intentions.”

  Eve’s father’s eyes alighted with comprehension. His face reddened with anger. He controlled it well, but it was obvious where Eve’s short fuse originated. It was in the blood; a family heirloom. Her father shifted his weight between his feet. His shoulders twitched, and the vein at the side of his neck protruded. “I knew there was something wrong about that boy. He never looked me in the eye, not proper like. We never should have let you go. You’ve made a scene, haven’t you?” His eyes darted from Eve to Theo. “I never should have let you convince me that her going to meet that boy was a good idea. Never again.”

  It rankled him. Leroy was a poor choice for Eve to settle his affections on, true. But, preventing her from enjoying an evening’s entertainment as her father did only contributed to her impetuousness. Her leash was too short for a strong-willed woman. Theo had her type in the masculine form on his crew aboard ship. Their sort needed room to breathe. Hold them too tight and you breed mutiny. Nor did Theo like the accusing tone in his stepfather’s voice. Theo was not a spoiled little girl; he was a grown man; he had seen battle; he had seen men die horrific deaths; he had blood on his hands. To be accused by a stockbroker – it was more than he could bear.

  “The decision to go to the theater was not a poor one. You have been sheltering your daughter and have turned her into a brat. You have not used a firm hand when a firm hand is required, nor have you given her leeway when leniency is essential. You have both contributed to the spoiled terror that she has become. She is both coddled and chained.”

  His mother — his dearest mother — chimed in uninvited, happy to provide a lecture on all occasions. “I could not agree with my son more. Theo understands the situation perfectly. I agree completely. You need to have a firmer hand with your daughter. I told you this was going to happen, did I not? I told you that Leroy was no good. Months ago. You should have chased him away and ordered your daughter not to associate with him. You knew it. We both knew it. It was going to end like this. It was. I knew it all along.”

  Eve’s father turned shades of red which Theo had never seen even on the man’s daughter. His stepfathers jaw clenched, and his lips turned up in a snarl. “I will not be told how to raise my daughter by either of you.” He pointed a finger in Theo’s direction. “And you, son, will no longer interfere with my daughter’s affairs.”

  That swarming feeling began in his chest. The roiling that made him feel like he was being tossed by the waves even on dry land. The pressure built behind his eyes. He knew his stepfathers sort as well. The type who wore their authority on their coat sleeves but did not harbor it in their breast. He had years of experience dealing with men and bending them to his will. It was an action which came second nature. He took one easy stride closer to his stepfather. His mother stepped away, giving the two men room. His stepfather’s confidence began to melt with the proximity of Theo’s over-towering mass.

  Despite the tension in his body, Theo kept his voice calm and collected. “I am not interfering with the raising of your daughter. She is raised. She is grown. She is a woman. You have not done your duty by her as you should. She has developed into nothing more than a spoiled child. She is of the age in which it is time for another man to take her in hand.”

  His steady voice broke his stepfathers reserve. The man’s shoulders slumped, and he shifted his weight to his heels, tilting ever so slightly away from Theo. The older man broke eye contact and darted a glance between Eve and his wife.

  Theo continued, “I will not be dressed-down as though your daughter’s actions were simply the outgrowth of a single decision – a decision to allow her out for an evening of entertainment. I will not be lectured because you did not put a stop to her flirtations with a man of questionable character.”

  Theo stepped back, giving his stepfather the breathing room the man so desperately needed. He looked to his mother. She surveyed her husband with ill-concealed disappointment. She must have known she did not marry a man of the strongest character. On the contrary, it was likely a contributing factor on why she married him.

  “Mother.” His mother switched her gaze to him, and affection filled her eyes. “Weren’t you two going out to a late dinner tonight?”

  “Yes, dear, the restaurant down the street received a shipment of ice cream yesterday.”

  Theo studied the timepiece on the mantle. “You should have left before we even returned home. You will be late. The dining hour is almost over, and with news of such a treat, the ice cream won’t last the evening. You should go now if you want to be able to enjoy any.”

  His stepfather ran his fingers through his hair. “No, I believe we shall be staying home tonight. We have” — his eyes darted to his daughter — “matters to attend to. To your chambers, Eve.”

  Eve simply crossed her arms and adjusted her footing. The color rose in her father’s face. The vein at his n
eck pulsated.

  “Take my mother for her ice cream,” Theo ordered. “You have already handled the situation to the best of your ability. Eve has learned her lesson. You may go. I will see to it that she doesn’t cause any more trouble this evening.”

  He turned to Eve. She squared to him, ready for a stand-off. There was a stubborn stalwartness about her. She was a woman who did not take orders. Appreciation welled up within him. He had been just like her when he was a teenager. The navy quickly drove it from him. And yet, it was a lingering stubbornness that made the best of sailors. They stood their ground in a battle, and they defended their position to the last. They stuck by the guns when the decks turned to splinters, feeding one more ball down the muzzle. It was not a quality any officer desired to drive completely from a man under his command. Those sailors were the most prized of the crew – if they could be trained to follow orders while the resoluteness remained. He did not wish to drive it from Eve either. It was a mystery why any man would wish to kill such passion in a woman. She would have had been a good sailor — if only…

  He transformed from his ill-fitting civilian-gentleman persona and settled into his on-deck command presence. He stared her down. She did not give way. His appreciation deepened into admiration. She was a strong-willed woman, indeed. That strength was a characteristic never to be removed. But, she needed her wild passions to be tamed.

  He barked her name. “Eve!”

  She jumped, startled at the volume. She quickly shook off her surprise and settled a dark gaze on him.

  Good. Let her attempt to resist. “Retire to your chambers for the evening.”

  She did not move. She settled her arms more firmly over her chest.