Brazen Temptress (11 page)

For some reason she stopped, as if willing herself not to take the next step.

What if it were true? What if her father had sailed in the British navy? Did it really matter so much?

"Drat, Julien," she cursed. The scoundrel still had the power to twist her in the wind. His outrageous lies had lit a curiosity inside her. And yet, what if everything she knew about her father turned out to be fiction rather than fact?

She told herself she was continuing only to prove that Julien was the liar. To add another nail to his already far too long delayed coffin.

Slowly, she ran her finger down the list, certain she wouldn't find the evidence he'd so confidently boasted of, until she came to a standstill at an entry that left her shocked and stunned.

Capaneous,
Third Rate; Commissioned, June 1779; Commander, Ethan, Lord Hawthorne.

She read it again, taking in each word slowly, running her fingers over the printed letters as if to verify that the ink and typesetting were truly real.

Ethan, Lord Hawthorne?

She shook her head at the name. Her father? It couldn't be. Her father had never said anything about having a title, let alone being an English nobleman. She tried to tell herself the similar names were a coincidence, a convenient one that Julien was using to turn her world upside down.

Yet in a blinding flash she knew this Lord Hawthorne was her father. As much as she wanted to deny it.

It explained too much, too many things she'd never questioned and probably should have.

The countless times her father had seemed to innately guess the movements of naval vessels they'd wanted to avoid. His lack of an Irish accent, which he'd explained away by saying he'd spent his early years working on the docks in Liverpool, where the other lads had beat the lilt of his homeland out of his speech. The hours he'd spent arguing philosophy with the Jesuit priest he'd kidnapped and hauled aboard their ship to give her a well-rounded education. This in spite of his own command of mathematics, literature, and languages, even Latin and Greek, all of which seemed well beyond what one would expect a poor, humble Irishman to possess.

There were times when she'd thought her father had only brought the poor Jesuit aboard so he would have someone to talk to, not, as he claimed, to educate her.

And then there was the ring she'd found in his sea chest when she'd been just a wee girl. He'd been angry when he discovered her playing with it and had startled her by snatching the piece of jewelry away from her grasp. Only now did she look back and realize the ring had been the focus of his ire, as if the strange animals entwined in the heavy gold, not her misbehavior, had taunted him into his rage.

Her father had been a titled lord. And for some reason he had lost it all, left it all behind, perhaps even as Julien had hinted, through some naval scandal.

So preoccupied was she in her reeling speculations that she barely heard the insistent voice at her elbow.

"Miss, miss," a voice said. "I do say, miss, I hardly think that is what you are looking for." Before she could stop him, the nosy clerk took the book from her hands. "Really, miss, this is hardly the section for a lady. Besides, we are receiving complaints. Now, why don't you let me find something more suited for you and something your companion would approve of?"

Maureen found herself reaching for her knife, more incensed at his superior attitude than she had been at the leering loafers in the front of the store.

When her fingers stalled over the lace at her hips, she remembered she was unarmed. Eyeing the clerk, she almost laughed.

As if she needed a knife to unman this barnacle.

"Give me back my book, you little flea," she demanded, her fingers pinching the fleshy part of the man's arm just above his elbow.

The clerk's eyes bulged, then watered. He'd all but risen up to his tiptoes trying to escape her grasp, but it was no use.

He might as well have fought the tide.

Still, Maureen had to give him credit. He continued to hold the book away from her.

"You're hurting me ..." he managed to squeak.

"Give it back, you maggot-ridden little biscuit, or you'll feel the pain of —"

"Tsk, tsk, tsk," a rich deep voice whispered into her ear. "Do you plan on dismembering him right here in Piccadilly?"

She froze.

De Ryes.

Fine time for him to make his entrance.

Glancing over her shoulder, she found him standing right behind her, close enough so she looked right up into the wry gaze of his green eyes.

Blast him if he wasn't laughing at her.

"Release him, Maureen," he said quietly, moving to block them from the sight of the other patrons. "Do it before you actually succeed in pulling his arm out of the socket, or worse, someone sees you manhandling this poor fellow and it becomes an
on dit
that will put Lady Mary in vapors for a week."

"Not until he returns my book."

Julien held out his hand, and the clerk shoved the volume into his open palm.

Maureen felt cheated but released the fellow anyway, though not before giving him one last twist to remember her by. As she watched him scurry away, she felt some satisfaction in knowing that would be the last time he snatched a book away from a lady.

Julien turned the volume over and examined it. "I see you found my proof. Do you believe me now?"

She shook her head. "That book proves nothing that matters to me. So my father was in the Navy. That was over thirty years ago. It doesn't change the fact that you murdered him."

In the instant she said the words, she saw it again, the flash of something across Julien's face.

Anger. Denial. Or even, perhaps, guilt.

Guilt?

The Captain de Ryes she knew would never have felt guilt over a man's death. Not when it had assured him his fortune and future.

A fortune he so obviously wore now, what with his silver-tipped cane, perfectly cut coat and breeches, and the rich sheen of his Hessians.

She seized the book from him and reshelved it, closing its terrible truth away from prying eyes. "My father had a past that he chose not to share. So does every other man at sea, at least the ones who take to his profession." She glanced over him once again, the perfect Corinthian, hardly a man anyone would suspect was the nefarious privateer Captain de Ryes. "Including you."

She turned to leave the seclusion of the stacks, for surely it was close to the time that she'd instructed the Lord Admiral to arrive.

Julien wasn't about to let her go just yet. The bell above the door announced the entrance of another group of customers, this time a pair of ladies. He caught his impossible wife by her arm and hauled her deeper into the store.

Far from the curious glances of other patrons, far from her oblivious guardian.

"Maureen Hawthorne de Ryes, I've never thought you a fool, but you are trying my patience and my convictions." He gathered her into his arms, one hand clamped over her mouth to keep her from crying out. He had no illusions that once he grabbed her she wouldn't fight him like a wildcat, no matter the place or the possibility of scandal.

And fight him she did.

He held on with all his might, avoiding the well-aimed thrust of her knee and the sharp kick directed at his shins. When she finally settled down, he eased up a bit, but only a little.

He knew better than to ever turn his back on his wife. He had the scar to prove it.

Now with each jab of her toe, each wrench of her arm, it was as if those eight years were swept aside and he was being given a second chance — an opportunity to succeed where he had failed her so miserably before.

God, he'd loved her then. Loved her with all his heart. From the first moment he'd seen her, high in the rigging of the
Forgotten Lady.
Like some windswept sprite, her dark hair fluttering in the breeze, her feminine figure unmistakable even in the rough sailor's clothing. And when he'd stepped foot on the deck of her father's ship and taken one look at the heart-stopping blue of her eyes, he knew right there and then she would always be the only woman for him.

He'd been too young to see the consequences of his actions, too sure of himself not to believe that he could make everything work. All he'd known then was that he'd never be able to live without her, no matter what the fates thrust upon them.

She'd tempted him and infected him beyond reason and rational thought with her passion and fire.

And damn the fates, she still did.

But this time he wouldn't let her go. Not without a fight. Not until she understood why he'd done what he had to her father.

That she hadn't been the only one betrayed that night.

Then he'd make her understand the one most important thing: He'd never stopped loving her.

Never would, if he was honest with himself.

"Dammit, Reenie, stand down. Are you so blind that you can't see the gale coming up over your prow? Your life isn't worth a fiddler's funds if you don't listen to me. And listen to me you will."

She responded by biting his hand.

Sucking in a deep breath against the sharp pain, he released her immediately, shaking his stinging palm. "You little fool. Do you think seeing me hang will gain you and your crew their release?"

She stepped back, her expression wary. "I don't know what you are talking about."

"Your crew. You were arrested for smuggling off Sheerness a month ago. Your ship was towed to London, while you, my dear wife, and your crew were tried before a closed Admiralty court."

If she hadn't wanted to listen to him before, she appeared to be doing so now.

"How would you know?"

"I know. More than you would like to think. You could say knowing is my business."

"So what has this to do with saving your neck?"

"If I hang, there will be no one to protect you from what will surely follow."

She laughed, a hollow little sound, scoffing at her need for his safekeeping.

But dammit, she did need him, if only she would listen.

"If my information is correct — and it always is — you were promised your life and the life of your crew in exchange for my head. You were also promised the return of your ship. Once I hang, you sail away without a record." He paused for a moment. "Feel free to correct me at any time. I'd hate to think my informant was cheating me."

She grudgingly nodded. "You've gotten your money's worth."

"I have to admit it is a remarkable deal — especially the return of your ship."

She swiped at the ridiculous lace falling from her bonnet. "It's not like you haven't caused quite a few headaches around the Admiralty," she whispered back at him. "They say you've tripled the prices of goods and insurance rates, what with all the ships you've taken in the last year. The merchants want your hide and are willing to take the Lord Admiral's in exchange if he doesn't stop you soon."

He didn't miss the slight bit of respect in her voice. One pirate to another.

"I've taken my fair share," he acknowledged. "But back to you. You saved your neck and those of your men by bargaining with the devil. You obviously inherited your father's gift for persuasion."

"I've made deals with more scurvy louts than his lordship. And it was fair easy to bargain with him considering I held you as the prize."

It was his turn to laugh. "Don't fool yourself. Few would have received such generous terms. But then again, you are your father's daughter."

She glanced up at him, her lashes narrowed over her wary blue eyes. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"That this deal you've struck goes beyond the Admiralty's problems with lost ships and cargoes. It goes to the heart of the Lord Admiral's career. And you are the key."

"If you are going to start telling me this nonsense about court-martials and conspiracies by the Admiralty against my father, I won't listen," she told him. "These Banbury tales of yours have nothing to do with my agreement with the Lord Admiral. And I certainly trust him more than I will ever trust the likes of you." Her hands went to her hips, her stance all sailor. "It's going to take a hell of a lot more than one line in some dusty old book to change my mind."

"Then you trust him with your life?" Julien asked, his arms crossed over his chest. "That he will honor your bargain?"

Her chin tipped up, her azure gaze flint-hard. "Implicitly."

He wanted to smile, now that he had her boxed into a corner, but he saw no joy in dashing her convictions.

Despite his reluctance he pulled out of his jacket pocket a folded broadsheet — an auction announcement he'd snagged from the board at Lloyd's this morning — and handed it to her. "Read on, Reenie. Read what your honorable friend has planned for you, and tell me if you still trust him."

He should have known better than to give it to her in public, for the sight of the first line widened her eyes, then sent a flush of fury across her face.

Not that he blamed her for one second. He'd felt the same anger when he'd spotted the advertisement this morning after his usual coffee and information-gathering session at the shipping mecca of London.

NAVAL AUCTION. THE SCHOONER
RETRIBUTION ...

"Why that —" she began, until he clapped his hand over her mouth. He was glad he'd moved as fast as he had, for the next moment the bell over the door jangled loudly, announcing the newest customer's arrival.

Julien wasn't at all surprised to see Maureen's mentor and partner slithering into the shop — Peter Cottwell, the Lord Admiral.

Studying his opponent through the stacks, Julien also spied a half score of loungers outside, burly minions come to assist the Lord Admiral in his brilliant capture of the infamous pirate.

"Time for a decision, Reenie," Julien told her, nodding to the broadsheet in her shaking grasp. "Do you still trust him? Or do you want to gamble further with your life and the lives of your men?"

He watched the play of emotions on her face but wasn't all that convinced she was going to see the right of it — that she couldn't trust that bastard Cottwell.

He had considered she would do this — call the Lord Admiral down on his head — when he sent her his note. That was why he'd left a horse tied up behind the shop, in addition to his carriage out front. Though fleeing was not his preferred plan, unfortunately it appeared to be the only choice she'd left him.