Dreaming (27 page)

In the captain’s quarters of the privateer, Hamish leaned back in a chair with his boots propped atop the desk while he cleaned his fingernails with a dagger tip.

Dion stood in front of the bow windows, staring out at the channel seas. After a moment he turned and looked at Hamish, then gave a quick flick of one slim hand.

There was a flash of golden smoke. The puff of smoke slowly faded.

The elegant pirate had disappeared.

In his place stood a stunningly beautiful woman.

Long blond hair hung in a golden fall to her small waist. Her face was ageless: creamy white skin, perfect bones, and sharp gray eyes that appeared to miss little.

Five golden rings adorned her slim fingers, and she wore a flowing white gown trimmed with matching golden threads. She also wore a devious and wicked little grin.

Hamish returned her look. “Ah, Mary MacLean, for a witch, you do that so very well.”

She laughed. “To quote an infamous American warlock . . . I try.”

The door opened, and Gabriel stepped into the cabin. The MacLean snapped her fingers, and he was suddenly transformed into a slim white cat. She picked up her familiar and gave him a stroke. “Where is that slothful weasel?”

The cat leapt from her arms and prowled over to rub against the door. The MacLean lifted a finger and moved it once. The door opened wide. A plump red-haired sailor was slumped against a wall . . . sleeping.

“
Beezle
!” she called sharply.

He twitched once, but didn’t appear to wake up.

She snapped her fingers again, and he turned into a summer-red ermine weasel. The animal slowly opened one eye, then the other. He yawned, then slowly rose and waddled into the cabin only to plop down and fall back asleep next to Hamish’s chair.

The MacLean stared at her niece’s familiar and said, “Useless. Utterly and absolutely useless.”

“Back to matters at hand.” Hamish paused, then looked to the MacLean. “We’ve left them in the cove . . . ”

“Aye.”

“Taken care of the ransom note.”

“Aye.”

“Conjured up a little dirty weather.”

“I must commend you on the fog, Hamish. ’
Tis
superbly thick. Weather has never been my strong suit.”

There was a moment’s pause, then he winked and said, “I try.” He sheathed the dagger and locked his hands behind his head. “What game is next?”

“We wait.”

“I suspected as much. You never have told me why these two mortals.”

“You wouldn’t ask that if you would have seen them a year or so ago. Without a doubt my biggest challenge. Two more unlikely subjects you could not have imagined. Besides, I was bored at
Belmore
and, being friends of my new Sassenach nephew, they were handy.” She flexed her fingers. “They were also English—a more hard-headed lot of mortals I’ve yet to meet. The perfect specimens with which I can keep my witchcraft sharpened.”

“You should try your hand at wars, MacLean. I’ve always held fondness for them in my black heart.”

“You can have your wars. I’ll take romance.”

“Must have been that Burns fellow. You’ve never been the same witch since you met him,” he muttered. “But enough of the past. So what now?”

“We’ll wait. No more games for a few days.”

“I’d say Galahad looked about ready to succumb.”

“He’s a hard one, that earl. But if a few days stranded together in a deserted cove won’t bring him around’”—she smiled deviously—“only a little magic could.”

Seymour
stood in his host’s drawing room, his hands locked behind him and disappointment on his face. He stared out the terrace doors at the thick night fog, then dismally shook his head. “The excise ship will never leave
Bideford
in this.”

“No, I don’t suppose they can,” Hunt agreed. “There is the chance it could burn off by tomorrow night. But if not, I’ll gather some of the help, and together we’ll surround the drop.”

Seymour
turned around. “Are you certain you want to get involved in this?”

“As I said before, I don’t relish anyone turning my land into a place for ransom exchanges, a haven for smuggling or kidnapping or any of the like. This is
my
home and my daughter’s home. I need to know she’s safe here. It’s always been that way, and I won’t allow that to change.” Hunt joined him at the doors, a brandy in each hand. He handed him one.

Seymour
took a drink, then turned back to the window. On the opposite terrace an eerie yellow light spilled from the windows above, where lamplight glowed through the mist, making the terrace look as if it were covered in golden clouds.

“I’m sorry
Giana
didn’t join us for supper.”

Giana
,
Seymour
thought. He looked up and wondered which window was hers.
Giana’s
.

“As I told you, she avoids strangers.”

Seymour
took a sip of brandy, never taking his eyes off the windows, then said, “This afternoon was difficult for her. Daresay I tried my damnedest.” He gave a short laugh. “Felt like I was talking to the part in her hair.”

“You were,” Hunt said with a smile in his voice.

“I don’t suppose she’ll give me another opportunity.”

There was a pause, then Hunt said, “Look. Outside.”

A small figure walked out of one dark misty corner near the rose garden. She stepped into the golden light, wearing a deep midnight-blue cloak with a hood that hid her face.

Startled into action,
Seymour
set down the brandy and reached for the door handle.

Hunt stopped him with a hand on his arm. “I don’t want her hurt.”

“I have no intention of hurting her, and every intention of marrying her.”
Seymour
returned the man’s look. “With your permission, of course.”

“You’ve convinced me, but most importantly, you must convince her. I won’t force her.”

A handful of good-luck charms clutched in one hand,
Seymour
opened the door and grinned. “You won’t have to.”

Chapter 16

Out of the mist burst a familiar figure. The man paused in the cave entrance and brandished something that looked to Richard like a grappling iron.

“God save King George! Lead the way to ol’ Boney!”

The hellion sat up with the wide-eyed blank stare of someone startled from a deep sleep. Gus shot to his feet and barked a greeting. Then with his tail wagging, he trotted over to sniff around the man’s feet.

Richard stared at the cave entrance, feeling both disbelief and a sense of doomed irony. It couldn’t be, he thought. But it was.

Phineas
?
Philbert
?
Phelim
? Yes . . . that was it.
Phelim
.

Frowning, he watched a group of dripping-wet smugglers stagger into the cave from a cloud of fog. “Of all the seas, of all the islands, of all the coves, of all the caves . . . ”

“Let me at the scurvy snail-eater what blasted me ship with an eighteen-pounder!”

Philbert
grabbed
Phelim’s
arm and took away the grappling iron before it conked him on the head. “Put a clapper on it, Lord Nelson.
Yer
bloody ship’s sunk.”

“Oh! What a small world!” The hellion was awake.

The men stared at her as they would stare at a ghost. She was there, but no one could believe they were actually looking at her.

Smiling at them, she said, “You found us!”

“Not exactly,”
Philbert
said with all the enthusiasm of a man about to be sent to
Tyburn
.

“We were waiting to be ransomed. The pirates left us here. Now you’re here too. You can take us back home.” She stood up and walked toward the group as if she were about to give them an open-armed welcome.

“The ship was wrecked on the rocks.”
Philbert
gave a quick nod in the direction of the small cove.

“Oh.” Her smile faded. “Was anyone hurt?”

Philbert
shook his head, and a small dribble of blood rolled down his cheek.

“But you’re hurt.” She moved toward him and dabbed at the small cut with her sleeve. She started to say something and turned, then froze in
midturn
.

Harry stepped from the fog into the entrance of the cave. They looked squarely at each other. There was a full minute of stunned silence.

Frowning, Harry shook his head slightly and took another look at her. Then he screamed as if he just stared death in the face.

In the time it took to blink, the man was gone. The echo of his scream eventually faded and the cave was tellingly silent, every gaze on the vacant spot where Harry had been standing.

One of the triplets stared wide-eyed at the cave entrance. “Shouldn’t one of us go fetch him back?”

“
Ye’d
best stay here with
the Admiral
,
Phineas
. Someone needs to keep watch on him. Might well mistake one of us for ol’ Boney.”

Philbert
picked up a piece of driftwood and stuck it into the fire for a torch, then he straightened and signaled another smuggler. They faded back into the fog.

Ten minutes and as many grunts later, the two men dragged a reluctant Harry back into the cave. His hands and feet were tied with ropes of kelp, and the old bandanna he usually wore around his neck was tied as a gag across his mouth.

Small nubs of black hair, like whiskers, were beginning to grow back where his hair and eyebrows had been. And beneath them, his eyes showed a mixture of anger and panic. Despite the gag, Harry was talking. “
Mmphf
!
Mmmmmfph
!”

A winded
Philbert
dropped Harry’s bound feet with a disgusted thud and stood there, his hand to his panting chest, his face bright red and beaded with a mixture of fog and sweat.

The other smuggler seemed less winded and said between gasps, “Found the bloke away down atop the rocks where the
bleedin
’ ship broke up. ’E was
tryin
’ to dive back in the water and swim out to sea.”

“
Mmmfph
mmfph
,
mmmmfph
mmmfph
!”

Richard stared at Harry for a moment. He’d have wagered his best mount that the man was swearing behind that gag. Or possibly praying.

The hellion stood there chewing her lip, rocking a little on her heels and watching Harry with a tentative look that said she might bolt at any second.

It was a moment of sheer idiocy. Just one of many recently. And Richard felt the strong urge to laugh, but he was afraid that once he started he wouldn’t be able to stop. So completely and farcically absurd was the mental image of Harry, sans hair, beard, and eyebrows, taking one look at the hellion, then screaming like a banshee and running for his life.