Her Master and Commander (3 page)

“Nothing, my lord. Nothing at all.”

“Humph. Pauline and I eventually parted, though I sent her funds for the boys.” The earl frowned. “Damn it, why couldn’t Letty—but no. That does not matter now.” He sent a faintly regretful glance at Reeves. “I perhaps did not visit my by-blows quite as I should have.” The earl fretted over this a moment, then sighed. “I cannot fix that now. Anyway, as I was saying, all was well until Pauline was accused of treason. It was a very nasty business.”

Reeves adjusted his lordship’s pillow. “I am certain you did all you should have, my lord.”

“I wasn’t here to assist her. If I hadn’t been out of the country—” Rochester didn’t speak, emotion tight in his chest.

“My lord?” Concern etched Reeves’s voice.

“I was in Italy. It took me weeks to get back. As soon as I landed, I went to see the king, but…I was too late. She had died in prison the previous week and the boys were gone. Vanished! I tried to find them, but there was no trace to be had. Until—” Rochester pressed his lips together.

“Until?” Reeves prompted gently.

“I read Tristan’s name in the blasted paper. I cannot tell you how horrified I was, to see someone of my own blood, his name bantered about as if he were a commoner!”

“Yes, my lord.”

The earl tried to remember his sons, but could only dredge up the faintest picture. “I seem to remember that they were handsome youths, though quite different in coloring.”

“If they had the Rochester looks, I am certain they were
very
handsome indeed.”

“All of my children are extraordinarily well-looking,” Rochester said sternly, hoping it was so.

“All of them, my lord?”

Rochester looked at the list in his hands, a faint flush coloring his pale cheeks. “Dying is so damned unfair! Here I am, a leader of society, known to all, an intimate of the prince’s, and what happens but—” He gestured angrily at his thin and wasted frame. “—
this
! I never thought things would come to such a pass.”

“Yes, my lord. Dying is wasted upon the well dressed.”

Rochester’s eyes narrowed. “Are you mocking me?”

“Never, my lord. It’s just that I find it somewhat disturbing that you thought you’d never die. We
all
die, my lord. It would be unnatural, otherwise.”

The earl’s shoulders slumped. “I know, I know. I just—Damn it, I’m not finished yet! I was also going to hold a ball for Letty’s birthday, and the prince had promised to attend, which would make it quite the event of the season—But it is too late for all of that, damn it.” The earl handed the list to Reeves. “Here. These are my children. I was going to find them myself, but—Well, it is not to be.”

“One of the ironies of this business of living is that we never really finish. Whatever time we have, we fill it, and when it empties, we fill it yet again.” Reeves unfolded the paper. “I do not believe there is such a thing as enough time, my lord. For anyone.”

“No, there’s not.”

“Although…” Reeves looked at the list. “Perhaps some things should have taken more priority. You had children out of wedlock and yet you’ve never mentioned them once in all the time I’ve served you.”

Rochester’s face heated. “The duke of Richmond is said to have more than twelve illegitimate children. Nine is not such a high number.”

“Hmmm. Is this the same duke that you refer to as the ‘Prince of Chicanery’?”

Rochester eyed his butler glumly. “You have a damnable memory, did you know that?”

“A moment ago, you were lauding my memory even as you drank your bourbon.”

The earl fought a smile. “Pray do not attempt to divert me. I have requested my solicitor, Mr. Dunstead, locate the children. I am leaving them each something from my will, providing, of course, they prove themselves worthy of the Rochester name.” The earl took a steadying breath, wincing when a pain shot up his arm. “That is where I have need of your services. Dunstead is to find them, but
you
are to civilize them.”

“Civilize? But my lord, I don’t—”

“Reeves, this is important.” Rochester moved restlessly. “My children must be brought to heel. You see, Tristan Paul Llevanth, the next Earl of Rochester, was once a pirate.”

Reeves blinked and the earl had the felicity of shocking his butler for the first time in twenty years’ service. “A pirate?”

“Well, not anymore. He is naught but a sea captain now.”

Reeves’s brows rose. “Llevanth! I do indeed know that name; all of England knows it. Captain Tristan Llevanth sailed the
Victory
with Nelson at Trafalgar but a year ago. His name has been in the
Morning Post
and—”

“Do not remind me that he has become a public figure. It was excessively ill-bred of him.”

“My lord, he is a hero. I know it has been said he was once a privateer—”

“Pirate. Don’t sugarcoat it.”

“Pirate, then, my lord. But Nelson won Llevanth a pardon so he could fight with the admiral at Trafalgar. That says quite a bit about his character.”

“The fool is a sea captain,” the earl said in a waspish tone, “which isn’t much better than a common pirate in my book. It would not surprise me if the next earl picks his teeth at the table and rarely bathes.”

“Have you met many sea captains, my lord?”

“That fellow, Nelson. He was at a soiree. A small, rude man, if I remember rightly. With no sense of style, as well.”

“I daresay your sea captain is better favored. The Rochester family is notoriously well formed.”

“Yes, but if what Dunstead has discovered is true, the next earl is also injured.” Blast it, was he to have no luck at all? A sea captain with some sort of unfavorable injury. The earl could only hope his son was not badly scarred as well. That would be too much indeed.

“I read about that, too,” Reeves said, still looking somewhat startled. “I don’t know the severity of the injury, but it was enough that he was forced to resign his commission. I heard that Admiral Nelson himself would have been saddened by that, for he thought quite highly of Captain Llevanth.”

“Humph. Well, I can only hope he comes to his senses and accepts my conditions for the inheritance.”

“My lord, pardon me, but you say that as if you’d spoken to him rather recently?”

The earl plucked at the coverlet.

“My lord?”

“Yes, yes! I heard you! I wrote to the fellow. I thought it was the least I could do, seeing as how I’m not getting over this illness and I haven’t had much commerce with him.”

“May I inquire as to his response?”

“No.”

“I see. What, exactly,
did
you write to him?”

“I told him I hoped he knew what was expected of him once the title was his. His answer was most rude.”

Reeves sighed. “My lord, this is quite a large task.”

“I don’t see what is so difficult,” Rochester said testily, suddenly feeling quite tired. “Just find Llevanth and convince him to take on the mantle of earl. Then teach him what he needs to know that he may do it with the taste and breeding I have worked so hard to attach to the name.”

“But…if he is a sea captain—”

“If you do not prevail, he is lost. The title and lands will be his, but his sibling will get the fortune
if,
of course, he becomes more civilized as well. He
must
be made to accept his duties. I refuse to have all my work undone in one generation.”

“Yes, my lord.”

The earl leaned back, his chest easing somewhat. “Thank you, Reeves. I knew you would not let me down. Once I have died, your salary will be doubled. When you finish turning the oldest into a true Rochester, you are to go to Christian, the younger one, and do the same for him. It should not be too difficult. None of my children can have anything less than a superior understanding.”

Reeves folded the list neatly. “Has Mr. Dunstead found them?”

“Not yet.” The earl yawned. “I fear my second son might be in hiding. There is some indication he might be something more—shall we say, ‘memorable’ than his brother.”

“More memorable? Than a hero of a naval battle?”

“Unfortunately, yes.” The earl pressed his lips together. “I will leave Dunstead to explain it to you.”

“My lord, I hate to ask this, but, ah…has either of your sons shown any violent tendencies? I mean no disrespect; it’s merely a matter of personal safety.”

“If they did, you may be assured they had good reason. My sons may not know how to dress, but they are
still
my sons. No Rochester has ever been involved in anything truly unsavory.”

“Thank you for your reassurance,” Reeves said dryly.

The earl yawned again, his lids sliding half closed. “Blood will always tell.”

“Yes, my lord.” Reeves tucked the list into his pocket and began drawing the heavy draperies about the huge gold bed. “You need your rest, my lord.”

“Thank you, Reeves. I shall sleep well knowing you will be working to reclaim the lost Rochester heritage.” The earl forced his heavy lids open. “Oh, yes. I almost forgot. In addition to your wages, I will supply you with a generous allowance that you might take whatever supplies you deem necessary. You may wish to take a few of the others with you, as well.”

“Others, my lord?”

“I can’t imagine a sea captain will have either a decent cook or valet.”

“Perhaps he has both.” Reeves dimmed the lamp.

Rochester was barely aware of it. The tonic combined with the bourbon had taken hold and he was already drifting off to sleep. He’d set things as much to rights as he could and he was confident that his man Reeves would take care of the rest.

Reeves always did.

T
he blue waves hurled themselves against the jagged cliff face, thundering with fury across encrusted rocks. High on the cliff top, far above the ocean, sat a large cottage. Built of the same black rock that decorated the shoreline, it was almost invisible except for the thick curls of smoke that puffed from all three chimneys.

Captain Tristan Paul Llevanth stood before the cottage, staring into the wild black water below, fascinated as ever by the swirling, foaming madness. The wind flapped his cape, tangled and damp, about his legs. A dull ache lifted from his heel through his knee and his fingers tightened over the brass knob of the hated cane. “Blast it, even standing pains me,” he growled, cursing his wounded leg to the deep blue and back.

He took a deep breath, lifting the damp scent of the ocean into his lungs, releasing the pain into the air even as he allowed the coolness to replenish his spirits. The breeze tussled the one lone tree that stood on the cliff, sending a smattering of brown leaves swirling to the ground.

Behind him, the familiar slam of the door rang out. In a moment, one of the men would be there, pretending to ask an innocuous question. Ever since he’d been wounded, his own bloody crew—the ones who’d remained with him—had taken to treating him like a scabby, new to ship and wet behind the ears.

It was galling. It also reminded him of the early days, when he’d been naught but a soft landlubber with no calluses and less understanding of what it meant to be at sea. At first, he’d fought. Fought his destiny with his entire being. He’d been sad and frightened and sick with worry about Christian—

No.
He wouldn’t remember those days. He’d remember the later ones. When he’d finally made his peace with the sea and life on board.

Though he grew to hate his first captain, a harsh, unjust man given to beating his men for the slightest offense, Tristan loved life at sea and reveled in the wildness of the crashing ocean that had once terrified him.

Though Captain Reynolds had no place in Tristan’s heart, the crew had been beyond compare. Many of the men from that first assignment were with Tristan still, having weathered storms, faced raging seas, and fought the fright of being becalmed hundreds of miles from shore with too little water. They were stalwart of heart and generous of spirit and had stood with him against marauders of all sorts and sizes.

A faint smile touched his lips. There were those who cursed pirates and he was certain some of them were unworthy men indeed. But to Tristan, stolen from the safety of shore and forced to the sea under a harsh captain given to regular beatings and worse, pirating wasn’t as horrid and undesirable as it might have been under different circumstances.

Indeed, when his first ship had been overrun in a bloody battle, the captain killed and Tristan’s crewmates taken prisoner, he met with more generous behavior than he had when serving Captain Reynolds.

The captain of the pirate ship, Captain Ballaliet, a former French naval officer reduced to pirating to pay his gaming debts, had invited the English crew to join his own. With the promise of plunder, better food than Tristan could remember, and a benign master, the invitation was too good to miss. Thus Tristan made the painless transition from English sailor to roving pirate.

Tristan looked out over the roaring ocean with unseeing eyes. He was no saint and he’d done things he now regretted. Though it had been an amoral life, he’d prospered and eventually Captain Ballaliet had captured a ship and given it to Tristan. Together, they’d sailed and had been nigh unstoppable. Had a stray bullet during a particularly difficult boarding not caught Captain Ballaliet in the chest, Tristan might even now be sailing the seas, looking for a tempting frigate to capture.

But once Ballaliet had died, the fight had left Tristan and he’d drifted aimlessly. The crew had not been happy, for they were paid only when they captured a juicy prize. Had he not overtaken a certain ship off the Rock of Gibraltar and met Admiral Nelson, Tristan’s life would have been different. Nelson had seen something in Tristan worth saving. To repay the Admiral, Tristan had pledged his ship and men to the Battle of Trafalgar. It had been a stunning victory, but at what cost? Nelson was gone, taken by a sniper’s bullet while countless others had died or been left maimed, wounded beyond salvage.

The wind whipped through Tristan’s hair and tried to pull it from the ribbon. He closed his eyes and let the damp air brush over him. If he held very still, it almost felt as if the ground were moving like a ship in a near calm sea. He could almost hear the creak and groan of the rigging, smell the pitch and tar of a newly scrubbed deck. Reflexively, Tristan rolled back on his heels—

A red-hot pain lanced through his leg. “Bloody damn!”

“Cap’n!” First Mate Stevens grasped Tristan’s arm.

Tristan shook off the first mate. “Blast you to hell, Stevens! I don’t need a nursemaid.”

“I know, Cap’n. I just didn’t want ye tossed overboard like an empty barrel. ’Tis a far drop off’n this cliff.”

Teeth clenched, Tristan lowered his foot back to the ground, leaning heavily on his cane as he did so. “I am not in any danger of falling off the cliff, you blasted ass. I may not be able to keep my crippled foot solidly on the deck of a seaworthy ship, but I damned well can navigate dry land by myself.”

Silence met this outburst. Tristan knew without looking that his one-time first mate’s face would be as long as the sea was wide. Damn it, he hadn’t meant to wound the man’s feelings. He silently cursed his uneven temper; every little incident was a burning swab to a primed cannon.

“Sorry to disturb ye, Cap’n,” Stevens said in a miserable voice. “I didn’t mean to—”

“You didn’t,” Tristan said abruptly, willing the pain in his leg to subside. “’Tis me and naught else. I’ve a bit of a temper. This weather—” He pressed a hand to his thigh.

Stevens nodded. “Indeed, Cap’n! Master Gunner Thurwell was sayin’ his arm was painin’ him jus’ this mornin’.”

“Thurwell spends a lot of time complaining of his injured arm even though the doctor found nothing amiss.”

“So I’ve noticed.” Stevens looked out over the ocean, his face easing a bit at the sight of the swells. He sniffed the air. “A nor’wester is comin’.”

“Aye. A fierce one unless I miss my guess.” Tristan looked down at the small man and gave him a twisted smile. “I miss the sea on days like these. She’d have roiled beneath us and given us a merry ride.”

“Aye, so she would have, Cap’n,” Stevens said wistfully. “The men and I don’t feel the same as we used to, back when we were sailors.” Stevens leaned against the tree and tugged a bit on the knit hat that covered his wispy white hair, a sad look in his eyes. “I never knew how much stock I took in bein’ a first mate until it was gone. One day ye’re a sailor, the next day”—he spread his hands, a faint shake visible in his callused fingers—“ye’re nothing. Nothing at all, it don’t feel like.”

Tristan clenched his jaw. Something happened to a man once he was forced from the sea and left to hobble about land like a commoner. It left one feeling empty. Useless. Like flotsam tossed upon the shore and left to rot. Which was why he never slept. Or rarely, anymore. He knew with an odd certainty that he was going to die wrapped in loneliness.

The only place he felt at peace was here, on this ledge, the wind and spray buffeting his body. If he closed his eyes and let the feel and sound carry him away, he could almost pretend he was back at sea.

His leg twinged when he accidentally put his weight on it. For a moment, he welcomed the familiar ache. It filled the emptiness of his soul, pulled his thoughts from the hollow days that spread ahead of him.

“Lor’ Cap’n!” Stevens exclaimed. “Batten the hatches. There’s a Lady O’ War headed this way and she looks ready to fire in our direction.”

Tristan looked in the direction of Stevens’s stare. There, marching down the ragged path that led into the garden, was a familiar figure. Smallish in size, shorter by a head than even Stevens, was a woman. She marched along without even looking at the path before her, attesting to the number of times she’d made the trip.

She reached the garden gate, flicked the latch to one side, entered the garden, and shut the gate smartly behind her. The wind tickled the bottom of her blue cloak, swirling it about her booted ankles and tugging at her tightly pulled hair.

Tristan glanced at Stevens. “I thought we were going to put a lock on that gate.”

“It’s on me list, Cap’n.”

Tristan sent the first mate a flat stare.

“I mean t’say,” Stevens added hastily, “that I’ll see to it first thing this afternoon.”

Tristan nodded. When he’d first bought the cottage on the cliff, he and his men had been the only occupants for miles. In fact, other than an abandoned house that was almost hidden by brambles just a half mile down the rim of the cliff, his house was the only structure in sight.

Tristan had liked the solitude and it had been with a sense of foreboding that one day, while looking out over the sea, he’d noticed that someone had cleaned away the brambles from the front of the empty house. His paradise was about to be invaded. Three months ago, a heavily laden cart had pulled up to the cottage and two women and their servants had alighted. Tristan’s life had taken a decided turn for the worse. “I don’t know why she insists on coming here.”

Stevens pursed his lips. “Perhaps she fancies ye.”

“And has decided to attract me hither by stealing my sheep and then hurling accusations at my head? I scarcely think it.”

“Ye’re probably right,” Stevens agreed, watching their visitor’s progression up the path with obvious interest. “’Tis said the young doctor is wishin’ to sail into that port.”

Stevens lifted up on his toes as their visitor tramped up the path and out of sight a moment behind a large yew bush. “They say the doctor is smitten and wishes to marry the widow—the younger widow, not her mother, that is.”

Tristan flicked a hard glance at Stevens. “You have an uncanny ability to ferret out inane gossip. It’s a pity we were never sent to spy on the French. I’m certain the war would have been shorter simply by your efforts.”

“’Tis one of me many good qualities,” Stevens said serenely. “Ah, here she is. Full sail over the hillock, right on course.”

Stevens shook his head. “Gor’ help ye, Cap’n, but looks as if a bee has gotten up Mrs. Thistlewaite’s bonnet all the way to the foremast. Must be that blasted sheep again.”

Tristan looked back over his shoulder at the woman now struggling against the wind as she climbed the last leg of the path. For all her forceful movements, she appeared rather waiflike, with a heart-shaped face beneath a tightly pulled bun of brown hair that still managed to spring forth with a curious curl or two at the brow.

Of her shape he knew nothing, for he’d never seen her without her voluminous cloak, though he suspected from the delicate lines of her face and throat and the slender shape of her hands that she was as trim a ship to ever sail the seas.

Not that he cared, of course. He was perfectly happy alone, slacking his lust with an occasional trip to the small town located at the base of the cliff. The inn there sported two exuberant maids, either or both for the taking, had one enough coin.

Besides, he recognized the cut of this woman’s jib. She was a stern, strict sort, the type of woman one might marry if one prized well-beaten carpets and hot food all for the mere price of listening to an endless line of chatter over the dinner table. Tristan liked eating his dinners in silence. As for his carpets, they were underfoot, so who cared of their cleanliness?

She reached the end of the path and planted herself before him. Every line of her body, every nuance of her expression bespoke acute irritation.

Stevens nodded merrily, his sharp blue eyes watering a little in the blustery wind. “Ahoy there, Mrs. Thistlewaite! And what brings ye forth on such a day?”

“I came to speak with the captain.”

Tristan looked at Stevens. “You may handle this.”

“No, he may not!” Their visitor crossed her arms, her gloved hands gripping her elbows. “Captain Llevanth, I came to speak to you and no one else.”

“I was afraid of that.”

Her gaze narrowed, and despite his irritation, Tristan found himself noticing her eyes. They were wide and slightly uptipped at the corners, and of a remarkably rich brown color, rather like the darkest swells of a storm-lashed sea and lined by the thickest of lashes overset by a lilting slash of brows. The lady’s frown grew. “You know why I wish to speak to you.”

Stevens leaned forward to say in what he probably considered a conspiratorial whisper, but was fairly close to a normal voice. “Cap’n, I daresay ’tis the sheep once’t again. One of ’em has a likin’ fer the lady’s garden, he does.”

Tristan shrugged. “What does she expect me to do about that? You cannot tie up a sheep. A wolf would get it.”

Stevens pondered this. “That’s true. There’s no real way to tether them that they’d stand fer. If ye used a rope, they’d just eat it. And ye can’t chain ’em fer fear of rubbin’ sores on their little legs. We’ll have to tell her we can’t—”

“Oh!” The lady threw up her hands. “Please do not talk about me as if I were not here!”

Stevens looked from the lady and then back at the captain. “Cap’n, did ye think we were talking to Mrs. Thistlewaite as if she wasn’t there?”

Tristan pretended to consider this, aware the lady’s temper was rising by the moment. Just to irk her further, he let his gaze wander up and down her, lingering on certain areas as if he could detect her shape beneath the voluminous cape. “No,” he said finally, “I do not think we were talking to her as if she were not here since, if she were not here, we would not be talking about her—or to her—at all.”

“Oh!”
She planted her hands on her hips. “Captain, if you wish me to take this matter to the constable, I will!”

Tristan sighed. “Very well, Mrs. Thistlewaite.” He reached into a pocket and found his pipe. “Tell me the sins of my unruly livestock. I hope they are not partaking of spirits. I will not stand for public drunkenness in my sheep.”