Her Wicked Proposal: The League of Rogues, Book 3 (28 page)

“He’s gone,” she whispered.

The boat went silent. As one their gazes drifted toward the sea, which had claimed the life of the man they’d come to save. The memory of an old poem her father used to recite came unbidden to her.

“
And the ocean claimed her lover,

The waves folding him in an endless blue embrace,

Mourn not this king of seas, this prince of tides…
”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Pain…excruciating darkness… stars…blue…

Cedric’s head throbbed as he fought to get away from whatever was dragging him deeper and deeper into the sea’s vast depths. His strength was rapidly fading and his lungs would explode unless he could get to the surface. His shirt tore and the binding that had trapped him to the wreckage was gone. He fought as though nothing in his life had mattered until now.

All he could see was Anne’s face, and his desire to live. His desire to see her looking up at him with love and endless wonder. New strength flooded his limbs. The water stung his eyes, burned them like hot pokers, but he kept swimming toward that brightening point of light that he knew had to be the surface.

When his head burst above the water, he sucked in a loud, agonizing breath. A shocking white glared into his eyes, and he blinked, raised one hand as he treaded water, and looked about…
looked
…as gray shapes appeared in the fog.

“What in God’s name?” Pieces of wood bumped into his shoulders as he breathed in the thick smoke. That was what made things gray. Not his blindness, but gunpowder smoke and burning wreckage.

He could see! Not well, but by God he could see! He started to laugh, but choked as he breathed in the smoke.

He saw several longboats drifting through the ship’s wreckage. The one closest to him had several people in it, all of them facing away, their backs to him. A woman was in the middle, and her soaked dark hair hung to her waist.

Anne! She was alive. Not yet strong enough to call out, he started to swim toward the boat before it left him behind. As he drew closer he recognized Godric, Ashton, Charles, Lucien, even Jonathan on board. Just beyond them two ships, the HMS
Ranger
and Ashton’s merchant vessel
Black Lily
, were drifting around the wreckage of the
Maiden Fair
. The entire League and Anne were on that boat, all staring silently at something he could not see.

Dread filled him. What had happened? It had to be something horrible, something he couldn’t bear, if it had struck his friends and wife speechless. When he reached the longboat, he swam around to the side. He clung to the edge of the boat and searched the floating wreckage, trying to spot whatever had devastated his friends.

Anne’s face was strewn with tears, and Charles had a comforting arm around her shoulders. Cedric forced his gaze back to the sinking ship.

They must think I’m dead…

It was Jonathan, the one nearest to him, who slowly turned his head and saw Cedric clinging to the side of the boat.

“Cedric!” His startled shout made everyone jump.

Jonathan rushed over to where Cedric gripped the side of the longboat. Exhausted, Cedric latched onto the younger man’s arms and allowed himself to be hauled aboard.

No sooner had he righted himself did Anne launch herself at him, sobbing incoherently. They fell together in a wet mess.

Ashton wiped at his eyes and cleared his throat. “We thought we’d lost you.” There was a rough catch in his voice. Everyone looked too strained, too devastated.

The admission of how much he was loved, not just by Anne, but by his friends as well, struck his heart.

“Takes more than a burning cottage, horse thieves, piratical slavers and an exploding ship to kill me, eh?” he teased, trying to ease everyone’s pain.

Charles chuckled. “Right. Should have known better than to think that could take you down.”

Cedric looked down at Anne, who stared at him with that look he’d hoped to someday see. An endless wonder in her eyes, and love, so much love, that simply seeing it now gave him wings enough to fly.

“My heart,” he whispered, feeling suddenly shy, so damned shy of his own wife. It was as though he was looking at a familiar stranger. He’d grown so used to her touch, her taste, her scent. To see her, finally
see
her again after so long in the dark…

She raised a hand and stroked the backs of her fingers across his cheeks.

“Don’t cry,” she begged him. “Please don’t. If you do, I won’t be able to stop.”

“To hell with it.” He buried his face in her neck, curling his body around hers, clinging to her. His heart, his love, his other half. They were alive and safe.

“I can see you,” he kept saying as he wept. Never in all his life would anything be as beautiful as his beloved Anne and his dearest friends. The last five months had been an awful nightmare.

But I’ve finally woken up
. He brushed his lips over Anne’s, tasting the sea and her tears.

He vowed from that moment on, she would never cry again except from joy.

* * * * *

Ashton stood on the deck of the
Black Lily
, his captain, Ellis Bristow, beside him.

“Close call, Lord Lennox. We almost didn’t reach the
Ranger
in time.” The captain, his hat tucked under one arm, watched the rolling waves, his sharp eyes missing nothing.

“I know.” Ashton held his breath a moment, trying to erase the thoughts of what might have been if they hadn’t gotten to the
Maiden Fair
when they did.

They’d learned at the port which direction the slaver’s ship had gone, and in the race to catch her, soon learned a navy ship was also in pursuit. The joy at having an ally, however, became terror when their man from the crows nest called down that the
Ranger
wasn’t ordering the
Maiden
to stand down, and instead was opening gun ports.

Captain Bristow desperately arranged for his own message to be raised, warning the navy ship that English hostages were on board their target.

The captain of the
Ranger
had heard them and ordered his crew to prepare for boarding instead, but moments later the
Maiden
went up in flames without a shot being fired.

Seeing the ship burn and the bodies floating among the flotsam had almost killed Ashton. He’d feared Cedric, Anne and Jonathan to be among the dead.

He glanced down from the top deck of the
Lily
to see Anne and Cedric heading to the cabins below. Cedric’s arm was curled around Anne’s shoulder, and she clung to him as though afraid to let him out of her sight. Cedric paused just beneath Ashton and glanced up, nodding at him in silent gratitude for the
Lily
’s arrival.

Miracles do happen.
After everything that had been lost over the years, sometimes the world gave things back. Like Cedric’s sight.

Ashton wasn’t the sort to put his trust in faith, but he couldn’t deny their good fortune today. Still, he feared what tomorrow would bring.

When he’d spoken to the captain of the
Ranger
, he’d learned that he’d been given orders to sail Brighton to find and sink the
Maiden Fair
without giving quarter to prisoners. He’d been told it was a slaver ship, but it was supposed to be devoid of human cargo.

The orders had been given through the proper chain of command, yet Ashton had the distinct impression he was playing a vast game of chess. One with a board that spanned the country, and that somehow, even with this, Hugo Waverly was his opponent.

“Ash.” Lucien climbed the stairs to the deck and nodded at Captain Bristow. Bristow offered them some privacy and left to speak to one of his lieutenants.

“How’s Cedric?” Ashton asked.

“Good. Better than good. He’s seeing again and can’t seem to stop smiling at his wife. Silly fool.”

Ashton heard the note of love in those last two words. Last Christmas had been a dark hour for both Cedric and Lucien. But they’d weathered the storm and come out stronger.

“Horatia would have killed me if our baby had lost its uncle.”

It would have devastated them all to lose Cedric.

“And Jonathan? How is the lad?”

They glanced at the lower deck where Jonathan was braced with his back against one of the masts, his sandy-colored hair blowing in the wind. He’d risked much to get to Cedric and save him, far more than Ashton had asked of him. And that had truly made him one of the League of Rogues now.

“He’s a bit distant. I sense he’s feeling lost, even after so many months of adjusting to his new position. He needs someone to ground him, keep him in high spirits. Give him a wife to chase and tame, and he’ll settle down and be happy. I think it’s time Cedric brought Audrey home.”

Ashton laughed, easing the tension he felt. “I never thought you’d be the one to suggest a wife was good for a man.”

Lucien turned his knowing gaze toward Ashton. “A good wife is good for
every
man. You ought to remember that the next time you let a Scottish lass get the better of you in a theater alcove.”

Ashton blanched, causing Lucien to chuckle.

“You’re not the only one with eyes and ears, Ash. The staff at the opera house see more than anyone realizes. Might I suggest you find some
other
way to deal with Lady Melbourne, before she brings your business endeavors down around your ears.” With nothing more than a smug grin, Lucien left Ashton at the railing, pale as a white flag of surrender.

He was right, though. Ashton had to deal with Lady Melbourne before she did exactly that. Ruin his business interests.

* * * * *

Cedric lounged back on the settee in his drawing room, arms folded behind his head as a white and brown puppy dragged one of his boots across the carpet. Little Forrest growled and snarled, his dagger-like puppy teeth making little scrapes in the leather. Cedric didn’t care. Life was perfect, puppy teeth marks and all.

It had been two weeks since he’d been rescued from the waters off Brighton, and his sight had fully returned. Headaches had pained him the first few days, but once the swelling from the blow to his head had subsided, so did the pain.

The door to the study opened as Anne and Audrey flew in like a pair of doves. Anne looked ravishing in her rose-red gown trimmed with embroidered wildflowers on the van-dyked sleeves and hem. Her full hips accented her tiny waist, especially when she placed her hands on them now to glower.

“Cedric, you mustn’t let him chew on your boots. You’re spoiling him.” She lunged for Forrest. The King Charles spaniel froze, as he always did when Anne got frustrated with his mischievous antics. After she snapped up the boot, the spell was broken and the dog ran in a wild scamper for her ankles, nipping playfully. Before he could damage her skirt, he tripped over his own paws and rolled onto his back, his pink tongue sticking out.

Audrey giggled. “Bit of a rogue himself, isn’t he?” Cedric couldn’t help but beam at her. She’d come home from Europe early, only two weeks after their escape from Al Zahrani’s ship. It was as though she’d known he needed her, because she and Lady Rochester had arrived before anyone from the League had contacted them.

“Forrest is a scamp, kitten, not a rogue,” Cedric clarified as he rose from the couch.

Despite Audrey’s presence in the room, his wife walked up to him and curled her arms about his neck, kissing him fully on the mouth.

“How are you?” Anne asked.

He returned the kiss for a long moment before he replied.

“Like a better version of myself,” he said, then smiled. “A
much
better version.”

Anne pursed her lips. “As long as you remain wicked in one or two areas, I shan’t complain.” Her laugh made his body hum with desire. It was so good to see her smile. She had no idea how much he’d missed it.

“Are you ready to come see Sean? He needs another reprimand for trying to leave his bed,” Anne said.

“Of course. I’m half-tempted to tie the man down to keep him there. Bloody fool.”

Ashton and the others had thought Sean Hartley to be dead when they’d left Rushton Steading. Yet as Emily and Horatia had tended to what they thought were his final moments, the man had stubbornly clung to life. Stanching his wounds and making him comfortable, they had fetched the village doctor, who had once again worked a miracle.

Following Anne up the stairs, Cedric entered a guest bedroom. Sean was pale, but his eyes were clear and alert. One of the downstairs maids was spooning hot broth into his mouth. The maid jumped to her feet and curtsied as Cedric entered, her eyes downcast, cheeks flushed.

Cedric held up a hand. “Please, don’t let me disturb you. Stay.”

The maid sat down in the chair by the bed and resumed her task. Cedric leaned against one of the bedposts at the foot of the bed and scowled down at the willful young man.

“Now, listen here, Hartley. My wife says you’re doing your damndest to get out of bed before you should.”

Sean began to protest.

“Don’t argue with me, lad. You won’t win. I never officially terminated your employ here before, and I’ll be damned if you make me do so now. It is my
order
as master of this house that you stay right there and let lovely ladies tend to your every need for as long as the doctor believes you need to stay in bed. Understood?” The maid blushed at that.

With a nod, Sean eased back onto the pillows of his bed. Cedric glanced at the women.

“I’d like a few minutes alone with him.”

Anne and the maid quietly exited the bedchamber. Cedric took the empty chair by the bed.

“I owe you a debt, Hartley. You defended us more bravely and truer than any soldier. And you saved both our lives by telling Ashton what had happened. Those are debts I can never repay.”

Cedric stood and made sure Sean was listening. “There are dark times ahead for me, for Anne and the League. We’ll need a good man like you on our side. I’m depending on you to get better.”

Sean swallowed and nodded. “Of course.”

“Good. Now, if I were you, I’d let that pretty little maid serve you as long as you can manage it. She has an eye for you, I think.” He winked at Sean and then left the room, chuckling at Sean’s flustered expression. Anne and the maid were outside.

“Go on and tend to him,” he said. The maid ducked back inside. Once he and Anne were alone, he pulled his wife into his arms, dipping her down low, as if in a dance, and kissed her senseless.