The Rake's Mistress (21 page)

Rebecca froze. The boat lurched and stuck again with a grating roar this time. Overhead the footsteps
and voices became frenzied and urgent as the little yacht started to cant at a crazy angle. Rebecca’s porthole rose high out of the water whilst on the other side she could see the boat settling lower on its side and the glassy grey of the sea lapping at the window. Her breath caught in her throat. There was no time to waste. With one sharp move she punched the porthole open and dragged herself through the gap.

The mist pressed all around her like a shroud and the sea was pale and almost unnaturally calm. The fear pawed at her, but she took a deep breath and jumped, and in the same moment there was a shout from the decks and a scream and then the entire boat tipped over in one swift and frightful movement so that its painted hull pointed to the sky like a tomb.

Rebecca cast one hasty glance over her shoulder, then struck out strongly away from the terrible wreck that was even now settling down on its grave of shingle. And then the mist was ripped aside in the strengthening breeze and she looked up in astonishment and saw the ship coming for her.

Lucas had never been so afraid in his entire life. As
Breath of Scandal
disappeared into the mist it felt as though it was taking every last vestige of his hope with it. They were out in the harbour
mouth now and the wind was fresher here and the mist hung like ragged curtains. Every so often a gust would blow the fret briefly aside, giving a tantalising glimpse of
Breath of Scandal
fleeing before them. The punt was quick, but the yacht was picking up speed now as the wind started to fill her sails. Benbow leaned on the pole and wiped the back of his hand across his forehead. The mist pressed in around them, smothering all sound.

‘It’s no good, my lord,’ the wildfowler said. ‘We won’t catch up and the water’s getting too deep. We’re near the mouth of the river and it’s powerful dangerous out here now—’

He broke off as there was a grating rumble a way to their right, like the roll of distant thunder out to sea. Benbow’s eyes darted nervously and he wiped the sweat from his upper lip. Lucas gripped the side of the boat, his knuckles turning white.

‘What was that?’ He could hear the tension in his own voice, an echo for the fear he saw in Benbow’s eyes.

‘Shingle, my lord.’ The wildfowler would not meet his gaze. ‘Shingle banks at the mouth of the river. Happen yon yacht must have run aground.’

The pictures flashed through Lucas’s mind like a nightmare. Shingle was dangerous, far more dangerous than a sand bank, for it was unstable and could shift at any moment. The place where the river met the sea had always been treacherous. One
winter the entire shingle bank had shifted from one side of the river to the other in a storm, lying submerged barely beneath the surface like an iceberg, waiting to trap the unwary sailor.

Lucas could hear splashing through the mist, unintelligible shouts and something that sounded ominously like a scream broken off. The wind stirred again and the mist twitched aside for a brief second, showing
Breath of Scandal
lying only some hundred yards distant, canted crazily on its port bow at the mouth of the estuary, the waves already breaking on its hull.

‘Damn it, Benbow!’ Lucas exploded. ‘If we don’t get the punt over there, I shall swim.’ He was already ripping his jacket off as he spoke.

The mist swirled back and unsighted him, and immediately Lucas felt hopelessly disorientated. The anger and the frustration and the fear rushed through him in a tidal wave, but there was no time. Even as he stood poised to dive off the punt there was another growling roar, far louder than the first, that seemed to fill his ears and bounce deafeningly off the wall of mist that pressed around them. The sea swelled and boiled about them, rocking the punt so that Lucas was tipped off balance and fell over the side into the water. He went down, choking, and the cold, salty shock of the sea filled his lungs and wrapped him in its murderous embrace. It felt like hours before he surfaced and Benbow
grabbed his arm and dragged him, coughing and spluttering, into the bottom of the punt.

The wind gathered strength, ripping aside the shreds of the mist once and for all, and the pale sun fell as the full horror of
Breath of Scandal
’s plight was revealed to them. Through streaming eyes Lucas saw the yacht’s sails fill with the breeze and then the boat flipped over as easily as though it had been a toy. There was the crash of falling timbers and it lay, stern upturned, capsized in a second, too quick for Lucas even to understand what he had seen. Benbow gave a gusty sigh.

‘Seen it happen before to a lugger out of Harwich,’ he said. ‘Too quick.’ He shook his head. ‘What with the shingle shifting and the breeze filling the sails, they stood no chance.’

‘Rebecca,’ Lucas said. His lips felt stiff and his throat was sore with salt water, but it was nothing to the pain in his chest that seemed to expand and break until he felt his lungs would burst. He wanted to shout but could not get the air in. ‘Rebecca…’

Benbow was still shaking his head, one brawny hand on Lucas’s shoulder. ‘I’m rightly sorry, my lord… There was nothing we could have done.’ He gave another sigh. ‘Tragic. Nasty as they come, these accidents—’ His tone changed and Lucas felt his hand stiffen and fall away. ‘Holy saints alive,’ the wildfowler whispered.

Lucas looked up, pushing the streaming hair out of his eyes.

‘Great God and all his saints preserve us,’ Benbow said, with true reverence. ‘I never thought to see the day…’

The grey water was still breaking over the capsized hull of the yacht, but beyond it the mist was receding out to sea like a drawn curtain. It shimmered in the pale sun, floating like a cloud. It was going to be a beautiful day. For a moment Lucas stared, uncertain what it was that Benbow had seen, and then his own gaze caught the movement. Beyond the ruined yacht a small figure bobbed in the gentle swell of the waves. She was swimming strongly, but she was swimming away from the wreck towards…

Lucas’s lips formed a soundless whistle. He looked up sharply at Benbow and saw the old sailor’s eyes alight with an almost religious fervour. Out of the mist slipped the ghost ship, so slow, so gentle it seemed to move soundlessly over the water.

First the prow, the snarling dragon figurehead insolent in crimson and gold. Then the clean, clear-cut lines, the two raking masts, the white topsails catching the breeze and the sun striking on the black lettering of the name…
The Defiance
.

A rope snaked down from the side of the ship and Lucas saw Rebecca reach up, catch it, and
swing like a monkey up into the arms of the man who stood on the deck, the water running from her streaming skirts. The privateer ship turned gently into the receding mist and the sun caught its edge in a gleam of gold, and then it was gone as stealthily as it had come.

‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ Benbow said, leaning on the punt pole. He looked extremely shaken. ‘My lord…’

Lucas was silenced. He was not sure whether he wanted to laugh or perhaps to cry for the first time in his entire life. For Rebecca was surely safe, but he had no notion whether he would ever see her again. Rebecca, with her determination and her tenacity. He might have known that she would not do anything as lame as give in to kidnap and drowning.

He wrung the water from his shirt and stared in the direction that the ship had gone. Rebecca had not wanted to come to Midwinter and he had obliged her to do it and now she had escaped him, and taken all his hopes with her. He wished that they had had more time to put matters to rights between them. He wished that he had told her he loved her.

His clothes were starting to dry as the sun strengthened and turned the salt sticky on his back. He could see a yacht coming out of harbour now and tacking towards them on the freshening
breeze—the
Ariel
, with Cory Newlyn in the prow. He turned away from the open sea and set his face towards the shore. The punt rocked gently on the swell.

‘Reckon we won’t see the likes of that again,’ Benbow said.

‘Reckon we won’t,’ Lucas agreed, but he was not thinking of the ship.

‘What do we do now, m’lord?’ The wildfowler asked.

Lucas smiled ruefully. ‘We go home, Benbow. What other choice do we have?’

‘T
hank God I taught you to swim, Beck.’

Rebecca opened her eyes. The light was pale golden and was flooding in through a porthole in the stern, making water patterns on the pale panelled walls. For a moment she thought that she was asleep and dreaming, and then she remembered. She sat up with a groan. When Daniel had scooped her up onto the deck of
The Defiance
she had felt well and strong and exultant to be alive. She had hugged him tightly, asked a barrage of questions and laughed in delight as his grinning crew pressed around to shake her hand. It was mortifying that her strength had then withered swiftly and she had fainted—actually fainted—for the first time in her life.

Daniel sat down on the end of the bed and placed a tray in front of her. He looked just as she remembered him: the strong, tanned face, dark, curly hair and slashing white smile that warmed
his eyes and lessened slightly but not entirely the dangerous image that he cut.

‘You have slept for hours, Beck,’ he said, appraising her thoroughly. ‘It is good to see there is colour in your face again. Would you like some soup?’

Rebecca’s stomach gave a long rumble. Daniel laughed and pushed the wooden tray towards her. There were rolls and delicious-smelling vegetable broth. Rebecca took a few spoonfuls and gave an approving nod.

‘You do not stint yourself, Daniel.’

‘Did you think I lived in squalor, with cutlasses hanging from the ceiling?’ her brother asked plaintively. ‘I assure you we are far more civilised than that.’

‘I suppose so.’ Rebecca looked around the well-appointed cabin. There was a desk of cherrywood and two matching chairs and paintings of seascapes on the white walls. And on a low shelf the afternoon sun sparkled on a slender vase of engraved glass with the picture of an anchor and the motto
Celer et Audax
. It was a match for the one in her studio.

Suddenly his words penetrated Rebecca’s wandering thoughts and she put the spoon down with a clatter.

‘You say that I have slept for hours? Then they will think me dead—’

‘I sent a message telling them that you were safe,’ Daniel said calmly, holding on to the tilting tray. ‘Besides, Lucas Kestrel saw you come aboard the ship. He knows you are here.’

‘Lucas?’ Rebecca’s heart jumped. ‘How could he know? Did he come after me?’

‘He did,’ Daniel said. ‘In a fowling boat. Madness under such dangerous conditions, but most impressive.’

Rebecca swallowed the lump in her throat. There was a fierce ache inside her. Lucas had come after her, no matter the odds, no matter the danger. Evidently he had cared enough to try to save her. And now, no doubt, he would think her guilt proven beyond doubt when she had clambered aboard
The Defiance
. She sighed sharply, turning her face away. ‘Damn it, why do matters never turn out right?’

Daniel got up and strolled across to the porthole. ‘They may yet do so,’ he pointed out reasonably.

Rebecca applied herself to the rest of the soup with gusto.

‘I must go back,’ she said, her mouth full. ‘I cannot leave them all wondering what has become of me.’

Her brother turned to look at her. ‘I thought you would say that.’ There was something odd in his tone. ‘We need to talk first, Beck.’

Rebecca nodded and looked around. ‘My clothes…?’

‘Ruined.’ Daniel went across to the chest beneath the window. ‘There may be something here that will fit you.’

Rebecca gave him a look. ‘I shall not ask where they have come from.’

‘Best not.’ Daniel flashed her a grin. ‘I will see you on deck shortly.’

He left Rebecca to rummage through the chest and come out with a curious selection of clothes that made her feel like a refugee from a Drury Lane theatre. There was a full green skirt with voluminous petticoats, a tight black jacket and a huge lace shawl. Grimacing, Rebecca scrambled into the outfit, cast one quick glance at the mirror on the bulkhead, pulled a face and went out.

The fresh air hit her as she went up the companionway and out on to the deck.
The Defiance
was not a small ship as schooners went, but it was exceptionally trim. The paintwork was fresh and the decks scrubbed like a warship. Daniel was in the bow, chatting to one of his crew. He turned when the man touched his arm and nodded towards Rebecca, and gave her another flashing grin, coming down the steps to meet her and draw her into the shelter of the wheelhouse. The sun was starting to set now, laying a trail of gold across the pale
sea. From somewhere about the ship came the smell of roasting chicken.

‘You look better than I had expected,’ Daniel said, holding her at arm’s length and nodding approvingly. ‘It is good to know that Molly’s clothes, if not Molly herself, have come in useful in the end.’

‘What happened to Molly?’ Rebecca asked lightly.

Her brother shrugged. ‘She left me. She said that she had thought life on ship would be exciting but it was no more than one bout of seasickness after another. She asked to be put ashore in Ireland. I hear that she runs a waterside tavern there now.’

‘I see,’ Rebecca said, fascinated by this insight into her brother’s personal life. ‘Well, I am grateful for the loan of her wardrobe.’

‘We are prevaricating,’ Daniel said, with a slight smile.

‘So, where do we start?’ Rebecca asked.

Daniel laughed. ‘At the beginning?’

They talked as the sun went down in a trail of red and gold and the coastline of Suffolk shifted in the haze on the horizon. They spoke of old times and home and family, of Rebecca’s life in London, the engraving studio and her work. At some point the lantern in the wheelhouse was lit and someone came to bring them ale and fried chicken, but no one interrupted their conversation. Rebecca told
Daniel, as she had told no one before, of her fears of not being able to work again, and the loneliness that had stalked her through the long months following the deaths of their aunt and uncle. Daniel nodded, his face grave and still in the falling twilight.

‘So how comes it that you are here in Suffolk?’ he asked, ‘and guest of the Duke of Kestrel, no less?’

Rebecca hesitated, but she knew that there could be no further concealment. She told him of Lucas coming to Clerkenwell to look for the Midwinter engraver and how he had persuaded her to accompany him back to Midwinter so that she could help unmask the spy once and for all.

‘Did you know that I was here?’ she asked.

Daniel smiled. ‘Oh, yes. I hear—and see—many things, Beck. Everyone was talking of the Duke of Kestrel’s supposed cousin, Miss Rebecca Raleigh, and the fact that Lord Lucas Kestrel was mad in love with her.’

Rebecca blushed. ‘That was merely part of the plan to hide my true reason for being here.’

‘Was it?’ Daniel’s dark blue gaze was searching. He tossed aside a chicken wing and reached for another. ‘Perhaps we may return to that, Beck.’

Rebecca was not certain she wanted to talk about Lucas. She wrapped the voluminous shawl more closely about her for the evening breeze was
strengthening. ‘How did you know that I was on Norton’s yacht?’ she asked, trying to turn the subject.

Daniel laughed. ‘I did not. I did not come to rescue you, Beck, much as I would like to take credit. I knew that Norton intended to take
Breath of Scandal
out today and I was waiting for him.’

Rebecca stared. ‘You knew… Did you know he was the spy?’

‘I knew that he and Lily Benedict between them had been involved in a conspiracy. I even heard rumours of a third who was their ally, but I never knew his name.’

‘Sir Edgar Benedict,’ Rebecca said. ‘We were all misled by the tale of the housebound invalid.’

Daniel whistled. ‘Cunning. A man who could come and go as he pleased behind the cover of his illness.’

‘Then you were not…’ Rebecca hesitated ‘…you were not their contact?’

‘Certainly not.’ Daniel sounded amused, to her relief. ‘I may be a smuggler, Beck, but I am no traitor. Norton worked with a French privateer. I almost caught the Frenchman once,’ Daniel added wistfully. ‘That would have put an end to their games much sooner, but unfortunately his Majesty’s Navy intervened and I had to run for my life. And then they merely took the privateer’s
cargo and allowed him to escape, the incompetent idiots.’

‘It seems a shame,’ Rebecca said softly, ‘that you are outside the law when you do so much that is good…’

Daniel gave her a sharp look. ‘What do you mean by that?’

Rebecca shifted a little. ‘Why, merely that there are stories about you too, Daniel. Many and many a story, of how you harry the French and save those who wish to escape Bonaparte’s tyranny.’

Daniel drained his tankard. ‘Steady, Rebecca.’ His tone was dry. ‘Next you will be telling me that I take from the rich to give to the poor.’

‘Don’t you?’

‘Not at all.’ Daniel’s smile was twisted. ‘I discovered early on that I have an aptitude for this way of life and I make a good living from it. If in the course of my work I discover certain information that might be useful to the British government I might pass it on to them by my own means. If I can help anyone fleeing Bonaparte, then I shall try to do so. It is as simple as that.’

Rebecca let it go. She knew that her brother had his own code of honour and one of his principles was that he would never tell her more than she needed to know, in the same way that she would never contact him and draw him into danger. It
was an unspoken agreement between them and she would not contravene it now.

‘Which brings us rather neatly back to you, Beck,’ Daniel added. ‘Tell me about Lord Lucas Kestrel.’

‘You mean the pretence of a love affair?’ Rebecca said.

‘No, I mean the genuine article.’ Daniel got to his feet and took a few paces away, leaning on the deck rail. ‘When Tovey brought you the money that night in London he saw more than he expected,’ he said, over his shoulder. His voice was moody. ‘Lucas Kestrel stayed with you all night, Beck, yet you say there is nothing between you. I hope you are lying.’

Rebecca stared at him. So this was what Daniel had meant when he said that they had to talk. She felt a shot of anger. ‘You choose a fine time to play the protective elder brother, Daniel! What is it to you?’

Daniel turned back for the rail, repressed violence in the lines of his body. ‘What do you think it is to me? I am only too aware that I have failed utterly in my responsibility to protect you, Rebecca. Oh, whilst Uncle Provost was alive I could square my conscience and think that you were safe. A letter here, a little money there—’ He broke off and turned away. ‘It was never enough, I knew that, but it had to do. And then you were
left all alone and I did not even hear of it for months, and then Tovey came and said there was some nobleman prowling around and that you had become his mistress! It was what I had always feared for you.’

Rebecca got up and came across the rail. She put a hand on his arm. The wind was cold, carrying spindrift in its wake. ‘It was never like that with Lucas,’ she said, knowing she had to tell the truth to sooth her brother’s conscience. ‘I love him.’

Daniel did not seem soothed. She could feel the tension in his body. His face was set. ‘That is even worse, if he is only playing games with you.’

‘He is not. He wished to marry me.’

There was a moment of silence and then Daniel gave a short laugh. ‘Now I’ll admit you have surprised me. So he wished to marry you before, but he no longer does? What happened?’

‘He found out about you,’ Rebecca said.

‘I see.’ Daniel was silent for a moment. ‘You had not told him.’

‘No.’

‘Because you were protecting me.’

‘Yes. It is a habit of mine.’

Daniel gave an angry sigh. ‘And now he does not want to marry an outlaw’s sister?’

‘It is not that.’ Rebecca hesitated. ‘Lucas and I have both kept many secrets from the other. We
did what we thought was best, but in the end we hurt each other too much. There is no going back.’

Daniel leant his chin on his hand. ‘Could you not resolve these matters once and for all?’

‘I do not know,’ Rebecca said honestly. ‘There are many reasons why I should not marry Lucas Kestrel.’

‘You say you love him,’ Daniel pointed out, ‘so give me one good reason.’

Rebecca made a slight gesture. ‘My whole life has been wrapped up in my engraving, Daniel. I do not wish to give it up and I certainly could not continue to work were I to become Lady Rebecca Kestrel.’

Daniel shifted slightly. ‘You told me that your work would decline anyway, because of this damage to your wrist,’ he pointed out. ‘That is something you are going to have to come to terms with, Beck, sooner or later. You are fortunate in that you now have another alternative in life.’

‘I do not wish to think of Lucas as an alternative to starvation!’ Rebecca protested.

‘Then think of him as a man who loves you.’

‘That is precisely the point!’ Rebecca leant on the rail and took a deep breath of sea-scented night air. ‘Lucas does not love me. He wishes to marry because he wants me and because he and I …we—’ Rebecca broke off.

‘We’ll take that as read,’ Daniel said, a smile lightening the grimness of his tone. ‘It sounds as though he has at least acted as a gentleman should.’

‘Oh, do not be so stuffy!’ Rebecca said spiritedly. ‘I refuse to marry because of Lucas’s misplaced chivalry and sense of honour.’

‘Then you are a fool,’ Daniel said bluntly. ‘You are in love with the man. You said so yourself. He wishes to marry you. He may to all intents and purposes be desperately in love with you, Beck, and simply not very adept at showing it.’ Daniel shrugged self-deprecatingly. ‘Not all men are adroit with such feelings. Certainly—’ a hint of dryness entered his tone ‘—Lucas Kestrel has been doing a good enough job of
playing
a man deeply in love, if all I hear is true.’

Rebecca was silent. With all her heart she wanted to believe Daniel’s words. She wanted to think that it would not be a compromise match, born out of gallantry and need. That was a great deal, but it was not enough for her. She loved Lucas and she wanted him to love her too. Abandoning her engraving was a different matter and one that she would have to learn to accept. She realised that now. Her whole world was changing, but she should not hide behind her loss and use it as an excuse to refuse Lucas.