The Wayward One (The De Montforte Brothers Book 5) (11 page)

“Larry,” said the portly gentleman who looked up at him from behind a massive desk. “Do sit down.”

“I’d prefer to stand, sir.”

“Sit down, damn your eyes, and make haste about it.”

Rear-Admiral Lawrence Hadley the Third was in his mid-sixties and the effects of drink—florid cheeks, heavy jowls, a nose gone bulbous and red over a mouth stretched tight with pain—were showing. This morning he had an overall jaundiced look about him beneath his carefully powdered and curled wig which meant, quite likely, that whatever reason he’d summoned his son wasn’t a particularly good one.

The older man shuffled through some papers while Hadley dragged up a chair. He knew that his esteemed sire wasn’t demanding him to take a seat just to put him at ease. Oh, no. the miserable old bugger had injured his neck in a fall aboard his flagship five years past, and the rheumatism was setting in. It painted him to look up at anyone standing, and the drink he sought to dull the constant ache in his neck and shoulders was doing him no favors, though his mind was as sharp and bilious as ever.

Lawrence the younger took a seat, feeling his starched waistcoat all but cracking as he did.

“Hello, Father.”

“No time for formalities, Larry, no time.” The old man shoved a sheet of vellum across the desk at him. “We have a problem.”

“A problem?”

“His Grace the Duke of Blackheath brought this to us earlier. It’s a note his family received this morning. Read it, please.”

The younger man’s eyes, steady and showing no emotion, flicked up once to his father’s before he reached out and took the paper. As he read it, his cheeks flushed in outrage.

“What utter
rubbish
is this?” he howled, his cultured polish momentarily forgotten as he lunged to his feet. “Continental
Navy
? What navy? Damn their eyes! America remains part of Britain, and any ‘navy’ they proclaim to have is nothing but a pack of treasonous rebels with necks just itching for the noose.” He shoved the vellum back across the desk. “I’ll give them the damned noose, starting with
this
rogue!”

“Sit down, Larry. When you have composed yourself, we will talk.”

Larry sat, eyes blazing.

“This is not only an embarrassment, it is a matter of international importance,” his father continued. “Obviously, an explosive such as the one Lord Andrew de Montforte has developed cannot end up in the wrong hands, and it certainly cannot end up in the hands of the Americans or God help us, the French. We need this traitor found and brought to heel.
Immediately.
” He lowered his head, looking up at his son in a way that was meant to convey the gravity of the situation. “The military repercussions aside, I trust you understand the other
sensitivity
of the matter…ladies, especially the sisters of dukes, have reputations and all that.”

Reputations that would be blown as sky-high as anything her brother’s explosive could destroy should anyone find out she was being held captive by some American pirate who would have wasted no time debauching her, Hadley thought sourly. He didn’t even know the lady but he had sisters, and the idea of something like this happening to them made him see red.

“First John Paul Jones, and now this one. Is there any end to the audacity of these rebels?”

“Apparently not.”

“Someone needs to put an end to this.”

“
You
will put an end to it, Larry. You manage to bring Lady Nerissa home safe and sound and exterminate this vermin in the bargain, ’twill all but guarantee you both promotion and the word “Sir” in front of your name. His Grace is close to the King. You save his sister, George will knight you.”

….And maybe the duke will give me his sister’s hand as a token of his own appreciation,
Larry mused, always one to open the door when opportunity came knocking.

His father was shaking his head. “Of all people in England to abduct, this arrogant rascal had to choose the Duke of Blackheath’s sister. The Duke of
Blackheath
? My God! There’s not a man in England I’d be less inclined to want as an enemy. Lord Sandwich himself came to me with this letter, and I don’t often see him, the First Lord of the Admiralty, looking nervous, but he was as white as the hair of my wig, and y’know why, Larry? Because he’s thinking he doesn’t want Blackheath as an enemy, either.” He reached under his desk, opened a drawer, and slammed a half-consumed bottle of gin onto the desk, then went back to rooting for a glass. “I am assigning you the frigate
Happenstance
. She’s here in London, already fitted out for another mission which isn’t one iota as important as this one, and fully manned. You’ll need a swift, well-armed ship that’ll be more than a match for anything the Frogs might send against you in case they decide to shelter or protect this scoundrel. Bring the explosive and make the exchange. And bring back not only the lady, but the rascal who abducted her as well, preferably with his head on the end of a pike.” The thin mouth tightened as he looked up through the knobs of flesh that supported his graying eyebrows, pinning his son with a look of intent. “Is that understood?”

Larry got to his feet and snapped off a salute. “Consider it done,” he said, thinking how nice “Sir Lawrence” sounded, and turning on his heel, swiftly exited the office.

There was not a moment to lose.

* * *

Nerissa’s fears about where Captain O’ Devir would spend the night had been unfounded.

After the poor seaman had fallen from the rigging yesterday and been brought below, she had felt overwhelmed by both her situation, the lingering effects of her fall, and the near-horror of what she had just witnessed. Though the protection of Captain O’ Devir was dubious, that of his crew was even more so and when, after a quarter hour had passed and he still hadn’t returned, she had retreated to the cabin and spent the rest of the afternoon napping in his cot. Night had fallen. A boy had come in to light a lantern and bring her a tray with something on it that might have been food, and she had been left alone once more.

And now it was morning. Her second one here.

Maybe, just maybe, that Irish rogue was just a little bit honorable, after all. He could have come into the cabin and had his way with her last night. But he had not.

She had spent the night alone.

She felt an unwelcome softening toward him. Far better to loathe him. To consider him the monster she wanted to believe him to be, even though reason and the soothing glow of daylight told her that no monster would have risked his life to save a drowning seaman, and no monster would have left her untouched while she was alone and vulnerable in his cabin.

But one couldn’t stay in a cabin forever.

And she was hungry.

Her stomach growling, Nerissa tried the door to the cabin and found it unlocked. It opened onto the deck and hesitantly, she stepped out into the sunshine.

Salt-laced wind, the plunging up-and-down of the ship, the hiss of spray against the bows, the taste of it in the air. It was a glorious morning and she felt good, very good, to be alive. She saw a group of rough-looking, pigtailed seamen leaning backwards on a line that led aloft, bracing a sail under the watchful eye of Lieutenant Morgan. A few others sat in the shadow of the foremast some distance away, mending a sail. They grinned and elbowed each other at her appearance, making no secret of the fact that they found her presence here amusing at best and an imposition at worst. Captain O’ Devir was nowhere to be seen, and she wasn’t sure if that was a blessing or not.

She looked around her, wondering what to do with herself. She could watch the crew go about their various collective and individual duties, but she did not want to get in the way of the running of the ship; it would be best to just watch from a distance. But where? She made her way to some shade created by one of the great square sails above and looked about for a place to sit, her balance unsteady as the ship rose and fell in great rolling motions beneath her. Someone was approaching; it was the young, ginger-haired midshipman, bobbing like a schoolboy and reddening beneath a sea of freckles and a tan that was more burn than brown. He had an earnest, smiling face made slightly comical by the slight crookedness an upper front tooth, and was garbed in a scaled-down version of Captain O’ Devir’s blue-and-white uniform, its sleeves too short and the seams stretched at the shoulders; obviously, the youngster had already outgrown it since someone, presumably far across the blue, blue Atlantic, had made it for him.

“Midshipman Cranton, my lady.” He attempted a bow, probably the clumsiest she had ever received, but endearing in its sincerity. She returned his attempt at gallantry with a smile. “The captain asked me to see if you needed anything. Come with me, and I’ll find you something to sit on.”

“Thank you,” she said simply, and accepted his elbow. As they began to walk, she was aware of the crew pausing in their tasks and staring, one or two elbowing each other and smirking. Were women that scarce aboard ships that her very presence attracted such attention?

“Pay them no mind, Your Ladyship,” the young officer said beside her. “Most of these tars have never seen a real lady before, let alone one as—I beg your pardon—as pretty as you.”

Now her escort was blushing. He was just a boy pretending to be a man, trying to live up to the uniform he wore with such pride. She knew that pretense, she knew that pride; after all, she had four brothers. As for the crew, she didn’t know whether to give them a haughty glare above a loftily carried chin, avoid their stares, or smile to acknowledge their interest in the hopes they’d then find something else to look at. She had little experience with such rough, common folk in general and sailors in particular.

Another thing from which her brothers had sheltered her all of her life—rubbing elbows with the great unwashed, the teeming multitudes that made this dirty, chaotic, rough-and-tumble world beyond the pristine walls that contained and protected her own existence, run.

Midshipman Cranton escorted her to a nearby deckhouse. “Sorry, my lady. Being a warship and all, we don’t exactly have chairs on deck, but if you sit here, and hold onto this here rope if you feel a bit unsteady, you’ll be safe, secure, and in the shade.”

“Thank you.”

“Would you like me to fetch you a hat? We don’t have anything fancy, but I’m sure I can find something to keep the sun off your face.”

“You are very kind, Mr. Cranton.”

Having seated her he retreated a step, smiling and clutching his hands behind his back, obviously uncomfortable but blushing a bit beneath the praise. “I was raised right, my lady. My ma taught me manners and just because I’m on a ship doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten them. I know you probably think we Americans are a low and awful sort, but we’re not.”

She smiled, despite herself. “Actually, my more uncharitable thoughts are directed toward a certain Irishman aboard this ship, not the Americans.” She looked ruefully down at her skirts, the expensive blue-green silk now wrinkled and stained by the spray of foam and seawater, her fine shoes wet and ruined. “Three of my sisters-in-law are American.”

“And my ma, she was English. Devonshire lass, she was. Worked for a high lady there before she married a sailor and off they went to Philadelphia.” He shrugged, not knowing what else to say. “I guess we’re all in this together, aren’t we?”

She smiled, for he was trying his best to put her at ease and it would be nice to have a friend here even if her stay was likely to be a short one.

“Some, not by their own choosing,” she allowed, with a sigh.

“I’ll fetch you that hat now, my lady,” he said, and strode hurriedly off, leaving her alone once more.

Ignoring the curious stares of the men around her, she looked past the stout, varnished wood of the mainmast and off over the starboard bows. She had never been aboard a ship before, and the experience was actually proving to be quite novel, even rather exciting, now that she was increasingly confident that her captor meant her no harm. The twin rows of guns on either side of the vessel only emphasized the fact that Captain O’ Devir wasn’t playing at being in a navy, and punctuated the reality that he would do what he must to accomplish his objectives. She bit her lip. Best not to think about how he would bring them about.

An image of him walking away after rescuing the sailor yesterday rose in her mind, of how his wet, dripping clothes had emphasized the hard lines and muscles of his back, his thighs. Of how he had looked up as though he knew just what she was thinking, and winked at her.

She blushed. Best not to think about Captain O’ Devir, either….

Instead, she gazed off across the dark blue water, ruffled by foam and whitecaps like the lace on a lady’s gown and saw, far off in the distance, a coastline that looked almost purple in the haze. France, she imagined. Soon enough, a Royal Navy vessel would fill the horizon and blast Ruaidri O’ Devir and his ship of misguided Yankees to Kingdom Come. Soon enough, she would be returned to her family, and Lucien would hastily marry her off to not only save her reputation from the damage this shocking event will have caused but because, in his mind, enough would be enough.

Lucien.

Marriage.

And to someone of his choosing, not hers. Someone who could never be Perry. Someone to whom she would dutifully provide an heir to preserve a bloodline as old or noble as her own, someone to share—if she was fortunate, as most aristocratic matches were ones of lonely separateness once the heir was produced—a life of constant parties, fashion,
ton
gossip, and cultured domesticity. She was a female. Her dowry would be huge, and though she knew Lucien would never saddle her to someone completely objectionable, he would be all the more determined to see her married after the shocking scandal of her abduction.