ALISON DELAINE lives in rural Arizona, where she can often be found driving a dented old pickup truck out to her mining claim in the desert. When she’s not busy striking it rich, waiting on spoiled pets, or keeping her husband in line, she is happily putting characters through the wringer. Visit her online at her website, www.AlisonDeLaine.com.

For my husband, Tom.

I love you.

Contents

Cover

Praise

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

CHAPTER FORTY

Endpage

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

East of the Strait of Gibraltar

April 1767

A WAVE SWELLED and broke over his head, and for a moment Captain James Warre couldn’t breathe. His fingers dug into the wet wood beneath him, but there was nothing to grasp. The churning water choked him, nudged him, smothered him.

With a massive effort he shifted to his side, then let his head fall in a fit of coughing. The seawater left his mouth brackish and dry. Closing his eyes, he let himself slip away.

“Lavender’s blue, dilly dilly, lavender’s green.” Nap time, young Master Warre, and I’ll hear no more of your sorry excuses.

Nap time. The sun shone warm on his back as he pitched and bobbed with the chop.

Then suddenly, a shadow.

There was a bump, a scrape. Wood met wood, jarring him. His eyes flew open as he braced for a cannon’s roar. Fluttered closed again when it didn’t come.

A female voice drifted to his ears. “...alive, do you think?”

The soft, lilting sound wrapped around him like a melody.

Bump, bump, bump.

“...bloody well dead, or close enough.” A male voice now.

Bump, bump, scrape.

“...haul him up?” Female again.

Bump, bump— He opened his eyes and stared straight at the wet hull of a ship. Another wave engulfed him and left him gasping, straining to see the deck in a moment of clarity. He hadn’t the strength. His gaze swept the ragged length of the raft keeping him afloat— No, not raft. Broken decking. A memory threatened to pull him under, but he fought for lucidity and kept his gaze moving, turning, sweeping upward. She was a brig.

“...any manner of disease. We cannot afford the risk.” Through a haze he recognized the words as English. But then a string of shouted words, this time unintelligible—but not unrecognizable.

English and Moorish together, on a Mediterranean brig.

Renegades. They would not look kindly on the captain of a British ship of the line.

The muffled snap of cloth in the breeze kept him fighting to see the stern. If he could just see her colors... The curving hull blocked his view of all but a bright red corner wafting in the wind.

He fixed his eye on that corner, waiting, clawing against an invisible undertow.

Nap time, young Master Warre—

No! He had to see that flag.

A wave broke over him. His mouth filled with seawater and he gagged, choking and sputtering again as he re-fixed his gaze. Finally, a gust whipped the greater part of the flag into view.

A slender, yellow arm stretched out against the red background, its fist curled around a black cutlass.

Bloody living hell.

He didn’t need to see the rest of the flag to know that shapely arm was attached to a woman’s shoulder and breast. He let his head drop against the wet wood.

“Lavender’s blue, dilly dilly...”

Bump, bump, bump.

The next wave swept him from consciousness.

CHAPTER TWO

IT WAS A pathetic sight—every bit as pathetic as the day they’d fished Mr. Bogles out of the harbor at Malta, but Mr. Bogles was a cat. A man offered none of the same benefits, yet presented dozens of dangerous possibilities. Captain Katherine Kinloch forced herself away from the railing.

“He could have any manner of disease,” she said flatly. “We cannot afford the risk.”

“Aye, Captain.” Her Algerian boatswain headed toward the fore, shouting a reprimand to three deckhands gawking over the side. Even bathed in the Mediterranean sunshine, she shivered.

Lower the net! The order strained on her tongue, but she clenched her teeth and lifted her spyglass toward the strait. Nobody aboard would have survived if she’d let herself succumb to emotion each time the winds blew contrary.

“Terrible way to die,” her first mate commented, looking down at the water from where he lounged against the railing. His tone delivered reproof the way syrup carried a tincture.

“Every way to die is terrible, William.” The words were cold. Awful. She felt a little sick. “I doubt we could do anything but make his last moments an agony by dragging him up.”

“Suppose he’s perfectly healthy? Just dying of thirst?”

“Suppose he carries the plague?” she snapped. One deck below her feet, Anne was happily teaching Mr. Bogles to string beads. Some dangers to Anne were unavoidable, but this one wasn’t.

A tremble made the horizon dance in her field of view, and she steadied her grip. As soon as they passed through the strait, she would be in unfamiliar waters, sailing with a skeleton crew toward a homeland she hadn’t seen in over ten years. Doubts about that decision already kept her pacing the decks during others’ midnight watches—this was no time for more potential folly. Damn Cousin Holliswell and his greed, and double-bloody-damn Nicholas Warre for helping him. But then, Warre men could be counted on to be merciless.

An inky length of her hair flew over the spyglass, and she snatched it away. “For all we know,” she added, “he is a Tunisian corsair.”

“Or a subject of the king,” William countered conversationally. And then he added, “I don’t recall you having so many qualms when we took Phil and Indy aboard.”

“Of course not. And you know the reason.”

He leaned over the rail and called down to the near lifeless form below. “If you’ve got breasts, old boy, now’s the time to show ’em.”

“Enough!” She lowered the spyglass. William’s blond beard glinted pure gold in the sun, the exact shade of the hoops gleaming from both ears beneath his scarlet turban. His loose white tunic fluttered in the breeze above black linen trousers and bare feet. “I should have thrown you over years ago. Your sense of humor leaves much to be desired.”

He raised a brow. “As does yours. It has disappeared entirely, along with your compassion.”

The accusation struck hard. “That is entirely unfair. We know nothing of him,” she said. “Not his nationality, his occupation, his loyalties, his morality—”

“Irrelevant.”

“—nor his history. All of which is relevant with so few of us left on board.” She caught her boatswain’s eye from the lower deck. For God’s sake, she could barely trust her own men. She raised her chin at Rafik and stared him down until he looked away.

Familiar tension coiled in her gut, screaming that there was no room for error. No room for any but the most calculated risk. “I’ll not be made to feel guilty for mitigating danger,” she added. But guilt crept in anyhow, and not only about the unfortunate in the water. This voyage was the biggest risk yet. If it turned out to be a mistake, Anne would be the one to suffer most.

She felt William staring at her. “It’s not too late to turn back,” he said quietly.

“Bite your tongue.”

The sound of angry footsteps on the stairs warned of Millicent, who stepped onto the upper deck with her expression locked in the glower she had adopted the moment they’d sailed for Britain. With her slender body enshrouded in a shirt and breeches, her hair pulled severely beneath a misshapen hat and her conventional features, Millicent passed for a young man to those who weren’t looking closely. “Philomena is beside herself,” she announced, “and India is ready to go over the side. This isn’t sitting well with the crew.” She awaited Katherine’s reply with lips thinned.

“We’ll be underway as soon as the tide turns,” Katherine told her.

“And leave him to his fate?” Disbelief raised the pitch in Millicent’s voice.

“Katherine Kidd,” William quipped, pushing away from the railing. “I shall go see what I can do to quell the riot.”

Katherine looked over the rail, hoping for confirmation that it was too late and there was nothing they could do. As she watched, a wave rolled over the man below. One of his hands moved, reaching, then stilled. Devil take it, watching him die was intolerable.

She thrust her spyglass toward Millicent. “Come here. Look at him. Is there any sign of disease?”

Millicent, the eldest daughter of a country physician and an excellent surgeon in her own right, pointed the instrument downward. “There are no sores on his face that I can see,” she said after a moment, “but it’s difficult to tell with several days’ growth of whiskers. I don’t see any jaundice. I see nothing on his hand except raw skin.” After another moment, she returned the spyglass. “Assuming he was clean-shaven before disaster struck, he’s been adrift at least three days. It is very unlikely he would have survived this long if he also had a sickness. I can’t be sure, of course. Not without examining him. But I believe he’s as safe as any to bring aboard.”

Safe was patently the wrong word. Reason advised that one man could pose little threat, but experience warned otherwise. Katherine stared down at him. A shipwreck survivor? They’d seen no evidence, and the weather had been clear except for some high clouds. A Barbary captive attempting escape? The possibility stirred a sympathetic rage inside her.

“I don’t speak lightly, Captain,” Millicent added stiffly. “I would never endanger this crew, or Anne.”

“I haven’t the least suspicion that you would.” Another swell covered the motionless form on the raft. On the main deck, so many hands had gathered at the rail it was a wonder the ship did not list to starboard. Young, impulsive India gestured wildly to William. Philomena—never one to turn a blind eye toward any man—looked up at Katherine as though to say, “Well?”

The tension in her gut coiled so tightly she wanted to vomit. The uproar from the main deck buzzed in her ears as precious, lifesaving moments ticked away. Some mistakes should be easy to avoid. If she acquiesced, and he turned out to be the danger she feared...

Yet if she left him to die...

“Very well.” The words tumbled out, ejected by the sick pit in her stomach. “Haul him up. If there is any sign of disease, any sign at all—” But Millicent had already spun away, practically flying down the steps to relay the order.

Katherine Kidd, indeed. She inhaled deeply and tried to still her trembling hands. Already her stomach eased, but it shouldn’t have. Even if the man was healthy, he could bring trouble.

If he did, he would spend the voyage in chains.

Alone on the upper deck, she held the spyglass to her eye and carefully focused it downward. A striking face came into view, close as breath in the lens. Her belly quickened in a sudden, visceral reaction. The man’s complexion must have been swarthy before, but now a pallor made him seem ghostly. A strong, perfectly sculpted nose extended from an angular face with sharp cheekbones. Wet, black lashes lay against the hollows beneath his eyes. His jaw hung slack, dusted by a thick stubble of whiskers that nearly hid a dark slant of mustache above firm, lifeless lips. Water plastered his hair to his head in careless black waves streaked with silver.

For a long, hypnotic moment the world contained only him.

And then the ship rolled with a wave, tearing him from her view. She inhaled sharply and lowered the glass. Surely it was too late. His large hands lay motionless against the boards that supported him. She hadn’t seen any movement through the glass.

Rafik’s staccato shouts barked up from below while the crew threw the nets over the side and clambered down. She held her breath as several crew members tried to lift the man off his raft but only succeeded in nearly capsizing it. They shouted for a boom, and soon the crew on deck fashioned a sling and lowered it down. Within minutes they hauled the man’s listless, sodden form into the air.

Quickly she made her way to the quarterdeck and then to the main, just as they brought him aboard. Crew members crowded in around the rescuers. “Give them room!” she ordered, and they backed off instantly. “Is he alive?”

“He was half an hour ago,” India said insolently, brushing past her to help remove the sling. Her blond braid hung like a rope over one shoulder as she deftly undid the hooks. Rafik hacked away the man’s white shirt and tan breeches, while two deckhands doused him with fresh water from the mop buckets. Now the orders came from Millicent, who forced everyone away except those who helped wash him.

“Phil went to find some toweling,” William said, moving in beside Katherine.

After a moment Millicent called over her shoulder. “He lives!”

Katherine exhaled.

The man lay naked and facedown on the deck as they continued to douse him until Millicent was satisfied that no salt remained. Phil returned with two lengths of linen and crouched by his side. His legs were long. Muscular. Katherine slid her gaze past solid buttocks to the broad expanse of his back and shoulders.

“A fine form of a man,” Phil purred, drying him carefully.

India snorted and snatched one of the towels from her hand. “Auntie Phil, he’s in his dotage!”

Phil laughed at her niece. “In your eyes, any man over twenty-five is in his dotage.”

“Exactly so.” Eighteen-year-old India smiled wickedly from beneath her tricorne hat.

Millicent rolled the man over, revealing a sprinkle of dark hair on his chest, a rippled stomach and—

Katherine looked away, straight into William’s laughing eyes. “I’ll wager you side with Phil this time,” he said.

“He will need clothes,” she snapped. “Something of yours will do.”

William leaned in, lowering his voice to a mock-whisper. “Are you sure? Because I rather had the impression you might prefer him without.”

“Devil take you. You’re as bad as Phil.”

“I heard that,” Phil called. “And I resent it deeply.”

But Phil had been right about one thing. The man was definitely not in his dotage. The ordeal may have nearly killed him, but he looked strong, and he was large. Commanding. “I don’t want him in the infirmary,” she told William under her breath. “Too close to the crew. We can clear out André’s cabin and put him there, but in the meantime—” she hesitated “—put him in mine.”

As expected, William’s brow ticked upward.

“One word, and you’ll meet the end of my cutlass,” she bit out, but the threat had no effect on William’s amusement. “As soon as he’s been seen to, everyone will resume their duties or punishment will be meted out.”

“Captain Cat-o’-nine-tails.”

“If behavior warrants.” But they both knew she owned no instruments of torture. It was far more effective to offer good food, high pay and commendations for good behavior. “Fortune has smiled on him today,” she said, a bit too sharply. “We shall see if that changes once he is awake.” She looked once more at the newest person for whom she was responsible. The man was handsome—too handsome, with features that bordered on aristocratic and a stubborn, angular jaw.

“We could use another man on the crew,” Phil pointed out.

“True enough,” William agreed. “But then, we’ve no idea whether he knows his cock from a bowsprit.”

In that same moment, the man’s eyes fluttered open. He looked up, straight at Katherine, piercing her with depths as green as a backlit Mediterranean wave. Something hot and liquid and unexpected shot through her, and a shiver feathered her spine.

He knew the difference. She’d wager the entire year’s take on it.

CHAPTER THREE

JAMES WRITHED RESTLESSLY beneath cool linens.

He was drowning—dragged beneath black water, sucked into frigid numbness. Wood splintered. Cracked. A timber shot from the water, and he made a desperate lunge. Grabbed hold.

Wood turned to flesh beneath his hands. Cold became hot. Water became woman. The curling waves unraveled, tumbling, becoming hair like black walnut silk in his hands. Her body wrapped around him. Engulfed him. He gasped, tasting the wild sea on her skin.

From somewhere far away, sultry voices pierced his dream. “...and have you try to bed him while he’s yet unconscious? Absolutely not.”

“You offend me grievously, Katherine. I’m quite through with affairs. Tedious things. Besides, he could be anyone.”

The voices threatened to tear him away. He strained to keep the woman alive, wanting. Needing. But she began to fade, slipping away.

The voices broke through, stronger now. “For the moment, Philomena, he is our captive.”

“Honestly, he hardly warrants such status.” A door closed. Footsteps tapped against wood. He awoke as if fighting the churning sea.

“Nor does he warrant any other. Help me put this shirt on him before he awakes.”

He opened his eyes to a sky-blue ceiling edged with gold scrollwork. His gaze swept over an ornate dressing table with an oblong looking glass, two armchairs upholstered in sapphire velvet, a chest of drawers inlaid with mother-of-pearl. He turned his head.

A woman stood by the bed with a maroon tunic in her hands. Silken walnut waves fell to her hips from beneath a length of ochre cloth tied around her head in a makeshift turban shot through with shimmering threads. High cheekbones. Straight, finely sculpted nose. Statuesque profile, silhouetted perfectly by the light from a small bank of windows he recognized as belonging to a ship.

He was on board a vessel. In the captain’s cabin.

“Katherine. Look.”

Her face snapped toward him. His gaze locked with glittering topaz eyes, and his pulse leaped. He struggled to think. To remember. He tried to lick his lips, but his mouth was powder dry.

Someone else pushed in next to him—another beauty, this one with sable curls and wide, blue eyes. He felt a hand beneath his head, lifting, and a glass against his lips. Cool water slid over his tongue and he tried to gulp, but the blasted woman pulled the glass away.

“Not so quickly,” she purred, and the glass returned. “Careful, now. Just a bit.”

He sipped, then sipped again before she pulled the glass away.

“More.” His voice croaked. The vessel rolled and creaked, lolling with the waves. And suddenly, he remembered. A storm. A wreck. Days upon days adrift at sea.

A red flag with a yellow arm.

“You speak English,” the bewitching one said. He watched her mouth move, could taste those sumptuous lips as if she’d been the woman in his dream.

“Aye.” He tore his gaze away, only to have it veer to her breasts, covered only in the richly colored hues of Ottoman textiles draping her body. A blue jacket threaded with silver hung past her hips over a knee-length chemise, covering lighter blue, flowing trousers. A red sash tied around her waist held a gleaming cutlass.

The image of her flesh burned in his mind as sure as if she’d laid herself bare.

“You are a subject of the Crown?” she demanded.

“Aye.” Beneath the covers, the idiot between his legs pulsed against soft linen, stubbornly holding on to the dream. He was naked. And chained, he realized when he tried to reach for the glass. Heavy links clanked against the bed, and iron cuffs banded his wrists. “Is this necessary?” he rasped.

“I want to know who you are,” she said. “Your name. Where you’re from. Were you aboard a ship?”

“Let him drink again,” the other one said, offering the glass once more. She eyed him curiously as he sipped. “There will be broth coming, and when you’re ready, some bread to sop it with.”

The news made his stomach rumble. If the prospect of such a meager meal piqued his hunger, no doubt he’d been adrift a very long time. Already the idea of food began to tame the desire that gripped him.

His name. His origin. Of course. His mind churned as if racing through mud, reaching for a false identity. “Thomas Barclay.” The lie fell roughly across his tongue. “I was aboard the man-o’-war Henry’s Cross. Went down—” he swallowed, his mouth already dry again “—northwest of Gibraltar. Near Cadiz.” That last, at least, was true.

“When?”

“April 10.”

“Four days ago,” she said to her companion. “The current must have pulled him through the strait.”

“Where are we?” he managed.

“Anchored east of Gibraltar, awaiting conditions for passage west through the strait. You are aboard the brig Possession, and I am—”

“Corsair Kate.” The irony of the situation snuck through the mental fog. Three years of quietly subverting orders to put an end to what the admirals considered her questionable seafaring activities, and now here he was. All that was left was to inform her that her ship was now the property of the Crown and declare victory.

Those topaz eyes narrowed, and those lips curved ever so slightly. “You may call me Captain Kinloch,” she bit out in a voice both sultry and liquid. Fresh desire surged through him.

This lust was unacceptable. He needed to regain control, but he was so weak he couldn’t lift his head—at least, not the one that knew better than to dally with the likes of Corsair Kate, who—since her father’s death six months ago—was also countess of the Scottish seat of Dunscore.

The lady beside her laughed. “It’s a grand thing to have earned a pseudonym of such notoriety, Katherine. I rather think you should sanction its use.” This beautiful companion was most certainly the scandalous young widow Philomena, the countess of Pennington. And somewhere aboard would be the countess’s young niece, Lady India, daughter of the Earl of Cantwell. The tale of their rescue had become legendary: taken captive by Barbary corsairs during an ill-fated voyage to see antiquities in Egypt, and subsequently liberated when the Possession in turn captured the marauding ship.

Captain Kinloch crossed her arms and pinned him with an assessing look. “The Henry’s Cross,” she said thoughtfully. “Captain James Warre’s command?”

His own name on her lips caught him by surprise. “Aye.”

Her lip curled. “You have indeed met with improved circumstances, then. What was your rank?”

Improved circumstances? “Midshipman.”

“Midshipman! You’re too old for that.”

Hell. The real Thomas Barclay, of course, had been just the right age. “I was...demoted. Problems with the captain.” It took all his strength to hold her gaze.

“With Captain Warre? What kind of problems?” she demanded.

“Any number of things.” Devil take it, he could barely think.

“I want details.”

Damn the woman! “It was...a misunderstanding,” he rasped.

In a heartbeat she whipped out her cutlass and laid it against his neck, leaning over him. “What kind of misunderstanding?” Those topaz eyes blazed, and the ends of her hair pooled on his chest.

His body reacted as though she’d straddled his hips.

“Katherine,” Lady Pennington warned.

“Insubordination,” James managed through gritted teeth. He knew men who paid for this kind of treatment, but damnation! He wasn’t one of them. “I’ve been known to have difficulty with authority.” Another grain of truth.

“And Captain Warre tolerated you at his side? The good captain must have favored you.” The blade’s pressure increased by a fraction. “Understand me well, Mr. Barclay. You will display no insubordination aboard this ship if you wish to see its destination.”

“You would not murder a British subject,” he breathed. God, he needed more water.

Her lips curved into a terrifying yet seductive half smile. “A British subject who by all accounts perished at sea.”

Their eyes locked in silent battle. But her blade lay cool against his neck, and her chains sat heavy on his wrists. “I assure you of my utmost respect,” he said, and forced a half smile of his own. “Captain.”

* * *

IF THOMAS BARCLAY’S utmost respect included a perpetual salute from his male organ, he would find this a very long voyage indeed. “This is unacceptable,” Katherine said, storming into the great cabin, already guessing the next words that would fall from Philomena’s lips.

“I daresay the situation suits him well enough.” Amusement colored Phil’s voice. “I don’t suppose you noticed—”

“I noticed!”

“Noticed what?” William asked, looking up from the charts spread out on the table. Anne sat in a spear of sunlight on the floor, jiggling a length of twine for Mr. Bogles to attack.

“Never you mind,” Katherine said. “It was nothing.” The pressure she’d felt earlier in her gut had traveled to her head. She needed a nip of wine, morning hours be damned. She went to the cupboard and poured a tiny slosh. He hadn’t been as close to death as they’d assumed.

She raised the glass to her lips and tasted a blend of guilt and ire. She’d been wrong about his condition, but absolutely right about his temperament.

Phil settled into one of the plump chairs at the table. “Oh, I wouldn’t call it nothing. Suffice to say our guest seemed rather...pleased...to meet Katherine.”

William arched an amused brow. “Oh?”

Phil’s lips curved mischievously. “I would almost say...excited.”

The brow arched higher. “Oh.”

This was her reward for mercy. Thomas Barclay had no more been a midshipman on the Henry’s Cross than she was a cabin boy on the Possession. More likely he was an officer, and a high-ranking one at that. The lie had been there on his face, although if he’d been stronger, he would certainly have been able to hide it.

His utmost respect! Even with her blade at his neck, he’d defied her with his eyes.

“Is he quite recovered, Mama?” Anne asked.

“Not quite, dearest,” Katherine replied. “He’s still very weak from lack of food and drink.” Weak, yet everything about him screamed of power. Her blood still hummed with it. A man like that would have a difficult time with his superiors, indeed. Even a captain as ruthless as James Warre must have feared for his own authority.

This was exactly why they should have left Thomas Barclay in the water.

Worry lines furrowed Anne’s innocent brow. “May I go in and hold his hand?” The ball of twine fell out of Anne’s hands and rolled with the ship’s sway, and Katherine quickly set her glass aside to retrieve it, this time ignoring that she shouldn’t.

“My little angel of mercy,” she said, putting the twine back into small hands while Anne, blind since a fever took her sight three years ago, stared in the area of Katherine’s shoulder. “Not now. We know too little of him.” Not ever, and they knew enough. Anne would never be allowed in the same room with that beast. Pressure throbbed in Katherine’s temples as she smoothed Anne’s dark hair from her small, upturned face.

“Yet he suffers, Mama.”

Suffer was perhaps the wrong word. “He is comfortable for now. You mustn’t worry.” Anne would not pay the price for Katherine’s misjudgment—not ever again. “Be a good girl and take Mr. Bogles into William’s cabin for a while. You can play him a song on your bells. Are you hungry? I shall have cook send you some kesra.” The warm, soft flatbread was Anne’s favorite.

“Yes, please, Mama.” Anne stood up with her ball of twine and found her way out of the great cabin with practiced pats on this chair, then that one and then on the side table, then the doorjamb as Mr. Bogles darted past her into the passageway. Katherine resisted the urge to help, and the pressure intensified.

Devil take it, there was no time for a headache. She had to figure out what to do about the insubordinate in her bed.

“Do I need to run him through?” William asked the moment Anne was gone.

Phil laughed. “Katherine nearly did a good enough job of that herself. I feared she would slit the man’s throat.”

“He will learn to respect his superiors,” Katherine said, moving to inspect the charts herself, “or he will reap his reward accordingly.”

“Well, you certainly had respect from part of him.”

“Aha.” William leaned back in his chair. “A man can’t always control these things, you know. Poor fellow. Faced with the two most beautiful and powerful women on the sea, his humiliation was all but certain. Were you able to find out anything?”

Thomas Barclay would not compromise this voyage in any way. She would kill him first. “He survived a wreck of the Henry’s Cross outside Cadiz,” she said. “A midshipman, demoted by Captain Warre for insubordination—or so he says. It seems your friend dealt lightly with him.”

“Growing up on neighboring estates hardly makes James Warre a friend. The Henry’s Cross went down? God—unthinkable.”

“It would seem Captain Warre’s cannons aren’t as effective against Mother Nature as they are against wood and sails.” A memory snaked down her spine. When corsairs had captured the Merry Sea ten years ago and taken her captive, she’d thought Captain Warre would prove her savior. But Captain Warre hadn’t cared about saving anyone. His cannons had sunk the Merry Sea and one of the Corsair xebecs, while the other xebec slipped away with Katherine bound and gagged in its hold. There was no doubt he would have sunk it, too, if he’d been able. “Pity it wasn’t the good captain himself who washed up against our hull,” she added. “I would have relished the opportunity to finally meet him.”

“Ha!” Phil leaned forward. “To slit his throat, more likely, and then where would you be upon our return? Dangling from the end of a rope, that’s where.”

Upon their return, she would already be dangling—at the end of Nicholas Warre’s bill of pains and penalties. The Lords might well strip Dunscore from her before she could set foot inside those ancient walls again. Cousin Holliswell would smugly accept the title and the estate, and she would have once again failed Anne.

That would not happen. Not if Katherine had any say in the matter.

“Poor sod’s been through a hell of an ordeal,” William said, standing. “Suppose I’ll go talk with him. Probably beginning to wonder if he’s the only man on board.”

“Assure him we shall see to it that he suffers no more,” Phil said.

William laughed. “Still waiting for you to ease my suffering, Philomena.”

“The moment my desperation becomes that unbearable, I shall certainly let you know.” There was nothing between them, but William found no end of amusement at suggesting there should be.

“I won’t have you turning sympathetic with the prisoner,” Katherine called after him.

“Course not.” He grinned from the doorway. “I mean only to tighten the shackles—hold down the circulation and all that. Might solve the problem for next time.”

Next time. Good God. “My bed, a haven for deviants,” she muttered, and called after William, “See that you do!”

“Shackles aren’t all that deviant,” Phil commented after he left. “If you don’t want him chained to your bed, I’ll happily allow you to chain him to mine. Even in this sorry state, that man has more virility in his little finger than most men have in their—”

“Enough! As soon as we’re through the strait, he won’t be chained to anyone’s bed.”

Just then, India stormed into the cabin. “Millicent says she hopes we’re captured by Barbary pirates in the strait!”

“Millicent is a fool,” Phil snapped. “Does she think they would return her to Malta?”

“She’s just angry.” India plopped down at the table. The dark waistcoat she favored fell away from her hips, revealing the gleaming pistol that was her prized possession.

“She’ll thank Katherine one day,” Phil said.

Katherine doubted that—not after she’d resorted to trickery to force Millicent to return to Britain with them. Even had Millie succeeded in her plan to gain admission to Malta’s School of Anatomy and Surgery by applying as a young man, eventually the truth would have been discovered. She would have been expelled from the school and left to fend for herself on Malta, and Katherine refused to be responsible for that.

“We shall sail on tonight’s tide,” Katherine said.

A smile spread across India’s face. “Just imagine how infamous we shall be in London.”

“Just imagine how ruined you’ll be,” Katherine said. The thought of returning to Britain turned the screws on every nerve. Society would accept neither her nor Anne. All the reasons why she had shunned her homeland after escaping Algiers still existed—all but one.

When you are countess of Dunscore, Katie...

She slammed the door on Papa’s old, familiar words. Dunscore meant nothing to her now except a means to Anne’s security.

India gave a haughty shake of her head, managing to look regal even in her ridiculous tricorne. “I am the daughter of an earl, and still a virgin, and my chaperone has been ever with me,” she said. “I am not ruined—just well traveled.” Katherine looked at Phil. Life aboard the Possession would not be regarded merely as travel.

“How is the castaway?” India asked.

“Not still a virgin, I daresay,” Phil answered slyly.

“Blech!” India made a face and covered her ears. “Auntie Phil, you’re disgusting. I’ll wager he’s fifty if he’s a day!”

“Certainly not.” Phil’s blue eyes twinkled like the sea on a clear day. “Do you think so, Katherine? Fifty?”

“I shall leave such judgments to your expertise.” Thirty-five or forty, more like. And judging from the smile playing at Phil’s lips, bound to be a distraction. Of all the dangers she had considered, that one was easily addressed. As soon as Mr. Barclay recovered, she would either lock him in the brig or put him with the crew under the boatswain’s supervision.

Either way, Mr. Barclay and his virility would be out of sight and out of mind.

CHAPTER FOUR

“BOY-O, JAMES.” The sound of the door and a familiar voice jolted James out of near sleep. “Sounds like you could use another dunking—perhaps in the waters of the Arctic. Got the ladies all in a tither.”

A blond, blue-eyed corsair stood grinning at him. James took in the turban, gold earrings and billowing trousers. “Good God. Jaxbury?” A slightly apprehensive relief eased through his weak body. “Haven’t seen you since...” His mind raced to remember. “Good God. That time in Marseille.” And before that, not since their youth.

“Ah, Marseille. Fine wine, finer women.” Jaxbury dragged a small chair closer to the bed and straddled it backward. “Devilish good fun we had. Must have had—I barely remember it.”

“Had no idea you’d taken up—” James dragged in a breath “—with Corsair Kate.”

“Don’t let her hear you call her that,” Jaxbury laughed. “Things won’t go easy. Of course, you haven’t heard. Those of us of the masculine persuasion aboard the Possession aren’t the stuff of wild stories. Nothing interesting about us at all.”

James tried to raise his hand but couldn’t fight the iron. “I don’t suppose you’ve come to unlock these shackles.”

Jaxbury shook his head. “Never hear the end of that one. Especially not after the show you put on for the ladies.”

Bloody hell.

“Nothing to worry about,” Jaxbury said. “Weakened state, some things hard to control—don’t have to explain it to me, old boy. I’ll sound you a caution, though—Phil’s been two years without an affaire d’amour, and she’s getting damned restless.”

James looked at the sky-blue ceiling. “This is a bloody nightmare.”

“Is it? I can think of any number of men who’d be contemplating how to turn the situation to their advantage. Won’t work with Katherine, though, and of course, I’d have to kill you if you tried,” Jaxbury said conversationally. “But Phil—damn me if you wouldn’t be doing us all a favor.”

“Are you and Captain Kinloch—”

“Good God, no. Like a sister to me.”

A sister. Only a corpse or a blood relative could look at Captain Kinloch and feel that way. His disbelief must have been evident, because Jaxbury laughed. “You’d feel the same if you’d been the one to deliver her child.” Her child! Jaxbury made a face. “Bloody disgusting! At the same time, a damned miracle. Never look at her the same. May as well be the Virgin Mary.”

“So you haven’t told her my identity.” But Jaxbury’s other revelation still had him reeling. Captain Kinloch had a child. Whose child?

“Wouldn’t want your blood on my hands. I’ll give you fair warning, she holds no affection for you.” And James knew why. Even ten years later, the sight of those Corsair xebecs butted up against that British merchant ship was as fresh as if it had happened yesterday. He’d let loose with everything in his power to save it, knowing full well what awaited those on board if they were captured. If he’d succeeded, he might have saved Katherine Kinloch, as well.

“So sorry about the Henry’s Cross,” Jaxbury said solemnly. “Tragic.”

A strangling grief ripped his chest. Memories of the recent wreck swarmed like bees, and for a moment he relived the terror—giant, nighttime waves, splintering wood, the invincible Henry’s Cross pulled under like a bit of flotsam. Had any of his men survived? “We were headed back to Britain,” he managed. And it would have been his last voyage. The moment his feet touched land, he’d planned to go directly to the Admiralty to tender his resignation.

“You’re in luck, then, on that count,” Jaxbury said. “We, too, sail for Britain.”

“Britain!” He said the word with too much force and ended up in a fit of coughing.

Jaxbury filled the mug and held it for him. A simple necklace of mismatched beads on braided twine peeked out from beneath his tunic. “Aye. The captain has business to attend to in Scotland. No doubt you’re aware of her change in status.”

James managed a drink of water and nodded once. “Nothing to drive a person home—” he coughed again and inhaled deeply “—like a title.” It hadn’t worked for him, but it should have.

Jaxbury leaned forward, his eyes glinting with a seriousness James would never have believed his carefree childhood friend capable of. “Do not presume to understand her.”

“I wouldn’t dare.” God, they could not reach Britain quickly enough. Perhaps he would not spend even a single night in London. Perhaps he would go directly to Croston Hall. The sooner he could shut himself away in the library with every bottle of cognac in Croston’s reserve, the sooner he could forget how much he’d once loved the sea, and that sometime in the past year—two years? three?—life had seemed to turn gray.

Perhaps he’d stay foxed for a month.

“Katherine is first and foremost a captain,” Jaxbury went on, “and until we reach London you’d best not forget it.”

“Not sure how I could.” He imagined a voyage spent in chains and briefly considered revealing his identity to Captain Kinloch just to exercise its leverage. But his identity was the only weapon he had, and it would be a shame to play that card too soon.

“And make no mistake—she’s a damned fine one. Taught her everything I know, but some things cannot be taught, as you well know. She’s got a sixth sense for the sea, and it carries her on its bosom like a babe on a teat.”

The image was entirely unhelpful. “Then I shall consider myself in the most competent of hands.”

Jaxbury leaned back, smiling once more. “Precisely.”

* * *

HOURS LATER, JAMES opened his eyes to a pitch-black cabin and realized two things: the ship was being tossed by a squall, and someone was crying. Crying and squeezing his hand.

“Who’s there?” he rasped into the darkness.

There was a sob and a sniffle. “It’s Anne,” came a tiny, muffled voice from a small figure hunched against the side of the bed. Wood creaked and groaned with the ship’s heave and fall. The cabin echoed with the crash of waves against the hull. “I c-can’t find Mr. B-Bogles!” she sobbed. “The big waves came, and I was s-scared, so I went into William’s cabin, and I thought he c-came with me, but then...but then...” Despair wracked her little body and stole her words. The ship heaved. Crashed.

This had to be the child whose birth had raised Lady Katherine to saintly heights in William’s eyes. And it was a good guess this Mr. Bogles walked on four legs, not two.

“Where is your mother?”

“On deck with the others,” Anne said in a trembling voice. “Usually somebody stays with me when the big waves come, but Mama said they need all hands going through the strait!”

The strait—in a squall, at night? Bloody hell, he’d survived one wreck only to perish in another. The ship crashed harder than the last time, and Captain Kinloch’s daughter pressed her face into the bed.

“I don’t like it when the big waves come,” she said into the linens. Her hand tightened around his and he felt it in his chest. He reached for her with his other hand, but the yank of the chain stopped him. “Please help me find him,” came her tiny voice.

“Can’t, little one. The chains.” And even if he were free, it was doubtful he could walk.

“I will unlock them!” she cried. “And then you will find my kitty!”

Unlock— Good God. “Anne, your mother—” Would likely cut off his balls.

“Please,” she begged pitifully. “Please, I know you aren’t well, but if I unlock them, will you please find him?” Heave. Crash. A wet face pressed into the back of his hand.

His balls for a cat. An excellent exchange. “I shall try,” he breathed, holding out hope that she didn’t know where the keys were kept. But her shadowy figure moved away. The ship heaved and she stumbled, crossing to the other side of the cabin. In the faint light from the windows he saw her feeling her way along the dressing table. Wood slid against wood—a drawer. And then the heavenly clang of keys.

Never had freedom rung with such impending doom.

She returned, still sniffling. Her hands felt for his arm, slid up to his wrist. Her fingers circled the shackle, feeling for the keyhole, then let him go. He heard her sorting through the keys. Sniffling. She was so small the bed only came up to her belly.

Heave. Crash. She grabbed for him, nearly losing her balance. Fumbled with the keys. Tested them with a small child’s clumsiness. And then—

Click. The shackle popped open. “I did it!” she cried. “Please hurry!”

He loosed the key and unlocked the other shackle. The moment both arms were free he struggled to sit up, and blood rushed from his head. He leaned forward with his head in his hands. He felt her touching him, patting his arm and shoulder.

“Oh, no—you’re not well at all, are you?” Desperation returned to her voice.

“Sat up...too quickly,” he managed. Carefully he swung his legs to the side. The tunic and trousers they had put on him were light and loose, and his feet were bare.

“I’m terribly sorry. I know I shouldn’t bother you—Mama says I’m not supposed to—but...but...” The tears started again.

James stood, nearly toppling with the movement of the ship. “Tell me where to look.”

“You’ll need a lantern.”

Of course. A lantern. He’d seen one hanging on the wall and in the darkness he managed to find and light it. His tiny liberator, he now saw, was a miniature sultana. Her dark hair hung in a braid down her back, and tiny jewels flashed against her olive skin at her ears. Fabric of a rich blue draped her from neck to toe. She had the darkest eyes, and they fixed strangely on his chest while her tear-streaked face trembled.

“I’m afraid he might have gone into the hold,” she said pitifully.

The hold. Bloody hell, this was a fool’s errand. The ship continued to pitch, yet he managed to lurch out the door and into the passageway. “Which way?”

“Left!” she cried.

He didn’t know this ship, but he’d known a great many, and he found the stairs quickly. He started down and she followed him, clinging to the railing.

“Mr. Bogles!” she cried. Her voice trembled. “Mama says I’m never to go in the hold.”

Excellent. He may as well remove his balls now and save Captain Kinloch the trouble. He reached the floor and glanced around. It was an upper hold, full of everything from casks of wine to bolts of textiles. How much legally gained was anyone’s guess.

“Mr. Bogles!” Anne called again, reaching the bottom of the stairs.

“Stay here,” he ordered. James hung on to a stack of crates held in place by a timber frame and stumbled farther into the hold, shining the light this way and that.

“Wait,” Anne cried. “I have some dried fish. He loves it more than anything!”

A bribe ought to increase his chances, which as things stood, were zero. Light-headed, he hung the lantern from a hook on an overhead beam and went back. The ship heaved and crashed and some cargo on the starboard side shifted noisily as he struggled to find his usually reliable sea legs.

Anne was already holding out the dried fish when he reached her, but something wasn’t right. She faced to the side without looking at him. “He’ll come for this,” she said, as though speaking to an invisible third person. “I know he will.”

“I’ll give it...a try,” he said, out of breath. Immediately she turned toward him with her arm still outstretched and her eyes fixed on his belly. He paused. “Anne?”

“Yes?”

He held out his hand. She didn’t seem to see it, and a hole opened up in his gut. “Anne,” he said sharply. “Can you see?” There wasn’t time for niceties.

“I hear him!” Her face lit up suddenly and she pointed past him. “Mr. Bogles! Oh, do hurry!”

Blind. Anne was blind.

Hell and damnation, he’d led a blind child into the hold. Damn Jaxbury for not saying something. He lurched forward and grabbed her arm. “We’re going above.” Mr. Bogles could fend for himself.

“No!” Anne screamed and struggled. “We can’t leave him!”

“You can’t be down here.”

“Please. Please!”

Her desperation cut him to the bone. She struggled, and he hadn’t the strength to fight her. He wrapped her hands around the stair rail. “Wait here. Do not move.”

“I won’t. I promise!”

“Give me the fish.” He took it from her fingers.

“I hear him again! Please hurry!”

James didn’t hear a bloody thing, but he went in the direction she pointed. He grabbed the lantern from the hook and finally heard a faint meow from among the cargo. A rat scurried away. Whatever Mr. Bogles was up to down here, he was not doing his job.

“Mr. Bogles!” Anne cried.

Meow, came an answer from the direction of a pile of large rope coils that had slid sideways with the waves. James willed himself forward, holding up the lantern. Meow! came another complaint from beneath the pile. Through a gap he saw two glowing eyes and part of a white, whiskered face.

The ship heaved and rolled. Somehow he managed to hang the lantern and reach for a coil. His arms rebelled, buckling like wet straw, but he tried again. He shifted one coil this time, then another. The rough floor scraped his soles as he sought purchase with his bare feet. His legs burned, threatening to give out.

“Do you have him?” Anne called from much closer than the stairwell. A glance over his shoulder showed her making her way through the cargo.

“Anne, stop!” He barely had the strength to make himself heard. “Go back!” He stretched forward, half lying across the pile now, and shoved at another coil. More coils towered above him. With all of his strength he propped up the coil that trapped the cat, but Mr. Bogles cowered somewhere in the recesses. Blast it all, he’d dropped the dried fish.

“Come out, damn you,” he said through gritted teeth.

The ship heaved.

“Anne!” Captain Kinloch’s voice shot through the hold.

The ship crashed. James lost his grip on the rope and a white flash shot past his shoulder.

“Mr. Bogles!” came Anne’s joyous cry.

James fell forward, and the coils he’d moved tumbled on top of him. He grunted in pain, crumpling beneath their weight, and his hand closed around something leathery. The dried fish.

“Anne! What are you doing down here?”

James said goodbye to his balls and let his head fall.

* * *

DRENCHED FROM THE rain and waves above, Katherine flew down the stairs with her eyes fixed on Anne and swept her into a fierce hug, ignoring Mr. Bogles wiggling between them. “Anne Kinloch, I told you never to come into the hold!” She ran her hands over Anne’s face, hair, shoulders. No injury. Already she could imagine half a dozen ways she would kill Thomas Barclay when she found him.

Farther into the hold, the lantern from her cabin swung wildly from an overhead beam. Bloody cur—this was her reward for caving to pity and hauling him aboard. “Anne, quickly,” she said, rising. “Upstairs.”

“But the man, Mama— I think I heard him fall!”

“Shh...we shall find him and he won’t hurt you again. I promise you that.” By God, she would kill him slowly and feed him in pieces to the fish.

“Mama, you mustn’t be cross!” Anne shook her head frantically. “It was my fault. I couldn’t find Mr. Bogles, and I begged him! I know I shouldn’t have unlocked him, but—”

“Unlocked him?”

“I’m sorry, Mama. There was no one to help.” She tried to turn out of Katherine’s grasp. “Oh, why don’t I hear him? He was just here!”

At precisely that moment, Katherine spotted a pair of bare feet sticking out from among the cargo.

Anne’s lip trembled. “I know I shouldn’t have taken the keys from your drawer. I was so scared.”

Katherine hugged her tightly. “I’m sorry, sweetling. I’m so sorry.” She never left Anne alone in high seas. Never. But they’d needed all hands on deck, and she’d promised herself it would just be this once, and she would come down to check...but she should have come sooner. She should never have left Anne in the first place. Wicked, wicked man, taking advantage of a little girl’s fear.

“Do you see him, Mama?” A tear tumbled down Anne’s cheek.

Katherine stared at his feet. “Shh...I will find him. Quickly, now, upstairs to safety. Give Mr. Bogles to me.” Sweet Anne was too innocent to know a man in Mr. Barclay’s condition did not rouse himself for the sake of a cat. Her jaw tightened. With any luck fate had already punished his attempt at insurrection, and she would no longer have to bother with him.

With Anne and Mr. Bogles safely shut inside Philomena’s cabin, Katherine hurried back to the hold. The ship heaved and rolled as she made her way quickly through the cargo and there he was, half-buried beneath a fallen pile of rope coils. If he was alive, she would shackle him more securely this time. And hide the keys more quietly.

She planted a boot on the pile and wrested the coils off him. “Mr. Barclay,” she called sharply. Perhaps he’d hoped to find munitions here in the hold. Distract the crew with his disappearance and gain the upper hand by threatening Anne’s life.

It would not have worked.

He lay sprawled on the coils with William’s tunic stretched a bit tightly across his shoulders. His tousled black hair with its silver streaks fell across his cheek and over his eyes. “Mr. Barclay.” She bent to check his pulse.

At her touch, he groaned and tried to rise. “Bloody hell,” he said, collapsing once again into the ropes. At least she would not have to explain his death to Anne.

“Get up! You’ve been foiled, and I haven’t the time to play nursemaid.” They needed her on deck. Punishing his foolishness would have to wait.

“For God’s sake, cut ’em off quickly,” he mumbled into his sleeve. He was delirious again, and little wonder. His eyes opened slightly. “Anne?” he rasped.

“Is upstairs and none of your concern. Now get to your feet— I want this lantern out of the hold before it shatters and sets my ship ablaze.” She grabbed hold of his arm and pulled. The ship rolled and he lurched to his feet, nearly toppling over. He was taller than he’d seemed. Broader. She braced herself against the water casks with his weight crushing her against them as the ship’s pitch threatened to throw them both to the floor. His breath labored near her ear and one large hand curled around the edge of a cask above her.

“Foolish man. You haven’t the strength to carry out this kind of plan.”

“Can’t insult a man—” he exhaled sharply when he finally found his feet “—with the truth.” He backed away from her and steadied himself against the casks. “Little bugger got free, then.” His breath came hard, as though it took all his strength to stand. “Didn’t—” he inhaled, exhaled “—take his prize, though.” He held out his other hand.

He held a strip of Mr. Bogles’s dried fish.

It wasn’t possible. In his condition, merely leaving her cabin would have been a feat. He would not have done this for a cat.

She didn’t want to consider that he might have done it for Anne.

She tried to slip the dried fish into her pocket, but her clothes were soaked so she tossed it aside. His eyes met hers, then dropped. Darkened. Shot away as he dragged in another breath.

She glanced down. Her sea-drenched clothes clung like a second skin to her breasts, and her nipples jutted hard through the wet fabric. Good God—even a brush with death wasn’t enough to cool this man’s lust. She allowed her lips to curve. “There’s no time for your lechery now, Mr. Barclay. You’ll have to control yourself. Can you walk?” He tried a step, but the ship’s heave and roll threw him off balance immediately. She caught him beneath the arm and tried to help.

“I’ve got it,” he said sharply, trying to steady himself as the lantern swung noisily from its hook above them. “Only let me hold...the casks.”

She let go. “Did you think you could hide from us here and gain some advantage?”

He worked his way along, out of breath and fighting to stay on his feet. “My plan to lure you into the hold...and ravish you...has gone disappointingly awry.”

“Insolent bastard.” Her clammy skin flushed unaccountably hot. “It’s no wonder you had trouble with Captain Warre.”

He grunted. “Stodgy old cuss...” They made it to the last of the casks, and he lurched toward the stairs. “Never did approve—” he dragged in a breath “—of ravishing.” His hands curled around the railing and he rested there, ashen-faced.

“Can you climb the stairs alone?”

His eyes swept their length, and he gave a nod.

“Then above and to bed,” she ordered in a tone she might have used with Anne. The man had lost his mind as well as his strength.

He pulled himself up the first step and glanced at her. “A tempting offer...Captain.”

A tempting— “Above!”

This was no demoted midshipman. He was an officer, or she’d swallow her cutlass. As soon as they were safely through the strait, she would instruct William to lock Mr. Barclay in the cabin André had occupied. And then she would force the truth from him.

CHAPTER FIVE

THE TRUTH HAD to wait for two days while the lecherous Mr. Barclay, now occupying his new quarters, slept. Millicent fed him broth four times a day and ruthlessly shooed everyone else away.

They were safely through the strait with the storm long behind them, but the story of Mr. Barclay’s heroics would not die. Anne insisted on retelling it to everyone. Multiple times.

“Mama, may we go see him now? Please? Millicent says he’s awake.” Anne tugged on her sleeve. “Please, Mama. He’s better now.”

Apparently that was supposed to be good news. “In a moment, dearest.” Katherine dipped her quill, started to scratch another coordinate in her massive logbook, but veered away at the last moment and added another name to the scrap of paper that held the short list of people in Britain who might be able to help her. Lord De Lille. Hadn’t he been one of Papa’s friends?

Her father’s voice echoed in her mind: Damn me, Katie, there’s not a soul in all of England or Scotland that can outwager De Lille.

She rubbed her forehead, trying to remember names and relationships from more than a decade ago. But Papa had had so many friends. The only one she truly remembered was his best friend, Lord Deal, and according to the solicitor’s letter, he was already working to fight the bill that threatened her inheritance.

Her fingers tightened around the quill. What if Mr. Allen’s letter hadn’t found her? The bill was unlikely to pass, he’d written. That it had been read once in the Lords meant little—that the second reading had been put off six months was far more telling.

“Mama, please. What if he goes back to sleep?”

Then the inevitable would be delayed a few pleasant hours longer. Perhaps Mr. Barclay’s actions had been—in the most attenuated sort of way—laudable. And as galling as it was, she could no longer deny that his folly in the hold had been for Anne’s sake. Midshipman or officer, he would have known a one-man insurrection would fail.

Katherine would have been happy to ignore his sacrifice for Mr. Bogles. But it was not to be.

Anne’s dusky lips pursed a little with impatience, and small, dark brows dove with frustration. Sometimes she looked so much like Mejdan’s mother it was hard to know whether to laugh or cry.

“Very well,” Katherine said, finally setting down her quill. “Come along.” With all the enthusiasm of a convict on his way to the gallows, she led Anne into the passageway.

“I can give him the scroll, right?” Anne whispered outside the door to André’s old cabin.

“Yes, sweetling.”

“But you’ll tell him.”

“I will tell him.” Many things, but most of them not until Anne left. Mr. Barclay may have yet been unwell—she knocked once and turned the key—but she intended to have the answers to her questions. “Mr. Barclay—”

The bed was empty. There was a splash, and her attention shot to the bureau. He leaned over the basin with his hair slicked back and water dripping off his face, wearing only a pair of William’s trousers.

“Mama, ow!” Anne tugged at her hand.

Katherine eased her grip. “Perhaps we should—”

“Mr. Barclay,” Anne called into the cabin, “we’ve come to pay you a special visit.”

Return later. “Anne...”

He reached for a towel and—devil take it—caught Katherine watching him in the looking glass. One of his brows edged upward. “An honor indeed,” he said. His gaze shifted to Anne. “I see you’re not letting that errant cat of yours go far, Miss Anne,” he said. Katherine felt a push against her leg and realized Mr. Bogles had followed them in. Mr. Barclay ran the linen over his face, neck, shoulders. Muscles rippled beneath his skin with every movement.

“He’s better now that the big waves have stopped,” Anne told him.

“I’d say that describes every one of us.”

Anne gaped. “You don’t like the big waves, either?”

“Nobody does.” He reached for a shirt—one of William’s tunics, dark blue with long sleeves—and pulled it on as he came toward them, a head taller than Katherine and fully lucid.

Katherine silently exhaled. “You seem much improved,” she observed.

“A short-lived burst, I fear.”

Anne tugged impatiently on Katherine’s hand. “Mama, may we tell him now? Please?”

Mr. Barclay glanced down, raising a brow.

“Yes,” Katherine said. “Go ahead.” The sooner she swallowed these bitters, the better.

Anne let go of her hand and reached for Mr. Barclay, patting his leg as she held out the scroll. “This is for you.”

Comprehension dawned in those damnable eyes as he took the scroll, and amusement tugged at the corner of that hard mouth. “Thank you.”

Devil take Millicent and her restorative broth.

“Now, Mama,” Anne said.

At least he could be in no doubt as to whose idea this had been. “Thomas Barclay,” Katherine began solemnly. “As captain of the ship Possession I hereby commend you for your actions of bravery and sacrifice—” she absolutely refused to look at him “—on behalf of a most valued member of our crew, being that you did, during high seas, risk your life to save one Mr. Bogles, in service to Anne and everyone aboard this ship. For this, you have earned the highest level of respect and appreciation aboard this vessel.”

Anne could no longer contain her excitement. “It’s a commendation!” she cried.

“You do me too much honor,” Mr. Barclay said. It was an understatement of epic proportions.

“Did you look at the scroll?” Anne asked, with an achingly huge smile.

He untied the ribbon and glanced over the words Anne had insisted Katherine pen last night. “I will treasure it always,” he said, touching Anne’s cheek. “Thank you for recommending me for what I am convinced is a very coveted award.”

The temptation to soften her opinion of him wormed its way into Katherine’s mind, but she stopped it quickly. After all, two things remained unchanged: he was lying to her about his rank, so he’d served—no doubt very closely—under Captain Warre; and he remained every bit as virile as Phil had first claimed. The first she could simply force him to disclose. The second could not be remedied.

“Come now, dearest.” Katherine steered Anne toward the door. “Back to the great cabin while I speak with Mr. Barclay.”

“You mustn’t commend him any more without me, Mama. I want to hear.”

“There will be no further commendation. I promise.”

Moments later Anne was settled at the captain’s table with her box of beads, and Katherine returned to Mr. Barclay’s cabin. “Now,” she said, shutting the door. “You will tell me your actual rank aboard the Henry’s Cross, and this time you will tell the truth.”

He opened his mouth to speak but faltered, turning pale. “Do you mind if I sit? I’m feeling a bit—” He reached for the bed and sat down without waiting for her answer. He leaned forward and braced his head in his hands. “Told you it would be short-lived.”

She much preferred him weak and seated. “Should I send for Millicent?”

“God, no. She’ll only force me to take more broth.”

Katherine almost smiled. “Your true rank, then, Mr. Barclay.”

“What makes you so certain I’m not a midshipman?” he said to the floor. Solid forearms supported large hands with strong fingers that disappeared into damp, dark waves lightly salted with silver. Whatever his true rank, he clearly had the strength to do any job a ship required.

“Answer the question. I’ve had enough nonsense for one day.”

“Nonsense?” He looked up. “Please, Captain—I’ve only just received my first commendation aboard this vessel, and already you’re making me doubt its sincerity.”

“You need not doubt my sincerity when I tell you that you will regret withholding the truth.”

“I don’t doubt that in the least. And if I refuse, what will it be? The lash? The dreaded cat? Perhaps there’s a medieval rack hidden away in some lower hold.”

“You are not lying about having been under Captain Warre’s command,” she replied. “That much is evident. To date I have never found a need to resort to physical punishment aboard this ship—although there could always be a first time, I suppose.” She propped one knee on the bedside chair, where his borrowed waistcoat hung neatly across the back. “My crew and I enjoyed the most delicious pie at yesterday’s dinner,” she said conversationally. “Succulent gravy, tender beef and vegetables, topped by the lightest, flakiest crust. You know the kind, I’m sure? Melts on the tongue? Such a wonder what can be done with dried beef.” His eyes narrowed, and she knew she’d hit her mark. “What a shame that Millicent says you’re to have broth for at least another week—no, I take that back. She did say you could have a few bits of meat in it, I think, so under the strictest definition I suppose that isn’t broth. And of course, I faithfully defer to Millicent in all things medical.” She smiled. “Except when I don’t.”

“The depth of your ruthlessness, Captain Kinloch, has been wildly understated.”

“I’ll not deny it.” She held his gaze while he weighed his options. His penetrating stare teased a nerve in her belly.

“Very well,” he finally said. “I was a lieutenant. The captain’s third in command.”

A flutter of something—foreboding, probably—ran across her skin. A lieutenant. Of course. No wonder he hadn’t wanted to reveal his identity. “That carries a good deal of responsibility,” she observed. To Captain Warre especially.

“It does.”

“Tell me about your relationship with Captain Warre.”

He considered that. “I’m not sure we had a ‘relationship,’ per se.”

“Don’t be obtuse,” she said irritably. “You must have worked very closely with him.”

“I suppose you could say that.”

“Did you consider him a friend?”

“I wouldn’t use that word exactly, no.”

“You disliked him, then.”

“At times.”

“Disobeyed him?”

“Never.”

“You agreed with his decisions?”

“I’ll admit to having reservations about a great many of them, but generally, yes.”

Of course he had. “You are as ruthless as he was, then.” Lieutenant Barclay looked ruthless. And hard, and uncompromising, and shrewd. The half-delirious unfortunate they had pulled from the water was gone.

“I suppose we shared certain traits, but I’m not sure ruthlessness is one of them. Resolute, perhaps.”

She made a noise. “If you call Captain Warre’s tactics ‘resolute’ then you most certainly do share his penchant for ruthlessness. The captain’s reputation for being unmerciful at the helm is well-known.”

“I should hope so, given that his job was to win battles—not lose them.” He rose to his feet and went to the bureau for water. “I have the distinct impression you don’t care for Captain Warre,” he said, watching her in the looking glass. “Do you know him well?”

“I know enough.”

He drank deeply and set down the mug. “Have you met him?”

“You could say I’ve had an encounter with him.”

One of his dark brows ticked upward.

“A maritime encounter,” she said sharply.

“Naturally.” He came toward her, reached past her for his waistcoat. His arm touched her knee.

She put her foot on the floor. “You must have been a terrible thorn in Captain Warre’s side.”

“Eternally.”

That made her smile. Just as quickly, desire began to smolder in his eyes. He did not back away as he shrugged into the waistcoat. Her smile faded, and that renegade nerve quickened in her belly again. She glanced brazenly at the front of his borrowed trousers but found no inappropriate salute to her authority.

“As you can see, Captain,” he drawled, “along with my renewed strength has come a measure of control.” His eyes wandered over her, and she felt them like hands.

She looked him in the eye and allowed the corners of her lips to curve upward. “I’m relieved to hear it. I would hate for you to spend the entire voyage in a state of torment.”

“Indeed,” he said dryly. “It’s been clear from the beginning that my comfort is your utmost concern.”

“Your lack of gratitude makes me wonder if I should have left the shackles on, after all. And let me be clear on one point—certain kinds of comfort are not available aboard this ship.”

“I will endeavor to contain my disappointment.” Boredom dripped from his tongue, but his eyes burned hot. He may have succeeded in controlling his anatomy, but in his thoughts he was doing with her exactly as he pleased.

She laughed derisively to suppress a shiver. “You will contain much more than that, or you will meet the end of my cutlass.” She went to the door. “I shall send up some pie.”

“Wait.” The command shot across the cabin—not a request, but a demand.

She spun on her heel. “Do not speak to me in that tone, Lieutenant Barclay.” She was across the room in a heartbeat, face-to-face with him. “You are no lieutenant here, and I am your captain now.”

“If I am your prisoner, then you are my gaoler,” he countered. “Not my captain. I only meant to ask whether I may expect to spend the entire voyage locked away.”

“Perhaps you will, and for good reason,” she said, even though she’d already decided there would be little point to it. “For one thing, since we took you aboard my ship, you have demonstrated a difficulty in controlling your baser instincts.”

He gave a laugh.

“Moreover, you’ve shown yourself to be a liar. But most damning of all, far from being the insubordinate you claimed, it would seem that you and Captain Warre were practically of one mind. You are therefore complicit with him, and that alone makes me wish I did have a rack in the lower hold.”

“It sounds as if I should be thankful that you at least removed the shackles.” He raised his wrist, rubbing it. The motion brought his hands a hairsbreadth from her breasts, a closeness she wished she hadn’t noticed.

“There was some sincerity in that commendation.”

His calculating gaze narrowed. “What if I told you that Captain Warre was the soddingest bastard I ever set eyes on, and that if he were here right now I would heartily recommend that you do your worst?”

Katherine laughed and took the opportunity to move away. “I would say you’re a very smart man indeed, Mr. Barclay, with high marks in self-preservation.” He reeked of danger, but at least he was entertaining.

“Then consider it my unswerving opinion, and leave the door unlocked when you go.”

“I will give it my most thoughtful consideration. Good day, Lieutenant Barclay.” She let herself into the passageway, closed the door and paused, recovering from the effects of his smile. He would never succeed in overthrowing her command even should he attempt it. And he wasn’t a threat to Anne. No, the danger he presented was more in the area of Phil’s expertise.

Soddingest bastard, indeed.

She walked away without bolting the latch.

CHAPTER SIX

“IT’S THE MOST reckless thing you’ve ever done,” Phil declared the next evening as they lounged in the great cabin. “He left his door propped open all morning, and the sight of him lying abed was a terrible torment.” The gleam in her eyes made it clear she hoped to bait Katherine into acknowledging Lieutenant Barclay’s appeal. It wouldn’t work.

“It’s astonishing that your duties took you past his cabin so frequently,” Katherine said, swirling the wine in her glass. She, of course, had only walked by in order to reassure herself that she had not made a mistake allowing Anne to finally go in and play nursemaid.

“Indeed,” William laughed. “Astonishing.” He leaned across the table toward Phil. “My door is always open, too, you know.”

“Perhaps Lieutenant Barclay needs a lock on the inside,” Katherine suggested.

“Auntie Phil, you’re not listening,” India complained, propping her feet on the table as she popped a date in her mouth.

“I am listening, dearest. To you, anyhow.” Phil poured herself more wine and shot a look at William. “But what you’re saying is so far-fetched that my mind naturally drifted to more realistic possibilities.”

India made a noise. “I have no intention of sitting idly by doing needlework and learning sonatas on the pianoforte after our return.”

“I daresay you’ll have little choice in the matter,” Philomena scoffed. “Your father will lock you away the moment you arrive.”

“If he tries,” India said, pointing at Phil with a date, “I shall simply move in with you.”

“Ha! I’ve quite had my fill of looking after you.”

“Then I shall live with Katherine.”

“Living with a pariah would do little for your marriage prospects,” Katherine said, reaching for the basket of kesra and tearing off a piece of the bread even though she was already full.

Phil rolled her eyes. “I don’t understand why you persist in this notion that we shall be outcasts. Mysterious, certainly. Even scandalous, but that rarely does any real damage. I have yet to discover what a widowed countess cannot do and still receive more invitations than she can reasonably consider, and as for you—well, I daresay the same will hold true for a countess in her own right. Even a Scottish one. They will expect you to eat dainties and applaud their daughters’ mediocre musical accomplishments at more gatherings than you will be able to count.”

William shuddered. “Hate those gatherings. Nothing to do a fellow in like a marriage-minded girl in command of a pianoforte.”

“I don’t need marriage prospects,” India said, “because I have no intention of marrying.”

Phil laughed. “You’ll be fortunate if your father hasn’t already paid some poor young man an offensively large amount to secure an arrangement.”

Katherine rose to get another bottle of wine and raised a brow at India, who sprawled in her chair like a man. “Would have to, given the prize.”

“You’re both insufferable!” India huffed, and bit into another date.

William reached for a piece of fruit. “I resent being left out of that. Katherine, I fancy an apple. Slice it for me?” The apple sailed in her direction and she whipped out her cutlass, slicing it in midair. The halves fell to the table with a satisfying thud.

“You’re insufferable, too, William,” India said. “You all are.” She shook her head defiantly. “If Father has arranged something, I shall run away,” she warned. She thought for a moment. “Or perhaps I could be a kept woman.”

“I wouldn’t advise it,” came Lieutenant Barclay’s voice from the doorway. Katherine’s attention snapped toward him as if he’d fired a pistol. “All the drawbacks of marriage with none of its benefits.” A smile played at the corner of his mouth. “Well, very few.”

India turned bright red, and Phil laughed. “Well put! Just look at you, Lieutenant, up and about. You appear quite recovered. Do you not agree, Captain?”

Katherine watched his gaze sweep across the giant Italian table she’d fallen in love with in Venice, the Spanish walnut cabinet that kept her wine and glasses safe from the waves, the intricately inlaid Turkish chest where she kept her logbooks. It came to rest on the painting of three veiled women tending children in a Moroccan courtyard. Discomfort edged through her, as though he could see her own memories in that painting.

“Improved, if not recovered,” she said. “The power of broth should never be underestimated.”

“I confess to having a thirst for something of a slightly different nature.” He glanced around the table. “Perhaps, since your surgeon isn’t here...”

“Lucky thing!” William said cheerfully, sliding a chair out with his boot. “Wine? Rum? Cognac?”

Lieutenant Barclay eased into a chair next to Philomena. “Undoubtedly the cognac.”

Katherine gave the apple halves to William and met Lieutenant Barclay’s eyes across the table. The wine that already warmed her blood rose a degree. Indeed, Millicent would have objected strongly if she hadn’t been holed away in her cabin, studying her anatomy text.

“An impressive display, Captain,” Lieutenant Barclay said with a nod toward the fruit.

“Katherine’s a virtuoso with the cutlass,” India informed him. “She’s done oranges, pears, figs, plums—”

“Enough, India,” Katherine said.

“—and even grapes.”

Humor flickered in Lieutenant Barclay’s green eyes. “Point taken.”

India frowned. “Point?”

“The ladies were just discussing their futures,” William cut in, lips twitching. “Young India plans to become a courtesan, as you just heard—”

“I said no such thing!”

“—while Phil expects to embrace the freedom of an eccentric widow, and our good captain anticipates complete social ostracism.”

“Does she.” Lieutenant Barclay sipped his cognac and gave her a look that was ten times as intoxicating as any liquor. “I have a suspicion you’ll be more sought after than you expect, Captain.”

“Oh, I expect to be highly sought after—by lechers with insulting propositions.” Or alluring lieutenants with dangerous eyes. “But as for the rest of society, your esteemed captain must not have told you of the bill his brother Nicholas, Lord Taggart, has introduced in the Lords.”

“Pillock!” India spat. “What business has he, trying to strip you of your title? He just can’t stand that you should accede to an earldom when he has merely been granted a barony.”

“Except that he, too, is an earl,” Phil pointed out, “if James Warre perished on the Henry’s Cross.” Her eyes shifted with delight between Katherine and Lieutenant Barclay. Katherine wanted to reach across the table and yank her hair.

The lieutenant frowned. “A bill of pains and penalties?”

“Precisely,” Katherine said, and curved her lips to hide her fear. “I stand to lose both my title and my estate.”

“But not your liberty?”

“A telling sign that they lack evidence of any ‘high crimes and misdemeanors,’ would you not agree?”

He considered that with a thoughtful lift of his brows.

Katherine swirled the dark red liquid in her glass. “Captain Warre never spoke of his brother, Lieutenant?”

He reached for the plate of dates India had been slowly diminishing. “He was never one to share personal information with subordinates.”

“Naturally.” She watched him sink his teeth into the date. They were white teeth, perfectly straight. “That would risk the kind of friendly bonds that a sodding bastard such as Captain Warre would never tolerate.”

“Such language, Captain,” William said, crunching into his second apple half.

She smiled. “The lieutenant’s words, not mine.”

“I propose a toast,” India declared, raising her glass. “To Nicholas Warre’s eternal ruin!”

“Hear, hear,” Katherine agreed. But Lieutenant Barclay, whether out of fear for his soul or respect for his dead captain’s family, polished off the rest of his date without joining the toast.

* * *

JAMES WAS STILL pondering that toast to his brother’s eternal ruin three days later when he finally felt well enough to venture on deck. God only knew what Nick was up to with this bill Captain Kinloch spoke of. She’d told him the Lords had put off the second reading, which meant the bill was as good as dead. James rubbed his hand over his unshaven jaw and tried to ignore the voice telling him that if it wasn’t, he would need to do something about it once they arrived. After all, he owed the woman his life. But when his little brother got his teeth into something, he did not let go easily.

The weather had turned balmy as they sailed north along the coast of Spain. The Possession was an average brig—two-masted, square-rigged. But making do with a crew of ten, counting Lady India, Lady Pennington and the captain herself, when she would have done better with at least eighteen. The ship had sixteen guns that could prove deadly to a larger, less agile foe. Not that he was aware of the Possession taking deadly action against any kind of foe except in circumstances where James himself would have done the same.

If the Admirals wanted Captain Kinloch’s shipping activity stopped merely because she was an able female captain, without proof of more, they could bloody well come to the Mediterranean and stop her themselves.

He rested his arms on the railing of the upper deck, instinctively studying the horizon for ships, trying to adjust to being a passenger without a single responsibility. It should have been more difficult than it was. But the emptiness inside him that had begun long before he’d nearly drowned with the Henry’s Cross dragged him like a fierce undertow. All that was left was to resign his commission upon their arrival in London and set out immediately for Croston. Once there, he would face nothing but endless days of...nothing.

Perhaps he would become a pigeon fancier.

The one thing he would bloody well not need to do was assert himself on behalf of Katherine Kinloch. It would be enough to report to his superiors that he’d personally observed the protocols aboard the Possession, as well as the goods in her hold, and that—as he’d suspected—there’d never been any reason to question her legitimacy in the first place. His celebrity ought to be good for that much, at least, and a positive report ought to discharge his debt to her in spades.

The devil it will.

A wave crashed against the hull and a fine, salty mist caught him in the face. The feel and the taste of it stirred his old exhilaration for the sea, but the feeling was snuffed out almost immediately. An image of the Merry Sea rose in his mind as if the entire scene had happened yesterday and not ten years previous on a day much like this one.

They’re coming about! Fire!

His own order shot through his memory. They’d been so close he hadn’t needed his glass to watch the grisly fighting between the Merry Sea’s crew and the Barbary corsairs intent on capturing her. He’d unleashed everything he could, knowing full well what awaited the seamen once hauled away as slaves to Barbary. There hadn’t been so much as a glimpse of petticoat to indicate the presence of a woman—not that it would have made a difference, except that he might have unleashed less, not more. And then there’d been the currents, the wind... Hell. In the end, there’d been nothing he could do, and his inability had cost Katherine her freedom.

He didn’t want to think of it, nor any of the other mistakes he’d made during twenty years of a supposedly glorious naval career. Every misstep, every miscalculation, every failure—they dogged him like a pack of wolves closing in on midnight prey. There would be no peace until he reached Croston.

But you’ll still owe her for that day. And now for your life, as well.

The Possession’s heavy canvas sails thwacked in the wind, and the calls of her small crew carried above the gentle crash of waves against the hull. Sunshine glittered off the water like diamonds scattered on the sea. Every inch of burnished wood gleamed softly. Clearly the Possession’s toilette rivaled that of any great beauty who spent hours in pursuit of perfection. She was a brig, but detailed carving on the rails and stern gave the ship a Moorish exoticism to match that of her captain. Across the deck, that captain stood tête-à-tête with Jaxbury, conferring about some detail of the voyage.

“Spot any threats, Barclay?” Jaxbury called over to James.

Just one. James let his gaze linger on her. The breeze played with Captain Kinloch’s loose trousers and tunic, fluttering and molding the cloth to her body in brief glimpses that presented a very credible threat to his sanity.

“I’m merely a passenger,” he called back. “Got an eye out for porpoises—nothing more.”

The two of them conferred a moment longer, and Jaxbury descended to the quarterdeck while Captain Kinloch— Damnation. From the corner of his eye James watched her come closer and join him at the railing. By the time she took the spot next to him, his breathing had gone shallow.

“Do sound the alarm if you spot anything, Lieutenant Barclay,” she said. “I’d like to think I may benefit from your vast naval experience.”

Her smile alone had alarm bells clanging painfully, but only he could hear them. “It’s gratifying to know you consider me of potential value, Captain. Shall I notify you of possible targets as well as threats? Perhaps you could engage in a bit of last-minute marauding before we approach England.”

She laughed, and the wind whipped a strand of her hair into his face. He brushed it away and felt his control slip a notch. “Clearly the depth of my ruthlessness has been overstated. I’ve never been one to maraud entirely unprovoked.”

“What a pity I won’t get to see that famed cutlass arm in action.” He hadn’t failed to notice that the British flag had replaced her colors flying at the stern.

“You have only to displease me, Lieutenant Barclay, and you shall see it firsthand.” She closed her eyes to the wind and tipped her face back. He let himself notice the way her hair shone in the sunlight, the fine sculpture of her cheekbones, the sensuous curve of her lips. She was, without a doubt, the most alluring woman he’d ever seen.

“I shudder to think of the terrifying woman Anne will become with you as a model.” Except that sweet, vulnerable Anne would never be able to defend herself with a cutlass. It crushed him to watch her navigate the cabins by memory, patting her way from one chair or table or wall to the next with those tiny hands. He’d noticed that under no circumstances was any piece of furniture to be moved. Every critical door remained open, held in place by heavy anvils that would not budge. Textured tiles marked each room, mounted outside each door at just the right height. “She is a remarkable child,” he said.

“Yes, she is. She’s had to be.” Worry shadowed Captain Kinloch’s eyes, and it annoyed him a little that he wanted to ease it.

“Already she shows signs of your deviousness. I suppose you are aware that your keys are not the only objects whose hiding place she has discovered.”

A smile touched Captain Kinloch’s lips, and he watched the way it softened the lines around her mouth. Under other circumstances, would she smile like that more often?

“She’s found the doll,” she said. “Yes, I could tell. Do you suppose my lower drawers are not the most effective hiding place for a birthday gift?”

He could tell by the laughter in her eyes that she’d meant for Anne to find that doll. “I think she enjoys the search more than anything,” he said. Against his better judgment he’d thought of an idea for a gift for her, but he would need access to the ship’s carpenter in order to find the necessary materials.

“The doll I let her find, but I’ve a small mandolin hiding elsewhere that she won’t receive until her birthday arrives.”

“A mandolin is an excellent idea.”

“You may not say so after listening to her endless practicing.” She laughed.

“Oh, I imagine I can tolerate it.” It was hard to imagine what he wouldn’t tolerate for Anne’s sake.

Captain Kinloch looked at him. “The attention you’ve shown her has been much appreciated.”

“She’s an endearing girl.” And that was the problem. All the plea rolls in England did not contain enough parchment to list the reasons why it would be a mistake to form any kind of attachment with Katherine Kinloch’s daughter.

“I’m told you are an accomplished storyteller,” she said.

“Hardly.” He had to laugh at that. “I never told a story before in all my life—except to the governess.”

“Never?”

“Not many children aboard a frigate.” The hypnotic lure of Captain Kinloch’s eyes snared him. Mysteries lurked there—dark ones likely rooted in her years as a captive, and softer, spicier ones that suggested she was aware of him as a man. The possibility had an unwelcome effect on his baser instincts.

The remainder of the voyage taunted him with the prospect of interminable weeks of temptation. It was a prospect that would change very quickly if she somehow discovered his identity.

“Captain.” Her Moorish boatswain called from the top of the stairs, and James caught himself a heartbeat before he responded to the title. The boatswain waited with his arms crossed and his gold earrings and shaved head gleaming in the sunshine. A string of beads like the one William wore was tied around his neck. All the crew had them. It was their mark, he’d learned, fashioned by Anne.

Captain Kinloch stepped away from the railing. “Excuse me a moment, Lieutenant.”

“Of course.” It took all his willpower not to watch her hips sway in those damned trousers as she walked away.

* * *

KATHERINE FORCED HERSELF not to look back as she left Lieutenant Barclay standing at the railing. But she hardly needed to look when her body still hummed with his presence. “What is it, Rafik?”

“Young rigger Danby wants to see you.”

“Send him up.”

“He will not come. He is afraid.”

Katherine frowned. “That’s ridiculous.”

Rafik only regarded her with that expressionless stare that silently let her know he thought he would make a better captain than she.

Katherine brushed by him and descended the stairs, finally allowing herself a glance over her shoulder. Lieutenant Barclay stood with his eyes on the horizon and the wind toying with the hair at his temples. She forced her attention away. “Did he give you no hint of his concerns?”

“It is best for you to hear it from him, Captain.”

Fears of returning to England had plagued the crew since the moment they’d set their sails north. No doubt he feared the impressment gangs, but there was little she could do to protect him from that. Perhaps he wanted permission to go ashore before they reached England. That was out of the question.

They made their way toward the stern, where Danby was partway up in the rigging. The moment he saw her he climbed down and whipped his hat off his head.

“What is it you have to say, Danby?”

His hat crumpled in his hands. “I—I should have told you before. I know that. But I was afraid...well, I was afraid you wouldn’t hire me.”

“Told me what?”

“That I was aboard Captain Warre’s ship. When we put in at Gibraltar, I snuck away. I know it was wrong, Captain, and I’d never do such a thing to you. I swear. I’d die first.”

“I believe you. But why tell me now?”

“I’m afraid, with him here—him what we pulled aboard.”

“Lieutenant Barclay?” Her thoughts filled with his smile—the creases at his eyes, the lines around his mouth, the subtly wicked angle of mustache above his lips. White teeth against sun-browned skin. If she were a different kind of woman—

Danby frowned and looked past her toward the upper deck. “Aye, but...that ain’t Lieutenant Barclay, mum.” He gripped his hat in his hands. “That’s Captain Warre.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

CAPTAIN WARRE.

Katherine stared toward the upper deck where he stood laughing with William. William, who surely knew the truth about their visitor. Captain Warre looked her way, caught her watching him.

An accomplished storyteller, indeed. Her blood began to pound. “Danby, are you certain?”

“No doubt on it, Captain.” Danby still worried his hat in his hands. “No mistaking the likes of him.”

She turned her back on the upper deck. “You’ve no cause for concern. He cannot punish you here, and with the number of sailors on a man-of-war, it’s doubtful he’ll remember you. You may rest easy.”

Danby exhaled and replaced his hat. “Yes, Captain. Thank you, Captain.”

“Have you told anyone that you recognize him?”

“Not a soul, Captain.”

“Good. See that you tell no one else.” Danby bobbed his head and hoisted himself back up the rigging, while Katherine exchanged looks with Rafik.

“I shall take him now and lock him in the brig,” Rafik said.

“No.”

“Then what do you wish me to do?”

Her stomach clenched fiercely. In her mind, Captain Warre’s cannons exploded. She could almost smell the acrid gunsmoke drifting across the water. The girl inside her tried to propel her forward to confront him, but the woman she’d become kept that urge in check. She may have been helpless then, but she bloody well wasn’t helpless anymore.

She glanced at the upper deck, and the past sucked at her with its violent whirlpool of fear and helplessness. For a moment she thought she would be sick. “For now,” she said slowly, “nothing. He can do little, being only one man.” Except that Captain Warre had the presence of ten men.

“That is dangerous thinking,” Rafik said too sharply.

“It is not for you to question,” Katherine shot back. “For the time being, we shall let him continue to believe we have not discovered his identity.” The significance of that identity could not be ignored. “And I shall place him under your supervision.”

Only a slight narrowing of his dark eyes told her he might find that acceptable.

“You shall assign him every menial task,” she told Rafik. Oh, yes, the great Captain Warre would swab decks and polish cannons and slop buckets of filth. “He will be one of the crew—just another sailor. And I expect you to treat him as such.”

“Aye, Captain.” A slight curving of his lips betrayed his opinion this time.

“Not more harshly, Rafik.” She would need Captain Warre alive and well when they arrived in London.

“I will treat him as the rest of the crew.”

“Excellent.” She shifted so she could see the upper deck once more. Soddingest bastard he’d ever set eyes on, was he? As she watched, he put his hands behind his head and stretched his shoulders. Her body went soft and liquid deep inside, and she clenched her teeth. Ten years she’d nursed her hatred for this man, and now it took an effort to tear her gaze away from him.

This was unacceptable.

“Tomorrow,” she decided. “You will move him into the berth with the crew. He is still weak, so give him only small tasks at first and keep an eye on him for signs that he is not as recovered as he seems.”

Rafik nodded.

“And report to me regularly about his activities. I want to know at the first hint of insubordination.” It would likely come moments after he received his first assignment.

Rafik returned to his duties, and Katherine turned toward the upper deck. Her hands shook with the desire to whip her cutlass from its sheath and confront the bastard.

Captain James Warre. Here, on her ship, eating her meat pies and drinking her wine and sleeping on her linens. She watched him shift his weight from one foot to both and brace his hands on the railing. Her eyes followed the angle of his legs past his buttocks and across the broad expanse of his back, over his shoulder and down the line of his arm to the fingers that curled around smooth wood. She didn’t need to be any closer to know exactly what those fingers looked like. Strong, solid, lightly callused. Gripping the Possession as though he owned it.

A hot lick of sensation shot through her belly as though he touched her.

Captain Warre. He was Captain Warre. Perhaps if she thought the name enough times, her body would stop reacting to him. To think that if Danby hadn’t recognized him, before the voyage ended she might have been foolish enough to—

Good God.

Petrels soared above the sails as Katherine returned to the upper deck. The sound of the waves and the familiar shouts and laughter of her crew were a comfort, but everything had changed. William still chatted with India, but she would deal with him later. Oh, yes. She would deal with William. But for now, she rejoined Captain Warre at the railing.

“Everything all right?” he asked. His scent—Turkish soap borrowed from William, plus some musky undertone that was uniquely him—wafted over her on the breeze.

“A misunderstanding among the riggers.” She put her own hands on the railing and tried to cleanse her lungs with sea air, but his subtle spice lingered.

“That required your intervention? I would have guessed your boatswain capable of handling such problems.”

“Rafik is capable of handling any number of problems—” as Captain Warre would soon discover “—but my crew is free to speak with me whenever they wish. No doubt that seems strange to you. I’m sure your Captain Warre would have abhorred such a policy.”

He made a noise. “To the extent it would have meant five hundred men queued up outside his cabin, I’m sure you’re correct.”

No doubt he planned to play the role of Lieutenant Barclay for the entire voyage. He probably reasoned that once they reached London and he rejoined the upper echelons of society, it wouldn’t matter if she finally discovered his true identity. Hot anger simmered beneath her skin, so much easier to tolerate than the attraction. And infinitely more acceptable than that old vulnerability.

Her life held no room for weakness, not when so many depended on her strength.

Captain Warre, hiding like a coward behind the persona of a dead inferior officer. How many lies would he tell to protect his identity?

“You were about to tell me a little more about yourself, Lieutenant,” she said, deciding to find out. “Are you the eldest son?”

“Hardly.” One lie. “My eldest brother, Theodore, will inherit the baronetcy.” Two. Three. According to Philomena, Captain Warre was an earl by virtue of his older brother’s death five years earlier.

“I merely wish to leave the sea and all its tedium behind and live a quiet life,” he continued.

Without a doubt, four. “Leave the navy? But surely you would become a captain soon.”

He nodded. “In a few years, I likely would have had my own command.” Five. The real Lieutenant Barclay may have had a few years to wait, but the renowned Captain Warre had risen quickly through the ranks and attained his first commission twelve years ago.

“That seems an excruciatingly slow wait,” she said. “Surely you’ve been at sea twenty years now.”

The corners of his eyes creased when he glanced at her. “You pull no punches about a man’s age, Captain. Just shy of half that, I’m afraid.” Which, for the real Lieutenant Barclay, may have been true. Six lies. The only thing she didn’t know was whether Captain Warre was hiding his identity for fear of her reputation or because he knew she’d been aboard the Merry Sea. More likely the former. He would hardly remember one violent encounter among the hundreds that spanned his career.

“I can’t imagine Captain Warre approved your plan to leave the navy, battle-hardened as he must be,” she said. “With his record and reputation, I’ve no doubt he’ll order ‘Fire the cannons!’ with his dying breath.”

He laughed, full and real with a smile that gleamed white as the sails and creased his cheeks with wicked merriment. “First, there would have to be a war on.”

“Which there undoubtedly will be again.”

“Bite your tongue. And second, he would have to remain in the navy. The reason the captain approved my plan most heartily was because he planned to resign his own commission as soon as our voyage was over.”

He did? “For what reason?”

His smile dimmed. She refused to be disappointed. “Fatigue,” he said. “Jadedness, perhaps. Battle-weary, rather than battle-hardened. I fear you would have been sorely disappointed had you met him—he was hardly the bloodthirsty predator you imagine.”

Seven. If the calculating bastard standing next to her was fatigued and weary, it was only the lingering effects of his ordeal at sea. “He could hardly have attained such notoriety otherwise,” she said. His actions against the Merry Sea supported that opinion.

He turned his head and looked straight into her eyes, piercing her with a memory. As she stared back, suddenly she knew. He had not forgotten the Merry Sea or his own hand in her fate.

“Even the most driven of men make miscalculations, Captain Kinloch.”

“Do they.” She was speaking to Captain Warre now, not Lieutenant Barclay. Desperately she fought back an onslaught of emotions and memories. “I rather wonder if they don’t simply become complacent with regard to any unfortunate consequences of their actions.”

“I can assure you, they do not.” For a heartbeat those green eyes looked as weary as he claimed. “If he were here, I have no doubt he would tell you he has many regrets.”

And she would tell him to go to hell. “If Captain Warre were here,” she said, “I have no doubt that he would have many regrets—and none would have to do with his naval career.”

* * *

KATHERINE WAITED UNTIL William had retired to his cabin that evening and knocked once on his door. Captain Warre was not the only one who would have regrets.

“A word, please,” she said tightly when William opened. He’d removed his turban, and his golden hair glinted in the lamplight. She stepped into his cabin and waited until he shut the door. An atlas lay open on the desk against the wall.

“Thought I’d see where I might go after you’ve claimed your title,” he said. “What do you think of Madagascar?”

“You betrayed me,” she said. William was her best friend in the entire world, and he’d lied to her. Was still lying to her. Her chest felt tight and hot as though she’d been speared.

William studied her for a long, quiet moment. Everything in his cabin glittered—the gold in his ears, the gilded scrollwork on the bedstead and dressing table he’d purchased in the Levant, the bejeweled waterpipe he’d taken from a ship bound from Tangier. “I would fall on my sword before I would betray you, Katherine.” There was no trace of his usual humor. His blue eyes glittered, too—hard, like sapphires. “Protect you, yes. Betray? Never.”

“Explain how lying to me is protecting me.”

“I suspect the punishment for mistreating the captain of a first-rate ship of the line would be most unpleasant.”

“You think me so stupid?”

“I think anger could blind you to the consequences of revenge, and I think you’ve spent your entire adult life in a world where the rules are nothing like those where we’re headed. It would be easy for you to underestimate the value of our latest cargo.”

“I assure you, I fully appreciate Captain Warre’s value.”

“That is precisely what I’m afraid of.”

“He’s got two hands like everyone else on board,” she said harshly, “and a strong back.” An image of that strong back leaped unhelpfully to mind, rippling with muscles beneath white linen.

“Katherine, you cannot—”

“Cannot what?” She rounded on him. “Cannot put him to work? Demand that he earn his passage?”

“You cannot mistreat him.”

“Beginning tomorrow, he will be under Rafik’s supervision. He will receive the same mistreatment as any other member of the crew. If the good captain perceives honest work as mistreatment, then I will gladly stand accused.”

William exhaled and rubbed the back of his neck. “Did he disclose himself to you?”

“Hardly. A loyal crew member recognized him and saw fit to inform me. But you—” She swallowed past the tightness in her throat. “You would have let me play the fool the entire voyage.”

“I have far too much respect for you to play you for a fool,” William said, his voice low and harsh in a tone he rarely used. He stepped close, framing her face in his hands. “You know that.”

“It was your duty to tell me his identity.” Because his identity changed everything.

Not everything.

Yes. Everything. Whatever misguided attraction she’d felt for Lieutenant Barclay—good God, for Captain Warre—was at this moment shriveling in her bosom.

William brushed her cheek and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “It’s my duty to protect you, pet, and everyone aboard this ship. Can’t think of a worse time for you to finally come face-to-face with him. Too many uncertainties.”

When you are countess of Dunscore, Katie, men will bow at your feet like pagans before Isis.

Papa’s declaration reached out from a past she’d long since abandoned. If the Lords had their way, she would never be countess of Dunscore at all—never mind see anyone bow at her feet. Not that it mattered, except for Anne. She was doing this for Anne’s future, not her own.

“I never thought I would count you as one of those uncertainties,” she said.

“Couldn’t risk you dealing with him irrationally. Regardless of what you think, he knew from the first where my loyalties lie.”

Bah. “And now I know, as well,” she said, even though it wasn’t true.

“You don’t believe that.”

The touch of her dear friend made her want to lean into him as she’d done during those early days after their escape, when she’d been pregnant with Anne and terrified by an unknown future. Returning to Britain with a half-Moor child in her belly had been out of the question. So had been staying in Algiers. But William had found their solution. He had been her rock—at least, until she had learned to be her own rock, thanks to him. It was William who’d suggested she act as captain. William who’d stood to the side, teaching her everything he knew, knowing the independence it would give her. She owed him her life for that.

She stepped away from him. “If you ever lie to me again, I’ll run you through and toss your carcass to the gulls.”

“Agreed.” He watched her through eyes that knew her too well. “We were both captives, Katherine. I know only too well how badly the finger itches to point at someone other than the true culprits.” He paused. “I also know how easily old resentments can be intensified by more recent aggravations.”

The slightest tick of one dark gold brow told her exactly what he was thinking. “I assure you, my resentment toward Captain Warre needs no intensification,” she said. It was her own fault that William suspected she’d found Captain Warre attractive. She’d been too unguarded, too seduced by broad shoulders and sea-colored eyes.

She would have no trouble resisting them now.

CHAPTER EIGHT

HENRY’S CROSS WRECKED.

Nicholas Warre, Lord Taggart, stared numbly at the printed words. A fire crackled in the fireplace, but a chill shivered across his skin.

All hands lost...

The news screamed at him from the paper. He’d stared at it all afternoon. He’d stared until a cavern of emptiness hollowed out his body and sucked his mind dry.

First Robert, now James. His only brothers, dead.

Nick felt dead, too.

He leaned over James’s desk—his desk, now, though he didn’t deserve it—and cradled his head in his hands, fighting to breathe through a throat that felt swollen shut. Images darted through his mind—dark imaginings too easy to conjure of gigantic waves, splintering wood and the screams of drowning men. He squeezed his eyes shut, then pushed back suddenly from the desk, springing to his feet, turning toward the fire.

Bates’s knock sounded at the door.

Nick stared into the flames. “Come in,” he said woodenly.

“Lady Ramsey has arrived, your lordship.”

“Send her in.”

The rustle of yards of fabric and lace preceded Honoria into the study. “Snuffboxes, Nicholas!” his sister declared as she entered the room. “They’re hawking snuffboxes with his likeness on the lid!”

“Oh, for God’s sake.” He gripped the mantel and dropped his head to his forearm. There would be no such thing as a private mourning.

“Is there nothing we can do to preserve the family’s dignity?”

“I’m little match for the adoration of the masses,” Nick said.

“A pox on the masses! James hates snuff.” Her skirts swooshed as she walked up behind him. He felt his sister’s hand on his back, smelled her familiar perfume. “La, Nicholas,” she whispered. “I don’t know how I can survive it.”

He wanted to turn into her arms, but if he did, despair would open a chasm inside him and he would be lost. He returned to the desk instead. “Been all day with Fortescue,” he said. “Nothing’s changed. Not one damned thing.”

She followed him to the desk, all powder and jewels and black lace. Modest, by Honoria’s standards. Grief had dampened her usual high spirits and killed her quick laugh. “I keep having to remind myself it’s really true,” she said quietly. “With him at sea nearly all of the time, everything seems so...usual.”

It did. But it shouldn’t. They’d all been so close, once— God, it had been ages ago. He, James, Robert, riding hell-bent through the countryside, staging mock battles on the lawn, enraging Honoria with their merciless teasing.

Two brothers dead, and they’d all grown so far apart it was as if nothing had changed. “It’s very hard terms for a title,” he spat.

Honoria reached across the desk and took his hand. “Tell me Fortescue had a solution for your problem, at least.”

“Oh, certainly. It’s not as though there isn’t a solution. But I can’t burden the Croston estate with my debts.”

“It’s your estate now. You can do with it as you wish.”

“Indeed. Just as I’ve done with Taggart.” His own barony sat mortgaged to the tune of over forty thousand pounds—an act of desperation as one after another of his shipping investments met with disaster, and that would have been worse were it not for insurance, but that hardly made a difference now. He’d become Bertrand Holliswell’s puppet, and the fact of it made him sick.

“Tempests are not your fault,” Honoria said sternly. “Nor pirates, nor any of the other disasters that befell your ships. La, Nicholas, will you blame yourself next for—” She broke off abruptly.

James’s death. That’s what she’d been about to say. No, at least he was not to blame for that.

He exhaled and looked at the papers on the desk as though they held some kind of answer. “I’ve got to get that bill through, but it looks like the bloody thing has been put off indefinitely.”

“For heaven’s sake, I cannot abide the idea that you’re willing to throw that poor girl to the dogs to satisfy a debt that could be paid with the stroke of a pen.”

“Poor girl?” He stared at her in disbelief. “The woman is practically a pirate.”

“Don’t you remember her at that garden party at Lolly’s, pining after McCutcheon like a lost puppy? No, of course you wouldn’t. Such a spectacle, but then, we were young. We all gave our hearts recklessly at that age.” Honoria sighed. “Poor thing.”

“Poor thing?” Incredulous, Nick put his hands on the desk. “She took a corsair prize!”

“Defending the Barbary reign of terror, brother dear?” She arched a brow at him. “She freed twenty English captives, which is a good deal more exciting than anything I’ve done this season.”

“Will you join your dear friend Lady Pennington aboard that pirate ship? Oh, yes, I can just imagine you with a mop in those dainty hands, swabbing decks.”

“I highly doubt Philomena is swabbing decks. And it is not a pirate ship. The last letter I had from her told of glorious adventure—which, though I’m not well-versed in the law, I know to be perfectly legal.” Her green eyes turned worried. “I only hope the tempest that caught our James did not find them, as well.” She pried one of Nick’s hands off the desk and held it in her own, and he felt like a cad for picking a fight with her—the only sibling he had left. “When the only person standing with you is Yost,” she said, “it’s a good sign you’re going the wrong direction.”

“They’ll come around.”

“Lord Dunscore was well loved.”

He didn’t need her to tell him that. He pulled his hand free and paced back to the fire. “I think he even befriended the parliamentary rats with stray crumbs,” he said in disgust. The terrible thing was Nick had liked him, too. Always ready with a laugh, always up for a night of drink and debauchery, always offering use of his horses, carriage, houses—the man would have done anything for anybody. Poor fellow had tried like hell to ransom his daughter out of Morocco after her capture, but the dey had given her as a gift to a cousin in Algiers who had not been interested in ransom money. It was only when a handful of captives she’d rescued had come home with their tale of a Scottish virago sea captain that anyone knew she had escaped captivity. Lord Dunscore had disappeared up north for months drowning his sorrows. “She broke his heart not coming home,” Nick added.

“But he didn’t disinherit her.”

“In England she never would have inherited in the first place.”

“Be that as it may, the estate is in Scotland, and harridan though she may be, she has inherited. As a matter of principle, it’s not the House of Lords’ place to interfere.”

The irony of Honoria calling someone else a harridan was almost too much. “This has nothing to do with principle. Only with satisfying Holliswell.”

“And marrying his daughter, although you already know my opinion on that.”

“Yes. And I’ll thank you not to repeat it.” It wasn’t enough that Holliswell held Nick’s debt. Holliswell’s daughter held his heart. The moment Nick had set eyes on her, it was clear that the lovely, gentle Clarissa Holliswell was a helpless pawn in Holliswell’s lustful quest for connections. Holliswell wanted the Dunscore title for himself, yes—but failing that, he’d made it clear he would marry Clarissa to even the oldest, most licentious beard splitter in England if the man had the right title.

Baron, Nick had already discovered, was not the right title.

“If this business is keeping you from happiness,” she said, “it has everything to do with principle.”

Dear Honoria, loyal to a fault and impervious to shortcomings. He smiled a little, only to have the rudimentary curve shrivel on his lips. Happiness. It was a ravenous beast, insatiable, incapable of satisfaction no matter how much one fed it.

“Just use the money from the Croston estate,” she said sadly. “The title belongs to you now, and it’s what James would have wanted.”

It was out of the question. “I incurred this debt of my own doing, and I shall discharge it the same way.” Once this bill passed, it was all but certain the Dunscore estate and title would be settled on Holliswell. And once Holliswell became the Earl of Dunscore, he would forgive Nick’s debt and bless his union with Clarissa.

Or so Nick hoped.

* * *

WHATEVER JAMES MIGHT have wanted, what he’d received was a demotion of monumental proportions.

Deep in the hold, he pushed the end of a broom into the crevice between a stack of crates and raked out a wad of rats’ nests. Five days of emptying slop buckets, carrying water, cutting biscuits, swabbing decks—it should have made him furious. He tried for something like outrage when he shoved the next handful of disgusting mess into the bucket, but all he did was scrape his knuckles against the wood.

He yanked his hand away with a hiss.

That he couldn’t work up a good fury over something like this was proof he wasn’t himself. Perhaps he was ill. But then, he’d been wondering that for months now with no sign of physical manifestation. His ship’s surgeon—God rest his soul—had suggested malaise. If nothing else, all this work had him sleeping like a babe in that creaking, knotty hammock he’d been relegated to. But his joints ached like the devil.

The menial tasks, of course, were punishment for being “practically of one mind” with the supposedly ruthless Captain Warre, whose merciless brother threatened her family estate. But poor Lieutenant Barclay wasn’t being punished for Nick’s sins, that much was clear. He was being punished for Captain Warre’s.

Wouldn’t she be disappointed to know that the impassioned naval captain for whom she cherished such a special hatred had been dead for at least a year, perhaps two. The tenacious, single-minded man he used to be had gone missing as completely as the bodies of the men aboard the Henry’s Cross. All that was left was a man who, he could assure her, was much less satisfying.

But if this was Barclay’s penalty for simply knowing him, he preferred not to know what his fate would be if she knew his true identity. Incarceration, probably—and he’d be damned before he let her know he preferred menial tasks over idleness. He wanted his idleness on his own terms, preferably with a generous glass of something expensive and strong.

Briskly he swept out the crevice, shined the lantern to see the result and repeated the process until not even a mote of dust remained. He scooped the mess into a bucket and got on his hands and knees to reach around the side of the crates and into another corner. The little buggers had met their fates at the paws of some of Mr. Bogles’s relations, but before the massacre they’d turned this lower hold into a city the size of London. He breathed in a puff of nasty dust and coughed, wiping his face with his wrist.

Devil take it, this should have been enough to cool the fever she stoked in his blood. But there was no sign of relief from that. Malaise definitely did not afflict him where she was concerned.

At least the tight quarters in the sailors’ berth kept him from becoming more closely acquainted with himself than he ought to.

“I see you’re surprisingly adept with a broom, Lieutenant,” came her smug voice into the hold.

Bloody hell.

Protocol demanded that he stand. Instead, he reached farther around the crates and came up with another handful of dusty, feces-riddled nesting. “I’m adept with any number of tools, Captain.” He didn’t even try to keep the double-entendre from his voice, although there was no doubt it hurt him more than it annoyed her.

“Versatility is a useful quality in a sailor.” Her heavy boots thumped across the planks as she moved in to inspect his work. “My boatswain says your strength is increasing. I thought I would see for myself how you’re managing.”

As though she hadn’t been observing him these past five days at every task he’d put his hands to. He’d felt her eyes on him, caught her watching him countless times. “As you can see, I’m quite recovered and managing well.” He dumped the mess in the bucket and finally stood, reaching for the broom, purposely letting his chest brush her arm—and then regretting it. “You may satisfy yourself that your nemesis is turning in his watery grave to see his lieutenant doing the work of a cabin boy.”

She stood with that arrogant posture, shoulders back and chin up, as though she commanded not just her ship but the sea and everything on it. Her dark hair gleamed in the lantern’s light, falling loose over the swell of her breasts beneath layers of Turkish muslin.

“You misunderstand, Lieutenant,” she said evenly. He watched her lips move and fought an overwhelming urge to kiss that self-satisfied curve from that sensuous mouth. “Your new duties have nothing to do with my feelings toward anyone else. I’m simply operating with a skeleton crew, as you are aware, and naturally I require the assistance of all hands.”

“Naturally.”

“I apologize if the position doesn’t suit you, but I’m afraid I have all the officers I require at present.”

“I have no wish to be one of your officers, Captain.” But he could imagine several other positions that would suit him very nicely. Her power was intoxicating, wrapping around him the way her legs might do, and he drank it in. The raw need to touch her surged through his veins. “Given that I’ve not yet resigned my commission, I am obliged to continue my loyalty to the navy.” He shoved his hand in his pocket and encountered the handful of dowel discs he’d recovered off the floor beneath the carpenter’s bench.

“I am fully aware of where your loyalties lie, Lieutenant.” She looked him up and down, and a pulse jumped in his groin. “Are the men treating you well? If you have any complaints, you are as free to speak with me as any other member of my crew.” The gleam in those topaz eyes told him any complaints he had would be met with satisfaction.

“No complaints, Captain.” Except that he was on fire, and he needed her to leave.

“Excellent.” Her eyes darkened. Good God.

“Although my hammock creaks.”

“I’m sorry to hear it.”

“And this broom is worn.”

“I shall see that you get another.”

And I am James Warre. One sentence, and everything would change—though not necessarily for the better. Wisdom dictated that he wait until a more strategic moment to have the satisfaction of seeing the look on her face when he disclosed himself. Or perhaps he wouldn’t disclose himself at all. Perhaps he would wait until London and savor the moment when circumstances threw them together.

“You’re doing excellent work, Lieutenant,” she said, looking past him with a raised brow. “Very thorough. One can only imagine what you could accomplish with a fresh broom.” She smiled. “You may well earn yourself another commendation.”

On the other hand, perhaps he would prefer to savor his moment much sooner.

CHAPTER NINE

KATHERINE SENT THE fresh broom and hoped the hammock would keep him awake every night, the same way his presence on board was doing to her.

Her attention followed his movements like a compass needle, and she hated it.

By Anne’s sixth birthday nearly a week later, the Possession had made good time sailing up the coast of Spain toward France. Katherine stood at the railing after the birthday festivities with her hands fisted inside a heavy woolen coat, overlooking the lower decks where Captain Warre swabbed the main deck near the bow.

How vexing that he worked with as much vigor now as he had a week ago in the hold—never mind that he’d been assigned the midnight watch, and a moist drizzle threatened harder rain, and the breeze was chilling. The man was impervious to every hardship.

“The closer we get to England, the more insufferable India becomes,” Phil said, joining her at the railing in a billowing, hooded cape. She followed Katherine’s line of sight. “Aha. I see the view from here is excellent today.”

“The closer we get to England, the more insufferable everything becomes,” Katherine said irritably, and pulled her coat more tightly around her. He deserved to be vulnerable. To know what it was like to be powerless and expendable.

“I left Anne instructing Mr. Bogles in the basics of draughts,” Phil told her. “I have a feeling he’ll be a most inept player, but I didn’t wish to disillusion Anne on her birthday—especially since Cook put her in charge of meting out the leftover sugar cakes.”

“With India around, no one else need worry about leftover cakes.”

Phil made a noise of agreement. Below, Captain Warre ran a rag over the railings. Katherine could feel the moment Phil’s gaze shifted away from him and back to her. “The draughts board is remarkable,” Phil said. “Such meticulous detail. Who would have ever thought of embedding rope into the wood so Anne could feel the squares?” Phil’s voice dripped with the answer: Lieutenant Barclay, that was who. “I never would have expected him to be so skilled with wood,” she said. Her lips twitched with suppressed amusement. “At least—”

“Do not say it.”

“Very well.” Phil was quiet for a moment that was pregnant with her mischievous thoughts. “I suppose the third son of a baronet learns any number of diverting skills.”

Apparently so did the second son of an earl. “The draughts board was a gift from the crew,” Katherine said tersely.

“Mmm.”

’Twere all Tom’s idea, Cap’n. He was the one who had thought to adapt the game so Anne’s blindness would not prevent her from playing. It was so difficult to find things to make Anne’s life interesting, things she could do independently. Now she had one more thing to give her confidence.

It was impossible to hate Captain Warre for that.

A drop of rain fell from Katherine’s eyebrow to her cheek and slid down her face. She brushed it away and gripped the dewy railing. The familiar wood, like her sense of control, slipped beneath her grasp. The Merry Sea called to her from its resting place beneath the water, tempting her with memories of those terrifying hours when she’d known, without a doubt, that she would die.

Below, Captain Warre had exchanged the rag for the mop. They watched him drag the mop forward and back, forward and back, carefully pushing it around the railing spindles. He bent to pick up some small thing she couldn’t identify and flung it over the side.

“Anne is very fond of him,” Phil reminded her. “And she misses his stories.”

“I tell her stories.”

“And now you’ll play draughts with her, as well, I daresay. Although one’s own mother is vastly less entertaining than an intriguing naval lieutenant—no matter how many similarities you and the lieutenant share.”

“Continue, and you’ll find yourself swabbing alongside him.”

Phil laughed. “Worth the price, if I could but see you distracted from your worries by a fiery amorous liaison.”

It was past time to tell Phil the truth. “The longer you persist in this notion that I should have an affair with Lieutenant Barclay, the more severe your disappointment will be when it does not occur.”

“The only thing you will gain by such a prudish attitude is a pinched mouth and a crease above your lip.”

“I already have a crease.” Phil was going to be furious that Katherine hadn’t told her. And once she knew, there would be no peace for the rest of the voyage.

“Then you must bed him quickly to prevent more.”

“I rather think I shall continue my nightly cream instead.”

“What could it possibly hurt? A few stolen moments, a passionate embrace...”

Katherine was not going to embrace Captain Warre.

“Let me assure you, lovemaking can be very discreet. If you move him from the midnight watch—”

“Enough!”

Phil raised a brow.

“There’s something I haven’t told you.”

“You are having an affair with him.” Phil gripped her arm. “I knew it.”

“No.” Katherine dragged her gaze from Captain Warre. “I am not.”

Phil’s eyes narrowed and her grip tightened. “Tell me.”

“You must swear you won’t breathe a word to anyone but William.”

“William knows? Katherine, tell me instantly.”

Katherine did, and Phil went from deathly curious to outraged in a heartbeat. “I should run you through on the spot!” she hissed. “Isn’t that what you always say? For heaven’s sake, Katherine—how dare you keep something like this from me? It’s— It’s—” She spun on her heel, stalked a few paces away and stalked back. “Why did you not tell me? Did you not trust me?”

“Perhaps I did not wish to hear about his skill with wood,” Katherine hissed back.

“Do you honestly believe I would have said such things if I’d known?”

Katherine answered with a look. Of course Phil would have said such things—and with all the more glee.

“At least credit me with some sense,” Phil scolded. But already Katherine could see Phil putting the pieces together, realizing that mere moments ago Katherine had been watching Captain Warre—and not because she was merely surveying the crew. Katherine studied a distant ship on the horizon.

“Oh, Katherine. You mustn’t be angry with yourself.”

It was too late for that. “His identity changes nothing. My plans are the same.” Captain Warre was not going to steer her off course. Clearly she was a fool, but she was a fool in command—of both her ship and herself.

“He has no idea that you know? You haven’t spoken to him at all of the past?” Someone called to Captain Warre from overhead, and he tossed the rag over his shoulder and climbed into the rigging to put his weight on a rope.

“No. Nor do I wish to.”

“Of course not. But— Oh, you should have told me.” Agitated, Phil pulled her cloak and hood more tightly around her against the annoying drizzle. “Katherine, you’ve got the Earl of Croston swabbing your deck.”

“It’s less than he deserves.”

“Most definitely. But you must realize this changes everything. Everything! You cannot keep him with the crew. Oh, if only I’d known, I would have advised you never to have put him there. Don’t you see? We didn’t rescue just anybody—we rescued Captain Warre. You rescued Captain Warre.”

“Yes. And I intend to make sure his brother is fully aware of that fact.”

“Which is all good and well, but the possibilities are so much larger. You’ll be a heroine in your own right. This is exactly the kind of thing that will open society’s doors.” Phil looked at him once more. “You’re absolutely certain he is the captain?”

“Yes.”

Phil’s lips tightened, and she sniffed. “I always imagined him with a bulbous nose and cruel, twisted lips.” The fact that he had neither hung silently between them as they watched him carefully but efficiently wipe down the spindles. “But that’s neither here nor there. Regardless of all the reasons you have a right to dislike him, you must remove him from the crew immediately and begin cultivating his good favor.”

“His good favor!” Katherine stared at her. “He should be cultivating mine.”

“Perhaps so, but unfortunately that is an attitude you cannot afford. Your father’s friends in the Lords cannot be counted upon to approve of you, and Lord Taggart certainly won’t appreciate the news that his brother served as your cabin boy.”

“He will appreciate that his brother is alive, and that if it weren’t for me, he wouldn’t be.”

“Will he?” Phil questioned, and for the first time Katherine realized the flaw in her plan. She met Phil’s blue eyes, and Phil arched a damp brow. “The new Earl of Croston might not be pleased to lose his earldom so soon.”

“And there is Lord Deal.”

“So you keep telling me, and I agree that your father’s best friend is an excellent champion, but Lord Deal could not do in ten months what Captain Warre could do in ten minutes if he took up your cause.”

“I do not want him to take up my cause. I want him to grovel at my feet.” Even from here she could see how the drizzle had turned Captain Warre’s hair into dewy black waves. That she noticed his hair at all was galling. “I deserve my revenge, and I will have it.”

“Is not your rentrée into society more important than revenge?”

It was, but— “I shall have both.”

“Think, Katherine. With the right kind of effort, once we get to London all of society will praise you as a heroine.” Phil narrowed her eyes in his direction. “Unless you capitalize on your acquaintance with Captain Warre, what you will very likely have is nothing.”

CHAPTER TEN

WITH THE RIGHT kind of effort, Katherine decided, one could exact a very satisfying revenge.

Over the next few days, she ignored Phil’s repeated pleas and made sure that her new cabin boy had plenty to do. There was no end of unpleasant tasks aboard a ship. And conveniently, the most repugnant were those most in need of repetition.

They were also those most likely to be stoking his resentment against her.

Now she stood at the top of the stairs that led down to the hold where they kept a small hen coop and listened to him sweet-talk the hens as he cleaned their straw and collected eggs.

Lord Deal could not do in ten months what Captain Warre could do in ten minutes if he took up your cause. The same would be true if he decided to oppose her cause, as well. What if she was taking things too far?

It wasn’t as if she were abusing the man. If he had a complaint, there was little doubt he would make it known.

And he was reaping so much less than he deserved.

But they would reach London in a week, and Phil was right about one thing: she would need all the good favor she could curry.

She pushed her mouth into a curve and started down the stairs. “I see you’ve finally found a lightskirt to allow you the liberties you’ve craved,” she said, reaching the coop.

He faced her with a small bucket of eggs in his hand and a piece of straw in his hair. His gaze raked over her. “To what do I owe this pleasure, Captain?”

“Millicent reports that you’ve made a complete recovery. I wanted to see for myself.”

His eyes drove into her. “And what, pray, is your assessment?”

“You don’t seem to have come to any harm,” she said mildly, but the way he looked at her made her pulse jump. She should have left well enough alone.

“Harm? How thoughtful of you to be concerned for my welfare. Could it be that as we approach England you are regretting your decision to demote me so severely?”

She laughed. “Heavens, no. I only regret that I won’t be able to keep you after we arrive. I am convinced you would make an excellent stable boy.” He looked like a fallen god, and she clenched a fist to keep from plucking the straw from his hair. The coop suddenly felt twice as small.

“Mmm. I thought perhaps you might be worried that the punishment you’ve meted out will turn back on you in London.”

“I’ve meted no punishment.”

“A matter of opinion.” His eyes dropped to her mouth.

Every breath suddenly became a conscious effort. “Do you plan to air your complaints to London at large, Lieutenant?”

“Not at all. But the truth will out, as they say.” A hint of amusement creased the corners of his eyes. He was thinking that truth now—that he was not Lieutenant Barclay at all.

“In that case, I have nothing to fear,” she said, but Phil’s warning silently screamed at her. “Nobody will frown on a sailor doing honest sailors’ work.”

He laughed. “You’ll not be able to afford such obtuseness in London if you wish to prevent the bill of pains and penalties you mentioned. London society—not to mention the Lords—will not bend to your authority. I suspect that securing your right to Dunscore will be no easy task. What will you do if your dream of becoming a countess does not come to fruition?”

“You overstep your bounds, Lieutenant.” Damnation—that came out too sharply. And now he observed her through narrowed eyes that saw too much. “I am a countess,” she said quickly, before he could respond. “I do not have to become one.” She smiled and turned to go. “But I suppose if I’m not successful at acceding to my own title, I shall have to find a desperate earl to marry.”

The corner of his mouth curved upward. “I’ll be sure to let you know if I hear of any desperate earls in the market for a wife.”

* * *

YOUR DREAM OF becoming a countess.

Four nights later, his words still chilled her. Mere days out of London, she sat with her feet propped on a chair at the table in the great cabin as evening turned to night. At the far end of the table, Millicent trounced India at draughts.

The hope of seeing Dunscore again—and soon—clogged her throat with unwanted emotion. And now Captain Warre knew how she felt.

He pitied her. She’d seen it in his eyes.

More the fool her, for expecting something more from him. What a devil that she’d let him upset her. It would be impossible to maintain the upper hand if his slightest references to Dunscore had her succumbing to fanciful girlhood dreams.

She didn’t ache for those things anymore. She had new things. She had Anne. If Dunscore had any relevance at all now, it was only because of the future it promised Anne.

“That’s not fair,” India cried as Millicent captured four of her pieces.

“Beg your pardon?” Millicent said. “I can’t hear you behind your ‘contribution to fashion.’”

“Très amusant,” India said, with a movement that might have been a head toss, but it was hard to tell because beneath her usual tricorne India was swathed from head to waist in a length of turquoise cloth. “I think the English have much to learn from their Ottoman counterparts.”

Which may well have been true, but given that India’s interpretation of Ottoman fashion made her look more like a turquoise mummy than a modest Ottoman female, was somewhat inaccurate. “If Englishwomen were going to take a cue from their Ottoman sisters,” Katherine said, sipping her wine, “they would have done it long ago.”

“And they certainly won’t do it now from a girl whose father has locked her away in her apartment,” Phil added. And then, turning her attention squarely back to Katherine, she said, “You’re not listening.”

India noisily captured one of Millicent’s pieces in retribution. “I think it makes a woman look mysterious.” Katherine stared at the game board Captain Warre had largely crafted with his own hands. Too many things aboard this ship were being done by those hands. She could hardly grip a railing without physically sensing that his hands had been the one to clean it. She didn’t have to wait for London for her actions against him to turn back on her—she suffered from them now in the smallest details of her own ship.

“Englishmen don’t want that type of mystery,” Millicent scoffed. “They would have women go about entirely nude if they could.”

“Less than a week before our arrival,” Phil went on, “though I daresay the damage is already done.” She leaned close to Katherine, though for what purpose was a mystery. India’s persistent eavesdropping had required the truth to come out days ago. “You must move him back to André’s cabin.” That Phil ignored Millicent’s quip about nudity underscored how serious she thought this was. “He is your goose that will lay the golden eggs, and you would do well to keep him healthy and happy—not emptying slop and keeping midnight watches. You must start plumping the goose now if you wish to reap its rewards later.”

“One only plumps a goose if one plans to kill it,” Katherine said. “You’d best read the fable again.”

“In this case, killing the goose would be vastly more satisfying,” India said from behind her mummy mask. If nothing else, she could count on India for all the appropriate outrage at their new cabin boy’s true identity. “I think you should tell him you’ve discovered his identity and call him out in a magnificent duel.”

“A tempting idea, but according to Phil I need him alive to confirm my heroics. I can hardly go about London praising myself for his rescue.”

Millicent made a noise. “Especially since you would have left him to die. I can only imagine what London would think of that.”

“The decisions aboard this ship are mine to make,” Katherine said sharply.

“I’m well aware of that,” Millicent shot back. “Nobody aboard this ship has any say in matters but you.”

“Watch your tongue, Millie,” Phil advised. And then, to Katherine, “Trust me, dearest, praising yourself won’t be necessary. It will be the easiest thing in the world to innocently let it be known what happened, and in a single morning’s time all of London will know.”

“And then I shall be showered with invitations and good will,” Katherine said dryly.

Philomena laughed. “And then you shall place yourself in proximity to Captain Warre at every opportunity, and let the news work its magic. The two of you together will be a sensation.”

“Promise me you won’t expose him without me there,” India said. “I want to see the expression on his face.”

So did Katherine. And she needed to expose him before the voyage was over, when she still had the advantage of being in command. But deciding how and when to do it wasn’t easy—except that one place it would not happen was in front of India.

She hadn’t the means on board to give Captain Warre what he truly deserved. But she could at least have the pleasure of exposing him. The timing should be perfect. Time, however, was running out. Soon—very soon—she would have to confront him whether the time was right or not.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE MISTY BLUE of midnight surrounded Katherine with an eerie breeze. Beneath her feet, Dunscore rose monolithic above the sea. A man stood on the ramparts with the wind in his hair, looking out as if commanding the mist. She moved toward him. He held out his arm, and she took his hand. Kissed it, as though paying homage.

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