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PART II

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MAY, 1780
MÉLISANDE GABLES
LONDON, ENGLAND

“THERE IS NO WAY in hell I’ll wed that woman,” Elliott snarled at his brother as he stormed into his library after having divested himself of that ridiculous costume.

“That bad?”

“Helpless. Soulless.” He ran his hands through his hair—his own blessed hair—and began to pace.

Niall winced. “But now you know how to find Georgina—”

“Absolutely not. Firstly, she is fifteen and I am three times larger and almost that much older. Secondly, her first impression of me is of a bloody, naked savage fucking her captain face-first up against the bulkhead to hell and gone.”

Niall pursed his lips. “Such an image would be a tad difficult to overcome, I’ll grant you that.”

“Thirdly, she’s fucking the bo’sun’s mate and I’ll not raise that child’s by-blow.”

“Child?”

“Well. No one knows, really, but the boy’s no stranger to copulation in any form.”

“Oh, so what. Marry Georgina, tuck her away for a couple of years while she does her duty, and then send her about her business. Nobody has to know.”

Elliott’s teeth ground. “I cannot—will not—tup a fifteen-year-old, especially one who’s had a taste of freedom, a gentle boy ’twixt her legs, and fancies herself in love with the aforementioned gentle boy.”

“You don’t know that.”

He leveled Niall with a look. “Kit’s cabin is next to Fury’s, and Fury thought them charming. The girl was nigh floating around the Thunderstorm.”

“Oh. That is untimely.”

Elliott strode to the door and bellowed, “Lynch! Get me some of that Italian wine!”

“Aye, Cap’n,” came the faint response from somewhere in the house.

Elliott stalked to a chair, threw himself into it, and dropped his head back. Camille chose that moment to breeze through the doorway, a dreamy smile on her face.

“Oh, Lord,” Elliott moaned. “You’re in love.”

Her dreamy expression shattered into a moue of disgust. “Elliott, you hideous troll.”

“I told you,” Niall said calmly and sipped at his whisky.

“No, I am not in love. I am thoroughly over the moon at how well our little masquerade turned off.”

“Oh,” Elliott said with great disgust. “That.”

“Eli, you were splendid. No one suspected a thing, although I did fear your heroism on Miss Imbecile’s behalf might give you away, but no. Your tailor is an artiste.”

“Heroism?” Niall asked. “And I presume the ‘Miss Imbecile’ in question is Celia Bancroft?”

“She took one look at me and pretended to swoon,” Elliott reported, though he did not know whether to be happy or angry. “I caught her.”

“Pretended?” Niall and Camille asked simultaneously.

“You did not tell me that,” Milly said.

“Would an imbecile pretend to swoon at a strategic moment?” Niall mused.

Elliott shrugged. “Even imbeciles have some instinct for self-preservation. Likely ’tis a delaying tactic she used during her captivity and more a habit than anything else. She is perfectly at ease with Covarrubias and he seems to genuinely care about her welfare. It surprises me, actually.”

“Which is why you have no qualm in refusing Hylton’s request.”

“Exactly.” He turned to Camille, then, and cocked an eyebrow. “Speaking of which, how did you come to dance with Covarrubias? Twice? I thought that was settled last night when he rebuffed you?”

She flushed and her mouth pressed tight. “Lady Rathbone embarrassed him into asking and embarrassed me into accepting, for the same reason she made sure you were dancing attendance on Miss Simpleton all evening after she recovered from her swoon.”

Elliott stared at her, confused. “Why in the devil would she do that?”

“Lord Covarrubias told me she’s trying to keep him from marrying her niece.”

“He told you that?” Niall asked suspiciously.

“Not in so many words. He said something to the effect that she encouraged him to pay attention to all the ladies for, perhaps, a more suitable match than her niece.”

Elliott and Niall exchanged a look. “She doesn’t want him anywhere near her. Is she protecting her from him too?”

“Well!” Milly interrupted with a huff. “If you asked me for my opinion, which you did not but I will give it to you anyway, Lady Rathbone could not keep her eyes from him all evening and seemed rather possessive of him.”

Both men stared at Milly before bursting out laughing. “Good Lord, the woman’s jealous of her idiot niece,” Elliott said, but his amusement was short-lived when all the details of the evening started to settle in his mind. “Niall, there’s something not quite right with that situation.”

Niall sucked in a deep breath in the manner of a man about to present his opening argument to a jury. But he only said, “Save your conjecture until Sandy comes home. He has quite a few interesting theories.”

“Very well.” He had other things to put to rest. “Milly, your new assignment is to make absolutely certain that Miss Simpleton and Covarrubias are together at all these little soirées as much as possible.”

The girl’s face took on a wily expression Elliott had never seen before and he congratulated himself on his choice of accomplice.

“You can do that, I take it,” Elliott said dryly.

She cast him a wicked grin and swept out of the room without another word, leaving some moments of silence behind her.

“Why am I suddenly afraid of her?” Niall asked blithely.

Elliott laughed. “I need Covarrubias out of my path to Fury.” At Niall’s expression of utter bewilderment, he said, “Fury and Covarrubias have been occasional lovers for the past several years. If he weds this chit, she will not continue with him.”

Niall’s mouth dropped open, but then he gathered himself. “You’re jealous.”

“I am and not ashamed to admit it. I want Fury.”

“You have had Fury.”

“Without Covarrubias hanging off her stern.”

“Do you really think his marrying Celia Bancroft will make him let go of Fury? Would any marriage make you let go of her if she did not want to be let go?”

“Nay,” Elliott said low, “but she will not compete for a lover and she will not be second, no matter how deeply her heart is involved unless he lies to her, which, by the way, is what I had planned to do.” Before his mother had pointed out the flaws in it. He sighed and dropped back into his chair. “God, what a predicament. The admiral thinks offering me his lunatic spinster is a favor. Do you believe it? I am without a bridal prospect, but it doesn’t in the least help me win Fury because I still need a wife who can bear children.”

“If you intend to lie to Fury about your lack of a countess, then the admiral’s lunatic spinster is the perfect woman to marry. She would not likely make a fuss over … well, anything. Likely she will not even notice you’re gone.”

Elliott pursed his lips. That was truly an advantage. The woman’s lunacy was not from birth and her presence would give his mother someone to fuss over. “If Fury catches me out,” he mused, “I can say my interest in her is mostly one of charity, and I wed her to give her lifelong security.”

At Niall’s raised eyebrow, he said, “Fury has twice as many people on board her ship as she needs to sail it. She tells me ’tis so she does not have to work so hard, but it seemed to me she is simply providing a good many of them a home. She might find my marriage in that case an acceptable exception.”

“A benevolent pirate, eh?”

“She seems easily moved to pity.”

Niall’s mouth pursed in mild disbelief, but only said, “If you do not wed the simpleton, though, it will be even more difficult to find a wife now that you have presented yourself to the ton as a badly dressed macaroni, which should be redundant, but in your case, is not. What was your game?”

“Foremost, I need to know if Rathbone can identify me as Judas. Fortunately, Bancroft—Lucien, I mean—caught a berth to the West Indies to join the fleet there, or so I hear. No one in Society has seen me in years save Croftwood and you know how much he despises Society. When I go to Parliament, I dress like everyone else. The ton thinks I buried myself up north in utter shame, that I’ve only shown my face because I need a countess, and that I’m half-cocked. I am doing my damnedest to foster opinions to that effect and more, which should protect me from the most mild of suspicions I may be Judas.”

“Ah.”

Elliott’s conversations with his mother wound through his head as they had done repeatedly since learning that the Mockslings had made a fraudulent contract.

“Niall, what do you think about Mother’s constant raging against the concept of Fate? Choice without cost, totality of control over one’s own life and all that rot.”

He shrugged. “I don’t think about it at all. Why?”

“Nothing important,” Elliott muttered, dropping his face in his palm to massage it.

He had asked his mother to think about what he’d said, but he had found himself once again pulled back into the seductive idea that he could control his life. But no. He was the earl and had hundreds of people depending on him to keep them safe and prosperous.

“I thought you said Sandy would be home soon. Where is he?”

“At Lady Iddlesleigh’s salón. He has a tendre for her daughter, who’s just out this season.”

“Mister Kerr, a Raxham, thinks he can come up to scratch for an earl’s daughter?”

There was a clatter at the front door of Mélisande Gables and low male voices could be heard from the foyer.

“In the library!” Niall called.

Their nephew burst through the doors and stalked to the liquor cabinet to pour himself a more-than-generous snifter of brandy, which he proceeded to toss down his throat. And then another.

“Do you know,” the boy said conversationally as he threw himself into an overstuffed chair and thunked his feet on the low table in front of him, “if I were anyone but a Raxham, I’d have been suffered to wed the chit.”

Elliott and Niall exchanged suddenly unamused glances.

“We apologize for your lack of a suitable pedigree, Nephew,” Elliott said frostily.

Sandy heaved a great, exasperated sigh. “I didn’t say I wanted to be someone else. I want Lady Jane and a Mister cannot have a Lady. Also, I am a lawyer.”

“The unforgivable sin,” Niall intoned.

“Your mister-and-lady problem is easily solved.” The boy looked up at Elliott. “Compromise the girl.”

Sandy’s mouth dropped open and Niall rolled his eyes. “Elliott, your lack of morals is quite evident at this moment.”

Elliott smirked. “Sandy,” he said matter-of-factly, “how is this girl disposed toward you?”

“I don’t know,” he muttered, slumping down in the chair.

“You are a mister who received an invitation to a countess’s salón,” Niall said. “I think we can draw some conclusions as to her disposition toward you.”

Elliott nodded. “Aye. Well, I am obliged to prance around society for the next few weeks. I’ll test the waters for you.”

One of Sandy’s eyebrows rose. “You?”

Niall sniffed. “You haven’t seen his persona under full sail. Harmless enough, but by all reports, utterly repulsive. Milly called him a ‘hideous troll.’”

“It’s effective. And amusing.” Elliott looked away, though, at the thought of the Honourable Miss Simpleton’s feigned swoon and scowled.

“Yes, you look quite amused,” Sandy drawled. “And completely harmless.”

Elliott shrugged, drawn back to his nephew’s charming little problem. In his complicated world, this would be a welcome diversion. “Leave it to me. But if you knew she would not object, would you seduce her?”

“Elliott!”

“People think he’s mad,” Niall remarked blithely, sipping at his whisky, “when he is simply evil.”

“Speaking of evil people, I need you both to help me find my lover, who may or may not be in London.”

“There are two of you? And you can breed? God help us. Who is this paragon of animals?”

“Lady Captain Fury,” Niall drawled, and Elliott could not help his cocky grin at Sandy’s astonishment. “He goes on about her like some love-struck cabin boy, such as, say, the one who’s tupping his formerly betrothed.”

Elliott barked a laugh.

“Fury is your lover?” Sandy whispered in awe. Niall kicked his leg. “Ow! What was that for?”

“An excessive display of hero worship.”

Sandy scowled at Niall, but Elliott’s amusement vanished. “Sandy,” Elliott said. His tone got the boy’s attention. “Don’t. I am one of the least admirable men you will ever meet.”

“Not true,” Niall muttered, looking down into his now-empty glass. “You are … everything I ever wanted to be.” Elliott now stared at his little brother aghast. “’Tis not envy, as I have my own interests and accomplishments, but I— You are the kind of man about whom books are written.”

Sandy was nodding and Elliott looked between them in utter dismay. “Uh … You— Niall, you have a shining career ahead of you. Sandy, you too. Barristers and politicians of your caliber are written of and studied at university.”

Niall laughed then. “Ah, but, my dear Captain Judas, books about men like you are read.”

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Pirates!