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PART II

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MAY, 1780
MÉLISANDE GABLES
LONDON, ENGLAND

ELLIOTT STOOD AT the fireplace in his library, staring into the blaze into which he had just tossed plans he had spent all night laboring over. Dawn was not far off, perhaps a half glass or so, and he was due in the House of Lords by eight. He had not slept since he’d returned from delivering Miss Simpleton to Rathbone House the evening before, nor had he eaten.

It didn’t matter; he was as taut as he ever was before a coming battle and would not sleep until it was done.

There was increasing fatigue all over Britain for the continuing effort to quell the Americans. France and Holland were harrying the Navy, which was stretched from the Horn to Newfoundland and the Sandwich Isles to India; Spain had thrown its meager weight behind the Dutch; India was agitating.

The treasury was depleted.

Press gangs had struck terror in the hearts of the citizenry.

The doors of Newgate had been opened to those willing to die in the service of the Crown.

More and more nobles were calling for the cessation of hostilities and allowing the Americans their freedom.

Elliott was not one of those nobles.

He had taken the floor the day before and given a rousing speech as to the need to quell the belligerent children.

By God, we spared the rod and spoiled the children! No more, I say! ’Tis time we took them in hand.

He had gone so far as to enumerate the steps necessary to defeat the Americans, all of which were true, but Sandwich had far more influence (purchased) and, as Elliott had known he would, refused to listen to a man he considered beneath him.

Elliott found it amusing that, in detailing the appropriate strategies to crush the Americans immediately if not sooner, he was arguing for his own interests, goading Sandwich into making precisely the wrong tactical decisions.

“You missed your calling.”

He looked up from the fire to see Niall in the door of the library, having just come from his office to shave and dress for court.

“What calling?”

“As a barrister. I was in the Lords Chamber yesterday to listen to your arguments.”

Elliott scoffed. “I persuaded no one to anything, which was my intent.”

“They are politicians and thus have an interest in refusing to be persuaded. Con­sider: You have your own reasons for your public stance against the Americans and it has nothing to do with what you really want.” When Elliott said nothing, Niall entered the library and closed the door behind him. “You vote today?”

“Aye,” he grunted, then drawled as pompously as he could, “We must reward those in the service of the King to put down this temper tantrum.”

“By paying them what they were promised,” Niall returned caustically from the chair in which he now slumped, his head back and eyes closed.

Elliott chuckled.

“Wouldn’t it be droll if they re-commissioned you to command the fleet,” Niall mused with a soft laugh. When Elliott said nothing, Niall opened his eyes. “Do you think they would?”

Elliott shrugged. “After Kitteridge was suffered to do evil after evil for the sake of the Treasury, I’m forced to think anything is possible.”

Niall sat up a bit. “Would you do it?”

“No. I have other plans.”

“Oh? Does it involve a future countess?”

“Yes,” Elliott said briskly. “As a matter of fact, it does. Yours.”

He met Niall’s confused stare second for second before Niall shook his head to prompt explanation.

“I’m leaving,” Elliott said bluntly. “I want my independence from England and I want to marry my lover. Not necessarily in that order.” He watched as his little brother’s mouth slowly dropped open and his face drained of color. “If you hate me for it, well … I can only apologize in advance.”

Niall jumped up, incredulous. “How—” His mouth opened and closed and opened again. “But— You’re the earl!”

“I am as much an earl as I am a lawyer. Lucille is the earl in truth, as she has wanted to be since we were children.”

“You—you—you—cannot just leave and expect me to be declared earl!”

“I don’t intend to just leave,” Elliott said testily. “I have the beginnings of a scheme, but I will require time to perfect it and assistance to carry it off. And I tell you this only to prepare you and to ask that you draw up the proper paperwork to protect the family and the estate.”

Niall sucked in a long breath and looked away, rubbing his jaw, his tongue stuck in his cheek. “Are you going to let Mother in on this?”

“I haven’t decided. She is still not speaking to me.”

“I dare say she would rather lose power to you than see you run.”

Elliott shrugged, annoyed at the implication. “Wise men retreat when they must, Niall, which apparently no one in this family comprehends but I. Possibly Milly. My … absence … would solve many problems and, as long as the lot of you take the family secrets to the grave, it will create very few new ones.”

“But for me,” Niall snapped.

“Aye, well … as I said, I’m sorry.”

“Is being earl that untenable for you?”

Elliott’s temper flared. “How untenable do you find it now that I am about to pass the title on to you?”

Niall had the good grace to flush.

“It is untenable to me that I will be locked in a power struggle with my mother and sister for the rest of my life for control of a now-powerful earldom that they built. It is untenable to me that there is nothing for me to accomplish, no way in which I can improve it, and that Lucy will hate me for taking her life’s work away from her. In short, I’ve finished my part and have absolutely nothing left to do but breed—with a woman I won’t want but barred from the woman I do want. And once I do … then what? Gamble and whore my life away whilst dreaming of the life I truly wanted but could never have? That—all of it—is untenable to me, aye.”

He sighed wearily when his little brother stared at him with a mixture of anger and betrayal. “Niall, look at it logistically.”

“Logically.”

Elliott gnashed his teeth. “No, Niall,” he said slowly, as if the boy were a lackwit. “Logistically. Attend. You are in a better position to be happy being the earl than I. You don’t like living at the Grange. You want no part of managing the estate. All you would have to do is sit the seat occasionally and pontificate or nap at your whim.” Elliott shrugged. “Other than having to rearrange your court dates, getting accustomed to being addressed as Tavendish, and marrying—which task will be far easier once you’re the earl—your life … wouldn’t change.”

His brother’s nostrils flared in anger, but Elliott remained untouched.

“I have an audience with the King tomorrow.” That got Niall’s attention. His head snapped up, and he gaped at Elliott. “The ostensible reason is that he wants a report on how I obliterated the smuggling operations along our coastline. He has indicated that once I have given him this entirely fictitious report, he will be granting me an unofficial apology of some sort. Perhaps a symbolic pardon for the charges themselves. Then—then I intend to wrest from him a general condition of indemnity of the earldom against further prosecution by the Crown.”

“Persecution, do you mean?”

“Goddammit, Niall!” Elliott barked, infuriated. “Prosecution, do I mean. There is always the possibility my piracy will be found out, along with the earldom’s complicity. I seek to attain his promise of indemnity against anything we have done to rebuild the earldom and see Kitteridge dead.

“Further, should I succeed in this and word of my activities does get out, you can then remind him that he, every one of his advisors, the House of Lords, and the Admiralty were all culled by a pirate in their very midst. If any member of the family or any dependents of the estate were to be punished in any way, it would create a scandal so great none of them will be able to weather it, particularly since half the Lords wanted Kitteridge removed or dead after the Ocean—which outrage was never publicized—and could not make it so.

“You don’t hear it, but I do. Whoever killed Kitteridge—and they believe it must be Judas—is slowly, quietly becoming a hero in Parliament, because ’tis only spoken of in whispers amongst those who wanted him dead. You can count on the fact that members of Parliament will keep as quiet about Captain Judas and his identity as they did concerning what happened on the Ocean.”

“Good Lord,” Niall whispered, though in awe or horror Elliott could not tell. “You don’t want for bollocks, do you?”

Elliott snorted. “No.”

Niall’s jaw ground and he bowed his head. “And you’ve made this decision,” he growled, “but I have no say in the matter.”

He could have said nothing more harsh, but Elliott would not retreat from the truth. “Correct. We can work together to prepare or I can continue to make decisions entirely to my benefit.”

It was a long while that Elliott stood at the mantel and watched his brother struggle with this news, to control a temper that was rarely roused. He attempted to muster some regret, because he knew he should feel some, but no. All he felt was a lightness of being that transcended even that he’d felt aboard the Thunderstorm, watching Fury laugh, watching her climax, watching her work.

“Very well,” Niall finally muttered angrily. “’Tis not as if I have a choice, is it?”

“I’ve had far fewer choices in life than you, Niall. You’ll find no sympathy here.”

His nostrils flared. “I—” He released a great breath. “I cannot dispute that or your logic, either. And I cannot but look back on your life and see that as long as I have known you, you have sacrificed your wants for us.” His face hardened and Elliott felt as if he were looking into a mirror. “But! I am utterly furious with you right now, so you must give me time and space to accustom myself to the idea.”

“Understood.”

With that Niall launched himself out of the chair, stalked to the doors, and threw them open.

“Lynch!” Elliott bellowed, but needn’t have. The butler was already there, having stepped out of the way for Niall’s angry run up the staircase. Good man, Lynch, knowing when to anticipate him at sea and on land.

“Cap’n. You look as lively as you do when we’re about to go into battle.”

Elliott could not help his grin. “Get Papadakos here. I have an idea that may make Fury a little less furious with me.”

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If you don’t want to wait 2 years to get to the end, you can buy it here.
Pirates!