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PART III

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MAY, 1780
THE DOVECOTE
LONDON, ENGLAND

“MAMA AND I RECEIVED an invitation to call on your mother tomorrow,” Celia remarked over supper after they had made enough appearances at enough soirées, concerts, and routs to create the illusion that they had been nowhere near Viscount Merrill at the time of his unfortunate and untimely demise.

Her and Elliott’s men tramped in and out whilst she ate, moving her entire office to the Dovecote.

Elliott spoke. “She wishes—”

Phoebe rushed in to relieve Celia and Elliott of their wigs and, by the sounds of the rapid footsteps growing closer, Nonny would be—

“Jack! I’ll not have you turnin’ my bawdy house into an office!”

“Your bawdy house?”

“Dammit, Jack, you know what I meant!”

“We’ll be gone soon enough your reputation shan’t suffer,” Celia replied calmly.

“It best not!”

“She wishes—”

“Cap’n,” said another man from the doorway. Both Celia and Elliott turned, but Celia continued to eat when she saw it was Elliott’s first mate, Yeardley.

“Report,” Elliott said shortly.

“I’ve rounded up most of the men who are not pensioned off at the Gables or up north and I hired a navigator. We’re put up at the Coxcomb as you ordered, along with Cap’n Jack’s crew. We’ll be shutting up her townhouse on the morrow.”

“Good enough. Dismissed.” He turned back to Celia. “She wishes—”

Another two men. Another trunk.

“This room is a bloody port of call!” Elliott bellowed. “Madam, why do you allow this? They don’t even knock!”

Celia shrugged and took another bite. “Would you rather they knock and open and close the door endlessly?” Elliott’s irritation with the arrangement had no solution but one, and she intended to implement it soon enough. “For the nonce,” she continued, “we have plans to make and we will be having meetings here ere long.”

His mouth tightened. “Do you mean to tell me to grow accustomed to the traffic?”

“Aye.” Celia huffed at the obstinate set of his jaw. “We have a battle to plan, Sir. If you wanted to tup me, you should have done so before you ordered me to murder you. Do you actually wish to live through your murder, we have much work to do and it will require the cooperation of many people, who will be coming and going at will. Finish your thought.”

“I’m trying to, dammit! She wishes to meet Fury. She does not wish to meet Lady Hylton or her daughter.”

Celia rolled her eyes. “God’s teeth. Should I reveal myself to her or not?”

“As you will,” he grumbled. “’Tis one thing for her to know my secret; ’tis another for me to confide yours.”

“Which persona will make her less adversarial?”

He threw up his hands. “Lord only knows.”

“I met Rafael’s mother once,” Celia mused, pursing her lips. “It did not end well.”

His lip curled. “She admires the fact of Captain Fury’s existence,” he muttered. “I believe she wants to be friendly, but I cannot predict her reaction to the reality.”

Celia thought for a moment. Meeting Elliott’s mother was not without its dangers. “You love her, so I will do my utmost to respect the woman who bore you.”

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, visibly forcing himself to relax back into his chair, which moment Phoebe chose to divest him of his wig.

“Many thanks,” he mumbled.

“Phoebe, out,” Celia said calmly, “and take everyone else with you. We are not to be disturbed further tonight.”

Phoebe smirked. “Aye, aye, Captain.”

“Now that I am stronger,” she purred once Phoebe closed the door, “I have regained need of your yard.”

His eyelids popped open and he grinned somewhat sheepishly. “Aye? You mean to indulge me?”

“Of course not.”

He snorted. “You mean to indulge yourself.”

“Aye, I do,” she returned. “Sit back and open your breeches. Shan’t take but a moment.”

“You wound me, Madam. What of Covarrubias?”

“What of him? You have no scruple to cuckolding a fiancé.”

“Perhaps I don’t wish to be cuckolded by a fiancé.”

She smirked. “I would not object should the two of you cuckold each other simultaneously.”

He barked a laugh. “Of course you wouldn’t, you perverse bitch. Your depravity knows no bounds.”

Celia sipped at her lemonade. “Rafael will not indulge me that way.”

“Nor will I, as I have already made clear.”

“So you have two things in common.”

“What is the other thing?”

“I love you both.”

He snorted. “You’ll apprehend why I don’t find that a particularly significant or romantic declaration at the moment.” She waved that off. “Is your wedding date set?” he asked low.

She pursed her lips and slid him a wary look. “I did not agree to honor the contract,” she confessed. “I informed Rafael before he left for Spain he was not to assume my cooperation in the matter.”

His eyebrow rose. “Oh? You are considering my proposal then?”

Celia’s mouth tightened as her conversation with her mother the morning before wound through her head. “You presented to me your goals as if I shared your enthusiasm. You have yet to propose.”

He blinked. “Oh. Well? Will you marry me?”

She sneered. “You’ll apprehend why I don’t find that a particularly significant or romantic proposal. I am not so whimsical as to dismiss the considerable risks.”

He smacked his palm on the table. “Again, I feel the need to remind you of your plan for Algiers. By comparison, what risks have you so askew?”

Celia’s eyes narrowed. “Can you guarantee I will not starve?”

Elliott’s mouth slowly opened. Whether he was angry or flummoxed, she could not tell. “I … well, I— Ah … ”

Flummoxed, then. Good.

“Provided one of us can cook adequately, can we carry enough to make certain? Can you hunt well enough to provide adequate stores? Will others be along with us who can provide food? That, Sir, is my most pressing concern. There are others, aye, but that is not negotiable.” She bent to her plate once again, having adequately made her point. That did not keep her from driving it in further. “You are so horrified by my appearance, but think of me this way for the rest of our lives, which may be shorter than either of us care to think about. I cannot imagine you want that any more than I do.”

“Nay,” he said low.

“I must have time to parse out what guarantees I will need from you.”

“You speak as if ’tis a bloody contract,” he growled.

She glanced at him from under her brows to see him glaring at her. “It is,” she said flatly. “I have no doubt that should I refuse, you will go anyway, as this quest is more important to you than anything else. Be content I am considering it at all.”

“You would ask me to abandon my goal?” he croaked.

Her head snapped up and she leaned toward him. “Did I?” she snarled. “Do you glean any sort of ultimatum from what I have said, ’tis your own doubts nagging at you and your own desires competing for dominance. Aye, I think your quest is more important to you than I am, but I am certainly in no position to throw stones at you, am I? Contractually affianced to another man—”

“Against your will.”

Celia hooted. “Since I love him, that is somewhat immaterial.”

He flinched.

“Yet here I am with you, committing my resources and time and expertise to assist you along your way to your goal, knowing you would choose it over me.” She threw down her linen and arose, striding across the room to the table laden with liquor. “And why shouldn’t I think that?” she muttered, uncorking a bottle of rum and tipping it up, feeling the liquid burn down her throat. “You have done it once already.” She turned and saw him sitting at the table, his elbows propped on it and his face in his palms. “After all, there are worse fates than spending the rest of my life planning receptions and soirées, being fêted and cosseted. Such as starving in the wilderness. I would rather be strapped to a sinking ship in a hurricane or tortured by Ottomans. Surely you will not begrudge me such a reason for pause.”

There was a long silence between them. It stretched and Celia felt every second of it in her soul, making her muscles stiffen.

“I have not thought that far ahead,” he admitted.

Celia swallowed her sorrow. “’Twould seem to me there are many things you have not thought of yet,” she said gently, “as caught up in your vision as you are.”

He heaved a long, frustrated sigh.

She drifted toward him until she stood behind him, sliding her hands up his linen-covered back, tucking them inside his collar to caress his skin, feeling the tension in his muscles. She pressed her thumbs into his nape and squeezed his shoulders.

Leaning down, she touched her tongue lightly to that spot just under his ear. He shivered and reached up to bury his fingers in her hair.

“Elliott,” she whispered as she kissed his skin, “I ken you are filled with joy at the prospect, and I have every confidence you will thrive in Ohio. But do you expect me to acquiesce to this scheme, you must promise you will respect my concerns and adapt if necessary.”

“Were it not for that, you would choose me over him?”

Her heart broke at the desperation he did not bother to hide, but she could not bring herself to answer the question just yet, as he would use every weapon in his arsenal to wear down what little resolve she had to make him wait and consider her terms.

“Come, Commander,” she murmured. “Let us forget everything else and love for the first time as ourselves.”

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Pirates!