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PART II

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APRIL, 1780
TAVENDISH GRANGE
NORTHUMBERLAND, ENGLAND

ELLIOTT RAN HIS FINGERS through his hair many hours later as he strode from the stable to the manor, the otherwise pitch-dark path lit by intermittent oil lamps hanging from decorative posts. His mother had ordered them hung when Elliott went back to sea after Newgate to guide him and the villagers home from their smuggling operations. They had first been lit in preparation for his maiden voyage as a smuggler and there had not been a dark night since.

Aye, well, but now he had returned for good and his mother could not bear to put the lamps out. He didn’t suppose it mattered; everyone on the estate had grown to depend on their presence and certainly the earldom could afford it.

His mouth twisted. After his row with her and Lucy (after which he had summarily dismissed them all and sat down to his own supper) (alone), he had half expected the lamps to be out just to spite him.

He opened the rear courtyard door and stepped into the hall he expected to be dark, but was also dimly lit owing to the light spilling from the open library doors. His brow wrinkling, he strode down the hall and stopped in the threshold to see his mother at one of two massive desks, writing.

In this enormous room, behind the enormous desk, she looked smaller than she was and far more fragile. Her white-streaked blonde hair, the long curls flowing down about her black-clad shoulders, only added to the illusion—and it was an illusion. He had met few women as strong as the countess, but of those, only one who was not of her blood, the one who’d left him in Rotterdam.

She did not raise her head, but spoke in brisk French. “I’ll not ask if you enjoyed yourself.”

Elliott snorted. “Oui,” he returned likewise. She only spoke her native tongue when her mind was weary or troubled. “I did, in fact. Mother, it’s five of the morning. What are you doing up and about so early?”

“So early?” she hooted. “I’ve not retired.”

Nay, he supposed she wouldn’t have. “Were you awaiting me?”

“Don’t flatter yourself.” He laughed as much with humor as relief, and she raised her head from her work, her smile tender. “Ah, now that’s what I have not seen nor heard since you returned.” Elliott’s smile began to fade. “No, no! Do not let that go. I have worried all this past week you would find no reason to smile again, and I refuse to believe my son is dead.”

Elliott stood in the threshold awkwardly, feeling as if he were yet again nine years old, overset by Flip’s wanton destruction of a rabbit trap he had spent hours building, and his mother teasing him and offering him cakes to coax him back to his usual good humor.

And, as she had when he was a boy, she waved him in. “Come, sit. Talk with an old woman.”

He complied, even though conducting an interview with his mother after having come straight from a whore’s bed was not something he truly wanted to do. He dropped into one of the overstuffed chairs facing the desk and slouched into it, sighing with gratitude at its luxury.

“Eli, you have been in the village every day since you returned, working like a common laborer from dawn to dusk, forcing me to be the very picture of patience, but no longer.” She leaned forward and spoke earnestly. “Did you succeed in your quest?”

“Mother,” he drawled. “For shame. You have seen the pirate’s treasure with your own eyes. The answer is obvious.”

She cast him a moue. “You know what I mean, naughty boy. Speak plainly.”

“Aye, I did,” he murmured. “Kitteridge is dead.”

She said nothing for a moment, sitting back into her wheeled chair and studying him. “Even after Newgate, your hair was black as night. Now … ” She sighed. “Your turn at piracy has aged you.”

The corner of his mouth turned up. “So I’ve been told. And roundly lectured on what are and are not appropriate vessels for piracy.”

“I surmise, then, the Silver Shilling is not appropriate,” she said dryly.

He rolled his eyes. “Just so. Too much ship for the job. I was also deemed to be in need of pirate lessons, do you believe.” He paused. “Nay, in truth, ’twas my turn at assassination that salted me.”

The dowager countess’s gaze roamed over Elliott’s hair. “It burdens me you have so much so young,” she murmured.

“Some women find that attractive.”

“Let us hope your fiancée does as well.”

“Oh, yes. My fiancée. The one I had to buy from America because no one in England will have me in their Debrett’s.”

“Lord Hylton assured you she is a lovely girl, did he not? Sweet, biddable?”

He sighed. “Sweet. Biddable. Good God, why does that sound like a guillotine blade sliding toward my neck?”

“You were not so opposed when you bade him sign the contract for you.” Elliott said nothing. “Unless … you met a woman.”

His mouth tightened. He did not want to think about Fury, particularly after having thought of her the entire time he plowed a whore in the dark.

“Which might explain your sudden need to visit the Rusty Nail,” she said slowly.

He had never been able to lie to his mother. “Oui, I did,” he said low. “She is the most remarkable woman I have ever met.”

“What is her name?”

“Jacqueline Dunham.”

His mother started and released a little pip. “Not the—” She wagged her finger at the north wall, toward Scotland, and searched for words. “—Dunhams?”

He nodded. “The very same. Her father is the last of them. James. I gather the name will die with him.”

“I thought … ” She sank deep into thought, one finger crooked over her mouth. “There was some bit of business with him and a family from Rothbury … Waddle? Wycliffe? Wilson? Landed gentry, I know. James and the eldest girl in that family ran off together just before she was to be wed to a high noble. The story was that she died at sea and he returned to find his father dead and Castle Dunham in ruins, so he went back to sea. The girl’s family had moved to London immediately after he and the girl ran off, so they never knew he returned. That was … oh, must be forty years ago.”

Elliott shook his head. “Dunham’s wife’s an American. From Philadelphia.”

“You’ve met them both then?”

“Aye. They approve of me.”

“Of course they do.”

“They approve of Judas, rather.”

She blinked in surprise. “Oh.” When Elliott volunteered nothing more, she said, “So! But tell me about this girl.”

“She is hardly a girl.”

“To me, everyone is a girl. Even some boys.”

At that, he burst out laughing. “Ah, where to begin,” he murmured after a moment, rubbing his mouth.

“Start by explaining what manner of parents would approve of a pirate for their daughter.”

He pursed his lips, wondering whether to— “Captain Fury’s,” he blurted.

Her mouth fell open. “Elliott,” she breathed. “Mother of God, child, when you set out to commit treason, you do it all the way through, don’t you?”

He grinned. “Killing Kitteridge is not sufficient criterion for you?”

“Non. Does she know who you are? I’ll assume not, given their approval. Dunham certainly should be able to place you by name.”

“I have not, in fact, conversed with Dunham at length, as our introduction was a bit rushed. But during the time Fury and I spent together, I did not guard my words carefully enough. She ferreted out my circumstance immediately, though not my name or the fact that I am nobility. She believes me a wealthy gentleman’s son at best, a burgher’s at worst. ’Twould not take her long to deduce my identity, were she of a mind.”

“Well? Where is this woman and why is she not here with you?”

He tsk’d. “It matters not. She will have nothing of me now.”

“How dare she!”

His mother’s outrage amused him. “Mother,” he drawled, “would you have ever consented to be Father’s mistress?”

“Ha! Of course not, which is why he broke off his en … ga … ” Elliott watched her steadily until comprehension dawned, which took two blinks of her eyes. “Oh,” she murmured, looking down at her blotter.

“Like you, she will not countenance what normal people do in these situations. She demands to be the first and only.” He could have predicted the bittersweet smile that grew on his mother’s face. “Thus, we have said our adieux.”

She slapped her palm on the desk. “Then we must get you unbetrothed to the one and betrothed to the other! I will not allow this unhappy man masquerading as my son to remain unhappy.”

“Mother, please. Fury is entirely unsuitable as a countess, and I know my duty as well as the next earl.”

She waved a hand. “Do not spout ‘duty’ at me. If I wanted to hear that, I would dig your father up and listen to his bones clatter it at me.”

“I refuse to discuss it further. You know I don’t like to talk about things that cannot be.”

“And there you go again, sounding more like your father. ‘Things that cannot be.’ Rubbish, I say! There is nothing in this world that cannot be torn asunder, my boy, and that includes betrothal contracts. But!” she went on, ignoring his growl. “Firstly, I must bid you tend to one of the earl’s duties, since, as you so forcefully reminded us last eve, you are it. Your matrimonial difficulties will wait.”

Elliott sighed. “Go on.”

“When do you go to London?”

“Once my crew’s homes are habitable, which should be within three or four weeks. Lucy will be positively giddy to see the Penance’s stern.”

“For more reasons than one. Camille, Sophie, and I will be going with you. It is time for Camille’s debut.”

Elliott sat up. “What! Already!”

His mother looked at him as if he were daft. “She is twenty, Elliott, a full two years past time. First it was your trial and recuperation, then mourning for your father and brother whilst pulling me out of the grave by my feet. Other than presenting your face in the House of Lords last year, you have been here, working your estate and disposing of those damnable smugglers, leaving you no time to sit your seat much less see to her future. That will be adequate excuse for having her debut two years too late, but now that you have straightened out your estate to your satisfaction and cleared Northumberland’s coast of smugglers, you may resume your seat and oversee Camille’s prospects. Oh, and Sophie’s. I would prefer she be contracted this year to be wed next, but I will not be put out should you choose to make her a match next Season.”

Elliott nodded slowly. Marrying his sisters off was part of his duty, and, thankfully, one only he could do. As to his political duties— “I will assume,” he murmured, “you would also prefer I stay in London year-round.”

She rolled her eyes, but her mouth tightened a bit. “It might be an efficient division of resources and expertise between you and Lucy,” she said with forced airiness, “though I would expect you to return frequently, particularly once your wife bears my grandchildren, and I am certain we will be imposing upon you for the occasional Season as Lucy’s girls leave the schoolroom.”

At the moment, he did not want to think about that and all its implications, which, he knew, were vast in number. “You, Camille, and Sophie, then. What of my fiancée’s family? Damme if I can remember their name.”

“Mocksling. And what of them, indeed. If we treat them abominably enough, they may refuse to allow their daughter to wed you.” The dowager caught his look and huffed. “Fine. If you are determined to wed this girl, we will take them with us and give them entré.”

“I doubt Niall and Sandy will approve of the entire household and future in-laws descending upon their bachelor existence,” Elliott said dryly.

“And they will keep their tongues in their mouths about it, too. As to that, when are your fiancée and her family expected to arrive? I thought last fortnight, but since I’ve heard naught, I supposed I had simply misplaced the date.”

That question brought Elliott to heel. “You’re right,” he said slowly, casting a glance toward the draperies as if that would help. “I believe ’twas I who misplaced the date.”

“Did you lose her?”

“Oh, aye, I do believe I did. I—” The countess waited patiently while Elliott thought about when Miss Mocksling was supposed to have arrived. March. It was now April and he had been so caught up in his thoughts of Fury, he had failed to check his calendar. “She should have arrived before I,” he muttered. “Well, I hope she arrives soon. Get the bloody business over with so I can seek Fury.”

Silence. Then, “Ah, Son, I thought you said … ”

“Fury will have no reason to know I am wed. I’ll get my babes on the Mocksling girl, bring her here, and then hie myself off to sea when I can and meet Fury.”

He was caught by surprise when his mother heaved an exaggerated sigh she usually directed at Camille. “Oh, that poor, poor girl. Sold and used for her womb, then abandoned in the wilds of northern England with a bevy of managing women.”

The countess very rarely disapproved of anything Elliott did. Considering she had conspired in his plans for thievery, murder, and high treason, her objection to this meant he’d crossed over some line whose existence he must have forgotten long ago.

To some ugly old man who just wants a baby.

George’s bitter little face flashed across his memory. She was thriving under Fury’s carefully careless tutelage, and to bury a girl like that in the country to be used and cast aside would be a bloody waste. “Aye,” he muttered, suddenly ashamed. “I see your point.”

“And as for your privateer, I cannot begin to count the holes in the logic of any lie you could construct to cozen her into an affaire she has already refused to consider. No intelligent woman would be such a cull, but if you did succeed in culling her, the ninth circle of hell would seem like a respite once she realized.”

The countess was right, and he had to admit he had deliberately shied away from considering those fallacies. He sighed and rubbed both hands down his face. “What a bloody hash.”

The two of them sat in comfortable silence whilst his mother resumed her writing. He let his head fall back so he could focus on the rapidly lightening sky outside the window some six feet behind his mother. He worried his bottom lip ’twixt his thumb and forefinger, and wallowed in the memory of another sunrise some weeks past, greeted by a pirate crew’s praises to God.

He ignored the scratch of his mother’s quill on foolscap.

He ignored the clamor at the rear courtyard door, the open-and-shut that prompted the forlorn barking of half a dozen pugs, their nails clicking on the marble floors.

He ignored the subsequent sound of approaching hooves and the blur of a dapple Andalusian gelding galloping past the floor-to-ceiling windows of the study, with three more Andalusians in pursuit.

He ignored Lucy’s distant but cheery greetings to the servants from the belowstairs kitchen, the cook’s scolds for snitched shortcakes, and the sharp footsteps along the hallway toward the library.

Upon his first awakening in his own bed in his own home nine days ago, he had been shocked that the household awoke so early, but he shouldn’t have been. This was a working estate. His family, not knowing his habits, had been equally shocked at his early rising and intention to immediately begin building homes for his crew.

The library doors opened with a bang, and Elliott craned his neck around the wing of the chair to watch Lucy enter arse-first, struggling to balance a heaping plate of scones in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. She was garbed in buff leather breeches, a black ruffled blouse, and black riding boots. Her short salt-and-pepper curls bounced into her eyes. Mumbling curses, she found her balance, turned, and kicked first one door, then the other, closed.

She stopped cold when she finally straightened and saw Elliott. “Oh. Ah, good morning, Eli. Mama.”

“Good morning, Lucy,” he said low.

She said nothing, watching him as if she expected him to do something hideous. He stared at her in return, waiting for her to continue with her morning’s tasks. Finally, she stalked over to her desk and set her dishes upon it.

“You could have the servants bring you your food,” Elliott said carefully.

“I could,” she snapped, “but that would take them away from other things that need more attention.”

“Children,” came the countess’s voice, low and calm. “You two have always been the best of friends. Please do not let a misunderstanding mar that.”

Elliott’s gaze slid from Lucy to the doors as if they could provide answers to questions he had not yet formed. His gaze slid to the right, the gleaming floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with precious books. Farther along was the large hearth, around which were a collection of comfortable sofas and chairs. In front of him were the narrow floor-to-ceiling paned windows, each with a comfortable window seat upon which to perch and, if one were inclined to hide, drapes that could be drawn over them.

It was an exquisitely lovely room, one so perfect he might have been tempted to think it unused, built especially and kept immaculate for the earl’s triumphant return.

But no. This was Lucy’s domain. Even his mother’s desk—large though it was—was smaller than Lucy’s. And, he knew, she had assistants who ran innumerable errands throughout the day.

“Aren’t you going into the village?” she muttered, turning to plop into her chair and open her ledgers.

“’Tis the Sabbath,” he said smoothly. “I intend to rest.”

She sniffed with disdain. Her brow wrinkled. She sniffed again, wrinkling her nose. “Well,” she grumbled, “I shall make a note to buy Peggy a better quality perfume. That is disgusting and I do not want it in my office.”

His eyebrow rose at her deceptively light tone. “Are you ordering me to vacate a room in my house?”

Her body stiffened, but she did not raise her head to look at him. “Of course not,” she whispered. “You’re the earl.”

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

Pirates!