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PART III

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MAY, 1780
MAYFAIR
LONDON, ENGLAND

THE BUTLER AT Mélisande Gables had been informed as to Celia’s identity.

“Cap’n,” he murmured respectfully when he admitted her and her mother before announcing her to Elliott’s mother. “Officer Mary.”

“Master Lynch, I presume,” Celia murmured wryly.

His smile was fleeting before he cleared his throat and said with grand aplomb, “This way, Lady Hylton, Miss Bancroft.”

Celia hid her shock when, after they were announced and shown into the morning room, she saw that Lady Tavendish was in a wheeled chair. She had known—but forgotten—the fact that Elliott’s mother had been injured in the coaching accident that had killed Elliott’s father and brother.

She was a very small woman, Celia noted, with a tidy white mobcap covering her hair. Her eyes were blue, but not the distinctive ice blue of Elliott and his siblings. Her robe à la polonaise was black with white fichu at the elbows and bosom, but still in the height of fashion. A portrait cameo was held against her throat by a red ribbon. It was a scandalous choice, red, when one was still in mourning.

Celia approved.

But Lady Tavendish did not, it would seem, approve of Lady Hylton nor Miss Imbecile. It would not be the most interminable half-glass Celia had ever spent, but it would likely approach it. This was not a woman to whom she cared to spill her secrets.

She curtsied as was proper. So did Mary. They seated themselves when gestured at. Tea was poured by a little maid who glanced askance with barely concealed curiosity at Celia, making her wonder if Elliott’s entire staff knew who she was or if the girl wanted to know what an imbecile looked like.

“So you are Baron Hylton’s wife,” Lady Tavendish began imperiously before sipping at her tea.

“Yes,” Mary said as smoothly as her masquerade would allow. She was no less a pariah in this morning room as she was anywhere else in Town, a woman with a husband in England and a protector in France, whom she had left to visit her sister for the last two Seasons. Why, she was no better than a whore, really.

“Have you met Arabella Hansart yet?”

Celia barely kept her outraged gasp to herself. Asking a woman if she had met her husband’s mistress was not, by any means, polite conversation.

“I have not,” Mary answered, this time a little more sharply.

Lady Tavendish did not miss that. “Ah, you do have some spirit in you, then.”

Mary turned to Celia with exaggerated calm and said, “Celia, I do not believe we are welcome here. Shall we take our leave?”

Lady Tavendish did not control her gasp.

“Yes, Mother,” Celia said dully and arose, holding her arm out for her sickly mother to take.

“Sit down, Lady Hylton,” Lady Tavendish snapped. “Our quarter hour is not done!”

“Oh, yes, it is. Lord Tavendish may be able to order you to invite us, but he cannot order us to meekly bear your rudeness.” Mary flicked her gaze at Lady Tavendish’s chair. “Celia has not seen you out and about of an evening, so I suspect you are no more welcome in the ton than I, what with your … infirmity.”

The woman’s face flamed, and Celia sighed, barely tightening her arm to trap her mother’s hand and surreptitiously pull her away. “Mama, let us go. You are out of sorts.”

“Since you seem to know Tavendish ordered me to invite you, do you know why?”

Celia stopped when her mother resisted. “Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know. I am asking you.”

Celia and her mother exchanged a glance, and Celia tightened her mouth. Mary turned to look down at Lady Tavendish. “I’ve no idea.”

“You lie, Lady Hylton.”

Just then there was a knock at the door, and Lynch opened it. “Ah, Miss Bancroft, a word, if I might?”

“Lynch!” Lady Tavendish snapped, but the servant ignored her.

So Elliott was not exaggerating when he’d informed her his staff disregarded his mother’s orders.

Celia released her mother and plodded across the room, out the door, and into the foyer only to see her second mate there with his back to her. “Paulo!”

He turned and looked at her in shock—guilty shock—as if he had been caught out in something. “Cap’n.”

Celia looked at him a bit suspiciously when he handed her a tightly rolled parchment bearing a seal of indigo wax with Solomon’s impression. She broke the seal and read the Arabic missive carefully, as the physician’s penmanship was atrocious.

Her jaw clenched when she reached the end of the tersely worded order he’d given her. “Too late for that,” she muttered with angry resignation, then returned the scroll to Papadakos.

“Paulo!”

All three of them—Lynch, Celia, and Papadakos—looked up to see Lady Camille Raxham at the top of the staircase, nearly skipping down them with the joy only a carefree young woman could produce. When she reached the marble floor, she threw herself at Paulo, who instinctively wrapped his arms around her.

Celia’s mouth dropped open.

“Lady Raxham,” Paulo choked out. “Miss Bancroft is here.”

“Oh, she won’t understand at all,” Camille said airily. “She’s a complete idiot.”

Celia looked up at the butler, who gave her a well-practiced gallic shrug.

But Paulo gently forced Camille away from him with a grimace cast at Celia. That explained his suspicious behavior.

“Well done, Leftenant,” Celia drawled. “Does Iscariot know of this?”

“I don’t believe he does, Cap’n,” Lynch offered.

Camille shoved herself away from Papadakos whilst staring aghast at Celia.

’Twas as if someone had deflated the lieutenant. “Captain,” he said wearily, rubbing his forehead.

It was then Old Ben came bustling from the back of the house. “Ah, Captain!” he cried in delight, his arms out to embrace her. “Finally you have graced us with your presence. So lovely to see you again, even in disguise!”

“Captain?!”

The shriek was loud, and they all turned to see Lady Tavendish sitting in the threshold of the morning room, her confusion nearly painful. Mary stood in the foyer some way to the dowager’s left, rolling her eyes.

“Disguise?!”

Celia sighed.

“Lynch!” That bellow came from the top of the stairs, and everyone looked up to see an exquisitely attired Earl Tavendish—not Lord Macaroni—clipping down the stairs, but paying attention to the lace at his cuffs. He was nearly to the bottom step and looked up. “Lynch, I need to see—”

“You need to see your mother in the morning room,” Celia interrupted flatly with a casual wave toward the specified room. Elliott gaped at her. “She’s a rude bitch and I’ll have nothing more of her company. Practically called my mother a whore.”

“Celia,” Elliott finally gathered himself enough to say, “if you’d told her who you were—”

“Mother of God,” Lady Tavendish whispered.

Mary snorted. “You would probably insult her, too, if she did not rise to your standard of propriety.”

“Oh, aye, that would have made all the difference, would it?” Celia demanded. “You ordered her to invite us, knowing she holds us both in contempt, without also ordering her to be kind?”

Elliott’s jaw hardened and his head swung to his mother. “I did order her to be kind.”

Mary sniffed haughtily and crossed her arms over her chest. “’Tis a good thing I like you, Tavendish.”

“Oh, give over, Lady Hylton!” he snapped. “Your claws are equally sharp, digging into Lord Macaroni and making your disgust with him very clear. I want to see all present females in the morning room. Now.”

Grudgingly, both Lady Tavendish and Lady Hylton made to obey. Celia stood where she was, arms akimbo. Camille was nowhere to be seen, she suddenly noticed. Nor were the other three men.

“Celia,” he said with a raised eyebrow and swept his hand toward the morning room.

“Do not think to give me orders, Elliott Raxham! I spit in one captain’s face and beheaded another. I command my own ship, so who are you to compel my obedience?”

“I am Judas,” he growled.

“Oh ho!” she chortled, waving her hands frantically. “The dread pirate captain has raised his Jolly Roger, opened his gunports, and ordered me to heave to! What if he catches me and sinks me with his mighty sixty-six guns? What if he boards me and ravishes me? That will teach me a lesson about brawling with Iscariot! That is, if he can catch me with that dinghy he rows. Bugger off, Judas.”

He shot across the foyer and grasped her face in his hands and kissed her harshly. Celia pressed against him and returned his kiss, clawing at his fingers, desperate to touch him—nay, to merge her soul into his.

“My God, you are magnificent, Madam,” he breathed, then kissed her again. She whimpered when his lips slowly left hers. “Parley, Captain.”

Celia granted him a disgusted but resigned sigh and muttered, “Your mother was rude.”

“Aye, and so was yours.”

A discreet clearing of a throat. A small-voiced, “Eli?”

“Celia, please?” he whispered.

She huffed and jerked away from him, heading into the morning room. She and her mother plopped themselves down on a sofa at the same moment whilst Elliott pushed his mother’s chair into the room and closed the doors behind him.

“Mother, Captain Jack and Chief Purser Mary of the Thunderstorm. Celia, Lady Hylton, the Dowager Countess Mélisande Tavendish. The mothers will exchange appropriate apologies. That’s an order.”

Celia pulled her lips between her teeth to keep from laughing, particularly when the two older women mumbled nonsense that could not, by any definition, be taken as apologies.

There was an awkward silence in the room, though Celia simply watched the proceedings as did Elliott, but she started when Lady Tavendish’s head snapped up at Mary and she said, “Your family name is Winslow, is it not?”

“Indeed,” Mary answered shortly.

Lady Tavendish blinked and settled a crooked finger under her nose in thought. “You’re of the Northumberland Winslows, are you not? Rothbury?”

Mary stiffened. “Yes.”

Celia looked sharply at her mother. “I thought you were born in London,” she said slowly.

Mary gulped. “No.”

But Lady Tavendish continued. “You and the Dunham boy—James— You were the girl he took to Gretna and then to sea.”

Celia thought her heart had stopped. “You and Papa are married?”

“Oh, Lord,” Mary groaned, dropping her face in her hands.

“You didn’t know?” Lady Tavendish’s confused query swirled somewhere around in Celia’s mind, and she knew it was directed at her, but she was staring at her mother, whose shoulders quaked.

“Mama?”

Finally, Mary lifted her head, but she was not crying—she was laughing. Maniacally. There was no joy in it. “Lud, I knew that would catch up with me if I stayed here long enough.”

“Does Aunt Harriet know?” Celia squeaked, beginning to feel really rather seasick.

Mary was a long time in answering, for she was still laughing, dabbing at her eyes where tears had begun to fall. “I was to wed Marquess Rathbone.” Celia and the countess gasped as one. “But I was in love with Jamie, and Rathbone and Harriet were in love. My parents did not care a whit about that, so Harriet and I conspired to repair the situation ourselves. Though our plan went off, clearly, it turned off rather badly for both of us and is still in play now some two score years later.”

“Does she know I am not Bancroft’s?” Celia’s register climbed.

Mary slid her a look. “Of course she does. Why do you think she has fought him for custody these years past? The marquess, now— He knows none of it but that he was able to offer for Harriet after I ran away with a local boy.”

“Does she know who I am?”

“No,” Mary said decisively. “She knows the same tale we have perpetrated on everyone. You are mad and I am on my deathbed.”

Celia pressed her hand to her belly in an attempt to keep from casting up her accounts. “Does Bancroft know you and Papa are wed?”

“Yes, but he did not find out until the day Jamie took you. That is why he left me. You are not the bastard child. Lucien is, and since he is in line for a barony … ”

Celia whimpered and looked at Elliott, who sat looking as stunned as she felt. She turned her attention back to her mother. “But … how?”

“Jamie and I married over the anvil and set sail immediately,” Mary said tightly. “We were separated at sea and washed up ashore at opposite ends of the Colonies. We looked for each other for some months. I looked and I waited, taking menial jobs to support myself, but after three years, I decided to accept that Jamie was dead. And then I met Nathan. We married. Three years after that, Jamie found me. You know the rest.”

Celia, who had thought herself immune to any further shock after Bancroft had set her asunder, shattered. She was beyond disappointment, beyond anger—nearly to the despair and hopelessness of watching Talaat die. She curled her hand into a fist and pressed it to her chest, then bent over as far as her stays would let her and tucked her head.

“Why didn’t Dunham fight for you?” Elliott rumbled. “Had you been my wife, I would have sued for your return as soon as I found you again.”

“I had a son and a good home with a man I loved,” Mary said flatly. “You, the impoverished son of a stripped Scottish duke, would have taken me and my son away from a wealthy, powerful man in line for an English barony for your pride? You would have taken another man’s son and treated the child as well as his own father?” Elliott made no answer and Mary’s voice held a sneer as she continued, “He loved me enough to leave me to a better life than the one he could give me. In return, for nine years I gave him as much as I could. He wasn’t happy with it, but— I watched Jamie take my beloved daughter, and then, when I explained to Nathan, I watched him take my beloved son. Do not think you can heap more guilt upon me, and I am impervious to contempt.”

“Does Lucien know?” Elliott asked low.

“I cannot say. I—and Harriet—have kept the secret to protect my son and his claim to Hylton. I have to assume Nathan did the same and for the same reason.”

“Go away, Mama,” Celia croaked as her chest began to heave.

Other than the rustle of cloth as Mary stood, there was no sound in the room. Then a larger body sat beside Celia and a large hand pressed against her back. The other reached between her bosom and her knees to grasp her fist, pry it open, and slip his thumb in it. “Do you need to howl,” he murmured in her ear, “I will take you to my study.”

Celia couldn’t speak, much less howl, but she could take the comfort he had given her, and gripped his thumb with the rage mounting inside her and beginning to flow through her.

“What is she doing?” Lady Tavendish murmured.

“Trying not to kill me, I imagine,” Mary murmured in return.

Nothing more was said, but Celia could feel Elliott’s body shift with hand gestures. Soon enough the two of them were alone and Celia released Elliott’s thumb.

“No, no,” he murmured, prying at her fist.

“Do you want your thumb torn off your hand?” she snarled.

“Ah, I cannot say that would be a particularly arousing pain, no. Tell me what I can do for you, love.”

“Get me a sword.”

He arose without a word, strode to the doors, and threw them open. “Lynch!” he bellowed. “Two rapiers and daggers!”

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