A Stroke of Luck (2 page)

The duke's gruff words had brought a grudging smile to Stump's weathered face. "Auch, we both know you could have your pick of proper valets in London rather than employ a useless old goat like me. There isn't a one of them wouldn't commit murder to serve the celebrated Distinguished Duke."

"Well, they may not have to resort to such extreme measures." Prestwick's quip held a dry note, even though his legs were beginning to tire from treading water. "For if the situation does not improve, it appears the position may sink along with the two of us."

He immediately regretted the attempt at humor, for his companion turned an even more bilious shade of green.

"May Neptune stick his trident straight through me liver! I shall never forgive myself for draggin' you down with me—"

Another wave slammed into the valet, drowning the rest of the apology in a wheezing gurgle.

Despite his numb fingers, Prestwick tightened his grip on the older man's collar and sought to keep Stump's drooping head above water. A quick look up at the ominous sky verified that the storm was showing no signs of abating. Indeed, the clouds were getting thicker, the winds were starting to howl in earnest and the seas were turning darker.

Wine dark
, he thought with a purse of his lips. He had always thought Homer's turn of phrase rather poetic. But that had been with the confines of his cozy library,
The Iliad
resting on a cashmere lap robe, a glass of aged port the only liquid wetting his lips.

But at the present moment, the words of the ancient Greek bard had a decidedly ominous shade to them.

In truth, the roiling water was looking more like india ink than fine claret, and the duke felt his limbs growing leaden with the effort of trying to keep the two of them afloat. As the next towering surge of spray crashed over his head, he took one last gulp of air before being sucked under. Fighting the swirling currents, he managed one or two more feeble kicks before everything went black.

* * *

Prestwick was brought back to consciousness by yet another cold wave splashing over his face.
How deucedly odd
, he thought. Surely he shouldn't be feeling such a sensation if he were several fathoms beneath the sea.

"W-what the Devil!" he sputtered, groggily aware that the taste on his lips was not that of salt but of brandy. And a rather decent brandy at that.

Before he could say any more, another slap—this one a good deal more solid than mere liquid—landed hard against his cheek, the force of it causing his eyes to water.

"Hell's teeth!" he sputtered.

"That did it, Zara! Looks like he's finally coming to!"

The duke unscrewed his eyelids enough to catch a peek at the face hovering over his.
Good Lord.
He blinked, then ventured a second glance. With windspun tresses framing her delicate features, the young lady appeared as ethereal as a Nereid. However, he winced, she certainly packed the wallop of an Amazon

A quick flinch allowed him to narrowly avoid a second blow.

"Finally awake, are you?" She leaned back slightly, her sea green eyes studying his dripping features and bedraggled locks with an unsettling intensity.

"S-S-Stump," he choked out between coughs. "S-S-Stump."

"If you are referring to your companion with the missing hand, he is safely aboard, too," she replied.

Prestwick was suddenly aware of the pitch and rock beneath his waterlogged form.
A boat.
So, he was not buried in a watery grave, but alive and afloat. And though a cursory glance showed it was not nearly as fancy as his own polished yacht, the little craft was at least keeping its deck above water.

"We fished him out right after we had hauled you up over the gunwales." The duke thought he detected a slight rippling of her gaze, as if she did not entirely approve of what she was seeing. "What in the name of Poseidon were the two of you doing out for a midnight swim in these conditions?"

"It was not exactly a planned pleasure dip." Unused to such blunt words, especially from a female, he responded in his most haughty ducal tone. "We, er, suffered an unfortunate slip."

Her brow arched slightly. "Ah. No doubt you were thoroughly foxed. In my experience, gentlemen usually are when they do something exceeding stupid. Like fall overboard."

Prestwick would have liked to snap an equally caustic retort, but found his chattering teeth would not allow for further speech.

"Well, you might as well have another draught of spirits to warm you up," she continued briskly. "Nonny! Help the gentleman to a slug from the bottle, then hurry and give Perry a hand with the mainsheet." Above the howl of the gusting gale the distant pounding of surf against rock could be heard. "The wind looks to be shifting to the southeast, and if we trim the sails, we may be able to weather the cliffs without changing course."

The fiery liquid did indeed send a spiraling of heat through his icy insides. Prestwick breathed a sigh and shifted upon the rough planking. As the brush of bristly wool rubbed up against his chin, he realized that part of the reason he was feeling marginally more comfortable was the fact that he had been relieved of his own wet garments and a blanket had been tucked around his still shivering limbs.

Hell's Teeth!
It was not the smell of stale sheep that had him squirming beneath the less than pristine covering. To his relief, he found that his breeches—though stiff with salt and encrusted to his thighs—were in their proper place. At least the impudent chit had not stripped him of all his dignity. Drawing the blanket up to the bridge of his nose, he sighed again.

Amazon
, repeated the duke to himself, as he stole a furtive look at the young lady in action.

Feet planted wide on the pitching deck, head tilted into the gusting squall, hand battling the twisting tiller, she certainly resembled some mythic warrior queen. Her waving hair, a wheaten blond sparked by red gold highlights, snapped in the wind like a naval pennant, only adding to the martial appearance. He had been wrong to think her an unearthly water nymph. She was much too tall, much too angular and much too outspoken to lay any claim to sprightly beauty.

Hoyden
, he added with a slight curl of his lip. A loud, ill-mannered—

A feeble groan from close by made him feel rather ashamed of such churlish thoughts. No matter that the chit had a tongue that could flay a man raw as a cat 'o nine tails, she had managed to pluck two unconscious bodies from a storm-tossed sea. Even with a veteran crew it would have been no easy task. And Nonny looked to be hardly more than a lad...

"Sir?" Stump's croak interrupted his musings.

Prestwick grimaced and gave himself a silent tongue lashing before answering. "Aye, Stump. I'm here."

"Thank the Lord."

And a certain young lady
, admitted the duke. What had the young man called her? Something peculiar—Susanna? Serena?

"Though we was sunk for sure," mumbled his valet.

"I'm afraid that in another few minutes we might have been, had our rescuers not spotted us among the whitecaps."

"Owe them... a debt... of thanks, that we do..." Stump's woozy words were swallowed in a snore as he fell back into an exhausted slumber.

A debt indeed, reflected the duke. Well, that would prove easy enough. After all, he was a very rich man. With the image of gold guineas raining down upon a tangle of gold curls, he, too, drifted off into a fitful sleep.

* * *

The finely tailored garments and polished patrician accent left little doubt that he was a Gentleman of Quality. Zara frowned. In other words, just the sort of person she loathed. Since the death of her father, she had come to discover that such men, who paid lip service to the notions of duty and honor, were as much charlatans as the gypsy fortunetellers who promised true love, or the medical quacks who peddled eternal life in a bottle.

Perhaps more so, seeing as the others had a certain raw honesty about their greed.

Still, she supposed she could not, in good conscience, simply toss the fellow back into the sea, no matter that he had been insufferably arrogant. Why, there had not even been a dratted word of thanks! He was probably so used to people groveling at his feet that the thought hadn't occurred to him.

She kicked at one of the brass cleats. He could sink from here to Hades before she would show him any more deference than she would a slippery eel.

A glance upward showed the clouds were lightening and a faint peek of sun was starting to break through. Once the fog burned off and the wind moderated a few more knots, she should be able to steer closer to the shore. The few ghostly glimpses she had caught through the swirls of grey showed naught but craggy rocks and towering dunes, yet surely there would be some sort of port up ahead where they might put in to drop their unwanted cargo and replenish their meager stock of food. The gale had apparently blown them off course, so it also wouldn't hurt to inquire as to their exact location, and how much farther they had to go.

Her lips compressed. She hoped that they had not strayed too far from their final destination. Their funds were growing perilously low and she wished to avoid spending any more of their precious farthings than necessary for supplies. They would need to take a journey by coach once they had made landfall.

"Shoals on the port side!" came a high-pitched cry from high in the rigging.

Zara shoved the tiller to the left, swinging the bow of the boat away from the danger. "Can you see any sign of life?" she called up to her younger brother.

"No. Naught but a few sheep."

"What about any further danger?"

"The way looks clear if you stay headed on this course."

"Then come down for a moment and have a bite of breakfast."

There was a rapid scrabbling in the tarred lines and a thump as the lad's bare feet hit the deck.

"Sorry, Perry." She shrugged by way of apology, needing both hands to steer through a patch of rough water. "A wedge of stale bread and dollop of strawberry jam hardly merits such enthusiasm."

"Mmmpph." He brushed a smudge of red from his chin and grinned. "Remember the time Papa got lost looking for the tomb of Queen Tetishiri? We marched up and down those rocky wadis for two days without a crumb. Even grape leaves and goat's brains tasted good after that. Though I admit, the eyeballs did not look particularly appetizing." He took a swig of cider. "We ran out of water, too. And it was hotter than Hell—"

"Perry," she warned, though it was difficult to be stern in the face of such good-humored resilience. "That is not a word that belongs in your vocabulary."

"Parthenon says it."

"Nonny is not eleven years old." Seeing the scrunch of his mouth, she quickly added, "However, that is not the point. A gentleman, no matter what his age, should refrain from swearing."

"Bloody Hell!"

Repressing an oath of her own, Zara whipped around to see the waterlogged gentleman rubbing at the back of his skull. He had sat up without looking and cracked his head on the overhanging boom.

"Such language may be acceptable in one of your fancy clubs, sir. But I shall have to insist you refrain from swearing in the presence of ladies and children." She was gratified to see the pallor of his cheeks, which until that moment had resembled the underbelly of a cod, darken with a dull flush. "For despite what you may think, my brothers and I are of quite respectable birth."

"Your pardon," he said stiffly, employing the same offensive drawl as he had used before. This time, however, the effect was made rather comical by the fact that the blanket had slipped from his grip as he had grabbed for his head, leaving him bare to the waist.

Seeing his baleful expression, she couldn't help herself. She began to laugh.

His face now wore a black scowl. "One would not guess your genteel origins from your execrable manners."

"
My
manners!" Zara's burble of amusement changed to a squawk of indignation. "Why, you pompous prig! You have not deigned to utter so much as a peep of thanks! Not only that, you have slept soundly through the night, snug in our only blankets, while my brothers and I have battled gale force winds and raging seas to keep this craft afloat—"

A jarring
thunk
and the ominous snap of splintering wood interrupted her harangue.

"Zara!"

As she steadied herself against one of the stanchions, Parthenon's head appeared in the small cabin hatchway. "Water is coming up through the floorboards! Quite a lot of it."

"Bloody Hell!" Not wasting time with further recriminations, she grabbed up a nearby bucket and tossed it at the odious gentleman. "Rouse your friend and get him to lend you a hand with the bailing."

Stump crawled out from behind the luffing mainsail. "I'm afraid a hand is all I've got, missy."

"We are going to need every available one," she replied grimly while eyeing the distance to shore. "Perry, belay the jib and haul in on the starboard sheet. Then go below and help your brother pack up our belongings."

Of all the cursed luck!
She wrestled with the yawing tiller, trying to steer the listing vessel on a course for the narrow spit of beach she had spied among the rocks. The unknown gentleman, whatever his true name, had turned out to be a veritable Jonah! Now they were truly in the suds, and all because of him!