Lady Pirate (22 page)

“Aye, she's right,” Henry agreed. “We can't just claim it's bad luck; there have been too many instances for that.”

“And too many for them to be coincidence, even.” she continued. “But they still could be. The first incidence we thought a robbery attempt, and it may have been. If so, we were lucky. They got away with naught and we suffered little but a knock on my head.”

“What about the carriage accident?” One-Eye asked. “No-Nose broke his leg.”

“Aye, and if you ask me that was luck, too. Had Henry, Meg, and I been in the carriage instead of riding behind in Lord Thurborne's hack, we would be dead now. No doubting it. I say one broken leg is better than three dead any day.” She allowed that to sink in, then continued. “As for the fire, we were lucky again. It was caught early, it's out, and no one was hurt.”

She sighed again, a frown twisting her mouth. There
had
been too much bad luck. Even she could see that, but she didn't want the men to get jumpy. “We
have
been lucky. But I want to make sure there is nothing to worry about. Tomorrow I want a couple of you men to go talk to the owner of the wagon again, and find out what you can. Then ask around near where the
accident occurred, see if anyone saw where the fellow who was driving ran to.”

“You think it wasn't an accident?” Henry said. Valoree paused.

“I don't know. I'd just feel better finding out what we can.” She glanced over the men, then sighed. “I will see Lord Beecham and Hawghton again tomorrow and decide which of them to marry; then we can get out of here. Then it will be over. Now it's late. Why don't you men head off to bed?”

Meg was the first to turn away to leave, but the men did follow. Valoree stood staring around the library once they were gone, frowning at the fact that, somehow, a curtain with nothing nearby to hold a candle had been aflame. If she were the superstitious sort, she might believe it was a curse, or some such thing as Skully had suggested. But Valoree wasn't superstitious. She was slightly cynical. And to her the answer seemed quite clear that someone had set it.

But who?

Sighing, she left the library as well, but she didn't seek out her bed. Instead she crossed the hall to the salon, only to find Henry there, seated on the settee, dealing cards out on the low table before it.

“Hazard or hearts?” he asked as she moved to the sideboard to pour them both a drink.

“Hearts,” Valoree murmured, carrying glasses over to join him. He knew her too well. She should have realized he would know she would not simply retire and risk another fire, or any such accident, befalling them while they slept. He had figured she would sit up all night to stand guard against any further “accidents” while everyone slept, and meant to keep her company.

Picking up the hand he had dealt himself, Henry
announced, “Skully and Bull are going to spot us in a couple of hours; then One-Eye and Petey will take over for them.”

Valoree just grunted and picked up her cards.

Valoree closed the door behind Hawghton with a snap and turned to eye Henry. “When does Beecham get here?”

“He should be along shortly. I scheduled them one after the other. Hawghton left a little early.”

“Aye, well, you can cross him off the list. Beecham it is,” she announced, walking back into the salon.

A few minutes later, Valoree was sitting staring into the fire when Henry entered. Forcing herself to sit up and doing her best not to look as depressed as she felt, she raised an eyebrow in question. “Aye? What is it, Henry?”

“Well.” The man hesitated, then straightened his shoulders and decided to get to the point without any shilly-shallying. “The men and I were talking, and we've decided ye shouldn't marry Beecham.” Seeing her eyes narrow, fiercely, he quickly went on. “He's too weak for ye, Captain. Ye'd walk right over him; then ye'd loathe him for lettin' ye. Ye need someone stronger, like Thurborne there.”

“I—” she began harshly, but he interrupted before she could blast him.

“So One-Eye's gone back to the boat to let the men know what's about, and have them take a vote on who we want ye to marry. I'm thinking they'll all vote for
Thurborne, too, once One-Eye tells 'em they should. We surely wouldn't have done this had we not known ye really like the man anyway. We've all caught ye shilly-shallying with him at one point or other during the last two weeks. We know ye like the fella.”

Valoree flushed at his announcement, her face heating up like toast over the fire as she realized that she and Thurborne had been spotted in their passionate clinches.

“I—” she began furiously, but paused abruptly, her mind ticking over what he was saying. They were going to vote she should marry Thurborne. She'd get a lifetime with the man. It meant a lifetime battle for her independence, and a lifetime struggle not to be secondary to him, but also a lifetime of passion, of finally gaining satisfaction from the man, of his finally scratching the unbearable damn itch he had worked so hard at building within her. And it was not even as if she was giving in. They were basically forcing her to do it.

Or were they? If she gave in on this, mayhap they weren't forcing her at all, and weeks from now…well, perhaps months…Okay, it would probably be years. Years from now, when her itch was scratched and she came out of her desire-fogged state, she would awake to find she had given up her independence for something that would not last. She had to consider that. But she wasn't given the chance as Bull opened the door and rumbled, “Beecham.”

Valoree frowned at the news that the man was there, then glanced at Henry. “If you have finished arranging my life?”

Nodding, Henry turned and moved toward the door. Bull stepped out of the way for Beecham to enter. Her “uncle” paused to greet him on the way out, then murmured something about instructing Petey to prepare a tea tray. With that he left them alone. Unlike he did
whenever Daniel was present, this time Henry left the door open.

“Thurborne's not here?” Beecham asked in surprise. He came to join her by the fire.

Valoree made a face at the question. Apparently it had not gone without notice that Daniel always seemed to be hanging about. She hoped that he wasn't also aware of their “shilly-shallying,” as Henry had put it. Beecham was too nice a man for her to wish his feelings or his pride hurt.

She blinked as that thought ran through her mind and stuck. Beecham was too nice a man for her to deliberately hurt.
Damn…
She was going soft! She would have blamed it on being in London, but she knew that wasn't the only reason behind it. It was Meg's influence, her disapproving looks, her gentle remonstrances.

It was also the dresses she was forced to go about in here in London. Meg had forced the men to return all her breeches and boots to the boat after she'd discovered her niece in them. That had left her with little choice but to go about with the air running up under her skirts, and those silly, useless slippers as her only foot covering. It was hard not to feel feminine in that gear. And it was also Daniel, with his kisses and caresses, making her feel like a woman for the first time in her life. But being a woman did not feel so bad when his arms were around her, and the heat was burning her up from the inside out.

Aye, she was going soft, she admitted with regret.

“…that is why I have always admired Thurborne. I know
I
would never have had the courage to deal with and hunt down privateers and pirates.”

“What?” Valoree cried in amazement as Beecham's words registered. Obviously she had missed a great deal of something that the man had been saying, and some very important things, too. Seeing his startled
expression, she forced herself to speak more calmly. “I mean, I fear you spoke so fast I did not gather all that.” It was true. If he had spoken slower, she might have tuned back in at an earlier point. “Hunt down pirates and privateers?”

“Aye. That is what he was doing in the Caribbean all those years. At first he was just the king's man, assessing the cargo of various privateers in the area and taking the king's forty percent. But then when that Captain Red died—Are you quite all right? You appear pale. Are you not feeling well?”

“Nay, I am fine.” Valoree forced a smile to her lips. “I am just suffering an aching head. Please go on.”

“Anyway, there was a famous privateer called Captain Red. Living in the Caribbean, you probably heard of him. It was rumored that he was actually a lord, trying to remake the fortune he had lost, but only the king and Thurborne would know for sure. At any rate, the poor fellow was captured by the Spanish, but it was just after he had turned in his cargo for assessing. They say that the Spanish were so furious at being cheated out of the treasure they had expected, they tortured him and his entire crew to death.”

Not his whole crew, Valoree thought grimly. Only those who had been aboard at the time. A skeleton crew, just enough men to get Jeremy where he was to meet the assessor. She and the others had been in port, collecting the supplies they would need for the next trip out. And the Spanish had gotten the gold.

“But then rumors began to circulate,” Beecham went on, “that Captain Red and his crew had come back from the dead to seek vengeance and wreak havoc on the Spanish for what had been done to them. Ship after ship after ship claimed that the dead captain and his crew appeared out of nowhere, out of the very mist, materializing suddenly on the deck of their ships. There was never any ship, just the crew.”

Valoree's mouth twitched at that with nervous humor. Their attack on that first ship had worked so well, they had used it repeatedly: leaving the new
Valor
anchored in a safe cove, rowing out in a small piragua or two, then drilling holes in the small boats and climbing aboard their targeted ship to take it over. With each craft they had taken, the story of Back-from-the-Dead-Red had grown until the very sight of them on deck was enough to send the crew of whatever ship they boarded either to their knees to plead for their lives or scurrying to drop their own skiffs into the water to get away. That had left them with, not only whatever treasure each carried, but the ship itself to sell. That was how they had made the money they had needed to replace so quickly.

Of course, they had taken an occasional ship in the usual manner, chasing them down in the
Valor
, boarding, fighting, and winning, but always at dusk or dark when they could continue the charade of Back-from-the-Dead Red. Sailors were a damned superstitious lot, and that charade had given them the edge more times than not.

“The king was irate about this, of course,” Beecham related. “Privateering is one thing, but pirating quite another.”

“Yes,” Valoree assented.
Good Lord, yes.
If the king didn't get his share, the whole letter of marque was null and void—even if the pirates in question attacked only the king's enemies, and never bothered their own countrymen or ships of countries that were allies. Unfortunately, when Jeremy had died, the name of the assessor and next meeting place arranged with the man had been lost as well. Thus, Valoree and the men had been unable to keep everything as aboveboard as they would have liked. Still, they had saved the king's portion, always counting it out painstakingly to be sure that his share was there. They had stored it in a ware
house here in London when they arrived, and waited for the king to contact them. She'd assumed he would as soon as he knew that Lady Ainsley was in London. He had known Captain Red was her brother, of course. But he had not yet called on them, and frankly, Valoree had been so wrapped up in this husband business, the matter had quite slipped her mind.

“So, since Thurborne was one of the few people besides himself who had met this Captain Red, the king sent him out to seek the truth of the matter—whether there really was a ghost pirate running amok out there, or if Captain Red had survived after all and was taking advantage of the tales of his death to keep the entire portion of the treasures he took.”

Valoree blinked in surprise. She had never considered anyone might think that, but, she supposed it made sense. Unfortunately, she had more important things to consider. For instance, what this all meant to her and the men. If Thurborne had been the assessor, then he knew that Jeremy was Captain Red. And if he knew that, he knew she was his sister. So why had he not come to her and requested information? Why not ask her the truth of the matter? Had he been hanging about all this time in the hope of learning some further information for the king?

Quite suddenly she remembered the night before and what had happened after the carriage accident. She had unthinkingly mentioned the ship. Daniel had heard her and echoed the word. Valoree had fully expected him to question her on the matter once they returned to the town house, but he had not. He had merely kissed and caressed her, then left. But he had not returned this morning as was his usual habit. Where was he? Out looking for her ship? And now that she was thinking along those lines, she recalled all the times he had emphasized certain words like
uncle
or
your island
or
the Caribbean
with some hidden meaning. She had
paid little attention, and had wasted little concern over such matters at the time, but she was now beginning to attach a terrible significance to them.

Mayhap they should not have waited for the king to send someone around. Mayhap he would not. Mayhap he would merely have them all arrested and hanged.

Cursing, she leaped to her feet and started for the door.

“Is there something amiss, my lady?”

Valoree paused, then glanced back blankly at Beecham. She had quite forgotten all about his presence. Recovering herself, she managed a smile. “Nay, my lord. It just suddenly occurred to me to wonder where that tea is that my uncle said he would have sent. I will not be a moment,” she assured him, then slid out into the hall to find herself facing Henry, Pete, One-Eye, Bull, Skully, and Meg. They all stood there, huddled in conversation, but fell silent and turned to face her as she closed the door.

“What?” she began, scowling. Henry held up his hand to silence her.

“One-Eye and Skully just got back from the ship, and the crew has voted. Ye marry Thurborne.”

“You men are incredible,” she said with disgust. “You cannot vote on a thing like that. I shall marry whom I please.”

“Nay, according to the contracts—”

“According to the contracts, any decision that affects you men and your life aboard ship is up to the vote,” she said shortly. “So, aye, mayhap you could force me to marry, but once I marry and reclaim Ainsley, your lives aboard ship end. Then you become land rats. And that means all your contracts are null and void. So I will marry whom I please, and I am marrying Beecham. In fact, I am going to go tell him so right now.”

Turning on her heel, she threw the door open and marched right back in, closing the door behind her
with a slam. She was so angry, she was halfway across the room before she realized that she had not told them about Thurborne, and that they would still have to take care of that situation right away. Sighing, she whirled reluctantly back, then changed her mind. She could tell them all about that later. First she would arrange things with Beecham.

Smiling, she returned to her chair and had just seated herself when the door opened and Meg rushed in. “Oh. Hello, Lord Beecham,” she said brightly, ignoring Valoree's glare as she moved to join them. “How are you today?”

“My lady.” Beecham stood at once, bending to kiss the older woman's hand when it was offered. Valoree sat frozen, throwing glares at the woman that were studiously ignored.

She had no doubt that this was supposed to prevent her from announcing Beecham as her choice for a husband. Meg had made herself scare every other time that John Beecham had been present. Valoree was not sure if it had been because she feared being recognized as his scandalous aunt, or if the sight of him just brought back the pain of the rift with her sister. Still, whatever it was, Meg had always chosen to absent herself when he was about, leaving Henry to tend to the matter of chaperoning—a job he had done miserably, allowing her countless moments of fraternizing with a man who was most likely trying to get them all hanged.

“How handsome you look this afternoon, my lord,” Meg was saying, seating herself beside Beecham on the settee and beaming at him widely. “You must tell me who your tailor is so that Henry can pay him a visit. The clothesmaker we have been using is barely adequate.”

“Oh, well, I would be pleased to share his name,” the man assured her quietly. “He is quite the best one
in town, in my opinion, Top-quality work at a fair price.”

“Oh, marvelous. It is so hard to find that nowadays, is it not? So many overcharge and—”

“Aunt Meg,” Valoree interrupted in a warning tone, and Meg turned to her innocently.