Nicola Cornick, Margaret McPhee, et al (8 page)

‘Then you are no spy?’

‘I spy for the British, not the French.’

‘And the piracy?’

‘I certainly harry the French fleet as much as I can.’

‘And the smuggling?’

‘I have helped smuggle fugitives from Napoleon’s regime.’ Daniel
shrugged. ‘And I also smuggle good French brandy, so it is absolutely true that
I am a criminal.’

‘Oh, Daniel!’

For a moment he thought Lucinda was going to throw herself into
his arms, but being the woman she was she swallowed hard and glared at him
instead.

‘Why did you not tell me the truth before? Why did you want me to
think the worst of you?’

Daniel shifted a little. He took her hand. ‘Because I had to
drive you away, Luce. It is not as simple as you think. I may have worked for
the Admiralty, but I have crossed the line many times. By any definition I am a
criminal now. That was what I meant when I said that you had not misjudged me.’
His grip tightened on her hand. ‘All the things of which you accuse me—the
selfishness and the recklessness and the love of danger—they are all true.’

Lucinda’s eyes flashed. ‘But it is iniquitous for the Admiralty
to treat you so when you have worked for them! Justin Kestrel should be ashamed
if he leaves you to hang!’

Daniel’s lips twitched. ‘Your sense of fair play is admirable,
Lucy,’ he said quietly. ‘But in your haste to acquit me do not forget that I
have ruined you. I am as bad as you have painted me.’

‘That’s true,’ Lucinda agreed. ‘You are still a lying, deceitful
and manipulative beast, even if you are not a traitor.’

Daniel smiled at her. ‘Thank you.’

Lucinda fidgeted and looked away, though she allowed her hand to
remain in his. ‘So, if Justin Kestrel will not come to our aid, we have a
couple of days of this…this purgatory…until they get word that you are not Mr
Jackson Raleigh and then we are both hanged.’

‘That’s about the size of it.’ Daniel’s squeezed her fingers.
‘But we shall escape before that.’

Her eyes flew to his. ‘Shall we?’

‘Of course. In fact we are about to do so. It is always best to
escape early on, with the element of surprise.’

Lucinda raised her brows. ‘I see. And I admire your confidence.
So how is this cunning plan to be achieved?’

‘I am not sure yet,’ Daniel admitted. ‘But I know I will think of
something.’

Her shoulders slumped slightly. ‘How reassuring.’

He put his arm about her. ‘Whatever happens, Lucy, you are coming
with me. You have to now.’

She looked down her nose at him. ‘I have to do no such thing. Why
should I?’

‘Because, as you so succinctly pointed out a few moments ago, I
have ruined you,’ Daniel said calmly. He had had no time to think anything
through beyond an absolute certainty that he had to put matters right for
Lucinda. It was the one good thing that he
could
do—even if it would be
the last. ‘You will come with me and you will marry me.’

‘What makes you think that I will have you?’ Lucinda said, with a
flash of hauteur. ‘You are no great catch.’

Daniel grinned. ‘Being married to me will be better than trying
to marry off the brats of the nobility for a living. Trust me on that.’

‘You always had an inflated opinion of your own charms,’ Lucinda
commented. ‘I cannot believe that you are using the opportunity of us being
locked up together to press your suit. I will
not
marry you, Daniel, and
that is final. You are the least reliable man on earth, and I would have to be
mad or desperate or both to accept you.’

Daniel was thinking quickly. He was sure that if the worse came
to the worst he could barter information for Lucinda’s freedom. Justin and
Sally Kestrel could help her, if not him. She could go to Allandale, do the
work that he had been too weak and too wild to do. At least she would be safe…

‘Marry me,’ he said again. ‘Please, Lucy. It is the only way in
which I can put matters right.’

‘I have no wish to be a pirate’s wife,’ Lucinda said. ‘If we
escape I would be obliged to sail with you, and I am the world’s worst sailor.
Merely sitting in a rowing boat makes me sick. It is a miracle I was not ill
aboard the
Defiance
.’

‘You were too busy quarrelling with me to notice,’ Daniel said
ruefully. He spread his hands. ‘You need not sail with me. I inherited
Allandale from my cousin just a month ago. You could live there—’

‘You are Lord Allandale now?’ Lucinda’s eyes widened.

‘Yes. Which is why I need to know there is someone I can trust to
take care of the estate.’

Lucinda’s gaze snapped onto him. ‘You need an estate manager, not
a wife!’ She hesitated for a moment, and then looked at him very directly. Her
tone changed, turned sad. ‘I cannot wed you, Daniel. Do not press me to it. Oh,
I care for you.’ She laced her fingers together a little awkwardly. ‘And ’ tis
true that I respond to you—’ Here she blushed, and he wanted to kiss her very
much. ‘But I do not trust you. You will always put yourself first. You always
have and you always will. And I could not bear for you to break my heart
again.’

She stood up, smoothing her skirts, and crossed to the window.
She stood with her back turned to him, her arms folded tight about her as
though she was cold, and though Daniel wanted to take her in his arms, to hold
her and comfort her, he knew she would not let him touch her. What could he
say? That it would be different this time? That he cared for her and would
never hurt her? He knew it was true, but trust had to be earned and he had
forfeited the right to hers.

‘Look!’ Lucinda said suddenly. A note of excitement had crept
into her voice. ‘It is snowing outside!’ She paused. ‘You will have observed
that there are no bars at the window, Daniel?’

Daniel had already noticed. ‘Given that there is a drop to the
ground of about twelve feet,’ he pointed out, ‘I cannot see that it benefits
us.’

Lucinda ignored this. ‘We are at the back of the building, and
all it faces is a wall,’ she continued. ‘And this door is solid, so the guards
cannot see what we are doing in here—and anyway, they are away down the
corridor…’

Daniel smiled. ‘An intriguing thought, Lucy. You are putting
ideas into my head.’

‘Try thinking of escape rather than seduction,’ Lucinda snapped.
‘Mr Chance has been lamentably lax in leaving us so ill-guarded.’

‘I think he was rather trusting to the fact that you are a
respectable widow,’ Daniel murmured dryly, ‘and that I might actually have been
telling the truth when I said you could vouch for me.’

Lucinda cast him a look. She was ripping a length of material
from her skirt, wincing at the tearing noise it made, and then another, which
she knotted to the first. This left her with her gown bodice still intact, but
nothing but petticoats below. Daniel stared at her shapely garter-clad legs,
feeling his throat dry.

‘What the devil are you doing?’ he managed.

Lucinda edged the sash window up.

‘If the guard comes in, hit him over the head with the chair,’
she instructed. ‘Only try not to hurt him too much. I do not wish to be accused
of murder as well as conspiracy!’

Daniel raised his brows. ‘Lucinda—’

She gave him a fierce frown. ‘Hush!’

She tied the end of the makeshift rope to the desk and gave it an
experimental tug. Then, before Daniel could protest, she had thrown the other
end of the rope out of the window and climbed out. Forgetting his duty with the
chair, Daniel rushed to the window and looked down. Lucinda was standing in the
snow, her breast heaving slightly with the exertion of her climb down the rope,
her face upturned to his. Flakes of snow were settling on her eyelashes and she
brushed them away. Her impatient whisper floated up to him.

‘Do you intend to join me, or do you prefer to wait at His
Majesty’s pleasure?’

The silk gave way when he was halfway to the ground, depositing
Daniel in the snow with a rather sharp bump. Before he knew what was happening,
Lucinda had grabbed his arm and hauled him to his feet, dusting him down with
brisk, impersonal hands. Daniel flinched.

‘Ouch! There is no need to be so rough.’ He looked her over. With
snowflakes in her blonde hair she looked entirely charming. ‘Clearly I have
underestimated you, Luce,’ he said. ‘You have a natural bent for criminality. I
should have invited you to join my crew years ago.’

She gave him a glare from those glorious blue eyes. ‘Are we going
to stand here chatting whilst we await discovery? Or are we going to hire some
horses at the Bell around the corner?’

‘Surely you mean steal some horses?’ Daniel said mildly.

She gave him another glare, holding her wrist up to show her
reticule, still dangling there. ‘I have some money. There is no need to make
matters worse by adding theft to our list of crimes.’

‘Absolutely,’ Daniel said. He grabbed her, gave her a brief, fierce
kiss. ‘Lucy, you are a wonderful girl.’

For a moment she stood still in his embrace, and he thought he
felt her lips soften beneath his.

‘It astounds me that you have been at liberty as long as you
have, Daniel, given your lack of resourcefulness and your penchant for wasting
time,’ she said, a little breathlessly.

She was shivering. Daniel shrugged out of his jacket and placed
it about her shoulders, watching as she drew it close with shaking fingers. For
all her bravado he knew that she was half-shocked, half-elated by what they had
done.

‘Wait in shelter whilst I get the horses,’ he began—but even as
he spoke Lucinda recoiled with a gasp and, looking past her, Daniel saw a
figure rear up out of the tumbling snow at the corner of the alleyway.

He had already moved to place himself between her and this latest
threat when he recognised the man and saw that behind him was a carriage drawn
up in the snow. No, it was not a carriage—it was a covered horse-drawn sleigh.

‘Evening, sir—ma’am,’ Lieutenant Holroyd said, coming forward to
shake his hand. He grinned. ‘Good to see you again. Transport compliments of
the Duchess of Kestrel. What kept you, sir?’

I
N THE
sleigh, beneath the fur-lined rugs
that Sally Kestrel had so thoughtfully provided, Lucinda sat shivering and
shivering in her torn evening gown and petticoats. The sleigh was a splendid
affair—a little coach on runners, with a hood lashed down on all sides so that
it was very snug inside. Sally Kestrel could not have sent anything better
suited to their purpose, and the fact that she
had
sent it led Lucinda
to hope that matters might be all right, for if ever she needed help it was
now.

Despite the thick furs and the cloaks that Holroyd had passed to
them, Lucinda was trembling as though she would never be warm again. She knew
that it was reaction to her situation, rather than cold, that was making her
shake like this. She had escaped from Woodbridge Gaol with Daniel—no, she had
engineered their escape—and she was ruined, a fugitive and a criminal. No doubt
her face would be appearing on the ‘wanted’ posters soon. And the shocking,
inexcusable and truly extraordinary thing about the whole experience was that
she felt stirred up, alive, free for once from the stifling restrictions and
endless petty rules that had governed her existence as a governess and
chaperon. Oh, she was half appalled at her own behaviour, but she was excited
as well.

She must be mad.

She must be in love.

She closed her eyes in denial of the thought. It could not be
true. But she knew it was. She thought back to that terrible moment in the
ballroom when she had known with blinding certainty that she could not have
borne them carrying Daniel off to gaol and seeing his lifeless body swinging on
the end of a rope. She knew he was all of the things she had said he was. He
was unreliable and reckless and dangerous. But it made not one whit of
difference because she had loved him when she was seventeen and she loved him
still, after all these years.

Which still did not mean, of course, that she would agree to
marry him. Daniel had said that they must be married to save her reputation—as
though marrying an outlawed pirate would not be the most monstrous scandal in itself.
She imagined her parents, the good vicar and his wife, positively spinning in
their graves. And it simply would not serve. Daniel did not want a wife. His
way of life was completely opposed to it. Besides, were not women supposed to
be bad luck at sea? Lucinda had the conviction that if she went to sea it would
be very bad luck for all concerned. If she felt sick sitting in a rowing boat,
then once a ship began to move she would probably be horribly unwell the entire
time.

So there was no possibility of her becoming Daniel’s wife. And it
was not simply a practical matter of seasickness. She could, as Daniel had
suggested, go to live at Allandale. But she had no wish to sit at home
wondering where Daniel was and what he was doing. That was not her idea of
marriage.

The truth was that she knew if she were to marry Daniel she would
be an encumbrance to him rather than the person he had chosen to share the rest
of his life. It would be a marriage borne of necessity rather than desire. For
how could he want a wife when his way of life was so unsuited to marriage? And
she was old enough and proud enough not to want to be second-best to a ship.
Time and again Daniel had proved that the lure of the sea and the wild life he
lived outside the law were more important to him than all else. She loved him,
but she could not trust him not to hurt her again.

The smooth running of the sledge over the snow slowed a little,
and then they came to an abrupt halt. Lucinda heard Daniel jump down, and then
his voice, speaking low. There was a chink of harness and then the creak of the
sleigh as he lifted the hood and slid in beside her, shaking the snow off him
like a dog.