The Pirate's Debt (The Regent's Revenge Book 2) (12 page)

“I have made up my mind.” Chloe grabbed Jane’s hand. “I am not going to look like a damsel in distress any longer.”

Jane attempted to mask her confusion. “Are ye ill?” She reached out to touch Chloe’s forehead.

“No!” Chloe brushed away Jane’s hand. “I am not sick. I have all my faculties about me, and I refuse to be caught unawares again. Pierce would be ashamed if I didn’t utilize the skills he taught me.”

“If I may be so bold, your
skills
tend to get us into trouble.” After several moments of silence, Jane shook her head. “Very well. I can see that I’m not getting anywhere. But ye must promise to wear your stays and stockings.”

Chloe laughed as she allowed Jane to put on her stockings. “This is what we shall do. Instead of bothering one of the Regent’s men, we’ll locate the cook ourselves. Surely these men have more to do than serve two needy females.”

“Ourselves?” Jane slanted a glance at the screen door, then lowered her voice.

Was there a guard posted outside? What was making Jane so nervous? Other than being on a ship surrounded by water and strange men, of course.

“We don’t know anything about this ship or these men,” Jane said.

“Exactly my point.” Chloe stood, then glanced about the room. She dashed to the corner where the trunk sat next to a washbasin, knelt down, and opened the lid. Inside, she found several stacks of folded black clothing—breeches, trousers, linen shirts, and stockings.

“Ye won’t be likely to find anything that fits in there. The earl is a big man.”

Chloe bit her lip. She was determined. Markwick had shown her what it was like to be a woman without defiling her virtue, and now she would show him of what a Walsingham was made.

“There is more than one way to earn a man’s love. I’m just as capable of reinventing myself as Markwick is. And when I prove that to him, perhaps he will see that we are equally matched.”

She pulled out a pair of breeches, thinking the shorter hem would fit her better than trousers. She then selected a linen shirt and a leather belt, closed the lid, and turned to Jane. “These shall suffice nicely.”

“Oh . . .” Jane placed her fingers over her lips. She made the sign of the cross over her chest. “I don’t think this is what the Captain meant when ’e instructed ye to stay out of trouble.”

“No, it certainly isn’t what my brother intended, but he taught me to take care of myself and so I shall. Think of it: how else can I learn what it’s like to be a pirate, to understand the earl’s motives? If Markwick is set on portraying himself as the Black Regent, I shall help him do it. And mark my words:
Trewman’s Exeter Flying Post
will report our adventures to the full. Can you imagine how envious Lady O will be of us?”

“But ye cannot divulge your presence ’ere! What will that do to your reputation, m’lady?”

“Balderdash! What is a reputation compared to the deaths of thirty-six men?” Thoughts of what she could lose were insignificant compared to the lives forever altered by the tragedy she and Jane had endured.

“It’s my job to remind ye that ye give that paper too much of your attention. Therefore, ye should be more concerned about such matters.”

“Markwick is the Black Regent. My brother is a revenue officer hunting pirates. It is not I who should be concerned with my reputation.” Chloe turned to face Jane with a pout. “Oh, Jane! Don’t you see? We must convince the earl to give up his quest to restore his good name. Nothing but misery can come of it.”

“Forgive me.” Jane lowered her eyes. “I do not always see things like ye do. We
are
two unattached females on board a pirate ship, and people will talk because it is their way, especially when they discover that we were rescued off the
Mohegan
by pirates.”

“It is a conundrum, indeed,” Chloe finally admitted. “Why do you suppose Markwick created the Black Regent?”

Jane shrugged her shoulders. “The Regent’s activities speak for themselves.”

“Exactly! I do not know how he did it, but he’s been working against his father from the beginning. And now that Lord Underwood is dead, we must convince the earl to hang up his hat and rejoin civilization. There is no other way to do that than to make him believe I intend to join his crew.”

Chloe stepped into the pair of breeches she’d selected and pulled them to her waist.

“It is exactly as I feared, m’lady.” Jane tugged at the waist. “They are too tight through the hips and too wide through the waist. Ye cannot wear them.”

“Nonsense. Help me with the shirt.”

“It will be too long,” Jane complained.

“Yes, but we can cinch the shirt with this leather belt.”

Jane’s eyes widened. “But the breeches!”

“They fit snugly. They will not fall.”

Jane let out an exasperated sigh. “Very well. But ye will not explore the
Fury
alone. I insist on going with ye.”

Chloe reached for
Otranto
and clutched her beloved book to her breast.
Thank God, it survived, albeit a bit waterlogged.

The parallels between
Otranto
and this moment seemed almost too strange to be true. No one had known who Theodore was when he first arrived at the Castle of Otranto, and the suspense had always kept her riveted to the book. And now, in Markwick’s case, the reversal of fortunes was true. While Theodore was in fact the true prince of
Otranto
, Markwick was an earl pretending to be a lowly pirate. How long did he plan to evade his duties as the new marquess?

“I am decided, Jane. We are on board the ship of the only man who’s ever thwarted the Captain, and he is none other than my beloved Markwick! I have always sensed his heroic nature, and I own we shall uncover his motives for taking on the pirate oath together.”

“The Captain will not approve.”

Jane was right. Pierce would be livid that she was cavorting with a pirate. What would her brother do if he learned the truth, though? That she was in love with one? That this particular pirate was his old friend?

She focused on Jane. “Whatever reason Markwick has for masquerading as the Black Regent, his secret must be safe with us. Promise you will tell no one, Jane, especially my brother.”

“I will not disappoint ye, m’lady.”

Markwick had gone to great lengths to keep his identity a secret, and the men on board his ship had supported those efforts. Pirates were not often a loyal breed, but these men seemed to be. Would they assist her, too? She loved Markwick, even more now than ever before. She understood his need to prove himself better than his father, to right the wrongs done to those less fortunate than he. That aspect of Markwick’s character only made him more appealing to her. After all, the Black Regent was noted as the Robin Hood of Cornwall.

Her dormant wits were renewed as her heartbeat cantered to a frantic pace, thoughts of Markwick’s loyalty to friends and his captivating kiss invading her senses. Loosed from the trappings of society—and clothed as a man—Chloe felt freer than she’d ever felt. She’d found her one true love, and like
Otranto’s
Isabella, she refused to be parted from him ever again.

“Come.” She held her hand out to Jane. “I’m famished.”
To discover the truth.
“And I’m sure Markwick is busy handling whatever it is pirates do. There is no need to disturb him or his crew. Dressed as I am, I doubt anyone will think twice about two simple females in search of breaking their fast in the galley.”

“There is nothing simple about ye, m’lady. What are ye planning?”

Chloe smiled. “To explore the
Fury
and discover the Regent’s secrets, of course.”

VILLAINOUS activity is upon us! Hear, oh citizen, and pity the ship sailing toward WRECKERS’ lead lights along the CORNISH and DEVON coast!

~
Trewman’s Exeter Flying Post
, 6 August 1809

Markwick paced the deck, his mind in turmoil. Should he warn Chloe that the
Windraker
was set to intercept them, that her brother had found them? How would she take the news? Walsingham doted on his sister. Hell, it had been in deference to his friend that Markwick had always refused to consider Chloe as anything other than, well, his friend’s sister. Had he been any other man, he’d have welcomed Chloe’s attention, encouraged it, even.

But that was then. Long before he’d discovered that everything he’d believed in was a lie. Before his father’s betrayals and the scandal that made Markwick unsuitable for marriage. Before Blackmoor’s invitation to embrace the role of the Black Regent. Before his acceptance to captain the
Fury
had put him at odds with Walsingham. Before he’d rescued Chloe from the
Mohegan
and finally acknowledged his desire for the irresistible woman.

After everything he’d lost . . . Christ, he couldn’t lose the one chance at happiness he had left.

But what kind of life could he offer Chloe now? The
Fury
was no place for a woman. Superstitions made men do terrible things to survive. How could he do right by her—by Blackmoor and Walsingham—ensuring the Regent’s secret identity remained hidden, while acknowledging his attraction to Chloe and combating his desire for her?

Upon his soul, he had impulses now that drained all his strength and mental capacities, keeping him from doing what needed to be done. How could he not have them? Chloe’s vibrant red hair and strangely seductive violet eyes made her stand out from every woman he’d ever seen. And now that he knew the taste of her sweet ambrosia, still felt her gloriously soft, plump lips on his, he hungered for more. The thirst for what he couldn’t have would likely undo him. And put the lives of the men under his charge at risk.

Chloe had been a part of his life for as long as he could remember. He’d apparently been the focus of hers. But how does one stop the tide, the hands of fate that would tear them apart?

“Sail there! How many leagues now?” he called up to his sentry.

The topman’s lengthy pause filled Markwick with dread. “Deck there! Hold, Cap’n. I spy another sail.”

“Another one?”

How much worse could their situation get?

Arnold, a nimble-legged youth, leaned over the crosstrees in the mast top. “Thirty-two pounder, unless I miss my guess. Gun ports wide open.”

“Where away?”

“Twenty leagues, sir. Movin’ fast. The saints—” Arnold’s voice cracked “—if it isn’t the
Viper
! She looks like she’s plannin’ to attack the
Windraker
.”

“Are you sure?” Markwick’s blood curdled. He flicked out his spyglass to its full twenty-two-inch length, then raised it to his eye, training it on the
Windraker’s
sails. Sunlight glinted off the ship’s taut white sheets and brass carronades—a beautiful, blinding sight she was.

He scanned the horizon north, praying that Arnold was wrong, but Markwick easily spotted the second ship as its bowsprit and catheads slipped out from behind the chalk cliffs toward the open sea. Surely no one, including Captain Carnage, would brazenly attack a preventative ship in broad daylight?

The
Viper
. Carnage had come after them, and Walsingham was going to get caught in the crossfire. “Keep a sharp lookout. Watch the
Windraker
, Arnold.”

“Aye, sir!”

Markwick’s pulse throbbed a savage beat in his throat as he aimed the telescope at Walsingham’s ship, fearing what he’d see. If he’d entertained a notion to transfer Chloe to the
Windraker
and into her brother’s safekeeping, that idea immediately fled. He couldn’t move Chloe into her brother’s care now without putting her, the
Fury,
and his crew at risk. If Walsingham attempted to stop the
Viper
—for Carnage’s ship must have been marked by the Board of Excise by now—Chloe’s brother, the
Windraker
, and her crew would be subject to the pirate’s attack.

“Deck there!” Arnold called down again.

“What do you see, Arnold?” he asked, trepidation prickling his spine.

“
Windraker’s
breaking off. She’s comin’ about, sir!”

Men padded to the stern, their excited voices carrying on the wind.

“The
Windraker
will get the
Viper
off our wake,” one tar confidently suggested.

Another man agreed. “Aye, Carnage won’t stand a chance.”

Markwick frowned pensively, debating the outcome in his mind. While it was true that Walsingham had the tenacity of a bull, he was also motivated by quickening his rise in the ranks. He’d do anything to advance his career, including leading men like damned sheep to a bounty promising the most acclaim. The
Fury
had always been an elusive catch; a ship like the
Viper
would earn him a place in history. But was Walsingham prepared for Carnage’s barbarity?

Turning about to help Walsingham meant a confrontation Blackmoor had warned him not to make at any cost. But devil doubt it, he couldn’t stand by helplessly while Chloe’s brother—his friend—sailed into a dire situation for which he likely wasn’t prepared.

An orange-red spark flashed from the
Viper’s
side, followed by puffs of gray smoke pluming to her masts.

“She’s firing, sir,” Arnold shouted from the crosstrees. “The
Windraker
hasn’t heeled. She doesn’t have a chance.”

“Helm’s alee!” Markwick shouted, moving across the quarterdeck as if the hounds of hell were after him.

“Belay that!” Pye shouted. “With respect, sir. We cannot put the
Fury
in jeopardy.”

Devil damn him!

Markwick wasted no time. He paced to the helm. “We cannot turn our backs on the
Windraker
. Reputations are not worth lives. Turn us about now! That is an order, Pye!”

Pye narrowed his eyes, pinching his lips together. He nodded to Quinn, who bellowed the order to tack the sheets.

“Hoa, boys. Lively now!” Quinn shouted. “You heard the cap’n! Break your backs! Turn this ship around! Hard to lee!”

A roar enveloped the
Fury
as the hull protested and yardarms retorted, arguing against the strain of tackle and sail, luffing, thwacking canvas that fought to catch wind.

“All hands!” Pye’s face reddened. “To your stations!”

The nightingale’s pipe sounded, the piercing whistle loud enough for all to hear, but the crew didn’t appear.

“What’s taking so long? Walsingham can’t wait. Where’s my crew?”

“Belowdecks, sir,” a man they called Roaming-eyed Roger said. “Reading.”

“Reading?” Markwick blinked, unable to believe his ears. He’d never once known a member of his crew to read books, save for Pye and Quinn, who shared an appetite for nautical charts and logs. Frustrated and astounded, Markwick was reminded that Chloe and her maid were a distraction none of them could afford.

“Quinn!” Once he had the quartermaster’s attention, he waved him over. “Prepare a cutter.”

“A cutter, sir? Whatever for?”

“I refuse to sail into a melee with women on board. Select a shore party of five men. Have them ready to leave when I get back. I’m going to send the ladies to safety.”

Quinn released a groan. “But where would you have them go, Cap’n?”

The man had a point. Markwick searched the shoreline. “We are, at present, coming abreast of Talland Bay. Inform your crew to sail for the Marauder’s Roost. The innkeeper, Miss Thorpe, will take care of them until we return.”

“Aye, sir.”

Until then, he’d round up the men himself, especially since he’d have to escort Chloe topside and all hands would be needed to bring the
Fury
’round. Anger boiled inside him as he took one last look at the
Windraker,
sailing into danger, then descended the main companionway ladder to the gundeck. Once there, he strode past the iron stove in the galley to the steerage section, an area sectioned off for his men.

A mellifluous voice guided him to a group situated beneath lantern lights. He slowed his pace as he approached, struck by what he saw and heard. She was reading
The Castle of Otranto
to his crew now?

“‘Theodore came up just as a woman fell breathless before him,’”
Chloe read aloud, her voice a sultry invitation as she ended on a sigh.

Gibson, a Dane from the
Mohegan’s
crew, cackled. “’Tis a fancy way o’ sayin’ she swooned. Women have been known to fall down breathless at me feet.”

“Caught a whiff of your smell, I’d wager,” Doyle, an Irishman and Gibson’s crewmate, added.

Laughter commenced before another man silenced them. “Let the lady finish.”

“Thank you, Tindle.” Chloe turned a page, the sound rifling through the silence.

“He hastened to raise her, but her terror was so great that he apprehended she would faint in his arms. He used every gentle word to dispel her alarms and assured her that, far from injuring, he would defend her at the peril of his life.

“The lady, recovering her spirits from his courteous demeanor and gazing on her protector, said, ‘Sure I have heard that voice before?’

“‘Not to my knowledge,’ replied Theodore, ‘unless, as I conjecture, thou art the lady Isabella.’

“‘Merciful heaven!’ cried she, ‘thou are not sent in quest of me, art thou?’ And saying those words she threw herself at his feet and besought him not to deliver her up to Manfred.”

Bloody hell!

Exasperated beyond comprehension, Markwick ran his fingers through his hair. The
Windraker
depended on their swift actions and Chloe was filling his men’s heads with romantic notions.

“'To Manfred!’ cried Theodore,”
Chloe continued, eliciting several hoots and hollers.

“'No, lady. I have once already delivered thee from his tyranny, and it shall fare hard with me now, but I will place thee out of the reach of his daring.’”

Markwick couldn’t take any more. He also couldn’t take the chance that any harm would come to Chloe if the
Fury
took heavy fire.

It likely would, too. Captain Carnage didn’t get his name by showing mercy, if the wreck of the
Mohegan
was any indication. And the
Fury
had become an enemy by meddling in the pirate’s scurrilous affairs.

Chloe glanced around the ragtag group. Her fingers splayed beneath the book, her cheekbones sculpted upward by a dazzling smile. Her lips, when they moved to speak Walpole’s prose, gracefully lifted, each plump movement enticing him closer. Her voice, sensuous and stirring, danced in the room like mist generating a colorful rainbow in a radiant sky as she focused her animated stare, violet eyes glinting with mischief, on the men before her in the orange lantern light. Her guiltless, untouchable spirit and earnest expression earned his admiration. But more striking and mischievous, her attire took him by surprise. Gone was the prim and proper lady. Instead, she was dressed in the Regent’s own clothes—a feminine version of himself, black trousers and linen shirt with long lace-edged sleeves, providing almost as much of a feast for the eyes as she had been when standing before him in her shift and stays.

Aye, how could he forget . . . Chloe Walsingham was a woman of many faces. Desirable. Determined. Devoted. But it was another side of her that flashed to mind now. She’d nearly departed this life only knowing the kind of love found in books. The sight of her, Chloe standing at the
Mohegan’s
broken railing, her face uplifted, ashen, her behavior less frantic, more expectant, and finally relieved, as if she’d been waiting for him—only him—to save her flashed before his eyes. She’d almost died that hellish night, floating lifeless among discarded flotsam like the others.

What if Carnage succeeded this time?

He’d do anything he could to prevent that from happening.

Markwick moved out of the shadows and approached the group surrounding Chloe. His booted footfalls announced his presence, alerting the crowd that perched on personal chests and seabags, crates and benches.

“Cap’n on deck,” Jenkins shouted.

Her audience rose, and the men raised their right fists, touching their foreheads in salute.

Chloe’s gaze lit on him and she sprang up energetically from her seat. “Captain!”

Jane left her solitary place near a twenty-four-pounder long gun to stand by her mistress’s side.