The Pirate's Debt (The Regent's Revenge Book 2) (24 page)

“You’re alive. That’s all that matters,” she told her, reaching for her hand. Her friend’s survival was a boon to Chloe’s spirits. Now, if only . . .

Oriana!

“Where is the barkeeper? She put her life on the line to save me and Jane. If not for her . . .” She glanced around the room, then remembered where she’d last seen her—the fireplace!

Her body still lay next to the hearth. Someone had turned her over to see if she was alive.

“I must go to her.”
Else I go mad knowing that she was willing to give her life for mine.

“No.” Markwick’s expression turned stern. “You need to rest.”

“You don’t understand.” Tears filled her eyes. She pointed to Oriana’s still body. “
She
saved us. That poor woman stood between her hateful brother and us, and
we
are only alive because of
her
.”

He let go of her hand, and she moved swiftly, sinking down beside the injured woman. She laid a hand on Oriana’s neck to check for a pulse, then glanced over her shoulder. “I’ve never seen a more determined woman. Until now, I’d thought Pru was the strongest woman I’d ever known.” She shook her head. “I was wrong.” She looked up at Markwick. “This girl is the only reason I am alive.”

“Then I shall thank her properly myself when she’s revived.”

Chloe brushed Oriana’s wavy red hair out of her oval face, arranging the soft strands about her head.

Oriana opened her green eyes, then blinked slowly, her reddish-brown lashes fanning her cheeks. “Charles? Is he—”

“No.” Chloe patted Oriana’s arm to reassure her. “He escaped.”

Oriana released a sigh. She tried to get up, but the effort must have cost too much. She lay back down and touched her head. “What happened?”

“You don’t remember?”

She squeezed her eyelids closed. “It’s all so muddy . . . like marshland.”

Chloe prayed Oriana hadn’t suffered severe damage to her brain. She must have had a hard head, and thankfully so. Chloe didn’t want to think what else Oriana experienced with Carnage for a brother. Had the man brutalized her on a constant basis?

“I’m sure the ailment is only temporary,” she reassured her. “Give yourself time to heal.”

“And ye,” she said, her eyes sparkling like the greenland in spring. “Are ye well?”

“Thanks to you, I am well, indeed.” Aye, she was, too. She had her life to look forward to. She’d found Markwick. He’d saved her life. Whatever happened now, they’d see it through together.

Quinn picked up Jane and sat her alongside them. “I thought you’d want this, m’lady,” Jane said, handing her a book.

Otranto!

Chloe stared at her favorite novel as if it had grown horns. She had never gone anywhere without it, and yet now, well . . . She took the bound pages in her hands.

“Thank you.”
Otranto
felt foreign to her. Blood stained its spine. She opened the binding, flipping through the water-stained pages, then set the volume aside. Her heart felt as if it were being pulled downward by anvils.

She looked from Oriana to Jane. “Will you take care of it for me, Jane?”

“Me?” Wide-eyed, Jane nodded, then picked up the book and brushed it off. “Are ye feeling yourself, m’lady?”

“Stand out of my way!” Walsingham’s angry voice shouted. “Where the devil is my sister?”

Chloe’s heart beat a thousand times too fast. Peace and joy consumed her. Both Markwick and Pierce were alive! She smiled thoughtfully at the young woman who’d refused to let her sail off to Torquay and Penzance alone. She had taken Jane’s inexperience and servitude for granted. And she’d almost lost her. “I am not myself, Jane. But I vow I shall be even better.”

WOE to readers of
TREWMAN’S EXETER FLYING POST
! News arrived confirming Captain Carnage’s
VIPER
sank highly decorated Captain W’s
WINDRAKER
between LOOE and TALLAND BAY. No SURVIVORS have been found. SERVICES for the dead will be held in EXETER Sunday eve.

~
Sherborne Mercury
, 13 August 1809

Darkness bid farewell as light crested the horizon. Chloe’s gaze traveled over the
Fury’s
vast hull rising before her, its solid black mass blocking out the early-morning dawn. This wasn’t the first time she’d set foot on board the vessel that had robbed the reaper of her death. It would be the first time she’d been on board since the
Fury’s
entanglement with Carnage’s ship, however. She wasn’t exactly sure what she would find.

Behind her, the Marauder’s Roost became a horrific memory sure to haunt her and Jane for the rest of their lives. Carnage had escaped—bringing both fear and relief to Oriana, who’d stubbornly refused to leave the only livelihood she’d ever known—prompting Pierce to vow to hunt the bastard down if it took the rest of his days. The tunnel, now looted of Carnage’s cache, had been sealed, and the goods loaded on to the
Fury
, the contraband scheduled to be returned to the Board of Excise office.

Markwick had left carpenters to repair the damage to the inn, though Oriana would still need several new tables and chairs, and injured smugglers had been transported to Looe for medical care and a visit to the local magistrate. Meanwhile, Chloe and Jane had been given access to the comfortable rooms above the Roost where they’d cleaned and rested for the journey home to Exeter.

As they approached the
Fury
, Chloe thought of the families of the men on board the
Mohegan
, the
Windraker
, the
Fury
, and now the
Viper
,
who would never see their loved ones again. Knowing their lives would be forever changed and scarred by heartbreak and loss made Chloe physically ill.

So many fatherless children left behind. Too many widows without means of raising sons and daughters. How would they survive? Who would care for them?

The launch clunked against the
Fury’s
hull, and oars were adjusted as men began to move. While Quinn helped Jane up the battens, Chloe cast a glance over her shoulder at the glistening sea crashing against the shore below the Marauder’s Roost.

Looking at the coast—cast in a spectral balance of day and night, as it was—brought a strange longing to Chloe’s breast. It was there she’d experienced the adventure of a lifetime, albeit a hazardous one. She’d met an amazing woman incapable of giving up, of accepting her brother’s diabolical plan, and who meted out as much as was given to her. Chloe said a silent prayer that the men Markwick had left behind to protect Oriana could do so successfully while Pierce was searching for her despicable brother. Carnage would harm more innocent people, especially if he didn’t care about harming the ones he supposedly loved, such as Eliza and Oriana.

Chloe shivered, unable to understand the depth of Carnage’s cruelty. Oriana had tried to enlighten her as to why she’d tried to help her brother for so long. She’d explained that Eliza Price had survived a wreck and washed up on shore. Carnage—much younger at the time—had been charged by their father to kill any survivors, but when his eyes lit on Eliza, he’d fallen hard and couldn’t end her life. Still, Eliza couldn’t forget. Over time, she was haunted by the sounds of those dying around her. One day, she reported the wreck to local officials, begging for protection. Unfortunately, the magistrate was Carnage and Oriana’s father, who then forced Carnage to kill Eliza before his very eyes. Oriana had said he went wild afterward, cradling Eliza’s body in his arms and shouting her name.

Chloe wiped a tear from her cheek thinking of the sad event.

“Come, my lady,” Markwick said, gently taking her by the hand and leading her out of her disturbing imaginings and back into the moment. “My men wait for us to board so we can weigh anchor.”

Breathlessly in love with her very own hero, Chloe hastened to do as he asked, eager to put Carnage and the Roost behind her. “Of course.”

He led her to the battens, holding her close, seemingly intent on preventing her from making a misstep as she climbed the hull to safety.

They were going home, a place reminiscent of lost innocence, where she’d always felt safe. She would feel that way again soon, given some time, especially with Markwick to guide her. But that didn’t change the heartrending facts. Life on the coast of Cornwall was harsh. She would never forget the things she’d seen or heard. She’d led a life of privilege, one filled with constant daydreams and fallacies supplied by books. And she meant to do something other than hide from the horror as Eliza had. She meant to change the world, one heart at a time.

Pye and McHugh stood by the mainmast as Markwick boarded.

“Cap’n on deck!” Pye’s shout brought all the men to attention.

With a grateful nod, Markwick scanned the
Fury’s
sleek lines. He studied her for several minutes appreciatively before gazing once more upon his crew. The first thing that came to Markwick’s mind, however, was,
I’m no pirate
. Never had been, never would be. Blackmoor had been much better suited to leading men, whereas Markwick had joined Blackmoor’s crew for the opportunity to put his life back in order, not the other way around. And he’d made a mess of it, hadn’t he? He’d almost lost the one thing more valuable to him than life itself—Chloe.

Excuses didn’t seem appropriate now. Not when Chloe stood beside him, her gorgeous violet eyes sparkling like dewy flowers. She’d patiently endured his silence over the years, given up on dreams of her own happy ending with him when he’d proposed to Prudence. But she’d never stopped loving him.

Love.
That was the key. He’d been denied it as a child, and the very man who should have professed to love him had scandalized Markwick’s good name.

He’d agreed to become the Black Regent to escape his father’s sinister memory, the damage done to innocents in the marquess’s name. While he’d achieved that end in the past four months, the means left a bitter taste in his mouth.

A scuffle broke out in the ranks as several men argued about why Carnage had escaped.

“Had eyes for the lady, he did,” Madden said, bracing his arms between two angry men. “Wanted to kill her. There’d be no more stories for us, then, eh?”

“No more stories,” Chloe repeated, moving to stand in their midst. She clasped her hands together and heaved a sad sigh. “The thing is, gentlemen, I do not think . . . Well, I will not be reading to you from now on.”

The crew shouted in rowdy cacophony.

“Say it isn’t so!” Pye said, his eyes wide as saucers.

Markwick tried to keep from laughing at the sight of the peg-legged first mate looking so aghast. “Stop your sniveling. What the lady means is that she will be resting until her stamina has returned.”

He turned to Chloe. Her ashen face had taken on a drawn, sickly expression. What was wrong with her? Where was the vivacious young woman who’d chased him to Penzance?

Loud footfalls echoed on the quarterdeck. The crowd parted, and Walsingham appeared. But he wasn’t alone. Two men stood on each side of the revenue man. The one on the left, rotund, wearing spectacles that slipped down his nose. The other one he knew well—Keane Seaton, the naval architect who’d built the
Fury
.

“Listen all who may hear!” Walsingham clapped his hands behind his back, the orderly sea captain once again in charge. But the
Fury
wasn’t
his
ship.

The sight of Walsingham’s dark hair, singed close to his ears, his face spotted with soot and ashes, forced Markwick to suppress his laughter a second time. Chloe’s brother could have been a naval officer, but he looked just as collected in his preventative uniform, perfectly suited to stand on a battle deck directing men against the enemy. He was a true captain, a pirate hunter who had been required to join forces with a smuggler to save his sister. He was, however, a captain without a ship, despite having sworn to avenge his crew by chasing down the man responsible for their deaths.

Was that why the rotund man and Keane Seaton were accompanying him?

“An injustice has been done to innocent sailors and sea captains—to me, to my men, and to you,” Walsingham began. “The man responsible, Captain Carnage, is still free. Today, I vow before you all that I will not stop searching for him until he’s found, caught, tried, and hung for his crimes.”

Loud cheers erupted from the men, the three ships’ crews combined.

Walsingham cocked a brow as he enjoyed the positive response among the men, which boosted his one true fault—pride. The captain retained his composure and stood dignified before them. His chin held high, his shoulders back, he posed the perfect example of heroism and stubbornness unmatched.

“To do that,” he continued. “I need volunteers.” When he got no response, he amended his statement. “I need a crew.”

The men cheered. “Huzzah!”

“And a ship.”

The cheering stopped.

“
This
ship,” he emphasized, making it clear to Markwick what he was finally about. “For I will not hesitate to hammer the dagger of revenge deep into Carnage’s smuggling nest.” He turned to Markwick. “I’ve a present for you, Captain.”

Chloe grabbed Markwick’s arm, nudging him closer to Walsingham, for it seemed he was holding court on the Black Regent’s own ship,
his
ship.

“My sister came searching for you, an off-putting adventure, to be sure,” he said, narrowing his stare on Chloe. “Tomfoolery that has brought nothing but sorrow to a young woman with little better to do than believe in fairy tales.”

“Gothic romances,” she corrected with a frown.

Markwick looked down at Chloe’s stricken expression. Walsingham wasn’t doing her any favors by putting their affairs out to dry before all and sundry. “Get on with it, Wall.”

Seaton stepped forward.

“To what do I owe this devilish surprise?” Markwick asked.

Seaton broke into a lopsided grin. “Walsingham invited me to join you and take a turn about the ship to discover what tackle and beams you’ll be needin’.”

“Join us?” He was taken off guard. He turned to Walsingham. “When did you have time to sail to Abbydon Cove and enlist Seaton’s help?”

“Why, you misunderstand, of course.” Seaton pointed west. “We are just there. A cutter could close the distance in less than an hour.”

One of the
Windraker’s
men stepped forward. “Cap’n sent us to fetch the shipbuilder when you scaled the cliff, before he took to the tunnels working his way up to the Roost. He told us to take the cutter stowed there, and—”

“That will be all, Jarvis,” Walsingham interrupted with a disapproving shake of his head.

Markwick looked at his friend in amazement. Walsingham had proven efficient, if not surprising. Few knew the Seatons were in league with the king. They were privateers given access to foreign ships in order to protect the Channel and deepen the king’s purse. As long as they did so, their letter of marque would last. Being the grandson of Zephaniah Job, a smuggler whose successful career had lasted over thirty years, went a long way to paving a road with gold. Assigned to the Board of Excise, Walsingham must have known this, or had he simply sent a request that Seaton procure him a ship?

“Well,” Seaton said, “there was a condition involved should I be given the chance to restore the
Fury
.”

“What’s that exactly?” Markwick raised a brow. “For as long as I’ve known Walsingham, there have always been conditions where he is concerned.”

“I’ll let him explain,” Seaton said.

Walsingham gave nothing away as he gestured to their combined crews to form a semicircle about them. Soon the deck was full of men standing shoulder to shoulder.