Drake stood on the quarterdeck of his ship, the Constant.
And she was his ship, not just one he was commanding; she belonged to him now, a thought that kept returning, again and again. And filling him with guilt, because he knew how much Payton had wanted her. More than that, he knew how much Payton deserved her, how hard she’d worked for her, how lovingly she’d polished her brass, and how much input she’d had in her design.
And yet there was joy inside him, too, just when he’d begun to think he might never feel happiness ever again. Joy because she was a beautiful ship, the fastest craft on water, as finely made as Chinese porcelain, just as lovely, just as strong.
Yes, she should have been Payton’s. And maybe it was true that, deep in his heart, he knew she was Payton’s, and that he was only borrowing her—taking care of her—until her rightful owner could claim her. And he didn’t mind. He didn’t mind at all. It was something they could share, something that connected them across the waves, across the miles separating them.
It was enough.
It had to be.
But right then he had more important problems than the Constant’s rightful ownership. That ship to the north, for instance.
He hadn’t been certain at first, but now there was no doubting it: it was following them. And now his crew had figured it out, as well.
“Captain.” His first mate, an able fellow by the name of Hodges, approached. “I’ve just had a report there’s a full-rigger bearing down on us out of the north. She’s coming on fast and strong, sir.”
Drake nodded. “I noticed her at sunup. Perhaps our boy Hill flagged himself a ride, and is trying to catch up?”
The second mate overheard, and gave a chuckle. “I wouldn’t put it past ‘im. ’E’s the type that’d do anythin’ to spare ’imself a whippin’.”
Hodges shook his head. “He wouldn’t be ridin’ on this ship, sir. Or, if he is, it isn’t voluntary. This ship’s not flyin’ any flags.”
Drake raised a hand to his chin, and stroked it thoughtfully. “Not flying any flags, eh? Who do you think it is, Hodges?”
“Never known the Frenchman to make his way this far north, sir, but if I were a bettin’ man, that’s who I’d put my money on. Word around the alehouse is he was plenty burned up about the way you fired on him off Cat Island last August.”
Drake’s smile was rueful. “That pirate never could take a joke. Well, have the men stand ready, in case there’s something to this. I’m guessing it’s nothing, but it never hurts to be prepared.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Hodges went away, and Drake turned his gaze toward the horizon, looking, to the disinterested observer, every inch of him the cool, collected officer. His hands behind his back, one booted foot upon the base of the rail, he seemed oblivious to the danger into which they were sailing—or, if not oblivious, confidently uncaring.
This was the way he wanted to appear to his men. Inside, however, Connor Drake was fairly jumping for joy. He couldn’t tamp down a sudden thrill of exhilaration. A full-scale battle was about to come under way, and Drake couldn’t have been happier about it. Not, of course, at the prospect of
bloodshed. A man couldn’t be happy about that. But he couldn’t help but be happy that things, which had looked so bleak up until now, might well work out, after all. And work out to his liking.
The minute he’d heard the name Marcus Tyler tumble from Payton’s lips the day before, things had finally begun to make some sense. He’d had his suspicions, but Payton’s observation in the hedge maze confirmed them. It was all he could do not to rub his hands together in glee. It was for this reason that he kept them firmly in check behind him. After days—no, weeks—of straining at his own impotence, unable to lift a finger to change the way events were unfolding all around him, he could finally, finally take some action.
The first thing he was going to do was blow the ship coming after them out of the water. He hoped her crew would put up a decent fight. If La Fond was commanding them, they would. If, however, they were some of Tyler’s hired mercenaries, he really couldn’t expect much. They were in it for the money, not the glory—not like La Fond, whose pride was at stake. It had to be La Fond, he thought to himself. He had to be involved in all of this somehow. Drake was going to be bitterly disappointed if it was proved he was not.
He wasn’t really very clear about what he was going to do after he’d blown his pursuers away. If he judged it safe enough, he might just turn the Constant. right round, and head straight back to England. There were a few things there he’d left unfinished, and he figured, once he’d gotten rid of Becky Whitby, he could go back and take proper care of them.
“You there,” he called to the man in the crow’s nest. “What do you see?”
“They’ve got their guns out, cap’n,” came the cry. “I’d say they’re bound on firin’ on us, soon as they’re within range.”
“Excellent. Hodges! See that the cannons get loaded.” Drake took his hands out from behind his back, but only to rest one on the hilt of the sword he wore at one hip, and the other on the butt of the derringer he wore strapped to the other. “Change our heading. I want to try to ram her.”
Hodges balked. “Sir?”
“Oh, we’re not really going to ram her, Hodges. Do you think I’d do something like that to this lovely lady? Not on your life. But they don’t know that. Let’s give them a little scare. If anything, it’ll bring us in range to fire on them.”
Hodges touched his captain’s arm. “Beg pardon, sir,” he said, as quietly as he could, and still be heard over the shouts of the men and the constant roar of the sea. “But you aren’t forgetting there’s a woman on board? Wouldn’t it be better if we tried to outrun ’em? I mean, after all, this is the fastest ship on water, sir …”
“Run?” Drake stared down at the shorter man. “When we’ve ample time to prepare for a fight? Perish the thought, Hodges.”
Hodges nodded. “Well, I was only thinking of the lady, sir.”
“Well, let me worry about the lady. You worry about getting those cannons loaded.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Hodges went away, and Drake, though still unable to shake his feelings of elation, realized the man had a point. There was a lady on board. He decided he had better pay her a little visit.
Becky, almost as soon as she’d set foot on board, had locked herself into the captain’s cabin, claiming she felt ill. Well, that was to be expected, he supposed. She wasn’t used to sailing, and, like most women, was bound to suffer seasickness during their crossing.
And it had to be even worse for her, in her condition. Drake truly did feel pity for her. Yet he couldn’t help thinking, as he made his way through the busy throng of sailors, toward the after house, where the captain’s quarters were located, that really, this was living. This was how he’d always intended to spend his life, never dreaming that one day, he might inherit his brother’s title, fortune, and lands. He hadn’t been happy when he’d learned about it, that day in the lawyers’ offices. Connor Drake belonged to the sea, and not to some baronetcy smack-dab in the middle of dairy country. What kind of man
spent his life chained to a desk, sitting there adding up column after column of sums, declaring how much milk they’d pulled in from however many Jersey cows they happened to own at any given time? That kind of life had been all right for his brother, Richard. Richard, with his dull wits and ham-fistedness, was suited to it.
But not Drake. He wouldn’t have been able to stand it. Sit at a desk, when he could be sailing the open seas, commanding his own ship? No, thank you. He’d take the sea, with all its perils, any day of the week.
Of course, he hadn’t expected Becky Whitby to understand that. He couldn’t have expected any woman to understand it, really. Which was why he’d put off telling Becky as long as he could, why he hadn’t mentioned it at all until that point, following Payton’s incredible announcement, that they’d been alone together in the vicar’s study. He’d thought she was going to faint again, that moment he’d told her he was putting Daring Park up for sale. She had worn an expression of shock their entire ride to Portsmouth. And no sooner had they boarded the Constant than she’d shut herself up in his cabin, refusing to speak to a soul.
Well, what was he supposed to have done? He wasn’t his brother, Richard, and he never would be. The sea was where he belonged. She’d known that. He’d explained that. Drake had been frank with her from the beginning. Well, not about how he intended to sell the house and install her in the villa in Nassau, but about how he would spend most of his time at sea. What difference did it make, really, whether she was mistress of his house in England or New Providence? She was still what she’d always wanted to be: a lady.
Well, not anymore. At least, not if what he suspected turned out to be true. Oh, her story back in the vicar’s chambers had been pretty enough. He was almost disposed to believe it. Part of it, anyway.
In the meantime, however, he was still a gentleman, and he would attempt to behave as such. He had a feeling he’d have better luck acting like a gentleman around Becky Whitby,
who was no lady, than around Payton Dixon, who most definitely was. Well, of a sort.
He knocked first. After all, it wasn’t as if they were man and wife—yet. He couldn’t just go barging in there, for all it was his own cabin.
But the knock went unanswered. She either hadn’t heard—which was not unlikely, given the pre-battle activity on deck, and the creak of the bow as they made the turn toward the ship coming at them—or she wasn‘t’ answering. Well, that too was understandable. She hadn’t answered but once or twice since she’d locked herself in the day before. He wasn’t certain what it was she was doing in there, besides, if his suspicions were true, vomiting. She’d have been better off battling seasickness on deck, but had ignored him when he’d insisted this. He still wasn’t even sure she’d heard him. It was difficult to shout instructions through a door, especially with half his crew snickering over the fact that the captain’s bride would not open it to him, and the other half wondering why the captain didn’t simply rush the portal and give the girl the thrashing she deserved.
“Miss Whitby,” he called. “It’s Connor Drake. Open the door, will you? There’s something I’ve got to talk to you about.”
Deep within the cabin, he heard her say, quite calmly, “Go away.”
“I can’t go away, Miss Whitby. You see, we’ve run into a bit of difficulty—”
“What kind of difficulty?”
“Well, there’s another ship—”
“Why should I care about that?”
Why, indeed. “Well, I don’t want to alarm you, but she isn’t one of ours. There may be cannon fire. I only wanted to let you know—”
So you wouldn’t be frightened, he almost said. And run out onto deck like a chicken with its head cut off, and get yourself blown to bits, since, judging from her behavior in the past,
Becky Whitby was not the type to keep her wits about her in moments of danger.
At least, not the Becky Whitby he’d thought he was marrying. This new Becky Whitby, the one who met men like Marcus Tyler in hedge mazes, he hadn’t any doubt could keep her head in just about any situation.
“I thank you, sir, for your concern,” came the voice behind the door. “Now, unless you’ve a priest with you, and a plan on finishing what you started, go away.”
“I’d be a sight more willing to find a priest if you’d just be honest with me.”
“I was honest with you!” Miss Whitby bellowed. For a girl who’d been so demure when he’d first met her, she could shout quite loudly when it suited her. “But are we wed? No! And all because that horrid Dixon girl stopped it. I can’t believe you’re willing to take her word over mine!”
Drake couldn’t help smiling. Even after nearly twenty-four hours, Drake still could not think of the calm way in which Payton had raised her hand, without letting out a chuckle. Leave it to the Honorable Miss Dixon to make a shambles of the soberest of events. She seemed to have an uncanny knack for locating the closest source of trouble, then throwing herself bodily into it.
Of course, that amusing moment when she’d raised her hand had been followed by a bloodcurdling one, in which the vicar had asked her the nature of the impediment, and Drake had been convinced she was on the verge of revealing his assault on her the night before. Absurd, of course. He ought to have known that was something Payton would never reveal
. . at least, not in front of those brothers of hers.
Oh, they’d have raked him over the coals for laying a hand on their sister, no doubt about that. When they weren’t conveniently forgetting her existence, or treating her with the roughness with which they were accustomed to treating one another, they were fiercely protective of her. There hadn’t been any real call for this, since, up until recently, not many people had actually been aware that Payton wasn’t a boy. But now
that Georgiana had finally got her into a corset, it looked as if Ross and his brothers were going to have to start fighting off their sister’s admirers in droves—and it had seemed, for a moment, as if their first victim was to be their best friend, Drake.
But even as he’d stood there by the altar, bracing himself for their attack, a part of him was exulting. Because Miss Whitby could not possibly hear about his disgraceful assault on Miss Dixon—on the night before he was to be married, no less!—and not feel compelled to call off the ceremony, leaving him free …
Free to launch similar assaults on the Honorable Miss Dixon.
But when, instead of a scathing condemnation of his having kissed her the night before, the words “Marcus Tyler” tumbled from Payton’s lips, a cold fist had gripped Drake’s heart. Because he knew that if Payton had thought she’d seen Marcus Tyler in the hedge maze, then she’d really seen him. Her eyesight was as good as a gull’s, and she was incapable, unlike most other women he knew, of telling a falsehood.
And if Payton had seen Becky Whitby with Marcus Tyler, that meant they were all in considerable peril. Because Marcus Tyler, despite what anyone might think, was not merely a shipping magnate, or even a ruthless businessman, who peddled human flesh without a qualm, something no Dixon would even dream of, despite the profits that could be had transporting slaves—or “black gold,” as Tyler referred to them. Marcus Tyler was a villain, plain and simple, with no more morals or scruples than a great white shark, maiming and devouring anything and everything that stood between him and whatever it was he wanted this week.
And it appeared that what he wanted this week was Connor Drake.
Well, Drake was prepared to let him have what he wanted, but not before he’d removed himself a considerable distance from his friends. He was only too happy to go head-to-head with Sir Marcus—but on his own terms, and in his way. And
the farther away he could move the battle, the better his chance of sparing the Dixon family worse trouble.
He glanced back toward the how. There, he could see the ship they were fast approaching, moving inexorably through the choppy waves. “Well,” he said to Miss Whitby, “I’ve known Miss Dixon longer than I’ve known you—”
“Not long enough, apparently, to realize what a liar she is.” Becky’s voice sounded shrill, even with the wooden panel separating them. “Are you so dense you can’t see why she stopped the wedding? She wants you. She’ll stop at nothing to get you.”
Drake shook his head. Well, what had he expected her to say? Whatever else she might be, Becky Whitby wasn’t blind. She had to have noticed … Last night in the garden, she had to have guessed …
Unless—and this thought cast a cold chill over him—he was wrong about what had passed between him and Payton in the garden. That what to him had been an extraordinarily emotional, passionate exchange had been, to her, no more than an interesting test of her newly discovered ability to attract men. Was he special, or was she planning on laying her hand over the erection of every man who kissed her?
And those blasted brothers of hers were dead set on marrying her off. They were bound to be pushing her into all sorts of situations in which she might meet eligible bachelors. Who knew how many men she might be kissing in his absence? He had better, he decided, hurry up, if he intended to get back to England before that blasted girl found herself in the same sort of hot water Becky Whitby was in.
“Wait …”
For a moment, he thought Becky was going to open the door. But no, she went on, in the tones of someone to whom something brilliant had just occurred. “Wait! It’s not you she wants at all, but this boat! This stupid boat! Good God, of course! It’s all she ever talked about—”
Drake set his jaw. “I suggest,” he said coldly, through the
door, “that you strap yourself down, Miss Whitby. We’re heading for choppy waters.”
Without another word, Drake turned, and headed for the wheel.
“Well,” he said, taking the spyglass from Hodges, and laying it to his own eye. “What have we got?”
“Strangest damned thing I ever did see.” Hodges spoke with his usual lack of hurriedness. “That’s a pirate vessel bearin’ down on us, no doubt about that, guns drawn and at the ready. But look over there to the south.”
Drake looked, and let out a low whistle at what he saw. “Well, I’ll be. A Tyler ship.”
“That’s what I thought. Now, I ask you, sir, why would a Tyler ship be comin’ to our rescue?”
“It’s not.” Drake calmly set aside the glass. “They’re both of ’em after us, Hodges.”
Hodges’s eyes grew round as compasses. “Beggin’ your pardon, sir, but while I’d pit the Constant against any ship in anybody’s fleet, I don’t think she could stand an attack from two boats, sir, comin’ at ’er from two different directions!”
“You’re quite right, of course, Hodges.” Drake nodded to the wheelman. “Turn ’er around. We’re going to have to try to outrun them.”
But even as he issued the orders for retreat, he knew it was hopeless. The Constant was the fastest clipper in the Dixon fleet, but no ship, no matter how fast she was, could outrun two full-riggers moving with the wind at their backs. He ought to have known, of course, that it was a trap, that Tyler, knowing him as he did, would have assumed he wouldn’t run frpm a fight—not a fair fight, anyway. Now he was trapped, trapped like a rat.
His only consolation was that, while the Honorable Miss Payton Dixon might be hundreds of miles away back in England, laying her hands over the erections of any man who kissed her, at least she was not here, and in any sort of danger.
For that, at least, he had to be thankful.