Compromised Miss (26 page)

Harriette sat silently, eyes focused on her clasped hands, running over all Luke had said, all his revelations. Yes, she understood his dilemma . The heart-wrenching anxiety of it all. The fact that he had told her—but only because he needed her help. They were as far estranged as they had ever been.

Suddenly he was there on one knee before her, stilling her fingers beneath his. His eyes were dulled with shadow. ‘Look at me, Harriette. Tell me what is in your heart.’

‘In my heart?’ No She could not do that. At last she looked up, only to lose herself in his gaze, but she forced herself to reply with magnificent composure. ‘You should have told me all this at the beginning.’

‘Yes. I should.’

‘But you did not trust me.’ Her words were severe.

‘I have no excuse. Other than to protect the lady.’

‘Did you think I would betray your trust?’

‘I have dared trust no one.’

‘Well, I suppose if you believed me to be a Wrecker, you would consider me far beyond trust, wouldn’t you?’

An agonising silence fell between them, finally broken by Luke.

‘All I can ask is your compassion for a young woman who is being used as a pawn in a game that could lead to her humiliation and ultimate destruction.’

Her lips twisted, ‘I cannot refuse, can I?’

Luke rose, to stand before her. ‘I would offer an inducement. Something I think you would find hard to reject.’

‘What could you offer me, Luke?’ If he heard her sharp phrase, he did not react, unless it was by a deepening of the lines that bracketed his mouth.

‘I will give you your freedom. To live the sort of life you choose. I wed you to save you from slanderous gossip and
innuendo. I will set in process a divorce and take the blame, so there is no guilt attached to you. And I will give you a settlement sufficient to restore this house, so that you might live here in comfort.’

It came to Harriette with the shock and suddenness of a thunderclap. A slap to the cheek. ‘You are very generous,’ she managed. Cold planning, icy cold. So sharp and precise like the blade of a knife to sever, to divide. To cast her adrift.

‘I don’t think you want to be tied to me any longer.’

‘No?’ A query. ‘You have not asked me.’

‘I said things to you that were—are—deplorable. I cannot expect you to consider life with me, can I? I think I have wounded you too much for you to accept any excuses I might make. You left me—and I know the blame is entirely mine.’ The tension in the room wound tighter yet with the slick of bitterness.

‘As you said, I left you.’ She took a breath, held it until she knew she could control her voice. Harriette dare not even blink, certainly not when Luke momentarily lifted a hand to her as if he had heard the catch in her voice.

‘Harriette…’

Adam opened the door and came in, ending whatever might have been said.

‘Have you decided, Harriette? By the by, I’ve arranged for some food—probably when your ancient butler has finished his port.’

‘Decided?’ Her smile for the young man was bright, her emotions held miraculously in check. Pride put an edge on her voice. ‘How could I refuse? To rescue a young woman and with such inducements as my freedom and a substantial settlement.’ She slid a glance to Luke, whose face was turned to stone. ‘With such an offer, of course I will do it.’

He sighed, a slow exhalation, and at last took her hand and raised it formally to his mouth in a stark caress. ‘You can’t know what this means to me.’

‘Oh, I do know what it means to you. Marcus’s widow and son rescued, your duty to your dead brother fulfilled—in return for your freedom, as well as mine.’

‘No! That’s not what I—’

‘That’s not what you said, but I think it’s what you meant.’ Harriette was already moving swiftly to the door. She looked back over her shoulder. ‘What did it take for you to swallow your reluctance, Luke, to ask a smuggler for help? How could your Hallaston pride stomach it? But I will do it because of Marie-Claude de la Roche and her child. I will take you to Port St Martin.’

‘No!’

Harriette halted abruptly, brow creased. ‘But surely that’s what you wanted?’

‘No…I want George Gadie to sail the
Ghost.
Your work is done when the run is set up. You do not come with us.’

‘And why should I not?’ Her voice flat calm, dangerously so, Harriette turned slowly round. Luke sensed her rejection, but knew his own mind.

‘It’s too risky, the outcome too uncertain. I’ll not have your life put in danger, Harriette.’

Her spine stiffened, her eyes fixed on his. ‘The
Ghost
is mine.
I
decide who captains her. If I do not lead this run, the
Ghost
does not sail.’

‘I’ll not allow you to put your life in danger.’

‘Allow me? You have no choice in the matter.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘If you want the
Ghost
, Luke, you get Captain Harry, as well.’

‘Gadie can do it,’ he insisted.

‘Yes, of course he can. But you’ll not dictate to me who
sails the
Ghost
, Luke.’ She hesitated, but only for the space of a heartbeat. ‘I’ll sail without you to rescue the widow, if I have to.’

‘You wouldn’t!’

‘Will you risk it?’ she snapped back. Her palms were damp with sweat, but Harriette was clear in her mind. Luke would not sail into the jaws of Jean-Jacques Noir’s trickery without her.

And Luke, accepting that he had no power over her decision, drew in a deep breath. ‘Damn you, Harriette! You leave me no choice, do you?’ A wry smile, perhaps even with the hint of cold amusement at the trap he had found himself in, touched his features. ‘So we sail together. But when we get there, you follow my orders. It is my operation. Do you understand?’

Harriette stared. Then nodded. ‘I understand perfectly. I’ll accept that. Now if you will excuse me—I’ll go and chivvy Wiggins into action…’

With ferociously brisk steps, Harriette made her escape before she could howl her grief.

Luke watched her go, thinking as the door closed on her that it was as if he had lost the most precious thing he owned. He had done it all wrong. Here was the chance to defeat Noir and solve the mystery of Marie-Claude de la Roche, once and for all, and yet he felt no satisfaction in its planning. Harriette had leapt at the chance to be free of him with startling alacrity, but then he could hardly fault her, the manner in which he had offered her the bargain. What silent message had he delivered to her in his proposition? In retrospect, he knew full well.

Oh, I do know what it means to you
, she had said.
Marcus’s widow and son rescued…in return for your freedom, as well as mine.

His freedom from her was the last thing he wanted. He had just destroyed his own chance of happiness, but he would try to redeem himself in her eyes, if not in his own, by giving her her heart’s desire, a step that would cost him more than he could ever have imagined. To live the rest of his life without her.

‘So we have our passage to Port St Martin,’ Adam observed, stepping carefully through the undercurrents in the room. ‘Will it be dangerous?’

‘Yes,’ Luke replied harshly. ‘If the storms and tides and rocks don’t get you, the Revenue men will. And now we plan to put into a foreign port in a country with which we are at war. Yes, it is dangerous.’

For all of them. For Harriette, since it appeared that he had been given no choice but to take her with him. That was yet another unbearable responsibility to weigh on his conscience.

Harriette shut herself into her room and sat on the musty cushions of the window seat to stare out across the bay, which she did not see because of the tears that coursed down her cheeks. Tears for the young widow and her child, abandoned and helpless, robbed of the man she had loved enough to wed in the midst of battles and conflict in Spain, now at the mercy of such a man as Jean-Jacques Noir.

Tears for Luke. For the decisions he had been forced to take, the need for secrecy balanced against the urgency to discover the truth and stay clear of Noir’s mercenary clutches. Oh, yes, she understood perfectly. She wept for Luke.

And for herself. He had told her the truth. She had dreamed of all deceit being stripped away between them and so it had, but to what end? The truth might have given Luke back his honour, but they were further apart than ever.
His offer had been more than generous. He would divorce her and take the scandal of it on his own shoulders, promising her freedom, a settlement, independence. What more could she possibly want?

‘I want Luke! I want to be his wife, to love him, to be his until the day I die,’ she informed the spider that spun its web in the corner of the window. As she had wanted him from the moment she had turned over his inert body on the planking of the
Lydyard’s Ghost
.

Well, you can’t have him. You’ve got everything else you wanted, haven’t you? You have the truth. He’s honourable, without the stain of treachery that you feared, but he’s not for you. He doesn’t want you. He only told you the truth because he needs your help.

Harriette scrubbed her hands over her face. How strange. How ironic. A bargain between them when they were wed, a bargain to end it. Her lips twisted in impossible sadness. Very well, she would set up a run to Port St Martin, and take
Lydyard’s Ghost
into the harbour because Luke asked it of her. And because it might rescue an innocent young woman. Zan would arrange it. Then it was finished, her obligations to him complete, her connection with Luke Hallaston finished. And also her connection with the Free Trade. Alexander could carry it on if he wished, but she would not. There! She had made her decisions. Her life would be wiped clean of an unhappy interlude.

Why, then, did she feel so unutterably low? Why did it seem that she had condemned herself to a lifetime of misery? Why did it feel as if her heart was shattered, the pieces sharp as broken glass?

‘No. I won’t do it—I won’t sanction so potentially dangerous a plan.’ The temperature in the threadbare little
library just off the hall of Ellerdine Manor rose as Alexander’s temper flashed. His eyes darted from Harriette to Luke, and back again. ‘What are you asking me, Harriette? It could put the whole enterprise under threat. It’s not how we operate. If we are to continue to make money from these ventures—and God knows I need it—’ he flung out a hand to indicate the signs of age and neglect on dull furniture, rotting furnishings ‘—why run the risk of capture?’

Luke had the sense to remain silent since it would be to no advantage if he became involved. What was it he had said to Adam, that very day?
It seems we have our passage to Port St Martin
. He couldn’t have been more wrong. Harriette might agree, but Alexander Ellerdine had other ideas. The question was, could they execute the operation without Ellerdine’s backing and involvement? Harriette thought not.

Hence the explosive exchange of opinion between his wife and her cousin.

‘Yes, we will do it,’ Harriette insisted. ‘In two nights the tides and the moon will be at their best for a crossing. Marcel can always produce a cargo if given notice, however short, of a run. I want you to contact him, Zan. And we will go into the harbour to pick up the cargo. What’s so difficult about that? Since we’ve never done it before, the French authorities are hardly likely to be lying in wait for us, are they? I don’t see why you are so hostile.’

This was Harriette at her most authoritative, despite her demure appearance in aquamarine muslin with silk ribbons and restrained curls beneath a straw bonnet. Luke would have laughed at the contradiction between her alluringly feminine appearance and her dogmatic stating of her intentions if this were not so crucial an interview. If he had not offered this vivid girl, whom he wanted more than
anything else in life, her freedom in exchange. Laughter could not have been further from his heart.

Alexander scowled. ‘I don’t like it. Why in heaven’s name put into the harbour at all? Why not exchange the cargo out in the bay as we always do?’

‘Because I wish it,’ Harriette replied calmly.

‘Marcel will not agree.’

‘He will. Why would he not, with less risk for his men?’

‘But that’s my point. There might be less risk for him, but there’d be a lot more risk for you and our crew if you actually sailed into the harbour. If the alarm was given, how easy would it be for you to escape? Our operation with Marcel could be blown for ever.’

‘I think the risk is not so great.’

Hands fisted on hips, Alexander stared at the floor as if searching for an answer. Fleetingly Luke wondered which came uppermost in the man’s mind—Harriette’s safety, or the security of the slick little enterprise that was operating under Ellerdine’s hand? There was certainly nothing of the lover in him in his rejection of all Harriette’s arguments. When Alexander looked up his eyes were sharp and focused on Luke, as if the man had read his thoughts, and Luke was surprised to see such venom there. Yet his reply, smooth as silk, was for Harriette.

‘And does Lord Venmore come, too?’

‘Yes. He does. And his brother.’

‘By God! Do you want it to fail? Too many difficulties, Harriette.’ The clash of wills continued. ‘Too many involved, with no experience of a run. I can’t understand why you are so intransigent.’

‘Neither do I understand why you should stand against me.’ Harriette put an end to the dispute mildly enough, but with an undoubted toss of her head. ‘And
I
determine who
will sail in
Lydyard’s Ghost
!’ She ended with soft finality. ‘All you have to do is get the message to Marcel and arrange the cash for the exchange of cargo, then the dispersal and storage of the goods when we return.’

‘But why, Harriette?’ It seemed that Ellerdine would press one more time.

Harriette turned with grave eyes and tightly pressed lips to look at Luke, tilting her head as she considered some unpalatable concern, then back to her cousin. ‘Because it’s my wish. It’s the last run I’ll do. On this night, in this manner.’

Luke veiled his surprise. He knew nothing of this decision. Neither, it seemed, did Alexander Ellerdine, for his temper once more lashed out, voice rebounding from the four walls.