When a Scot Loves a Lady (48 page)

“Do you think they are smugglers, Ser?”

“I suppose they could be. Cook said smugglers were about when she went to market Wednesday. Papa says smugglers are to be welcomed because of the war now.”

“I don't recognize the ship.”

“How would you know to recognize any ship?”

Viola rolled her dark eyes. “Its banner, silly.”

The boat came toward the beach fifty feet below, knocking against the surf, its bow jutting up and down like a butter churn. Men jumped out, soaking their trousers in the waves. They pulled the craft onto the pebbly sand. Four of them moved toward the narrow path that wound its way up the cliff side.

“It looks as though they mean to climb straight up,” Serena said, taking her lower lip between her teeth. “Onto Papa's land?”

Viola grasped her sister's fingers. To be so close to real smugglers was something she had only dreamed. She might ask them about their travels. Or their cargo. They could have something truly precious aboard, priceless treasure from afar. They would surely have stories to tell of those far-off places.

“Hold my hand, Ser,” she said on an excited quaver. “We shall greet them and ask their business.”

The sailor in the lead was a stocky man and well-looking in a dark fashion, not in the least scabrous or filthy as one might expect. He and his companions came along the crest of their father's land directly toward Viola and Serena.

“Why,” Viola exclaimed, “that is the same sailor Mama gave alms to the other day.” But nothing concerned the girls in this, or in the sailor's greeting, broad and smiling as he glanced at their locked hands. For they had the love of sisters, fierce and tender, and nothing could harm them.

London, 1818

Fellow Britons
,

The people of our great kingdom must not see another farthing of their livelihoods squandered on the idle rich. Thus, my quest continues! In rooting out information concerning that mysterious gentleman's establishment at 14½ Dover Street, the so-called Falcon Club, I have learned an intriguing morsel of information. One of its members is a sailor and they call him Sea Hawk
.

Birds, birds, and more birds! Who will it be next, Mother Goose?

Unfortunately I have not learned the name of his vessel. But would it not be unsurprising to discover him to be a member of our navy or a commissioned privateer? Yet another expenditure of public funds on the personal interests of those whose privilege is already mammoth
.

I will not rest until all members of the Falcon Club are revealed or, due to my investigating, the club itself disbands in fear of thorough detection
.

—Lady Justice

Lady Justice

In Care of Brittle & Sons, Printers
London

Madam
,

Your persistence in seeking the identities of the members of our humble club cannot but gratify. How splendid for us to claim the marked attentions of a lady of such enterprise
.

You have hit the mark. One of us is indeed a sailor. I wish you the best of good fortune in determining which of the legion of Englishmen upon the seas at this time he is. But, wait! May I assist? I am in possession of a modest skiff. If you wish, I shall happily lend it to you so that you may put to sea in search of your quarry. Better yet, I shall work the oars. Perhaps sitting opposite as you peer over the foamy swells I will find myself as enamored of your beauty as I am of your tenacious intelligence—for only a beauty would hide her sharp wit behind such a daunting name and project
.

I confess myself curious beyond endurance, on the verge of seeking your identity as assiduously as you seek ours. Say the word, madam, and I shall have my boat at your dock this instant
.

Yours
,
                                  

Peregrine
                            

Secretary, The Falcon Club

Dear Sir
,

I planted the missive bearing the code name so that L.J. might find it and busy herself chasing shadows. The old girl's pockets are no doubt as empty as her boasts, and she must keep her publishers happy
.

In fact, the code name Sea Hawk may well be defunct. I have had no direct communication from him in fifteen months. The Admiralty reports that he yet holds a privateer's commission, but has had no news from him since the conclusion of the Scottish business more than a year ago. Even in his work for the Club he has rarely followed any lead but his own. I suspect he has resigned as we previously imagined. We must count England fortunate that he is now at least nominally loyal to the crown, rather than its enemy
.

In service
,
                            

Peregrine
                    

J
inan Seton stared at his true love and the blood ran cold in his veins. Rain-splattered wind whipped about him as he watched her, beauty incarnate, sink in a mass of flames and black smoke into the Atlantic Ocean.

The most graceful little schooner ever upon the seas. Gone.

His chest heaved in a silent groan as the final remnants of burning wood, canvas, and hemp disappeared beneath foamy green swells. A scattering of parts bobbed to the surface, slices of planking, snapped spars, empty barrels, shreds of sail. Her lovely corpse rent asunder.

The American brig's deck rocked beneath his braced feet, rain slashing thicker now, obscuring the wreckage of his ship fifty yards away. He clamped his eyes shut against the pain.

“She was a good 'un, Master Jin.” The hulking beast standing beside him shook his chestnut head mournfully. “Weren't your fault she's gone into the drink.”

Jin scowled.
Not his fault
. Damn and blast American privateers shooting at anything with a sail.

“They acted like pirates,” he said through gritted teeth, his voice rough. “They lowered a longboat. They shot without warning.”

“Snuck up on us right good.” The massive head bobbed.

Jin sucked a breath through quivering nostrils and clenched his jaw, arms straining against the ropes trapping him to the brig's mast. Someone would pay for this. In the most uncomfortable manner possible.

“Treated her likes a queen, you did,” Mattie mumbled above the increasing roar of anger in Jin's ears that obscured the shouts around him and moans of wounded men. Jin swung his head about, craning to see past his helmsman's bulk, searching, counting. There was Matouba strapped to a rail, Juan tied to rigging, Little Billy struggling in the hands of a sailor twice his breadth. Big Mattie blocked his view of the rest of the deck, but thirty more—

“Th'others scrambled for the boats when she caught afire.” Mattie grunted. “Boys are well enough, seeing as these fellas ain't pirates after all. Nothing to worry about.”

“Nothing to worry about.” Jin cracked a hard laugh. “I am trussed like a roast pig and the
Cavalier
is hundreds of feet below. No, I haven't a care in the world.”

“Don't you try fooling me. I knows you care more about our boys than your lady, no matter how much you doted on her.”

“Wrong, as usual, Matt.” He glanced up and saw clearly now the flag of the state of Massachusetts hanging limp in the rain that pattered his face. He'd lost his hat. No doubt it happened at some point during the scuffle from longboat to enemy deck when he'd abruptly realized he had ordered his men to board an American privateer,
not
a pirate vessel. Rain dripped from the tip of his nose into his mouth. He spit it out and slewed his gaze around.

Shrouded in silvery gray, the deck of the brig was littered with human and nautical debris. Men from both crews lay prone, sailors seeing to wounds with hasty triage. Square sails hung loose from masts, several torn, a yardarm broken, sections of rail splintered and cut through with cannon shot, black powder marks everywhere. Even taken unaware, the
Cavalier
had given good fight. But the Yank vessel was still afloat. While Jin's ship was at the bottom of the sea.

He closed his eyes again. His men were alive, and he could afford another ship. He could afford a dozen more. Of course, he had promised the
Cavalier
's former owner he would take care of her. But he had promised himself even more. This setback would not cow him.

“We seen worse.” Mattie lifted bushy brows.

Jin cut him a sharp look.

“What I means to say is, you seen worse,” his helmsman amended.

Considerably worse. But nothing quite so painfully humiliating. No one bested him.
No one
.

“Who did this?” he growled, narrowing his eyes into the rain. “Who in hell could have crept up on us like that so swiftly?”

“That'd be Her Highness, sir.” The piping voice came from about waist-high. The lad, skinny and freckled, with a shock of carrot hair, stretched a gap-toothed grin, swept a hand to his waist, and bowed. “Welcomes aboard the
April Storm
, Master Pharaoh.”

Every muscle in Jin's body stilled.

April Storm
.

“Who is the master of this vessel, boy?”

The lad flinched at his hard tone. He flashed a glance at the ropes binding Jin and his helmsman about waists, chests, and hands to the mizzenmast, and the scrawny shoulders relaxed.

“Violet Laveel, sir,” he chirped.

“Quit smirking, you whelp, and call your mistress over,” Mattie barked.

The boy's eyes widened and he scampered off.

“Violet
la Vile
?” Mattie mumbled, then pursed his thick lips. “Hnh.”

Jin drew in a slow, steadying breath, but his heart hammered unaccustomedly quick. “The boys are prepared?”

“Been pr'pared for months. Won't do a lick o' good now they're all tied up.”

“I will do the talking.”

Mattie screwed up his cauliflower nose.

“Keep your mouth shut with her, Mattie, or so help me I will find a way to keep it shut despite these ropes.”

“Yessir, Cap'n, sir.”

“Damn it, Mattie, if after all this time you so much as think of throwing a wrench in—”

“Well, well, well. What do we have here, boys?” The voice came before the woman, smooth, rich, and sweet, like the caress of brushed silk against skin. Unlike any female sailor Jin had ever heard.

But as she sauntered into view from around the other side of Jin's helmsman, she looked common enough. Through the thinning rain, he had his first view of the notoriously successful Massachusetts female privateer, Violet the Vile.

The woman he had been searching out for two years.

Sailors flanked her protectively, casting dog-eyed glances at her and scowls at Jin and his mate. She stood a head shorter than her guard, coming to about Jin's chin. Garbed in loose trousers and a long, shapeless coat of worn leather, a thick bundle of black neck cloth stuffed beneath her chin, a sash with no fewer than three mismatched pistols hanging from it, and a wide-brimmed hat obscuring her face, she didn't particularly resemble her sister. But Jin had spent countless nights in ports from Boston to Vera Cruz drinking sailors and merchants under the table and bribing men with everything he had at hand in search of information about the girl who had gone missing a decade and a half ago. That she looked less like a fine English lady than any woman he'd ever seen did not mean a damned thing.