The Pirate Hunter''s Lady

  James wanted her with a deep, carnal need he’d not felt in a long time. Diana was a woman made for loving, and he knew she wanted him in return. She feared the wanting, but she could not hide it.

  The child, Isabeau, when she grew older, would be just as beguiling as her mother. The girl’s smile had filled with lopsided charm when she’d handed the prize shell to James, the conch with its pretty designs. She’d wanted James to have it — not Jack or her mother.

  Something had happened to James’s heart when he’d taken it from her, something he hadn’t yet had time to examine. The conch now rested in James’s pocket, warming him a little.

  “I think she fancies you, Ardmore.” Jack’s voice came from behind him. The young man breathed heavily as they climbed and slid down the overgrown path.

  “Isabeau? She’s a little young for me.”

  Jack chuckled. “The lovely Lady Worthing, I meant.”

  James stopped at the vertical niche of rock that would take them down to the sand and the dry caves. “Yes, Lady Worthing is lovely.”

  “Ah ha. The feeling is returned. The two of you, thrown together here . . . Better watch out, or you’ll find your neck in the noose.”

  James looked at him sharply, but Jack’s eyes held nothing but innocent merriment. Jack went on, “You’ll get yourself snared into marriage before you know it. But the beautiful Lady Worthing would be worth it, would she not?”

  James put his back to the rock wall and folded his arms, trying to banish the cold feeling Jack’s casual mention of nooses had given him. “What about you?” James asked. “You in love with her?”

  Jack quickly looked away. Which meant yes.

  The sudden pain in James’s heart surprised him. But he knew that anything he began with Diana would be a temporary thing. James would go soon — he had a more deadly game to play. He always did.

  Jack, on the other hand, was an Englishman and a naval lieutenant, from Diana’s world. Jack might never recover his memory. He could settle here and live with Diana as his wife, and the admiral would bless them. They’d be a perfect couple in an idyllic setting, and Isabeau would have a decent man for a stepfather.

  When Jack looked back at James, his gray eyes were bleak. “I could lose my heart to Lady Worthing, true. Any man could. But good God, Ardmore. I could be anyone.” His voice had gone quiet, his words tinged with fear.

  “You could be a lieutenant from a British naval frigate,” James said dryly. “Which is exactly what you are.”

  Jack studied a shoot of a succulent that clung to the rock beside him. “In the offices of the Admiralty, my name is on a ship’s manifest, as a second or third lieutenant. Or perhaps I’m an excellent officer, and I’ve been made first lieutenant. But who exactly is that lieutenant? Do I have a wife, a family? Who is waiting for me to return home? Or, who is glad that I’m dead?”

  “You’ll know,” James said. The rushing sea below crashed into the rocks, spray flying high. “A clerk will look at that manifest and tell you your name. He’ll know where you live, who your people are. And you’ll remember.”

  “But what will I remember? Am I the cheerful gentleman I appear to be, happy that I know how to tie knots and move sails? Or am I someone else entirely? Someone terrible, hard, mean?”

  James shrugged. “Likely you’re just like everyone else. Happy when you’re warm in bed, and annoyed when your breakfast is cold.”

  Jack’s lips thinned. “Don’t placate me. You cannot know what it is like to have this . . . this blankness inside me. I might love a woman who is good and beautiful. Hell, I might love a man. But I . . . don’t . . . know.”

  The sea crashed again, foam coating the waves. Tide was coming in. James said, “If you decide that maybe you love a man, will you walk a little ways away from me?”

  Jack stared at him, brow furrowed. Then he laughed, the laugh tinged with bitterness. “You’re a damned hard man, Ardmore. Are all Americans as unfeeling as you?”

  “No idea. Maybe.”

  “I’m glad of it. I do not need coddling, I need a kick in the pants. Thank you for obliging.”

  “I’m glad I helped. Shall we go on?”

  Jack nodded, pressing aside his despair. James gripped the rocks and scrambled the rest of the way to the beach, and Jack followed him without trouble.

  James had never expected to feel sympathy for a lieutenant of the Royal Navy. As far as he was concerned, every man in the Royal Navy was a bastard.

  Their frigates strolled the seas with overweening arrogance. They blocked sea lanes from legitimate traders, and blockaded islands in the West Indies to bar Americans from trading there. They accompanied East Indiamen, the huge ships of the East India Company, to Asia, not only to protect them, but in effort to keep all Eastern trade British.

  British frigates floated over all corners of the globe, and if their captains felt peevish, they bullied American merchant ships, which had no naval escorts to protect them. The American navy was still very small, consisting of only a few ships, which couldn’t be spared to escort every merchantman.

  The British had hundreds of ships, and their captains were getting to be damned nuisances, worse than pirates. James felt it his task to take them down whenever he could.

  And now James was forced to confront two English naval officers as human beings: Admiral Lockwood, hero of Trafalgar, kind enough to take in and nurture two complete strangers, and Lieutenant Jack, a bewildered and broken man struggling to retain his dignity.

  And then there was Diana, widow of the legendary Captain Sir Edward Worthing.

  James slithered on the dry sand as he approached the caves. Diana had called her husband a fraud. Angrily. Anger had poured from her every word. Her declaration of hatred for her husband had hurt her, and yet, she’d needed to say the words.

  Her anger only made her more beautiful. Damn but she must have cut a swath through London, leaving a trail of broken hearts and probably violence behind her. Her passion told him this was true. Her confusion told him she did not understand why.

  Because you are beautiful, that’s why, darlin’. Beautiful and dangerous.

  No way in hell would James stand aside and let Jack have her, no matter how sorry he felt for the man.

  They reached the caves, and James ducked into their shade. The air inside was cold, but the darkness was welcome after the bright sunshine.

  Jack looked about without much interest. “Shallow.”

  “Yes.” James moved to the back of the cave to study the walls there.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “Whatever Lady Worthing did not want me to find.”

  Jack rested his arm against the rock wall in the shade, leaning his weight on it. “There’s nothing here.”

  “She worked hard to keep something from me. Damned if I know what.”

  James scanned the surface of the black walls, trying to see within the shadows. He’d hoped for some crack or other opening that would take him to another cave, or perhaps he’d find something stowed here. Diana had certainly been anxious to steer him away.

  Diana was a careful woman. He saw that in the little things she did, from the close way she watched her daughter, to the way she helped Jessup clear the plates after supper. She ran the household for her father, and despite the paucity of servants, ran it well.

  Diana was not the sort of woman to fling herself at James in a burst of uncontrolled lust. The spark of passion that had ignited yesterday when she’d wrapped her arms around his neck had surprised her. Had surprised him. She hadn’t meant for that to happen.

  “There’s nothing here,” Jack repeated. He sounded uninterested.

  James stepped back. He walked a slow circle around the cave and returned to the entrance. He looked up, scanning the low ceiling. He could reach up and touch it.

  Nothing. No opening, no secrets.

  “I’m inclined to agree with you,” he said to Jack. “But I don’t like not knowing about a thing.”

&n
bsp; “Mmm.”

  “You all right?”

  The young man leaned heavily on the wall, his face pale. “Too much sun, I think.”

  James left the cave, halted on the sand, and looked around him. To his left lay the path up through the rock, the way they’d come. To his right, the ledge ended abruptly at a short cliff, the precipice dropping into the sea.

  Suddenly, James chuckled. Diana Worthing was clever, even more clever than he’d first thought.

  Jack was right. There was nothing here. There never had been. Diana, by kicking up such a fuss at James’s discovery of the caves, had focused his attention entirely on them. James had wasted time wondering what she was hiding from him, when in fact, there was nothing to hide.

  Diana had guided his attention to this place so that James would not find what she’d really hidden, somewhere else entirely.

  James felt a strange joy, and he laughed.

  He heard a sound behind him and turned to find Jack doubled over, arm across his stomach, breathing shallowly.

  James started for him. “What’s the matter?”

  Jack leveraged himself upright, very slowly. His face was wet with perspiration. “My head. Hurts like fury.”

  “You remembering anything?”

  Jack hesitated, and James’s heart beat faster. Tell me you no, Lieutenant. I like you, and I don’t want to have to kill you.

  “It just aches. Too much sun.” Jack’s pupils were pinpricks, here in this shadow.

  “I’d say you need to get back to the house. Have Jessup look after you.”

  Jack smiled shakily. “I believe you’re right. Each time I think I’ve recovered, the old noddle starts pounding again.” He stopped. “And why, Ardmore, can I remember silly slang like noddle, but I cannot say my own name?” His lashes were moist.

  “I’ll help you back.”

  Jack pulled away. “No. I do not need a bloody nursemaid.”

  James fixed him with a look. A member of James’s crew would have quailed before that stare. Ill sailors on the Argonaut were ordered to report to the surgeon whether they liked it or not. Any man who stayed above and dropped over from illness was dismissed at the next port. James didn’t have time for men who tried to brave it out, as Jack obviously wanted to.

  Jack returned the look with a belligerent one of his own. Then, before James’s steady gaze, he wilted.

  “Sorry. I know you’re trying to help. I’ll go back to the house. But there’s no need to accompany me. I feel better. I’ll go straight to bed, I promise.”

  James acknowledged this with a faint nod.

  Jack smiled again. “Are you certain you’re not a marine sergeant? I knew one who could keep an entire rank of men in line just by looking at them like that.” Jack faltered, his face losing color. “Oh Lord, I remembered that. But I cannot . . . Damn.”

  “Don’t try,” James said.

  Jack balled his hands and closed his eyes. After a moment, he opened them again, pretending to be composed. The English and their damned sangfroid.

  “I’ll return to the house,” Jack said. “While I rest I will think on my Royal Marines sergeant. Perhaps he will trigger some further memory.” He tried a smile. “I hope to God I was not in love with him. His stare could turn you green.”

  James managed a grin in return, but he had to force his mouth to do it.

  Jack at last ambled away toward the upward path. The lieutenant was shaky, but he gained the upper path, slowly, but without mishap.

  James did not follow him. He really should, in case Jack expired along the way, but he sensed that Jack would only greet this offer with fury. Sometimes a man had to be allowed to be a fool.

  Once Jack had disappeared from sight, James resumed his exploration. He followed the beach to its end, where it stopped abruptly at the cliff edge. When he looked over, he saw only black rocks tumbling to the sea.

  James put his hand on the vertical wall beside him and leaned over as far as he dared. The cliff was sharp. Seagulls chased one another below him and rose up the black walls that towered above him on his right.

  He turned his head that way, scanning the cliff face, and saw a ledge sticking out a few yards away from him. That ledge held a crack in the rock wall.

  The ledge would not be easy to reach. James would have to leave his perch and climb those few yards over nearly empty space, with only slight protrusions of rock for his feet.

  He leaned around the corner, grabbed rocks at head height, and hoisted himself onto the protrusion. The wind shoved at him. It would dislodge him if he let it, and then, no more James Ardmore.

  Someone had carved handholds, unnatural square cuts chiseled out all along the rock. James followed them, took the required two precarious steps, and stepped onto to the ledge.

  Succulents grew here in profusion, disguising the opening of the cliff, tiny blue blossoms rippling in the wind. The crack in the rock was just large enough to admit a man’s body.

  James squeezed himself through. His shoulders caught, but he tugged himself free and stood blinking in the darkness.

  He found himself atop a wide ledge, this one under a roof of rock. Far below him, sunlight and sea streamed into a cavern. The waves hissed as they cut past the rocks.

  The cavern contained a series of ledges above and below him. Enough light streamed in from below for James to make out the shapes of crates on each ledge.

  A wooden ladder that led to the very bottom of the cave had been built against the rocks a few feet from him. The sand at its base was damp, a patch that never quite dried. The tide must cover the bottom of the caves when it was in.

  James wished for rope, not really trusting the ladder. Though, it looked sturdy enough. Likely another of Jessup’s duties was to make certain it stayed reinforced.

  James swung himself onto the ladder and climbed downward, going carefully. The ladder held, and when he reached the bottom, James walked across the cave to one of the lowest ledges and hoisted himself up onto it.

  Crates rested there, at least half a dozen of them, pressed back into a niche and covered with a tarp. James found a crate whose wood was warped enough for him to pry its lid off with his bare hands. Inside, packed in dry straw, lay dozens of small barrels. The savory odor drifting from them made James smile. Not gunpowder. Brandy.

  He replaced the lid on the crate, turned around, and found Diana standing below the ledge on the sand.

  James had known she was there. He could sense the sweet stir in the air whenever she was near.

  “So you and dear papa are smugglers,” James said.

  Diana wore a cloak hastily tied at her throat, and her face was streaked with dirt and sand. From under the cloak, she pulled out a pistol and pointed it at James.

  He went still, his limbs tightening. They eyed each other, James ready to spring, Diana with eyes as hard as any marine sergeant’s.

  “We are not smugglers,” she said. “It is not smuggling.”

  James considered the ledges and ledges of crates marching up to the top of the cave. “You’re blockade runners, then. Whose side?”

  “No sides. Or at least, whatever side is against Napoleon.”

  “I see. Commendable of you.”

  She did not move.

  James went on, “This is the secret you didn’t want me to see? Why did you think I would care if you ran goods past Bonaparte’s continental system? I engage in blockade running myself, when I have the time. The shippers in Gibraltar are making a fortune out of it, transferring banned goods to neutral ships and running them in and out.”

  “We do not do it for money,” Diana said, the pistol unwavering.

  “No, you do it out of your fine patriotic spirit. After all, your papa is a legendary British admiral.”

  Diana scowled. “Why are you not afraid? I’m pointing a pistol at you. It is loaded, I assure you.”

  “If you’d wanted to kill me, you’d have done it already.” James let his lips twitch. “Why weren’t you afraid of me
last year?”

  “I was afraid. You abducted me.”

  “No, you were spitting mad, like you are now. You don’t have to shoot me, Diana. I’m not going to tell anyone.”

  Diana regarded him, hard-eyed, for one more moment, then she slowly lowered the pistol.

  James’s limbs relaxed . . . a little bit. The problem with bravado was that it held no guarantee that the other person would back down.

  “My father trusts you,” Diana said. “I have no idea why.”

  “Your father is right.” James eased himself from the ledge. “But Lieutenant Jack might be fired up at you. The Royal Navy frowns on slipping British goods onto the continent right now.”

  “I don’t think Jack remembers who Bonaparte even is,” Diana said. “He seems very lost when my father talks about the war.”

  But Jack had just now remembered a sergeant of the Royal Marines. It was a beginning.

  “I won’t tell him if you won’t,” James said. “Cross my heart.”

  He made a slow X across his chest. Diana’s gaze riveted there. Her cloak, thrown back, revealed her cotton dress and the fact that, like yesterday, she wore nothing under the bodice.

  Foolish, foolish Diana. The dull brown cloth was thick enough that her flesh didn’t show through the fabric, but the bodice hugged her delicious breasts. The tips of them tightened under James’s gaze, becoming hard little points of arousal.

  James reached out and brushed one with his thumb.

  Diana jumped as though he’d slapped her. The pistol came up. “Take off your coat,” she said.

  James studied the pistol, then slowly let out his breath. She’d not primed it. No doubt she’d been in a tearing hurry when Jack arrived above and told her what James was up to. No time to summon the admiral, no time to prime the pistol. If she fired, the gun probably wouldn’t go off. Probably.

  Diana’s eyes narrowed. “I said, take it off.”

  James could easily wrest the gun from her. But it might be more enjoyable to oblige her.