O'Roarke's Destiny (Cornish Rogues Book 1)

by Shehanne Moore

  Well fortunately, he was gone now and all she need do was arrange herself like a corpse on the pillow and wait. It would hardly be difficult. As it was her neck felt like it belonged to a giraffe with a broken one.

  Orwell squared his insubstantial shoulders. “I say, are you ready for this, old girl? We’ll be singing Christmas songs in no time. 'Bring ye the wassail bowl over here.'"

  “Own?” The word spilled from her mouth before she could stop it, when she’d meant to forget about it too. “What did he mean by own?”

  “Destiny, whatever he meant is of no importance to us. Not now, old girl. Not when Lyon’s men are … ” he broke off, his words arrested by the hammering at the front door. “Well, you can hear what they are … ”

  “And why did you tell me things were being said about him when they probably weren’t? Him being the Cleanser, so … so I … I only went and cost him his cover, didn’t I? With Lyon on his heels. That’s what he meant by own.”

  These words fell too, despite her sterling efforts to nail her mouth shut and win the dying swan competition. But so long as no more words peppered the bed sheets, this was fine. And they wouldn’t—task one. If she’d to stuff the pillow in her blabby mouth to clog her throat, tightening in ways she couldn’t understand, they wouldn’t.

  “Look, old girl. Desperate times and all that. Now, come on. We still—you still, need to pull this off after all you said on that beach.”

  “Desperate times?" She tried plumping the pillow. "The only thing you’ve ever been desperate for in your life, so far as I’ve ever been able to see, is your next drink.”

  “A trifle harsh, I think.”

  “Harsh? You don’t know the half of it. As for you thinking? When did you ever in your whole life think about more than where your next drink was—”

  “If you don’t mind me saying, that is.”

  “I do mind and I do say. And I will say this as well. Did you lose Doom Bar Hall on purpose that night?”

  My God. She had never thought so before. Why do it now? Because Divers O’Roarke had gone, swaggered out the door, without a backwards glance, thinking the worst of her and that was a fire she couldn’t rise from? Her throat, her voice, heart, blood, bones, were ashes at the thought. Of course she didn’t feel quite well, but how could they be ashes? Because a man had gone? A man she didn’t need? Didn’t want? Didn’t love? Surely? Couldn’t let herself, even if she did feel any of these things? A man who had nothing? While she sat here with what? Doom Bar sodding Hall?

  In that second she tore the covers off herself.

  “Destiny …”

  "No, don’t bother answering me, Orwell. You just have.”

  “I am answering you.”

  “No. No, you’re not.”

  “Well, obviously I was drunk and it may well be, that knowing, or more importantly, seeing him there, that night—"

  “He told me he was the Cleanser. Why did he do that? Because he knew damn fine I was going to betray him?”

  “Well, you are something of a clipe, old girl.”

  As if she needed him to tell her that. That battering at the door either. Somehow she grasped at the breath tearing her throat to pieces and swung her feet to the floor.

  “I say, what are you doing?” Orwell demanded.

  “What does it look like? I’m getting up.”

  “Jesus Christ, no. You can’t. You can’t get up. Now you listen to me." He snatched hold of her arm. "Someone had to stand up for our rights. Our rights here.”

  “What rights? Smuggling ones?”

  “What other ones can there be? This is how the world works here. For you, me, everyone here. Don’t pretend you haven’t dipped your cask. However I lost Doom Bar Hall. I have it back now guaranteed." He dragged her closer, dragged her so she'd to dig her heels in for purchase.

  Guaranteed? My God. What she had wanted since the sorry evening it had been lost. And all she had to do was arrange herself on the bed and pretend to die like a graceful swan. She could do that. She would do that but the noise as her hand glanced off his jaw ricocheted around the room’s sallow walls. The words, ‘And I’ll never lose it again,’ petered into oblivion. The same one Divers O’Roarke would peter into if she didn’t get her boots on and go after him because these soldiers weren’t real soldiers, they were Orwell’s militia. The real menace was someone else. She could get her boots on, couldn’t she? Task one. Only her lungs had emptied of breath and her side couldn’t be worse if a medieval torturer had just strapped her to a table and was giving it special attention with hot pincers.

  “Jesus, old girl, are you mad? No. Don’t answer that. Because it’s clear you are. No. Don’t push me away. Let’s not forget, this man, no, listen—"

  “Get your hands off me, Orwell, we’re done.”

  “This man I’ve given an out to, incidentally, once cursed us. All these years ago.”

  “Just the once?" She tightened her jaw. "Oh, really, I’m surprised given everything we did to him, to Rose, on a daily basis—”

  “He cursed you, me, Chancery. You most of all. Think how different your life would now be if he hadn’t uttered these damnable words. When Chancery loved Rose. Wanted to marry her, for God’s sake. That Divers O’Roarke didn’t know is no damned excuse.”

  “I am thinking. And I’m thinking we are the life we live. Its graces and its pain. And while we may not always have any control over it, we can control what we do about it. But if you want to believe in a load of old gypsy mutterings and superstition and hold it responsible for the fact you can’t walk past a drink, without feeling obliged to down and then drown in it, that’s your choice. This is mine.”

  Because suddenly it was.

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

  Reaching the windswept shore Divers O’Roarke knew one thing. Maybe Destiny Rhodes had done him a favor by holing the boat beneath him, so he’d no choice but to swim for the shore; when he was swimming there in ways he hadn’t imagined, he was well shot of her, of the Rhodes. Surely?

  As he inched through the cracks in the rock overhung by dead bracken and withered tufts of marram grass, he saw it, the only thing he wanted to see, oiled by moonlight. Not Destiny Rhodes, not Rose, not that damned mausoleum standing like a skull on the cliff top. He saw the rowing boat Orwell had promised, a shapeless hulk, draped in tarpaulins and nets.

  “Hurry, man.” Gil’s voice was just the match for the howling gale. “We need to launch it. Then … I don’t know about you, but I need to get out of here.”

  The tarpaulin was oily beneath Divers fingers. “Oh, I’ll be joining you. Push. We can get to everything else later.”

  Things like the mess he’d made in other words. As it was, he was just about holding this together. Square one was a place he wasn’t unaccustomed to occupying. Thinking about it now, about getting to square two, could prove his undoing. He might stay a stranger to square two, after all. Forget the perils of clambering aboard this rickety boat in a frothing sea, he’d damn all to his name. The sand slapped around his ankles. At least the fecking boat wasn’t holed, had oars and was stocked. If they could make it around the coast in it, they’d have a fighting chance. He’d been in worse, hadn’t he? And they did have some stolen goods. Not touching them now wasn’t an option. What was it she'd said? Don't make me care for you? Chance would have been a fine thing. And he was still cursed.

  He dug his heels in harder. Gil tossed the hair out of his eyes.

  “Don’t worry about it, sir, we’ll be all right. So long as we get out of here.”

  “That depends on where you’re going, don’t you think?”

  The press of cold steel against his temple, snap of a twig underfoot, click of a pistol being cocked iced his spine. Then there was the voice. The one he heard in his worst nightmares. Lyon.

  “Hell, now, Mr. O’Roarke? Hell isn’t the place to be all right in, unless you’ve done a deal with the devil. But then, maybe you have? Certainly you’ve broken any we had.”

>   Divers swallowed. His gaze skittered sideways. Hell’s teeth, but he should have gone to Penvellyn, should have taken charge while he’d had the chance. Now that chance was as much dust as he was soon going to be. And for what? Christ Almighty, he had cursed himself. And there was nothing except the moon and the cold stars overheard to save him. How could he have longed for such wrathful vengeance? He was done. Him and Gil. And all because of Destiny Rhodes. A stupid passion not to have just let her die and go to her sodding Ennis as she'd asked him to. Why hadn't he? Because in his heart he'd never moved past being the boy she didn't want? It didn't matter how he touched her, what he did.

  “Now, let go of the boat. Both of you.” Lyon’s voice was ice cold. “I mean it, I may be alone but I will shoot first one and then the other and claim self defense, if you don’t. That’s it. The only options which are open to you both.”

  “But … ”

  Divers throat tightened. It was like Gil to try and save this as Gil had tried to save so much because of the one time he hadn’t even been able to save himself. The thought forced him to speak.

  “Leave Gil out of this, will you? Although really, I don’t know quite what I’m meant to have done. I didn’t think that being absent when I’m undercover merits being shot.”

  “Oh, you know perfectly what you’ve done. Who you are, really are—”

  “Chance would be a fine thing."

  He couldn’t help it. He sighed. He probably rolled his eyes too. Here it was again, The old sweet song. What he was. When it was things he wasn’t. A man who had lost his way perhaps? But that was it. Show him the man who hadn’t. He’d show you the man who hadn’t lived. It was the price of the game, wasn’t it? No more. No less. But this? This, if he couldn’t stop it, this could be the finish. And how was he going to stop it? He was armed, yes, but his pistol was stuck in his belt. As for Gil? Gil had never been any bloody good at this bit of the game.

  “You always were a cocky bastard. But don’t make the mistake of thinking I don’t know. You’re not innocent. Even if you’re not the Cleanser, you’re hardly lily-white.”

  “Lily White? No. That’s true. I was never her. Everyone else maybe—"

  “You see? Cocky. Now let go of the boat and step aside, or this bullet, this bullet I’ve been keeping for you since that day my pocket was picked by Teezer’s Travelling Troupers is going to wind up in what there is of your brain.”

  “Nice to know you think I have--"

  "And this one will end up in yours.”

  The voice was low and throaty. The voice had always been capable of making ribbons of a man’s gut. But in this instance Divers' throat and breath were the things in tatters. Destiny Rhodes. What the hell was Destiny Rhodes doing here? Not that he wasn’t that tiny bit glad to see her. Where was the end to her stupidity? In her state Lyon would overpower her in seconds and all Divers’ saving of her would be for nothing. The saving that meant the cold steel of a gun was now jammed against his temple.

  “Destiny … ”

  “I mean it, Divers. If I have to, I will kill him.”

  “I’m sorry, old chap, but I’m afraid she does,” Orwell spoke above the waves thrashing against the rocks. “I tried to stop her. I’m sure as you know yourself; you might as well try holding the tide there back with a fishing net. A torn one at that.”

  “I can’t begin to tell you what that vote of confidence means to me. Now, put the gun down.”

  The click as she cocked the pistol matched the click in Divers’ throat. Maybe Lyon’s too for that matter. Divers' heart thudded above the crashing waves, the wind tearing his tear. Icy drips of sweat beaded his forehead.

  “So? You are alive, Miss Rhodes?” Lyon said. “Your brother did say as much.”

  “You sound disappointed. But ask yourself, why don’t you, would a corpse be standing here with a gun to your head? Ready to pull the trigger too? Well? And let’s just leave Orwell out of this, shall we? He’s no brother of mine, not any more. And you did shoot me actually. That was no lie.”

  “So Mr. Rhodes said. And I would like to leave him out of this but it’s just that he has bargained for Doom Bar Hall.”

  “Doom Bar Hall?”

  “Yes.”

  Here it was. The fly in any ointment, no matter how sweet, or soothing. The one thing she’d never part with in a million years. She was a Rhodes. And a Rhodes could never, ever be without their crumbling staff and anchor, their once palatial palace, upon which crawled the flies of doom. Maybe he had gone to places he shouldn’t have gone with her? And so he’d said what he had about her costing him everything. But he was done for sure enough. Lyon might as well hand him the shovel to dig his own grave now.

  “You really think I care about Doom Bar Hall?”

  “Do I think you have a certain affinity for it? Yes. Yes I do. Perhaps you just didn’t have that affinity with me in it, but--”

  “Drop the gun. Now, I say. And I’m not for hanging about either.”

  Divers flicked his gaze to the side, masked the shiver that stole up his spine. So that was what she’d traded? Her? And Lyon? And now? Now Lyon laid a different card on the table, Divers knew one thing. When it came to guns and dropping, hers would be lying on the sand. It didn’t matter what she said. Not now Pandora’s box was open.

  “Very well.” Astonishment rippled as Lyon’s gun thudded onto the sand. “But I know … I know my words have weight. Besides, shoot me and you will have to dispose of the body, or face having every exciseman in the country and every bailiff and magistrate hunt you down. You will hang. It is that simple. So really, Miss Rhodes, don’t you think we should come to some—”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. No-one found Raven’s Passage in thirty years of looking. So they’re not going to find me. Divers, get in the boat. Now.”

  “Aid his escape and the law will also come looking. You know this. I know this.”

  “Goodness. And I will start trembling in me boots. You know, already I fear my heart has missed all of twenty five beats. Divers, do as I ask. You too, Gil. Go on.”

  Gil’s look of surprise, of exaltation even, was tempered by what thudded through Divers. Lyon was right. He would never let this go. He’d hunt them to the four corners of the earth and he’d arrest her. If he went he’d be leaving her to that fate. Unless? Unless this wasn’t bluff. Unless ..?

  “And don’t take all night,” she added. “Stand about debating it either.”

  Gil was fast but Lyon was faster. He bent for the gun lying on the sand. But Destiny Rhodes was faster than any. In one movement she kicked it aside and rounded him, so there she was in Divers’ line of vision, the primed pistol jammed just above Lyon’s left eye, her face, a ghost ship in the moonlight, an inky patch on the waist of her gown. Christ, the bloody wound must have opened.

  “The boat, Divers.”

  “Destiny …”

  “Now. I won't tell you again. I’m fine. I swear it. I’m absolutely perfect … ”

  Sinking onto the sand, in this perishing cold too, the gun still leveled on Lyon, was what she was. With a churning in his gut he knew he must reach it but even before that, he must reach her. Whatever he’d said about her and what she’d cost him, was nothing suddenly to what it would cost him, if he didn’t break her fall, didn’t save her. Christ, she’d haunt him for a start and already the ghosts he carried were bad enough. Could he take her barging into his thoughts?

  But it wasn’t just that that made him leap forward when what anyone in their right mind would be leaping for was the gun, or the boat. How could she have got so far beneath his skin she was trapped there? And he was trapped because of it? Or was it that she’d always been there, living in some part of himself? A part his old self could acknowledge, but what he’d become couldn’t let in? So he’d had to keep her separate? Whatever? In this dangerous game he’d played with her, knowing her touch was death. He loved her. He always had. From her imperfect heart to her dauntless bones because she wasn't all
imperfect or dauntless was she?

  He just had had to wrestle that bit of himself to the ground. Sleeping with the enemy was never easy and she had been the enemy. It was why, even last night, he'd been tempted to run. He must have made her care for him a little to now be this cursed that he stood on the edge of losing everything. Her above all else. He eased the gun from her quivering fingers, hooked his arm around her waist.

  “Please, D-Divers … l-let me go, let me go, I’m fine. I swear it.”

  “Not in a month of Sundays, Saturdays too, girl.”

  “Divers … ”

  “I’m not doing it.”

  Whatever she’d done, she’d done to save him. And he damn well should have taken charge while he had the chance but somehow that teeth of hell business of Evadne had totally undercut him. How the hell was he meant to leave a woman who dreamt in these terms of torture? Christ, these moments last night when she'd been a trembling wreck had totally undercut him because these moments had shown him the woman she was beneath her rock-hard front. And ever since he’d stepped, besieged, into this howling maelstrom, he’d been struggling, to hold to a life he didn’t want, not to grab the one he could have, because there was no life there.

  Even now, dragging her so close, her soft, but sharp, bones melted into his, there was no life. Not there, not anywhere. The maelstrom was one he walked in alone. He was the architect of his own destruction and that building, slowly crumbling, had caved in about him. All he knew was he couldn’t let her go, here now.

  Looking back on every cut, every gibe, every wound, every flicker of her eyelids, since that first night he’d clapped eyes on her, a boy of eight, peeping out from his step mother’s shadow, dwarfed by the one she’d cast, in the darkened recesses of that accursed house, he hadn’t been able to do that. It hadn’t mattered he’d let her go, it didn’t matter he’d walked away, that he’d never been anything in her life and seeing her again, was the last thing on Earth he’d expected. She’d been there with her shuttered face, haunting his dreams.