Lord of the Privateers (The Adventurers Quartet)

by Stephanie Laurens

  He was happy.

  And she was content.

  She cut a glance at Royd; standing behind the wheel, he was currently engaged in steering The Corsair into the Solent. She didn’t know how much he’d already heard of his son’s exploits; he’d come aboard before she had. She was sorry to have missed seeing how Duncan had greeted him; it might have told her more of how their son now saw his father.

  She looked ahead—and again felt a surge of exhilaration and knew she wasn’t the only one so affected.

  By the time they’d gathered for their early breakfast, they’d all been impatient and eager, gripped by a sense of needing to get on, to plunge into this mission—to get on the waves. Promptly at five o’clock, three carriages had arrived, and they’d piled in and set out.

  They’d rattled down the highway at a breakneck pace. On arriving outside the Frobisher Shipping office, the three ladies had consulted while the men had paid off the carriages. Subsequently, with Royd, Robert, and Declan needing to get aboard their respective ships, Edwina and Aileen had accompanied Isobel on a visit to the local shipyards. Over breakfast, she’d explained her notion of visiting the yards in the hope the sight of familiar construction would jog her memory regarding some method of breaching the palisade.

  Royd had wanted to come with her, but he’d had too much to do aboard; he’d taken charge of her trunk and bandbox, squeezed her hand, wished her luck, and let her go.

  As a Carmichael, she was assured of being granted instant access to the yards; the name was synonymous with excellence in shipbuilding and revered in such circles throughout the British Isles.

  The foreman at the yard had gabbled a welcome and immediately sent for the owner, but before that worthy appeared, she’d spied what she—their mission—needed. When the owner had come hurrying up, the tails of his coat flapping, she’d smiled, complimented him on his yard—which had, indeed, appeared well run—and asked to borrow the special saw.

  The owner hadn’t hesitated, pressing her to borrow whatever she needed; the tool wasn’t expensive, although it was of a very particular design. After assuring the owner that the saw was all she required and that she would return it to the yard on her return to the port, she’d parted from him in excellent humor.

  As they’d hurried back to the wharf, Aileen had asked, “Will it work?”

  “It’s used to cut through tarred ropes, large ones that have been in position for years and are hardened and solid.” She’d glanced at the oilskin-wrapped saw. “I’m as certain as I can be that it’ll cut through those vines locking the palisade’s planks together. To my mind, the only question remaining is how best to wield it.”

  The satisfaction of having found the answer she’d been seeking buoyed her. The desire to reach the compound and find out if her hunch about the saw would prove correct only added to her innate impatience.

  Royd rapped out an order, drawing in a sail—getting just that touch more power from the wind angling at their backs. She glanced at his face and grinned. If she was impatient, he was equally so. And he’d infected his crew with the same keenness; they were looking ahead, all eager to get on.

  The Corsair was running hard before the wind.

  She turned and looked back at the flotilla of vessels departing on the tide, strung out behind them and dwindling in size as The Corsair leapt ahead. A moment sufficed to identify The Trident, graceful as a swan as she eased into the Solent’s deeper waters. The Cormorant lay not far astern, sails billowing as Declan kept to the script and followed, rather than jockeyed for the lead. Neither ship had yet gone to full sail; as there were other ships around and before them, they would have to wait for the more open waters of the Channel before they unfurled more canvas.

  She faced forward as Royd called another change and saw Duncan’s lips move as, gazing raptly at the sail in question, he parroted Royd’s words. No doubt committing them and their effect to memory.

  Raising her gaze from her son’s face to his father’s, she reflected that Duncan’s wholehearted plunge into life on the waves was only to be expected—his inheritance, as it were. She now accepted she’d been wrong to keep him from sailing, not when the activity gave him so much pleasure.

  After a moment, she stepped back from the railing. When Royd glanced at her, with her eyes, she directed his attention to Duncan. He looked, then looked back at her, a question in his eyes: Was he interpreting her intention correctly? With a dip of her head, she consigned Duncan to his care and headed for the ladder.

  She went down to the stern cabin, checked her brown trunk, and put the brushes, combs, and pins from her bandbox back into the drawer in the washstand. Then she sat on the bed and gave herself over to her thoughts.

  Later, when they were well out in the Channel and The Corsair was slicing through the waves, having achieved a modicum of mental clarity, she returned to the deck.

  Instead of climbing to the upper deck, she strolled down the ship, making for the bow. One glance to the rear informed her that they were already far ahead of the other ships; she couldn’t even see them.

  Idly ambling along the side, she realized that, out of instinct rather than intention, she was noting lines and checking ropes. Then she spied Duncan skipping down the opposite side of the deck; when he turned and called something to someone behind him, she looked and saw Royd pacing forward. He was, rather more deliberately, doing as she had been—checking that all was right on his ship, all as he wished it to be.

  He saw her and changed tack, unhurriedly crossing the deck and ducking under a boom to join her.

  She leaned back against the ship’s side and watched as Duncan danced on, with Williams, the quartermaster, stepping into Royd’s place and shadowing Duncan. Keeping him safe.

  Royd settled against the upper rail beside her, his shoulder brushing hers.

  Her gaze on Duncan, she said, “I had to keep him away from the docks. If given the chance, he would have crawled and climbed all over, but everyone there knew of our handfasting, and he was instantly recognizable as your son.”

  Royd considered the comment and why she was making it now, at that moment in time. While his immediate reaction was one of deep-seated anger, it was a useless emotion, one with no outlet—one that wouldn’t help him attain his goal.

  He let the hurt flow from him, too...then thought to ask, “Does he know of your work?”

  She shook her head. “He knows I help his grandfather manage the shipyards—I suspect he thinks I’m some sort of secretary.”

  Royd snorted. It was tempting to feel that Duncan not knowing of her work—her worth—was a small penance for her having hidden the boy from him, yet...that seemed wrong, too—equally wrong. Something else that needed to be rectified. Their son deserved to properly appreciate the brilliance of his mother.

  Who’d borne him alone, birthed him alone, and raised him alone, until now.

  His gaze, like hers, following Duncan, he said, “I understand why you hid him from me. Now tell me how you managed it.” It was important, he realized, that he learn the whole truth, and the only source of that whole truth was her.

  “It wasn’t as hard as you might think. Back then, Papa was doing everything himself—brokering the deals, handling all the details, and overseeing the design and construction as well. He was rarely home, and even less frequently did he visit Iona—if you recall, he and she don’t often see eye to eye, and after we’d handfasted and you’d sailed, I’d moved to Carmody Place to live with her.”

  He narrowed his eyes against the sun’s glare. “Are you saying your father doesn’t know?”

  “He didn’t know—not when Duncan was born, not as he grew. Not until recently.” She paused, then went on, “About two months ago, Papa came to see me at Carmody Place. It was Sunday, and I wasn’t expecting him—there was an urgent issue with a build on which he needed my opinion.
It was a sunny afternoon in June. All the children were playing outside, and I was in the kitchen with most of the other women. Iona had gone upstairs for a nap, so she wasn’t about. The footman knew Papa, of course, and with no one around to direct him, he showed Papa into the parlor.”

  “Let me guess. The parlor overlooks the area where the children were playing.”

  She nodded. “By the time I was summoned and reached the parlor, Papa was standing by the window, and he’d already noticed Duncan. Had already guessed he was a Frobisher.” She drew in a breath, then exhaled. “But he still didn’t know.”

  She glanced at him, her eyes searching his face; he felt her gaze, but didn’t meet it. “From a distance, Papa couldn’t see me in Duncan, so he still hadn’t realized Duncan was ours. I breathed a sigh of relief and shut the parlor door.”

  He glanced at her in time to see her lips quirk resignedly.

  “We were discussing the problem at the yards when Duncan burst in to tell me something.” She gestured with one hand. “I still don’t know what, but he flew across the room and flung himself at me—you’ve seen how he does—and yelled, ‘Mama! Mama! Guess what?’”

  He could see the scene clearly. He shook his head. “Your poor father.”

  “Indeed. I believe he came closer to fainting than he ever has in his life. I had to push him into an armchair. I sent Duncan to fetch a glass of whisky. He brought a full glass. Papa drained it.”

  Royd was struggling not to laugh, but in that moment, he truly felt sorry for James Carmichael. The man had never been entirely happy about Royd wanting to marry his daughter, and as things had turned out, his reservations had appeared well founded. To then stumble on Duncan in such a way and discover all Isobel had concealed...

  He glanced at her. “So what happened next?”

  “Papa insisted we tell you, but we convinced him to hold his tongue, at least for the moment.”

  “By we, you mean you and Iona?”

  “And Mama, and my Carmichael grandmother—Papa’s mother, Elise—and his sister and Mama’s sisters.” She shrugged. “Virtually all the women on both sides of the family.”

  “They all knew?”

  “Only Iona and Mama actually knew, so to speak, but of course, the others all guessed.” She glanced at him as if that should have been obvious. “A baby—let alone a child like Duncan—is rather hard to hide.”

  Yet you managed for eight years. But the rancor he’d expected to feel wasn’t strong enough to register over all the other thoughts and attendant feelings whirling through his head. Several thoughts clicked into a whole. “That’s why, in our recent meetings, your father’s been...uncomfortable and oddly short with me.”

  “Yes. He’s distinctly uncomfortable about the whole thing.”

  “Hardly surprising.”

  “No—it’s worse than that. It’s not just you. Mama and Papa know your parents, too. And Duncan is—possibly—your heir.”

  There was no “possibly” about it; as his firstborn son, Duncan was his heir.

  Of course, he and she still had to tie that up in a legally acceptable way.

  Her gaze tracking Duncan as he rounded the bow and headed toward them, she sighed. “Papa has hated every minute of not being able to tell. Bad enough what you’ll think, but he worries more about your parents—he and your father go back a long way.”

  Initially as businessmen operating in allied spheres, but as she’d noted, the connection had remained as James and Fergus had aged. It was one of the reasons many had deemed a marriage between him and her an inspired alliance.

  It still was.

  He pushed away from the ship’s side as Duncan neared. “Once we get back, we’ll have to tell my parents. I’ve no idea how they’ll react—I doubt Mama will forgive you for keeping Duncan from her anytime soon—but that’s something we don’t need to concern ourselves with now.”

  Isobel didn’t disagree. She watched as Royd crouched as Duncan ran up. Watched as their son gabbled excitedly about the fish he’d spotted from the bow. Watched as the man she still loved rose and tousled their son’s dark hair, then he glanced at her, met her eyes, briefly nodded, then headed off to his stern deck with Duncan skipping alongside, still peppering him with questions.

  She folded her arms, leaned back against the side, and let her thoughts flow with the roll of the waves and the rise and fall of the deck.

  She knew Royd prioritized. He always had; it was the way his mind worked. A large part of his success was due to the intensity he could bring to bear on any goal. And that intensity stemmed from his ability to focus on that which he wished to attain, excluding well-nigh everything else.

  Right now, his focus was on the mission, specifically on the mission’s goals. Which was, in the wider scheme of things, well and good—how things should be.

  That said, while she didn’t disagree with his consigning telling his parents about Duncan to an unspecified date in the future—a date when he and she no longer had higher claims on their time and wits—there were several other matters unconnected with the mission that, in her opinion, would be better dealt with over the next days. In the hiatus before they reached Freetown and plunged into the heart of the action.

  She knew Royd well enough to be certain that, with the mission now fixed as top priority in his mind, he would leave those other matters unaddressed and unresolved.

  Men had one-track minds. She, in contrast, was all woman, and she was unwilling to wait until after the mission to bring those other matters to a head.

  CHAPTER 4

  She bided her time, waiting until they’d dined, and she’d put Duncan to bed and watched over him until he slept, before making her way above deck. As she’d expected, Royd stood at the wheel, guiding The Corsair into the twilight.

  While at sea, he dined at six with the men of the first dog watch. Then at eight, he went on deck and took the wheel for the first four bells of the first watch. Occasionally, he claimed the wheel at other times, either to steer the ship through some tricky situation or simply to spell Liam Stewart or William Kelly.

  She’d heard the second bell of the first watch rung some time ago. Now she’d made up her mind as to her next step, she had no difficulty drawing patience to her.

  After wrapping her shawl more tightly about her shoulders, she walked down the deck. She felt Royd’s gaze touch her back, but a snapping sail high above diverted his attention. He barked out orders, and two sailors leapt to the rigging.

  She reached the bench across the bow and sat. After a moment, she drew her legs up, knees bent, wriggled around, and set her back to the gunwale.

  They were still in the lower reaches of the Channel, or so she assumed; evening skies and steel-blue waves looked much alike to her. Although the first stars were already glimmering in the darkened sky, she wasn’t sailor enough to use them to determine their position.

  In recent years, she’d sailed with Royd more times than she could count—when they took the ships they’d worked on out to test their modifications—yet even when they were testing for speed, they never went this fast. This consistently fast. The sense of power, of unstoppable momentum, as The Corsair leaned before the wind still made her catch her breath.

  The sensation thrilled her, stirred the wild side of her, and she could readily understand why Royd worked as he did to achieve this—this triumph of harnessing the wind.

  She drew her legs close, wrapped her arms about her calves, and rested her chin on her knees.

  And rode the waves and listened to the wind whisper.

  She was still sitting, simply being, at one with the wind, the sky, and the sea, when the fourth bell of the first watch was rung.

  A few minutes later, Royd walked out of the shadows cast by the running lights.

  She raised her head and swiveled to set
her feet on the deck. “Are you going down?”

  He gave her his hand and drew her to her feet. “I’m done for the day. I thought you would have already retired.”

  She tugged her shawl into place and shrugged. “I was thinking.” Plotting and planning.

  Royd turned and walked beside her to the aft hatch. She’d been “thinking.” Sometimes, she sat and thought and the result was some new design or improvement. But at other times, her thinking was a prelude to danger.

  As he followed her down the steps and into the corridor leading to their cabins, he wondered in which direction her recent thoughts had taken her.

  He was tempted to ask, but they’d reached the doors to their cabins, hers dead ahead, his to the right.

  Her fingers closed about her doorknob; she released the latch and turned to face him.

  Instead of the simple “good night” he’d expected, that he’d planned on deflecting long enough to steal another kiss, she studied him for a heartbeat, then said, “There’s an issue we need to address.”

  They were standing mere inches apart; the unique perfume he associated with her—a combination of the herbs in her soap and the elemental scent of woman—was wreathing around his brain. With his senses and a good portion of his wits already distracted, he tried but couldn’t imagine what she meant. He arched a brow. “What issue?”

  Her dark eyes locked with his. “This.”

  She closed the distance between them, slid a hand behind his nape, drew his head down, and pressed her lips to his.

  Before he could react, she took one last step—and her body met his, her breasts to his chest, her hips to his, her firm thighs riding against the length of his.

  His brain seized. His senses flared.

  She parted her lips, and he was already falling.

  No power on earth could have prevented his arms from locking about her, his hands from splaying over her back and seizing, his lips and tongue from surrendering, avid and greedy, to her invitation.