Lord of the Privateers

by Stephanie Laurens

  “Will our voices disturb him?” Royd had paused by the side of the desk.

  She shook her head. “He’s a sound sleeper.” Even more so than you.

  As if he’d heard her unvoiced comment, Royd humphed and continued to the large, glass-fronted bookcase built into the wall to the right of the desk. He opened the doors and reached to the second-highest shelf. His long fingers skimmed the spines of the narrow volumes packed along the shelf’s length, then his hand halted, and he eased one slender volume from the rest.

  He closed the bookcase doors, turned, and held out the book. “I believe you’ll find the contents of interest.”

  Premonition tickled her spine. She approached and took the book from him. It appeared to be a journal. “What is it?” She turned the book in her hands and opened the cover.

  The date leapt out at her, inscribed in his strong, blatantly masculine hand. February 24, 1816. The day after he’d fatefully sailed away. She stilled. She sensed—knew—that he’d put the answer to her most vital question into her hands.

  “It’s an account of the mission I sailed on, the one that unexpectedly kept me from home through 1816 and into 1817. It’s all there—just bare bones, but if you want to know more on any point, ask, and I’ll explain.”

  When she looked up at him, feeling again as if the world was rocking independent of the waves, he met her gaze, but she could read nothing at all in his expression.

  He tipped his head toward the desk. “Sit. Read. Once you’ve finished, if you wish to read any of the others”—he gestured to the bookcase—“feel free.”

  Returning her gaze to the journal, she sank against the front edge of the desk.

  He crossed to the main door, but paused with his hand on the latch. When she glanced at him, he said, “It just occurred to me...the mission that separated us is similar in many ways to the one we’re presently on.” Before she could ask what he meant by that, he nodded at the book in her hands. “Read that first. I’ll tell you the rest later.”

  With that, he opened the door, stepped out, and quietly shut the door behind him.

  She stared at the panel for several seconds, then looked down and refocused on the journal’s first page.

  Royd entered the cabin he’d moved into. He shrugged off his coat and hung it up, then started unknotting his cravat.

  With something this important—the rescripting of their pasts with a view to shaping a shared future—a wise man would take his time and set each foundation stone properly and securely in place.

  She didn’t yet know it, because he hadn’t yet explained, but they would be stopping in London for several days—possibly as long as a week. Then would come the voyage to Freetown, whatever action awaited them there, and the voyage back to London, and eventually, the journey home to Aberdeen. He had weeks—possibly as many as five or even six—in which to execute his campaign.

  His quest to win Isobel Carmody Carmichael again.

  * * *

  Isobel read far into the night. Royd’s journal didn’t just cover the events of his long-ago mission but also included snippets of his personal life. As well as learning what had kept him from her for more than thirteen months, she read of his frequent wish to send word to her, an act he drew back from again and again.

  Finally, she reached the end of the volume and laid it aside. Having her world as she’d known it turned upside down for a second time in one day was exhausting; she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  She didn’t re-emerge onto the deck until the morning was well advanced. On waking late, she’d been unsurprised to find herself alone in the stern cabins; she’d breakfasted in solitary state while sampling some of the other volumes in the bookcase—some earlier, some later.

  Most of Royd’s missions—for the voyages detailed in the journals were transparently that—had been short, only a month or two. A few had stretched for nearly a year. Some had occurred during the late wars, while others had been more recent—after she’d ended their handfasting.

  Of those later missions, certain of the details he’d jotted down in nonchalant vein would have induced panic if she hadn’t known he was still hale and whole. He’d always harbored a certain disregard for danger—a trait she in large part shared—yet some of his actions in those later missions seemed ridiculously risky, even for him.

  Via the logs filling the third shelf of the bookcase, she’d confirmed that, in between missions, he’d sailed on Frobisher company business, ferrying personages of wealth and influence—often royalty—across various seas. Those were the voyages she and others in Aberdeen, and no doubt elsewhere, knew of and associated with Royd Frobisher.

  The missions were something else entirely.

  She’d led a relatively sheltered existence, yet even with her limited knowledge, she could imagine just how dangerous some of the undertakings he’d been involved in must have been.

  Last night, he’d intimated that this voyage was a mission similar to the one that had disrupted their handfasting.

  Even more than a need for fresh air, curiosity sent her up on deck. She took several of his journals and logs with her. One glance confirmed that he was at the wheel, and that Duncan stood by his side, the wind whipping his hair about his eager face. She returned her son’s wave—and returned Royd’s sharp look with a noncommittal nod—then headed for the bow.

  A triangular bench filled the bow’s tip; the spare anchor was stored beneath it. She climbed up, wedged her shoulders between the gunwales, and settled to read; the more she learned about the man she’d thought she’d known but evidently hadn’t, the better.

  Eventually, Bellamy came forward to speak with her. “If you’re ready for luncheon, miss, I’ll summon the captain and the young master.”

  “Thank you.” Isobel allowed the old sea dog to gallantly assist her off the bench, then she gathered the journals and logs. “I’ll go down directly.”

  Young master. She wondered whether Royd had made any announcement regarding Duncan. Then again, he wouldn’t have had to say a word for his crew to know exactly whose son Duncan was; just seeing father and son together was declaration enough.

  Bellamy accompanied her to the aft hatch. While he went on to the upper deck, she went down the stairs and back to the main cabin. She returned the journals and logs to the bookcase; she was closing the doors when she heard Duncan’s feet pattering down the stairs, then thundering along the corridor.

  She turned in time to catch him as he hurled himself against her.

  “Mama!” He flung his arms around her waist, tipped his head back, and smiled delightedly up at her. “We saw seals—big ones! And lots of gulls.”

  She couldn’t resist that smile. She ruffled his hair. “And have you been asking lots of questions?” She knew her son.

  “Endless questions.” Royd followed Duncan in; his tone was long-suffering, but his face was alight—as alight as Duncan’s.

  The large desk was their table; Isobel sat at one end while Duncan took the place at the front of the desk, facing Royd, who settled in his accustomed chair.

  While she smiled at Bellamy and complimented him on the finely sliced corned beef he set before them, she wondered what tack Royd’s calculating mind was taking with respect to Duncan. And herself. In the instant Royd had set eyes on Duncan, their lives—Duncan’s, hers, and Royd’s—had irreversibly changed.

  What she didn’t yet know was where that change had landed them. While she would have infinitely preferred to control everything to do with Duncan, now Royd knew of his existence, there was no point imagining she could sit back and hope that Royd would grow bored with the demands of parenthood and lose interest in his son.

  She’d told him she would never let anyone take Duncan from her, but from what she’d seen of their interactions, of Royd’s protectiveness and the patience he displayed in
dealing with Duncan’s incessant questions, Royd releasing Duncan to her sole care was not going to happen, either.

  They—she and Royd, and Duncan, too—were going to have to find common ground, but exactly what such ground might look like, at this stage, she couldn’t begin to guess.

  Duncan didn’t speak but applied himself assiduously to taking the edge from his ever-present hunger. Royd watched his son, studying Duncan while he, too, ate. Isobel watched them both, curious as to how they were getting on—curious to see how Royd managed. She’d definitely thrown him into deep water in terms of dealing with a son.

  Then again, in all contexts, Royd was an excellent swimmer.

  With the worst of his hunger assuaged, Duncan looked at Royd and started asking about ropes and knots.

  Royd answered easily.

  Isobel kept her attention on her plate.

  But eventually, Duncan looked at her. She felt his gaze, looked up, and, for once, couldn’t define the expression in his dark-brown eyes. Then he transferred his gaze to Royd. “You said you’re married to Mama. So what’s my name? My proper full name?”

  Royd’s gaze swung her way.

  She met it, but not knowing what he’d said to Duncan—and unable to dispute that, in a way, they were, indeed, married—she didn’t know what to say.

  Royd looked at Duncan and met his gaze levelly. “What name have you been going by?”

  “Duncan Carmody.”

  Royd nodded as if having expected that; he probably had. “Your full name is Duncan Carmody Carmichael Frobisher.” He glanced at her and arched a brow.

  When Duncan looked at her, she forced herself to nod. “Yes. That’s correct.” She met her son’s gaze. “That is your full name.”

  Silently, Duncan repeated the four words, then grinned. “Good.”

  He’d finished his meal; he set his cutlery down and reached for the apple Bellamy had left for him. Duncan crunched into the fruit, chewed, swallowed, then asked, “Can I go back on deck?”

  She’d eaten enough. Royd had cleaned his plate and was sitting back in his chair, observing. A touch unnerved by the apparent domesticity, she pointed to the glass in front of Duncan. “Finish your milk, and then we’ll go up.”

  Duncan seized the glass, drained it, then he grabbed his napkin and wiped off the resulting milky mustache. “I’m ready.”

  She rose; so, too, did Royd. She followed Duncan from the cabin, and Royd followed her.

  Once again, she retreated to the bench in the bow, and while watching Royd and Duncan, revisited the questions to which she still lacked answers.

  Royd opted to leave the wheel in Liam Stewart’s care and spent the next half hour teaching Duncan a set of basic nautical knots. Eventually consigning Duncan to the tutelage of his bosun, Jolley, to learn more about where and when the different knots were used, Royd strolled to the bow.

  On reaching Isobel, he met her dark gaze, then turned and sat by her feet. He rested his forearms on his thighs and clasped his hands. “Well?”

  He was perfectly sure she had questions.

  “The mission you were sent on after we handfasted. You originally expected it to last only for a month or so. Why did it take so long?”

  He knew what he’d written in his journal. He’d reread it many times over the years, whenever the question of whether he could have done anything other than what he had—and thus not lost her—became too insistent and had to be, once again, put to rest. “The original mission was to infiltrate the court of the Dey of Algiers and confirm that he was capturing, holding, and eventually selling Europeans as slaves. In order to do that, I had to pose as a half-French emissary of an Arabic slave trader. I succeeded in getting access to the Dey’s slave pens—where I discovered over three thousand Europeans. That was a far larger number than anyone had imagined. Originally, I was supposed to simply learn the number and then get out and report to Exmouth, who was supposed to be at Gibraltar. But Exmouth came in early and stood off the port of Algiers, thinking to intimidate the Dey into releasing his European captives.”

  “And instead, the Dey dug in his heels.”

  He nodded. “Rather than report to Exmouth in person, I sent Liam Stewart—I wasn’t all that sure I could keep a civil tongue in my head, but more importantly, I couldn’t risk being seen and recognized boarding Exmouth’s ship. And with Exmouth flying the flag in such a bellicose fashion, I couldn’t risk taking The Corsair—which was masquerading as a corsair’s vessel—out of the harbor. But sending Liam turned out to be a miscalculation. Unknown to me, Exmouth had demanded and been given command over my mission. I hadn’t expected that, but it was around the time Dalziel—my previous commander—was pulling back. Whitehall assumed Exmouth would deal with the Dey without any great problem, and I was, after all, a privateer—giving an admiral command over my mission seemed appropriate to them. By sending Liam, I missed our only chance to retake the reins of the mission, at least as related to me and The Corsair. Liam was in a position to receive orders, but he wasn’t in a position to refuse orders, as I might have done.”

  “So it was Exmouth’s orders that kept you in Algiers?”

  “Initially. But the longer the stalemate went on, the more essential it became that I remained in position in the Dey’s court. Without the intelligence I provided, Exmouth had no way of knowing what was going on inside the walls—what was happening to the slaves, and what the Dey was planning.” He paused, then added, “It became impossible for me to pull back.”

  She’d read his notes; now she had the broader context. He waited, knowing the most critical of her questions was yet to come.

  Eventually, she said, “You dithered over sending me a letter. You never dither.”

  He snorted. She was right. But over that... “Once I realized I was stuck, and the negotiations between the Dey and Exmouth looked set to drag on for months, I wanted to write, at least to let you know that I was unavoidably detained. But by then the blockade was increasingly tense. I couldn’t leave the city—by then, I couldn’t easily leave the palace. My men were running messages out to Exmouth. While The Corsair could slip out of the harbor—the fleet knew her and would have let her past—she wouldn’t have been able to sail in again, not without being marked as an enemy, along with all those on her.” He paused, remembering. “Several of my crew—Stewart, Bellamy, Jolley, and others—offered to take a letter and, using a rowboat, slide around the blockade in order to get the letter out to you. They would have had to go to Gibraltar. But the French were hanging off, beyond the fleet, looking to make mischief. They didn’t dare bother Exmouth, especially as he had the Dutch fleet at his back, but if the French had intercepted a letter from me, as me, to you...they would have taken great delight in informing the Dey as to whom, exactly, he was entertaining.”

  “The risk was too great.”

  He looked at his clasped hands. “My life, my crew’s lives, and the lives of over three thousand captives—that was what hung in the balance.” He wasn’t overstating the matter. “I had to let all notion of contacting you go.”

  And he’d believed she’d loved him enough to overlook his silence.

  In retrospect, that had been his biggest miscalculation, but even now, he couldn’t imagine doing anything other than what he’d done.

  “Exmouth bombarded Algiers in late August.” He may as well give her the complete picture. “All the targets in the city that were hit were ones I’d identified—the armory, the magazine, the barracks. The Dey capitulated and surrendered the European slaves. But he sent out only just over a thousand—those from one set of pens. So I had to remain until we got all the Europeans released. It took until March the following year. Only once that was done was I free to drop my disguise, reboard The Corsair, and sail home.”

  In what had turned into a very bitter victory.

  Minutes ticked p
ast. Neither of them spoke. The bow rose and fell; water susurrated against the sides as the prow cleaved through the waves.

  She stirred. “Looking back at what happened...it was inevitable in the circumstances. It was no one’s fault.”

  A few days ago, he wouldn’t have agreed, but after hearing her version of events... “Inevitable because you didn’t know why I’d stayed away.”

  “Yes.” Isobel hesitated, but she’d always wondered about what had happened next. “And you didn’t try to explain. After I told you to go away, you walked away and left it at that.”

  “No.” For the first time since he’d sat by her feet, he turned his head and, frowning, met her gaze. “I tried twice to see you—precisely to explain.”

  She frowned back. “When?”

  “The first time was two days after. It took me that long to...convince myself I had to speak to you.” He faced forward. “That I needed to make you understand.” He paused, then said, “I was met at the door by one of your older cousins. She told me in no uncertain terms that you didn’t want to see me.”

  A chill touched her heart. In a low voice, she said, “I never knew you’d come.”

  He looked down at his clasped hands. “I thought perhaps you were still in a snit—I tried again a week later. Another cousin turned me away with a flea in my ear.”

  She looked at Duncan, sitting cross-legged beside Jolley and busily knotting rope. “They were trying to protect me—they knew about Duncan.”

  A shudder ran through Royd’s large frame. She glanced at him; he was staring at his linked hands. His fingers were gripping hard, then abruptly they eased. In a low, almost tortured voice, he said, “I’d been the central cog in a long and difficult mission—I’d saved three thousand lives and got away with my crew and myself unharmed. I was...a hero by anyone’s standards, yet you didn’t want to know. That’s how I saw it.”

  His chest swelled.

  Her gaze locked on his profile, she didn’t expect him to say more, yet she waited, breath bated...

  “I was so damned hurt! No, worse—it felt like a wound, a stab wound more deadly than any I’d ever taken.” His voice was raw, his tone harsh. “You were the only one I’d ever let so close—you were the only one who could ever have hurt me like that. And you did.”