The Mysterious Merriana

by Carolynn Carey

  “I’ve sailed the seas for forty-five years now,” Captain Jonathan Daniels was saying, “and I’ve never seen a storm to match this one. The winds must have hit a hundred and fifty knots, and waves the size of mountains tossed us about like we was a bit of flotsam. The good Lord was looking out for us I reckon, because there’s no other way to explain why we ain’t at the bottom of Davy Jones’ Locker.”

  The captain took another swig of brandy, then shook his head. “I tell you, it was a sad day, Captain Weston. We survived, but we had to watch another ship go down and there wasn’t a damn thing we could do to help her or to rescue any of her crew. I won’t say I didn’t try, because I did, but there was no way on God’s blue sea that we could get close enough to pick up any of the poor souls who went in the water when she broke apart. By then our mainmast had splintered like it was a twig, and the waves kept pushing the two ships apart. I ain’t a sentimental man, but I don’t mind telling you that I nearly cried when I seen the kindling that ship had been reduced to. The next morning when the storm had blowed itself out, I sailed back to where she went down, hoping to find some survivors, but I never found anything but a few boards floating on top of the sea. That was all that was left of the Twilight Lady.”

  “The...Did you say Twilight Lady?”

  “Aye, Captain, that I did. We got close enough to see her name once before she broke apart. Now say, you don’t look so good. Could it be that you was acquainted with somebody that sailed on that unfortunate vessel?”

  Damien could feel the blood draining from his face. He stared for a few seconds at the amber liquid half filling the glass he held in a hand that was no longer quite steady. He set the glass down, carefully, on the table before him.

  A frown deepened the lines in the old seaman’s forehead. “Captain Weston? Are ye all right, lad?”

  “Yes, I’m all right.” A few seconds passed before Damien could look up into his guest’s eyes. He blinked, trying to re-establish some contact with reality, then lowered his gaze again.

  Captain Daniels sighed. “It’s right sorry I am, Captain Weston, for I can see I’ve brought ye unwelcome tidings. I would have broke it more gentle like, had I known that—”

  “Never mind,” Damien interrupted. “You could not have known, sir. But, as you surmise, I did have acquaintances on board the Twilight Lady. You’re positive, beyond any doubt, that there were no survivors?”

  The older man shook his head. “I wish I could give ye hope, Captain, but I would be lying if I did. Not a soul on that ship could have survived. I would stake my reputation on that.”

  “Then I shall have to return to London. There are people in England who have a right to know about what’s occurred, and it’s my place to inform them. Would you like a friendly escort, Captain Daniels, for your return to port?”

  “I would welcome it, Captain Weston, more than I can say. I’ll sleep better tonight, knowing that the Diamond Queen will be near should we have need of her. Now, I had best return to my own ship.”

  The visitor rose and Damien walked with him into the cool breeze and to the rail where his own jolly boat waited to return the captain to his crippled ship.

  Damien’s next chore was to search out Moses and Price. The two men made no comment beyond “Aye, Cap’n” when they learned that the Diamond Queen was once again sailing into an English port, nor had Damien expected them to. Still, he wasn’t a man to issue unconventional orders without explaining his reasons and this he did in a matter-of-fact voice that probably told both men far more than he might have wished about the anguish he was enduring that night.

  The stars had come out, thousands of tiny pricks of cold and distant light, before Damien stopped pacing the deck and sought the sanctuary of his cabin. Horace was waiting for him, seated comfortably in Damien’s large armchair and sipping a glass of brandy. He jumped to his feet when Damien entered the cabin.

  “I heard we’re goin’ back to London,” the little man commented grimly, “and I heard why. If ye’re grieving, lad, and want to talk, well I’m here. If ye want to be alone, then I’m gone.”

  Damien’s lips tilted and the bleakness in his heart was replaced with a warmth few men could elicit. “You might as well stay, you old reprobate. You haven’t finished your drink yet.”

  Horace stared for a few seconds into Damien’s face and, seemingly reassured by what he saw there, wearily lowered his frame back into the chair. “May God forgive me,” he sighed, “but I can’t mourn their passing. I’ve tried, since I heard the news, and I can’t do it. But I know ye can and do. And I know why ye’re going back to England. Ye want to tell Merriana and Charles that they have nothing left to fear from yer family. And it’s right ye should do so. Your cousins deserve that, after all yer father and sister and her no-good husband, Luc, tried to do to them.”

  “Yes,” Damien agreed. “They deserve that. But I’m not planning to look for Merriana and Charles. I’ll find Justin and tell him. He’ll relay the news to my cousins.”

  “And who might this Justin be?”

  “That right—you didn’t meet him at the time we scotched Luc’s last plot. You were too busy trying to repair the wounds Luc had inflicted on Charles. Justin was part of the rescue team, along with Tom, the big fellow you grew so fond of.”

  “That still don’t explain why ye’re going to tell this Justin fellow instead of going straight to yer cousins.”

  “Justin, who is the present Earl of Cardleigh, is engaged to Merriana. He’s also aware of all that she’s suffered, thanks to the machinations of my family. Justin will understand why their deaths are a reprieve for Merriana and Charles, and he’ll know the proper way and time to relay the news to them.”

  Horace gulped the last of his brandy and set his glass down hard on the table. “I’ve never known ye to be a coward before, lad, and I hate to see ye start now. But ye can’t fool me. I know the real reason ye don’t want to see Merriana and Charles is because ye’ll likely find them with your uncle, the Duke of Daughrity, and ye don’t want to meet him.”

  Damien narrowed his eyes as he locked his gaze with that of his oldest friend. “What do you expect of me, Horace?” he asked, his voice tight. “I’m a man, not a damn stone as you sometimes seem to assume. What would you have me do—waltz up to my uncle Sylvester’s door and announce that the son of his oldest enemy seeks an audience? Do you think I can look that old man in the face, knowing as I do that my father has wished him and everyone he loved—including their own sister—dead for the last thirty years and more? Well, do you?”

  Horace picked up his empty glass and reached for the decanter. He poured himself another inch of the amber liquid and regarded it carefully before responding. Finally he spoke. “Ye forget, lad, that I knew the present duke when he was a young man, younger than ye are today. Ye remind me of him, much more than ye ever did of yer own father, and I think ye underestimate your uncle Sylvester. I can’t see him faulting you for the sins of his brother. Still, it’s yer choice to make, and I’ve had my say. I’ll not try to persuade ye to do what ye don’t want to do.”

  “That’s just as well,” Damien replied tersely, “for you’d not succeed. In spite of my father’s sins, I don’t perceive myself to be in debt to the duke, nor do I feel that the duke is under any obligation to me. I prefer to keep it that way. So the information I have to impart will be to the Earl of Cardleigh, not to my uncle or cousins, and Justin can pass the word along to them in my stead. My mind’s made up on that, Horace, and you may as well accept it.”

  “Aye, lad, that I will. Ye’re a man who knows his own mind, and I be forgetting that sometimes. I hope ye’ll forgive an old man’s meddling ways.”

  Damien’s anger fizzled as though it had been doused with half the waters of the Atlantic, and a smile brushed his lips. “It be true,” he agreed, fondly imitating Horace’s speech patterns, “that ye’re a meddling old man. But I be a hot-blooded young fool, and I ask yer pardon for my sharp tongue. Now get out of here
, you old reprobate, and let a man get some rest. We’ve got some busy days ahead.”

  But Damien didn’t rest that evening, at least not easily, for his mind kept retreating to happier days many years earlier. Days when his mother still lived and his father’s obsessions had not yet gained total control over his ambitions. Days when his sister, Jennie, had been young and unsullied by the heinous evil that hid behind the gorgeous exterior of the man she’d married. Days when there had still been some hope for them all.

  But those days were past, and Damien, as the sole living member of that family unit, now faced all of his remaining days alone. His hopes for redeeming his family had died with the Twilight Lady, and the future that stretched on and on before him held promises only of loneliness and futility.

  But he would do what had to be done, and first that meant finding the Earl of Cardleigh. Then there was some business across the seas that demanded his attention. And after that? Meaningless, barren years for as far into the future as he could see.

  He suddenly felt old and empty and very, very alone.

  CHAPTER TWO

  June 1813, the English countryside

  Antonia Marie Lansford was alone and she was bored—a dangerous combination and a certain invitation to trouble, as anyone who was really acquainted with that young lady could have predicted. But few people could fathom the workings of Antonia’s mind and thus would not have foreseen the outcome of her solitary stay in the country.

  Certainly her mother, the Dowager Countess of Cardleigh, could not have been faulted for sending Antonia back to the schoolroom at Hilltops when the wedding festivities for her stepbrother were over. After all, the countess firmly believed that her youngest child still needed the services of a governess. Had anyone pointed out to the countess that this “child” was nearing eighteen years of age, she would have been astonished.

  It was not that the countess was an uncaring parent. On the contrary, she perceived herself to be a doting mother to her three girls, never dreaming that the youngest had combined her sharp intellect with an exceptional talent for manipulation to convince her mother that she was obedient, respectful, and much younger than her actual years.

  Antonia was aware that her older sisters, Fanny and Susan, might have convinced their mother to allow Antonia to stay in London while they shopped for new gowns for the current Season (a matter of necessity since neither of the girls had “taken” during previous seasons). They, however, had as little desire for the company of their younger sibling as she had for theirs. After all, she was the brat who made fun of them when they practiced batting their eyes in front of a mirror and who wrinkled her nose every time either of them mentioned one of her gentleman callers. Now, to heap insult upon injury, these same gentlemen callers were beginning to cast appreciative eyes toward Antonia, who was blessed with their late father’s small bone structure and dark good looks as opposed to the more robust features that the two older girls had inherited from their mother. No, Fanny and Susan were not at all displeased to see Antonia sent back to Hilltops.

  Antonia admitted to herself that if her stepbrother, Justin, the Earl of Cardleigh, had not been so preoccupied, he no doubt would have recommended that his stepmother keep Antonia close to her skirts. But Justin had just married his beloved Merriana and the two were away on their honeymoon.

  So Antonia sat alone in her bedchamber at Hilltops, bored, lonely, and—yes, she would admit it—jealous. All of the talk in London preceding Justin’s and Merriana’s wedding had been of the adventures those two and others of Antonia’s acquaintance had shared in recent weeks. Merriana, in an absolute surfeit of adventure, had had her life endangered on more than one occasion, and Justin had risked his own life in order to save her. Even Tom, the staid innkeeper from the nearby Drake and Cock, had reveled in an adventure on the high seas.

  And what had Antonia been doing while her family and friends were enjoying these life-threatening ordeals? The answer could only fill one of her temperament with disgust. She had been sitting in the schoolroom at Hilltops with her governess trying to improve her sketching abilities.

  She sat now on the edge of her bed, swinging her legs. The heels of her slippers made loud thumps as they encountered the wooden bed rail, but there was no one to hear them except for the large hound named Geoffrey who was relaxing on the hearth rug. The thumping noises had at first caused Geoffrey to raise his head to look around the room, but once he’d isolated the source of those sounds, he relaxed and rested his head on the rug again.

  Antonia sighed. “You know, Geoffrey, I’m beginning to regret the occasion when I convinced Mother that the air in London doesn’t agree with me.”

  The hound twitched his ears and Antonia sighed again. “Still,” she added, “it was fun at the time. If I hadn’t made Mother believe I was unwell, she would never have sent me back to Hilltops and I could never have trailed Justin and Merriana to Portsmouth, and I would never have enjoyed even that one small adventure.”

  A smile of pride tugged at her lips. “Did you see me that day, Geoffrey, when I dressed in Justin’s old clothes and rode Blossom all the way to Portsmouth? I’ll admit everyone was rather angry with me, but it was worth it. I was actually there when Merriana’s evil uncle tried to kidnap her.”

  Geoffrey yawned.

  “What do you know, you silly dog? All you care about is sleeping and eating and occasionally chasing a cat or rabbit. Some adventure that! Then, if you get bored, you simply go to sleep. Well, humans can’t sleep twenty hours out of every twenty-four the way you do. When I get bored, I don’t want to sleep. I want to do something new and exciting and daring. I want to try new things, meet new people, see new places. Much you care for that. And much you seem to care that I’m stuck here at Hilltops and will likely never get to do anything exciting or adventurous again.”

  Geoffrey had dozed off, much to Antonia’s disgust, so she removed one of her soft satin shoes and threw it at him. It landed so close to his nose that he aroused, sniffed it, and—apparently deciding that the flying object posed no immediate danger—promptly dozed back off again.

  Antonia moaned and then slid off her bed, mumbling to herself. “I did so enjoy dressing in Justin’s old clothes and riding astride like a real boy. I think I looked very realistic. Nobody guessed that I was a female until Justin saw me. I bet I could do the same thing again if I wanted to.”

  A wide grin suddenly brightened Antonia’s face as she ran over to the large chest of drawers that stood in one corner of her chamber. A few moments of scrounging uncovered what she had just remembered hiding there behind a torn chemise some weeks before—two extra sets of clothing from Justin’s teen years. She had smuggled these down from the attic the same day she had retrieved the outfit she’d worn to Portsmouth.

  Antonia glanced at her mantel clock. The late summer day was fading into dusk. Her governess would have finished her dinner by now and was probably in her chamber, deeply engrossed in one of the Minerva Press novels that lady loved so much. None of the servants would have reason to enter Antonia’s room at this hour. So why not?

  As she slipped out of her dress, Antonia glanced down at her chest with an irritated frown. As she knew from experience, her unfortunately large bosom would too amply fill out the linen shirt that went with Justin’s old beige breeches. But she knew what to do. Grasping the already-torn chemise, she ripped a wide strip from that garment, knowing she could use it to bind her extremely inconvenient breasts, thus flattening her chest so that it would fit into the shirt properly.

  Binding herself was a bit awkward, but she at last achieved a reasonably good facsimile of a flat chest. The shirt fit perfectly. Next came the trousers, which were too long but effectively hid the half boots she’d substituted for her slippers, and then the jacket, which fit as though it had been made for her.

  Antonia surveyed herself in the mirror and smiled. She would look just like a boy were it not for the brown curls that tumbled onto her shoulders. That problem she s
oon remedied by sneaking into the attic and scrounging until she found an old hat that must once have belonged to her late stepfather. It was a bit large on her, but that enabled her to tuck all of her hair up inside it.

  After slipping back to her chamber, Antonia stood in front of the mirror and regarded her reflection with pride. The attic dust that now smudged her nose and forehead enhanced the effect she sought. Her disguise, she felt sure, would allow her to pass as a boy with anyone who didn’t know her as Antonia. Unfortunately, she had no way to test her theory. Everyone for miles around knew Antonia on sight.

  She was already reaching to remove the hat when she heard the approaching rider. There was little doubt in her mind that she was the only person at Hilltops to be aware of the impending arrival. Not only was she the sole resident of the house to occupy a room that faced the front drive, but she was also the person with the most acute hearing.

  But who would be visiting Hilltops at this hour? The day was much too advanced for neighbors to be calling—unless something was wrong. Antonia darted to the window and looked down into the drive.

  A sole horse approached, ridden by a man Antonia could see little of in the fading light. Nevertheless, familiar as she was with every mount within a twenty-mile radius, it was easy enough for her to conclude that this horse and rider were not from the immediate neighborhood. Never one to ignore a natural bent toward curiosity, she determined to be the first in the house to learn the stranger’s business, and that meant that she must reach him before he could reach the front door.

  It took only seconds for Antonia to slip into the hallway and scamper down the stairs that led to a side door. Once outside, she sprinted down the raked gravel walkway that enabled her to reach the drive and dash out in front of the horse and rider.

  The man pulled his mount to an abrupt halt and stared down at Antonia with raised brows. She stared back. The stranger appeared relatively young, but there was something about the way he held his shoulders that spoke of age not measured in years but in experience.