Wind and the Sea

by Marsha Canham

  “It is probably well past breakfast,” she murmured.

  “Probably.”

  “Do you think the captain might wonder what has become of us?”

  “Undoubtedly.” His hand slid up to her nape and brought her lips forward to meet his. “And if he did come looking for us, and if he stood outside the door for any length of time—" his other hand skimmed along her ribs— “then he knows exactly what has become of us. Poor Mr. Lansing; his hopes will be dashed.”

  “Poor Senorita del Fuega,” she countered evenly. “Although her duenna should say her beads a thousand times in gratitude that her innocent charge has been saved from such a lustful beast.”

  “Lustful?” he mused, and warm hands were suddenly turning her, rolling with her, guiding her beneath him on the narrow cot. “Me?”

  “Are you not even hungry?” she asked, laughing softly.

  “Ravenous,” he admitted, and his lips moved into the curve of her throat.

  Courtney sighed and arched her head back into the bedding, exposing more of her neck to his roving lips. She was well beyond feigning any resistance; she simply closed her eyes and squirmed deliciously with the sensations he sent tingling through her body.

  “I suppose it would be foolish to suggest that we should try to avoid one another for the rest of the voyage,” she murmured.

  “You would not have much success,” he agreed, then lifted his head to frown at her. “Why? Have I run out of ways to please you already?”

  “No. No, I just...I mean...you are a returning hero. You do have a fiancée waiting for you, do you not? The last thing you need is rumors and scandal following you off the ship.”

  His eyes were inscrutable as they sought hers. “Do you think it matters to me what a few gossips say?”

  “It did at one time,” she answered quietly. “You were quite explicit when you pointed out my shortcomings. I distinctly recall your lifting your nose when you called me ill-bred and smelling of a slops jar.”

  “The circumstances were a little different,” he reminded her.

  “Perhaps the circumstances, yes, but I still fall well short of anyone's notion of a refined, genteel lady. I cannot dance. I cannot sing or play the pianoforte. I stab my fingers when I try to sew anything other than a canvas sail. I barely know which is the front of a dress and which is the back. I would much rather go barefoot then squeeze my feet into shoes, and I have almost as many scars on my body as you do.”

  Adrian considered the imploring emerald gaze for a long moment then smoothed back the fine spray of dishevelled curls from her neck. Any argument she was expecting was quelled by the gently exploring lips.

  “I was never fond of dancing myself,” he said between nibbles. “And you should not belittle your voice until you have heard mine. As for your loathing for dresses, madam, or shoes, or clothing of any kind...at this precise moment, I applaud it.”

  “Nevertheless, I am the daughter of Duncan Farrow, and you are Captain Adrian Ballantine—not only a naval hero, but a member of a wealthy, prominent family. You know full well, regardless of how we feel, we will have to go our separate ways when we arrive in Norfolk.”

  The nuzzling stopped, and the dishevelled blond head lifted again.

  “I know no such thing.”

  “Adrian...I still have to find my father. Nothing has changed. My reasons for going to Virginia are the same as they were on board the Falconer.”

  “Your father? Courtney—” His brow creased with a gentle frown and she pressed her cool fingertips against his lips to forestall the next obvious statement.

  “You think he is dead. I do not. I never have, not for one moment.”

  “The Wild Goose was captured and destroyed. Even Shaw told you that.”

  “You thought the Falconer was destroyed,” she reminded him. “And yet she magically appeared on the horizon to fight the Eagle.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “No buts, Yankee. Shaw told me he saw the Goose burn and he told me he found no trace of Duncan. He assumed my father was dead, just as he will no doubt assume I died back in the cove.”

  “Courtney—”

  "At least you know my name now," she noted as she wriggled out of his embrace. She slid off the berth and plucked the first garment she saw off the floor—his linen shirt—and pulled it over her head.

  “I know Duncan Farrow is alive. I can feel it...in here.” She pressed her fist to her chest. “And I am not going to stop looking for him, or for the man who betrayed him.”

  Adrian sat up and swung his legs over the side of the berth. His hair fell across his face and he raked it back angrily with his fingers. “And just how the hell do you propose to do that by yourself, in a strange country, with no money and no resources?”

  “I have money. I sold that horrid ring and have more than enough to meet my needs. Nor will I be doing it by myself. Davey Dunn will help me. He is as convinced as I am that Duncan is still alive. You asked me once what Seagram said to me on the deck of the Eagle just before he died. Well, he told me to find Duncan, to keep believing my father was alive, because no one could have killed the Seawolf that easily, not even Garrett Shaw.”

  Adrian’s attention was startled away from the arguments forming in his mind. “What did you just say?”

  “I did not say it, Seagram did. He believed Father was alive and I think he was trying to tell me that Garrett was the one who betrayed us.” Courtney turned her back while she poured a cup of water from the pitcher. “Seagram told me to find Seawolf. It was the last thing he said before he died.”

  “Seawolf?”

  Courtney offered him the cup, then took a sip when he shook his head. “Years ago, when we were in France and Father needed a way of sending messages to my mother, he sent them encoded and signed 'Seawolf.' He did the same thing later, in order to confuse anyone who might intercept messages between himself and Garrett or Verart. They all had code names: Verart was the 'Beast', because of the boar's head tatooed on his chest. Garrett was ‘Cobra’; and Duncan was the 'Serpent'.”

  “I thought you just said Duncan used the name ‘Seawolf.’”

  "In France, yes. But he never used the name once he moved to Snake Island. He said it hurt too much to be reminded of Mother.”

  She offered the cup again and this time Adrian accepted it and drank, if only to cover the perplexity that was clouding his thoughts.

  “What is it? What is wrong?” she asked, seeing his frown.

  “Nothing,” he said, his brow clearing. “Nothing is wrong. I would just hate to see you put your heart and soul into something that might, in the end, only bring you a good deal of pain. Or worse, if is true that Garrett Shaw is in the hunt as well, it could get you killed."

  She tilted her head, looking at him. "You of all people should be able to understand why I have to do this. You went back for Falworth, did you not?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you found him?”

  Harshly: “Yes. I found him, but I do not see what Falworth has to do with any of this.”

  “If you had been forced to leave the ship without settling with him and if you discovered later that he was still alive, would you have been able to just shut your eyes and walk away? Would you have been content to put an ocean between the two of you and simply forget what he did to you, to your men, to your ship? Because that is what you are suggesting I do. You are suggesting I walk away and forget about the man who betrayed my father and my friends. I am not so entirely naive as to think it impossible that Father is, indeed, dead. But I will damned if I let Garrett Shaw steal everything my father worked so hard to build.”

  The blood was pounding in Adrian’s temples as he stared into the unwavering green eyes. Dear God, those eyes. He had been wary of them from the very beginning, suspecting they could cut deeper than any knife. He had thought them dangerous then; he considered them deadly now. How long could he hope to hide the truth from her? Duncan Farrow was Seawolf, and Seawolf was the code nam
e of the man who had been selling information to the American navy.

  It made no sense, and yet the more he played it through his mind, the more logical it became. Farrow wanted out of the game—Courtney had admitted as much. He had not taken her or his brother Verart on the final doomed run through the blockade and again, by a later admission, Courtney had said both she and Verart were supposed to have sailed to Algiers. If they had not delayed, they would have been away from Snake Island when the Eagle had attacked. And since Duncan Farrow had no way of knowing they had not left the island, he would have had no reason to show himself to the Falconer when Shaw had searched for survivors at Moknine.

  Oh yes, he thought savagely as he looked at Courtney. He believed her now. He believed the bastard was still alive and had planned to make a clean break by having both his ships destroyed in the trap at Moknine, leaving no witnesses behind. Further, he had likely planned to pick his daughter and his brother up in Algiers and take them to America with him.

  But what were Farrow's contingency plans if she were to discover the truth? There had been too much naked pain in Courtney's eyes for Adrian to believe she had any idea that Farrow was the Judas. When she found out, would Farrow kill her as cold-bloodedly, as ruthlessly as he had planned the deaths of all other witnesses?

  “Adrian?”

  “What?” He blinked the rage out of his eyes with an effort. “Forgive me, I was thinking about the ironies: two sides, two traitors. And you are right. I would not have been able to turn my back. I will not turn it now. The man you are after played as big a part in destroying the Eagle as Otis Falworth did, and I want to find him just as badly as you do.”

  Courtney’s eyes widened. “You mean you will help me? You will help me find the man who betrayed us?”

  "I will help you,” he said evenly. “Providing you trust me. Trust me and believe me when I say I will never deliberately do anything to hurt you again.”

  “I believe you," she said promptly.

  He reached out and cradled her face in his hands. "I am serious. You need to trust me."

  She hesitated a moment, then nodded. "I do. I will."

  “If your father is alive, and if he has managed to get to Norfolk, how would you go about making contact?"

  “Through a barrister. His name is Prendergast.”

  “A friend?”

  “It was just a name Verart whispered when he was giving me instructions on the beach, although it was not hard to remember. Prendergast was Duncan’s mother’s maiden name.”

  “A relative then?”

  “No. At least, I have no reason to think so. It was just a habit my father had, to associate names with things out of the past.”

  “I see. What were you supposed to do? Just walk in to this barrister’s office and introduce yourself as Courtney Farrow?”

  "I am to give him the name ‘Longford’.”

  “Longford has some significance also?”

  “It is the name of the county in Ireland where Father was born.”

  “Does anyone else know about this?”

  “Everyone but me, it seems,” she said dryly. “Verart and Seagram knew, and Davey Dunn. Garrett suspected Father had been doing something with his profits, but I do not think he had all the pieces of the puzzle until Miranda threw in with him.”

  “Why Miranda?’

  “Because Miranda used to interpret captured documents and manifests from prize ships. She speaks, or understands, at least four languages besides English and was often left alone for hours at Duncan’s desk to sort through papers. I remember a violent argument they had once when Duncan found her going through his personal papers. If he had any correspondence with Prendergast—” she shrugged and left the sentence unfinished.

  “They could both be going to Norfolk to look for your father,” Adrian suggested, but Courtney shook her head.

  “Garrett is firmly convinced Duncan is dead, otherwise he would not have been so cocky with the ship, with the crew...with me. He is going to America because he thinks there is a vast fortune to be had.”

  “Surely he made his own vast fortune along with Duncan all these years.”

  “Money falls straight through Garrett’s fingers. And now that the Falconer is gone, he cannot even do what he does best, not until he finds a way to buy another ship.”

  Adrian was quietly thoughtful for a few moments, his fingers straying to stroke absently through the shiny auburn curls.

  “Twice you have mentioned this hidden wealth. It must be sizable for so many people to be chasing after it.”

  “I honestly do not know,” she said. “Both Verart and Davey implied that Duncan had been trying to establish himself as a respectable businessman in America—to buy land, build a home, settle down. I know he was tired of the killing and bloodshed, and of Garrett’s insistence that they attack more and more ships. I have never really thought about it, until recently, but looking back over the years, Duncan never spent much money. He bought things we needed, for the Island and for the ships, but he was never a showman like Garrett. He used to try to buy things for me, but even that stopped when he realized I was not interested in fancy clothes and jewels. Maybe that was why he kept his plans a secret. Maybe he thought I would have argued and refused to go.”

  “And would you have refused?”

  “I think the idea would have terrified me," she whispered softly. “Much as it does now if I think about it too much, which is why I have to concentrate, instead, on finding the traitor before he finds Duncan.”

  “You have someone in mind?”

  The large green eyes faltered and looked away. “Davey thinks it is Shaw. It did not seem possible at first, but with everything that has happened...” She looked up again. “I am starting to believe he may be right.”

  "Why Shaw?"

  “He and Verart were the only ones who would have known all of Duncan’s plans in advance: his raids, his schedules for running the blockades, his meetings with Karamanli. Even I was not privy to that knowledge.”

  “How the hell would he get the information off the island?”

  She sighed at how logical and obvious it all seemed now. “Garrett had contacts in Gibraltar and Tangiers and Casablanca. He claimed he had a contact in the British navy, and seemed to always come back from those places with valuable information.”

  “Damn,” Adrian muttered softly. “Then Shaw was the 'Englishman' Falworth spoke about.”

  “The Englishman?” Courtney frowned. “No. Garrett said his contact used the name ‘Englishman’. I assumed that was your Lieutenant Falworth. Especially since Garrett seemed to know him well enough on the Falconer.”

  Adrian raked his fingers through his hair again. “So, if Shaw is not the Englishman and Falworth claimed not to be—who the devil is?”

  “You told me once that the man your navy dealt with in Father’s camp used a code name?”

  It was Adrian’s turn to stare. He could not bring himself to tell her their contact had been 'Seawolf', not yet anyway. He blurted the first foolish name that came into his head; a nickname he had dredged out of his memory from childhood days.

  “Swordfish. We knew him only as Swordfish.”

  “Swordfish?” A shadow flickered behind her eyes, and the disappointment sagged heavily on her shoulders. “I do not remember ever hearing that.”

  Courtney's sigh echoed his own frustration and he brought his arms forward to wrap around her and his lips down to nuzzle in the soft auburn curls.

  Her answers had pointed out some nagging inconsistencies, things which had troubled him during his period of recuperation in the hospital when he had not had much to do but think. Everything had pointed to the fact that the naval leak came from someone in a high position of authority. That was why he had so readily believed it could be Jennings. But a clerk in the admiralty offices, even one with access to the commodore's order memos, was hardly likely to have information to sell as sensitive as that which had been finding its way into Duncan Fa
rrow’s hands.

  He was almost beginning to believe he had been wrong about Falworth too. The arrogant fool had boasted to Shaw that he was the spy and could help them escape, but it was possible that it was just his misfortune to have been convincing enough that Adrian believed him too.

  Shaw had been in possession of the most recent code book; he had given the correct responses to the raised signal flags on the Eagle. While Falworth’s cousin might have had access to blockade orders, he would not have been able to get his hands on sealed code books.

  And there was still Alan. Always Alan. Always the picture of the neat bluish puncture wound beneath his breastbone, something which only Adrian and Matthew Rutger had seen. It had been Matthew’s idea to let it stand on the log as an accident; to sit back and wait and watch for someone to make a mistake. But no one had. Not Falworth, not Jennings, not a single member of the Eagle’s crew. Until that time, Matthew had not known Adrian’s real mission on the Eagle, and for that bit of deception, Adrian had felt like a traitor himself for weeks.

  “Promise me something,” he whispered.

  “More promises, Yankee?” she murmured, tilting her head up.

  "The most important one. Promise me you will not go after Shaw on your own.”

  She arched an eyebrow and her voice mocked his concern. “Are you worried for my sake...or his?"

  He almost smiled. “I know all too well what you are capable of, Miss Farrow.”

  “Then I should be flattered?”

  “You should be careful. And you should not be too damned stubborn about using my help when it is offered. I do have some abilities of my own, you know.”

  “Indeed," she murmured. "You showed me quite a few of them last night."

  His gaze moved down to the moist, supple lips and remained there while her hands slipped down between their bodies.

  “I suspect we are not referring to the same abilities, Irish,” he murmured.

  She rose on tip toes and kissed him, her tongue darting between his lips, inviting his into a game of thrust and parry.