The Dukes of War: Complete Collection

by Ridley, Erica

Her stomach grumbled. Clara quickly made her way to the mess tables.

  She could have had anything she wished sent to the cabin instead—Mr. Steele had left standing orders that his meal privileges and private cook were to be extended to her as well—but after months of solitary confinement, she would much rather break her fast amongst a rowdy group of sailors than to spend one more moment trapped in a lonely chamber.

  The boatswain was already seated at the mess tables when she descended the hatchway.

  “Siren,” he muttered under his breath, and pushed a crust of bread toward the sole empty place setting.

  “Good morning, Barnaby,” she answered cheerfully as she took her place at the opposite side of the table. She had no idea if “Barnaby” was his surname or his Christian name, but he was unlikely to be offended by any lack in polite manners.

  A tea setting along with two sugar cubes stood next to her empty plate as they did every morning. As she buttered the crust of bread the boatswain had passed her, the kettle began to screech.

  “I’ll fetch it,” said one of the swabs, whose duties Clara was absolutely certain did not include tea-pouring.

  Nonetheless, she thanked him for his kindness and set about fixing her tea.

  “’Tis a splendid thing I only take one cup of tea in the mornings,” she teased as she breathed in the fresh aroma. “With these rations, I’d have to use far less sugar.” She gave a dramatic shiver. “The horror.”

  Marlowe, the sailing master, raised an eyebrow in her direction. “You’re the only one who gets them rations, miss. Rest of us suffer along.”

  Clara was so pleased at being called miss—despite her youth, having a grown daughter at home limited the opportunity—that at first she didn’t register the rest of the sailing master’s words. She turned to him in surprise. “Pirates keep sugar cubes on hand in case ladies visit?”

  “Not ladies.” Barnaby swilled the last of his tea. “You.”

  She bared her teeth to acknowledge the slight, then turned her questioning gaze toward the sailing master.

  Marlowe shrugged. “They’re supposed to be for Blackheart’s tea. Now we leave them here for you. Captain’s orders.”

  She tilted her head in confusion. Other than keeping her next to him every night with a protective arm locked tight about her midriff, Mr. Steele was often too busy during the day to have time to spare for conversation. She was surprised he even knew how she took her tea. They hadn’t breakfasted together since…the inn.

  He was not indifferent to her after all.

  Clara dropped her gaze back to her teacup as warmth spread through her. The idea that an arrogant, overbearing pirate would sacrifice his limited personal resources just to ensure his captive’s tea was to her liking was…disarmingly romantic.

  When the men stood to resume their posts, she followed Barnaby and Marlowe up to the front of the ship, then hesitated behind the mast. Mr. Steele was at the helm, his hands on the spokes of the wheel.

  He was breathtaking in the morning light. The salty breeze ruffled thick dark hair that was getting long enough to curl at the ends. His pose was casual, but his musculature and his height lent him the appearance of coiled power. He hadn’t shaved since leaving America, and his strong jaw was now covered with a short black beard, the side whiskers of which were sprinkled with salt-and-pepper.

  She shouldn’t be attracted to him. A gentleman would keep his face clear of whiskers. A gentleman’s teeth wouldn’t flash white against sun-bronzed skin when he smiled. A gentleman wouldn’t steer a schooner with an unlit cigar clamped between his teeth as morning broke overhead.

  A gentleman wouldn’t have rescued her from her own prison and manipulated her aboard a pirate ship in order to reunite her with her daughter.

  She couldn’t help but find him attractive and shameless and impossible and intriguing.

  And dangerous, she reminded herself firmly. After her husband’s death, Clara had spent decades crafting a bland life and a safe world for herself and her daughter. The last person she needed to let into her life was a pirate.

  Being anywhere near him or his ship was inherently perilous. Caring about him from afar would be just as dangerous. She’d already experienced the devastating loss of her beloved husband. Sending Grace across the ocean had been equally as bad. The last thing Clara needed was to develop feelings of any sort for someone who was guaranteed to leave her. Willfully or on accident, he could disappear at any time.

  Long absences at sea. Deadly skirmishes. Threat of prison, of the hangman’s noose, of shipwreck and disease. Blackheart was the worst possible match in every conceivable way.

  Match? For heaven’s sake. She could admire his form and enjoy the warmth of his proximity at night without being so foolish as to get her heart involved.

  The voyage was almost over. She would simply treat the rest of this journey like the grand adventure it was.

  A fortnight ago, she’d been alone in her empty cottage, coughing into a threadbare pillow. Today, she’d watched the sun rise over the ocean and then breakfasted with pirates. ’Twas a holiday to remember. The most fun she’d had in years.

  She stepped out from behind the mast and crossed over to the rails, from which she could watch Mr. Steele and his crew.

  Because her only other experience at sea was the crowded passenger liner she’d taken to America twenty-two years earlier, her knowledge of pirates was limited to stories she’d read and the occasional article in the local newspaper.

  According to lore, a pirate crew was a dirty, foul-mouthed mob of barefoot heathens with razor-sharp cutlasses clenched between their few remaining teeth, dressed in torn clothes or colorful rags that were rotting off their skin from a piratical disinclination to bathe.

  Mr. Steele’s crew certainly took deep satisfaction in stringing together so much sailors’ cant and bawdy epithets that it was almost its own language, but that’s where the similarity ended. Most of the men were grubby by nightfall due to a long day of cleaning or cooking or carpentry and other tasks, but they otherwise looked shockingly…normal.

  “Tell me, gentlemen,” she called out, propping her elbows on the rails. “How long have you been pirates? None of you have earrings. Or an eyepatch. And no one’s missing any hands or legs.”

  Mr. Steele shot her a quelling look. “Difficult to steer with hooks for hands, don’t you think?”

  She smiled back at him innocently. “I imagine it would be difficult for a sailor to do many things with hooks for hands.”

  “Of course we ’ave eyepatches,” Barnaby cut in. “We only wear them when we need to. Like boarding a ship.”

  She straightened her spine with interest. “Eyepatches aid in boarding vessels?”

  “They aid in not going blind when you drop from the sun to a lower deck. Switch the patch from one side to the other, and your other eye sees clear as day.”

  Clara stared at him, impressed. That was a far more logical explanation for the proliferation of eyepatches aboard pirate ships than to assume they were all so incompetent as to routinely get their eyes poked out—and yet proficient enough to then vanquish their opponent rather than perish in the battle.

  “May I have an eyepatch?” she asked Blackheart.

  He didn’t even glance away from the wheel. “No.”

  “But what if we need to board a vessel?” she asked in a reasonable voice. “I don’t want to be the only one who goes blind from the shock of sun to darkness.”

  “You needn’t worry.” He gave her a placid smile. “If we so much as see another ship, I’m locking you in the cabin.”

  She didn’t doubt it. “How many ships have you snuck onto?”

  Marlowe grinned. “Countless.”

  “We don’t sneak,” Barnaby countered. “Ain’t had to. Had the King’s blessing, we did. Letter of marque from the crown.”

  She leaned forward, intrigued. “You were privateers?”

  “Until the end of the war.” Barnaby rapped his bread against t
he table. “Much more fun than slogging tents and munitions along the front lines.”

  Marlowe cast him an amused look. “Plus you had that bit o’ muslin over in Ramsgate, did you not?”

  “Frances,” Barnaby sighed happily.

  The sailing master chuckled. “Didn’t you have another mort in a tavern in Southampton?”

  “Ah, Leticia…” Barnaby wiggled his eyebrows. “Miss that dimber wench. Can’t we drop the siren off in Southampton, Cap’n?”

  “No.”

  “How about Ramsgate?”

  Steele glanced over his shoulder. “Don’t you have sails to inspect and supply stores to organize? It would be a shame if you missed tonight’s card games. I’ll be opening my best bottle of port.”

  Barnaby grumbled all the way to the ladder but winked at Clara before he disappeared down the hatchway.

  She couldn’t help but smile. Of course the crew enjoyed every minute of their adventures. Barnaby was older, but he no doubt felt young and indestructible and fearless every time they set sail. Clara couldn’t help but feel that way herself. Especially after believing for so long that her life was over.

  She leaned back against the rails and fixed her eyes on Mr. Steele. “Now that you’re no longer a government-licensed privateer, what guides you? Do you steal from the rich and give to the poor, like Robin Hood?”

  “Course not.” He wiggled his eyebrows at her above his cigar. “I would look foppish in that hat.”

  “We are the poor,” Marlowe put in. His lips quirked. “At least, we were before we joined Blackheart aboard the Dark Crystal. Have you any idea what Royal Navy wages are like?”

  She blinked in surprise. “You were a naval sailor?”

  Marlowe nodded. “We all were. Then we got keen. Best to work for oneself.”

  “More fun, fewer rules?” she guessed.

  “Blackheart has more rules than a nunnery,” the sailing master laughed. “No stealing anything of sentimental value. No nicking coin the cull can’t afford to lose. No killing anyone who ain’t actively trying to kill you. No borrowing rum from Blackheart’s private store if you want to keep your fingers. No females aboard the ship for any reason. Present company exempted, of course. We’re being paid to ferry you.”

  “No offense taken,” she assured him in a faint voice. She was just a package. A payday. She’d do well to remember that.

  Not that she had any wish to be otherwise. Their contract with the Earl of Carlisle was what was keeping her fed and safe. And in a few short days, she would once again be able to hug her daughter. Once she had her family back, she would never let them go.

  Hers was not a future destined for adventure. It was a future full of peace, of security, of happiness. Just as she liked it.

  “How many treasure maps have you found?” she asked to change the subject.

  Mr. Steele sent her a baffled look. “Why the devil would you draw a map that could help someone else find your treasure?”

  “I don’t know…” Drat. She’d loved the romance of the idea. “So you can find it later?”

  Marlowe looked at her with the same bewilderment. “How would you forget where you’d left treasure? Why wouldn’t you sell it for gold to begin with?”

  “Maybe the treasure is gold,” she said defensively. “Don’t ask me. I’m not a pirate. I learned about treasure maps in the newspaper.”

  Steele arched his black brows. “In a news article or the fairy story section?”

  Her cheeks flushed. She had loved those stories. Believed them to be based on…something. Someone. Just because he’d never had a reason to sketch a map didn’t mean such things didn’t exist.

  Although perhaps the treasure wasn’t in a secret cove, protected by booby traps and cursed skeletons. On a desert island. Surrounded by an inexplicable amount of sharks.

  She grinned at the fantasy. “Why don’t you have a monkey? Or a parrot? You could teach it to talk.”

  Mr. Steele cast her a look. “Mrs. Halton—”

  “The Crimson Corsair has one. I read it in the newspaper. The gossips say he also has a cave filled with treasure.”

  His fingers tightened around the spokes of the wheel. “If he does have such a thing, I will find it and take it from him.”

  “The parrot?” she asked innocently. “You can catch one of your own.”

  He yanked the cigar out of his mouth and stared at her. “Are you bamming me?”

  She tried to keep a straight face, but an involuntary twitch of her lips gave her away.

  He burst out laughing. “I’d buy every parrot I could find, and I’d make you teach them all to speak.”

  “In proper cant, I’m sure.” She nodded her approval.

  He stroked his beard as if considering the idea. “You’ll have to teach the monkey, too.”

  “But of course. I daresay the Crimson Corsair will be terribly jealous. His crew hasn’t got a talking monkey. You could trade it for all sorts of treasure.”

  His eyes softened as he gazed at her. His next words were almost too quiet to hear. “I have all the treasure I need right here on my ship.”

  Her face flushed. She swallowed, suddenly grateful for the sailing master’s presence. It kept her from making a very foolish mistake. Such as landing in Mr. Steele’s arms.

  She turned away to face the horizon, forcing the moment to pass. They would see land soon. Arriving in England meant reuniting with her daughter, her parents. Getting her old life back. A better life. A reasonable, respectable, grown-up and stable life.

  But saying goodbye to Blackheart meant walking away from adventure. Walking away from a life of excitement and uncertainty. A life she’d never wanted…but now suspected she would greatly miss.

  Chapter 7

  The soft scent of Mrs. Halton’s hair kept Steele from his slumber.

  Tomorrow, they would sight land. Perhaps even before dawn. This would be the last time he’d have to share his narrow bunk with the delightful, maddening woman asleep in his arms. The last night they’d have together.

  He had been sorely tempted to treat her as more than cargo. To kiss her, to bed her, to answer her questions and her teasing remarks with the honesty and banter that they deserved. But she was only a job. And he was a professional.

  Even if his instructions had not clearly proscribed anything of a physical nature, his personal code of honor would have had the same effect. She was not here of her own free will. She was under his protection. He would not press for liberties.

  Instead, he lay motionless as the constellations drifted overhead. If he moved, he might wake her. At least one of them should get some rest. Tomorrow would be a full day. After they secured the Dark Crystal at the docks, he was to deliver the package at the agreed upon address, retrieve his payment, ride back to the ship, and divide the bounty amongst his crew.

  Under ideal circumstances, Steele would prefer to set sail again immediately, and begin the search for the Crimson Corsair at once. According to the newspapers, the man had been cutting a bloody swath through the Caribbean. Not even women and children were spared from his destruction.

  Circumstances, however, were less than ideal. His hunt for the Corsair would have to wait.

  Some months ago, one of Steele’s elder cousins had passed, leaving him a small property well out of sight from the sea. The cousin had also left Steele a twenty-year-old ward named Daphne.

  The chit, from what Steele could gather, had always been a backwards lass. She tended to spend more time shuttered away in her bedchamber than interacting with children her own age. As she grew older, she began to produce a dizzying amount of correspondence—but never left her home. As far as Steele could tell, Daphne had been so lonely her entire life that she no longer even recognized the sensation for what it was.

  She needed a man. A good man. One that would care for her and keep her happy, and let her scribble correspondence until her fingers fell off, if that’s what Daphne wished. The girl needed love, or at least an able pa
rtner. Someone equally as clever, and who would not allow her to close herself off from the rest of the world.

  But because closing herself off was precisely what Daphne did best, the only way she would ever come into contact with anyone other than the servants—much less a marriageable young man to whom even a pirate like Blackheart could give his blessing—was if Steele left his ship at the docks and trekked inland to take control of the situation himself.

  Tiresome, to be sure. But a necessary step. The next time Steele set sail, he would roam the seas completely unhindered by ties to anything or anyone.

  A soft murmur escaped Mrs. Halton’s lips and she turned to snuggle closer into him.

  He tried not to be pleased that she instinctively sought comfort and safety in his arms, even in her sleep. ’Twas of no consequence. Tomorrow night, they would both sleep alone.

  Steele laid his cheek against the top of her head. She was the very epitome of everything he didn’t want. He was perhaps a fortnight away from severing his last and final tie to land…and Mrs. Halton was on the verge of creating new ones. Her daughter. The parents she hadn’t seen in years. A new home, a new life. All of it chaining her in place.

  He glanced at her sleeping face and tried not to feel sorry for her. It was the life she wanted. The life she’d been given. She was a woman with hopes and dreams. With a strong sense of family. And strong expectations for the future, now that she realized she actually had one.

  Steele had never been good with expectations. He tried not to have any. That was why he avoided romantic entanglements. Why he needed to steer clear of Mrs. Halton. A woman like her would be the opposite of freedom. A leg-shackle of the first order.

  Which was a blessing, really. His horror of a life of domesticity ensured he’d keep his distance better than any threat the Earl of Carlisle might lay upon him.

  Because he was watching her, he noticed the very second her large green eyes fluttered open. They widened at the realization that she was not just in his arms, but with her legs entwined with his. And that he was fully awake to see it. To enjoy it. Even in the moonlight, he could see the telltale flush of her cheeks. Yet she didn’t withdraw from his touch.