The Wayward One (The De Montforte Brothers Book 5)

by Danelle Harmon

  “What about…you?” she asked softly.

  “This was never about me.” He reached a hand out, stretched it along her leg, and made a sigh of contentment. “I took ye from England as an innocent, untouched virgin,” he said. “Tomorrow, I’ll be sendin’ ye back. Not so innocent anymore, but certainly untouched, and most definitely still a virgin.”

  “Untouched?”

  “Aye, untouched. Some day ye’ll marry, Lady Nerissa. You don’t think so, but ye will. I have made it such that what happened between us this afternoon, will remain our little secret. Always.”

  Chapter 18

  Haze lay thick atop a shimmering sea, and in the distance the French privateering stronghold of Saint-Malo slumbered in the sun. It was three hours before noon and the heat of the day was already oppressive on deck, the sails above gasping limply in what little breeze was to be found.

  “We’re early, Captain Hadley,” said Lord Andrew de Montforte as the frigate’s commander finished conversing with Lieutenant McPhee and joined him at the rail. “I would not expect them to be here just yet.”

  “As they will not expect us. Which is why we are, indeed, early. I intend to retain whatever advantage God sees fit to give us.”

  The inventor, his dark auburn hair queued beneath a black tricorne, steadied himself against the shrouds as he stared out over the sea in nervous anticipation. He was unnaturally pale, this youngest of the de Montforte brothers, a bit “affected” if Hadley’s observations were as keen as they usually proved to be.

  “Does a brig have two masts, Captain?”

  “It does, my lord.”

  “Because I think we’ve found our man.” Lord Andrew handed him a telescope. “Look there.”

  Hadley raised the glass to his eye. Sure enough, her pennants just visible above the trees of a low headland, were two masts. Square-rigged. A brig.

  Memories of Lady Nerissa being struck down by that sodomizing pirate assailed him. He would avenge her, and he’d do it in front of this brother, too. Impress the hell out of him. There were worse women that an enterprising young captain in the Royal Navy could take, than a heavily dowered noblewoman.

  The haze continued to drift, pushed aside from a coming breeze out of the south that was gathering strength by the moment. Ruffles appeared on the surface of the ocean. Above, the great rectangles of sail began to swell and at their bows, the water began to foam.

  “Douse the main,” Hadley ordered as Lieutenant McPhee appeared beside him. “We don’t need to be coming in this fast.”

  His orders were repeated and moments later, men were hastily climbing the shrouds to beat and fist the great sail into submission against its yard.

  The frigate slowed, losing some of the way she’d so eagerly seized. Hadley impatiently beckoned Captain Featherston of the Royal Marines close.

  “I want your best marksmen in the tops in case this is a trick,” he said. Marines aloft, their muskets trained down on the American brig, also gave him an advantage should O’ Devir try to hurt Lady Nerissa again but he wasn’t about to voice that particular concern in front of her clearly worried brother. “And load up the guns. Both batteries. Don’t run them out, just get them ready.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  The frigate continued her slow slide around the headland, past a thin, sandy beach fronted by cliffs and waters that were the color of cobalt in the sun. He was aware of Lord Andrew nearby, eagerly watching their progress. He wished his lordship would go below for his own safety as much as he hoped he’d stay topside so he could witness, first-hand, the saving of his little sister.

  A King’s frigate versus a puny American brig?

  An officer of his Majesty’s Royal Navy against an Irish pirate?

  He snorted. There would be no contest.

  They rounded the point and there, her larboard guns all run out and facing them, and figures holding muskets in her tops as well, was the brig.

  “So much for the element of surprise,” said Lord Andrew nearby.

  “I could blow that bastard to bits,” Hadley ground out. “The only reason I’m holding back is because I dare not risk injury to Lady Nerissa.”

  Lord Andrew only nodded, and his throat moved as he swallowed. He was clearly nervous.

  A ginger-haired man in an officer’s uniform moved to the rail and called across the water.

  “State your business!”

  Hadley grabbed a speaking trumpet. “I am captain Lawrence Hadley of His Majesty’s frigate Happenstance,” he shouted, incensed that he had to go through this farce with a gang of pirates, treating them as though they deserved the respect and dignity of an opposing navy when they were nothing but wretched, rotten, treasonous rebels.

  A tall figure, now familiar to him after their last encounter, suddenly appeared on the brig’s quarterdeck, his face in shadow beneath his tricorne. He was clad in blue and white as was the supposed “officer” beside him, and his air of arrogant authority, of competence and command made Hadley fantasize about having one of his marksmen in the tops above, put a ball through the blackguard’s heart.

  McPhee, beside him, echoed his thoughts. “Tom Crosby of the Marines…he can shoot the beak off a seagull at seventy feet. Ye know what I’m thinking, Captain?”

  “I’m thinking I’d very much like Crosby up there to drop that rascal in his tracks,” gritted Hadley.

  “And I’m thinking that if you give that order, his second-in-command will never hand over my sister,” said Lord Andrew darkly. “I’m full prepared to trade myself for her. I’ll put them off as long as possible about the explosive. Let’s just get this over with because I’m sick with terror about her.”

  Across the short expanse of water, the pirate—and a pirate he was, for Hadley could not bring himself to think of him as anything but—was raising a speaking trumpet to his own lips.

  “Top o’ the mornin’ to ye,” he called in a deliberately taunting tone, as though rubbing it in that he, a lowly Irishman, was calling the shots with a King’s frigate. “Still doin’ things yer own way, are ye, Hadley? My instructions were to meet in a tavern on land. But no matter, I’m in an accommodatin’ mood. Have ye brought me the explosive?

  “I’ve brought you its inventor, Lord Andrew.”

  “Fair enough.” The Irishman beckoned to someone behind him, who turned and disappeared below. “I was forced t’ serve many years and most of me youth in yer damned navy, Hadley. I don’t trust ye. Heave to and send a boat across with Lord Andrew, and I’ll send Lady Nerissa over in return. Any tricks and the girl dies. Understand?”

  “There will be no tricks,” Hadley ground out as Lord Andrew’s knuckles went white on the railing beside him.

  “Good, because there’s a French frigate on the other side of this headland to make sure ye don’t try anythin’ underhanded. A little insurance, if ye will. After the exchange, you’ll sail off to the north and I’ll remain here, supported, if need be, by that French frigate as well as the nearby presence of John Paul Jones…another officer in the Continental Navy ye so despise.”

  Lord Andrew, who had been tensely watching this exchange, whirled angrily around. “Are you going to let that fool go on or can we close this supposed deal and get my sister back?”

  Hadley quelled his irritation. He didn’t need or want some young nobleman telling him how to conduct this operation.

  “Ready the boat,” he snapped to Lieutenant Dewhurst, who was tensely watching this exchange a few feet away. “Lord Andrew will be going across. He will not be staying any longer than it takes to open fire on that damned brig, beat them into submission and get him back.”

  “What about this French frigate? And John Paul Jones?” Dewhurst asked.

  “There’s no damned frigate, and if Jones were nearby he’d be here, not hiding. It’s obvious that Irish bastard is bluffing.” Hadley turned to Lord Andrew. “When I open fire, my lord, I expect you to head belowdecks. We’ll try and board them so as to take the ship quickly and wit
h the least threat of injury to yourself. Even so, stay below, in the deepest part of the hold you can find, until firing ceases and they surrender the ship to us. At that point, we’ll come across to retrieve you.”

  “Understood.”

  The boat was readied. Across the hundred or so feet of sparkling blue water that separated the British frigate from the smaller American brig, Hadley saw movement behind O’ Devir. He grabbed his telescope and caught his breath. There. It was Lady Nerissa.

  Lord Andrew saw her too. He saw his baby sister, her hair caught in a simple tie of crude leather beneath a brimmed hat and wearing what looked like sailor’s breeches and a naval jacket. She was white with fear but otherwise appeared unharmed, thank God, and even from this distance, he could see how her gaze tracked to that blasted Irishman as though he was some sort of a god instead of the man who had abducted her, struck her, and probably—

  No, he would not think of that, he could not, he would not, it was too painful.

  But Lawrence Hadley and Lord Andrew de Montforte weren’t the only close observers.

  High above in the foretop, the keen-eyed Tom Crosby of the Royal Marines was also gazing intently down at the enemy deck. Except he wasn’t looking at Lady Nerissa, obviously compromised and hurt by this band of scurvy rascals and derelicts. He was looking at the proud shoulders of the Irish captain, calculating distance and windage and the slight breeze that was coming over his right shoulder as he balanced the musket against the shrouds, drew in his breath, and took careful aim at the figure standing down there on the opposite deck. He was good at what he did. Very good.

  O’ Devir would not see another sunrise.

  “Boat’s ready, sir!”

  On the quarterdeck below, Hadley nodded to Lord Andrew. The inventor, carrying a satchel, walked to the entry port and, accompanied by Lieutenant Dewhurst, began to descend to the boat below.

  In the maintop, Crosby’s finger began to itch and his breathing became as focused and intent as his eyes, tracking the long muzzle of the musket with deadly purpose.

  Lord Andrew and Dewhurst pushed off from Happenstance’s main chains and began to make progress across the sparkling water.

  The Irish captain of the American ship watched them wordlessly, his mouth a grim line beneath the shadow of his tricorne.

  Tension rose.

  And suddenly Hadley saw movement beyond the trees and knew immediately what it was: the masts of the French frigate that had been no bluff at all, and an impending ambush.

  “Dewhurst, return now!” he roared.

  He saw O’ Devir, just in the act of motioning Lady Nerissa forward to the rail, turn in surprise as he too saw the jib-boom of the French frigate sliding around the headland, its ports all open and guns run out with deadly intent. The captain of the French frigate, who cared naught for any agreement between the American brig’s captain and the commander of the Royal Navy frigate, saw nothing but the fine English ship sitting in the bay like a plum waiting to be picked.

  “Get below!” shouted O’ Devir, waving her frantically back, and high above in the tops Royal Marine sniper Tom Crosby saw Lady Nerissa freeze—and then run, not towards the hatch that would take her to safety below but toward the Irishman himself. O’ Devir was already turning to intercept her, and Crosby knew he could never let her reach him.

  “Top of the morning indeed, you bastard,” he muttered, and sighting down the barrel at the broad blue back he squeezed the trigger, watching in grim satisfaction as O’ Devir went down like a stone and the world erupted in chaos.

  Chapter 19

  “Bloody hell! Bloody thundering hell, who fired that shot?” howled Hadley, seconds before fire and flame flashed from the American brig’s forward guns, the delicious image of O’ Devir being shot down on his own deck darkened only by the fact that it wasn’t his orders that had brought it about. Someone’s head was going to roll.

  Its captain down, the brig was in chaos. And now, in full view as she came around the headland was the French frigate, determined to make a prize of them.

  “Don’t even think of it,” snarled Hadley and turning, shouted, “Ports open, lads, and give those Frogs a taste of British hospitality!”

  His was the finest and best-trained Navy in the world, and Hadley had spent many months drilling his men until they could load and run out in half the time it took any of his peers. One moment, the French frigate looked to be the victor in a well-crafted ambush; the next, a broadside was flashing all down the British ship’s side, tongues of flame and choking smoke throwing death and destruction on the other ship, caught by surprise and now trying desperately to come about.

  “Load up and hit her again, lads!” he shouted, hearing screams through the smoke as an answering roar from the French guns found its target. And there, from off in the smoke, the smaller American brig was still barking out her own impudent reply, some unfortunate junior officer trying to rally his men and pull order out of chaos following the death of that blasted rascal he called a captain.

  Hadley took off his hat, wiped his brow and smiled as he saw Lieutenant Dewhurst and Lord Andrew, followed by the boat crew, scrambling back aboard to safety before his attention was claimed once more by the matter at hand.

  “Fire!” he shouted hoarsely, eyes stinging as the French ship’s masts poked above the black, acrid smoke and tongues of fire pierced the gloom. Beside him, Midshipman Rawlins suddenly clasped his chest, coughed, and fell to his knees, blood bubbling from his mouth; the pop of musketfire and the roar of the frigate’s guns deafened him and desperately, he found time to hope that Lady Nerissa had managed to get below even as he ordered his carronades into position. “The smashers,” the big, blunt-nosed guns were named, and they did their work with cruel ruthlessness; within moments, the French ship was turning tail and running, just as Hadley expected it would do once it got a taste of His Majesty’s finest.

  “Cease firing!”

  The French ship was piling on sail, its cowardly captain wasting no time in making his escape. Grim-faced, Hadley looked at the dim outline of the American brig through the clearing smoke and saw that his work was far from done, here.

  “Ram and board them,” he said with savage triumph. Adjusting his sword belt, he went to the rail, intending to be one of the first onto the American’s decks.

  “Prepare to ram!”

  The jib and topsails filled. The helm was put up, the sleek frigate turned her long jib-boom away from the wind and slid down on the American brig, its shots, coming frantically now, doing little damage as she gathered way and came at them, bows on.

  “Fire the carronades, sir?” asked Lieutenant McPhee, eyeing the big guns with hope.

  “No, I don’t want carnage and can’t risk the lady being hurt. We will board and take her that way.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Men ran to the weapons chests, girding themselves with pistols, cutlasses, boarding axes and pikes, and still the frigate moved down on the brig, oblivious to the smaller vessel which continued firing to no avail. With a crashing groan, Happenstance impaled her long jib-boom in the American ship’s rigging and held fast.

  “Boarders away!”

  The Yanks might have had a smaller ship but as Hadley ran across the forecastle, up and onto the hopelessly tangled bowsprit and dropped lithely down onto the brig’s decks, the Americans came at him and his men like a mob of howling Indians. Steel clashed against steel, pierced flesh, sprayed blood across the decks. In the tops above, Hadley heard mustketfire as his Marines fired down, trying to pick off the Americans; a giant, gap-toothed seaman came at him with cutlass swinging and a blow from McPhee’s own sword countered it, saving his life a moment before a hole bloomed on the giant’s chest from a well-placed shot from Tom Crosby, still firing down on the deck from the main top. The man pitched forward, dead before he even hit the deck.

  “Strike, damn you!” he heard McPhee yelling, “Strike you filthy rebels!”

  He fought his way to the lieuten
ant’s side, his coxswain at his back, his eyes stinging from sweat and smoke and his brain dimly registering the fact that someone on the brig was still firing. And now the rebels were being beaten back, shaken by the loss of their captain and unable to match the ferocity of the British seamen who outnumbered them three to one.

  “Strike, damn you!”

  A shout ended on a gurgle of blood nearby as one of the rebels went down under McPhee’s sword. Hadley tripped over a ring bolt and ripping his pistol from his belt, fired at a smoke-smeared form that came at him, knife raised. The firing was more sporadic now, the heart going out of the bastards, and finally, almost desperately through the melee and smoke came the hoarse voice that would end the slaughter.

  “We’re striking!”

  Hadley looked up and saw the American colors being lowered from the brig’s gaff. His ears ringing, his chest heaving and a muscle twitching with fatigue somewhere in his shoulder, he blinked the smoke out of his eyes, took off his hat and wiped his forehead with the back of his sleeve.

  The young ginger-haired officer, his coat sleeve ripped and oozing blood, came toward him, holding out his sword in both hands. His face was as white as the belly of a mackerel as he picked his way over broken spars, bits of cordage and debris, an upended gun, and bodies…of the helmsman…of two pigtailed rebel sailors…of O’ Devir himself, lying motionless on the deck where Crosby’s well-placed shot had brought him down.

  “Lieutenant John Morgan, sir.” His gaze cut soberly to the downed figure of his captain as, tightening his mouth, he presented his sword to Hadley with sober reluctance. “I’m in command of the American brig Tigershark. The ship is yours.”