“None of which you have any worry of showing at this moment,” Marcus remarked sharply.
Emma gasped. His comment stung, but she recovered her composure, Alex’s warning in her head. Business is business, and when you’re a woman, you can’t let emotions be involved. “If you refuse to do your duty I will be forced to leave and find work regardless.”
“Why, pray tell, is that?”
“Marcus, why do you insist on being completely obtuse?”
“Why indeed?” Joshua chimed reproachfully.
Emma explained as if to a child. This was phase three. “Even though I think of you as a kind, old uncle, the truth is we are not even related. Some people will think it unseemly that we should be in the same house without a chaperone. Once I turn eighteen it shall not be tolerated too gently. I shall be compromised and rendered completely worthless. Even work in England will be difficult if that should happen. I could go to America. Miss Stafford, who is a dear friend—have I mentioned her?” It was a rhetorical question. She had avoided mention of Alex all evening. “Anyway, Miss Stafford said I could work for her in Boston. She also has two single older brothers, in addition to Stephen, who is currently visiting with her, and they are all very rich so I could marry any one of them and be well provided for.”
“I won’t have you marrying any American upstart,” Marcus assured with a menacing edge. “And speaking of which, I’m not at all certain Miss Stafford is a suitable companion for you.”
Emma continued, completely ignoring him. “Miss Stafford says Americans aren’t as obsessed with money and titles like we are.”
“I’m sure Miss Stafford knows very little about English society. Another reason why it is unwise to associate with her any further,” Marcus stated.
Emma laughed. “Well if that’s the criteria, then we can take you off the list as well, Marcus. But this is not about Miss Stafford. Or you. It’s about my future. And it’s difficult enough having to leave my home, but to leave my country on top of that. I would never see you again … which, despite your slightly elitist behavior, would make me very sad.” She gazed at Marcus with a hurt expression. “Or maybe you have in mind suitors farther away. Then you wouldn’t have to think about me at all and your duty will be complete.”
“I do not consider you a duty.”
“Yes, you do. You always say I am your duty as your ward, and it is your duty to watch out for my interests. Yet now I think you are behaving horribly selfish and unfair to me. You would have me humiliated in front of the entire household.”
“I have never humiliated you.”
“You will marry one day, and then what will become of me? I cannot remain the mistress here. I will be reduced to nothing. You would have me reduced to nothing?” Emma looked genuinely distressed.
“I am—” Marcus wasn’t sure what he was. Baffled for one. Frustrated came to mind. Hell, he’d just returned home. Was it too much to ask for one day of peace?
“I see you have no plan currently in progress.” Emma got up and proceeded regally to the door.
“Where are you going now?”
“To my room,” Emma said. “I’ve suddenly acquired a tremendous headache.”
“We will discuss this further at breakfast.”
“Fine,” Emma retorted, “assuming your advanced age permits you to rise that early.” It was a deliberate dig, but Marcus was certain Emma didn’t see the innuendo, so he refrained from responding. He also managed to ignore the irksome fact that Joshua was choking again.
Marcus surveyed the determined woman in front of him. Her cheeks were flushed with what he presumed to be temper. Her eyes flared to a dark blue that he found utterly fascinating. The result was a beauty. He would give her anything, he admitted. He just didn’t want to give her away. Now it seemed she was determined to expand her horizons. Maybe he was getting old. He imagined that he used to be quite adroit at handling women.
“I will be awake,” he answered.
“I will see you in the morning then. Good night, my lord. Your Grace.” She made a polite, but stiff bow.
“Good night, Emma,” the duke replied. The earl didn’t respond but instead turned away with a deep sigh and poured a drink.
Emma stared a moment at his back, wanting to throw herself into his arms and tell him she would never leave, no matter what the circumstance. But Alex had gone over this relentlessly. She must not waver over phase three. In any negotiation, you have to be able to walk away. Only Alex hadn’t told her how hard it would be.
“Oh. And welcome home, my lord.”
Outside the doors Emma paused and took a deep breath. It was the performance of her life. She hoped her bluff would pay off.
Joshua filled their drinks, then sprawled in his usual manner in a comfortable chair near the window, while Marcus paced, hands folded in the low of his back. As if pacing would help him solve the problem.
“Welcome home? This is my welcome? Indeed.” Marcus turned to pace the other way.
Joshua merely smiled. Stonewood didn’t know how good he had it. Based on the number of times his friend had brought up Emma, he knew she was more than a passing concern. By all accounts, Marcus had dismissed all mistresses well over eight months ago, and no one had caught his fancy since then. Still, he insisted on this self-imposed exile from everything and everyone he obviously cared about. Emma adored Marcus. That much could not have changed. He wasn’t at all convinced it was brotherly hero worship either. Not with that last, well-choreographed episode under her belt. He hoped his friend would recognize his luck and grasp it while he was able.
“I can only guess boredom has put this notion of marriage in her head. It was not well done of me to leave her here without a chaperone. I shall send a letter to Aunt Matilda immediately.”
“Lady Emma is both sensible and competent, my lord,” Langley offered, entering the room with a new bottle of port. “And on the contrary, I don’t believe boredom is an issue. She has been a model of industry.”
“A model of industry?”
“Yes,” Langley said. “I believe the influence of Miss Stafford has increased her ambitions and given her remarkable confidence.”
“Miss Stafford.” Marcus looked at Joshua significantly. “Again. Strange how Emma seemed willing enough to talk about everyone in Kent, yet little about Miss Stafford.”
“Except for the fact that she has a number of wealthy, handsome brothers,” he reminded pointedly.
“Are they handsome as well now?” Marcus’s irritation increased.
“One can only assume.”
“But we digress.” Marcus returned to Langley. “You were speaking of Miss Stafford.”
“Everyone knows Miss Stafford, my lord. Perhaps Lady Emma wanted to spare you the distress. It does take some time to get accustomed to her. She is Lady Margaret’s niece from the colonies. Excuse me,” Langley corrected, “America. She is quite particular about that colony reference,” Langley informed, wickedly. “Her younger brother is with her. Stephen. A fine young man. Unfortunately, easily led by his elder sibling whom I blame personally for any bad behavior on his part, though he has always been studiously correct in my presence.”
“That’s something,” Joshua noted encouragingly for Marcus.
“And I do believe Lady Emma has been a positive influence on Miss Stafford. Miss Stafford is much tamer than when she first arrived.” Langley wiped a brow as if reliving the trauma, causing both the earl and the duke to wonder at what they’d missed.
“And what of this brother?” Marcus asked.
“Ah. Master Stephen. He is quite besotted with Lady Emma. Why I heard him propose again the other day.”
“Propose!” Marcus cursed. They were back to that.
“Marriage, of course, my lord. His intentions are entirely honorable.”
“I don’t give a damn—” He turned to the window to gain his composure.
“We shall miss her when she’s gone,” Langley lamented.
“She
is not getting married, Langley!”
“Of course, my lord.” Langley agreed in a way that indicated the earl didn’t know what he was talking about. He made to exit, then paused at the door remembering something else. “Oh, and, Your Grace, I have not had the opportunity to offer my sincere condolences on the death of your brother.”
“Thank you, Langley. It is no secret I did not get on well with my family. I have more regret over the state of the lands than his passing.”
Marcus stopped his pacing once the butler had left and stood in the center of the room.
“What do you make of it all, Josh? Perhaps it’s the age. That’s why fathers marry them off immediately.” He thought that over. “But Emma was never difficult. Or hysterical. Or overly interested in social affairs. And now she is industrious! Isn’t it enough that I give her everything she wants?”
“Some things cannot be given, Marcus. You know that.”
“Yes.” He sat down, temporarily defeated. “Then it must be this Miss Stafford who is making her want different things. That’s the only factor that is new.”
“Then,” Joshua encouraged him, “let us learn more about this new factor. It’s time we called on Lady Margaret and renewed our acquaintances.”
He swiveled the amber liquor in his glass. Indeed, it was time to be formally introduced to the intriguing woman who tormented his thoughts.
Chapter Nine
Alex called out to her father, but he didn’t turn. Soon it would be too late. She was disappearing into the darkness, pulled relentlessly under by the current. She strained for air, but choked instead. It was useless. The weight of an ocean pressed her down. Dark. Icy.
Just when she thought she would suffocate from lack of oxygen, it occurred to her that this wasn’t right. She couldn’t die this way. She reached out one last time, a final act of desperation, and released a pained gasp. Air.
Alex thrashed in the sheets, confused. It took only a moment for relief to sweep through her as she recognized her room in Aunt Maggie’s home. Lilyfield. Thank God.
It was dawn. The rest, merely a nightmare.
Alex fell back on the pillows and swung a hand over her eyes. What did that one mean? Guilt? Yes, she had a lot of that. But drowning? Of course, if you spent most of your time at sea, it was a likely source of worry. Alex turned on her side and squeezed her eyes tightly to push away the thoughts.
She never told her brothers, but she still looked for her father. She guessed that they did too.
She should have hugged him that last day. Told him she loved him. Told him about the mysterious tapestry rug. But she didn’t. She had kept it to herself. And now she was cursed. Cursed with an awful mixture of guilt and hope. Guilt, that it was her fault to begin with. Hope, that her father would one day return home.
It was a slow process, building her reputation with Stafford Shipping. Even her brothers had been nervous to let her out on her own. But they needn’t have been. The sea was the one place where she understood what was going on. It was changeable, but it made sense. It wasn’t about who had more money, or how to flutter your eyes, or saying the right things in the right order. The sea obeyed different rules, and only those who respected them survived.
She always had an instinct for the water. Being captain she finally felt that she had come into her own. She had navigated the roughest waters, remained steadfast in the toughest negotiations, and protected and fought with her crew against the French, and even some Corsairs looking to poach on American ships no longer protected by the great English navy. She had been injured but survived, and always the sea was on her side, aiding in her triumphs.
Alex stumbled out of bed and opened a heavy curtain to check for light. Dawn crept over the thick forest of trees that separated Lilyfield from Worthington Park. Time to start the day. It would not do to get accustomed to sleeping the hours of the privileged.
Alex went to a trunk she kept locked in the corner. It was filled with fabrics. Not particularly suspicious. She selected a yellow and green silk, pulled it free, and released the Berber carpet hidden in its folds. She unfurled it and laid it at the foot of the bed. Using another key, she opened her shoe trunk. It was mostly empty. She turned a circular lever, lifted a false bottom, and seized her journal.
She huddled back on the bed studying the carpet, the tips of her fingers running lightly over the short silky threads. This had not been made as other carpets. That’s why it originally caught her attention. The threads were thin, painstakingly drawn through a tightly woven back allowing the artist to express more detail in the design. She traced the woman’s hair in the figure. The waves surrounded her bottom half. One hand was over her womb. The other spread wide, more active. But protecting or wreaking destruction was the question. Alex hoped protecting.
She still recalled the words of the old woman in Salé three years ago. Despite everything that had happened afterward and since, the conversation was burned into her mind in a way that was unnatural. You are the last kelile of the prophecy. On you rests the end of time. Keep the secrets safe, that we may pass the hour of destruction, or be the source of that destruction, turning the seas upon the land. The kelile must protect the treasure or join the monster of the sea.
Kelile. It meant “my protector, my gate.”
If Alex had understood the old woman right, she was the protector of the prophecy. But how, she didn’t know. She just knew that Paxton had only evil purposes, and if she could thwart him, she’d done her job.
The silhouette of the city behind the woman she had yet to discover in her travels. Her best guess was it was an ancient city, either long destroyed, or irrevocably changed so as not to be recognizable.
Or it represented civilization—just another symbol. So much of the story in the richly colored threads was symbolic. Arabic star symbols framed the edges, divided by six Berber images in the corners and at the top and bottom center points. The next layer within that frame had symbols of animals. In the center there were images of the dolphinlike sea monsters on each side of the woman. While made by someone of Berber descent, this was not a Berber carpet. It was a story of some kind. The mysteries of which she might never unravel.
Impatient for the sanity of daylight, Alex dressed and grabbed her bag with a bundle of tools to practice with. Knives and her whip. Birdie had come in last night with news from London. He would be awake soon enough, and they could discuss next steps.
Her first mate found her an hour later in the farthest corner of the garden. Twelve knives lined up vertically in a tree. Not bad handiwork, if she said so herself.
“You’re going to scar yourself permanently with that thing,” Birdie reprimanded, a rare scowl on his face as he observed the whip in her hand.
“Stay back,” Alex warned. “I’m going to master this weapon if it’s the last thing I do.” She had already failed near a hundred times to capture a knife with the tail, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t be done. “I’m getting closer,” she told him. Catch and release. Catch and release.
With a quick flick, she unleashed twelve feet of leather and struck. The end wrapped thrice around a blade. “Catch!” Thrilled with her success, she tugged and flicked back. “And release.”
It was a mistake.
Having not practiced this part, she didn’t have any control of the knife. When it released, a streak of silver flew toward Birdie. As if she planned it. He froze. The knife landed with a firm thunk. On the ground. Between his legs.
“Holy, son of—” A long string of curses expelled from his mouth.
Alex rushed over to him. “Oh! Birdie, oh, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” Her oldest friend looked ashen.
“All I do fer ya! And this is the thanks!”
Alex stifled a laugh and helped him to sit. He wouldn’t let her touch him. Especially now that he was okay, and her chest was shaking with relief and laughter.
“You tryin’ ta’ take off me privates?!”
Alex blushed. “I told you to stay bac
k.”
“Well, I didn’t think you’d catch one, not to mention wield it on me innocent self!”
Alex took off the leather coat and leggings she wore over her garments for protection. Birdie was going to go on about this one for a while. She saw another figure coming to join them. Whitley, one of the youngest on her crew. He was seventeen and a friend of Stephen’s. She had asked him to join Birdie as her friend was getting on in age and she didn’t like him traveling back and forth from London alone.
Birdie immediately tried to pull the younger man into the hazing. “Did ya see that? The captain used me fer target practice.”
“Yes, sir,” Whitley agreed with him.
“Ach. No sympathy,” Birdie grouched.
“Can I sharpen your knives, Captain?”
“Thanks, Whitley.” She handed him the knife belt, along with wrist and ankle sheathes, and he went to the tree to collect the blades. Normally she would do it herself, but she had been teaching Whitley, and he had proven quick to learn what she liked. “I’ll have my correspondence ready in a few hours. Before luncheon. Be sure to wake Stephen soon. He is getting fat and lazy.” She gave the gentle, brown-haired boy a wink, and handed him the rolled whip. “Clean and oil that for me.”
“Will do, Captain.”
Alex tossed her protective leathers over one arm and locked her free elbow with one of Birdie’s. “Now that’s how crew are supposed to behave, Birdie.”
She received a grunt in response. “He’s too young ta know better.”
“Yep. That’s why I like him,” she teased. “Let me change and I’ll meet you in the study. What would you like? Scones, minipies, strawberries, and some fine whipped cream?”
“That’ll be a start,” Birdie relented a bit. “I’ve got some news.”
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