“Of course I’m sure.” She pouted at him. “And don’t try to tell me it was Brunswick just because they both start with a B. I know it wasn’t.”
“We’ve established that,” he said dryly. “So where in Boston did they live?”
“How should I know?”
“Well then, how long did they live there?”
She slowed her pace along the path. “She hasn’t told me every detail of her life. Why are you so interested in my stepmother, anyway?”
He had to be more careful. “No reason.”
She batted her eyelashes at him. “Because if your idea of courtship is to talk about my boring old family, we’re not going to progress very far.”
“You’re right, of course.” Gritting his teeth at the reemergence of her flirtatious side, he stopped to pluck a bud from a rosebush, then held it out to her. “Please accept my apology.”
Her eyes suspiciously bright, she stopped to sniff it. “Your apologies need work, sir. Our gardener would have your head if he caught you stealing a bud from his prize rosebushes.”
He reached up to tuck the bud in her hair, then let his hand trail down her cheek in a lingering caress. “Your gardener’s not here, darlin’,” he rasped.
She dragged in a breath as her gaze met his, and last night’s kisses loomed up between them, a tantalizing specter that made his blood roar in his veins. When she licked her lips, he lowered his head.
But before he could kiss her, she jerked back. Casting a glance at the upstairs window, she murmured, “He might not be here, but Mrs. Harris certainly is.”
“You English make it dam—darned hard to court a woman. In America, people give a man room to talk to females. They don’t breathe down his neck every minute.”
“There are ways to get around that.”
She laid her hand on his arm and his blood heated right up again. “You could take me riding, for example. Then I need only bring a groom with me.”
Riding. What good would that do? He could hardly distract her with kisses if they were on horses with a groom at their heels.
Then another idea occurred to him. “How would you like to see a genuine Barbary pirate ship?”
Her face lit up. “Really?”
“Really.” That would give him plenty of chances to be alone with her. “There’s a captured one at the royal naval shipyard in Deptford, and I’m allowed the run of it.”
“Then Mrs. Harris will have to come along, of course,” she said.
He scowled. “Why?”
“We’ll have to go in my carriage. It’s too dangerous at the docks for an open gig, and I can’t go off alone with you in a closed carriage.”
Damn—he’d been figuring on a groom riding outside. He should have known better.
Still, a ship was a big place, and he might be able to do something once he had her on board.
“All right, we’ll make it an outing for three.”
Chapter Seven
Dear Cousin,
Forgive me for my many notes, but this matter about Major Winter requires haste. He has the oddest effect on Lady Amelia: she turns into a pea goose whenever he enters a room. And I can assure you that she is never a pea goose around men.
Your anxious friend,
Charlotte
Lucas was surprised by how speedily Amelia talked her chaperone into the outing. The ladies changed their clothes, and in less than an hour they all headed for His Majesty’s Royal Dockyard in Deptford.
“What we’re going to see is called a xebec, isn’t it?” Amelia asked from her seat next to Mrs. Harris across the carriage from him.
He narrowed his gaze on her. “How did you know that?”
“An English xebec docked at Torquay once. I heard that the French later sank it.”
“The Arrow, yes. That’s why the navy wants to refit this one for their own use. Xebecs can be very handy ships.”
“How did they acquire it?”
“A squadron headed home captured it off the coast of Spain.”
Mrs. Harris lifted a gloved hand to her throat. “Did it have captives?”
“No. The pirates had just headed out to sea.”
“Thank goodness,” Amelia said softly.
His gaze locked with hers. “Aye. The Barbary pirates are none too kind to captives.”
They fell silent as the carriage rumbled out of St. James’s Square. Lucas wanted to ask more questions about her stepmother, but Mrs. Harris made him wary. The flighty Amelia might not notice he was interrogating her, but Mrs. Harris sure would.
After a while, the stench of the Thames filtered into the carriage as they approached Westminster Bridge. Amelia craned her head toward the window, drinking in the sights with a lively expression while they crossed the river.
He looked out to see a bristling army of masts beneath them, each fighting for purchase on a river choked with watercraft. Barges shouldered their way past penny boats, as merchantmen sailed by with their prows in the air like fancy ladies’ noses turned up in disdain. Skiffs skidded past the lumbering ferries that dared to cross the paths of the massive frigates, with pilots cussing at oarsmen and sailors with every turn.
He noticed that Mrs. Harris sat rigid in her seat, her hands fisted in her lap like cannonballs. “Are you all right, ma’am?”
Her gaze flew to his. “Fine.” She managed a wan smile. “Perfectly fine.”
The hell she was. But he wouldn’t press her, especially when Amelia seemed to be having the time of her life.
“There are so many boats,” Amelia breathed. “Just imagine where they’ve been, and what exotic places they’re going to from here.”
It wasn’t something he pondered much, having seen plenty of docks in his life. “Have you never been to the riverfront?”
“No. No one I know ever travels abroad. I’ve seen the docks at home and in Plymouth, of course, but they’re nothing like this.”
“You mean, noisy and reeking of human filth?” As they left the river, he gazed out to where a scruffy flood of raw male humanity surged along the streets, with the only women a few whores floating in their midst like rouged lifeboats.
She eyed him askance. “I see a fascinating array of colorful creatures bent on wrestling a living from the river.”
He snorted. “If that’s what you call them. I call them sailors and wherrymen and the lowest sort of water rat.”
“Have you no romance in your soul, Major, no sense of adventure?”
Mrs. Harris, who seemed to have relaxed now that they’d crossed the Thames, smothered a smile.
“If this is what you consider romance and adventure, then no,” he snapped. “Ships are for taking people where they want to go, that’s all.”
“Strange words from a man who spends his life on the water,” she retorted.
“It’s because of how I spend my life that I see it for what it is and not as a romantic adventure.”
“I quite agree,” Mrs. Harris put in, “but you’ll never convince Amelia. The first thing she asked when her stepmother enrolled her in my school was if we ever took outings anywhere interesting.”
Her stepmother had enrolled her? “And when was that?” Maybe he could get something useful out of Mrs. Harris after all. “How young are English girls when they go off to school?”
“Well, in Amelia’s case—”
“It was before my come out, of course.” Amelia fluttered her eyelashes at him. “Surely you could figure that out, you silly man.”
He scowled. The lady was as mercurial as an actress. She was like two different people.
He went still.Yes. Exactly .
“You have no idea how complicated a girl’s debut can be,” she chattered on. “You have to walk a certain way, and stand a certain way—I could hardly keep track of all the rules.”
“You seemed to manage it splendidly,” Mrs. Harris said, with lifted eyebrow.
Amelia twirled her bonnet ribbon about her finger like some coquette. “A girl has to
learn everything if she wants to have fun in society.”
“I’m sure she does,” Lucas muttered. The more he got to know Amelia, the more her frivolous side annoyed him. One minute she was talking about xebecs and putting things so clever-like, it made a man take notice. The next she’d give him a vacant stare, and nonsense would fly out of her mouth. It just didn’t fit.
Especially when her chaperone seemed just as surprised by her flighty self. Was it a role Amelia took on? If so, why?
It gave him something to ponder the rest of the ride, while she babbled about dances and fan language and other gibberish. Whoever heard of a fan talking, anyway?
Soon they were approaching the docks at Deptford. Trying to get back the sensible Amelia, he glanced out the window and drew her attention to a frigate with a Spanish flag. The lightermen were toting barrels down the gangway. “They must have just started to unload that old girl there. With her sitting so low in the water, her hold’s probably full to bursting.”
Amelia followed his gaze. “What do you think it’s carrying?”
“I don’t know.” He said something deliberately stupid. “Maybe cotton.”
She snorted. “Why would anyone import cotton from Spain, and in barrels, too? It’s wine, more like, or even olives.”
“What makes you think it’s a Spanish ship?” he drawled.
“Well, of course it is. It’s flying—” She caught herself, then cast him a silly smile. “It’s flying what I assume is the Spanish flag. With so many bright colors, it has to be Spanish. Then again, it could be French and carrying silks.”
“Could be,” he said noncommittally. And she really could be as stupid as she seemed. But he began to doubt it.
The carriage halted. “We’re here.” Leaping from the carriage, Lucas turned to help Mrs. Harris dismount, then Amelia.
His hands practically spanned her slender waist. His pulse quickened as her honeysuckle scent sweetened the air around her, and she gazed at him with sparkling eyes and flushed cheeks.
He set her down on the dusty road, fighting to keep his sudden surge of lust in check. Hellfire and damnation, she was pretty. Under other circumstances, he might even consider making this a real courtship.
He snorted. Right. With an English lady whose favorite entertainment was probably spending her inheritance. Which he was pretty damned sure was stolen.
He gave Mrs. Harris his other arm. “There she sits,” he said as he led them to the dock. “It’s the black one anchored about a hundred yards out with the lateen rigging.”
“But it’s so small!” Amelia exclaimed.
“That’s big for a xebec. It’s really a xebec frigate, but the draught’s still too shallow to hold much weight. That’s why there’s so little cannon. You can’t see it from here, but it only has thirty-four guns, when the average warship carries twice that. The pirates rely on swiftness and maneuverability instead. To capture her the navy had to bring down two sails with broadsides.”
He gazed down at Amelia. “You want to board her? We could row out in that dinghy—”
“Yes!” she exclaimed, just as Mrs. Harris said, “Absolutely not!”
Amelia shot her chaperone a pleading glance. “Oh, surely we must go aboard. I want to see it up close.”
Eyes wide with horror, Mrs. Harris released his arm to back away from the dock. “I shall not, will not, get in any dinghy.”
Disappointment suffused Amelia’s face as she met his gaze. “I forgot. Mrs. Harris doesn’t…like boats. Or being out on the water.”
Judging from the widow’s panicked expression, it was more than a simple dislike. If anybody could recognize an irrational fear, he could.
He gentled his voice. “I could still take Lady Amelia out to it, Mrs. Harris. You’d be fine here with the coachman.”
“Oh, yes, please!” Amelia released his arm to go to her chaperone’s side. “I would dearly love to see it.”
“But, my dear, if something were to happen, if a squall were to come up—”
“There’s not a cloud for miles, and it’s only a few yards out,” Lucas said indulgently. “I won’t let any harm come to her. I’ll look after the lady like she was my own flesh and blood.”
“You see?” Amelia chirped. “With such a strapping fellow to protect me, I have nothing to fear.”
Mrs. Harris glanced from him to the dinghy to Amelia, whose face was so pleading that she sighed. “I suppose it can’t hurt.”
“Oh, thank you!” Amelia cried with a squeeze of the widow’s hand.
As Amelia seized his arm and they headed down the dock, Mrs. Harris called out after them, “But be careful, Amelia! You know how reckless you can be—do not go anywhere the major says not to!”
“I’ll be fine!” Amelia called back, grinning at him from beneath her bonnet.
Mrs. Harris stood far behind them, wringing her hands.
Lucas got into the dinghy first, then handed Amelia down into it.
“Don’t lean too far either way, or you’ll overset it!” Mrs. Harris cried.
Eyes twinkling, Amelia took a seat across from him with the balance of a born sailor. “I’ll be very careful!” she called back.
With a shake of his head, Lucas sat down and took up the oars.
As they pulled away from the dock, Mrs. Harris was still shouting, “And stay above deck! There might be rats down below!”
“I can’t hear you!” Amelia called back cheerily. “We won’t be long!”
Smothering a laugh, he rowed toward the xebec. “She’s got a right strong dislike of the water, doesn’t she?”
Amelia nodded. “She nearly drowned when she was a girl, and it made a great impression upon her. She won’t go near boats, and she tenses up whenever she crosses a bridge.”
“I noticed.” He smiled. “But boats don’t seem to bother you.”
She threw her head back with an expression of sheer delight. “Never. I love the water. Papa even used to take me fishing when I was a girl.”
“I take it you and your father were close.”
“As close as a girl can be to a man who spends most of his time buried in a book.” She eyed him curiously. “And you?”
“You could say we were close. Father was a military man like me. Served in the revolution.”
“What revolution?”
He arched one eyebrow. “The one against England.”
Laughter trilled from her lips. “Oh. Right. I forgot about that.”
“Believe me, I didn’t,” he said bitterly.
Her smile faded, and she gazed out over the water with a pensive expression. “Is that how your father died? In battle?”
“No,” he said tersely. He wasn’t about to tell her how his father died. Bad enough that the entire population of Baltimore knew it. And that he hadn’t learned of it himself until it was too late for him to stop it.
They’d reached the xebec now. He sent her up the rope ladder first so that he’d be below to catch her if she fell, but she climbed up nimbly as a cat. In fact, she moved so quickly he didn’t have time to dwell on the tempting swing of her hips or the glimpses he got of her stockinged ankles. As soon as she reached the top, she sat on the rail and swung her legs over, then disappeared.
With a curse, he clambered up to the top. “Damnation, Amelia, wait for—”
“Oh, Lucas!” she cried. “It’s amazing!”
He climbed aboard, then glanced around. It really was. Sweet, clean lines, and almost delicate timbers. A gazelle where most warships were elephants. “You still have to watch where you’re going on it. Those lady boots of yours can get caught in the gratings, and there’s hatchways and oars—”
“Oars! It’s a sailing ship.”
“Yes, but it can turn quicker with both. That’s why a xebec can attack a warship armed with twice the cannon. A xebec doesn’t stay still long enough to take a broadside, or it would be blown out of the water. It’s too flimsy to handle that kind of assault.”
She stare
d down at the deck. “I can see that. The timbers aren’t oak—or at least not English oak. They could be evergreen oak, since that grows near the Mediterranean. I don’t suppose olive wood is strong enough—”
“Not being an expert on Algerian woods,” he said, unable to hide his amusement, “I couldn’t say for sure, but I doubt it.”
She stiffened, then flashed him an inane smile. “Balsa wood, perhaps? That floats very well.”
The return of the flighty Amelia was too much for him. “Don’t,” he growled.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t play that ninny act with me.”
“I-I beg your pardon?”
“The fluttery eyelashes and the silly smiles and the ridiculous remarks. They’re not you, and we both know it. So you can stop it for good. There’s no need for it—I know what you’re up to.”
Chapter Eight
Dear Charlotte,
I shall proceed with all due haste. Remember, however, that gaining information about Americans is more difficult. Fortunately, I have a friend on the Navy Board. He might know more.
Eager to oblige your every request,
Michael
U-Up to?” Amelia’s heart beat faster than the ship’s flags flapping in the wind. “I can’t imagine what you mean,” she said, attempting to regain lost ground.
He fixed her with his unnerving stare. “I’ve heard Englishmen talk about their women. They think you all lack sense, and the truth is, they prefer that. So you females believe you can only catch husbands by pretending to be idiots.”
She gaped at him.That was what he thought she was “up to”? Trying to snare a husband?
“But you don’t have to do that with me,” he went on. “I like a woman with a brain. So don’t pretend that yours shriveled up the minute you turned fifteen.”
She sucked in a breath of relief. She might as well use his explanation. Besides, it didn’t mean she had to give up playing the flirt.
“Eighteen.” She smiled to cover the lie. “I was eighteen when I started pretending not to have a brain.”
With a self-satisfied look, he offered her his arm. “I knew it. Nobody could have your knowledge of flags and ships and be as stupid as you pretended.”
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