The Duke with the Dragon Tattoo

by Byrne, Kerrigan

  God’s balls, but the navy would be on high alert.

  “It’s only that my curiosity is endlessly piqued,” he ventured, crossing his ankle to his knee in a gesture of relaxed nonchalance. “We’ve never had a shortage of young and willing women. Why go so far as to wed one who is neither?”

  The Rook stared, unblinking, into the fire. It took him so long to reply, Moncrieff began to wonder if he’d heard him.

  “Did I ever tell you how I became a pirate?” The Rook rested his chin on templed fingers in a contemplative pose.

  “No…” The odd reply both frustrated and intrigued Sebastian. The captain never revealed a bloody thing about himself. Sebastian absolutely wanted to know, almost as much as he wanted the damnably inscrutable man to answer his fucking question first.

  “It all started with a mutiny aboard a ship I … worked on once.”

  “A mutiny, you say? Were you one of the mutinous? Or were you … mutinied upon? Mutinied … is that a word?” At his captain’s level look, Sebastian gave a drunken nod. “You led the mutiny, of course.”

  Salt water still gathered in the Rook’s lashes as he turned back to stare into the grate. Moncrieff had a suspicion the past danced inside those flames for the Rook.

  He’d have given one of his eyes to see it.

  “I’d been a slave for years. We were sold from Japan to a particularly cruel Argentinian shipping magnate. All we wanted was to get ashore. To go home. Before we could find land, we were overtaken by some meddling vessel of the French Compagnie Générale Transatlantique. The French captain claimed us as prisoners and pirates … as property…” He spat into the fire, which sizzled. “We’d … had enough of that. So, when reason didn’t work, and threats were exhausted, we killed him…” Devilishly, the Rook’s lips tilted as though reliving a cherished memory. “We killed them all, every last fighting man. Gods, how the sharks feasted. Suddenly, I found myself with a new ship, crates of Argentine gold, and more French roses than you can conceive of. Fertilized by the crewmen’s own shit, can you imagine the stench?”

  Sebastian could, and did, and drank some more.

  “I should have turned around.” The captain’s whisper was almost lost to the din of the storm.

  “Turned around?” Moncrieff puzzled aloud. “What do you mean?”

  “We belatedly realized we had no idea where we were, and we’d slaughtered all the navigators.” A wry sort of sardonic amusement glinted over his features. “Once we figured we were at the tip of the South American continent, we simply hugged the Chilean shoreline, trading with fishing villages. It wasn’t until we picked up Montez in Peru that we discovered if we’d turned around and sailed north when we were still in the Atlantic, we might have made it back to England before…” The Rook exhaled a breath containing decades of regret.

  “Before what?” Sebastian queried alertly.

  “Before everything. So many of the crew at that point were Oriental. We struck a bargain to cross the Pacific, because I couldn’t turn the boat around, myself. We were to dock at a central point from which most of the crew could disseminate to their respective nations with their share of the gold.”

  His hands curled, clawing through his hair in a shockingly affected gesture. “All we wanted was to go home,” he repeated. “And someone always tried to stop us, to delay us, to capture or to kill us. The Japanese, the Chinese, Russians, Indians, Algerians, Spanish. The French, of course, as we had one of their ships. And God, the Prussians. What a brutal lot they are. It’s why I fought so hard in the beginning, so fiercely, because the entire world stood between me and … and a promise I made very long ago.

  “I could scarce believe how fucking crowded the oceans are. We were all of us so angry. So tired of being treated like animals, of having everything taken from us, that we began to take back. It seemed we were at war with every ship we came across, and I decided early on that I’d never start a war I didn’t win.”

  “And so you haven’t.”

  “But at what cost?”

  Now there was a heavy question.

  “They all asked for my name. Every man I recruited, assisted, or executed. They wanted someone to follow, or to curse, or to brag about capturing or killing. And so … I gave them one. And before I ever made it back to my own country, I’d become the Rook.” He made a caustic sound. “No one even knows why.”

  “I always assumed it was because ravens are rather ghastly creatures. Harbingers of death and all that.” Knowing his captain’s affinity for chess, Sebastian posited, “I suppose it could be because rooks are considered more powerful than bishops or knights, let alone pawns. They can exert control in every square along his charted course.”

  A dark gaze darted at him, and then away. “I value your unique perspective, Moncrieff, I always have.”

  Grimacing, the first mate shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Don’t compliment me, I don’t like it.”

  “Good, because I was about to tell you how incredibly wrong you are.”

  “I don’t like that, either.” He didn’t like any of this. It unsettled him, made him believe that this storm was blowing in a transformation, one to be wary of. “The men are restless, Captain. They don’t like women on the ship.”

  “They won’t remain so for long.”

  To which “they” did he refer? The restless crew? Or the women on the ship? Figuring he’d exhausted the Rook’s stores of good nature, along with the bottle of Scotch, he stood.

  “We’re sailing north, I see. Are we to resume our search of the rivers?”

  The Rook gestured in the negative. “We’re headed for the Isle of Mull.”

  Moncrieff’s tongue froze on its quest for the last drop of butter-gold liquid from the bottle. “But … We’ve been there already. We’ve searched the western coast. None of the rivers—”

  The Rook stood, the look in his eyes subtracting several years from Moncrieff’s life span. “Are you questioning me, Bastian?”

  Much like a chiding parent, the captain only used his name when displeased.

  “I just … need something to tell the men.”

  “You tell them I gave them an order. That is all that ever needs telling.”

  Though the Rook’s words irked him, he was not so drunk yet as to be suicidal. “Aye, Captain,” he muttered as he turned toward the narrow hall to his cabin.

  He left the Rook staring at his forearm, running nonsensical patterns on the half-ruined tattoo.

  A ground-shaking revelation followed Moncrieff all the way back to his bunk, where no amount of Scotch could settle him.

  The Rook was no god. No monster. No legend. He was … just a man. And a man had vices. Feelings.

  Weaknesses.

  All this time, had Lorelai Weatherstoke been the Rook’s one weakness? Did she have in her small, elegant hand the one thing the whole world feared didn’t exist?

  The Rook’s fabled heart.

  If so, she’d just become the most dangerous woman in the world.

  And the most valuable.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Pawing through the Rook’s personal things was difficult with only one hand, but Lorelai had yet to find something to fasten her bodice closed and she couldn’t reach her laces. She clutched at it as she pulled dressers and trunks open in search of something to wear.

  Dawn threatened to break over a sea thick with soupy mist. Since Lorelai couldn’t bring herself to sleep, she might as well do something other than cower and await his return.

  She’d already wasted hours curled up on the counterpane for a sleepless, stormy night in a trembling heap contemplating all her captor had revealed. Which wasn’t much, all told.

  Ash. A pirate. The pirate. The Rook. A name more notorious and fearsome than those of piratical glory days of a century past such as Barbosa, Sir Francis Drake, Blackbeard, and Henry Morgan.

  Combined.

  Twenty years. He’d come for her after twenty years.

  How? Why? And … how? The
British Royal Navy was the most powerful in the world, and he’d managed to elude them like no other.

  Was his continued presence in Britain known to the powers that be? Surely one of the Royal Fleet patrolling the Channel would spot him. He didn’t fly a pirate flag, like they did in the stories. But even so. Remaining here seemed like an immense risk to take, even for someone so intrepid as he.

  He’d claimed to have been observing her for several months …

  Little butterflies erupted in her stomach at the thought. Several months could mean a year at least, if he was to be believed. She’d released the otter he’d spoken of, William Wallace, back into the wild the prior summer. The Rook had said he’d been there. Had spied upon her while she’d taught little Wallace how to swim. How to fish.

  Hadn’t she read in the papers somewhere the Rook had been recently captured in Scotland, had sent to Newgate Prison, and subsequently escaped?

  She should have paid closer attention. But how could she have known?

  Curled upon his cavernous bed, she’d filled a few agonizing hours wallowing in her memories of the past, in her anxiety for what came next. Eventually, her frayed nerves had tired of that. She had to do something, or she’d never be able to live with herself.

  First order of business, she’d decided, was to find something to keep herself warm.

  Unsurprisingly, the Rook’s neatly kept wardrobe and dressers held as many weapons as garments.

  She unsheathed a thin but dangerously sharp dagger by a handle encrusted with gems. It looked like something an Arabian prince would wield.

  Lorelai set the dagger close by, and renewed her search for a garment to cover her nakedness. Her fingers grazed a shirt thick as wool but soft rather than coarse. She lifted the plush fabric and tested its almost velveteen texture against her cheek. A briny scent combined with bay rum and frankincense enveloped her, evoking images of tropical climes and sun-sparkling seas.

  Of places she’d never been, explored by a man she’d never thought to see again.

  Glancing back at the door to confirm that she remained alone, Lorelai discarded her ruined wedding bodice, corset, and chemise, and donned the shirt. It fell past her thighs, and she had to struggle with foreign, intricate toggles rather than buttons to fasten it. The neckline was strange and wide, but the garment warmed her, instantly.

  Upon searching further, she found a long cream sash and belted it about her waist, obscuring the dagger into the folds should she need to use it. Not that she knew how to correctly wield the thing, but one needed a weapon on a pirate ship, didn’t one?

  Lord, there was a thought she never imagined she’d have to consider.

  She stumbled upon a pistol, as well, and a frantic search uncovered the bullets in another drawer. Having never shot a revolver, it took her a few precious moments to figure out how to correctly load it, but she managed.

  She must look ridiculous in her ruffled ivory wedding skirts and a strange, masculine top, but that was the least of her worries.

  Her sweet Ash had been transformed into the ruthless Rook. He’d made it clear to her that he intended to thoroughly consummate that laughable farce of a marriage just as soon as he recovered from the blow she’d dealt him. Whether she consented or not. And she could only guess the fate that awaited poor Veronica.

  Limping to the door, Lorelai considered her very slim options.

  If she stayed in the captain’s quarters, her fate was obvious. She’d be at his mercy.

  And mercy seemed to be something the Rook had forsaken some twenty years hence.

  With stealth, the mist, and a great deal of luck, she could find Veronica, and her clever sister-in-law might know where a vessel like this stored its lifeboats.

  Veronica’s father had been a wealthy shipping magnate, after all. She knew more about boats, navigation, and the sea than most men did.

  Creeping to the door, Lorelai realized it wasn’t the kind that could be locked from the outside. Which made sense. Why would the captain of a pirate ship ever hazard being locked in his own quarters?

  Her fingers rested on the latch, and she paused.

  What if he’d placed a guard at the door? The unscrupulous Moncrieff, perhaps. Or the Rook might have stood vigil, himself.

  Shivering at the thought, Lorelai opened the little brass peephole in the door and pressed her eye to it. The short hall was full of shadows, but empty of pirates so far as she could tell.

  Stepping back, she eased open the door and let the pistol precede her into the predawn gloom. She peeled her shoulders away from her ears when she found herself alone. Releasing a shaky breath as quietly as she could, she lifted her skirts and leaned on the rail, careful not to trip down the three wide steps into the narrow hall.

  She’d been too terrified yesterday to marvel that the Devil’s Dirge boasted the accommodations of a luxurious steamship, but with decidedly rougher occupants. She’d stared at the glowing sconces all night, and had idly wondered how on earth electricity could be found on a ship. She’d never before heard of such extravagant possibilities.

  As she dragged her lame foot upon lush red carpets, she wondered if this was what Pierre Aronnax felt whilst exploring the Nautilus. Flabbergasted, terrified, and more than a little impressed.

  There was no time to dawdle, or explore, she reminded herself. She had to find Veronica.

  Where had Moncrieff said he’d stash her? The blue room? That could be anywhere.

  Dim electric lights reflected off the ambient mist stealing through the hall like a wary dream.

  Lorelai searched what little her panicked memory had stored from her abduction. The captain’s quarters from which she disembarked were located off the main deck below the open aft deck. The luxurious accommodations took up the entire rear of the ship on this level, which was why it had so many portholes and windows from which to enjoy the view. She stood at the end of a hall that had four doors, spaced evenly apart, two on the right and two on the left.

  If her guess was correct, these were also accommodations for officers or important guests.

  It would be folly to make much noise, as whomever the Rook chose as his officers had to be almost as unprincipled and ruthless as he.

  As she crept up the hall, Lorelai found the last door on the right had been bolted, from the outside.

  What were the chances that the Rook kept prisoners other than her and Veronica anywhere else but the ship’s hold way below deck?

  Truthfully, she had no way of knowing, but anyone she found that wasn’t Veronica could become a potential ally. All to the good, in her estimation.

  As silently as she could, she slid the bolt free and unlatched the door, revealing blue carpet that she took to be a fantastic sign.

  Opening the door all the way, she called in a loud whisper, “Veronica?”

  She almost dropped the pistol to devastating effect as the heavy candelabra Veronica swung stopped inches away from denting her temple.

  “L-Lorelai?” They collapsed into each other’s arms. The younger woman shook with the effort not to dissolve into sobs, still clutching the makeshift weapon. “I thought you were—that he—oh God! Your dress! Are you all right?”

  Lorelai pulled back, pressing a finger to her lips. “I’m fine, darling. For now. Listen to me. We haven’t much time. If we’re to get out of this, our best chance is on a lifeboat. Do you remember seeing them? Do you know where they are or how to release them?”

  Veronica was shaking her head, her pale features ghostly in the eerie mists. “This is a faster steamship than I’ve ever encountered,” she whispered. “And we’ve been aboard for several hours. We could be anywhere by now.” She paused, peering past Lorelai into the corridor. “Wait.” She ventured forward, slipped into the hall and rounded the corner.

  “What are you doing?” Lorelai caught up with her, and linked their arms so they could cling together.

  “There are many kinds of fog.” Veronica sagely pointed toward the open passage door to
the deck completely concealed by thick wisps of mist. “This kind only gathers near land. If we get to the lifeboats and row far enough away from this ship and out of the clouds, we might have a chance.”

  Lorelai squeezed her, blessing all the gods she could think of for the clever woman and her merchant-class knowledge.

  “It’s better than being stuck here, I think.”

  Veronica nodded her agreement.

  They crept to the door expecting an army of pirates to stop them at any time. The ship remained eerily quiet but for the constant sounds of the engine.

  “The lifeboats are just beyond the galley, secured below the deck.” Veronica pointed to their left. “We’ll have to crawl down a ladder on the outside of the ship. Once we reach it, we’ll have little time as the wheelhouse will most definitely be manned by a navigator and he’ll likely see us if the mist dissipates even a little.”

  “Do you think we could incapacitate the navigator without killing him?” Lorelai pointed to the candelabra.

  “If we’re lucky.” Veronica didn’t look hopeful. “Let’s just hope we remain concealed.” They ducked below the windows of the galley and made their way along the deck, feeling for the rails of a ladder that would lower them to the lifeboats.

  Veronica stopped so abruptly, Lorelai narrowly avoided bowling her over. Her hand reached back and gripped Lorelai’s, leading it to the cold iron curve of a hang ladder.

  “The lifeboats hang two decks above the water,” Veronica breathed against her ear. “Since there’s no one on deck to help, we’ll need to release the ropes at exactly the same time for the boat to land and not dump us into the sea. Do you understand? We … we might be a bit injured in the fall.”

  Heart pounding, mouth dry, Lorelai nodded her understanding as she clung to her dearest friend. “It’s the only way. You go first.”