by Connie Mason
The footsteps halted outside her door.
Good. The man had better stop and speak to her this night. Not that she needed his word to know her dinner party was a sparkling success. She didn’t want to talk about the party at all.
She wanted to know about the treasonous conversation Reggie Turnscrew had overheard in the stable. Before Penny’s visit, Reggie had surprised Eve by shinnying over her garden wall with a twisted tale spewing out his mouth as fast as he could tell it. From what she could piece together from Reggie’s account, Saint George Tucker was up to something dangerous. Surely Nick wouldn’t be so addlepated as to join in whatever madness Mr. Tucker was planning, but according to the stable lad, it sounded as if he had agreed.
The floorboards outside her door squeaked and Nick moved on.
Eve swore under her breath. He must have seen the light shining beneath her door. He knew she was still awake and yet he walked on.
They hadn’t spent any time alone since she’d finally and irrevocably refused to become his mistress. When he’d asked her to serve as hostess at the dinner party, she’d hoped it meant he was warming up to the idea of making her his wife. After all, she was performing a wife’s duty in the eyes of all their guests.
But he didn’t knock at her door.
So be it. She’d go to him.
When she reached his door, she turned the latch and strode in without knocking. Nicholas was just peeling off his shirt, his broad back kissed by the yellow light of his bedside hurricane lamp.
“What have you agreed to do for Saint George Tucker?”
He turned slowly to face her. “I’m considering selling him that colt if he comes up to my asking price.”
“No, you’re not.” She folded her arms beneath her breasts, painfully aware that his gaze had fallen to them. “You’re doing something that’s like to get you hanged.”
“Who’d you hear that from?”
“Never mind,” Eve said, unwilling to name Reggie. Nick wouldn’t appreciate the little wretch’s sharp eyes and wagging tongue. Eve had sworn Reggie to silence, but Nick might have other ideas. “I know about the powder.”
His gaze jerked back to her face and he closed the distance between them in a couple of long strides. “What do you know about it?”
Reggie’s details were sketchy. The boy thought Nick and his guest had argued about rice powder—“the kind them dandies wear”—but Eve suspected powder of a more dangerous kind.
“Tell me.” Nick grasped her shoulders and gave her a slight shake.
She lifted her chin. “I know you’re being forced to do something you shouldn’t.”
“Eve, you know me.” He chuckled softly. “I follow no law but my own will. Do you really think I can be forced to do anything I don’t want to do?”
“If the stakes are high enough, anyone can be manipulated.”
“You give me hope, wench. You really do.” Anyone else might have been fooled by his careless laugh, but his smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I still want you. Obviously, I simply haven’t offered you the right stakes.”
“No, you haven’t, you stupid oaf.”
“Charming, as always,” he said with a shake of his head. “How can I resist? Suppose I offered you marriage…”
“But you haven’t and now you’re trying to change the subject.” She shook off his grasp and poked his naked chest with her forefinger. If he thought he could dazzle her into distraction with a ham-handed proposal, he was sadly mistaken. Besides, she wanted more than his name. She wanted his heart. And even if he asked her to marry him, she promised herself she’d say no unless he offered his love as well. “I’m not leaving until you tell me what you’re planning to do.”
Nick stared at her for a moment, then stalked over to his bed and sat on the end of it. “I’m going to commit treason.”
Eve followed and sank onto the bed beside him. “Tell me.”
She listened wild-eyed while he repeated the colonials’ demands. Gunpowder for food. Nothing else would do.
“It should be fairly easy,” he said. “The magazine is lightly guarded and—”
“But if you’re caught…oh, Nicholas!” The penalty for treason was still the same as when Henry the Eighth sat on the British throne.
Hanging, drawing and quartering.
“I won’t get caught.”
“But…” Her voice failed. The thought of his beautiful, strong body destroyed so utterly made her light-headed.
“Your concern is touching, love.” He cupped her cheek and drew a thumb across her parted lips.
Love. If only he meant it. Well, she did mean it, even if she couldn’t say it. And she wasn’t going to let him risk himself without a fight.
“Nick, you don’t understand.” She took his hand between both of hers. “It’s a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the law. You don’t know what it means to lose control of your body. They’ll take you and they’ll do horrible things and they’ll…break you.” Her voice hitched in a sob. It was almost as if the lash was descending afresh on her back. “You won’t be able to stop them, and I won’t be able to bear it.”
A shudder wracked her whole frame. Nick drew her into his arms and she went willingly. He was so warm, and she could feel his heart galloping beneath her palm. She tipped her mouth up to him and he covered her lips with his.
“If there is any other way around this, Eve, I will take it,” he said. “But I can see no other course but the one before me.”
She nodded woodenly. Of course, he couldn’t let the islanders starve. She understood that. But he was running a horrible risk.
“I solemnly promise you,” he said, kissing her fingertips between each word, “that I will not be caught. You and I have unconcluded business. Do you think I’d leave you when we still have a fight to finish?”
She was weary of fighting him. “Perhaps we can declare a truce.”
He laid her back on his bed and untied the drawstring at the neckline of her night shift. “For the next week, you and I are no longer at war.” He bent his head and claimed a tight nipple, sucking her through the thin cotton. “Until then, you make your bed with me and pleasure is our only law.”
She arched her breast into his mouth. “And hostilities may resume between us once you square things with the Americans?”
He pinned her beneath him and she felt his belly jiggle with a laugh. “Or perhaps we’ll decide to make the truce permanent.”
“Perhaps.” She surrendered to his touch and willed herself not to think beyond her next breath.
Chapter Thirty
Nicholas peered through his spyglass at the dark horizon. Over the silver-tipped waves, white sails showed at the farthest edge of his vision.
“That’ll be the Lady Catherine out of Virginia and the Charleston and Savanna Pacquet, of South Carolina,” Saint said at his elbow.
And between them on a tight leash, rode Nick’s own Susan Bell, whose hull was full to bursting with the promised foodstuffs. The ships were cruising beyond the range of the governor’s scout vessels. They’d have the wind of any patrol boat that took an interest in them.
“If something goes awry, the Americans will turn tail and head for home,” Nick said grimly.
“Nothing will go awry.” Saint clapped him on the shoulder. “And we won’t turn tail. History is written by the winners, Nick. When all this is over and America is free of the Crown, we’ll remember what you do here tonight.”
“What’s this ‘we’?” Nick demanded. “You were born a Bermudian, Saint.”
“But I’m an American by choice,” he said softly. “I know this is difficult for you. It’s hard for me, too.”
Nick snorted. “Not hard enough.”
“It’s a sober thing to take up arms against one’s sovereign,” Saint said. “But freedom is worth a man’s life, even a man’s honor. Once you’re determined to pursue it, there’s no road back.”
“None that doesn’t end in a noose,” Nick said, lifti
ng the glass to his eye again. “Here come the whaleboats. I make half a dozen of them.”
He handed the spyglass to Saint. The American ships lowered smaller boats to creep into the shallow bay. The flotilla had just passed the first ring of reefs.
Nick looked at the men who waited for his word. Along with Higgs, he had called on the small group who’d returned to Bermuda in the schooner from Grand Turk since the bulk of his crew was still on board the Susan Bell. Saint had brought a few trusted men as well, including, surprisingly enough, his father, Colonel Henry Tucker.
From the scowl on the elder Tucker’s face, Nick suspected the old man’s involvement was more about salvaging his shipping rights with the Americans than any sympathy with the rebels’ cause.
And if things went badly this night, Nick had as good as signed each man’s death warrant.
“Let’s get started.”
Nick led the party back up the short hill to where the magazine was positioned in a lonely part of the island. The moon overhead was only a few days past full. There was plenty of light to see that no guards were in sight.
“Thanks be to God for incompetent governors,” Nick muttered. “Tatem, Dunscombe, you two will serve as lookouts. If you see anyone, sing out like a teal. The rest of you, with me.”
The magazine was made of limestone blocks, several feet thick, and the door could not be jimmied from without.
“Give me a boost to the roof, Cap’n,” Higgs suggested. “We’ll pull off some tiles and you can lower me down.”
Nick laced his fingers and Higgs stepped into them. Nick lifted him with a grunt. Higgs grabbed at the roof ledge and scrabbled his way on up, swinging his long legs wildly. Nick signaled to Saint to boost him up after Higgs.
Once they were both up, Nick and Peregrine worked several roof tiles loose and peered into the blackness of the magazine. A whiff of sulfur rose to meet their nostrils.
“Wish me luck,” Higgs said as he let his legs dangle into the opening.
“Steady on, lad.” Nick stopped him with a hand to his shoulder. “If I don’t bring you back in your present configuration, Miss Smythe will never forgive me. I’m the one who’s going in. You’re getting off this roof and pulling the men back to a safe distance.”
A single spark was all it would take for the magazine to go up like a Roman candle.
“You might need me,” Peregrine said with a grin and disappeared down the hole.
Nick leaned over the opening, trying to see. “Blast and damn, Higgs. This is no time to disobey a direct order.”
“You can order me flogged later,” came the disrespectful reply.
“I think you’re in the main chamber. Pick your feet up. You don’t want a spark,” Nick hissed at him, then turned to direct the others on the ground. “Get back, all of you. We’ll signal when the door is open.”
Then Nick lowered himself into the blackness. When he dropped the few feet to the stone floor, the slap of his boots striking the pavers sounded unnaturally loud. He didn’t move for a moment, waiting for his vision to sharpen in the darkness. The single shaft of moonlight flooded the chamber with shades of gray. Nick made out barrels stacked around the room more than shoulder high.
“The door’s over here,” Higgs whispered.
“That’ll only be the interior door,” Nick said. “We need some more light.”
The inner door opened with the lifting of the latch. Nick led the way through the portal and into the narrow corridor that ringed the cache of powder. Once they left the central chamber, all trace of moonlight fled and they plunged into tarry blackness.
The magazine was designed as a box within a box, both sets of walls fashioned of limestone blocks and each a couple feet thick. Nick ran his fingers along the inner wall, searching for a lantern recess. Once he found one, he pulled out his flint and tinder.
“Let’s hope the governor’s men are better at keeping this passage clean of powder than they are at guarding it,” Nick said as he trimmed the wick and lit the lamp by feel alone.
Yellow light flooded the narrow white-washed space. A thin pane of vellum stretched across the back of the recess. It allowed lamplight to penetrate the inner chamber without the risk of open flame.
“I’ll light the other lamps,” Nick said. “Get to work on the outer door, Pere.”
“Aye, Cap’n.” Higgs moved back down the corridor, whistling through his teeth, heedless of the fact that one moment’s inattention might blow them both to the stars.
Damn, if the scamp isn’t enjoying this. That flirtation with Miss Smythe was turning the staid and reasonable Higgs into a daredevil.
And about time, Nick thought with a grin.
By the time Nick had all the lanterns lit, Higgs had pried open the door and the first barrels of powder were being carefully rolled down the hill to Tobacco Bay. Nick relieved Higgs and took up his station in the powder room, handing the barrels out to waiting hands. There was no need to risk more than one person in that volatile chamber at a time.
The workers were silent; the only sound was the scrape of boots at the threshold. Then came the occasional thud of a wooden barrel against a rock or bared tree root. And lastly, the eternal breath of the sea rushing over them.
Nick kept a tally in his head, starting the count afresh once he’d handed out the hundredth barrel.
Perhaps this is going to work.
The low warning cry of a teal made Nick freeze. The lookouts were signaling.
“We’re done here,” Nick said as he carried out the barrel he was holding and shoved it into Saint’s arms. He pulled the door to the magazine closed behind him.
“But there are half a dozen barrels left,” Saint complained.
“If what the colonials already have stowed in the whaleboats isn’t enough to satisfy them, I’d be pleased to take it back,” Nick said, fingering the loaded pistol he’d shoved into his belt.
“No, no,” Saint said. “This will do.”
“Good. Higgs, go with them and bring the Susan B home. The rest of you are dismissed.”
Nick’s crew scattered like leaves before a gale.
He drew his pistol and loped toward the lookouts, bent double to make himself a smaller target in case the governor’s guard was abroad with their muskets.
When he reached his lookouts, he found Tatem and Dunscombe standing over something, shoving each other back and forth, nearly ready to come to blows.
“You coulda just cracked his noggin,” Tatem was saying in a furious whisper.
“He’s a damn Frog,” Dunscombe growled. “What’s it to you?”
“Report, Mr. Tatem,” Nick said softly as he joined them. A body lay at Dunscombe’s feet. The dead man was wearing a French officer’s uniform.
“This feller were nosin’ about, Cap’n,” Tatem began.
“And I didn’t bloody well like the look of him, not by half,” Dunscombe interrupted.
“So you killed him.” Nick turned the man over with his foot. The Frenchman’s throat had been slit, his blood blackening the white cravat elegantly tied at his neck. The epaulets at his shoulders marked him as a man of rank.
“Aye, Cap’n. I figgered we didn’t need the likes of him tellin’ what he knows about our business.” Dunscombe folded his beefy arms over his chest.
“This Frenchman is an officer. Likely on parole,” Nicholas said. The British navy frequently dropped enemy combatants on Bermuda. Once they gave their word they wouldn’t engage in further hostilities against England, the soldiers and sailors were given free run of the island. “Someone’s bound to miss him. See to it no one finds his body. With luck, the authorities will believe he broke his parole and took ship.”
“Aye, Cap’n,” Dunscombe said with a snaggletoothed grin. “I knows just where to stash him.”
“Mr. Tatem, give him a hand.”
“See, what did I say?” Dunscombe lifted the feet of the dead man and nodded to Tatem to grasp him under the armpits. “Killin’ a Frog weren’t
no cause for complaint.”
Nick snatched Dunscombe up by his greasy collar. The Frenchman’s legs dragged bonelessly on the ground.
“Mr. Dunscombe, you have killed a man tonight. Not a frog. And by stealth, too, from the looks of it.” Nick gave Dunscombe a jaw-rattling shake. “Think, you dunderhead. That Frenchman wasn’t likely to report stolen powder. He’d have been more likely to roll the barrels to the beach with us since it would hurt the Crown.”
Truth to tell, the paroled officer was probably scouting the area for a possible French raid on the unguarded magazine.
Damn the governor’s incompetence! Weakness was a prayer to the devil. It always invited attack. If the powder had been well guarded in the first place, the Americans might not have blackmailed the Bermudians for it.
Nicholas glared down at the dead man. Damn you, too, for being in the wrong place.
“Once this night’s work is done, come round to collect your pay, Dunscombe. You no longer have a berth on my ship.”
Nick stalked away, trying to dust the black powder from his hands. He had betrayed his sovereign, stolen from his own military and a man had died because of Nick’s decision to place the welfare of the island above his king.
He didn’t think it was possible to feel any dirtier.
Chapter Thirty-one
Eve rose to add more water to the big kettle. Its intermittent whistle kept her from drifting off to sleep. When Nicholas returned home, he’d want a bath.
And she would wait for him with water on the boil.
Nick was in danger and she couldn’t rest till she knew he was safe. She was an unmarried woman waiting in a man’s chamber, preparing his bath. There was no disguising what that made her. But she almost didn’t care what sort of name the world would hang about her neck anymore.
All that mattered was Nick coming home safe.
When she heard his tread in the hall, she rose to her feet and skittered to open the door. He was stopped, head bowed, outside the door to her chamber, one arm against the doorjamb, bracing himself upright.
