The Leading Lady (Half Moon House Series)

by Deb Marlowe

  Lord Stoneacre stepped close. “Miss Wright, Miss Grant, may I introduce Mr. Perlott?”

  The niceties were exchanged and then the supercargo waved a hand. “Miss Grant, the wind and tide are finally both coming up favorable. If you’ll come quickly aboard, we need to be on our way.”

  “Of course.”

  She turned to Hestia, but Lord Stoneacre beat her, moving in and taking her friend’s hand. “I cannot express my thanks for your help in this matter,” he said warmly. “When we return I will do my best to find a suitable way to repay you.”

  Callie stared. The earl sounded utterly sincere, but also . . . interested. And just a tad too intimate. She watched Hestia’s face harden.

  “Bring Callie back safe. That will be thanks enough for me.”

  Lord Truitt stepped forward. “We shall keep her safe, you have my word. And we’ll bring Marstoke back as well, bound, chained and ready to meet justice.”

  Hestia bestowed one of her dazzling smiles on him, warm and approving. “Keep those promises, my lord, and it shall be just as I predicted—we will be very good friends indeed.”

  A trivial exchange, light and flirtatious, and yet for some reason Lord Stoneacre suddenly looked as uncomfortable as Callie felt.

  Then there was time only for a quick hug and a whispered farewell, and she was hustled across to a longboat and being rowed out to the waiting ship. Mr. Perlott escorted them to their cabins. Callie’s was last in the short passage and farthest from the ladder that continued on and led down to the crew quarters. The gentlemen, tired from a long night’s planning, wished to rest, but she took one look at her tiny, stark quarters, felt the sway of the ship as it picked up the current and asked Perlott to find her a spot on deck where she would be out of the way.

  He found her a place at the stern rail and returned to his duties, which suited her fine. Here she could feel the wind and spray and watch England recede into the distance. She waved to Hestia’s tiny, disappearing figure and gripped the rail with white-knuckled fingers. Events were moving quickly and dragging her right along with them. She’d been comfortable at Half Moon House for a long while now, had forgotten the rush of fear and tension that came with being on her own. She could adjust, though. She’d been alone before, with the care of young Letty an additional burden to bear.

  Slowly, she began to relax. She caught the rhythm of the dance between the ship and the white-capped sea and let it soothe her. Coming back to her more normal self, she also fell back on habit and extended her senses and awareness, trying to read the mood and cadence of her surroundings.

  Presumably the crew was used to passengers, but as the only woman aboard, caution wouldn’t come amiss. She moved her position slightly so she could see and hear more from amidships. No one objected and she came to see that the crewmen appeared a cheerful lot, singing as they worked, and making jests at each other as the Spanish Lady left the tidal harbor and the captain called for fore and aft sails.

  Only one man gave her pause. She’d thought him merely curious at first. But the same short canvas pants and long, dark pigtail kept crossing her line of vision and she noticed the seaman begin to glance her way, speculation in his eye. Her jaw tightened.

  Ignoring him worked for a short while. She deliberately kept her gaze turned outward, toward the horizon. Until he dropped from the rigging with a thud, just a few feet away from her. She jumped and recoiled, and he met her gaze as he straightened and deliberately adjusted his manly parts before he turned away.

  Callie sighed. Why was there always one?

  She waited and watched. He moved closer again as the minutes passed. As if it were natural, just his tasks drawing him nearer to her spot on the rail. It wasn’t. They both knew the steps of the dance, both were aware of the music. No matter. He was a snake, weaving about his prey, thinking to catch a mouse. He would be the one surprised when he bared his fangs to strike and found his head trapped beneath a lioness’s paw.

  She tensed when he moved behind her, disappearing from her line of sight. Trying for nonchalance, she turned back, facing the stern again—but there was no sign of him. She looked up, cursing herself for leaving her blade tucked into her portmanteau.

  She swore silently again when the soft step sounded right behind her. She was ready in an instant, however. She spun on her heel and threw out a low, forceful punch. Her tone loud and meant to carry, she demanded, “Just what is it that you think you want?”

  Her elbow jarred painfully when her fist was caught mid-strike. For the second time in as many days she frowned as she looked up into Lord Truitt Russell’s baleful visage.

  Sheer instinct prompted Tru to catch Callie Grant’s fist in mid-swing. The hard look of determined bravado on her face had him catching her other elbow too.

  “Good God, are you all right?”

  She blinked up at him. Tried to tug away. “Lord Truitt! Please forgive me. I’m sorry—I thought you were—”

  Tru’s every muscle went on alert. She’d looked palpably dark. Dangerous. It was fading now, but for a moment the unspoken message on her face had been clear—and familiar. She’d been ready—prepared to do any damned thing at all to get away.

  “Thought I was what? What’s happened? Has somebody frightened you?”

  She laughed but it was entirely unconvincing. “Frightened? Me? Have your attics gone to let?”

  She tugged harder and he let go. “What is it, then?” Don’t lie to me. The message lived in his expression and in the protective tilt of his body, loud and clear.

  “It’s nothing.” She tried for a smile and failed. She waved a hand toward the empty sea. “I was watching England disappear and I felt . . .”

  He watched her carefully. “Homesick?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “You did seem uncommonly tense,” he pressed.

  She frowned suddenly. “And you’ve appeared uncommonly at ease this morning. It’s certainly a vast difference from the intensity I’ve come to expect from you, sir.” She raised a brow.

  He shrugged. “We’re on our way. It’s happening, finally. We’re going to get him.” He took a step back and let that happy truth roll over him again.

  “Yes, you can regain your all important honor.”

  “My honor is important.” He cast a glance at her. “Do you think that I don’t worry for the larger mischief Marstoke might get up to? I do.”

  “Of course you do. I’m sorry.” She did sound a bit apologetic. “I know he’s already entangled you in his bigger schemes—and you thwarted him. Your efforts saved the Prince Regent—the whole country—more than just embarrassment. He might have started an international incident had you not helped stop the Love List from going out as he planned.”

  Bitterness rose up. Yes, he’d been tricked, kidnapped and held captive for foiling Marstoke’s plans, and in the end he’d only been reviled for it, because the marquess had escaped and the whole truth was too embarrassing for the Regent to admit to. Damned right, his honor was important. This had become a personal battle.

  And he was—at last—about to engage in it. He pushed his dark thoughts away. “I can afford to relax for a few hours.” He tilted his head. “Though it does seem as if you and I have traded places, in the emotional sense.”

  She looked back over the water again. “It’s nothing. I was just feeling . . . adrift.”

  He nodded. “That’s because you are in the wrong spot. Come? There’s something I’d like to show you.”

  She hesitated and he held his breath. He wouldn’t insist.

  She glanced around again, as if looking for something. A reason to refuse? But at last her shoulders relaxed and she relented and let him lead her across the deck. With a wave to the captain, he helped her down a ladder, across the midship deck and up another few steps to the forward deck. “I’ve found it’s always better here, in the bow of the ship,” he confided. “Especially when you are feeling blue-deviled. Here you are going toward something, not away. I
don’t know why it makes a difference, but it does.”

  “It does make sense, I suppose,” she mused. She cocked her head at him. “You are consistent at least.”

  “In what way?” he asked, mystified.

  “You seem to be attached to the state of moving forward, making progress.”

  He loosed a bitter laugh. “Perhaps because I’ve experienced so little of it before now.” He knew at least part of their past antagonism had arisen because she’d seen him as useless, just another aimless young nobleman. Her dismissal had hurt that much more for the sting of truth it carried.

  “I’m beginning to doubt that,” she said quietly. She moved ahead of him and he gestured for her to approach the rail. “But as this is my first sea voyage, I shall bow to your judgment regarding the decks.”

  “First time at sea?” Deliberately he released some of the tension he always felt in her presence. Pleasure, simple and expectant, ran through him. “Then you are in for a treat.” He motioned her forward again. “Grab hold of the rail, then lean over and look down.”

  She cast him a doubtful look, but did as he bid. And he drank in her sudden gasp of delight. “Oh, how lovely! What are they?”

  “Porpoises,” Tru told her. “Perlott says they often play like that, in the wake of the bow.”

  “Oh, look at them leaping!” Enchantment colored her tone and softened her expression. For some reason it made Tru’s chest swell, as if he’d recovered the missing crown jewels, not just made a solemn girl smile.

  “How smoothly they slip into and out of the water,” she said in wonder.

  “Watch that one, right at the front.” Tru pointed. “Yes, him . . . wait . . . There!” He laughed as one of the animals slipped just ahead of the ship and indulged itself in a continuous loop of barrel rolls.

  “How does he do that? He barely moves, just the smallest circle of his tail and he’s rolling endlessly.”

  “The water is distorted around the moving bow of the ship. He’s taking advantage of the endless wave, Perlott says.”

  For nearly a quarter of an hour they stayed, watching the impromptu show, until eventually the porpoises began to drift away.

  “Oh, how wonderful that was,” Miss Grant said, turning around and leaning on the rail. Sobriety had slipped back onto her face. She glanced up at him. “What do you suppose the purpose of it is?”

  He chuckled, willing to share in the joke—and then realized that she was entirely serious. “Purpose? I rather think there isn’t one, is there? It’s as Perlott said. They are frolicking. Having fun.”

  Surprise shone evident in her gaze. “Oh?” She peered over the rail again but the last of the animals had dropped away.

  Tru stared. “Miss Grant, do you know how to have fun?” He snapped his mouth shut, too late to cut off the words. It was too personal, and quite the rudest question he’d ever asked.

  She didn’t seem to be offended, however. In fact, she appeared to be considering the matter. Quite seriously.

  Well. That only made him wish for an answer. “Miss Grant?”

  “I am familiar with the concept,” she said defensively. “I’m just thinking.”

  “Tell me one single thing in your life—something that you’ve done purely for the enjoyment of it,” he demanded.

  Several quiet moments passed. A tense, almost stimulating span of time in which they eyed each other and Tru felt as if he was taking her measure again—and yet for the first time.

  “Well . . .” She deflated suddenly. “I’m awfully good at the marketing. I can get the best prices out of most every carter.”

  “No.” He waved a dismissive hand. “That is a chore, a necessity. I mean something frivolous and fun.”

  Her lips pursed. “I bake sometimes, when I want to distract myself or when I’m feeling . . . unsettled.”

  “Ah . . . macaroons, is it? Pastries? Tiny iced cakes?”

  She frowned. “No. Loaves of bread to go along with dinner at Half Moon House. Or breakfast rolls, occasionally.”

  “That hardly counts, then.”

  “You’d be surprised how much tension you can get out, pounding at dough,” she insisted.

  He snorted. “That just means the baking serves two purposes.” He gestured toward the ocean below. “Think of those animals. How joyously they leaped. Couldn’t you sense how free and happy they felt, leaping from one world to the next, reveling in the waves and the wind and the sun?”

  She pressed her lips together and nodded.

  “That’s what I mean.”

  She shook her head, a little helplessly. “Just for fun?” She sighed. “I don’t think I’ve ever done something like that.”

  A brave and sobering thing to admit out loud. But Tru could not pity her. Perhaps that was her secret, after all. Was it merely purpose that made her different from every other young miss he knew? She had a vision, important work to be done, beyond attending the next society ball and snagging the most eligible catch on the marriage mart. Well, he supposed those were purposes, as well, if not really unique or admirable ones.

  Certainly something set her apart. Given their previous encounters he might be forgiven for thinking it her fiery temper or her willingness to go toe to toe and bosom to magnificent bosom to argue her point.

  It was more than that, he knew now, and he suspected her purpose was a large part of her appeal. After all, he could attest to the wrack and ruin that came of an aimless life.

  Except that he had a purpose now, too—and the sudden mischief setting her alight was making him forget it. She stared up at him, expectant and looking as if she was on the verge of saying something slightly risqué.

  “Yes?” he asked with caution.

  “Oh, never mind!” She gave a sheepish laugh. “I was willing to make the attempt, at least. I was trying very hard to come up with a joke about a porpoise with a purpose. I know there must be one, but I can’t quite get it to come to my tongue.”

  Tru laughed anyway. She looked almost unfamiliar without her usual mask of disdain. The hard set of her jaw and the tight line of her shoulders had relaxed a bit. Sea winds had teased loose a few strands of that mahogany hair and thrown back the folds of her cloak. She looked altogether softer. He felt, suddenly, that he could grow to like this version of her.

  The odd thought brought him up short. It hardly mattered how he felt about her, did it? Not when she’d transmitted her scorn for him often enough in their squabbles. Not while the world believed in its own version of him—that of a traitor, or a fool.

  “You are right, though,” he said, suddenly brisk. “I have grown inordinately fond of moving forward. We can do just that right now, too. Stoneacre was setting some things up in the captain’s day cabin. He should be ready for us.”

  Retreating into stiff formality again, he motioned for her to precede him.

  Chapter Five

  The cramping struck quickly and without mercy. By the time I stumbled into the dusty yard of the country inn, I knew the awful truth. A plump and kindly lady came out to greet me, but I collapsed, sobbing, at her feet.

  —from the journal of the infamous Miss Hestia Wright

  Tru tried to hold on to resentment as he escorted Callie Grant to the captain’s day cabin. It proved surprisingly difficult. The afternoon sun caught her as she paused before the darker passage, outlining her voluptuous curves, throwing her hourglass shape into high relief. Tru noted the hitch in the ceaseless activity about them as more than one seaman stopped in his work and let his gaze linger upon her.

  Resentment and rising violence stiffened his spine. Deliberately, though, he pushed it away. With careful movements, Tru closed the door behind her. Let the poor buggers look. They could scarcely help it, after all. What man could? And she was not only well protected, but formidable in her own right.

  He followed her into the cabin.

  Sunlight sparkled from the windows banked across the stern galley. In the center of the room, Stoneacre had commandeered the c
aptain’s navigational table. Charts and tools had been carefully shifted to one side, and the earl was busily unrolling and anchoring maps across the bared space. A large, leather dispatch bag sat at one corner, spilling parchment.

  “Come in, come in!”

  The earl didn’t look as if he was functioning on just a few hours sleep, but then again, neither did Callie Grant. Stoneacre beckoned to her. “Come around to this side. We’ve at least four hours until we stop at Calais, and another day after that until we disembark. We might as well put all that time to good use.”

  Tru ran a finger along a detailed chart of the French coast. “Are you going to share our destination, then? I understand the need for circumspection, but surely now we can speak freely.”

  Stoneacre tossed a chart across the table. “Here.”

  Callie Grant strained to look as well. “A walled city?” she asked.

  Tru frowned and dredged through old, half-forgotten geography lessons. “St. Malo?”

  “Yes, that famed breeding ground for pirates and privateers. What better place for Marstoke to hole up in, eh?” Stoneacre narrowed his gaze in the girl’s direction. “I know that Tru’s French is impeccable. His brother assures me that if it were not, then he wasted a small fortune in tutors.” He grinned at Tru then contemplated Callie Grant again. “And Hestia Wright tells me that you speak French like a native? And that you are also familiar with Breton?”

  She nodded.

  “And that you are quite an accomplished cook?”

  She flushed. “That’s an exaggeration of my abilities, I’d say—”

  The earl interrupted her. “Also that you might be familiar with some regional Breton dishes?”

  She drew herself up. “Lord Stoneacre, are you saying that you wish me to cook on this expedition?”

  Familiar impatience came flooding back. “Come, Stoneacre, explain. We’re tired of being kept in the dark.”

  The earl gestured for him to pull up a chair. “This is not going to be a case of snatch and grab, however tempting that idea might be. We need to give Miss Grant the time and ability to persuade Letty Robbins to cooperate and return with us. We need to gather what information we can on Marstoke’s activities and what he might be planning next. It’s going to take some finesse to pull it all off.”