Midnight Mistress

by Ruth Owen

  “Foolish, I suppose,” Connor said as he came to stand behind her. “Went against my ruthless privateer image. But they were the one proof I had that you’d once loved me. For years I had my sister keep them on her farm, but I asked Rose to bring them here when I—Juliana, are you crying?”

  “She’s your sister! Rose … I thought … but she’s your sister!”

  “Of course she is,” Connor agreed, looking at the Juliana with growing concern. “Perhaps you should sit down.”

  “I don’t want to sit down,” she cried, her words choking out between laughter and tears. “We’re both idiots, Connor. Hopeless, bloody idiots. How do you think our poor baby is going to fare, with two such foolish parents?”

  “Our baby?”

  “Well don’t look so shocked, Captain Gabriel,” she said as she wound her arms around his neck. “You’re not the only one who can keep a secret. I’m not half bad at it my—”

  Her words died as he swept down on her mouth, and ravished her with a joy and hunger that made his caresses in Portugal seem tame.

  Connor cradled Juliana against his chest and traced slow figure eights on her naked back, savoring the sweet afterglow of their lovemaking. He’d thought he was not capable of feeling any more love for her, but the idea of her carrying their child made him cherish her with a fineness he’d never believed possible in his rough and ragged soul. “Our child,” he mused in wonder as he splayed his hand over her stomach. “So that is why you were going to marry. You wanted to give our babe a name.”

  “Um, but I had already decided not to go through with it, even before you kidnapped me.”

  “You’d already decided—” Connor leaned back against the pillows and threw his arm over his eyes. “I wish you had told me that to start with. I was half-mad believing you’d fallen in love with another. And with Grenville, of all people. Not that I would have allowed you to go through with it. Raoul and I were already concocting plans to stop the wedding. Who knows,” he added, grinning. “I might have had to kidnap you.”

  “Sir, you have quite used up your credit on that score. In any event, when I walk down the aisle, I have already determined it will be with a notorious privateer.”

  His grin faded. “Not just a privateer, Juliana. There’s something you need to know. Something I need to tell you. They informed you that I was a murderer. Well … I am.

  “I told you of the infernal captain who gave me this scar. What I did not tell you is that I was one of the lucky ones. He would lock men in the hold for days, even weeks at a time. Sometimes for no reason at all.

  “One night he picked a battle with Raoul’s uncle’s ship. It was an ill choice—the snow outgunned him on all fronts. With his ship sinking, the captain ordered several of his men, including me, to launch the longboat and row him to shore. It would have meant safety for me, but I knew he was leaving the men in the hold behind to drown like rats. I demanded he give me the key. I can still remember his laugh, how it mingled with the screams of the men below. That’s when I wrapped my hands around his throat. I don’t remember much of anything after that, not until I found myself in the hold with key in hand—”

  Juliana’s fingers stopped his mouth. “Hush. That foul captain was the murderer, not you. You saved those poor men.”

  “Unfortunately, the lords of the Admiralty might not see it that way. If a witness comes forward, I’ll hang for mutiny instead of treason—if the Admiral does not get me first. Either way, ’tis likely to be a short marriage. You’ll be a widow almost before you’re a bride.”

  “You are not to talk like that. We will search the Silver and unmask the Admiral, and we will live happily ever after. I have decided on it.”

  “Have you?” he commented softly as he curled a strand of her silken hair around his fingers. “Well, if there is anyone who can make miracles happen, it is …” He paused, realizing what she’d said. “What do you mean, we will search the ship? I’m not risking you or our child. You are not going to be anywhere near the Silver.”

  “But it is a big ship, and I know it like the back of my hand. And you and Raoul could use my help, you know you could.”

  “Maybe so, but that doesn’t mean I intend to take it. I have already put you at risk by telling you the truth about Grenville. You and Meg are going back to the Jollys’ house and stay safely put until this whole affair is over.”

  “La, talk all you please.” She waved away his concerns. “You can not order me and Meg to our rooms as if we were children. If you will not take me with you to search the Silver, I will simply go on my own. Of course, ’twould be more prudent if we went together instead of stumbling over each other, but if you insist …”

  Connor rammed his hand through his hair. “You are the most confounded woman! This is not a garden party you are crashing—’tis a dangerous espionage operation. If we land in the suds over this one, you’ll lose more than your reputation.”

  “All the more reason for me to come.” She wound her arms around his neck. “You know there is no life for me without you. If trouble comes, I want to be at your side when you meet it. ’Tis where I belong—the only place I have ever belonged.”

  “I will not—ah, hell!” He turned her beneath him and took her mouth in a crushing kiss. She was his love and his life, the one sweet, true thing in his tarnished existence. In her eyes he saw the reflection of a hero, a better man than he was, but a man he might some day become with her help and the help of their child. She was right—there was no life for her without him, any more than there was life for him without her. He’d spent enough desolate years without her to know that. “All right. Triumph or defeat, we’ll face the future together. Besides, I have never been able to change that determined mind of yours once it is made up.”

  “Wise decision. Of course, it could not hurt you to try—”

  A knock on the door interrupted her. “Mon ami, it is time.”

  “Blast,” Connor said as he rolled to the side of the bed. “It’s past midnight. If we are to get you and Meg home before the servants report that you’ve been out all night, we must leave now.”

  “But we’ve had so little time.”

  “Soon we’ll have all the time in the world,” he promised, kissing her. “Get dressed. And tomorrow you must keep to your rooms and refuse to see anyone, so that Grenville has no opportunity to discover that you are on to him. Then, at midnight tomorrow, Raoul and I will meet you at the end of your alleyway.”

  “All right, though I do not believe the lying in is necessary,” she said as she slipped her gown over her head. “Meg is a grand actress, and though I am not up to her mark, I can be convincing enough when I have to be. But I must ask—are you certain that Grenville is the man you seek? He is an inept businessman, but he is still of our family, and he has been most kind to Jamie. It is hard for me to believe that he is as evil as you say. Could you not be letting your childhood dislike of him color your opinion?”

  Connor cursed as he fastened his belt. “Hell yes, I despise the man. “When I was a boy he never treated me as anything other than a filthy guttersnipe. But he is a traitor, all right. The Admiral has always coveted the Marquis Line. Now Grenville has delivered it to him, lock, stock, and barrel.”

  Juliana swallowed and sat back on the bed. “If the Marquis ships are being used to transport munitions, the reputation of the Line would be ruined.”

  Her expression showed that she felt as if she’d just lost her father all over again. Connor wrapped her in his arms and smoothed her hair, but another knock stopped him from any further comfort. Damn, he hated this job, this war, this whole bloody mess. Most of all, he hated that it hurt her. “Years from now, when we are very old and sitting by a fire, with two dozen grandchildren playing at our feet, we’ll have forgotten all about this dark business.”

  “Yes, we will,” she said, her voice wavering. “And who knows—by then you might have won an argument or two.”

  He gave her a fierce hug. “Ah, Princess,
I do not believe in miracles.”

  But he silently sent up a prayer to whatever angel was listening, knowing they would likely have need of a few miracles before this game was played out.

  The obsidian water lapped against the curve of the Silver’s hull as the longboat pulled alongside. Juliana ran her hand lovingly over the smooth wooden surface, feeling it rise and settle with a rhythm as steady as a beating heart. Ships had souls, and this one’s was fine and true as the bright metal for which it was named. And if Grenville and the Admiral had misused her or any of her other ships for their nefarious deeds, Juliana vowed she would make them pay for every pound of contraband cargo.

  Connor and Raoul took a final pull toward the ship. With no more sound than the slap of a wave, they lifted the heavy oars from the water and stowed them in the locks. Connor took up the claw and knotted line, and lobbed it up and over the side of the ship. He yanked it twice to make sure it was firmly hooked into the railing, then hunkered down.

  “Right. You all know the plan. We board her here at the forecastle, away from the watchman on the waist and quarterdeck. Keep to the shadows. It is the last night of shore leave, so she’ll only be manned by a skeleton crew. Get below as quick as you can. St. Juste and Meg take the upper decks and the stores, while Juliana and I head down to the orlop deck. At the first sign of suspicious cargo, get back to the longboat and signal Rose on the docks. She’ll alert the harbormaster. Any questions?”

  “Just one last plea,” Raoul said. “That these women will come to their senses, and stay here until we return.”

  Meg and Juliana shared a knowing look, then casually tucked their oversized shirts into the boy’s breeches they’d lifted from the Jollys’ youngest footmen for the occasion. The men may be notorious privateers who were feared all along the Barbary Coast, but they were quite helpless when it came to dissuading a pair of determined women. “We are coming and that is settled,” Juliana stated. “We’d best get to it.”

  As Connor surmised, the deck was nearly empty. The midnight watch strolled along, apparently more interested in polishing the buttons on his coat than in looking for trespassers. Juliana and Connor slipped by the guards and down the main hatch. It looked as if the tide of their luck was finally starting to turn.

  They came to the main hallway. Connor signaled her to stay flush against the wall while he checked to make certain the corridor was empty. In the wavering light of the hallway’s faint lantern, Juliana saw the glint of the pistol barrel stuck in Connor’s belt. She swallowed, realizing again how much danger they were in. And yet, for the first time in months she wasn’t afraid. They were together, and whether their time lasted fifty minutes or fifty years, it was the only life worth living.

  Low voices captured her attention. Someone was talking behind the closed door of the officer’s mess. She leaned closer, and thought she caught the refined timber of a gentleman’s cultured laugh. Grenville! But no, that was impossible. The commodore had taken him to their gentlemen’s club for a farewell celebration to his bachelorhood. The coachmen had reported that he had watched them walk into the entrance, where they were greeted by a dozen friends. Jolly was feverishly proud of the party he had organized, and she knew he would not let the guest of honor leave until the last glass had been raised. They would likely not return home until well past dawn.

  “Juliana!”

  Connor motioned her to follow him down the steep stairs to the lowest deck of the ship. The air was close and black as pitch.

  “ ’Tis like entering a tomb,” she whispered.

  “Aye. Too much like the hold of the stinking Absalom for my taste.” He struck a light, then handed her the small, shielded signal lantern he’d fixed to his belt. “I’ll search the bow section, while you take the aft. And remember, if you even smell trouble, call to me.”

  “I am not afraid,” she assured him.

  Connor’s lips edged up. “You never could lie worth a damn.” He placed a soft kiss on her forehead. “Now keep sharp, and keep safe. Remember we have fifty years and a dozen grandchildren ahead of us.”

  “Two dozen,” she corrected, but he’d already disappeared into the darkness.

  Juliana lifted her lantern high. She was surrounded by towers of grain sacks, all of them looking unsuspicious. From where she stood, the most dishonest thing about this cargo was the price stamped on the sacks. Honestly, it was criminal what merchants are charging for their grain these days.

  A mouse skittered across the floor in front of her. Startled, she shinnied up the sacks, nearly reaching the top before she winced at her own folly. Sighing, she climbed over the top of the pile and started hand over hand down the other side. I’ve far more to worry about than an undergrown rode—

  Her thoughts jarred to a halt as she surveyed the area hidden behind the wall of grain sacks. Rifles. Cannon barrels lying alongside pyramids stacks of balls. Kegs of gunpowder. Crates of cartridges. Guns, bayonets, and ordnance by the hundredfold. It was a valley of death that stretched almost from one end of the ship to another.

  “C-Connor,” she cried weakly. “Con—”

  “I see it,” he said, appearing at her side. “God’s teeth. There’s enough here to arm a fort for a month.”

  “And kill a thousand Englishmen,” she whispered hoarsely. “We must get back to the longboat and—”

  “That will not be necessary.”

  A figure stepped out from behind the sacks. Juliana stiffened, but her fright turned to relief the moment she saw who it was. “Thank heaven you are here. Grenville has been using the Line—”

  “It was not Grenville,” the man said.

  Connor pulled on her arm, his gaze locked to the man’s. “Juliana, get behind me.”

  “Why? And of course it is Grenville. He is the only one who could have arranged a shipment like this—Connor, why are you so pale?”

  “I know that voice,” he said, never taking his eyes off the man.

  “Well, of course.” Juliana turned back to the man. “What has happened to your accent?”

  “I am devilishly afwaid he affected it, my deawr. Just as I affected my lisp,” Lord Renquist said as he came from behind the sacks, flanked by two massive tars. “Regretted missing Grenville’s send-off tonight, but nothing to be done about it. When the Admiral calls, I jump to it. Especially when there is a lady involved.”

  Juliana hardly listened. She was staring at the man who could have easily arranged this cargo but whom she’d never suspected because of his unassuming appearance and caring advice. She’d let a viper into her doors and given him all the power he needed to work his traitorous schemes against her king and country. Because she’d trusted him. Because he’d been her father’s solicitor. Because he’d been her friend.

  The man known as the Admiral, Silas McGregor.

  The boat shifted and the lantern swung in Juliana’s hand, casting blades of light across the faces of the men in front of her. “How could you? You cared about the Marquis Line. You cared about me.”

  “And I do, my dear,” McGregor said. “Transport has become a dreadful trouble to me of late—with new regulations, stricter security, and young, sharp-eyed customs officials. When I learned through my law firm of your father’s plan to leave his shipping concern to a green girl, it was an opportunity I could not ignore. His death was easily arranged.”

  “My … father.” Juliana’s voice cracked as she realized the full extent of the evil plot that surrounded her. Only Connor’s steadying hand on her arm kept her from sinking to her knees.

  “Regrettable,” McGregor agreed. “But necessary. I hope you know me well enough to know that I am not a cruel man. It was simply business. If Mrs. Jolly had not so obligingly arranged for me to join your firm, rest assured that I should have found some other method of entering into it. ’Twas an opportunity I could not allow to let pass. It was little risk for—”

  “For a dependable return,” Juliana muttered, recalling the solicitor’s long-ago adage to her. In his
mind he was nothing more than an ordinary businessman—except that he traded in death and deception rather than salt and sugar. That very ordinariness made him all the more chilling. “You—monster!”

  Amazingly, McGregor looked affronted. “Now that is uncalled-for. I was never so rude to you. In fact, I was quite impressed by your business sense, so much so that I feared at times you might find me or Renquist out. He was my contact in the Admiralty, you know. Has been for years. And you proved to be a great deal more resilient than either of us anticipated. When I had my man Sikes stir up the captains against you, I expected you to faint like a dove. Likewise, when the work at the line became so grueling, I expected you to hand more of the responsibility to me. Instead, you were a credit to the line, and to my tutelage.”

  McGregor’s gaze skimmed to Connor. “You, my boy, are a … disappointment to me. I was pleased when Juliana’s affection for you kept her off balance. And I had hoped to put you in charge of my operation when I retired. Instead, you betrayed me most grievously.”

  Connor grimaced. “And I’m all broken up about it.”

  McGregor’s eyes narrowed. “Enjoy your defiance, boy. It won’t last. In a short while you will be begging to die, just like all the others who were foolish enough to try to cross me. You may think that you have destroyed my operation, but I can rebuild it—I always do. But neither of you will live to see it.”

  “No!” Connor stepped between Juliana and the men and gripped her arm. “I am the one who betrayed you, not her. Let her go. In any case, she is only a girl. No one wall listen to her. Surely you—”

  His words were cut short by a commotion near the ladder. Another hulking seaman came down the rope steps and tossed down the flailing Meg Evans, followed by the limp form of Raoul.

  “Meg!” Juliana cried.