by Cheryl Holt
“What is it you would like from me?”
“Show me what to do. If I decide to go through with it, I don’t have long for you to teach me.”
“I could help you,” she said, without pausing to mull the request. “In fact, I’d like to try. You’re turning into a rich, renowned gentleman, and you could definitely use some smoothing around the edges.”
He snorted. “Do you think so?”
“Absolutely.”
“I’ll compensate you.”
“I’ll do it for free. As a friend.”
“No, you should have some cash to settle yourself after you leave.”
“Thank you.”
“And I’ll let you stay at Mansfield Abbey. For another year. You can advise me about the tenants and the farm.”
“For a year?”
Her relief was palpable. If he’d tossed her out as he’d despicably planned, had she had anywhere to go?
“Swear it!” she demanded, throwing his taunt back at him. “Swear to me that you mean it.”
“You’ll have to take the word of a pirate, but I swear.”
She studied him, then said, “I trust you. You wouldn’t lie to me.”
“Well, not about this.”
She elbowed him in the ribs. “Here’s your first lesson: Don’t be obnoxious.”
He smiled. “Have we a deal, Miss Mansfield?”
“Yes, I believe we do.”
6
I wonder if we could have him killed.”
“Killed? You can’t be serious.”
Adrian Bennett nearly choked on his brandy. Archie was at the front end of a major tantrum. He’d hopped out of bed and was pacing the floor, so Adrian relaxed against the pillows, ready to ride out the storm with a placating, sympathetic smile on his face.
“Oh, but I am,” Archie griped. “The filthy swine! Swaggering in and assaulting me as my servants watched! He ought to be cut down like the cur he is!” Archie halted and whipped around, his silk robe flapping open, his small, sated phallus limp on his leg. “Is there anyone we could hire?”
“To murder Captain Westmoreland?”
“Yes! Yes! Focus, would you, darling? I can’t abide that he’s ensconced at Mansfield Abbey. It’s not right, I tell you. It’s just not right! Something must be done.”
Adrian stifled a grin. The notion of Archie doing injury to Westmoreland was very funny. And ridiculous. The daring Captain was larger than life, so vital and robust that it was impossible to envision him being brought low. Any harm would simply bounce off.
“Murder isn’t the answer,” Adrian responded, struggling to keep the discussion on a rational plane. “Even if he died, the property wouldn’t revert to you. It would go to his heirs. You know what the lawyers said. The transfer was completely legal. A dozen people were witnesses as you signed the agreement that gave it to him.”
“He forced me!” Archie shrieked. “You were there. You saw him.”
“He can be daunting,” Adrian concurred, hoping to mollify.
“I don’t care what my solicitors say. I’ll fight it in the courts. My peers won’t permit such an injustice to stand. If I have to, I’ll bribe them. They’ll screw the dirty bastard for me.”
He resumed his pacing, ranting about the unfairness of his lot, and Adrian tuned him out.
Would a bribe work in the courts? Adrian had no idea, but he was extremely curious as to where Archie would get the money to accomplish such a maneuver.
Archie hadn’t yet realized the extent of his fiscal disaster. The farms at Mansfield had financed his lavish habits. For a few months, maybe as long as a year, he’d survive on credit, but soon bill collectors would come knocking. He wasn’t a nobleman; he couldn’t refuse to pay. What then?
Before calamity struck, Adrian would have to arrange a new situation for himself. He’d been so certain of his place with Archie, but who could have guessed that the spoiled little despot would prove to be such a disappointment?
“Do you suppose he’s partial to buggery?” Archie asked, breaking into Adrian’s reverie.
“Westmoreland?”
“He’s a bloody pirate. Aren’t they all sodomites?”
“I believe many are, but definitely not Captain Westmoreland.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m positive.”
Westmoreland was many things—shrewd, valiant, arrogant, imperious—and he oozed sexual magnetism, but he had no abnormal tendencies. Adrian would stake his life on it.
“More’s the pity,” Archie grouched. “If he had an ounce of deviancy, we could blackmail him.”
“He doesn’t seem the type who’d yield to extortion.”
“Well, perhaps you could seduce him, then persuade him to do what we want. Heaven knows you’re pretty enough. A fellow would try absolutely anything to keep you in love with him. Look at me and how thoroughly I’ve debased myself!”
Prior to their meeting, Archie had never had a relationship with a man, and Adrian had smoothly groomed him into their decadent affair. Archie had been lured further and further down the road to perdition, until now the foolish child had no clue how to find his way back to the straight and narrow.
Adrian sighed, his patience for Archie’s diatribe wearing thin. Archie had been given more boons than any single individual ought to have, and he didn’t appreciate any of them. With his squandering of Mansfield, Adrian had to consider other avenues of enrichment. There were so many lonely, gullible people, and when Archie crashed in economic ruin Adrian wouldn’t stay around to pick up the pieces. He’d be happily established elsewhere.
“Westmoreland is very handsome,” Adrian goaded, relishing the opportunity to prick at Archie’s temper.
“I saw you drooling over him.”
“With a body such as his, I can’t help but fantasize.”
“You’re such a whore.”
“I bet his cock is massive, which would be a nice change from yours. At least I’d be able to feel it.”
“You dog! You wound me with your insults! Why do I put up with you? Why? Why?”
Mildly aroused by Archie’s tirade, Adrian observed impassively. If Archie didn’t calm himself, Adrian would have to intervene, which was always amusing. Archie could be easily pressed into performing deeds he detested.
Adrian wasn’t averse to engaging in any carnal exploit, no matter how disgusting or depraved, and he didn’t care if his partner was a man or a woman. He regarded sex as an act of power, and he had few scruples, especially over an endeavor as silly as physical ardor. He reveled in the thrill that came with coercion, the titillation that followed violence, the pleasure that accompanied supremacy.
“Archie, be silent. I’m weary of your harangue.”
“Then stop tormenting me. My world is collapsing, and all you can do is nag over the prospect of having Westmoreland in your bed instead of me!”
“Who wouldn’t want him?” As if pondering an assignation, Adrian gave a mock shudder.
“Oh, you beast. You are too cruel!”
Archie grabbed a vase and smashed it on the floor, but Adrian ignored him and sipped on a brandy. He yawned and stretched. “You’re being entirely too petulant. Desist at once, or I won’t tell you what I’ve decided.”
“About what?”
“I’ve figured out how we’ll defeat Captain Westmoreland.”
“How?”
“We’ll use your sister.”
“My sister! Don’t mention her to me. This is all her fault. If she’d succumbed, as I commanded, none of this would have happened.”
“I don’t know about that. Westmoreland seems determined to harass you.”
“And he is! He is!” Archie complained. “Why couldn’t she spread her legs as any other female has to twice a day? With how she’s guarded her precious chastity all these years, you’d think she was a nun.”
“She’s not very passionate.”
“No, she isn’t. I should have taught her a lesson or two about desi
re when I had the chance.”
“Maybe you should have,” Adrian said. “I’ve heard that incest can be incredibly entertaining.”
“She has such a smart mouth. I’d like to show her what to do with it besides sass me.”
Adrian chuckled. “I’d like to watch.”
“You are such a pervert.”
“I don’t deny it.”
At the thought of Helen and Archie fornicating, at how he, Adrian, might lead and dominate the encounter, his phallus stirred. Helen would be tied to the bedposts and begging for mercy as Archie forced himself upon her. The event would be wicked and totally evil, and thus precisely the sort upon which Adrian thrived.
“Listen to me,” Adrian ordered. “If we handle her correctly, we can control Westmoreland.”
“There’s no controlling him. He’s a lunatic.”
“That’s as may be, but he’s utterly besotted with her.”
“With Helen? You’re mad.”
“Didn’t you notice?”
“I didn’t exactly have the time,” Archie sneered.
“No, I guess you wouldn’t have.”
“I’ve seen the kind of flashy women he enjoys. Helen is a drab; he wouldn’t have glanced in her direction. She tried to seduce him, remember? He wasn’t interested.”
“He’s a man, you idiot,” Adrian retorted. “He’s ruled by his cock—just like the rest of us. Of course he was interested. And that wasn’t what Helen said. She said she couldn’t go through with it. That’s a huge difference.”
“Still, how could we use her? What could she do?”
Helen was gullible and trusting, even more malleable than her brother. She assumed that he and Archie were merely friends, that Adrian was concerned about Archie’s welfare. She was too naïve to suspect their complex relationship and too innocent to peer to the heart of Adrian’s motives, which would be her undoing.
“I’m not certain yet,” Adrian mused, “but I’ll reflect on it. Now then, all this talk of Helen’s ravagement has left me hard as stone, and I’m ready for you to attend me.”
Archie looked as if he’d refuse, as if he’d make Adrian climb out of bed and fetch him, but Archie knew how irritated Adrian would be, how much defiance would hurt. He didn’t dare disobey.
Like a lamb to the slaughter, he walked over and slid under the covers.
“The Captain says you’re to put down your pen and come to supper.”
At the comment being spoken from so close by, Robert Smith jumped. He’d been engrossed in his inventory and unaware that footsteps were approaching. He glared at the Captain’s first mate and bodyguard, Pat Reilly.
Robert couldn’t explain why, but Reilly rattled him. Whenever they were thrust together, Reilly was constantly spying on him. Robert always felt as if Reilly was about to ask him a question or share a vital secret, and Robert was continually on the verge of shouting, What? What is it? But he never did, for he wouldn’t give Reilly the satisfaction of knowing he’d caught on to the other man’s petty game.
Reilly appeared to be a few years older than Robert’s age of twenty, though in light of a sailor’s brutal existence, it was difficult to conjecture with any accuracy. He and Robert were the same short height of five feet eight, and with their black hair and blue eyes, thin faces and high cheekbones, they had comparable features, but the similarities ended there.
While Robert was slender and bookish, pale and soft from hours spent at a desk, Reilly was rugged and tough, slim, too, but a whipcord lean that was acquired from rough living, from brawling and scrapping. His skin was bronzed from the sun, his hands calloused from hard work.
Whenever Robert was in Reilly’s presence, he was reminded of all the things he was not: He wasn’t flamboyant, he wasn’t dangerous, and he definitely wasn’t brave. He’d never studied fencing or pugilism, had never loaded or fired a pistol, was too embarrassed to curse or spit, and had never raised his voice in anger.
He regularly fretted over his failings and couldn’t stop wishing he’d been born with some skill besides an ability to add and subtract. Still, he was lucky enough to be traveling with Westmoreland’s band of notorious pirates, and the Captain often bragged that Robert was the most disgustingly honest person he’d ever known.
Westmoreland was frighteningly clever and shrewd like a fox, but he’d had no formal education and could barely read or write, so Robert’s talents were necessary, and he tried to be consoled by that fact, meager though it was.
“Must you sneak up on me, Sergeant?”
“I wasn’t sneaking. I can’t help it if you have your nose poked in one of your stuffy books.”
“It’s not a book,” he grumbled. “It’s an accounting ledger.”
“Same difference.”
“Only to someone who’s illiterate—such as yourself.”
At having uttered the rude remark Robert was appalled, but Reilly shrugged off the insult and hurled his own.
“When I was growing up, I had more important things to do than chew the fat in some stupid schoolroom.”
“I’m sure you did, Sergeant.”
“The Captain’s waiting on you, so let’s go.” Reilly nodded toward the door. “He says you’re to eat with him and Miss Mansfield. He says she’ll like your fussy manners.”
Robert blanched. “I’m to dine with the Captain and Miss Mansfield?”
“Every night.”
“That’s what he intends?”
“Yes, sir.”
Which meant that there’d be no arguing with the invitation. If there was one detail he’d learned about Captain Westmoreland early on, it was that he never changed his mind after he settled on an idea. He was stubborn and unbending, but annoyingly, he always turned out to be correct, so there was no convincing him to heed the opinions of others.
“I don’t care to go,” Robert protested.
“Don’t tell me; tell the Captain. I’m certain he’ll be more than happy to have you refuse.”
Reilly chuckled maliciously, as if he hoped he’d get to watch such a confrontation, the likes of which Robert would never dream of instigating.
“I suppose I could join them—just this once,” Robert muttered. “It won’t kill me.”
“Eating never does.”
“But the talking is another story entirely.”
“You’re quiet as a mouse,” Reilly said, “so I doubt there’s any chance you’ll perish during supper.”
“I might surprise you. I might chatter like a magpie. I might talk myself to death.”
“Well then, the Captain will tire of it real quick and put you out of your misery, so you needn’t worry.”
Robert gathered up his pens and papers, as Reilly bristled with impatience.
“Hurry up. While you dawdle, the Captain’s food is getting cold.”
Robert stacked his documents and clutched them to his chest. “Reilly, considering that we’ve come to seize Mansfield Abbey, don’t you find it disconcerting to be in Miss Mansfield’s company?”
“No. She’s a fine lady.”
“I agree, but doesn’t it make you uncomfortable, knowing that we’re here to . . . to . . . toss her out?”
“The Captain wouldn’t do anything underhanded”—a debatable point!—“and he won the property fair and square.”
Ah . . . the world was so simple for an individual of Reilly’s limited capacities. Robert grasped the full dynamic of the situation—as Reilly never could. It wasn’t Miss Mansfield’s fault that she’d lost her home, and Robert wanted no part in wresting it from her.
He added his jars of pens and ink to the load of papers, and as he turned, the pile shifted and nearly fell. Reilly jumped forward to assist, and their jostling landed them in an awkward position, with Reilly’s thigh wedged between his own, Reilly’s fingers on Robert’s hip.
The predicament was sordid and wicked, and Robert leapt away as Reilly grinned. His curious gaze raked Robert’s torso, and at the attention Robert flushed, his pulse sp
ed, and the queerest sensation sizzled through him. It was centered in his middle regions—particularly his groin—and he was struggling to discern what it was when the cause raced through him like a wildfire.
Desire! Though he was a virgin, he wasn’t a monk, and he knew what he was feeling: hot, potent lust.
At the discovery he was aghast with dismay.
Reilly was blushing, too, his cheeks a fetching shade of pink. Nervous and shy, as he’d never seemed before, he shuffled his feet and glanced away. Robert was horrified to note that, at that moment, the other man looked terribly young and downright pretty.
“I won’t say I’m—” Reilly began, but Robert cut him off.
“Dear Lord, don’t even think about finishing your sentence.”
Reilly hemmed and hawed, then murmured, “I’ll tell the Captain you’re on your way.”
“You do that,” Robert said.
Reilly rushed out, and as his strides retreated down the hall, Robert dropped his supplies onto the desk and sank into the chair.
He was a sodomite! He had to be! There was no other explanation.
He buried his head in his hands, recalling the taunts he’d suffered as a boy from his two older, meaner brothers. He’d been small and quiet, a scholar and intellectual, while they’d been big, stupid louts. They’d tormented him over the differences, but gad, had they been correct? Had they seen some effeminate aspect to his character that he’d never noticed himself?
Their teasing, and his need to prove himself more masculine, had pushed him into joining them for his disastrous grand adventure to Italy that had been abruptly terminated in the Mediterranean. After a grueling bout of drunken bullying, his brothers had thrown him overboard, then they’d sailed off and left him adrift, which was how he’d come to be picked up by Mussulman traders.
They’d taken him to Africa, where Captain Westmoreland had stumbled upon him, starved and beaten, in a slave market. The Captain had taken pity on a fellow Englishman and bought him, then given him refuge and employment. For the unwarranted displays of kindness Robert would follow Westmoreland to hell and back, but how could he continue working on the ship when it was filled with so many virile, swaggering males?
