Dreaming (29 page)

“But we didn’t know that. Bertie ’n’ me was on the ship.”

“Aye, an’ one o’ the crates fell when they was loading it on the beach,”
Philbert
said.

“Then you two were there and . . . ”
Philbert
shrugged. “
Phelim
panicked. He told ‘’
em
to take you two along. Ye know the rest.”

“And what were you going to do with us?” Richard spoke for the first time.

“I don’t think
Phelim
thought ’bout that until ye scared him with the knowledge ye was an earl, and how
nabbin
’ an earl were a worse crime than smuggling.”

“We never broke a law afore,”
Phineas
added.

Philbert
glanced at his sleeping brother. “He don’t think too clearly
a’t’ll
now, whether he’s
notioning
he’s Nelson or just ol’
Phelim
Higganbotham
.”

“So what are you going to do now?”

Both brothers shrugged.

She turned to Richard, the first time she’d looked him in the eye.

He knew that look, and he slowly began to shake his head. “Oh . . . no.” He held up a hand. “Absolutely not.”

“But surely you, as the Earl of
Downe
, could—”

“No!” He straightened, crossing his arms stubbornly.

“’
Tain’t
his lordship’s fault, Missy. We got ourselves into this fix,”
Phineas
said. “Surely
cain’t
blame
Phelim
either. While we was all safe back here in England,
Phelim
gave all those years of his
hie
—a man’s best years—and his heart and, in the end . . . even his mind fighting for all of us—farmers, sailors, ladies, the King, even earls.”

“No.” Richard would not give in. He would not.

They all hung their heads and looked at him through eyes that belonged on poor abandoned orphans instead of old farmers and sailors.

Gus lay in the corner, and he stared at Richard with those bloodshot eyes, then he sank his big head on his front paws and gave a quiet whimper.

And the hellion. She looked at him as if he held the moon wrapped up in stars.

“No.”

“Please,” came a soft female voice. “You can’t possibly be that cruel.”

“I said . . . no.” His answer was stern, uncompromising, unmovable. “I told you before. I’m no hero.”

Chapter 17

He was a hero.
Letty
just hadn’t convinced him yet And from her brief experience with men, she was certain of one thing: The sand outside would turn to gold dust before Richard would ever admit it. He sat against one wall of the cave, the rigidness of his shoulders, his tight jaw, and narrowed look telling her he was intent on being stubborn.

She looked at
Philbert
. “Isn’t there somewhere else you can think to go?”

He shrugged, and both brothers shook their heads. “There be no ship, so there be no home.”

She looked at the other two younger sailors, who sat guard on either side of Harry. “What about those two?”

“They was pressed in the navy when they be
Due street
urchins. Not a one of them has any relations. Simon, the one on the left, was but eight at the time
Schoostor
don’t know how old he is.”

“Don’t you have family anywhere in
England
?”

“We be all that’s left of the
Higganbothams
.”

“I don’t suppose you have any money saved,” she asked hopefully.

“
Phelim
took every last
ha’penny
to outfit the ship.”

“An’ then he forgot t’ buy food,”
Philbert
added.

“Aye,”
Phineas
said, then glanced at Richard. “That one pot of stew be all we had, so there weren’t nothing to give his lordship.”

Letty
cast a look to see Richard’s reaction. He still sat there stiffly, and his jaw was clenched even tighter.

His profile was as hard as the rock walls around them, but one shouldn’t have to work at being hard. It should come naturally.

He wasn’t as unmoved as he was trying to appear.

“Well,” she said, rubbing her hands together. “Shall we try to list each of your skills? Perhaps then we can come up with something you can do.
Philbert
makes butter and cheese, and
Phineas
can drive a cart, so I assume you can handle a team, which means you can handle a carriage or a wagon.”

“A team?”
Phineas
repeated, shaking his head.

“You said you had a cart.”

“Aye, that we did, but with one old ox to pull it. I ain’t never driven anything but that ox.”

“Oh.” She tried not to let her disappointment snow and added brightly, “Then I suppose driving a wagon won’t work, will it?”

“Bertie an’ me can milk and feed twenty cows a day,”
Phineas
said with pride in his voice. “An’
Phelim’s
been a helmsman, gunner, and first mate.
Schoostor
was a
swabbie
.”

“
Mmmphf
mmmphf
mmmphf
.”

“Oh, I near on forgot. Harry stood lookout and worked in the ship’s laundry, and Simon can tie a hundred different knots and sew a sail. Anything else?” She looked at each man Simon sat a little straighter and volunteered, “Both
Schoostor
and me be street boys. We can pick a
bleedin
’ pocket clean afore a bloke can blink.”

The cave was suddenly silent, except for a choked snort from Richard’s direction.

“Oh.”
Letty
gave the grinning sailor a strained smile. “Uh . . . That’s not exactly the type of work I had in mind.” She cleared her throat. “We should be able to find a job for each of you. I’m certain between all of us we can find a solution.”

There was another odd noise from Richard’s direction.

“We shall just have to put our heads together.”

Seymour
closed the door and stepped onto the fog-clouded terrace. The air was heavy with the scent of dampness and the spice of blooming roses.

Giana’s
roses.

He froze for a moment, torn between wanting to rush over to her and not wanting to frighten her away. He crossed the terrace slowly, quietly, until he stood between her and the closest door. A tactical move.

Yet she knew he was there. He realized it an instant later, something about the way she stood, her face shrouded by the cloak, as if the fog and dark of night were not enough to hide her.

If ever there was a time he needed luck on his side, it was this moment. This instant in time. He sensed that whatever he would say and do, here and now, would mean the difference between a life as he had lived—monotonously the same, filled lately with a nagging impatience for something else—or the life he wanted to live—fresh and new, alive with promise.

Something he hadn’t known he wanted until today. A lifetime with
Giana
.

“I’m a viscount,” he said with absolute stupidity.

He blinked once in disbelief, and a second later he groaned and slapped his forehead. “Of all the bloody words in the English language I had to pick those! ‘I’m a viscount,’” he repeated, in a voice full of mimicry and sarcasm. “Well, bless me with four shillings and a
ha’penny
.”

He jammed his hands in his pockets and began to pace in anger, his head down as he grumbled. “Here it is, the single most important moment of my whole featherbrained life. I’m standing in front of an exquisitely lovely woman—”

He paused in front of her and looked directly into her startled face. “You are, you know, the most lovely thing I’ve ever chanced to see.” He turned and paced again, not hearing her indrawn breath.

“And what utterly brilliant thing do I say? ‘I’m a viscount,’” He snorted with self-disgust, then turned and threw his hands in the air, sending his amulets and charms scattering across the stones of the terrace. “Perhaps I should just spit toads.”

Water dripped from the edge of an eave and plopped at his feet. He stopped pacing and looked down in time to see his lucky shark’s tooth roll into a small puddle near his boot.

Scowling, he rammed his hands back in his empty pockets. “Oh, hell. Those lucky pieces won’t do me any good, unless they can find me a new mouth—one that won’t say . . . ‘I’m a viscount’ like some pompous braying ass.”

There was an instant of pin-dropping silence. He stood there certain he was nothing more than a complete blithering idiot.

Giana
burst out laughing.

He frowned at first, stunned by her reaction. Then he heard nothing but her, and he found himself smiling. Her laughter was charming, with a carillon-bell quality to it—clear and clean, almost lyrical. His smile grew in spite of the fact that a moment before he’d been so miserable that he’d wanted to cut out his own tongue.

Her head was thrown back, and the dark velvet hood had fallen around her shoulders, where her black hair was gathered in a cluster of springy curls. Her lips were parted, showing a line of perfect teeth. He remembered something
Belmore
had said once about checking a woman’s teeth and withers—some bad youthful jest about there being no difference between choosing a wife and a good horse.

For
Seymour
,
Giana
Hunt was a thoroughbred. Her eyes sparkled brightly beneath perfect black brows that reminded him of velvet. He remembered from one short glimpse that afternoon that those sparkling eyes were a pale violet, almost lavender.

Hauntingly different.

Odd thing. When she laughed, her mouth wide with mirth, the scar faded somewhat, into a slight dark crease in her pale skin.

He wondered if she knew that. And something inside him wanted to keep her laughing until she never thought about what people saw when they looked at her.

Her laughter faded, but her smile was still there, making him want more from her than he should ask. He met her look. “What are you thinking?”

“That you are certainly a flatterer, my lord, and not someone who would spit toads.” She averted her face.

He reached out and tilted her chin up so she had to look directly at him. “I’m not trying to flatter you. I meant what I said.”

The laugh she gave this time held a wealth of bitterness. “I hate to be pitied.”

“I’m not pitying you.”

“Aren’t you?”

“Why would I? You’ve looks to make every other English woman pale.”

“Pale?” Her voice was even, but he could feel the anger in it. “Pale with fright? Pale with horror?” She shifted, turning her head so all he could see was her scar. “Look at this!”

The moment went on forever. Finally he said, “I’m looking.”

“Don’t be obtuse.”

“I see the scar.”

She said nothing.