Rapturous Rakes Bundle (33 page)

Now he doubted no longer.

‘Aye,’ Benbow said, shaking his head. ‘Kidnap,

right enough. Saw her struggling with him in the

cabin.’

Lucas resisted the urge to shake him into urgency.

‘We must go after them.’

‘Aye, m’lord.’ Benbow sounded unmoved. He

gazed across the misty harbour. ‘Powerful bad day to

take a boat out.’

‘That can’t be helped,’ Lucas snapped. He was al-

ready starting to untie the wildfowling punt. ‘Come

on, man! I need your help.’

‘Never catch them up,’ Benbow opined gloomily.

‘Not in a punt.’

Lucas stared in frustration. ‘There is no wind. They

are practically becalmed! We will catch them.’

‘Aye, m’lord.’ The fisherman scratched his head.

‘No harm in trying, I suppose.’

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Lucas was already reaching for the punt pole when

the first rustle of breeze across the water caught the

sails of
Breath
of
Scandal
and the yacht turned and

headed towards the harbour mouth.

‘Quickly, man,’ he urged Benbow, who was reach-

ing ponderously for the other punt pole. ‘Damn it, we

need oars.’

‘Need more than that,’ Benbow muttered under his

breath, but he took the second pole with a will and

started to steer them out in the direction the yacht had

gone whilst Lucas found himself praying hard and fer-

vently for the sort of miracle he was desperately afraid

could never occur.

The yacht was making good headway, picking up

the ripples of breeze that were guiding it gently but

surely out of harbour. Rebecca could hear the footsteps

of her captors on deck overhead. She knew that she

had to work quickly for it could only be a matter of

minutes before they came below to check on her. To

check on her or to dispose of her. Her hands shook as

she rummaged in her reticule. Where was it...? She

always carried it with her... Her hand closed reassur-

ingly around her diamond engraving scribe and she

scrambled across to the porthole. There were three

screws that held it closed and each was twisted tight,

but with a few deft turns of the scribe she was able to

loosen then sufficiently to push out the little pane of

glass. She knew she was a good swimmer and that

with the mist she might just be able to get away from

them, but the mist was also her enemy as well as her

ally for she would not necessarily be able to tell the

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The
Rake’s
Mistress

harbour from the open sea. Crushing down her fears,

she put out a hand and was about to push the porthole

open when the boat juddered to a sickening halt. There

was a scrape along the keel like claws on wood.

Rebecca froze. The boat lurched and stuck again

with a grating roar this time. Overhead the footsteps

and voices became frenzied and urgent as the little

yacht started to cant at a crazy angle. Rebecca’s port-

hole rose high out of the water whilst on the other side

she could see the boat settling lower on its side and

the glassy grey of the sea lapping at the window. Her

breath caught in her throat. There was no time to

waste. With one sharp move she punched the porthole

open and dragged herself through the gap.

The mist pressed all around her like a shroud and

the sea was pale and almost unnaturally calm. The fear

pawed at her, but she took a deep breath and jumped,

and in the same moment there was a shout from the

decks and a scream and then the entire boat tipped

over in one swift and frightful movement so that its

painted hull pointed to the sky like a tomb.

Rebecca cast one hasty glance over her shoulder,

then struck out strongly away from the terrible wreck

that was even now settling down on its grave of shin-

gle. And then the mist was ripped aside in the strength-

ening breeze and she looked up in astonishment and

saw the ship coming for her.

Lucas had never been so afraid in his entire life. As

Breath
of
Scandal
disappeared into the mist it felt as

though it was taking every last vestige of his hope with

it. They were out in the harbour mouth now and the

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251

wind was fresher here and the mist hung like ragged

curtains. Every so often a gust would blow the fret

briefly aside, giving a tantalising glimpse of
Breath
of

Scandal
fleeing before them. The punt was quick, but

the yacht was picking up speed now as the wind

started to fill her sails. Benbow leaned on the pole and

wiped the back of his hand across his forehead. The

mist pressed in around them, smothering all sound.

‘It’s no good, my lord,’ the wildfowler said. ‘We

won’t catch up and the water’s getting too deep. We’re

near the mouth of the river and it’s powerful danger-

ous out here now—’

He broke off as there was a grating rumble a way

to their right, like the roll of distant thunder out to sea.

Benbow’s eyes darted nervously and he wiped the

sweat from his upper lip. Lucas gripped the side of

the boat, his knuckles turning white.

‘What was that?’ He could hear the tension in his

own voice, an echo for the fear he saw in Benbow’s

eyes.

‘Shingle, my lord.’ The wildfowler would not meet

his gaze. ‘Shingle banks at the mouth of the river.

Happen yon yacht must have run aground.’

The pictures flashed through Lucas’s mind like a

nightmare. Shingle was dangerous, far more dangerous

than a sand bank, for it was unstable and could shift

at any moment. The place where the river met the sea

had always been treacherous. One winter the entire

shingle bank had shifted from one side of the river to

the other in a storm, lying submerged barely beneath

the surface like an iceberg, waiting to trap the unwary

sailor.

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The
Rake’s
Mistress

Lucas could hear splashing through the mist, unin-

telligible shouts and something that sounded omi-

nously like a scream broken off. The wind stirred

again and the mist twitched aside for a brief second,

showing
Breath
of
Scandal
lying only some hundred

yards distant, canted crazily on its port bow at the

mouth of the estuary, the waves already breaking on

its hull.

‘Damn it, Benbow!’ Lucas exploded. ‘If we don’t

get the punt over there, I shall swim.’ He was already

ripping his jacket off as he spoke.

The mist swirled back and unsighted him, and im-

mediately Lucas felt hopelessly disorientated. The an-

ger and the frustration and the fear rushed through him

in a tidal wave, but there was no time. Even as he

stood poised to dive off the punt there was another

growling roar, far louder than the first, that seemed to

fill his ears and bounce deafeningly off the wall of

mist that pressed around them. The sea swelled and

boiled about them, rocking the punt so that Lucas was

tipped off balance and fell over the side into the water.

He went down, choking, and the cold, salty shock of

the sea filled his lungs and wrapped him in its mur-

derous embrace. It felt like hours before he surfaced

and Benbow grabbed his arm and dragged him, cough-

ing and spluttering, into the bottom of the punt.

The wind gathered strength, ripping aside the shreds

of the mist once and for all, and the pale sun fell as

the full horror of
Breath
of
Scandal
’s plight was re-

vealed to them. Through streaming eyes Lucas saw the

yacht’s sails fill with the breeze and then the boat

flipped over as easily as though it had been a toy.

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253

There was the crash of falling timbers and it lay, stern

upturned, capsized in a second, too quick for Lucas

even to understand what he had seen. Benbow gave a

gusty sigh.

‘Seen it happen before to a lugger out of Harwich,’

he said. ‘Too quick.’ He shook his head. ‘What with

the shingle shifting and the breeze filling the sails, they

stood no chance.’

‘Rebecca,’ Lucas said. His lips felt stiff and his

throat was sore with salt water, but it was nothing to

the pain in his chest that seemed to expand and break

until he felt his lungs would burst. He wanted to shout

but could not get the air in. ‘Rebecca...’

Benbow was still shaking his head, one brawny

hand on Lucas’s shoulder. ‘I’m rightly sorry, my

lord... There was nothing we could have done.’ He

gave another sigh. ‘Tragic. Nasty as they come, these

accidents—’ His tone changed and Lucas felt his hand

stiffen and fall away. ‘Holy saints alive,’ the wild-

fowler whispered.

Lucas looked up, pushing the streaming hair out of

his eyes.

‘Great God and all his saints preserve us,’ Benbow

said, with true reverence. ‘I never thought to see the

day...’

The grey water was still breaking over the capsized

hull of the yacht, but beyond it the mist was receding

out to sea like a drawn curtain. It shimmered in the

pale sun, floating like a cloud. It was going to be a

beautiful day. For a moment Lucas stared, uncertain

what it was that Benbow had seen, and then his own

gaze caught the movement. Beyond the ruined yacht

254

The
Rake’s
Mistress

a small figure bobbed in the gentle swell of the waves.

She was swimming strongly, but she was swimming

away from the wreck towards...

Lucas’s lips formed a soundless whistle. He looked

up sharply at Benbow and saw the old sailor’s eyes

alight with an almost religious fervour. Out of the mist

slipped the ghost ship, so slow, so gentle it seemed to

move soundlessly over the water.

First the prow, the snarling dragon figurehead in-

solent in crimson and gold. Then the clean, clear-cut

lines, the two raking masts, the white topsails catching

the breeze and the sun striking on the black lettering

of the name...
The
Defiance.

A rope snaked down from the side of the ship and

Lucas saw Rebecca reach up, catch it, and swing like

a monkey up into the arms of the man who stood on

the deck, the water running from her streaming skirts.

The privateer ship turned gently into the receding mist

and the sun caught its edge in a gleam of gold, and

then it was gone as stealthily as it had come.

‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ Benbow said, leaning on the

punt pole. He looked extremely shaken. ‘My lord...’

Lucas was silenced. He was not sure whether he

wanted to laugh or perhaps to cry for the first time in

his entire life. For Rebecca was surely safe, but he had

no notion whether he would ever see her again. Re-

becca, with her determination and her tenacity. He

might have known that she would not do anything as

lame as give in to kidnap and drowning.

He wrung the water from his shirt and stared in the

direction that the ship had gone. Rebecca had not

wanted to come to Midwinter and he had obliged her

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255

to do it and now she had escaped him, and taken all

his hopes with her. He wished that they had had more

time to put matters to rights between them. He wished

that he had told her he loved her.

His clothes were starting to dry as the sun strength-

ened and turned the salt sticky on his back. He could

see a yacht coming out of harbour now and tacking

towards them on the freshening breeze—the
Ariel,

with Cory Newlyn in the prow. He turned away from

the open sea and set his face towards the shore. The

punt rocked gently on the swell.

‘Reckon we won’t see the likes of that again,’ Ben-

bow said.

‘Reckon we won’t,’ Lucas agreed, but he was not

thinking of the ship.

‘What do we do now, m’lord?’ The wildfowler

asked.

Lucas smiled ruefully. ‘We go home, Benbow.

What other choice do we have?’

Chapter
Twelve