Rebel Dreams
REBEL DREAMS
Patricia Rice
Book View Café Edition
February 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-61138-460-4
Copyright © 1991 Patricia Rice
July 1765
Alexander Hampton, heir presumptive to the Earl of
Cranville, pulled his snowy cravat loose and propped his buckled shoes on the sea
captain’s table in an unlordly manner. Pouring a tumbler of rum from the bottle
at his side, he regarded his companion with sardonic amusement.
“An old smuggler like you dares to lecture me on right and
wrong? For shame, Jack. Hypocrisy is as hazardous a fault as theft.”
Uncomfortable in a proper captain’s uniform, former smuggler
Jack Ruggles shrugged off his braided coat. Once in shirtsleeves like his
employer, he settled down for a long bout of drinking. “Smugglin’s for them
that got no better. You’re a rich man now. You got no reason to risk yourself
or your partners.”
Alex quit smiling as he sipped his drink and contemplated
his troublesome partners: the very proper Earl of Cranville and the very
improper, Lord Rory Maclean—Jack’s former employer.
The ship hit a swell broadside and lurched. The lantern on
the wall swayed and flickered, while Alex’s thoughts retreated down a
melancholy path.
“Since one of those partners was your companion in crime,”
Alex ruminated aloud, “I cannot believe he will frown too heavily on a little
extra profit. Jacobite rebel that he is, he’d find it amusing to ignore the
lazy nabobs in the West Indies. It’s the nabobs’ fault that the Yanks must pay through
the nose for sugar. It’s a wonder the Yanks don’t shoot the customs officers
and take matters in their own hands. I can buy the sugar cheap from the French,
skip the return trip to our fair shores, sell the load in the colonies at a
decent profit, give the tax collectors their tariff, and we all still come out
ahead. Where’s the harm?”
“You might have a reputation as a rakehell who pursues
heiresses to pay your debts, but smuggling ain’t your style. So what maggot’s in
your head now?” Jack asked, taking advantage of old acquaintance. “Rory might
close his eyes for politics, but not Cranville. He’d not take kindly to his
heir’s venture into crime. And he’d want no part of the profits.”
Stretching his legs in their tight buckled breeches and
stockings, Alex tilted his chair back at a precarious angle and carelessly
tossed back the rest of the rum. With his coarse black hair tightly bound at
the nape, unadorned by wig or powder, his valet would have a choking fit if he
could see him now.
The earl. The damned righteous, arrogant Earl of Cranville,
holder of the title, estates, and purse strings that Alex had once thought were
his. He owed his current fortune to his cousin the earl, and to the earl’s
daughter, and to the daughter’s husband, Rory Maclean. He wasn’t quite certain
yet whether to be resentful or grateful. He returned the chair to the floor and
poured another cup.
“How do the colonists survive without the damned nobility
breathing down their necks and telling them what to do? Isn’t it about time his
majesty considered giving peerages in America? The Duke of New York, the
Marquess of Boston—look at all the younger sons that could be granted earldoms.
Why, in no time we’d bring the savages under a noble yoke, and all would be as
peaceful as it is in merry old England.”
Jack snorted, finally recognizing Alex’s boredom. “You found
the wrong drinking partner for your flights of fancy, my lord. Seein’ as how
the Yanks think they already own the land, they might protest a wee bit at the
king giving them away. But you’re welcome to the task of claiming it if you
like. It makes about as much sense as smuggling.”
Alex grinned at this grudging reply.
In the summer heat of the cabin, he had shrugged off his tailored
coat, deciding he might as well shoot his noble image all to hell. But he was
restless, and even in shirtsleeves, he couldn’t make himself comfortable.
“You’re dead set against the Indies, then? That’s a shame.
Think of what your percentage would be on profits like that.” Despite his
nonchalance, he watched the captain shrewdly. It wasn’t just boredom that made
him tempt the ex-smuggler. Disgruntled employees had been known to involve
themselves in worse crimes than padding profits.
The letter of complaint in his vest pocket crackled.
Jack favored his employer with a scornful look. “I wouldn’t
want to come up against the Maclean should he ever find out I risked his wife’s
ship in such a scheme. Buy your own ship if that’s the trade you seek. That
bloody Revenue Act made smuggling a fool’s game. I don’t want to be hauled up
before no Admiralty judge.”
Satisfied, Hampton found another topic to antagonize the old
tar. “His wife’s ship! How noble-minded my cousin’s husband is. Alyson hasn’t
the vaguest notion which end of the ship goes forward, much less how many ships
her grandfather left her. Women are a feather-headed, worthless lot, good for
only one thing. Why in the name of Old Nick the Maclean insists on treating the
fortune as hers is beyond my comprehension. By law, she can’t own a thing, and
rightly so, I might add.”
Jack rubbed the rum from his mustache with the back of his
hand before taking another gulp. “The Lady Alyson is a fine, bonnie lass, as
the captain would say. She needn’t know which end of a ship is up. That’s not
for her to know. She’s made the Maclean happy and given him two brawny boys. If
he wants to call the ship hers, he has that right.”
Alex agreed grudgingly. “Acquiring a fortune is one good
reason for the chains of marriage, I daresay, but I’ll be deviled if I can
think of any other. Old age, mayhap. The earl in his senility might appreciate
a winsome wench like Lady Cranville, but the man’s been leg-shackled over half
his life. You’d think he’d know better than to try it again. I’ll be bound if I
can find any reason to give a woman the power to carp at me night and day. Just
think what a wife would have to say when I decide to go on voyages like this! I
shudder to think of it.” He shook his head in dismay and sipped at his cup.
“Aye, Dougall and Maclean both retired from the sea when
they took wives, but I can’t see they suffer for it. Whenever the Maclean gets
the itch to sail, Lady Alyson goes with him. I wouldn’t mind having a woman in
my bed right now if I could find one willing to do the same.”
Since his thoughts were on the same subject—the lack of woman
in his bed, not marriage—Alex growled a non-reply. As much as he detested the
wiles of deceitful females, he regretted not having a light-skirt aboard. Six
weeks was a long time. If only he could keep a woman’s material wants as
satisfied as her physical ones, he wouldn’t be quite so discontented with his
bachelor state. But he’d be damned if he’d go into debt again to supply the
whores with their expensive trinkets.
Alex refilled his cup and raised it in a salute. “Here’s to
our lovely colonial ladies, may they lift their skirts as freely as the London
ones!”
Jack frowned at this disrespect. “You’ll be in for a bit of
a surprise when you meet the Boston ladies,” he warned.
***
Elegantly garbed in a navy silk frock coat and buff
breeches, but with a head pounding like all the hammers of hell, Alex leaned
his arms against the ship’s railing and watched the wharf below as the ship
anchored.
He had never been to Boston before. He hoped this wasn’t a
typical arrival scene. He might have to recommend that Cranville Enterprises
find other, less dangerous ports for their wares, if so.
A vociferous argument had erupted between the plainly clad
captain leaning over the side of a colonial sloop and a gaudily garbed official
on the wharf. Two red-coated soldiers stiffly held back a crowd of angry
bystanders, who yelled and cursed and drowned out any chance of following the
argument.
Alex examined the motley throng below. Well-dressed
gentlemen in dark broadcloth and tricornes, who were quite likely merchants, mixed
with tradesmen in long jerkins and leather breeches, right alongside of a gang
of ruffians in tattered shirts and worn sailor’s garb. Despite their
differences in station, the entire mob seemed to be in general agreement on the
topic of the gaudily dressed gentleman’s ancestry. Interesting, but not worth
more of his time.
He went in search of Jack and found him staring down at the
crowd with a frown of concern. “What’s the racket about down there? Are the
natives always this restless?” Alex demanded.
“See that gent in the bright coat?” Jack pointed out the
well-fed, elegantly-clad fellow. “That’s the customs officer. It looks like he’ll
be tied up for a while. We can’t unload until he approves our papers.”
Hampton grimaced. “In that case, lower the plank. I’m going
ashore. I’ll leave the unloading in your expert hands.”
Several of the mob turned to stare as Alex descended from
the Cranville Enterprises frigate. Apparently deciding he was no danger, they
returned to their shouting. Alex elbowed his way through the crowd without
interference.
He eyed the row of tidy brick structures along the wharf
with irritation. Somewhere amid those unimposing structures worked an expert
troublemaker. He would locate the crotchety old gentleman, demand an
explanation, maybe even have him sign an affidavit to the effect that it was
all a mistake, and then he would find the nearest promising tavern and a good
whore.
He trudged along the wharf searching for a name to match the
letter in his pocket. He cursed the heat, the noisy mob, and the wretch who had
forced him to leave his creature comforts to make the interminable journey to
this forsaken hole.
His partners had insisted the man was a trusted merchant and
that any complaint must be taken seriously. But Alex had personally overseen
the loading of the ships in question. He would have bloody well known if there
were any illegal goods in that hold before they sailed. He’d swear Jack Ruggles
was an honest man. Someone was trying to stir trouble, and he damned well
intended to know why.
The warehouse with “Wellington Storage” emblazoned in bold
letters above the office door was not difficult to locate. From the size of the
structure, this was no small operation. No wonder his partners had insisted on
investigating. Still, men were known to get senile.
Alex stepped into the dusky interior without hesitation. A
long counter separated the office from the lobby. He admired the neatness of
the small room in comparison to his dust-and-cobweb-infested offices back in
England.
A clerk appeared from a hidden doorway. With only one small
window over the high account desk, the room relied on a single lamp for
illumination. Alex could discern little of the clerk but slim height and an
unusual smock. Peremptorily removing the letter from his pocket, he consulted
the signature to verify his memory.
“I have come to see E. A. Wellington. Is he here?”
“I am E. A. Wellington. May I help you?”
He started at the husky, sensual timbre of that voice. As
the clerk strode forward, the sun caught a copper glint in long, glossy,
chestnut hair pulled back in a single black ribbon.
Alex skeptically raked his gaze over E. A. Wellington’s odd
garb. Breeches and stockings appeared beneath the smock, but the shoes were
much too small to be a man’s. His gaze probed the contours of the flowing blue
muslin without success.
He finally settled on the unmistakably feminine features
above the uncollared cloth. Large, haughty eyes regarded him with dislike from
beneath arched brows.
He met the dislike with coldness. “I’m not inclined to deal
with females or underlings. I wish to speak with the E. A. Wellington who wrote
this letter, and I wish to do it immediately. I haven’t journeyed here from
London to be fobbed off by charades.”
The clerk stepped to the counter and removed the letter from
his hand. She was above middle height, but not so tall that he couldn’t look
down on her lustrous hair. A woman with hair that thick could drive a man to
distraction wondering what it would look like if the ribbon came untied. Alex
held his lust rigidly reined as she regarded the letter.
