The Captain of All Pleasures (10 page)

“Then speak.”

“Very well.” Grant leaned forward in his chair before he cautiously asked, “You know of Lord Belmont?”

That got Derek's attention. “Everyone knows about that crazy old bastard. What of him?”

“He came to see me this week.” Grant took a breath. “He made me a considerable offer to search for his family.”

“Christ.” Derek shook his head. “The only reason he came to you is that he's been turned down by every other captain and shipowner in London who hasn't already signed on for that fool's errand. Myself included. I laughed him out of my office.” Derek examined his brother's impassive face. “What the hell could he offer you? He's already run through his fortune on at least a dozen different attempts.”

Grant appeared defensive when he answered. “If I was successful, he would give me the lands of Belmont Court when he passes on.”

Derek let out a surprised whistle. “He is getting desperate, then.” Rumor held that Belmont had attempted to sell the unentailed estate to finance one last search.

This conversation, Derek decided easily, merited a drink, so he rose to grab a bottle of brandy. By way of offering, he swung the bottle in Grant's direction. As expected, Grant declined with a curt shake of his head. Although it wasn't quite noon, Grant didn't appear surprised when Derek began filling his own glass.

“You can't possibly be considering his offer,” Derek said over his shoulder before returning to his desk.

“Well, I did decide against it,” Grant admitted. “But it made me think—if I had wanted to go, then I should be able to.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” Derek asked. “You own half of Peregrine Shipping. You can very well go anywhere you want—”

“No, I can't,” Grant interrupted. “I'm too busy running Whitestone and your other neglected estates.”

“Ridiculous. I have a steward—”

“Whom I fired several months ago not only for bilking you out of a pitifully large amount, but also for skimming off your tenants.” His face was shuttered. “I wouldn't have stepped in, if not for your tenants.”

Derek sank back, dumbfounded. Not just at the news of his steward's embezzlement, but also at the idea that Grant might not have checked his downfall. He drank deeply. “Why didn't I hear anything about this?”

Grant nodded pointedly at the pile of correspondence on the desk that had been ignored for months. “I've sent word through every channel. I'm sure if you bothered to look, you'd find that several of my letters found their way to the ship.”

Derek fought to avoid looking sheepish. “Yes, well, I suppose I remember receiving some letters that I haven't had time to get to.”

Grant shrugged. “My point is, if I hadn't been around to hold everything together after you left so abruptly, then you'd be in a very bad spot. And I'm tired of it. I wasn't raised to take over Whitestone—”

“I damn well wasn't, either,” Derek cut in. It had been years since their older brother's death, but he still had difficulty accepting that William was gone and that all those responsibilities now lay on his shoulders.

“It's not mine,”
Grant said in a tightly controlled tone. “Whitestone's not my estate. I want to earn my own place. Make my own way. You can't understand how hard it is to work for something that you know you have no future in.”

“What do you mean, ‘no future'? You're my bloody heir. Everything goes to you. And I'm not exactly living as though I plan to get old.”

“One day you'll have an heir,” Grant said quietly but with absolute conviction.

Derek's fingers paled on the glass he grasped. “I will
not
have an heir. We've been through this. It won't happen.”

Grant ran a hand over his face. He suddenly looked tired, and his absolute self-control was slipping. “I don't accept that. I want to work in the shipping line, but it's impossible when you've taken over what was supposed to be my place in this company.”

“This company is half mine.”

“But think back to why it was formed all those years ago. We learned to sail so you and I would have a livelihood when William was alive and the heir. Now this earldom is yours. After Lydia, you were too…” Grant stopped, uncomfortable. “Well, I took the reins. But, damn it, it's been years. You've had plenty of time to adjust to your lot in life. My life is completely on hold until you decide to think of someone else for a change and free me from your responsibilities.”

Derek had never looked at it like that. He'd assumed he did Grant and everyone else a favor by staying off the estates. He'd easily avoided home and all the attendant worries because his younger brother did such a good job with them.

Now, learning that Grant was encumbered by those duties, Derek understood it wasn't fair to tie him up in his affairs. But he couldn't think about that now. Besides, Grant knew better than to have mentioned Lydia and William to him in the same conversation.

“To hell with you, Grant. I have other plans. I don't give a bloody damn what happens while I'm gone. No one's forcing you to stay on.”

A look of bitter disappointment flashed in his brother's eyes before he stood and turned away. Seemingly resigned, Grant walked over to the port window, studiously taking in the scene of activity on the docks. Derek wasn't fooled. This wasn't the last he'd hear about this, and the only reason it had ended now was that Grant despised emotional scenes.

Changing the subject, Grant remarked, “I am pleased that you're captaining this race, at least. We need this win.” He turned to stare Derek down. “We
really
need this win. Our reputation has been compromised—whose wouldn't be after losing twelve cargoes in the last year? Yet you continually sign on the riskiest ventures. In case you haven't noticed, we've had several contracts pulled.”

“Of course I've noticed,” Derek said testily. And he had. Shipping contracts were based on past performance and reputation, so lost ships and the consequently damaged reputation could prove ruinous to a line.

“If Lassiter wins this race, his company will finally be on solid footing. He could easily take over even more of our business.”

“I will
never
allow that to happen.”

Grant's brows drew together. “Why
do
you two hate each other so much?”

Derek drank while considering his answer. “He harasses me because he has a Yank's natural aversion to the aristocracy—men should make their own way and all that drivel.” He looked up when he realized Grant had said nearly the same thing, but ignored his brother's frown. “He complains to any who'll listen that I was handed everything while he works tirelessly.”

“You know that's not true,” Grant said. “And you? Why do you hate him?”

“Of those twelve lost cargoes you were mentioning, he's directly responsible for at least four—”

A knock on the door broke the tense conversation.

When Derek called permission, Jeb entered and said, “Cap'n, we've got goods come to be delivered. I just wanted to make sure that we're not taking on perishables until the decision to sail is made.”

Whatever Grant detected in Derek's face had him clenching his fists. “Decision to sail—what bloody decision?” he ground out. “Why aren't you provisioned?”

Jeb decided this was a good chance to escape, and with a “Sorry, Cap'n,” he scrambled out to close the door behind him.

“Calm down. I do plan on sailing,” Derek said. “Just not yet.” Seeing the uncompromising look on his brother's face, he reluctantly began filling him in on Nicole.

“Derek, don't take me for a fool,” Grant said when he finished. “You don't expect me to believe you are looking for a woman. Much less Lassiter's chit.”

“It's true. And it's important to me.” He took a generous swig of brandy. “Lassiter, you obviously haven't heard, is in jail right now. And will be until after the race. Without him, there is no competition for the
Southern Cross.”

As Grant took in that new information, Derek continued, “And what's the urgency about sailing today? I'll win, but if I didn't, what's the worst thing that can happen? We lose a few more contracts? You know that won't break either of our banks.”

Grant loomed over his desk. “Don't you have
any
pride left? Peregrine could be the most powerful line in Britain, was well on its way to being that. But then you let a woman crush you and, as a result, the company?” Grant's eyes bored into him. “I'm glad the American's picking us off. He deserves it more than we do.”

“That's a little much—”

“You damn well know it's not. Think of the people we employ. What happens to everyone who works for the line? To the sailors' families? I can't tell you how much it pleased me to watch the company grow, to revive another port town. Now, without regard for anyone else, you're killing the one thing that made me proud.”

Derek gave an unconcerned shrug just to irritate him.

Grant exhaled and then changed tactics. “You may shun everyone you used to associate with, but the rest of your family doesn't.”

“So that's what this is about?” Derek demanded. “Your standing in the ton? I can see it now, you and Mother at Lady Sarah's rout hearing tales of the drunken reprobate heir. Do they whisper about me? About me ruining what was already an embarrassing foray into commerce for an ancient family?”

Both men stared at each other, neither prepared to back down.

His eyes like ice, Grant finally said, “I'll sail this ship if you don't.”

Derek recognized where this was going. Yes, he could have all the time in the world to search for Nicole. But then he'd have to take up the running of the estates.

“Forget it. I'm sailing,” Derek said. “When I feel like it.”

Grant leveled a look of fury at him, and Derek was sure he'd charge him—actually hoped for it. But then Grant's restraint came to the fore. That worthless, damning restraint. Grant controlled himself, but did say in a scathing voice, “Looks as if you'll destroy yourself again because of a woman. Only this time you're taking everyone else down with you.” He started toward the door but turned back. “You are the most selfish bloody bastard I've ever had the displeasure to know. That we're related makes the insult greater.”

C
hancey, will you relax?”

“Don't want to be here a mite longer,” he grumbled as he threw jerky glances over his shoulder around the sitting room of her grandmother's palatial town home. Though none of the priceless knickknacks had changed location since he last checked his surroundings, the hunted look on his face deepened.

She shook her head. “As if I do?” They simply didn't have a choice since Sutherland had started tearing up the dockside looking for them. They couldn't stay on the quay, much less on their ship. “Glaring at the vases will not stop them if they truly want to charge into your hip and break.”

He scowled at her. She'd never seen another person so uneasy as Chancey appeared now and for the two nights they'd spent here. And he couldn't stop pulling at his collar, which divided his neck above and below like two cogs from a gear. The dowager, who frightened Chancey more than her home did, had decreed their dress code, but it was next to impossible to find clothes to fit his great bulk. The woman couldn't be dissuaded. If they were to stay in her home or use any door other than the servants' entrance, then by God they would dress appropriately.

Abruptly, Chancey stood. “I'm gonna confront him today.”

She exhaled loudly and reached for a small branch of table grapes. “We've been over this. The last time someone ‘confronted' Sutherland, he landed in jail indefinitely!” With effort, she softened her tone. “I can't risk losing you, too, even if you are miserable. And think about it—we're safe here. This is the last place Sutherland would ever look.”

“I'm not hidin' any longer. And he needs to pay for yer hurt honor.”

“My hurt honor?” she cried. She looked around the room and dropped her voice. “One more time—I was not compromised. Even if I were, would you see me leg-shackled to a wastrel forever?”

He bunched his lips together and contemplated the ceiling before answering in a definite tone. “No, ye'll marry like ye promised yer gram.”

“Exactly.” Would he finally cooperate?

“Still don't like not tellin' yer pa….”

They continually fought about the decision not to tell her father what had happened on Sutherland's ship. She'd ultimately persuaded him that her father would go mad not being able to get at Sutherland. And what if he did catch up with him in the future? They'd kill each other this time.

They had enough problems with that man as it was. He'd already been furious with her before he'd been knocked out, because he presumed she'd not only want to marry him, but would scheme to do so. The arrogance! She wanted to pull his ear to her lips and scream that hell would freeze over before she married him, and that Chancey had only been protecting her. As Chancey said, they'd merely “bonked his head and tweaked his nose.” It wasn't as if they'd killed him.

Yet because of him, they'd gone to ground in, well, Mayfair. Even visiting her father became a concerted effort, since Sutherland's crew regularly checked the jail for her.

She was furious with Sutherland. So why did their time together remain constantly in her mind and plague her nights?

In his bumbling way, Chancey had tried to get her to stop dwelling on the man. What he told her chilled her to the core. She'd known Sutherland was a rake, but she'd thought the way he'd kissed and touched her so intimately had been…special.

For him, what they'd shared was a nightly occurrence. She'd been just another notch in a rake's bedpost….

Her thoughts were interrupted when Chapman knocked on the parlor door. He looked apologetic as he said, “Your grandmother would like to know why you ordered a carriage brought around to the front.”

“I'm about to go see my father.”

Chapman nodded gravely. “If that was your answer, I am to instruct you to order the carriage to the mews instead.”

Nicole crossed her eyes, and Chapman immediately had to cough.

“Tell her I will next time. And thank you,” she called as he exited the room. She began to fuss with the costly veil she wore when she visited her father. None of Sutherland's hirelings would ever think the regally gowned woman arriving at the jail was Nicole.

“Listen, Chancey—”

“Christina Banning!” her grandmother shouted from the door, her black skirts rustling to a stop. Anger radiated from her, and though she was a small woman, she seemed to fill the doorway.

“My name is
Nicole Lassiter.”
They'd been through this moniker skirmish a hundred times already. Her grandmother wanted Nicole to use her middle name and her mother's maiden name, so no one could connect Jason Lassiter's sailing daughter with Evelyn Banning's granddaughter until after she was safely married.

The old woman narrowed her eyes; Nicole knew the battle was on. Strangely, she was coming to look forward to these willful contests between them.

“If you can't abide by my rules, then don't bother coming back to marry because no one will have you. If they found out who you are, it won't matter that you're pretty or dowered—no man of consequence will take a woman with your history to wife.”

“Do you really think I'm pretty?” Nicole simpered with what she knew was an irritating smile.

Her grandmother ignored her. “It simply can't be known. I've worked for two decades to hide your wayward life. Nicole Lassiter is a sailor—in my residence you are Christina Banning.”

They argued back and forth for several minutes, until the dowager said, “Mark my words, child. I'm not doing this for me—I'm doing this for you! You do not want to enter my world with one hand tied behind your back.” With a glare at Chancey, she swept out of the room.

He shook his head, his eyes wide. “Like I always said about ye—ye got more pluck than sense. She's a terror, that one.”

Chancey was miserable here at Atworth House under the dowager's constant censure. Between that and his agreement to keep a secret from her father, which he didn't differentiate much from lying, he appeared near his breaking point. She arrived at her own breaking point that afternoon when they visited her father. It began when he told her he wouldn't be released in time for the race.

“So the
Bella Nicola
's sitting idle in the greatest race ever?” The thought made her feel like crying. She glanced from one man to the other. She noted Chancey was about to buckle the small stool he covered.

Chancey cast an anxious look at her father before meeting her gaze again. “No, we've decided I'm goin' to sail the race without Jason. Yer father's worked too hard for this line to have it die for naught. I'll captain the ship.”

Nicole eyed him. “You don't have papers.” Chancey was a born seaman, but he wasn't certified as a captain because he couldn't read or navigate.

“I've got experience with the ship, and I'll find somebody to help me with my shortcomin's.”

“Like me.” She spoke arrogantly, as though it were a foregone conclusion.

Lassiter spoke up. “Forget it, Nicole.”

“Then who will navigate?” she asked in exasperation.

Silence from both.

“Who?”

“Chancey and I have thought about it—Dennis will have to do.”

“Dennis!” she exclaimed, picturing the carefree helmsman of their ship. “You can't be serious. He better have improved since I've been away, or the ship's driftwood. Surely there's someone else—someone from one of our other crews?”

Lassiter stood and paced. “No, all our ships are at sea. And any navigator worth his salt around here is already engaged.”

“Father, you know I'm better than Dennis.”

“No doubt of it.”

“Then why not me?”

“Because you're my daughter, and these are the most dangerous seas on earth!”

“But, Father…” Even after her pleading progressed into threatening, neither man could be moved. She was to stay with her grandmother while Chancey and the crew made way.

“You're absolutely holding firm?”

He pressed his lips together. “I absolutely am.”

She didn't know whether to cry or howl in her frustration. He could not be swayed. For someone used to getting her own way, it seemed as if the whole world had teamed to thwart her.

“As soon as I get out, I'll take you somewhere nice,” Lassiter, bless his heart, promised her. “Maybe we could go to Connecticut? Stay in Mystic—check out the old neighborhood?”

“We only lived there for a few months. The
Bella Nicola
is my old neighborhood.”

He exhaled loudly. “Just be patient, Nic. Only a few more days at your grandmother's—I promise.”

He didn't know how right he was about that.

“The solicitor thinks I'll be out of here in a week,” he said in an optimistic tone.

“Why hasn't he filed any complaints?”

Again, silence.

“Why, Father?”

“Because the reason for the fight could get out.” He continued over her disbelieving look, “It's only a week more.”

He was staying in here for her.
Oh, Papa
.

“It isn't a big concern, really. And it's not as though I'm without comforts.” He waved a hand around the space.

The room truly didn't look bad. Like a bird, she'd feathered it with blankets, pillows, and rugs purloined from Atworth House, browbeating the guard to allow it, until her father's surroundings looked ridiculously lavish. He had cards, pen and ink, and she'd arranged for her grandmother's cook to send him food three times a day until he was released. She'd ensured that he'd be fine.

Even after she sailed.

When she said good-bye, she acted as though everything was normal, though her hug was longer than usual. Later in her grandmother's soft, crested carriage, Nicole reviewed her decision.

After this, she might be able to live on her memories when she was obliged to settle down according to the dowager's wishes. To marry a man she chose for her. To live a lie. The woman never let an hour go by without reminding Nicole that she had attempted to help her father with bail and had had a solicitor sent around. She would be
recompensed
.

Her father, of course, would have an apoplectic fit once he found out where she'd gone. Right after her grandmother did. But this was for a good cause. She reminded herself that she did this as much for her father and the crew as for herself. They expected her to stay at Atworth House, a picture of docility, while Dennis—a nice sailor, a great helmsman, but a weak navigator—was in charge of guiding the
Bella Nicola?

Which was silly, since she'd never done what was expected of her.

She would tell her grandmother she was going to the Continent to visit friends from school and begin buying her wardrobe for the upcoming season. With work, Nicole believed she could get the dowager to commit to some type of token watch over her father while she was away.

Then there was Chancey….

When she took a carriage from Atworth House the morning of the race, sea chests in tow, she dealt with only a little uncertainty and possibly a tiny bit of guilt for what she planned to do. She'd written a letter telling Lassiter that if he followed her after his release, she would always know he didn't believe in her—that he didn't trust her to get the job done. The letter had been true, even if over-wrought. Any time she heard from her conscience, she vowed he would have something to thank her for in the end.

“Good morning, Chancey,” she called out to his squared back as she strolled aboard the
Bella Nicola
. His shoulders stiffened before he turned around slowly to face her.

“Tell me I'm not seein' Nicole on this deck.”

“Can't do that, I'm afraid, because I'm here,” she said, tapping her finger to the tip of her nose and then pointing at him in a cavalier manner. “And I'm staying, so let's get my trunks on board and make way.”

He looked at her as if horns grew among the curls on her head. “Ye're touched in the brain if ye think I'm lettin' ye sail. Now, get ye gone back to yer gram's.”

She walked closer and raised her face to catch his gaze. “Chancey, if you kick me off this ship, then I'm walking straight over to the
Southern Cross
and sailing with Sutherland. You know he'll take me on.” She gave him a sly look.

“Bloody hell! Yer father'll have a stroke, ye just see if he won't. And he'll be comin' after ye.”

“No, he won't—I wrote him a letter. He'll be fine,” she said blithely, though she doubted her pleading letter would in fact keep him idle in London. “One way or another, I'm sailing this race. Since you need me, I might as well sail with you.”

When he still looked unconvinced, she said, “You're always telling me to follow my gut—listen to my instincts. Well, right now my instinct's telling me that I need to be a part of this race.”