The Pirate's Debt (The Regent's Revenge Book 2) (9 page)

Men grumbled and complained behind them as he directed Chloe to the main companionway.

As they began to descend to the lower deck, Pye addressed their newest crew members. “Ye’ll all get rum and warm blankets to help ye forget what you’ve seen and
heard
this night.” Bless him for knowing how to grab a man by the balls! “But let us take care of crucial business first, lads, eh?”

Markwick smiled to himself as he half carried Chloe to the hatch. He’d been unable to save everyone on board the
Mohegan
, but the cursed and blessed fates had fortuitously plotted his arrival in time to save the only one on that ship with the power to unman him—Chloe. Without her, Blackmoor would skewer him alive. Walsingham would simply kill him, no questions asked. With her, however, he might get caught. The Black Regent’s good name could be forever tarnished, allowing smugglers and wreckers to haunt the coast without paying a penance for their crimes. Who knew what kind of havoc that could wreak?

With Chloe on board, he faced another unpleasant dilemma. He’d have to deal with her fantastical tendencies and flights of fancy. He didn’t have time for a nosy woman championing his crew and certainly not to make sure she stayed out of trouble and kept her nose out of a book so that she didn’t fall victim to the harsh realities at sea. Nor did he envy his crew for what her presence on board would mean to them. Tars were a superstitious lot, proclaiming women at sea were bad omens. The fact that the
Mohegan
had suffered such a tragic fate would not help to change their minds, either.

“Would you slow down?” She jerked against him, the movement igniting something else within him—lust—a disturbing surprise that posed another problem he and his men would face while she and Jane were aboard.

Lady Chloe Walsingham would be the end of him as sure as he breathed.

“Where are your manners?” she snapped.

“Buried with my father.”

“I knew it,” she exclaimed softly. “I knew who you were the moment I laid eyes on you.”

Markwick grumbled to himself as he moved down the ladder. Chloe had known all along he was the Regent, and yet she’d said nothing. Emotions raged within him as he fought against her audacity and tenaciousness, the very idea that he’d almost lost her before he’d ever truly known her, and a surging desire to take her in his arms and kiss her soundly.

“You know nothing about me, Chloe.”

“But I do,” she said, following him.

Did she? He’d built fortifications between them from the moment he’d met Chloe years ago, when Walsingham had brought him home for the first time—and for good reason. He hadn’t wanted to risk his friendship with her brother. Now it was Chloe’s turn to concede. She needed to understand how perilous her situation was on a ship full of men. The
Fury
wasn’t an imaginary vessel written about in
Trewman’s Exeter Flying Post
. She was a living, breathing entity. His life was now Chloe’s to endure. He’d sworn allegiance to the
Fury’s
crew and to Blackmoor, a man Markwick would never betray.

Chloe stopped on the ladder, refusing to budge, forcing him to look up at her and frustrating him all the more with her stubbornness. “I read about your father’s death in the
Sherborne Mercury
. Please accept my heartfelt condolences.”

Of course, newspapers would have heralded his father’s demise as a celebrated event all across Cornwall and Devon. “I did not ask for your sympathy.”

“You have it nonetheless.” Her mellifluous voice coiled around him, spiraling straight into his chest.

It had been too long since anyone had cared about him. Struck speechless, he stopped at the bottom of the ladder and turned to slip his hands around Chloe’s waist in order to help her to the gun deck and prevent her from tripping on her sodden skirts. At least that was the lie he told himself.

His hands absorbed her heat, feeding a contemptible need that was escalating inside him to be admired, loved . . . chosen as the best man among men.

“Your loss must be unbearable.” She reached up to touch his face, then lowered her hand. “But you aren’t alone. I promise, you will never be alone.”

She pitied him. He swallowed the lump welling in his throat.

Bloody hell! Her emotional rawness stripped away his defenses. He couldn’t allow her to do it. He’d found a home within this blackened hull, a proper color to match his current mood.

“You don’t understand, Chloe. I must always be alone.”

“You don’t have to live that way. I—”

“Shh.” He put a finger on her lips. “Don’t say anything you will regret.”

Her eyes turned bright and glossy in the lantern’s glow. “I regret nothing.”

She would. He released her and took her by the arm, leading her through the passageway to his cabin. Then, suddenly possessed with an urge to make her see how foolish she’d been, he braced her body against the bulkhead and brushed back errant tendrils of red hair that were plastered to her face and kissed her soundly. The contact achieved the opposite effect: enhancing his desire, making him want to carry her to his bunk, drown in her violet eyes—the color strangely enthralling and unique—the very reason he’d always refused to allow his gaze to remain locked on hers whenever he was in her presence. Chloe’s declarations bewitched him. But he couldn’t play with her passions or put her interests ahead of his own. He needed to get ahold of himself.

The
Fury
was his home now, where rules and proprieties of friendship no longer controlled him. Her very nearness posed a danger to everything he’d forged for himself. This ship was his only hope of salvation. And now, like before, he had to stop Chloe from saying words she couldn’t take back, to make her understand she’d be better off with someone else.

Yet he reveled in the sensations her touch aroused. Inside him, a voice whispered that his life could be redeemed in Chloe’s arms if he chose to recognize the fondness for her he’d buried deep inside.

He craved a woman’s love, it was true, but she deserved a better man.

“You cannot run forever,” she whispered, nearly out of breath.

Her honesty shocked him. “Who says I am running?”

“It appears that way to me, and perhaps many others of your acquaintance.”

“Such as?”

“The Duke and Duchess of Blackmoor, surely.”

If only she knew. He found it odd that Prudence had not confided Blackmoor’s history as the Black Regent to her close friend. Would that knowledge have made a difference to Chloe? Would it have put an end to her interferences once and for all?

“You are lucky we found you when we did,” he said, once more taken aback by the thought of Chloe being bludgeoned to death on shore.

“Yes, Markwick. I am lucky
I
found
you
.”

WINE and CORK from the cargo of the wrecked
Hermanest August
,
bound for London from Porto, has been discovered by REVENUE officers near the LIZARD. The CUSTOMS OFFICE and BOARD OF EXCISE have taken swift action to collect the cache from a WRECK off PORTHLEVEN in 1808.

~
Trewman’s Exeter Flying Post
, 30 July 1809

Markwick’s laughter took her aback. “
You
found
me
?” He stopped beside several iron cannons stationed on mounted frames roped to the deck.

“It’s true.” She’d overstepped many proprieties to discover where he’d gone, risking more than her reputation, but none of that mattered now. “And I’d do it all again, just to find you.”

Chloe suppressed the knowledge that men had died to reunite them and the way it affected her as Markwick’s firm, gentle grip tightened on her arm. “You don’t understand. You could have been killed.”

“I do understand, and I wasn’t.
You
saved me.” He could play the pirate for everyone else, but not for her. Never her. She knew he would never hurt her. His was a gentle soul.

She placed her hand on his chest, desiring to feel the comforting beat of his heart beneath her palm. “We cannot change what has happened. We can only move forward.”

How prophetic those words were. His father—the dreadful excuse for a man—had given the earl unconscionable heartache. Because of it, Markwick had turned to a life of piracy and hardened his heart. She could—would—change that, if only he’d let her.

“There are some things a man cannot escape,” he said.

But Blackmoor had escaped a murder attempt, and he’d found a way to help friends whom Markwick’s father had destroyed. Besides, if Pru had forgiven Blackmoor for allowing her to believe he was dead for two years, anything was possible. “Love can do anything,” she attested.

“Love?” He said the word as if it had barbed its way out of his mouth, causing him intolerable pain.

Chloe frowned in the semidarkness. She had to make Markwick see reason. He had to turn away from his piratical ways. If Pierce caught up with him, it wouldn’t matter if her brother was his friend or that he’d acted as Markwick’s second during the earl’s duel with Blackmoor at the Downs, which had all been a ruse to ensnare Markwick’s father anyway. No. Pierce was a preventative man. Alliances wouldn’t stop him from doing his duty. He despised pirates. If Markwick was the Black Regent, her brother wouldn’t hesitate to collect the price on his head. He’d see Markwick hang, giving no benefit of the doubt for all the times the Regent had undermined Pierce’s attempts to capture him.

To Hades with honor and repaying one’s debt to king and country. Her brother lived by one rule alone: duty. And whatever debt Markwick believed he was repaying, it wasn’t worth losing him and her brother, too, for she would never forgive Pierce if he killed Markwick.

Chloe’s heart seized more cruelly than the pull of her wet garments against her skin. Like Isabella in
Otranto
, she’d handle her personal despair like the long-suffering heroines in her beloved books. In the past, she’d had no other choice. She’d stepped back and watched Markwick do his duty by Pru, incapable of denying anyone else the happiness they truly deserved. That simply wasn’t in her nature. To some, that might make her appear dowdy and meek, but she was far from either of those characteristics.

So was Markwick. He was neither a captain nor a pirate, and yet he was . . . altered.

If only he could see the truth, see that love could redeem him.

As they walked through the orange-lit passageway where shadows danced at every turn, she pondered the differences in him. His brash confrontation with Captain Teague, the capable way he’d resolved the danger threatening countless lives, the remarkable changes to his body in a matter of months, not that she’d ever been given an opportunity to see him shirtless before. Muscles flexed in his marvelous shoulders, the straining hills and valleys tempting her sight, making her want to reach out and touch him to prove he was real. He was a magnificent example of manhood—more attractive, more virile than any man she’d ever imagined in her dreams.

But this time, the hero who’d save her life wasn’t a fixation of her imaginings. She wasn’t asleep, as Jane had so obligingly shown her. And oh, she was most grateful for it.

Markwick hastened their pace. She marveled at his new home, adjusting to the rhythm beneath her feet, absorbing everything she saw on the gundeck. Cannons were positioned for battle, long sections of rope were coiled around the capstans, and hammocks stretched out between the guns along the hull for his crew.

Coarse odors of sulphur and grease invaded her nostrils. After days sailing from Torquay, she didn’t have to knuckle her nose to staunch the smell as she had the moment she’d boarded the
Mohegan
.

Bare feet padded faintly around them, the sound joining their booted footfalls as he led her past gun tackle and equipment and through a passageway leading to a grouping of closed screen doors. He stopped before one and opened it, gesturing for her to cross the coaming before he followed and locked the door behind them.

Iron-latticed lanterns hanging by chains dangled at intervals in the cabin, their muted light casting an orange glow on furniture affixed to the floor, including a sideboard with washbasin, a table with several chairs, and a monstrous desk.

She glanced around the cabin, eager to get out of her wet things but even more intrigued and restless to discover what it was about the Regent’s ship that had seduced Markwick into a life of piracy.

The screens encompassing the cabin were made up of mahogany panels. Black damask curtains, which were drawn back from the stern windows, danced with shadows in the lantern light. And joy of joys, cushioned seats stationed under the windows provided an excellent place to read by day.

Continuing the mysterious decor, black fabric shrouded the bunk and coverlets, too, giving the cabin a ghastly soul. Weren’t captains’ cabins supposed to be well-lit places for strategic planning? Who in his right mind would want to reside in this dark lair?

Poor Markwick. What has happened to you?

About her, lining the bulkhead, glass-encased shelves provided ready access to liquor and, praise heaven, more books! Chloe set down her parcel and walked to one case, lifted the lid, and stroked the aged spines of the nautical library. Was this where Markwick had learned to manage sea life? If so, she must make use of the books, too. To know a person, one need only sample his tastes.

She closed the glass and searched the cabin, taking in the spyglass, cutlass, and several daggers affixed to the bulkhead. Her gaze finally settled on Markwick, who stood there staring back at her, bare-chested and more handsome than she’d ever dared believe. Something raw and primal radiated from his silver stare, making her want to swoon and prompting her to cinch his linen shirt tighter about her shoulders.

I’ve dreamed of this moment. It’s finally here. We’re alone.

“Are you done with your inspection, my lady?”

His dull wit didn’t upend her. “I’m shivering. Seeing you standing there as you are . . . Well, I just realized you gave me the shirt off your back. You must be cold.”

“Sea life takes getting used to.”

Did it? Perhaps he was right, but she didn’t intend to be at sea long enough to find out.

She turned toward the center of the room, facing the desk that was bolted to the deck to control her beating heart and hide the flush rising to her cheeks. “The decor needs work. Black reminds me of mourning.” Her heartbeat slammed against her chest as memories of all that Pru had been through and thoughts of the widows of the slain
Mohegan’s
crew filled her mind to overflowing. She cinched Markwick’s shirt tighter then spun around to face him. What would happen to the families left behind?

“Mourning?” Markwick’s eyes widened with astonishment. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

Chloe bit her bottom lip. Perhaps mourning wasn’t the right word. Gloomy? Tomblike? “I understand that you are the Black Regent, but isn’t the black overmuch? A touch of red would do splendidly here and there to liven the place. As a matter of fact, purple is a much richer, more regal color. With a name like Regent, one pictures royal furnishings.”

“The Black Regent isn’t a hero from one of your books, Chloe.”

Oh, but you are exactly as I pictured my swashbuckling hero to be.
“Perhaps you are right. Every one of my heroes wears a shirt.”

Markwick’s attention dropped to his chest. “You are wearing mine.” He looked up and frowned ruefully.

“Easily remedied.” She began to pull his shirt from her shoulders.

“No. Keep it.” He put up his hand to halt her progress. “And do not try to give it back until you are out of those wet clothes.”

The idea of standing before him naked sent a delightful shiver from her head to her toes. She gasped. “I . . . I have nothing else,” she said, conscious of the fact that she was standing in his cabin with her clothes plastered to her skin.

“Your maid had a satchel, did she not? Perhaps there is something in it you can use. If not, I shall dig into my trunk to find something . . . less . . . revealing.”

“Revealing?” She hugged his shirt even closer. What did
that
mean? The cut of her pelisse was quite practical. “I’ll have you know my modiste is a respectable woman and an excellent seamstress.”

She might not be as lean as Pru had been during her supposed widowhood, but their modiste, Mrs. Stratton, raved about Chloe’s curves. Why, Mrs. Stratton had told her a man could do no better than a vigorous woman, one capable of taking care of herself. After all, her legs had been strengthened by horseback riding. Her arms were firm and strong from practicing archery. Her hips were wide enough to prove useful balancing baskets when she picked flowers in the gardens and for bearing children.

“I wasn’t speaking about the quality of your clothes, Chloe, but the fact that they are wet.”

“Oh!” She suppressed a shiver of apprehension, allowing her gaze to trail a path down Markwick’s stomach, imagining herself carrying the future Earl of Markwick. What would Lady Osgood, known to readers of the prestigious paper
Trewman’s Exeter Flying Post
as Lady O, a widowed gossip and frequent informant, say about that?

She rubbed her arms briskly to summon warmth to her limbs and steer her thoughts away from Markwick and babies, for as surely as she’d been brought up in the country and desired to be married to the earl posthaste, she knew how children were made.

Markwick spoke no more as he leaned against the cabin entrance. Was her presence in his cabin so intrusive that he refused to relax?

Her heart sank in her chest. Markwick looked so dashing and heroic. Different somehow from the nobleman who looked gallant wearing gentlemen’s attire, and yet the same. Except he was perhaps more masculine—if that was possible—resembling a god who’d stepped out of
The Mysteries of Udolpho
as he scrutinized her from neutral ground.

It was barely tolerable, indeed painful, for her to see him this way and know he didn’t want to be with her. Defiance, undefinable in its intensity, burned in his eyes when he looked at her. What caused him so much pain? She’d never meant to hurt him—far from it! What more could she do to make Markwick understand that she loved him and never wanted to be parted from him? Was that so wrong?

Her shoulders sagged. Life. Death. Markwick’s contempt. She’d seen and heard more this day than she’d ever imagined possible. And the weight of Markwick’s derision proved almost too much to bear.

He’d risked his title, his reputation, and left everything and everyone in Exeter behind. He was a pirate, the celebrated and feared Black Regent. What would he want with the poorly dressed sister of his friend, a man who’d seek to collect a reward for the Black Regent’s capture without any consideration for her feelings?

She forced a smile, fighting back fatigue as a chill settled deep in her bones. If Markwick didn’t return her love, what then? She’d have to return home in disgrace, and her family would never trust her again.

Bother. She couldn’t think about the repercussions of her actions now.

Her lips began to quiver. Gooseflesh pricked her skin. She was colder than she’d ever been, even in the heart of winter. She wanted—no, needed—to borrow Markwick’s warmth, to open her heart, to tell him how she felt before it was too late. She had to try.

Overcome by a surplus of emotions, Chloe wasted no time seeking solace in the earl’s arms. She rushed to him theatrically, throwing herself on his chest, flattening her body against him. “Oh, Markwick! How I thank God it was you who saved me!”

For a moment, he stood there, his hands lax against his sides.

A heart-wrenching sob escaped her breast that he should be so distant, so unfeeling. More than anything else, she couldn’t bear his indifference.

But then he eased his hands over her shoulders, tightening his embrace. “Yes,” he said. “Divine intervention led me to you.”

She fed off his heat, turning her head to hear his heart pound against his rib cage, the beat speeding, drumming out an uneven rhythm. What if he didn’t care for her? What if she’d risked everything for nothing? She raised a fist to her mouth to silence herself from displaying her anguish. She’d never endured such emotional turmoil in her entire life.