The Stanhope Challenge - Regency Quartet - Four Regency Romances (46 page)

Mark chuckled. “I doubt I’ll have call for anything fancy to sail to Baltimore.”

Sirena cast her eyes to the floor.

“After all the trouble with those pirates,” Adam asked, “you want to cross the ocean again?”

“Why not let us put them down first?” Wes asked. “The Admiralty will certainly hear of this from me.”

“In Parliament,” Adam offered, “we do talk of action against them.”

“What with the war against Napoleon well advanced on land,” Jack asked of Adam, “are we not able to conquer these pirates soon?”

“This spring, I do hope,” Adam replied, then considered Mark. “Winter is no time to cross the north Atlantic. It was perilous enough to start out in October!”

“Come in, Rogers,” Felice beckoned the footman who carried a silver tray filled with tiny cakes and muffins, butter and bread. “Why must you cross now, Mark? Stay with us. Any of us. All of us, each in turn. Go in the spring, why don’t you? Is that not a wonderful plan, Adam?”

Before Adam could answer, Emma took up the cause. “Yes! Go after you have pressed the Admiralty and Parliament. Convince them all to rid the coastal waters of the Bou Regreb. Perfect time to cross, after you can do so safely, Mark. Don’t you agree, Jack? Wes? Adam?”

Mark frowned into Sirena’s gaze. “I am not certain. I will not commit to it unless….Sirena, what do you think of this?”

Was he asking her opinion only of the time of crossing? Or was he asking her more? To go with him? Once, weeks ago in some other lifetime, she had might have been a romantic. Haphazardly, foolishly, she had run away from her home and father. She had stowed away on Mark’s clipper ship. She had not thought of the method or the consequences. As a result, her servant who had helped her had died. She herself had hidden away in the storage hold of the ship and nearly froze and starved to death. She had found herself in the arms and the bed of the man she now adored. That she did not regret, nor would she change. But the price for that bliss in his bed was his neglect of his duty to the bridge and their capture by Al Hassan. She and he plus his crew had been seized like slaves and imprisoned. Only to nearly starve and freeze once more on her return to a land she wished to leave as soon as possible. If Mark had declared he loved her, if he had shown the slightest inclination to marry her, she might have counted it all well worth the prize. The most valuable lesson she had learned in all this misadventure, however, had been to be true to herself. Honest, bold and upright about who she was and what she needed to hold her head up high.

“Sirena?” Mark stared at her, skeptically examining her features. “What do you say?”

For now? For all to hear? “I say you should cross when it is safe. Safe from winter storms and Al Hassan.”

“Wonderful!” Lacy set down her teacup and clapped in delight. “We shall fatten you both up and ensure your health, won’t we, Fee? Emma?”

“Absolutely,” Jack interrupted. “But I think we have a few other issues to contend with as well. Your cargo, for one.”

Marriage, for another. Sirena kneaded her fingers together. I cannot, should not remain here without it. Though I care naught about any scandal, I do care to know to what degree the man I love reciprocates my feelings.

“Milady,” Emma’s butler interrupted them by opening the salon doors and bowing to her. “The earl of Stanhope.”

Ambling in the door close behind the butler, John Stanhope took one shaky step after another across the Oriental rugs. His own servant held him by one arm as he aided him to a nearby chair. There he surveyed them all, especially Mark and Sirena.

Each younger Stanhope male nodded in deference to the sire they only recently began to know and care for with any affection.

“Father,” Mark greeted the man with a smile warmer than Sirena had seen ever before. “Thank you for coming.”

“I would not remain home to hear this second hand, Mark. Tell me. Quickly.”

Mark summarized the happenings of the past few weeks for him quickly. At the end, the conversation turned once more to discussing Mark’s cargo. “I am afraid that is totally lost. The goods went to Al Hassan and his thieves. I welcomed your suggestion, Jack, to insure it with Lloyds, but now with this catastrophe on my record, few other merchants will want to ship with me.”

John pursed his lips. “What happened to you was not your fault. The storm, the seizure by those thugs were not events you controlled. You are to be commended for escaping them.”

Mark inhaled. “That credit must go to my friend, Don Catalon, the Duke of Toledo who saw the opportunity and took it for us all.”

“This duke is with you here?” Adam asked with interest.

“In Dover, yes. I met him years ago in Bou Regreg’s dungeons. He became Al Hassan’s aide and translator.”

“Did he now? Well done.” Wes nodded, folding his arms. “And now that he is free, what are his intentions?”

“He wishes to return to his country and regain his lands and titles once Spain is returned to its rightful king.”

Adam raised his brows. “Perhaps we in Parliament might have a few good words for him.”

“And the Admiralty,” added Wes, “might find his insights useful when we pursue Al Hassan.”

“All good intentions,” John Stanhope observed, “but our first concern must be to put Mark back on his feet, eh?”

“True,” Jack agreed. “And I think there is a useful way. What if,” he asked with a self-satisfied smile on his face, “we pooled our resources to make that a reality?”

“I want no charity,” Mark declared.

“And you’ll get none,” Adam grinned with a twinkle in his eyes. “We three have a stake in our cousin’s trading company in Hong Kong.”

“He’s right,” Jack added. “Plus a year ago, I invested in a commercial shipping company out of Boston, Massachusetts. Father has a stake, too. They’ve profited from sugar and tea trade between America and England, but they recently lost a partner who died. They search for another ship ready to take cargo between America and Portsmouth. You would have to sail at least part of the year from Boston, instead of Baltimore. Would you be willing?”

Mark looked stunned but eager. “Of course. To earn my living is my goal.”

Sirena beamed with pride. She’d known that about Mark. His independence, his resolve to live up to his ideals were hallmarks of his character.

“Perhaps, too,” John added, “I should send a letter to my brother in Hong Kong.”

Jack agreed. “We should influence our uncle and his two sons in Hong Kong to ship on your Water Witch.”

“Or, Adam,” Felice said to her husband with a glint in her eyes, “because we’ve made such good profits from our investment with them in China, we could fund the building of another clipper for Mark?”

Adam grinned at his wife. “You know the books better than I, Fee, and if you say we have the funds…?”

She wiggled her brows in glee. “We do.”

“Then we will!” Adam beamed at Mark. “What do you say?”

“I say you have an agreement. But only if it is clear that I pay you back with interest.”

“Done!” John snapped his fingers and shifted slowly in his chair to examine Sirena. “Now tell me, my dear, what do you intend to do about your father? He has grieved terribly over your loss. And we are shocked as hell you sit here, alive and breathing.”

“That is thanks to Mark,” she told the earl with pride. “He was quite good to me when in fact I was only a stowaway.”

John frowned at Mark. “You did not know she was aboard when I was in Dover to see you off?”

“No, sir. I did not lie to you.”

“I see. Good. When I read Emma’s note this morning that Sirena had survived, I did wonder if you’d known. Your grief over her loss seemed a palpable thing.”

Sirena remembered Mark’s shock and joy when Simpson brought her to him. The warmth of his welcome was a heart-rending moment she would never forget.

Mark nodded. “It was, sir. You can imagine my surprise to have my crewman bring me a disheveled youth in ragged clothes.”

John barked in laughter. “Did you really change your dress, my girl?”

Sirena managed a smile. “I did, my lord.”

“Cheeky, that.”

“Yes, my lord.” She considered her hands in her lap. “I know that now. I was naïve.”

“Most certainly. And your motivation? What was that, Sirena?”

The earl’s question was fierce, his tone imperial. But she did not flinch from answering. His inquiry was grounded in more than curiosity, but in concern for her welfare. “I would not marry de Ros.”

“A sound decision,” the earl replied with a chuckle. “De Ros is an ass of the first order. If you married him, you would be bored from breakfast to bed.”

The men suppressed chuckles.

The ladies did not.

Lacy sat forward. “Mark showed us what a blowhard he was when he failed to show for the duel.”

Mark crossed his arms and scuffed the carpet with his shoe. “He never thought I would challenge him. I was rather glad he did not appear that morning with his pistols and a second. I am a terrific shot. Have no idea of his talents.”

“He couldn’t hit your ship in dock.” Jack gave his wife a tender look. “He is one of those men trained to think a wife’s fortune should be his to squander.”

“Well, then, Sirena,” John Stanhope said with a tone that brooked little argument, “shall we summon your father now?”

“No, sir.”

Gasps of shock rose from each one in the room.

Mark stepped forward and took her hand. “Darling, he needs to know you are alive.”

“He does.” She got to her feet. “Emma? Jack? May I have use of your carriage? I need to see him.” Tell him my plans.

“Of course, you may.” Emma pulled the bell for her butler. “I’ll have it brought round immediately. I shall hurry along my maids to let you bathe and dress.”

Mark tugged on Sirena’s hand. “I’m coming with you.”

“No, Mark.”

His sapphire blue eyes widened with surprise. “But you came to me. I am responsible for you.”

Because I made you so. “I owe my father an explanation and an apology.”

“So do I.”

“No. You protected me. For that I am grateful. But you did not ask me to leave my father’s house.”

“Sirena,” his voice rose, “I need to tell him—”

“Mark.” She put up a hand. “Whatever you wish to say to him must come later. Please understand. This I owe my father. This,” for my own self-respect, “I must do alone.”

Sirena took the rickety stairs to her room in the White Swan with conflicting emotions. To finally secure passage for herself on a transport ship to Philadelphia after three weeks of searching Portsmouth for an opening was a relief. A triumph, in fact. To know that she was finally leaving England and beginning a new life for herself was a terror. A heartache.

She opened her door and sat down on the bed. Her little room had become her home these past weeks. She loved its simplicity. The gnarled wood. The soft eiderdown of her mattress. The freedom it represented. If she also hated the solitude, she told herself it gave her an opportunity to reflect upon the rightness of her decision to leave England, her father, the society she’d been bred to enjoy and dominate. The simple meals she ate in the common room below gave her pause just as they gave her nourishment and gratitude for her education, her determination and her hope that she embarked upon was a better life.

That she also began this new life alone seared her with regret. But to stand alone for herself by herself had been necessary to her pride, her integrity. Mark had taught her the value of honoring one’s integrity. In any venture, he had been honest, bold and true. He would want for a mate a woman of like character. And though she was not yet that woman, though clearly he had not thought so either or he would have proposed marriage, now she would be a woman of strength. Her own woman. In a year or two, had she left home as she did now with money in her pocket and her father’s blessing, she might have won the heart of a man like Mark.

“As it is…” She covered her mouth, refusing to cry. “I will not think of what might have been. Only what good days lie ahead for me.”

Her father had been nigh unto apoplectic at the sight of her that afternoon. With her hair hanging down her back, dressed in Felice Stanhope’s ginger-colored day dress and leather slippers with Emma’s wool cape about her shoulders, Sirena had gone home to Maxwell Terrace. Her father, who had only moments before received a note from the earl of Stanhope to notify him of Sirena’s existence and return from a sea voyage, stood on the front steps and greeted her with tears running down his cheeks.

“My dear girl,” he whispered, then caught her close and hugged the breath from her. “I cannot believe you are here and whole and sound. My God, you are thin. Come in. Come in. Let us help you inside.” And so the nobleman who appeared to have aged a decade or more in the intervening weeks had taken her into his house and more deeply into his heart than ever he had allowed her before.

There, as he held her hands while they sat before a roaring fire in the main salon, the Duke of Fyfe fawned over his only child, pampering her with candies and whiskey, a cashmere shawl over her knees to keep her warm and near him, and more attention than he had ever before shown her. There, he listened to her tale of escape from this house, her sorrow over her maid’s untimely death, her journey aboard Mark Stanhope’s Water Witch, their capture and escape from pirates and their final return to England. Her love for Mark Stanhope she alluded to but did not explain. Not only would that have been too painful to describe, it would have invited questions from her father that would have embarrassed them both. Her erotic delights in Mark’s arms, in his cabin and in the confines of The Rouge, she vowed never to share with anyone. Those memories were too precious to describe to anyone. They were her prize for enduring hardships and finding a noble decent man to love.

When she came to the end of her tale, she told him then she would not re-enter his house or society. The old man did not argue with her, but declared instead he did not care what she did as long as she lived and was happy with her choices. To merely know that she lived, he said, was an unexpected boon, more than he deserved for his domineering ways. So when she told him she wished to travel to America and live there for the rest of her days, he did break down. His tears tore her heart to shreds, but she did not relent.