Wicked at Heart (26 page)

Armand looked
up, his lips splitting in a dingy smile.  "Or what, you'll call your
aristo friend down on us?" he broke in.  "You sniveling little
traitor . . .  Sit down."

Toby tried to
back up.  Bodies pressed against his spine, and someone pushed him forward.  He
fell and was caught by strong hands that shoved him mercilessly at Armand.

"Leave us,
Paget," Armand said to the man who had brought Toby to him.  "I'm
sure my
friend
Toby here has much he wishes to tell me."

Paget went red,
his gaze flashing to Toby's pocket.  "He's my friend, my friend!" he
cried possessively and, yanking a knife from his trousers, lunged for Armand.

Immediately the
deck exploded in screams and shouts of excitement which drowned out all other
sound.  Toby leaped backward and tried to run, but he was hemmed in.  Someone
caught him and forced him to watch the fight, and in the melee he saw Armand
deflect Paget's knife and strike a lightning blow to the side of his head. 
Paget stumbled and fell to one knee, gasping.

"Get up,
get up!" cried the other prisoners, kicking at Paget in their frenzy to
see the fight continued.  "Get up!"

Paget was crying. 
The noise level rising to fever pitch around him, he got up and girlishly
slapped Armand in the chops with the side of his hand.  Armand hit him back,
and again Paget fell.  He sat there, sobbing, his head in his hands as Armand
reached down to help him up.

"Friends,
Paget?"

"Friends,
Armand, we friends, you my friend," the man blubbered, tears streaming
down his face.

Sniffling, he
reached up to accept Armand's help, and it was the last movement he ever made. 
The dagger that suddenly appeared in Armand's fist plunged straight into
Paget's throat, all the way to the hilt.

Toby's scream
was drowned in the outburst of cheers as Paget thrashed and died on the deck in
a gurgle of blood.

And then Armand
looked up, jerked the dripping blade from the dead man's throat, and advanced
on Toby.

"You work
for the aristo, you stinking little louse," he spat, venom dripping from
every word.  "The aristo, who lives in luxury while we noble Frenchmen
starve to death!  You work for him, and you're going to tell Armand here each
and every detail of his schedule so that we can" — he pantomimed the blade
passing across his own throat and made an ugly, awful grimace — "balance
the scales, eh?"

"No!"
Toby cried as Armand's bloody hand lashed out and spun him around, instantly pinning
his spine against the Frenchman's stomach.  He felt a tug as Armand ripped the
little bag from his pocket.  And then there was only that horrible blade of
death against his own throat, Armand's fetid breath in his face, and those
vicious eyes leaning over his shoulder, blazing into his.

"You
will
,"
the Frenchman hissed into his ear, pressing harder on the blade, "and
you're going to start now."

~~~~

The Ladies'
Committee on Prisoner Welfare — organized by Gwyneth and now proving to be her
greatest source of exasperation — sat around a delicate wrought iron table in
her sunny garden, sipping tea, remarking on the fine weather, and exclaiming
over her lilacs and prize beds of Aubrietia.  But at the moment Gwyneth didn't
give a fig about the scent of her lilacs, the beauty of her Aubrietia, or the
likelihood of how nice her roses were going to look next month.  She had called
the group together to discuss ways of helping the prisoners aboard the hulks,
but from the moment Lord Morninghall's name had been mentioned, there had been
talk of nothing else.

"Really,
Gwyneth, I am completely baffled," the Countess of Hinney murmured,
setting her cup down in its saucer and peering at Gwyneth from beneath an
elaborate bonnet trimmed with pearl-colored ostrich feathers.  "Why you
continue to defend that demonic
Morninghall,
when all of the
haut ton
know he is nothing but a disreputable monster, is beyond me.  The man is
dangerous, a devil with no hope of redemption, so for your own safety — not to
mention
reputation
— I advise you to stay well away from him."

"Lady
Hinney," Gwyneth said firmly, "I did not call us together to discuss
Lord Morninghall, but to organize a drive to collect food and clothing for the
hulk prisoners."

"Really, my
dear, if you
truly
want to help them, why not concentrate your efforts
on the Black Wolf instead?"  She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial
tone, aware that Lady Falconer, who had arrived the day before from Surrey and
had gone out to her coach to retrieve a shawl, would return at any moment. 
"Now
there
is a man who is
doing
something for the
prisoners.  Imagine, rescuing them in the dead of night, right out from under
the nose of your lord, time and time again!"  She clapped a hand to her
bosom and rolled her eyes back in delight.  "How dashing!  How brave!  How
utterly romantic!"

"I do think
it best if we abstain from talk about the Black Wolf in Lady Falconer's
presence," Gwyneth said dryly, looking at the door where she expected her
friend Maeve to reappear at any moment.  "Given that the Wolf is reputed
to be her brother, and here she is, American and married to the most celebrated
British admiral this side of Nelson, she's caught in the middle and such talk
can only be distressing to her."

"But the
Wolf is positively gallant!" piped up Miss Claudia Dalrymple, seizing the
chance to join in the conversation.

"Which is
more than one can say for Lord Morninghall!"

"Yes,
Morninghall wouldn't know the meaning of
gallant
if it up and bit him on
the nose," chirped Miss Mary Chivers, daughter of the influential Lord
Sands.  "Why,
I
heard that when he stabbed Bolton's son through the
heart in that duel, he was actually
laughing
," she added with a
dramatic shiver.

Rhiannon,
sitting in a nearby chair with Mattie dozing at her feet, drawled, "I
do
believe the duel was fought with pistols, Mary."

"Nevertheless,
he should not have laughed.  That just goes to show how dreadful a person he
really is, doesn't it?   And why you invited him to our Committee meeting is
simply beyond the pale, Gwyneth!"  She put a hand to her white bosom,
which had begun to heave with practiced emotion.  "As Lady Hinney has
already said, the man is a monster!"

Gwyneth set her
teacup down with a loud bang.  "The man is a naval commander, and I have
invited him so that he may advise us of the things we might do to aid our
cause.  Such information can only help the prisoners."

"Yes, I can
imagine it would —
if
Morninghall shows.  But he won't, and you and I
both know it."

"He will
show," Gwyneth said adamantly.

"I would not
be so sure," Lady Hinney murmured, cutting a piece of frothy lemon cake
with her knife and holding it artfully poised in her hand.  "It is
half-four, and he still has not arrived."

"And he
really can't expect us to wait all day for him."

Lady Hinney gave
an amused snort.  "I'm sure that is
exactly
what he expects,
Mary."

"He will
be
here," Gwyneth said tightly, even though her own confidence in Morninghall
was beginning to wane.  Had she misinterpreted the look in his eyes outside her
house in the darkness?  Had she only imagined the softening in him, the quick
glimpse of vulnerability and warmth before he had pulled the dark drapes of
himself shut once more?  No, he would be here.  Her skin was prickling with
anticipation at the very thought of his diabolically beautiful form darkening
her doorway like the devil conjured up from hell, his gaze sweeping over her
little gathering with satanic disdain.  She'd already bet Rhiannon a crown that
Lady Hinney would faint dead away at her first sight of him.  Rhiannon had
upped the bet to a guinea, saying Miss Mary Chivers would too.

Damn you,
Morninghall, where are you?

Trying to
maintain her confident, businesslike composure, Gwyneth opened her notebook. 
She froze as she heard hoofbeats approaching in the street beyond the wall, and
her pulse quickened — but the hoofbeats continued on.  Her heart fell, and she
hoped her face did not give away her disappointment as she shot what had to be
her fiftieth surreptitious glance toward the doorway in a third as many minutes.

She didn't
bother trying to fool herself.  She hadn't invited Morninghall here just to
gain his professional input — she'd invited him because she desperately wanted
to see him again.

Ached to see him
again.

And here it was,
half-four, and he had not arrived.

"You sound
dreadfully certain of something I doubt we shall see, Gwyneth," Lady
Hinney was saying, dabbing her lips with her napkin.  "If Morninghall was
going to come, he would have been here by now."

"He
accepted my invitation," Gwyneth snapped, flipping the pages of her
notebook with unnecessary force.  "He was probably detained.  Now, shall
we get on with this meeting?"

The older woman,
resembling a giant tomato in her loud, poppy-colored silk gown, merely smiled
and reached for another piece of cake.  "Detained, my dear?"  She
gave a little snort and dismissed Gwyneth's hopes with an imperious wave of her
hand.  "More likely he just tossed your invitation into the sea and
promptly forgot about it.  After all, the man has a well-earned reputation as a
knave, a blackguard, a monster —"

"Really,
have the lot of you nothing better to do than gossip about the character of
this damned Morninghall fellow?"

All heads turned
as Maeve, Lady Falconer, sailed out of the house with her parasol clutched in
her right hand like a sword.  Her outburst stunned Lady Hinney into bug-eyed shock.

"Well, I
never . . ." the stout old matron began, before the angry look in Lady
Falconer's eye silenced her.  The group fell silent, nervous in the presence of
Admiral Sir Graham Falconer's fearsome wife, who wore a necklace of sharks'
teeth around her neck and — it was rumored — a dagger strapped to the outside
of her ankle.  Maeve had once been the Pirate Queen of the Caribbean, and
though she was gowned in amethyst silks and her hair was swept up in a crown of
fire atop her head, neither did a thing to bring a genteel and ladylike quality
to the woman who had terrorized the West Indies, snared herself the most
eligible bachelor in the Royal Navy, and — as it was well known — allied
herself to Lord Nelson just before the famous Battle of Trafalgar.

Maeve was not
known for her patience, and of course all this talk about her escaped brother
being the Black Wolf must be very trying for her, Gwyneth thought.  Mixed
loyalties were never easy.

"Thank you,
Maeve," Gwyneth said with tightly reined anger.  She noted the day's date
in her notebook and then the names of the present committee members. 
"Perhaps we can begin our meeting now?"

Lady Falconer
opened her parasol with a violent snap.  "It's about time.  Had I known
this
meeting
was going to be nothing more than a boring tearoom gossip
session aimed at assassinating a man's character, I damn well would've stayed
home."

Lady Hinney
jerked her chin up, then looked away, angry and humiliated.

"Well,
where
is
His Lordship, then?" piped up Miss Dalrymple, smiling
faintly as she gazed at each committee member.  "We've been sitting here
waiting for him to arrive for the past hour."

"Perhaps
he's trying to think up a way to capture the Black Wolf," Miss Chivers
said, giggling.  Her eyes widened.  "Papa tells me that if he does not,
the Admiralty is going to have his head!"

"Better his
than the Black Wolf's," Lady Hinney slid in.  She paled as she saw sparks
lighting Maeve's tiger eyes and drew back, her hands fluttering.  "But
Gwyneth is right.  Morninghall is beyond gossip — and redemption."  She
laid her hand on Gwyneth's, keenly aware of Maeve's fearsome stare from across
the table.  "So, dear child.  What would you have us do for these poor
prisoners?"

Thankful that
they were finally getting down to business, Gwyneth began outlining her idea to
collect food and clothing from among the good people of Portsmouth.  But her
words were detached from her seething thoughts, and as the minutes passed to an
hour, the excited hope that had lit her spirit and made her heart jittery,
turned to ashes in her breast.

I won't let
you get away with this, Morninghall,
she vowed, already anticipating a
confrontation. 
So help me God, I won't!

Chapter
16

"This is
not the way, Damon.  It's too dangerous, and cruel-spirited besides.  For
pity's sake, where is your heart?"

"You mean
to tell me you finally acknowledge that I lack one?" Damon said faintly. 
"I daresay, it took you long enough, Peter."

"To attempt
such a thing as this —"

"It shall
not be an
attempt
, but a success."

"There has
to be another way!"

"There
isn't."

With that Damon
began to descend the hatch, leaving the sunlit upper deck behind.

Peter had no
choice: he could either let Damon go about this business alone, or he could
follow along to pick up the pieces.  "May God be with us all, then,"
he said, defeatedly.

The two men
swiftly made their way down into the depths of the ship.  If the lower deck was
hot, the orlop deck was a humid, stifling hell.  Nothing had changed since the
last visit he'd made to this wretched place, Damon thought sourly.  The heat,
the stench, the stygian gloom — it was all here.  Bent nearly double to fit
beneath the overhead beams, he pressed his arm against his nose, trying to
strain the foul air through his shirt sleeve.  It did little good.