Markwick scaled the Fury’s hull until he landed on deck, soliciting winks and silent accolades from his crew.
“To the guns,” he told them. “And be quiet about it. Our lives depend on whether or not that ship can sail and if our decoy works.”
He noticed Chloe clutching his black muslin shirt around her shoulders and staring out into the darkness. What was she searching for? The other ship? Pulled by an unseen force, he joined her there, wishing he could erase everything she’d been forced to endure, what she’d seen. Nothing could undo what had been done, of course, but thankfully, Chloe was alive. Now it was up to her to put this horror behind her.
No one made a sound that would give away their position, but above them, ratlines squealed in their blocks. Black canvas snapped and popped smartly in the wind as the Fury, set free from her anchor, began to carry them covertly out to sea.
Lantern light flickered in the cutter as it bobbed on the roiling waves, resembling stern lights on a retreating ship.
Would the enemy take the bait?
They didn’t have long to find out.
Pfft. Boom!
A smoky spark ignited in the darkness from the direction of the enemy ship.
Chloe’s fingers slowly crept around Markwick’s hand as they waited by the rail. Startled by the contact, he snatched his hand back. What an unlikely contrast—anticipation that his plan would work and the unbidden heat of her touch shooting into his arm.
He turned, gazing down at her upturned face. The expectation he saw there unnerved him. Unspoken agony in her stare doused his invading alarm. She feared the results of his diversion as much as he. Careful not to do anything that would cause her to recognize him, he encircled her hand with his own as the whistling cannon shot vaulted through the air, landing on his baited trap with a tremendous whoosh. Gunpowder ignited, punching a blinding hole in the darkness. A booming reverberation echoed in the stillness, splintering the vessel into hundreds of tiny shards.
Would their enemy believe they’d destroyed the Fury? Would they discontinue the chase? He could only hope cannon fire and explosions had also activated Coverack’s preventative service.
“Will that be enough to stop them?” Chloe asked.
Markwick turned her toward him. “Only time will tell. Now we must get you below.”
They turned away from the rail to see men quietly slapping one another on the back, but at what gain? By dawn, their ruse would be discovered, and if their enemy had found no interference by excisemen, Markwick had no way of knowing if they’d give chase.
Pye strode forward. “Time to swear ’em on account, Cap’n.”
“Permission granted.” He’d never understood the process of swearing in sailors to ensure their cooperation while they remained aboard, but he’d quickly learned the necessity of it. Mutiny was a greater risk. Though every effort would be made to deliver these men to their home ports, several would choose to stay. The allegiance they were forced to provide helped maintain the Black Regent’s identity and offered little recompense for saving their lives. And those who chose not to remain . . . well, that was a risk the Regent had to take.
Pye, never one to abstain from tradition, delivered the same speech every time the process repeated itself. The Mohegan’s crew wouldn’t be welcome until they swore allegiance to the Regent. Only an idiot would refuse.
Markwick straightened his shoulders. It was time to play his part. Unlike Blackmoor, whom the crew idolized, Markwick found no joy in bullying others. But in order to continue his charade, it had to be done.
He looked into the haggard, confused faces of his newly acquired crew members. “Kneel.”
Several men, who were much younger than the rest, exchanged worried glances.
Jane swooned, probably at the thought of what would happen to the men if they did not comply, but Quinn caught the young woman before she collapsed.
Chloe rushed to her friend’s side. “You cannot kill these men if they refuse! That would be heartless!”
Heartless? Is that what Chloe thinks of me now?
Pye reacted first. “Sink and scuttle me, we don’t intend to kill these tars.”
His first mate’s outright lie caught Markwick off guard. Order had to be maintained. People depended on what they provided by smuggling goods from foreign ships. Tin had been depleted. Mines were failing, giving miners no other means of making a living for their families. They couldn’t fail. The alternative meant he’d be caught, tried, and hanged.
And where would that leave Chloe? A woman who’d sworn to love him?
“Swear allegiance to me,” Markwick told the assembled men, “and you shall earn a decent wage.”
Suspicious expressions eased to acquiescence.
A man stepped out of line to speak. “I’d prefer to serve the Regent.” He wore the typical clothes of a merchant sailor—linen neckerchief tied above a calico shirt, a loose-fitting jacket, buff-toned trousers, and a leather belt, now devoid of its sheathed weapon.
“Who are you?” Markwick asked the man, getting several salutes from his fellow crewmen.
“Owens, sir. Captain Teague’s boatswain. I speak for all of us here when I say it would be more pleasin’ by far if we get a chance to serve a man capable of stopping the Viper.”
“The Viper?” Blackmoor had mentioned Captain Carnage and his crew’s recent strikes along the Cornish coast. “Do you think that ship took part in the Mohegan’s intentional grounding?”
“Aye, sir. Everyone fears Captain Carnage, includin’ the brigand’s own family.”
“Aye,” Pye said. “Ye know the way of it now, I reckon. If’n ye want revenge, this be the ship to sail.” He turned to Markwick. “They be ready, sir.”
Markwick gave Pye a nod. “Gentlemen, we’re happy to have you aboard. This is your new first mate, Angus Pye. You will be introduced to everyone readily enough, but for now, you must swear an oath to the Fury. All aboard her sail for one reason and one reason only . . . salvation. Yours.” He inspected the fourteen men. Could they be trusted? “And mine.”
“To refuse is as simple as this,” Pye added. “Join us if ye want to avenge Captain Teague and your brethren. Refuse and do not sail aboard the—”
“These men saved my life,” Chloe interrupted. “Certainly you cannot mean to throw them overboard?” Her lower lip quivered as she stared at the Mohegan’s crew.
What was she doing?
“Did I say that was the plan?” Markwick asked.
She stepped forward, all courage now, her violet eyes sparking to life, eager to protect men she barely knew. “You did not.”
Markwick bowed. “Then you have no reason to question me, my lady.”
“Oh, but I do, Captain. You implied these men could either sail aboard your ship or drown.”
Grumbling commenced among his raw recruits. Damn it, he was losing ground and fast. “Everyone has a choice. Including you, my lady. The way I see it, you can choose to be silent and allow me to do my job or you will find yourself given the same ultimatum.” He hated the lie as soon as it left his mouth.
Her shock was palpable. “You cannot mean it!”
The last of the Mohegan’s crew rose to stand. “Captain.”
Markwick tried to curtail his exasperation. “Aye?”
“Do not scare the lady, I beg you,” Owens said, twisting his felt hat in his hands. “We are more than happy to join your crew. Truth be, we’ve heard a great many tales about this ship. It would be an honor to become part of her crew.”
“Aye, aye,” several other men agreed.
“Very well. Swear them in, Pye.” A quick glance at Chloe gave him a start. Her eyes gleamed with something akin to satisfaction, a look that—if he wasn’t wrong, and he didn’t think he was—proclaimed she’d extracted the outcome she had sought.
Alarms pounded in Markwick’s head like incessant cannon fire. Did she think she could easily manipulate him? He’d been deceived by his father and used mercilessly in the ruin
ation of his own friends. He’d be damned if he allowed anyone to exploit him again!
He pulled her toward him, yanking her off her feet.
She collided against his bare chest with a thud. “What do you think you are doing, Captain?”
“Come along.”
“Now see here,” a vocal member of the Mohegan’s crew shouted. “Do not hurt the lady. We’ll swear allegiance to you! We’ll swear!”
Markwick was beyond hearing. “Handle this, Pye.” He glared at Quinn, who still held a weak Jane in his arms, daring him to object. “Escort the lady’s maid below and lock her in Pye’s cabin until such a time that Lady Chloe needs her.”
“But I need her now,” Chloe stated.
“No, you and I need to come to an understanding,” he corrected.
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.”
Chapter 6
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.
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