“Are you sure?” Markwick’s blood curdled. He flicked out his spyglass to its full twenty-two-inch length, then raised it to his eye, training it on the Windraker’s sails. Sunlight glinted off the ship’s taut white sheets and brass carronades—a beautiful, blinding sight she was.
He scanned the horizon north, praying that Arnold was wrong, but Markwick easily spotted the second ship as its bowsprit and catheads slipped out from behind the chalk cliffs toward the open sea. Surely no one, including Captain Carnage, would brazenly attack a preventative ship in broad daylight?
The Viper. Carnage had come after them, and Walsingham was going to get caught in the crossfire. “Keep a sharp lookout. Watch the Windraker, Arnold.”
“Aye, sir!”
Markwick’s pulse throbbed a savage beat in his throat as he aimed the telescope at Walsingham’s ship, fearing what he’d see. If he’d entertained a notion to transfer Chloe to the Windraker and into her brother’s safekeeping, that idea immediately fled. He couldn’t move Chloe into her brother’s care now without putting her, the Fury, and his crew at risk. If Walsingham attempted to stop the Viper—for Carnage’s ship must have been marked by the Board of Excise by now—Chloe’s brother, the Windraker, and her crew would be subject to the pirate’s attack.
“Deck there!” Arnold called down again.
“What do you see, Arnold?” he asked, trepidation prickling his spine.
“Windraker’s breaking off. She’s comin’ about, sir!”
Men padded to the stern, their excited voices carrying on the wind.
“The Windraker will get the Viper off our wake,” one tar confidently suggested.
Another man agreed. “Aye, Carnage won’t stand a chance.”
Markwick frowned pensively, debating the outcome in his mind. While it was true that Walsingham had the tenacity of a bull, he was also motivated by quickening his rise in the ranks. He’d do anything to advance his career, including leading men like damned sheep to a bounty promising the most acclaim. The Fury had always been an elusive catch; a ship like the Viper would earn him a place in history. But was Walsingham prepared for Carnage’s barbarity?
Turning about to help Walsingham meant a confrontation Blackmoor had warned him not to make at any cost. But devil doubt it, he couldn’t stand by helplessly while Chloe’s brother—his friend—sailed into a dire situation for which he likely wasn’t prepared.
An orange-red spark flashed from the Viper’s side, followed by puffs of gray smoke pluming to her masts.
“She’s firing, sir,” Arnold shouted from the crosstrees. “The Windraker hasn’t heeled. She doesn’t have a chance.”
“Helm’s alee!” Markwick shouted, moving across the quarterdeck as if the hounds of hell were after him.
“Belay that!” Pye shouted. “With respect, sir. We cannot put the Fury in jeopardy.”
Devil damn him!
Markwick wasted no time. He paced to the helm. “We cannot turn our backs on the Windraker. Reputations are not worth lives. Turn us about now! That is an order, Pye!”
Pye narrowed his eyes, pinching his lips together. He nodded to Quinn, who bellowed the order to tack the sheets.
“Hoa, boys. Lively now!” Quinn shouted. “You heard the cap’n! Break your backs! Turn this ship around! Hard to lee!”
A roar enveloped the Fury as the hull protested and yardarms retorted, arguing against the strain of tackle and sail, luffing, thwacking canvas that fought to catch wind.
“All hands!” Pye’s face reddened. “To your stations!”
The nightingale’s pipe sounded, the piercing whistle loud enough for all to hear, but the crew didn’t appear.
“What’s taking so long? Walsingham can’t wait. Where’s my crew?”
“Belowdecks, sir,” a man they called Roaming-eyed Roger said. “Reading.”
“Reading?” Markwick blinked, unable to believe his ears. He’d never once known a member of his crew to read books, save for Pye and Quinn, who shared an appetite for nautical charts and logs. Frustrated and astounded, Markwick was reminded that Chloe and her maid were a distraction none of them could afford.
“Quinn!” Once he had the quartermaster’s attention, he waved him over. “Prepare a cutter.”
“A cutter, sir? Whatever for?”
“I refuse to sail into a melee with women on board. Select a shore party of five men. Have them ready to leave when I get back. I’m going to send the ladies to safety.”
Quinn released a groan. “But where would you have them go, Cap’n?”
The man had a point. Markwick searched the shoreline. “We are, at present, coming abreast of Talland Bay. Inform your crew to sail for the Marauder’s Roost. The innkeeper, Miss Thorpe, will take care of them until we return.”
“Aye, sir.”
Until then, he’d round up the men himself, especially since he’d have to escort Chloe topside and all hands would be needed to bring the Fury ’round. Anger boiled inside him as he took one last look at the Windraker, sailing into danger, then descended the main companionway ladder to the gundeck. Once there, he strode past the iron stove in the galley to the steerage section, an area sectioned off for his men.
A mellifluous voice guided him to a group situated beneath lantern lights. He slowed his pace as he approached, struck by what he saw and heard. She was reading The Castle of Otranto to his crew now?
“‘Theodore came up just as a woman fell breathless before him,’” Chloe read aloud, her voice a sultry invitation as she ended on a sigh.
Gibson, a Dane from the Mohegan’s crew, cackled. “’Tis a fancy way o’ sayin’ she swooned. Women have been known to fall down breathless at me feet.”
“Caught a whiff of your smell, I’d wager,” Doyle, an Irishman and Gibson’s crewmate, added.
Laughter commenced before another man silenced them. “Let the lady finish.”
“Thank you, Tindle.” Chloe turned a page, the sound rifling through the silence.
“He hastened to raise her, but her terror was so great that he apprehended she would faint in his arms. He used every gentle word to dispel her alarms and assured her that, far from injuring, he would defend her at the peril of his life.
“The lady, recovering her spirits from his courteous demeanor and gazing on her protector, said, ‘Sure I have heard that voice before?’
“‘Not to my knowledge,’ replied Theodore, ‘unless, as I conjecture, thou art the lady Isabella.’
“‘Merciful heaven!’ cried she, ‘thou are not sent in quest of me, art thou?’ And saying those words she threw herself at his feet and besought him not to deliver her up to Manfred.”
Bloody hell!
Exasperated beyond comprehension, Markwick ran his fingers through his hair. The Windraker depended on their swift actions and Chloe was filling his men’s heads with romantic notions.
“'To Manfred!’ cried Theodore,” Chloe continued, eliciting several hoots and hollers.
“'No, lady. I have once already delivered thee from his tyranny, and it shall fare hard with me now, but I will place thee out of the reach of his daring.’”
Markwick couldn’t take any more. He also couldn’t take the chance that any harm would come to Chloe if the Fury took heavy fire.
It likely would, too. Captain Carnage didn’t get his name by showing mercy, if the wreck of the Mohegan was any indication. And the Fury had become an enemy by meddling in the pirate’s scurrilous affairs.
Chloe glanced around the ragtag group. Her fingers splayed beneath the book, her cheekbones sculpted upward by a dazzling smile. Her lips, when they moved to speak Walpole’s prose, gracefully lifted, each plump movement enticing him closer. Her voice, sensuous and stirring, danced in the room like mist generating a colorful rainbow in a radiant sky as she focused her animated stare, violet eyes glinting with mischief, on the men before her in the orange lantern light. Her guiltless, untouchable spirit and earnest expression earned his admiration. But more striking and mi
schievous, her attire took him by surprise. Gone was the prim and proper lady. Instead, she was dressed in the Regent’s own clothes—a feminine version of himself, black trousers and linen shirt with long lace-edged sleeves, providing almost as much of a feast for the eyes as she had been when standing before him in her shift and stays.
Aye, how could he forget . . . Chloe Walsingham was a woman of many faces. Desirable. Determined. Devoted. But it was another side of her that flashed to mind now. She’d nearly departed this life only knowing the kind of love found in books. The sight of her, Chloe standing at the Mohegan’s broken railing, her face uplifted, ashen, her behavior less frantic, more expectant, and finally relieved, as if she’d been waiting for him—only him—to save her flashed before his eyes. She’d almost died that hellish night, floating lifeless among discarded flotsam like the others.
What if Carnage succeeded this time?
He’d do anything he could to prevent that from happening.
Markwick moved out of the shadows and approached the group surrounding Chloe. His booted footfalls announced his presence, alerting the crowd that perched on personal chests and seabags, crates and benches.
“Cap’n on deck,” Jenkins shouted.
Her audience rose, and the men raised their right fists, touching their foreheads in salute.
Chloe’s gaze lit on him and she sprang up energetically from her seat. “Captain!”
Jane left her solitary place near a twenty-four-pounder long gun to stand by her mistress’s side.
“We’ve spotted the Windraker.” Markwick hoped his voice masked the unfavorable status of Walsingham’s situation. He didn’t want to scare Chloe. Not yet.
His men began to chatter.
Jenkins scratched his head. “Is she after us again, Cap’n?”
Chloe’s stare flickered between them.
“Aye. But she isn’t alone.” He let everyone digest this news, particularly Chloe, before continuing. “The Viper has her in its sights.”
“The Viper?” Chloe’s mouth formed an O. She grabbed Jane’s arm, borrowing her for support as the men began arguing and talking all at once. “Is my brother in danger?”
“I believe so.” Markwick couldn’t lie to Chloe, not after the intimacy they’d shared. Not when he knew her brother meant so much to her. Not when her brother was also his friend.
“Then we must help him,” she said, stepping forward and thrusting her chin out nobly. “I’ll do anything to save my brother and his men.”
“Anything?” He tore his gaze away from Chloe’s entrancing eyes and stared at his men. “Every available hand is needed. Report to your stations immediately if we are to have any hope of preventing the Windraker from ending up like the Mohegan.”
The men angled a stiff salute, weaving past Chloe, Jane, and Markwick, as the boatswains blew their whistles, directing every abled seaman to his post.
“What can Jane and I do?” Chloe asked, reaching out to touch him, increasing the pressure on his forearm.
What could she do? He could tell her to fall in line with his men and mimic their actions, but that would only put her at risk, not to mention her brother’s ship, and cause a distraction they could ill afford. He couldn’t lead his men into danger when Chloe ruled his thoughts. “Come topside with me.” He would lure her there and then get her on board the cutter, come what may.
“Yes!” Her response was instantaneous. “Of course. I shall do whatever you say.”
He smiled, content that she was so easily managed, and shifted their conversation to keep her preoccupied. “What were you doing down here?”
“Besides reading?” She hugged her book close to her chest and narrowed her gaze in frustration. “Providing your men entertainment.”
“My men are fully capable of entertaining themselves, I assure you.”
“That may be . . .” Her lips tightened into a thin line, making him wonder how they’d fit around . . . “Do you realize that most of them cannot read?”
“Nor write,” Jane added.
“Men who choose the sea are not typically a scholarly lot. They may not be able to read, but what they can do, they do well. Pirating entails men who are strong enough, brave enough, and hardened enough to weather any kind of trial.”
“Like the one before me now?” Chloe asked blankly, the irony rolling off her in waves.
Where had her enthusiasm gone? He’d just told Chloe her brother was in trouble. Why the mockery? Had the Mohegan’s destruction exhausted her emotions? Was the brave front a ploy to prevent him from locking her up in his cabin? It didn’t matter. He’d already lost more than any man should, and he’d be damned if he lost Chloe, too.
“Yes,” he said, agreeing easily. “Though I still have much to learn.”
Especially when it comes to you.
Aye. He would weather any kind of trial if the reward was a life with Chloe. But he’d be smuggling and fighting Walsingham until the end of his days in order to rake in that kind of cache. First, he needed to save Walsingham’s life.
“How do you expect to help the Captain?” Chloe asked.
He blinked as pressure tightened about his lungs. Could Markwick help him would be the better question. “Offering extra incentive for the Viper to disengage.”
“And what will you do if the Captain suspects you are in league with that dreadful Captain Carnage? Would you attack my brother’s ship if he fires on the Fury?”
“I will do whatever I’m called to do, but that event will be unlikely as the Viper is firing on your brother’s ship as we speak.”
Chloe’s jaw slackened. She paled, and for the first time since he’d announced the Windraker’s imminent destruction, her defenses seemed to fully crumble.
She gripped his arm tighter than he believed possible for a woman. “We must help him! Promise me you will do everything you can.”
His jaw tightened as he tried to harness his disappointment. “Do you doubt me?”
Chloe turned to place her book in Jane’s hands and motioned for her maid to hurry to the companionway ladder and wait for her.
When Jane was out of hearing distance, Chloe leaned toward him, splaying her fingers over his chest. At first contact, his heart hung suspended, racing beneath her touch. He searched her face, wanting to kiss her one last time before hell rained down on them, devouring everything about her, putting to memory her fragrant lemony, lavender scent; her fascinating, dilated eyes; her flawless, creamy skin; her tremulous touch; and her measured breaths as he waited to hear her reply.
“Of course I believe in you, Markwick. But do you believe in yourself?” Her rosy bow of a mouth curved into an irresistible smile, deepening the dimple in her cheek.
Her dewy lips tempted him with an appetizing sweetness he hungered to taste. Eager to close the distance between them, he leaned toward her, hesitant, a hairsbreadth away, feeling a charge of energy ignite between them.
“I wish . . .” He lowered his forehead to lean it against hers. “You must ready yourself.”
“For combat?”
If only she knew . . .
Footsteps padded nearby, getting louder and louder. Markwick glanced up, putting distance between himself and Chloe as Owens came to a stop before them. “She’s ready, sir.”
“Thank you, Owens. I expect my orders to be fulfilled to the letter.”
“Aye, sir. I owe you my life, and it will be my honor to ensure nothing happens to her.”
“Who? The Fury?” Chloe’s brow furrowed in confusion.
“You will see.” Markwick took her by the elbow, guiding her through the gundeck, past men opening hatches and rolling back guns on their runs to prime them.
“’Bliged, m’lady. We’ll be wantin’ more of Otranto when this is over,” Tindle said, tipping his hat.
Chloe attempted to approach Tindle, words perched on her tongue, but Markwick yanked her back. “There’s no time.”
“Of course,” she said, widening her steps to keep up with hi
s strides.
He pulled her forward, nodding to Jane, who stood hugging her arms about Chloe’s book, as they neared the companionway ladder and moved toward the screened rooms astern.
“You’ll both need coats.” He turned to Jane. “You’ll find your pelisses in my cabin.”
“Yes, sir.” Jane handed Chloe her beloved book and disappeared into Markwick’s cabin.
“Chloe, there is something you must know—”
“Here we are,” Jane said, returning with a green pelisse in one hand and a cobalt one in the other.
Markwick took the green garment from the maid and helped Chloe place her arms inside the well-constructed sleeves. When she turned back toward him, he latched the clasps, one by one, then grabbed her by the shoulders. “Whatever you do, do not call me by name.”
“Of course. Your secret is safely tucked away in my virtuous breast. I will always protect you. Surely you must know that by now.”
Chloe’s quick wit made him want to forget the calamity unraveling aboard his ship. Almost. By his estimations, the Fury had tacked and would—as soon as he offloaded his charges and gave the order—make way to the Windraker’s defense.
His mind raging, he gathered Chloe and Jane to his side. “Are you ready to face what’s happening topside?”
Chloe nodded with enthusiasm. “Yes, my lord—”
“Captain,” he corrected as he led them to the companionway.
Several men, returning from the magazine, appeared hauling cutlass and musket chests to the ladder leading to the deck above. A few broke off to transport leather buckets and gun tools for the carronades stationed on the quarterdeck.
“My, I never realized how much activity begets a naval battle,” Chloe said, eyes wide. “It is such a rousing jolt to my blood.”
“Nothing a woman should ever be forced to witness,” he offered, leading his charges up the ladder. “I assure you.”
A brisk wind, clapping, thundering sail overhead, steady sea noise, and sand crunching underfoot welcomed them as they stepped onto the deck and into a whirlwind of activity.
Pye shouted orders. Gunners hollered to yeomen hauling buckets, canisters, and cartridges from the magazine, priming the breeched twelve-pounder carronades stationed on the quarterdeck. Firearm chests had been positioned near the mainmast where boarding hooks were stored, giving men access to cutlasses, muskets, and sea service flintlock pistols for hand-to-hand combat. Topmen were perched on ratlines overhead and passed muskets to snipers in preparation for a skirmish.
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