The Liberty
1802
Iain had thrown up in his cramped hard bunk, in the narrow dark hallway, and in a miniscule reeking necessary meant to service at least two hundred other men. He had nothing left in his body to expel. At least nothing he could do without.
He rolled slowly off his bunk, careful not to step on the men sleeping in the two bunks beneath him. He’d spoken to none of his fellow passengers during the past days. Indeed, he’d been too sick to speak. And also too sick to leave at his appointed meal times, which were only ten minutes in duration and caused a stampede among the steerage passengers every time the meal bell rang.
He was starving and thirsty. There was nothing he could do about the former, but he’d noticed a water tank on one of the side decks when he’d come on board a hundred years ago. Steerage passengers weren’t permitted to loiter on deck outside of a few hours each day, and even then they were limited to only the service portions of the ship. Still, there would be few people out and about at this hour of the night, it was worth the risk for a drink of water.
He eased past dozens of sleeping bodies on the floor of the hold and closed the door as quietly as he could behind him. Only a few badly smoking oil lamps lit the passage and stairs. His damaged eye was still not working properly and images shifted in the manner of a cracked and darkened kaleidoscope unless he closed the eye. He was so exhausted and dehydrated he needed to stop frequently to rest. As a result, it was some time before he made it to the first door that led to the outside.
The fresh air that greeted him was almost as good as a roast beef dinner and he inhaled so deeply he became dizzy. A sound off to one side caught his attention. Two men were bent over a third man, who lay in a crumpled heap on the deck. Iain squinted; one of the men was going through the prone man’s pockets while the other removed his shoes. Iain took a step toward them and both men looked up at the sound, one lurching to his feet.
“What the devil are you lookin’ at?” he demanded, his voice filled with menace as he came toward Iain. “You’d best get yourself below if you know what’s best for you, boy.”
Iain was turning away when a low, pitiful moan emanated from the heap of clothing on the deck. A sudden image of John, the boy who’d saved him for no reason that Iain could discern, came to him. Could he really turn away from someone in need?
“Damn and blast,” he muttered under his breath.
The kneeling man was still riffling the body and the other man, the aggressor, had already turned his back to Iain.
Iain took a deep breath and then ran toward the kneeling man, who turned just as Iain swung his arm. The blow caught the thief just below the ribs and knocked him back over his victim and onto his accomplice.
As the two thieves tangled in a heap Iain scrambled over the prone body and landed on top of the writhing men. He rained down furious, but largely ineffectual blows, all the anger and fear of the past days exploding out of his fists.
The men skittered and crawled over each other, dodging his blows and dislodging him in the process of backing away. He grabbed the foot of the closest man and received a savage series of kicks in the side of the head before his grip loosened. The last thought he had before he lost consciousness was that he’d better stop putting his head in the way of other men’s feet.
∞∞∞
“Wake up, ye thievin’ bastard!”
Frigid water splashed onto his face hard enough to go up his nose. When Iain tried to raise his hands to protect himself he realized they’d been tied behind his back.
“Wake up, boy.”
He blinked rapidly while he snorted and choked, at the same time trying to expel water from his burning nose. “I’m awake, I’m awake,” he said in between gasps. He blinked several more times before he could open his eyes, only to realize he could see nothing out of the damaged one—not even the cracked images he’d lived with the past few days.
Panic squeezed his chest and he blinked again and again and again. When he opened his eyes it was like looking down a long, narrow tunnel.
My God! I’m going blind!
“Boy!” Another crack in the head followed.
“Stop,” he begged, trying to lean away from the source of the pain, squinting to see his tormentors. Two blurry figures stood in front of him, both wearing the clothing of nautical men.
“Thought you’d crawl out of your hole and find a fat little pigeon to pluck, did ye?” one of the figures asked.
“What?” Iain said, not waiting for an answer. “No! I wasn’t trying to—” A fist slammed into his jaw and snapped his head back. The small amount of vision he’d been able to salvage was filled with white explosions. His mouth flooded with the now-familiar metallic taste of blood and one of his back teeth hurt bad enough that he thought it might have been knocked loose.
“Shut it, boy. You’ll speak when we tell ye.”
“Aye, and that won’t be happenin’, will it, Bill?” the second man asked. Both men laughed.
“Ye made a big mistake with the pigeon ye picked, boy. ’E weren’t no steerage trash like yerself.”
“No, that ’e wasn’t,” the one not called Bill agreed. “’E’s a muckety-muck, ’e is.”
“Aye, some American bankin’ bloke.”
“We’ll ’ave our first shipboard ’angin’, I reckon.”
“And soon, too. I doubt t’ owd gimmer’ll make it ‘til mornin’,” Bill said, not sounding particularly sad at the prospect of a dead wealthy American banker.
Iain closed his eyes. Good God Almighty. Could he not go more than a few days without sticking his bloody neck into a hangman’s noose? A hand grabbed his hair and shook him until his teeth rattled.
“Oye! No sleepin’, laddy,” Not Bill said.
“There’ll be time enough to sleep in the Great Beyond.”
Both men were laughing uproariously when the door flew open.
“What the devil is going on here?” The third man demanded in a far more elevated accent.
“We ain’t doin’ nowt, sir. Just giving our little thief a bit o’ the rough.”
“You fools! This isn’t the man who robbed Mr. Siddons, this is the man who saved him. Untie him this instant.” The newcomer took Iain’s chin and tilted his face to the left and right while the men fumbled with the ropes that bound his hands and feet. “Good God, what have you done to him?” His horrified expression would have been funny if Iain’s face wasn’t the cause of it.
Bill popped up from somewhere near Iain’s bound ankles. “That weren’t us, sir. ’E came to us that way.”
“Aye, right beaten up ’e was, sir,” Not Bill added.
The new man—Iain’s savior—grimaced at whatever he saw but nodded. “Yes, most of these bruises seem quite yellow and are several days old.” He tilted Iain’s chin. “Are you alright, boy? Can you hear me?”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” When Iain tried to smile blood oozed between his lips and dribbled down his chin.
“Sweet Jesus.” His savior dropped his chin like a hot coal and shook his head. He glared down at Bill. “Get him cleaned up immediately and deliver him to Mr. Jeremiah Siddons’s state room within a quarter of an hour or I’ll know the reason why. Is that understood?”
“Aye, sir,” Bill said.
“In a jiffy, sir,” Not Bill added.
The door shut and a face with more than several teeth missing hove into view over Iain’s shoulder. “Now see ’ere, boy, ye’ve no reason to go talkin’ about this wee set-to, do ye?” Not Bill said, pulling off the rope that bound Iain’s wrists.
“I reckon it were nothin’ but a mistake,” Bill added, dabbing roughly at Iain’s face with a filthy cloth. “We’ll ’ave ye as good as a newborn babe in less than two ticks.”
Iain flinched away and grabbed the rag out of Bill’s hand.
“Get me water and something to eat and I’ll gladly tell everyone who asks that you were angels of bloody mercy.”
Chapter Ten
&n
bsp; Village of Trentham
1817
“Why don’t we cut our studies short today, my lady?”
Elinor could tell by Doctor Venable’s overly patient tone that it was not a suggestion.
She shut her text and looked up into his serious brown eyes. She hoped that he’d not guessed the reason she was upset and unsettled.
Stephen Worth had returned to Blackfriars four days ago and he’d not yet bothered to seek her out.
Elinor gritted her teeth at the unwelcomed thought.
“I apologize, doctor. I fear I’m wasting your time.”
“Everyone is entitled to days when they’re not feeling their best, my lady.” He paused. “Is there anything I might help you with?”
Elinor couldn’t help wondering how the self-possessed, quiet doctor would respond if she told him the truth. You see, Doctor Venable, I believe I’ve contracted a particularly acute case of Stephen Worth. It’s a relative new ailment from America. I do not believe it has any cure at present. The symptoms include, but are not limited to, an obsession with teasing green eyes, irresistible dimples, heated stares, and elegant, strong hands. In the most severe cases the victim suffers hallucinations in which she pictures herself touching and being touched by said hands and—
“Lady Trentham?”
Elinor startled. “I’ve been sleeping poorly.” That was not a lie.
“Would you like me to mix you a mild sleeping draught?”
“That won’t be necessary, Doctor Venable, but thank you. I daresay it’s the weather that has me out of sorts.”
Venable glanced out the window at the clear blue sky, a slight wrinkle forming between his handsome chocolate-brown eyes.
Elinor stood. “I promise to be more present at our next lesson.”
She politely declined his offer of a ride in his gig and escaped from his surgery with almost unseemly haste.
Her internal dialogue rapidly devolved into an argument as the practical part of her brain castigated the other part—the part that wouldn’t stop mooning over a man who’d obviously forgotten her existence. Worth had been gone from Trentham two weeks. Fourteen whole days during which she’d alternately missed him desperately and rejoiced in his absence. Admittedly she’d not done the latter very often. And when he’d finally returned from his horribly, terribly, frightfully long absence she’d waited for her first glimpse of him like a gleeful child looking for gifts on Christmas morning.
And she’d waited.
And she’d waited.
Four whole long days had now elapsed during which he’d made no attempts to see her. How dare he make her wait? Had he decided to pursue the delectable Laurel Lewis, who’d made her interest in the beautiful, wealthy foreigner all too apparent to Elinor?
“Americans have such lovely uncomplicated manners, do they not, Lady Trentham?” Laurel had asked when Elinor took tea at Squire Lewis’s one day last week.
Elinor had murmured something noncommittal and sipped her tea.
“Mr. Worth, for example,” Laurel continued, not requiring any help from Elinor to pursue the topic. “He is not the type to stand on ceremony. At least not with me. He told me I should call him Stephen.” She’d said the word as if it were a rich, delicious dessert that filled every crevice of her delicate little mouth.
“Stephen!” Elinor snorted now, so consumed by anger she almost tripped over a deep rut in the road.
“You called, Lady Trentham?”
Elinor yelped and spun around. There he stood in the middle of the road, just like some djinn she’d summoned by speaking his name.
He reached out and took her elbow, steadying her. “I’ve been looking for you, my lady.”
She pulled away from him but he caught her hand before she could hide it behind her, his lips curving into a smile against her chapped, reddened skin.
Again she pulled away and this time he let her. “Yes, well, it is unkind to sneak up on people, Mr. Worth.”
“I wasn’t sneaking. I’ve been calling your name for a good minute. You appeared to be transported to another world and were charging along like a mare with the bit between her teeth. Tell me, what was consuming your attention so thoroughly that you didn’t even hear me?”
His confident smirk told her he knew exactly what had been consuming her. Of course yelling his name out loud hadn’t helped.
Elinor ground her teeth and lunged forward, desperate to get away from his solid warmth.
“I can’t tell you how much it delights me to be compared with a horse, Mr. Worth.”
He laughed and closed the distance between them easily, leading his magnificent animal behind him. “Call me Stephen, I know you can . . . now.”
Elinor ignored the dig and forged ahead. Perhaps he would lose interest in tormenting her if she behaved as though she could not hear him? His next words disabused her of that hope.
“I’ve missed you, Lady Trentham.” He took her elbow again, his touch gentle but firm until she stopped walking.
Her heart, which had just been hurling itself against her ribs with such rabid intensity that Elinor thought it might actually escape her chest, became eerily still. She swallowed, too paralyzed by fear to look any higher than his hands. They wore rich brown kid, but she recalled perfectly well what they looked like naked. They were long, beautifully tapered, and bronzed, the very definition of powerful elegance, just like the rest of his body.
“Elinor?”
Her head snapped up, her mouth already open to deliver a scold.
But he was waiting, and his mouth descended on hers with crushing intensity. It was nothing like the wisp of a kiss he’d given her the night of the ball. This was an onslaught. His lips were firm and soft but his tongue was liquid fire as it slid between her lips.
The action was shockingly intimate and utterly unexpected. She gasped and he took the opportunity to slide further in. He held her waist with one big, warm hand, pulling her closer while his other hand cupped her jaw and positioned her mouth for his invasion.
His tongue, lips, and hands were like kindling to the sudden fire that blazed within her.
Elinor wanted. She wanted so badly.
The place at the juncture of her thighs, an area she’d ignored for years, pulsed with pure, unadulterated desire. Piece by piece her body liquefied beneath his clever mouth and hands. When he took her waist in both hands and lifted her off her feet, she realized she’d laced her hands around his neck and was pulling him closer, all but climbing the length of his tall, muscular body like a tree, all the while clumsily pressing her mouth against his.
“Elinor,” he murmured as he caressed and nibbled the ridiculously sensitive skin beneath her jaw. “You taste delicious.”
Once again it was his voice that pulled her back from the brink of madness. She pushed against his chest until he loosened his grasp and gently set her back on her feet and released her.
“What is it, my love?” he asked, his eyelids heavy, his pupils dark with desire.
My love? Her knees buckled.
He steadied her. “Are you all right, Elinor?” He bent low to look into her face, which she’d turned away. There were lines at the corners of his beautiful eyes. Elinor swayed toward him, seized by a mad desire to lick and kiss the tiny striations, to feel the texture of his concern with her mouth.
That way lies madness, the practical voice in her head cautioned.
Elinor began walking.
“Elinor.”
She ignored him.
“Lady Trentham?”
She briefly closed her eyes. Would he never give up? She stopped but did not turn around.
“What?”
“You are going the wrong way, my lady.”
For a fraction of a second she thought he meant that walking away from him was going
the wrong way. But then she looked up and realized she was going the wrong way—back to the village. She dropped her head and stared at the toes of her scuffed ankle boots. Could this encounter possib
ly get any more mortifying?
Girlish giggling wafted from the narrow path that connected with the road only a few feet ahead. Laurel Lewis, along with two other girls and a groom, emerged from the trees.
“Lady Trentham!” Laurel exclaimed, her pretty blue eyes fixed on an object just beyond Elinor’s shoulder. “Oh, and what a surprise,” she added unconvincingly. “Hello Mr. Worth. Stephen,” she amended breathlessly.
***
Stephen only escaped Squire Lewis’s wife and daughters after submitting to three-quarters of an hour of constant nattering, two cups of watery tea, and half a dozen sugary biscuits. As he rode away, waving and grinning, he worried the smile on his face might become permanent, like a scar from a saber slash or some other gruesome souvenir of war.
For that’s exactly what this afternoon had been: war. Or at least one skirmish in a war between him and the Lewis females, who’d fixed their sights on Stephen.
He groaned and the agonized sound startled his horse. “My apologies, Brandy, your master is an idiot.”
His time alone with Elinor had ended the moment the featherbrained chits emerged from the trees. What he hadn’t expected, however, was how skillfully Elinor would extricate herself from the newly formed party. Before Stephen even knew what had happened, he was riding beside Laurel Lewis and away from Elinor and the Dower House.
Not that the afternoon had been progressing swimmingly even before the Lewis girls had arrived. In fact, Stephen was beginning to wonder if something was wrong with him. He’d thought Elinor had been enjoying their brief kiss—God knows he had—when she’d jerked away and fled like a startled deer. It hadn’t been a show of sheer missishness, either. If Stephen had been a betting man, which he was not, he would have wagered a good deal of money that she was more than a little gun-shy when it came to even the mildest forms of affection.
What the devil had Trentham done to make her so? Or was she merely another casualty of a society which steadfastly believed women had no physical appetites other than those that could be satisfied with cutlery and a plate?
The Footman (The Masqueraders Book 1) Page 9