The Silver Lord

by Miranda Jarrett

  But she was almost done with that part of her life, wasn’t she? Soon the moon would be the moon and nothing more, and stars would be only for wishing….

  The tap on the glass startled her, making her jump and catch her breath.

  “Mistress Winslow!” mouthed the boy silently on the other side of the window, and she hurried to un-latch the door that opened to the lawn. The boy entered warily, sliding sideways through the door, his gaze darting around the empty ballroom as he pulled on the sides of his knitted cap. Matthew Carr was no more than twelve, and small for his age at that, but he’d been a part of the Company for years now, carrying messages and standing watch for the others on the beach.

  “I tried th’ kitchen first, mistress, same as regular,” he said, wiping his nose on the sleeve of his jersey, “but it be all full of them Navy-men, crashing an’ swearing about, with you nowhere in sight.”

  “That’s right,” said Fan, keeping her voice low even though they were alone. “There’s to be a grand party here tomorrow night, and they’re working to make ready. Now what’s brought you here, Matty? What’s about?”

  “Markham,” he said succinctly. “Thursday night, same as always.”

  “This Thursday?” asked Fan, surprised. “He’s not due for another week.”

  Matthew sniffed again, visibly wounded. “That be the message, mistress, coming through the fishing boats same as ever. You know I always tell you true, don’t I?”

  “Yes, yes, you do,” she said quickly, reaching into her pocket for a shilling that she pressed into his palm. His father, another Company man, had died of consumption last winter, and while his mother did odd sewing and mended fishermen’s nets to make ends meet, Matthew prized himself on contributing to her support, and the coin was instantly tucked inside his pocket for safekeeping. “You always tell me true, Matt. It’s just that I didn’t expect Captain Markham to return this soon, especially this week when we’ve so much to do here at Feversham.”

  It wasn’t only her responsibilities here at the house that would complicate matters, or the fact that the closer she became to George, the more difficult it would be to slip away unnoticed. There was also the higher fee that Markham would be expecting, and uneasily she wondered if coming early was his way of pressuring her for even more. She was in no position to begin accepting a shipment every week instead of every two, or even three; her customers simply did not consume that much tea, and she would be left with the difference, a dangerously incriminating hazard that would, somehow, have to be hidden away, and a whole village made to keep the secret.

  Yet by Friday dawn, she’d be done with it. One more run, and generations of her family’s leadership would glide forever from her fingers, and she would be free. One more run, and it would all be someone else’s puzzle to sort out, not hers.

  “But the Company’s trade always comes first,” said Matthew stoutly, and with the absolute certainty of his age. “That’s what Father said, t’put your trust in the Winslows and the Company, for they’ll never sell you wrong.”

  So Will Hood had kept her intentions secret; she was grateful, if surprised, by this one last act of loyalty. Soon none of them would speak of her with such respect. None would know that she’d given up the Company to save her own life, and George’s with it. Most likely none of them would ever deign to speak to her again after such a betrayal. But her father, if he’d lived, would call her selfish and cowardly and a traitor and worse, far worse.

  “Tell the others to be there Thursday,” she said. “Tell them what you’ve told me, that Markham has changed his sailing date. And tell them to gather a quarter hour earlier, for I’ve something I must—”

  “Who’s that?” demanded Matthew uncertainly, already backing away towards the door. “Someone’s calling you, mistress!”

  Fan turned, listening. The second time she heard it, too: George calling her name, and coming closer as he did.

  “Hurry, Matty, away with you!” she whispered, but the boy had already fled, racing across the dewy grass. Swiftly Fan closed the door after him, turning the latch just as George entered the room.

  “Here you are,” he said, smiling as he joined her. “Small said he thought you were here.”

  She smiled nervously, wondering if he’d heard the boy. “I was setting the candles for tomorrow night. I cannot remember a time when there were so many. What a blaze of light you’ll have for your guests!”

  “We will at that.” Though he’d sensed her nervousness, he’d misread the reason for it, and stopped apart from her, his hands clasped behind his back and without the kiss of greeting she’d expect. “You’ve done a splendid job with your arrangements, Fan. The secret of any success always lies in mastering the details, doesn’t it?”

  She nodded proudly. “I can’t prepare for everything that might happen, of course, but I do believe your guests will be most pleased.” She pointed up to the sconces. “Even down to the proper candles.”

  “We’ll need every one of them if it’s another gloomy night like this one.” He cleared his throat and looked past her, out the window. “Not a star in the sky, is there?”

  “But I like a dark sky,” she protested, hoping he’d keep looking up for those stars and away from the footprints that the boy had left in the wet grass. “It’s more mysterious this way.”

  “Oh, yes, it’s mysterious enough, wondering who or what’s hiding in it.” He nodded sagely, the lantern’s light playing over the sharp planes of his face. This late in the day, he’d loosened the neckcloth around his collar. The dark shadow of stubble had softened the line of his jaw in a pleasingly intimate way, and she caught herself wishing he had kissed her after all.

  “A night like this is what a captain prays for,” he continued, “especially when he wants to creep along the shore unnoticed, or catch another ship with its watch sleeping. That’s how most captures are made, you know, not with all guns a-firing and mighty heroics, but by playing cat-and-mouse surprise, with false colors and calls in another language. Not that you’d think like that, of course. To you ladies, fog means mysterious tumbledown abbeys and other Gothic nonsense.”

  “Not all ladies think that way,” she said, thankful he’d never know how similar her thoughts had been to his own. A night meant for smuggling could also be one that benefited the king: she had to admit she’d never considered that, thinking of fog and starless nights as her Company’s ally and no one else’s. “Leastways, I don’t.”

  He smiled without turning back towards her. “That’s because you’re not like most ladies, and a precious good thing that is, too.”

  “Hah, it’s a good thing I think like a gentleman?”

  “More that we seem to be cut from the same bolt of cloth,” he said easily, leaving her to guess if he was teasing or serious, or perhaps a bit of both. “We suit one another, in the best possible ways. And you can be sure, Mistress Fan, that no one will ever mistake you for a gentleman.”

  She laughed softly, accepting the compliment. He did make her feel more feminine—not as a weakness, not as a failing, which was how she felt too often when dealing with the Company, but in a way that left her happy and desired and glowing with contentment. And he was right: they did suit one another.

  “Very well, then,” she said, copying his manner. “Tell me, pray. What do tumbledown abbeys have to do with fog and starless nights?”

  He shook his head, still gazing up at the overcast sky as he tapped his fingertips lightly against the glass of the window. “Not a blessed thing, as far as I can see. So who was the boy in here with you, Fan?”

  “The boy?” she repeated, startled. She couldn’t deny Matthew had been here, but she couldn’t very well tell George the entire truth, either. “Yes. That was Matthew Carr, a boy I sometimes hire for work about the house. He’s too small to be of much real use, but his father is dead and his mother not well. She relies upon what Matty can earn, and I’m willing to make sure he always brings home something in his pocket.”

/>   That much was true, with nothing in it for George to doubt or question, and he didn’t.

  “Then he should come to me,” he said firmly, “and we should see what can be arranged on a more regular basis. There’s always a place in the Navy for an enterprising boy, especially one with a widowed mother to keep. When I’m given a new command, I’ll put him on my ship’s list, and keep an eye on him for you. If he’s as promising as you say, he’ll make his own way in no time.”

  “That is kind of you, George,” she murmured, unfortunately aware that Matthew and his mother, who shared the local contempt for any authority that served his majesty, would likely spit in the eye of such a golden opportunity. “But I do not believe his mother is willing to part with him just yet.”

  “Ah,” he said softly, a lifetime of his own regrets and losses wrapped in that single syllable, and Fan remembered how orphaned George had been sent to sea at a younger age than Matthew. “Then perhaps we can find work for him with Small below stairs until he’s grown to size. But tell him to present himself like a man, at the door, and no more skulking about Feversham in the dark like a little thief. I’ve heard the smugglers have lately grown more daring, and I wouldn’t want him running afoul of those rough bastards.”

  “No,” she said unhappily, knowing she could hardly undo what had long ago been done. “His mother wouldn’t want him to come to harm, either.”

  “You’re kind to worry over them both.” He turned towards her, reaching out to touch her cheek. “The world is full of widows and fatherless boys, and most people manage determinedly to look the other way. But not you, Fan.”

  “They’re my people,” she said simply, turning just enough to rub her cheek against his fingers. She loved being touched by him, how he could turn the most innocent brush of his hand into a caress. “My responsibility.”

  “Because you choose them to be,” he said, sliding his fingers into the sleek wings of her hair, gently loosening the strands from the tight knot at her nape. “It’s in your nature.”

  She smiled, and when he pulled her cap away and dropped it to the floor, she didn’t protest, instead letting him slowly pull each pin from her hair, one by one by one, until the heavy coil uncurled and fell down her back.

  “I am no different from you, you know,” she said as she shook her now free hair over her shoulders. “I doubt there are many other captains who look after their crewmen like you. Mr. Small, and Danny, and Leggett, and the others—they’d gladly follow you to the ends of the earth.”

  “They already have,” he admitted, gathering up her hair and letting it slip like silk through his fingers. “Though a frigate’s crew is not quite as vast a responsibility as your entire village.”

  “Not all of Tunford,” she protested, chuckling as she came closer and rested her hands upon the broad wall of his chest. “Only a small part of it.”

  “Only a part,” he repeated as he drew her closer, letting her feel his body against hers in a way that seemed both protective and seductive. “The most fortunate part, I’d say. But then who looks after you?”

  “I look after myself,” she said, striving to sound proud of her self-reliance. But even she could hear the uncertainty in her voice, a forlorn little tremor that made this sound more like a confession than a bold declaration.

  “The pistol,” he said, frowning down at her with concern. “I’ve told you before that that’s a false sort of confidence for a woman alone, Fan, even for you. The world is full of rogues and scoundrels who’ll think nothing of twisting it right from your hands to use against you. For my sake, if not for your own, I wish you to take more care.”

  “But I shall be fine,” she insisted, toying with the buttons on his waistcoat to avoid meeting the question in his eyes. Soon she could give him that assurance and mean it, for once she parted with the Company, she intended to spend every night safe and snug beside her own hearth, in her own bed. “And I never journey farther than Tunford.”

  “Tunford.” He rolled the village’s name in his mouth in an ominous growl, curling the long strands of her hair around his hand. “So is that where you go riding alone at night? Is there some special rogue that you go to see there?”

  Instantly Fan froze, the warm, teasing mood between them broken. She should have guessed this would come; she should have known that what she shared with George could not last, not with so many differences between them.

  “Is it a secret, then?” he asked, his voice turning grim and the tension building with each second she hesitated. “Hell.”

  “Oh, George,” she said unhappily, her heart more full of sorrow than fear. “As much as I wish I could tell you, I cannot. It is a secret, a very grave secret, but it’s not mine to share with you or anyone else. There are others who would not wish it, others that I have promised, and now—now likely I’ve already said more than is wise. But I cannot tell you more, George. I—I cannot.”

  “Cannot, Fan?” he asked roughly, still holding her steady with his hand tangled in her hair so she could not look away. “Or will not?”

  “I will not, George, because I choose not to,” she declared, her heart racing in her chest. Oh, God help her, this wasn’t a choice at all. She didn’t wish it to end like this, with him suspecting her of a sin she hadn’t committed, but to tell him the truth and defend herself was impossible. “But I can not because I am loyal to those who have trusted me with their secrets and their lives!”

  “Double blast it, Fan!” he exploded, jerking his hand free from her hair so quickly that she lost her balance and stumbled back. “I’m trying to trust you, too, but you make it so damned hard I’d be a fool to do it!”

  “Then be a fool,” she challenged angrily, rubbing the side of her head where he’d pulled at her hair. “Because I’m already a fool to trust you, if this is how little you value my trust, yes, and me with it!”

  Anger had turned his eyes hard and fierce as a hawk in the marshes, and set his jaw with determination. She’d always thought of him as a gentleman, the son of a duke, and yet suddenly here was this other side of him she hadn’t seen: intensely male and forceful, the ruthless warrior, the fighting captain that earned and demanded the respect of hundred rough sailors.

  But not from her, not now. “Is that what you believe, then, Fan?” he thundered, his voice echoing against the windows in the empty ballroom. “That I have no regard, no affection for you?”

  “I do not know what to believe,” she answered furiously, too angry and too on edge to rein her emotions in. “First you tell me we are two of a kind, that we’re cut from the same bolt of cloth, and God knows what other pretty-talk claptrap meant to befuddle the ladies, and then you say you cannot trust me because I won’t confess every last confidence that’s been made to me!”

  “Don’t question my word, lass,” he warned, stepping closer to her. “I’m not a liar. I say what I mean, or I don’t speak at all.”

  “Then tell me what you do mean,” she countered defiantly without backing away, and as soon as she’d spoken she realized how long she’d wanted to ask him exactly that. She also realized she was daring him, a dare that tempted sanity as well as fate. But her father and the Company had long ago taught her that recklessness could bring its own kind of freedom, and what greater dare was there in life than love?

  “If you live so much by truth alone, George,” she continued, “then tell me all these ways that we are so much alike!”

  “You do not know?” he asked, his voice dropping low, incredulous. “You, Fan?”

  “I wouldn’t ask if I did,” she answered, still challenging, though the shiver that raced up and down her spine betrayed something else entirely. Not that it made any sense. She was furious with him for doubting her, just as he was furious with her for not answering, but neither fury made for an explanation of why she kept looking at his mouth and the little peppering of the day’s beard over his upper lip and thinking of how wickedly, how wrongly, much she wanted to kiss him.

  “Damna
tion, Fan, we’re tacking in circles over the same patch of water here,” he grumbled, but his manner seemed to have shifted, too, the anger itself fading while the passion of it remained, the way the flames of a fire die down only to leave the greatest heat waiting below in the coals.

  “Then tell me, and be done with it,” she demanded in a rough whisper, impatiently shoving her unpinned hair back from her face. “Tell me now.”

  “Blast it, Fan, you know already,” he muttered hoarsely, watching as she lifted her arms to fuss with her hair, his gaze sliding down to how her breasts shimmied above the top of her stays. “We wouldn’t be fighting like this if you weren’t suited to me.”

  “We’re not fighting,” she said, and licked her lips which had, quite suddenly, gone dry. No regrets, she told herself fiercely, no regrets at all. “You’d know it if we were. Now tell me.”

  “Damnation, Fan, I’m a sailor, not a poet,” he said. “I can’t tell you why we belong together, or how, or—oh, blast, how can I explain this?”

  George didn’t give her any warning as he pulled her into his arms, nor did she seem to expect any. More likely both of them had been expecting this moment for days, or weeks, or maybe even from that first morning when she’d opened the front door to find him on Feversham’s step.

  God knows he had. He kissed her now, marveling at how she knew the exact angle to tip her head back for him, and marveling, too, at how readily she answered his kiss, not turning squeamish or shy the way some women would, but meeting his tongue with her own. He could taste her passion, her desire, until he couldn’t tell where her mouth began and his ended, enough to make him groan aloud from wanting the rest.

  And the rest was there, too, as eager as he was himself. He could tell by how she was arching against him, her breasts pressing into his chest when he circled her arms around the shoulders, the touch of her fingertips on the nape of his neck sending delicious chills down his backbone. Somehow—he couldn’t recall exactly when—the white kerchief she’d tucked into her neckline for modesty had pulled free and disappeared, leaving the twin mounds of her breasts temptingly uncovered except for the shifting curtain of her hair.