by Edith Layton
* * *
For the Love of a Pirate
Edith Layton
* * *
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Copyright
* * *
For Miss Daisy:
dear companion, inspired jester,
and master thief who pirated my heart,
but still has some pretty big pawprints to fill.
* * *
Chapter One
“They say I have everything, but they’re wrong,” the gentleman said. “There’s one thing I lack. Your hand, in marriage. Will you marry me, Miss Winchester?”
The lady nodded. “I will, Lord Wylde.”
“You have made me the happiest of men,” he said.
They were in the lady’s salon, alone for the first time since they’d met, because they’d been allowed this private moment together.
He bent to her and placed a light kiss on her lips. Then he straightened and smiled. “Well, then. Shall we place the notice in the papers?”
“I believe my papa has already prepared one,” she said. “In fact, I believe he has already sent it to the papers. It should appear this very day. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Why should I?” he asked. “I asked him for your hand, and he agreed. I assumed that you would as well.”
She smiled. She was a passably attractive young woman, too angular for beauty, but thin enough for fashion, and sufficiently pale and blond for current tastes. “Father told me about your offer, of course, and after he had you investigated, he broached the matter to me.”
“Investigated?” Constantine asked, raising one eyebrow.
She shrugged. “There is talk about everyone in the ton, and he’s a thorough man. When he was satisfied, he told me of your proposal. When I said I’d accept, he and Mama said they would take care of the business of being wed. October, you said?”
“So I did. But perhaps you think that’s too soon? It is April now, after all.”
“My thoughts exactly,” she said. “Marrying in such haste might give rise to gossip. Shall we say January, instead?”
“If it pleases you. I think we will be quite happy together,” he added, raising her hand to his lips. “Shall I see you at the Blaynes’ ball tomorrow night? I should have asked you as my guest, but had you not accepted my offer it would have been, you’ll grant, uncomfortable.”
“Did you really think I would not accept?” she asked.
They both laughed.
There was little chance she, or any woman, would have refused him, and he knew it. Constantine Wylde, Lord Wylde, was an attractive man, long limbed and fit. He had dark brown hair, dark brown eyes, and winged eyebrows that gave his handsome face a slightly wicked cast. But that was an illusion; he was a gentleman in name and behavior. He also had a title, and a considerable fortune. His reputation, if not spotless, was at least less spotty than many other young gentlemen of similar breeding. He was intelligent, and knew how to be charming. If he’d any fault, his friends agreed, it was that he was too moderate, sober-sided. But even they agreed that was because of his excellent upbringing by his uncle, a vicar and justice of the peace, and his very correct wife.
Still, he did everything a young gentleman about London was supposed to do: he fenced; he rode handsome Thoroughbred horses and, as a member of the four-in-hand club, drove a fine light high curricle. He belonged to the right clubs and knew the right people, and had political ambitions with the right party.
He also knew the best wrong things to do, and did them well. He occasionally gambled, but never too high. If he kept any light ladies, he kept their names as secret as his doings with them. In short, he was a prize, a catch he knew his new fiancée could be proud of landing.
Catching had been no part of his proposal though. He’d studied the available crop of unwed ladies, and after much thought decided upon Miss Charlotte Winchester, daughter of a baron, wealthy in her own right, educated and nicely behaved.
“Until tomorrow night, then,” she said comfortably.
He bowed, left her, and went to celebrate.
The sun was sinking low in the west, so he went to his favorite club, and gave the news to some of his friends.
“Well done,” one of them said.
“Going to be shackled soon, are you? How many of us does that leave single?” another asked.
They talked about that a while, and then repaired to a nearby inn to toast him in louder fashion. They soon found the place too dull, and took their newly engaged friend to a gambling den. That palled, and they dragged him to a bawdy house, where all they did was sing bawdy songs.
“We’d do more,” one of his friends told a disappointed young woman who was sitting on his knee. “But that wouldn’t be polite. That is, knowing the guest of honor wouldn’t takes some of the fun from it. Connie … Con here is very laced straight, y’see.” He frowned. “Straitlaced, I mean.”
“Lord Wyatt?” she asked with a laugh. “No, he’s just a very sober fellow, and so say all.”
Constantine raised an eyebrow, and then his glass to her. When the clock struck ten, he left with a few friends who took him to another festivity, because the nightlife of London was just starting, and he’d a sudden longing to be less sober.
He celebrated the next night, and on the next, he began to believe that the celebrations were becoming a bit forced. He had many friends, and even more acquaintances, so it was hard to refuse anyone willing to propose a toast to his future. Being polite, he drank with them; being politic, he decided to stay away from his friends for a few days until the novelty of his engagement wore off. Still, he had obligations.
It was almost dawn on the third night after his announcement when Constantine began to weave his way home again. He was a little unsteady on his feet. But no one accosted him. The villains in the shadows knew that sometimes a young blade like him, dressed to the nines and looking like easy prey, was just looking for a chance to fight with people they, and the law, didn’t care about killing. And such young gents often carried pistols in their pockets, or sword-sticks, or iron fists hardened by bouts at fashionable boxing salons. Constantine had nothing in his pockets but coins, his walking stick was only that, and he disliked sparring because he’d been taught, and believed, that hitting his fellow man was no way to prove he was a superior man. But the lurkers didn’t know that, and so he wasn’t bothered by any of London’s many thieves.
He never got very drunk either, and so he was walking straighter and humming a little tune to himself when he made his way into a better district. Like everything else about him, the tune was perfectly on key. It was a wedding march. He finally stopped in front of his town house, and went up the stair to the front door.
The door swung open.
“Good evening, sir,” the butler said.
“Still up, Clarke?” Constantine asked in a clear, sober voice. “I told you not to wait for me.”
“Indeed, my lord, I had not thought to. But you’ve a visitor.”
Constantine frowned. “At this hour?” His eyes grew wide.
“It is no one I know, my lord. I doubt, in fact, that you know him either. But he was most insistent, as well as persuasive. He’s waiting in the library.”
“That I am not!” a loud voice announced.
Constantine looked up at the man standing behind his butler. He shook his head to clear it. He wasn’t that drunk, but damned if the fellow didn’t look like a villain. He was a big, wide older man with a seamed face and a scruffy gray beard—and two heavy old horse pistols in each huge hand. Constantine squinted, wondering if it was the liquor or his eyes playing tricks on him. Such a fellow didn’t belong in his house, or indeed, in his world. Then he smiled. Of course. It had to be one of his friends playing a joke on him after their night of revelry.
“That you, Richard, behind that gray bush?” he asked, smiling. “I don’t mind, but you’ve no right to frighten the breeches off my butler.”
“Aye, well, I didn’t,” the man said in a voice more like a roar. “Because he had none on when he came to the door. I don’t hold with nightshirts, myself. A fellow has no place to stow his pistols and knives. Be that as it may. I’ve got to have a word with you, my lord, and now.”
“Very well,” Constantine said, “but let us go into my library, shall we? That way Clarke can go back to bed.”
“Indeed I will not, my lord,” his butler protested, making little movements of his head to indicate the man behind him.
“I think you should, it lacks some hours till dawn,” Constantine said. “Don’t worry about my guest, Mr. … ? Sorry,” he told the big man with the pistols, “I didn’t catch the name.”
“Didn’t throw it,” the fellow growled. “But it’s Captain Bigod.”
“Indeed?” Constantine said, still just enough under the influence to not be taking any of this seriously. “I don’t believe we ever met.”
“Nor did we, but I’ll wager you heard of me.”
“How much?” Constantine said with interest. “Because you’d lose. At any rate, Clarke, be at ease. If the captain here wanted to shoot me, he’d have done it by now.”
“Right you are, lad!” the big man said, shoving one of his pistols into his belt. “Well, then, come on,” he said, gesturing with the other pistol. “We’ve got to talk, and now!”
Constantine led his strange visitor down the hall and into his library, and shut the door behind him. He knew his butler would have the watch and all the footmen in the house at the door within minutes. He turned up the lamp on his desk, and studied his visitor.
“Well, sir, and what is it that couldn’t wait until morning?”
“Wait?” the man roared. “Not another hour, lad. It’s this,” he said, extracting a rumpled newssheet from a pocket of his coat. He put it down on the top of a highly polished mahogany desk and pounded his fist on it so hard that the desk trembled.
“It is difficult for me to read it from here,” Constantine said. He took the top off a decanter on his sideboard. “Can I interest you?” he asked. “I find a jot in the morning after a hard night often clears the head.”
“No!” the captain shouted. “Not until you tell me what’s the meaning of this.”
Constantine poured brandy into a goblet that stood on the sideboard. He picked it up, swirled it in his hand, and cocked his head to the side. “If my eyes do not mistake me,” he said, “that is a copy of the Times. What does it have to do with your visit?”
“Everything,” the fellow said darkly. “It’s a notice of your engagement to Miss Charlotte Winchester, daughter to Baron Pierce of Sussex.”
“So it is,” Constantine said. “Here to congratulate me, are you?”
“Aye, with a letter from my man-at-law! And my pistol, if need be.”
“Why?” Constantine asked with fascination.
“Because, you dog, you’re already engaged—to my granddaughter!” the fellow shouted.
The goblet of brandy hit the floor after falling from Constantine’s suddenly numb fingers. “Oh, dear,” he said a second later. “And it was the last of the ’49 too. Want to tell me that again?”
Constantine pressed his fingers to his forehead. The ache he felt had nothing to do with how much he had drunk this night. He simply couldn’t believe his own eyes or ears. He sat still and waited. His strange visitor said nothing. This gave him a feeble random hope that what he had seen had been some sort of visitation, rather than a human visitor. A visitation brought on by too much liquor and the lateness of the hour. He hoped and half believed that when he opened his eyes again, his weird visitor would be gone, vanished with the growing light. It was, after all, by his reckonings, not far to dawn.
The room had been quiet since his bizarre guest had stopped telling his bizarre story. Constantine didn’t accept it. It was easier to believe the captain was something brought on by mixing ale, wine, and good whisky.
He opened his eyes. And didn’t see anything in his study that shouldn’t have been there. He sighed. It had only been a terrifying dream, after all. But he had been drinking too much, and decided to remain more sober now.
“You keep a good cellar,” a deep voice boomed from behind him. “That much I give you, lad.”
Constantine closed his eyes again. “Thank you,” he said carefully. “Now, as I understand it, to recapitulate, you’re saying that my father and your son were bosom friends?”
“Don’t know about that,” Captain Bigod said. “Know they were close as thieves, which is what they were then. Not an ounce of harm in either of them, mind. Just young rapscallions, looking for adventures in all the right places.”
“If they were shot in commission of their crime, I should not call that the right place,” Constantine said.
“Nay, what they were after, they got,” the captain said, his voice thick and deep, sounding like a bass organ playing a dirge. “What could be righter than that? I was fair demolished, I can tell you. My Jeremy was a fine lad; handsome as he could stare, full of old Nick, and good to his father and every female he ever met.” He sighed. “I liked your father too. And wasn’t your ma a fine piece of mischief? My boy swore he’d have married her had your father not clapped eyes on her first. Always one to play fair, was my Jeremy. But she died soon after they did. Pined away, I think, aye, that’s what I think it was. For she loved them both, although in different ways, mind. Nothing shady about your mam, and that’s a fact.”
Constantine nodded absently, until he realized how much that hurt his head. He had never met his mother or his father. “I see. Now, to be sure I have it all,” he said slowly. “You say that my father, Constantine Roger Wylde, Lord Wylde, was a good friend to your son, Jack Bigod. And that they both met my mother at the same time, at a soirée, but it was my father who won her hand?”
“Aye, but I think that …” the captain said, wagging a sausage-sized finger. “Not meaning no harm to your father’s memory, but I think that was only because my Jeremy bowed out when he saw where your father’s heart was. Now your father was a handsome lad; you’re the spit and image of him, by the way. But my Jeremy was a taking fellow too, glib as he was bonny, and a treat for the ladies. Still, he had morals, and wouldn’t graze in someone else’s pastures, especially not when he saw how the wind blew. Your father was daft about her.”
“Yes,” Constantine said wearily. “And then, you say, the two of them took to the road together.” He cleared his throat. “As highwaymen.”
“Straight truth,” the captain said. “My Jeremy was up to every rig. Gave him an education, which is where he met your father, at school. But his learning didn’t slow him down; it just gave him better ideas. He loved to run rigs. He loved laughter more than money. He rode a horse up a staircase in a noble house, for starters. Why, I could write a book about what he did with horses. He once painted one, to addle its owner. He rode to the hounds, after he trailed three foxes in different directions. That was a scene. He once moved a cow into a stable, after moving a fine-blooded horse out, and bragged about the look on the face of the toplofty fellow who o
wned it when he saw a cow instead of his prime blood there.”
The captain wiped his eyes with a handkerchief.
“Ah, he carried on one way or another, all the time,” he said in happy remembrance. “That was what attracted your father. See, your grandfather had the raising of your father, and as I heared it, he was a prosy old fellow. Not an ounce of life in him. And stupid, to boot, because if you give a young lad his head, he’ll find his feet soon enough. But no, he couldn’t back off. He sermonized and moralized, and then when he heard about how your father was living, cut him off without a penny. It only made your father more eager to get rich and rub his father’s nose in it. It was the tight purse strings that set him on the high Toby in the first place.”
“I see. That was what set your son on that road as well?” Constantine asked.
“Nay,” the captain said sadly. “I gave him money enough. Pure deviltry was what sent my Jeremy out with his pistols at midnight. He loved the risk, and knew his friend needed the gold, so he was glad to ride out with him to demand that travelers stand and deliver. I didn’t know about it, or I’d have knocked his head off for him. But he got it shot off before I could,” he added sadly.
“So my grandfather was no more wrong in his treatment of his son than you were,” Constantine said.
“Well, if you want to look at it that way,” the captain conceded. “But my Jeremy loved me, and your father couldn’t stand in the same room as your grandfather.”
Constantine was silent. He remembered his grandfather too well. The old gentleman had been a model of rectitude and a pillar of Society. And he had terrified his servants, his community, and his only grandson. But then, Constantine had only been five when the old man died. He had never discussed his dead son. But Constantine’s uncle had.
“My uncle,” Constantine said carefully, “always told me that my father died a hero, while he was in the service of His Majesty, on the Continent.”