To Tempt an Heiress

by Susanna Craig

  Waves slapped the hull as the tide rose, and he could hear the occasional creak and groan from the rigging, but otherwise, all around him lay in eerie silence, a sure sign the whole crew, even the men off duty, were as awake and alert as he. As if to prove his suspicion right, Bewick soundlessly approached his side, the scent of his tobacco the only indication that Andrew was no longer alone.

  After a long moment, the other man spoke. “Seems that dustup in the harbor attracted a bit o’ notice, Cap’n,” the quartermaster mumbled around his pipe.

  “I wouldn’t worry, Mr. Bewick,” Andrew said, refusing to look in the direction he had indicated. “I’d like to see even His Majesty’s finest catch the Colleen with a dinghy.”

  “Naw,” Bewick concurred dismissively. But he held out his spyglass and directed Andrew’s attention aft. Fog rose from the water in ghostly ribbons, making shapes where there were none and disguising those that were. A breath of air rippled through the mist, giving him a glimpse of a hulking shadow that lay just beyond his view. No dinghy, this.

  “It’s the Justice, if I don’t miss my guess,” Bewick said, naming a schooner whose reputation was well known to Andrew and most every man on his crew.

  Damn.

  If Captain Stratton and the Justice had business in these waters, it could not be honest business. Was Cary smuggling goods out of Angel’s Cove? That would certainly explain how he had been able to offer Andrew such a sizable sum without dipping into his employer’s coffers.

  The wind was heightening. Out of habit, he glanced down, looking for Caliban, whose nose was the most reliable instrument he knew. But the dog was nowhere in sight. And then he remembered. He would be spending the night closeted with Tempest Holderin. “Lucky mutt.”

  “What’s that, sir?” Bewick asked, his voice still low.

  “Full sail, Mr. Bewick,” came Andrew’s curt order, in place of an explanation.

  Bewick hesitated, an uncharacteristic gesture reminiscent of Andrew’s first months at sea. “What o’ the—?” The quartermaster shot one nervous glance toward the captain’s cabin and seemed to lose the courage needed to finish that question. “What o’ the cargo at Angel’s Cove?”

  Andrew’s lips twitched. “We’ll have to sail on without it. I don’t fancy meeting the Justice in the shallows.” The ship’s jagged outline was still wreathed in darkness and fog.

  The older man raised one shaggy brow. “Make for Lon’on without even a load? ’Tain’t like you to stand a loss, Cap’n.”

  Too late, Andrew wanted to retort, but he bit back the words. “The men will get paid, Mr. Bewick. Surely you know me well enough by now.”

  “Aye. Well enough to know you don’t mean to let Stratton slip out from under your nose again.”

  Could he really let go of this golden opportunity he had been handed? It felt rather like fate to see the Justice here, now, after so many years of searching. Every man on his crew would expect him to engage Stratton. How would he look them in the eye if he refused?

  But there was a woman on his ship now. And a child—two, if he counted Timmy Madcombe, which he almost certainly should. None of them had signed on to hunt down and kill Stratton. How dare he risk more innocent lives? He would be no better than Stratton, then.

  Reaching into his coat, Andrew withdrew a battered silver flask, his thumb brushing over the worn engraving of his father’s initials. As if it were the answer he had been waiting for, Bewick gave a curt nod and signaled silently to the rest of the crew. The ship sprang to life once again—all except Andrew, who remained anchored at the railing, wondering whether the Justice would follow.

  He lifted the flask to his lips and allowed a single swallow to sear its way down his throat.

  Was it wrong to hope that Stratton would give him no choice but to open fire?

  * * *

  Waking abruptly in a familiar tangle of bed linens and sunshine, Tempest forgot at first to be alarmed. But as she blinked the sleep from her eyes and less familiar objects began to take shape—a heavy sea chest, unshuttered windows, a shaggy gray dog—she remembered in a rush that she was aboard the Fair Colleen.

  And realized almost immediately thereafter that if Captain Corrvan had done as he had promised, she should already be ashore.

  She twisted around in the bed, but the row of square windows behind her revealed nothing but shimmering turquoise water. And that, of course, was to be expected, since she was looking out the back of the ship. Angel’s Cove no doubt lay before them.

  Hearing one of her jailers rattling his keys, she sprang from the bed and looked around for her dress, but there was no sign of it. Mr. Beals must have taken it away. Well, she did not intend to allow a little thing like the lack of a dress to keep her from making a bid for freedom. With clumsy fingers, she pried open one of the tall doors in the cabinet at the foot of the bed, which, as yesterday’s search had revealed, contained Captain Corrvan’s clothes. Pulling his greatcoat from a peg, she jerked it around her shoulders, heedless of her tender hands.

  And just in time, for in the next moment, the cabin door swung open and Timmy Madcombe stepped inside. Caliban greeted him with a polite but impatient wag of his tail.

  “Mr. Beals told me to bring your breakfast, miss,” he said, tipping his head in the direction of a small tray he balanced on one hand.

  Somehow the tray of food held considerably less appeal this morning, although its contents were remarkably similar to last evening’s supper tray: dry bread, some sort of hearty soup, and coffee. As Caliban pushed past the boy and into the open, Tempest waved a hand toward the table where the empty tray sat. “Thank you, Timmy. You and Mr. Beals have been most kind. But I suppose I shan’t be aboard long enough to require breakfast,” she said, averting her gaze from the food as Timmy carried it past, although the odors lingered.

  “If you say so, miss,” was Timmy’s only reply, accompanied by a furious blush as he tried to avoid looking at her.

  Captain Corrvan’s coat was long enough to cover a multitude of sins, but her bare feet still peeped from beneath its hem, and if she took a step, she would surely offer curious eyes a view of her shift where the coat opened, front and back.

  “Please tell Captain Corrvan I’d like to speak to him at the first opportunity,” she said, mustering all the authority she could, “so that I may know when I can expect to be put ashore.”

  “Yes, miss,” the boy said as he turned to go.

  “How long will it take you to fetch him?”

  “Fetch who, miss?” he asked, a look of genuine puzzlement on his face.

  Tempest squared her shoulders and tried to keep the exasperation from her voice. “Captain Corrvan.”

  “Cap’n is on watch,” he explained patiently, as if she were the child. “Just begun. Mr. Bewick’ll relieve him at next bell. That’s four hours,” he added in an edifying tone. “I’ll tell him what you said, though. I s’pect he’ll come down right after mess.”

  “Right after . . . ?” Despite herself, her voice rose to a squeak. “I believe you’ve misunderstood, Timmy. I need to speak to Captain Corrvan immediately. Please tell him so.”

  With wide eyes, Timmy nodded. “I’ll tell him, miss. But he won’t leave his post. If it’s an urgent matter, I s’pose you could go to him.”

  “Very well,” Tempest replied, taking two mincing steps toward the cabin door. “Lead the way.”

  “I, er . . . that is, I don’t think . . .” he began sheepishly, but at her frown, he gave a curt nod and shifted course. “Yes, miss.”

  A few steps behind Timmy Madcombe, Tempest ascended the short flight of stairs to the aft deck, emerging into a world quite apart from her first impression of the Fair Colleen. A ship at sea was quite a different place to a ship in harbor, it seemed. Without the stout handrail, she might have been knocked off her feet by the wind that swept across the deck, tangling her hair and threatening exposure even when she stood still. And the noise! Her head and heart pounded with the unfamiliar shouts
and songs of a dozen men at work at various tasks around the ship, the creaking and cracking of sails and ropes and wood, and the steady dhrub-dhrub-dhrub of the water against the hull as they sliced through the sea like a scythe through cane.

  As she struggled to get her bearings, she located Captain Corrvan, his white shirt rippling like a flag in the stiff breeze. He was standing near, but not at, the ship’s wheel. Another man’s hands actually guided the ship, and the discovery only increased her outrage. Surely he might have spared a moment to have come to her, if that were the case. Besides, she was not entirely confident in her ability to cross the deck with aplomb. Neither her knees nor her eyes seemed to want to work with their usual efficiency, and she feared if she looked down at her feet to set them where they ought to go, she would have a great deal of trouble to raise either of them again.

  A good half-dozen paces ahead, Timmy at last paused to look back. With a grin, he returned to her side, holding out one arm with surprising gallantry. “Never fear, miss. Happens to us all. To hear Mr. Bewick tell it, even the cap’n—” He broke off when Tempest stumbled. “You’ll get your sea legs after a bit. Why, on my first voyage, I was sicker’n two dogs tied together, beggin’ your pardon, but since then I ain’t hardly—” This time, the flow of words was halted by a feeble wave of Tempest’s hand.

  Oh God. The boy must stop talking. And moving. If everything around her would be still for just one moment, she might avoid—

  But in the end, she could not avoid it. Nausea rolled upward, stinging her throat, and though she tried valiantly to fight the inevitable, in another moment the contents of last night’s supper tray were spattering the mid-deck, narrowly missing Andrew Corrvan’s boots.

  He cast a gaze over her that might have been pitying, although very little registered in Tempest’s mind beyond the awful sensation that it was only a matter of time until she vomited again.

  “Have you never been to sea, Miss Holderin?” he asked, as he stepped nimbly over the mess and led her to a seat on an upturned crate.

  She shook her head, then realized belatedly that such a movement was likely to lead to another disaster. Clenching her jaw, she replied instead through barely parted lips, “I fail to understand why I am at sea now, Captain Corrvan.”

  He crouched beside her and pointed, inviting her to sight along his outstretched arm. “See that ship to starboard?”

  She could see nothing but an endless span of blue: blue sky, blue sea, darker in some places, lighter in others. “I’m sorry, no.”

  Or perhaps there was nothing to see. She turned toward him, noting with some surprise the fine lines at the corners of his catlike eyes—the mark not of old age, for she very much doubted he was even thirty, but of one who had spent years squinting across the open water. It seemed an oddly intimate thing to notice about a person.

  She returned her gaze to the horizon, discovering—as he had no doubt known she would—that focusing on the far-off line between sky and sea somehow calmed the riot behind her eyes and in her stomach. “I don’t see a ship,” she admitted. “Nor do I see Angel’s Cove.”

  “We’re a fair ways off the coast now, I’m afraid. Slipped away at sunset to avoid an entanglement with that ship you don’t see, the Justice. Swift Justice, some call her. ‘Lazarus’ Stratton, captain. So named because he was once raised from the dead.”

  “Is he a—a privateer?” she asked.

  “Ah, well. That’s not for me to say.” Captain Corrvan shrugged, one corner of his mouth lifting slightly at her polite euphemism. “I leave those fine distinctions to the authorities. But I’d rather not meet him in the dark. Or the shallows.” Rising, he moved a short way off to lean against some piece of rigging, his eyes still focused on the unseen ship. “Mr. Madcombe, fetch Miss Holderin a cup of Greaves’s special tea.”

  “Aye, Cap’n,” the boy replied, scampering off.

  “I don’t want tea,” Tempest insisted, still not trusting her stomach enough to unclench her jaw farther than it took to grind out a few words. “I want to know when you’ll be returning me to Antigua.”

  “You’re seasick, Miss Holderin,” he declared, turning his gaze from the water at last. “It happens to the best of us—even those with names that would seem to defy any such weakness where the water is concerned,” he added with a sardonic smile. “Why, the only man I’ve known to avoid it entirely is Mr. Bewick, the Colleen’s quartermaster. And that’s only because he sprang fully formed from a ship’s figurehead, I do believe.”

  “Modeled after Zeus, I suppose?” she forced out in the lightest tone she could manage. She would not give in, not to the sea nor to Captain Corrvan.

  His answering smile held both surprise and approval, the identical expression to the one he had been wearing when she quoted Shakespeare. “More likely one of Zeus’s wives. We men of the sea like to carry a lady with us. For luck.”

  “I thought women were believed to bring bad luck aboard ships?” she countered. The words were coming more easily now, although she still did not trust herself to stand.

  “Flesh-and-blood ones, yes. For obvious reasons.” His eyes swept over her in that assessing fashion that was growing annoyingly familiar, and this time, she felt an answering tremor stir somewhere deep within her, which she quickly dismissed as queasiness.

  Then she realized that his gaze had shifted to the mess on the mid-deck, and heat flared in her chest and her cheeks. “I am sorry,” she ground out, the tightness in her jaw having less to do now with the state of her stomach.

  “It’s nothing, Miss Holderin,” he said with a wave of his hand that she would have called dismissive. But his crew must have read the gesture somewhat differently, for in another moment, a seaman was on the scene with mop and bucket, making short work of her disgrace.

  And then Timmy was at her side with a steaming mug full of some noxious brew that was most certainly not tea. She was on the point of refusing it when she caught the gleam in Captain Corrvan’s green eyes. Never one to back down from a challenge—even an unspoken one—she snaked one arm free of the captain’s coat to accept the cup and swallowed the bitter beverage in short, scalding gulps. In a few moments, she was oddly disappointed to discover he had been right about its healing properties. She did feel better.

  Better enough that she tried too soon to push to her feet and found herself somehow—she could never afterward say exactly how—on her back on the deck, looking up first into a merciless blue sky and then into Captain Corrvan’s mercilessly handsome face.

  “I’d advise you to keep your seat,” he said.

  She shook her head—another dreadful mistake. The sound of her hair scrubbing against the deck was earsplitting. “No,” she managed to whisper. “I wish to return to my—er, your—that is, the cabin. To rest.”

  “You’ll do better in the fresh air, I assure you.”

  She pressed her lips together and dared one quick negative.

  “Very well,” he sighed. A mocking sigh, she felt certain. And then he was leaning over her, lifting her in arms that were every bit as strong as she might have suspected, and carrying her back down the short flight of stairs to the quarterdeck. Not cradling her in his arms, against his chest, as if she were some precious cargo. But slung over his shoulder, like a sack of grain. Probably with her backside in full view of every sailor on the ship. Out of nowhere, Caliban appeared at his heels, laughing up at her with a wide, doggy grin.

  Rather than struggle and humiliate herself further, she chose to close her eyes and pretend this was not happening. She did not open them again until she felt herself being dropped ignominiously onto the captain’s rumpled bed.

  “You will wake me, will you not?” she murmured from its shockingly comfortable depths. “When we land at Angel’s Cove?”

  His reply seemed to come from a long way off, although she knew he was leaning over her. She could smell the salty spiciness of his skin. “We won’t be landing at Angel’s Cove.”

  Fighting against the
haze that threatened to envelop her, she struggled to prop herself up on one elbow and swallowed against the feeling that rose in her throat, equal parts nausea and fear. “Did you say... ‘won’t’?”

  “That is what I was trying to tell you, Miss Holderin,” he said matter-of-factly as he eased her back against the pillow and tucked the sheets around her. “Thanks to the Justice, we’ve had to sail on.”

  The pillow was a siren’s song, calling to her aching head. But wasn’t there a question she should ask before she slept? She felt certain there was. If only . . . Ah, yes. There it was, floating past like a bit of flotsam on a gentle wave. She plucked it up. “Thail on?” she slurred.

  “On,” he reiterated as her eyes drifted closed. “To London.”

  Chapter 6

  Surely, in death, people were not subjected to the shrill notes of an Irish jig being whistled by someone incapable of carrying a tune.

  So, she was not dead, then.

  Pity.

  Cracking one eyelid just enough to sort out the sound from its maker, she was assaulted first by the airy brightness of the room and a mere moment later by a smooth, wet tongue.

  “Caliban,” she croaked, trying to restrain the animal’s affection and finding, to her chagrin, that she was too weak to do so.

  Her brain and teeth felt equally fuzzy, but she managed to struggle first into a sitting position and then standing. The fact that she was still wearing only her shift gave her momentary pause, but that god-awful sound from the next room was not going to stop itself. Tugging a sheet free of the bed, she wrapped it tightly around her body and marched into the great room on regrettably wobbly legs.

  Captain Corrvan was seated at the large table, whistling as he wrote in some sort of ledger. He did not immediately look up from his work. The ebony waves of his hair fell forward, obscuring his eyes, though they did nothing to soften the angular planes of his face.

  When it was obvious that he meant to ignore her, she said with as much hauteur as she could manage, “How dare you violate my privacy in this ungentlemanly fashion.”