Serena and Phoebe retired to a sitting room where they pretended to sew while they spoke in muted tones and awaited Captain Langley’s arrival. Eventually, a gentle knock sounded on the door, and Serena froze, needle poised.
“Come in,” Phoebe called.
The door opened a crack to reveal a maid. “There’s a gentleman come, miss. Says his name is Captain Langley and he’s arrived to escort you to London.”
This was it. This first meeting would decide once and for all whether Serena had the nerve to go through with this charade. Her heart thumped through her body, as loud as a clanging church bell. She was surprised no one else seemed to hear it.
Phoebe set her embroidery aside and rose, brushing her skirts straight, and Serena realized she was expected to do the same. Moving her limbs was like moving solid iron. It took every bit of strength her body contained.
Can I lie to this man? Can I be what—and who—he wants me to be?
How could she? This was all her mother’s doing. Serena hadn’t even known what was happening. She should end the ruse right now, before the lie spread through London, before it was too late.
Serena stood, straightened her spine, and nodded to the maid. “Show him in, please.”
It seemed like hours passed before Captain Langley appeared in the doorway. He was quite a handsome man, tall and lithe, with angular features and dark brown hair. He wore a stiff collar, a snow-white cravat, and a dark blue coat. His eyes were his most handsome feature, Serena thought. Meg had always spoken highly of his eyes. They were kind, expressive eyes, of a rich, deep brown.
“Captain Langley,” she said in the smooth, cultured London accent she’d spent endless hours practicing under her mother’s watchful eye. “It is so lovely to see you again.”
“And you, Miss Donovan,” the captain said. His voice was soft, but his bow was stiff. “I trust your voyage was comfortable?”
“Indeed it was. Please”—Serena gestured toward Phoebe—“allow me to introduce you to Miss Phoebe Donovan, my sister.”
Phoebe bobbed a curtsy, and Langley gave another stiff bow. “Miss Phoebe.”
When he turned back to her, hope and expectation brimming in his expression, tears surged up in Serena so powerfully and so quickly she almost couldn’t contain them. She dipped her head so Langley wouldn’t see the shine in her eyes.
How could she possibly meet his expectations?
When she was little, Papa used to say that he could always tell Serena from Meg because Serena had the silver gleam of a sprite in her eyes, the spark that promised mischief. He’d always teased her about it.
He hadn’t been there to see the change in her after Meg died, but Serena had seen the difference in the looking glass. The sprightly gleam faded into cloudy shadow, and her eyes had changed from sparkling silver to flat gray.
Langley strode forward and gathered her hands in his own. His hands were large, firm, and comforting.
“Miss Donovan.” His breath hitched, and he squeezed her fingers tightly and shook his head, seemingly at a loss for words. Then he murmured, “Meg. I never thought you would come after… I mean, I hoped—I prayed—that I would see you again, that you would respond with an acceptance to my offer of marriage… But to have you here… my love—it is a dream come true.”
As his words sank in, it struck Serena for the first time that her mother’s lies had deeply affected another person outside the core of their family. This man truly did love Meg. He’d loved her for years. Captain Langley would be devastated if he learned the truth of what had happened that day on the Victory.
She looked up and stared into those deep brown eyes brimming with emotion. Langley was a good man, a respectable man. He was the man Meg had loved, and now Serena had the power to destroy him.
She squeezed his fingers in return. “I missed you,” she whispered.
The shock of losing his beautiful
bride-to-be, Meg Donovan, to the icy waters of the Atlantic changed Captain William Langley’s life forever. Little does he know, an even larger surprise awaits him…
Please turn this page for a preview of
Pleasures of a
Tempted Lady.
Chapter One
William Langley gazed over the bow of his ship, the Freedom, at the rippling gray surface of the ocean. Though the seas had finally calmed, a slick of seawater coated everything, and half of his small crew were still snoring in their bunks, exhausted from keeping them all afloat through last night’s storm.
He ran his fingers through the beads of water along the top rail of the deck. They were soaked through and it’d probably be a month before they dried out, but they were no worse for wear.
Now they could go back to the task at hand—seeking out smugglers along the Western Approaches. In the nearly windless morning, the Freedom crept along in an easterly direction. They were about halfway between Penzance and the Irish town of Cork, though it was likely the storm had blown them off course, and they wouldn’t get an accurate reading on their position until the skies cleared. God only knew when that would be. In the interim, he’d keep them moving east toward England so they could patrol the waters closer to the coast.
“She did well, didn’t she?”
Langley glanced over his shoulder to see his first mate, David Briggs, approaching from the starboard deck.
He smiled. “Indeed she did.” His fingers curled over the deck rail as Briggs came to stand beside him. The Freedom was a newly built American schooner rigged with triangular sails in the Bermuda style, a sight rarely seen among the square-rigged brigs and cutters on this side of the Atlantic. But his schooner was fast and sleek—perfect for the job she had been assigned. And sturdy, as proven by her stalwart response to last night’s storm.
She was, above all, his. Will owned what some might call an entire fleet of ships, but since before the first nail was hammered into place, the Freedom had been his. Three years ago, his carefully rendered plans had been sent to Massachusetts with detailed instructions on how she should be built. And now, with every step along her shiny planked deck, the satisfying twin prides of creation and ownership resonated through him.
The only area in which Will had relinquished control was in the naming of his ship. The name he’d wanted for her would be too obvious. It would raise too many smirking eyebrows in London society. Even his best friends in the world—the Earl of Stratford and his wife, Meg—would frown and question his sanity if he’d given the ship the name his heart and soul had demanded.
So instead of Lady Meg, he’d agreed to the moniker suggested by the American shipbuilder—likely as a joke, since they knew well that he was a consummate Englishman—Freedom. It seemed everything the Americans created had something to do with their notions of freedom or liberty or national pride. Yet, surprising himself, Will had found he wasn’t opposed to the name. For him, this ship did represent freedom.
Being out here again, on the open sea, on this beauty of a vessel and surrounded by his hardy crew—all of it was freeing. The bonds that had twisted around his heart for the past two years, growing tighter and tighter, stifling him until he was sure he’d burst, were slowly unraveling.
Out here, he could breathe again.
He glanced over at Briggs, who was scrubbing a hand over his eyes. “Sleep well?”
“Like the dead.”
“You should have slept longer.”
Briggs raised a brow at him. “I could say the same to you, sir.”
Langley chuckled. “Touché.” Briggs was right. He’d achieved no more than two hours of sleep in the predawn hours. He could have slept longer, but he’d been anxious to survey the Freedom in the light of the day. He was glad he had. The anxiety and energy that had compelled him into action since the beginning of the storm was gone now, and he felt… not exactly happy, but peaceful. For the first time in a long while.
“No sightings this morning,” Briggs said.
“No surprise there,” Will answered.
/> Briggs nodded thoughtfully. “Aye, well, it’s bloody foggy.”
“And we’re too far offshore.” Will had a theory that the particular ship they were pursuing—a brig smuggling thousands of gallons of rum from the West Indies—remained close to the shore for several weeks at a time. Instead of using one cove as a drop for its cargo, it used several—dropping a few barrels of rum here and another few there so as to throw the authorities off their scent. These smugglers were wily, and they had proved elusive to the coast guard as well as the revenue cutters for over two years now.
The Freedom was, in essence, a spy ship—with only four guns and a crew of twenty they probably wouldn’t stand in a fight against a fully armed brig with a crew of a hundred. Their task, instead of capturing the pirates, was to log the brig’s activities and hand over the information to the revenue officers, who would, in turn, seize the ship and its illegal cargo, and prosecute the smugglers.
Briggs sighed, and Will clapped a hand over his shoulder. “Patience,” he said in a low voice.
Briggs was a few years younger than him and anxious to find the culprits, whereas Will tended to take things slowly, as if they had all the time in the world. The truth was probably somewhere in between. If they waited too long, the brig would be on its way back to the West Indies for its next load of cargo, and they would miss this window of opportunity.
Briggs turned to Will and nodded, the edges of his blue eyes crinkling against the glare. “Aye, captain. But we’ve been out here a fortnight already and haven’t seen any hint of ’em.” The wind had picked up, and it ruffled through the other man’s tawny hair and sent wisps of fog swirling through the rigging behind him.
“We’ll find them.” Will squeezed Briggs’s shoulder. Neither man said any more; instead both turned back to gaze out over the ocean. The sea was slowly gathering strength after its rest from the gale, and the schooner sliced through the small waves at a faster pace now. Will took a deep breath of the salt air. So much cleaner than the stale, rank air full of sewage and coal smoke in London.
“What’s that?” Briggs asked.
Will glanced at the man to see him squinting out over the open ocean.
“What’s what?”
Briggs pointed straight ahead. “That.”
Will scanned the sea. Could he have been wrong all this time? Could they encounter the smugglers’ ship way out here? Even as he thought it, he realized how unlikely it was. More likely they’d come across another legal English or Irish vessel.
Seeing nothing, he methodically scanned the blurred, foggy horizon once again, and then he saw it: the figure of a boat solidifying like a specter from the fog.
Will frowned. This vessel was far too small to be this far out at sea on its own.
After half a minute in which they both stared at the emerging shape, Briggs murmured, “Holy hell. Is it a jolly boat?”
“With a broken mast,” Will said, nodding. “I don’t see anyone in it. Can you?”
Briggs leaned forward, squinting hard. He shook his head, but then frowned. “Maybe. Lying on the center bench?”
The mast looked like it had snapped off to about a third of its height, and half the sail appeared to be draped off the side of the little boat, floating in the water. No one was attempting to row.
The boat was adrift. And the Freedom was headed straight for it.
Will could see at least one figure now—or at least a mound of pinkish fabric piled on one of the benches. Beside the bench, he saw the movement. Just the smallest shudder, like the twitch of a frightened puppy crouched beneath one of the bench seats.
He spun around and shouted out an order to Ellis, the man at the helm. They’d been sailing close-hauled, and he told Ellis to turn into the wind on his command. If they timed it properly, rather than barreling right over the little boat and tearing it to splinters, they could pass it on the port side without getting its floating sail tangled in their keel or rudder.
“Aye, captain!” Ellis answered.
Will heard a shout. He turned to take stock of the other seamen on deck. There were six additional men, four of them clustered near Ellis and pointing at the figure of the boat emerging from the fog. The other two had been at work swabbing the deck, but were now looking at the emerging vessel in fascination.
“Fetch the hook,” someone shouted, and a pair of seamen hurried down the port deck where the telescoping hook was lashed.
Everyone else was still asleep, but Will could easily make do with the nine of them. The Freedom was sixty feet of sleek power, and one of the most impressive of her attributes was that her sails were controlled by a series of winches, making a large crew unnecessary. In fact, Ellis and three others could easily control the ship while Briggs, Will, and the other seamen secured the little vessel.
“We’ll draw alongside it on our port side,” Will murmured to Briggs. Even after such a short time aboard the new ship, Will had impeccable timing when it came to the Freedom. Briggs and the crew often laughed that the ship was such a part of him he could command it to do anything he wanted with a mere thought. The truth was, Will knew the Freedom intrinsically. He could predict with great accuracy how it would react to any manipulation of its sails and rudder—certainly a result of knowing everything about the ship since its earliest conceptualization.
“Aye, sir,” Briggs said. “I’ll prepare to secure it portside.”
“Very good.” Will turned back toward the jolly boat as Briggs hurried toward midship. He could see the figure on the bench more clearly now, and he swallowed hard.
It was definitely a woman. The pink was her dress, a messy, frothy, lacy concoction spattered with the muck that was part of the inner workings of any sailing vessel. She lay prone and motionless on the bench. Beside her, the brownish lump wasn’t entirely clear. A dog, Will thought, probably dead afraid, with its head tucked under its body.
He waited another two minutes. The wind had begun to gust, and Will adjusted his plan to compensate. He waited, on edge, judging the wind and the closing distance between the two vessels. Finally he shouted, “Haul up!”
Ellis responded instantly to his order, turning the wheel so the Freedom sailed directly into the wind. The sails began to flap wildly, but Will heard the whir of the winches, and soon the sheets were pulled taut.
The Freedom lost speed quickly as the jolly boat approached, and they drifted to a halt just as a seaman reached out with the grappling hook to snag the gunwale of the small vessel.
Will ran to the port side while Briggs lashed the boat to the Freedom’s cleats and one of the seamen secured a ladder. He had already descended the ladder when Will arrived at the scene.
“There’s a lady here, sir!” The seaman, Davis, who was really just a boy, looked up at Will wide-eyed, as if uncertain what to do.
“Can you carry her, lad?” Will called down. The poor woman hadn’t budged, and her matted hair and torn clothing covered her features. He hoped she could breathe through that thick tangle of blonde hair. He hoped she was alive.
Davis looked rather horrified at the prospect of carrying her, but with a gulp that rolled his prominent Adam’s apple, he nodded. Widening his stance for balance in the bouncing jolly boat, he leaned over and gingerly tucked his arms under the figure of the unmoving woman and hefted her up.
Will saw movement from the corner of his eyes, and he glanced over at the lump he’d thought was a dog.
Two brown eyes stared at him from under a mass of shaggy brown hair. It was looking up from its position curled into a ball on the floor of the jolly boat, but it was no dog. It was a child, and he was creeping backward, as if he were considering escape.
Seeing that his first mate had looked up from his task and had noticed the child as well, Will nodded at Briggs. “Go down and grab him,” he murmured. “Best hurry, too—the boy looks like he’s about to leap overboard.”
Briggs leapt over the side of the Freedom, his movements graceful. The man had a way about him on a ship�
�no matter where he was from the bilge to the top of the mast, he was inherently graceful and self-composed, even in twenty-foot seas.
Briggs’s fast motion evidently frightened the boy, because he hurried backward, and when Briggs stepped over the bench toward him, he scrambled up the gunwale and leapt overboard. Briggs was lightning quick, though. He whipped out his hand, grabbed the urchin by the scruff of the neck, and hauled him back into the boat.
Without making any noise, the boy kicked and flailed, his hands gripping the strong arms around him and trying to yank them away.
“Feisty one, aren’t you?” Will heard Briggs murmur above the slap of the waves against the jolly boat’s hull. “But don’t worry, lad. We’re here to help you, not hurt you.”
That seemed to calm the boy enough for Briggs to get a firmer grip on him, and Will turned back to Davis, who was struggling with getting the lady up the ladder. Another seaman, MacInerny, had climbed halfway down to help, and they’d managed to heft her halfway up.
Will bent over and reached down for her, managing to grasp her beneath the armpits, and with the two seamen’s help, he managed to pull her the rest of the way up. It wasn’t that she was heavy—she was actually a slip of a thing. But the movement of the ocean combined with her dead weight and frothy torn clothing combined to make it a cumbersome process.
Cradling her head, Will gently laid her on the deck.
“She’s breathing,” Davis gasped as he scrambled up the ladder. “She lives!”
Will heaved out a sigh of relief.
Holding the little boy—who looked to be about five or six years old, though Will was certainly no authority on children—Briggs stepped onto the deck. The four men hovered over the woman. Crouched near her feet, Davis cleared his throat and tugged her dress down over the torn and dirty stockings covering her legs.
With his heart suddenly pounding hard, Will raised his hand to push away the blonde mass of hair obscuring her features. Her hair was dense with wetness and salt, but he cleared it away from her face, his callused fingertips scraping over the soft curve of her cheek.
Secrets of an Accidental Duchess Page 33