No. It wasn’t possible.
“Papa, I believe it’s time we retreat to the drawing room for port,” she said.
“A kind offer, Miss,” Wolf said, “but I really must return to my ship. Thank you for an enlightening evening.” He turned for the table where his guns had been placed. A servant had already collected them and trustingly held the handles toward him. He took them one by one and shoved the barrels into his trousers before turning back to Selina. He opened his mouth to speak, closed it, and said, “I’m terribly sorry about Owen. I would have liked to have met your brother. If he’s anything like you, he must be a good man.”
He turned and walked toward the door as if he was going to leave her without a proper goodbye.
Selina shot a frantic glance at Papa, who just stood there and shrugged. “Yes,” she said, leaving her chair to stop Wolf. “He is a very good man. Just like you, Captain.”
Wolf stopped and glanced over his shoulder.
“Before you go, allow me to offer you a gift of appreciation for all that you’ve done.” For all that you’ve done for me.
He regarded her silently as her father, Lord Gariland, and their guests looked on. She felt their stares, knew that what she planned to offer was scandalous on so many levels. A woman wasn’t supposed to give a man gifts unless they were related. But Wolf had given her two things she could never repay: her life and a glimpse at passion. There was only one thing she could give him, other than her love—the gift of music.
Her heart ached dreadfully. There were men in Portreath she could hire to sail her to Cadiz. If not there, she’d approach seamen in St. Ives and so forth and so on until a ship was found and a crew hired. But she could not allow Wolf to leave without hearing “Rondo alla Turca.” If Mozart’s music had anything to do with Wolf’s past, she had to do whatever she could to help him break through the chains binding his memories.
“You owe me nothing, Miss Herding,” he finally said, continuing to the doorway.
“Oh, but I do.” You’ve given my life back. You’ve shown me kindness, mercy, and trust. You’ve accepted me for who I am. “You will not be able to resist this gift.”
He stopped. “What is it?”
“Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.”
Wolf felt everyone’s eyes on him as he glared at Selina, trying to break the spell she’d woven around him. He wasn’t a suitor dependent on a woman’s recognition. He’d been involved with other women, had been married until his wife had died after delivering their stillborn child. Fate, it seemed, continued to conspire against him.
His instincts warned him to put Selina and Trethewey behind him. If the beat of his heart mercilessly pounding in his chest was any indication, she posed a danger to him body and soul.
He was already late to London. There was no harm in listening to Selina play the pianoforte. Walking away, however, wasn’t worth the risk that he’d never remember what had happened to sever him from his parents.
“You’d do that for me?” he asked.
The smile she gave him restored the color in her face. “I owe you that much and more, Captain.”
She was so formal now. He missed the sound of his name on her lips, the brazen woman who’d run into his arms without a stitch of clothing on. He bemoaned never feeling her branding touch or sharing her evocative courage. Her behavior sought to preserve the intimacy of their relationship. It wouldn’t do to allow anyone to think they were closer than they appeared, even if—as Wolf thought—Gariland suspected that very thing. Any man would be a fool to think otherwise.
Betrothals were difficult things to break. Gariland’s title would make Selina a lady in the real sense of the word. Wolf had nothing to offer Selina but shipboard misery and death. Ah, but he secretly wanted to give Selina the world. Therein lay the difference.
She’d grown on him, coiling around his insides like a kraken. “All right. I agree to stay long enough for you to play the pianoforte,” he said.
“I must object,” Herding spat, bolting to his feet. “This isn’t the time for entertainment. There are negotiations to be made.”
The man had no qualms about entertaining his mineral lords while Selina had been fighting for her life. She’d spoken about her father and the fact that she reminded him of his late wife, so perhaps that was the cause of the man’s stringent objections now. Wolf couldn’t allow Selina to jeopardize her position at Trethewey. Not for him.
He watched her expression fall and changed his mind. “You did promise to play it for me once.”
“Yes,” she said. “I did.” Her smile returned, and her breathless voice nearly drove him mad. Why was it so easy to please this particular woman?
“Lord and Lady Basset. Lord Gariland. Ladies and gentlemen. Papa,” she said, motioning with her hands. “Let us end the night on a happier note. We are in accord about bringing my brother home, are we not?” She moved around the table, approaching the Clotworthies. “When your bank was on the verge of closing, who kept it afloat?”
“Owen,” Mr. Clotworthie said. “I nearly lost everything, but the boy is terribly good with money. It’s been nothing but chaos since he’s been gone.”
“And when your mine flooded, Mr. Legge,” she added, “who gathered enough men to work the pump engines day and night?”
“Owen Herding,” Mr. Legge replied. “Nearly drowned inspecting my mine, he did.”
She went on to the Pasmoores, the Surrages, the Wilkyns, and the Bassets, each one repeating the same theme, vouching for Owen’s generosity, constancy, and responsibility.
Lord Gariland’s attention never strayed from Selina, and he paid particular attention when she walked toward Wolf, her hair in tight ringlets about her head and adorned with seed pearls.
“Owen loves music. He claimed it reminded him of our mother and encouraged me to play, even going so far as to sneak into my lessons.” She placed her hand on Wolf’s arm and turned back to the people in the room. “In honor of Owen—” she squeezed his arm “—and the man who saved my life, let us withdraw to the parlor so I can thank the captain formally.”
“Do not go to any trouble on my behalf, Miss. I really do need to be on my way.” As much as it hurt him to be so close to what he wanted—perhaps finding the key to unlocking his past—Selina belonged to someone else, and that someone was beginning to show signs of losing his patience.
Lord Gariland cut in as if on cue. “Miss Herding has been through a great ordeal. I insist she be given time to rest before taking on so strenuous a performance. She’s too weak, Herding.” He strutted forward and removed Selina’s hand from Wolf’s arm. “Look how she leans on the captain for support.”
“I am fine,” she contradicted him. “Quite well enough to play, and I shall do so.”
“I really must insist that your daughter’s health be taken into account, Herding,” Gariland said.
Wolf sucked in a breath to keep from cutting a jab to Gariland’s face, but he was right for once.
She jerked away. “I said I am quite well.”
“Do not play tonight, my darling,” Gariland said, trying to coax her away from Wolf. “You need your rest. We can discuss how to find your brother in the morning.”
“Do play, Miss Herding,” Lady Basset said, her keen eyes focused on Selina. “We seldom get to hear music now that our daughter is grown with a family of her own.”
“It’s settled, then.” Selina took the arm Wolf offered her without hesitation. “Come, Captain. Let us see if we can unlock your secrets.”
“What the devil does that mean?” Gariland asked, looking back and forth between them.
Wolf held back a grin as he escorted Selina to the parlor, her fiancé calmly following close behind. When Wolf left Trethewey, he wouldn’t come back. She was betrothed; he was a spy. No good could come from loving a man like him.
Loving? Who said anything about love?
It was impossible for deep emotions to form in so short a time. Wasn’t it? Though, truth be told, Wo
lf never did anything halfway.
He and Selina made their way to the pianoforte. Her father, grumbling about all the fuss, and the other guests took their places on the settees and armchairs spread throughout the room. Selina sat on the bench before the instrument, arranged her skirts, and searched for the proper sheet music. Wolf watched her remove her gloves, one finger at a time.
The rings around her wrists were still rosy, but the liniment he’d given her had healed the majority of her wounds. Cuvier’s bite mark had faded until only someone who knew it was there would notice. Bruises marked her forearms, and one of her elbows was rubbed raw. She didn’t seem to be in any pain, thankfully, and he took pleasure in memorizing everything about her: her stormy eyes, her oval face, her porcelain skin, the pulse at the base of her neck, and the sloping divide that dipped between her breasts.
She laid her fingers on the keys and stroked the opening notes, provoking a more intense reaction from him the longer she played. The emotional tug on Wolf’s soul made him blink. There was something familiar about the piece. He’d heard it before. But where?
He closed his eyes, journeying to a home he didn’t recognize as Selina extracted the melody. Bathed in sunlight, a woman sat beside a large window in his mind’s eye. A man stood beside her, his hand possessively on her shoulder, his face alight with wonder. As she played, they both looked toward Wolf. Laughter floated to his ears. Hearing a sound, he turned and watched a brown-haired boy run down the hallway.
Selina continued to play, the composition gaining power, shifting to a sigh, and then rising once more as her fingers magically transported Wolf in time.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
He followed the boy into another room where a different man stood. Voices argued over the music. The keys screeched as the woman’s hands flattened. “Run, Wolf. Run!” she shouted.
Something cold and unyielding filled his palms. He jerked as a gunshot deafened his ears, followed by wailing, a great deal of it. The woman was draped over the man, tears flooding her face, blood staining her gown.
The music crescendoed as Wolf saw a smoking gun in his hands. Screams echoed in his head. He backed away. “No. No.”
“Wolfgang, what have you done? He was your father!”
Chapter Sixteen
Selina lost herself in the rhythmic sonata, feeling her cares diminish. She strummed the chords, quickly, then slowly, fleshing out the melody with its staccato pitch and fluid transitions, feeling her body sway forward and back as she played for Wolf. Never before had she performed with so much emotion. Conflicting tears of joy and sadness filled her eyes until the keys and sheet music were lost in a haze. Was it the trauma she’d experienced, the danger, fear, and hopelessness that gave sway? Or was it the passion she’d captured in Wolf’s arms on board the Sea Wolf that brought music to her life?
It didn’t matter that she couldn’t see the sheet music. She knew the piece by heart and gave herself over to the pain she’d recently experienced, her regrets and despair over both her inability to save Owen and failure to persuade Wolf to rescue him. She played on and on until at last the sonata came to an end. Her fingers dallied on the last notes, hungering for the sustenance the music fed her soul, feeling its loss now that the keys went silent.
Applause erupted in the room. Selina wiped an errant tear from her cheek and glanced up. Papa sat with his mouth agape, staring at her as if seeing her for the very first time. He nodded and then stood, clapping his hands, a lone tear cascading down his face.
Oh, Papa . . . Why couldn’t you have allowed yourself to feel Mama’s spirit sooner? Why did you make me carry the guilt of her death every day of my life?
Papa moved toward her slowly. “Moira, where have you been?” he asked, speaking her mother’s name for the first time in twenty-one years. “You were here before me all this time, and I did not recognize you.”
She closed her eyes and fought back tears. There had once been a time when she’d yearned for Papa’s love. Days when she was to be seen, not heard, and nights when she cried out in her sleep, only to be comforted by Owen, the only person who had ever truly loved her. And now he was gone.
“I thought I’d lost you forever.” Papa moved a stray curl out of her face. “Can you ever forgive me?”
“Herding, what kind of foolishness is this? That is Selina, your daughter,” Lord Gariland said.
Papa blinked, and then blinked again. He dropped his hands and turned away, placing his palm on his forehead. “Get out!” he shouted.
“Papa, we have guests,” she reminded him gently.
“I said get out!” He grabbed fistfuls of his hair as his mining partners and their wives scurried from the room. “Velly! Velly!”
Velly rushed in as Selina looked for Wolf. “May I help you, sir?”
“Destroy this devil’s instrument. I never want to see it again!” he cried.
“No!” Selina stepped back. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t destroy her mother’s pianoforte.
Velly didn’t move but looked at Selina for assistance as Papa lifted a bust from the bookcase and beat it against the instrument’s keyboard. The keys screeched in agony.
She grabbed her mouth, hands shaking, her heart breaking as an anguish she’d never known assaulted her. Tears flooded down her face. She could no longer see. Her mouth quivered. Someone grabbed her, spinning her around to face him. It was Lord Gariland.
“If you think that by making a mockery of me with your captain, you can shame me into crying off, you are mistaken. You will marry me, and I will inherit your father’s money if it’s the last thing you do.”
“Where’s Wolf?” she asked with a glare, not caring if she used his given name. “What have you done with him?”
“Nothing.” Lord Gariland laughed wickedly as he grabbed one of her injured wrists. She winced. “Apparently he didn’t appreciate your performance as much as you hoped he would.” He wrenched her painstakingly close and hissed in her face. “Is that what you were up to? Was it your plan to seduce him right before my eyes?”
“Where is he?” she cried, ignoring his accusations. She pummeled Lord Gariland’s chest with her fists. “Wolf would not leave me without saying goodbye.”
“He’s gone. Ran off and left you, Selina, like the filthy, misbegotten pirate he is. And I will never let you forget it.”
When Wolf stormed out of the drawing room, he’d made his way to the front door. There, he found Polke standing with his overcoat and hat in hand. “Will you be needing anything else for your journey, Captain?”
“No,” he said, anxious to flee the music infiltrating the house.
“I’ve taken the liberty of having Worden ready your horse, sir. You will find him at the stables.”
“Thank you. You’ve been very helpful, bloke.”
“It’s Polke, sir. And it’s been my pleasure.”
He held Wolf’s coat up and insisted on easing his overcoat onto his shoulders. He handed Wolf the hat. “Will there be anything else, sir?”
He nodded. “Watch over her,” he said. “Tell her . . .” He shook his head. Nothing anyone could say would erase the fact that he was leaving Selina without saying goodbye.
Polke waited several seconds more, then asked, “Tell her what, sir?”
Wolf struggled to form the words that would ease his pride and bring any consolation to Selina. He was certain she cared for him as he did for her, but he couldn’t allow his emotions to disrupt his duty to Wellington and the Legion. Not after he’d remembered the monster he truly was. “Tell her I am sorry for my hasty departure, but I must go.”
And put her out of my life forever.
Polke bowed his head. “Safe journey, sir.”
“Thank you, Polke,” he said, saying the man’s name out loud for the first time.
Wolf placed his hat on his head and adjusted it. He inhaled a deep breath and left Trethewey House, putting every good thing that had stumbled into his life behind him. He ambled down the drive, gravel crun
ching beneath his feet, to the stable where he suspected he’d find Worden with the horses.
Lantern light beckoned him closer to the half-light where a man led a horse out by its reins.
“Be ye ready to make way, Cap’n?” Worden asked.
“Aye.” He cleared his throat. “I need to sail with the tide.”
“Mind the weather, sir. Air smells fishy. Could be a gale comin’.”
“Thank you, Worden.” Wolf wasted no time mounting the animal.
“Will Miss Herding be joinin’ ye?”
Wolf glanced down at Worden, horrible images flashing through his mind. He’d broken his mother’s heart. He’d run away without knowing what had ever truly happened to her.
“No,” he said. “She is safer here than with me.” He’d killed his own father. He was responsible for the deaths of his wife and lover. No. Selina would never be safe with him. He would not let her be hurt, or worse, killed.
He veered his mount away from Worden and the stables. He headed for the open grassland, riding swiftly across the green lawn to the hedgerow trees that separated Trethewey House from the pitted mines that dotted the landscape. They led from what he wanted most to Portreath.
A deep pain pierced his heart, one unlike any he’d ever experienced. He slapped the reins against the horse’s flanks, urging it into a faster gallop, longing to burn off steam, to try to forget he’d forged his path to destruction by killing his own flesh and blood.
Moonlight guided his journey along the sweeping landscape. Distant sounds of thunder rent the air, and still, he rode faster, harder, desiring to put Selina, music, memories, and everything connected to her out of his mind. The beat of his horse’s hooves hit the uneven ground.
Clip-clop. Clip-clop.
Clippety-clop. An offbeat canter answered.
Wolf glanced over his shoulder at the darkening path behind him. He didn’t know this landscape, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t accustomed to the sounds found when riding at night.
The Mercenary Pirate (The Heart of a Hero Book 10) Page 19