How To Vex A Viscount

by Marlowe Mia

  He raised a hand to shield his eyes from the glare on the water and squinted at the other tilt boat in the distance. The viscount and Miss Drake were making excellent progress, but Fitzhugh’s vessel managed to keep them in sight.

  “We might spend weeks stumbling about on Braellafgwen looking for the treasure and still come away with nothing. Following them to it is a much simpler matter,” Alistair concluded.

  He didn’t feel the need to add that neither he nor Brumley could afford to hire the little shallop they now rode in, so he had to skulk about in the shadows waiting until Rutland left his home slightly before dawn. Only then could he approach Lord Montford to demand the earl step in and aid the true king’s cause.

  He’d sworn to, after all.

  At first, his lordship was furious at being rousted out of bed so early, but once Alistair mentioned the name of Rutland’s traveling companion, Lord Montford had been eager to join them. Alistair had the distinct impression the earl was not at all happy his son had taken to cavorting with Miss Daisy Drake. Whatever his motivations, it was gratifying to have another peer of the realm on board, on the theory that nobility further ennobled the cause.

  Even so, Lord Montford was reduced to handing over some silver serving spoons, all black with tarnish, as payment for their passage. Yet another example of a land-rich, cash-poor peer groaning under the German usurper’s hand. Time was, the mere dropping of a man’s title was enough to earn him credit at the finest establishments throughout the land. Now, not even the river rats rowing this excuse for a boat would board a noble passenger without collecting the fare up front.

  “But if he finds the treasure first,” Brumley said, “Rutland’s not likely to give it up without a fuss, is he?”

  “Let me worry about my son, Brumley,” Lord Montford said, joining in the conversation for the first time since they boarded the shallop. “I can vouch for his cooperation. I need only give the word.”

  Brumley frowned with concern. “But that woman, that Drake girl, she’s not the sort to go quietly, if you know what I mean. How many times have you tossed her from the Society’s meetings, eh, Fitzhugh? And yet she keeps turning back up like a bad penny.”

  “Lucian thought himself so clever when he hid these, but Avery still takes his orders from me, not my son,” Lord Montford said, patting the handle of the pistol shoved into his waistband. It was part of a matched set of duelling pieces. He’d given the twin to Alistair. “Do not trouble yourself over Miss Drake. She’s the reason I made certain we are armed.”

  The scrape of booted feet and the rumble of masculine voices sounded in the hall. Isabella looked up from the lavender-scented writing paper on her escritoire and saw her brawny son-in-law standing at the parlour door with his scruffy friend at his side.

  “Gabriel, how lovely to see you,” she said, extending a hand to him. The former pirate captain who’d married Isabella’s only daughter bent over her fingertips as smoothly as any dandy. Of course, Gabriel Drake was considered a baron or some such, but in Cornwall, of all rustic places, so Isabella never put too much stock in his title. She was far more impressed by the man himself.

  “You grow more beautiful each time I see you,” Gabriel said with a wink. “Luckily for me, Jacquelyn favours her mother.” He straightened and turned to nod at Geoffrey, who’d been reading when he came. “Wexford. I don’t think you’ve met my friend, Joseph Meriwether, Baron—”

  “Aw, belay that baron stuff,” the squint-eyed old mariner said. Mr Meriwether had been awarded the small barony north of Gabriel’s estate for service to the Crown. “Just call me Meri.”

  The fellow pumped Geoff’s hand vigorously.

  Isabella rang for tea. “What brings you to London?”

  “My old ship is due in port with a consignment of cotton,” Gabriel said. Carding and spinning the cotton into thread provided piecework for his tenants through the winter and a chance to earn some ready coin without leaving their homes. “Besides, I’m hoping to catch up with my old shipmates.”

  “And see if they’re managing to sail as honest mariners yet, without being bored into excessive drink or an early grave,” Meri said.

  “An early grave, in any case,” Gabriel said with a grin. “Excessive drink is a foregone conclusion.”

  “The day’s a bit young for strong spirits yet, but we can certainly accommodate you after supper. Say you’ll stay.” Isabella shepherded her guests to the comfortable chairs across from the settee, where she sat. Her young husband hooked a thigh over the arm of the settee next to her, leaning toward her, the picture of the doting swain.

  Isabella sighed. Say what one will of Geoff, he has a knack for appearances. “Geoffrey just discovered a remarkable case of port. He thinks it’s the best he’s ever had, but he’s dying to have another man’s opinion.”

  Meri clapped his hands together and rubbed his palms with enthusiasm. “I’ll drink to that. When it comes to judging port, everyone’s entitled to my opinion.”

  “And here’s our tea,” Isabella said amid the laughter as Nanette brought the silver tray in and placed it on the low table. Isabella waved her away. She liked to pour out herself, but Nanette knew enough to hover nearby in case something else was needed. “Why didn’t Jacquelyn come with you?”

  “She said Charlotte was too young to enjoy London yet, and dragging the boys about town would make her feel too old,” Gabriel said. Their daughter, Charlotte, was nearly eleven, and the twin boys were eight.

  “Those two would out-devil Old Patch himself,” Isabella said, remembering how she’d had to hide every bit of her delicate breakables the last time they came to visit. “Well, Jacquelyn must enjoy having Daisy back home to help corral those two little imps.”

  Nanette erupted in a fit of coughing.

  Gabriel cocked his head at Isabella. “Daisy is here. With you.”

  “No, she left for home, oh, it must have been over a fortnight ago.” Panic bubbled in Isabella’s chest. “We expect to hear from her any day, saying that she arrived safely.”

  “Well, she never did.” Gabriel turned an evil glare on Lord Wexford. “She was in your care. Why didn’t you escort her home properly?”

  “I offered, but she wouldn’t hear of it.” Geoff rose from his perch on the settee arm. “So I arranged for her to travel with a widow and her daughter who were going to Bath. I put her on the coach myself.”

  Gabriel Drake and his friend began talking at once, and Geoff’s voice chimed in, his tone harsher by the minute. Isabella was trying to think how to soothe all the ruffled masculine feathers in the room. She had to shut them up long enough so they would realize that angry talk would solve nothing. Then they might actually come to a decision about what must be done about this calamity.

  But then she noticed Nanette sending her furious, silent signals and decided the men would have to shift for themselves. When her maid slipped into the hall, Isabella rose quietly and followed her. She hoped the discussion would not come to blows before she returned. Geoff was an amateur pugilist, and acquitted himself admirably in arranged matches, but Gabriel Drake had been a fighting man all his adult life and no doubt held little truck with sporting rules.

  Nanette was wringing her apron in her hands when Isabella joined her.

  “Nanette, is there something you wish to add to the discussion?”

  “Oui, Madame, most desperately I wish it, but I cannot.”

  “And why is that?” Isabella asked, trying to sound calmer than she felt.

  “Because I swore I would not,” Nanette said with anguish. “And you know, Madame—who knows better than you?—that I am a trustworthy keeper of the secrets.”

  “Yes, Nanette.” Isabella nodded. “I’ve always appreciated your discretion.”

  “Then you know I cannot go back on my oath, not even if it means . . .” She dissolved into tears. “Even if I knew a street name, a place where one might find . . .”

  “There, there.” Isabella patted her servant on the s
houlder. So Nanette knew where Daisy was staying in London. “Perhaps it’s not as hopeless as that. What precisely did you swear to?”

  “I swore not to tell a living soul.”

  Isabella smiled. “Then your dilemma is solved. You can’t tell me, even though I know you want to.”

  “But, Madame—”

  “I’m not finished, Nanette.” Isabella picked up a figurine from the foyer table. It was the naughty little statue of Pan that Daisy had left in her room. It was just risqué enough for Isabella to need to display it in her foyer, where her visitors could be either shocked or amused by it, as they chose.

  “You swore, and I would not have you break your oath for worlds,” Isabella said. “Therefore you must not tell a living soul.”

  Nanette erupted in fresh sobs.

  “However, you can tell Pan here.” She waggled the statuette between her two fingers. “He is not a living soul, but he’s an extremely good listener. Unburden yourself to him, my dear, and if I should happen to overhear your counsel”—Isabella shrugged expressively—“it will not be your fault.”

  “Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister.”

  —Genesis 12:13

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Daisy pleaded with Mr Crossly, but he was adamant.

  “I’m sorry as I can be, miss, but it don’t change the particulars,” he said, scratching his freckled, balding pate. “We rowed all the way around the blasted place. That island yonder has no proper dock, no way for me to know where’s a safe place to pull me shallop along. Not a curl of smoke to be seen. That tells me no one lives there. And if no one lives there, it stands to reason there’s cause for it. Most likely, no decent place to make landfall.”

  “But—”

  “If I was to tear the bottom out of the boat on some rocks under the surface, well, how would I feed me family, I asks ye? Besides, if I was to lose me livelihood, Mrs Crossly would tan me hide and pin it up on her kitchen wall.”

  “But our agreement was for you to take us to Braellafgwen.” Daisy glared first at Mr Crossly, then at Lucian, who stared disinterestedly into the distance, refusing to take part in the discussion.

  He might at least make himself useful instead of merely ornamental, she thought with vehemence.

  “No, I agreed to take ye upriver to an unnamed location. If ever a spot looked as if it were lacking a name, it’s that little hamlet there just between them trees.” Mr Crossly swung the tiller around. “I can set ye alight at this village dock and ye can see if there’s a ferryman what can take ye the rest of the way, or ye can ride back to London town with us now and call this a pleasure cruise.”

  “Mr Crossly, this is wholly unaccept—”

  “That’ll do, Mr Crossly,” Lucian finally spoke up. “Leave us here for now, but we’ll need you to fetch us back to town later.”

  “You want me to come for ye tomorrow, then?”

  “No.” Lucian eyed the island that divided the river into equal channels. “Better give us two days.”

  The river man nodded and deposited them on the dock.

  Daisy watched the tilt boat head back downstream with a sinking feeling in her gut. They were so close. She could see the island, its outline hazy through the mist that rose around it. But if they couldn’t find a way over to it, they might as well have stayed in London. Of course, if they had to find a ferryman, so would Fitzhugh. Perhaps the other treasure seekers hadn’t gotten too far ahead.

  “Now what?” she asked.

  “Were you speaking to me?” Lucian said as he started up the goat track toward the village.

  “I don’t see anyone else here,” she answered testily. “How do you propose to proceed?”

  “So I’m allowed a say in my own expedition now? I thought you were making all the travel arrangements,” he said, not slowing his stride.

  “So I did.”

  “And look how well that turned out.”

  “I got us this far.” She scrambled up the slope after him. “We’ll just have to find someone to take us to Braellafgwen.”

  He stopped and extended a hand to help her over the crest of the rise. The tiny hamlet spread out before them, a collection of ramshackle huts around a little stone church. Besides the church, only one other structure looked as though it might have been erected after the Norman conquest. A shingle with a picture of a boar on it twisted in the breeze over the solitary proper door in the village.

  “A public house?” Lucian wondered.

  “Or, please God, an inn,” Daisy suggested hopefully. “Thanks to you, we’ll be here two days.”

  “And nights,” he muttered under his breath.

  “Don’t presume to think about it.” She wasn’t ready to forgive him yet, certainly not enough to allow him to share her bed.

  “Think about what?” He raised a questioning brow, but the smoulder behind his eyes told her exactly what was on his mind. For a moment, the memory of heat, the wickedness of his mouth on her surged back over her in palpable waves. Her belly clenched.

  She almost slapped him for resurrecting that memory, but he offered her his arm in the nick of time.

  “Well, my Lady Clavenhook, adventure calls among the rustics. Shall we sally forth?”

  “Let’s. But tread warily, Sir Knight,” she warned. “Or Lady Rowena of the Deadly Pike will be forced to rise again.”

  Sir Alistair consulted his map once more. They’d met the other tilt boat heading back downriver, without its passengers, but the bends in the Thames prevented them from seeing where Viscount Rutland and Miss Drake were put ashore. An island rose ahead of them, mist-wreathed and ethereal even in the early afternoon.

  “There,” he said, pointing toward it. “That’s Braellafgwen.”

  “It may be, but the party you’re followin’ didn’t put in there,” the boat’s captain said. “An ill-omened sort of place, that island be. I’ve heard tales. Reckon the folk you’re after have gone to that village over there. Fine little dock they have, to be sure.”

  “Nevertheless, that island is our destination.” Alistair rolled up the small map he’d torn from the pages of Edlington’s Age of Magic and stuffed it into the turned-back cuff of his jacket.

  “That’s as may be, gov, but lookit how steep the land lies. No proper beachhead, not according to the charts. Without no dock, we got no place to put ye ashore.”

  “Just get us close enough,” Alistair said. “We’re not afraid of wet feet.”

  “It’s not yer feet I’m frettin’ over. It’s the bottom of me boat. This water’s so silty ye can’t see a foot down. I’ll not ruin me boat for a single fare.”

  “Perhaps you’ll like me to alter our arrangement.” Alistair pulled Lord Montford’s pistol from his pocket and pointed the business end toward the man at the tiller. “Now, order your men to row and take us to the island with all speed.”

  The tilt-boat captain barked an order and they crept toward Braellafgwen. One of the rowers knelt in the prow, trying to judge the draft beneath the craft with his oar. As they neared the island, the current quickened and they had to row faster to maintain even their slow pace.

  “Bottom’s coming up fast, Cap’n,” the crewman shouted when they were still ten feet from the steep banks of the isle. “There’s naught but two feet under the keel. Maybe less.”

  The captain called a halt and the rowers shipped their oars. One of the crewmen dropped the anchor over the side to hold their position in the current.

  “Shoot if ye must. I’ll not risk the boat or the crew another moment in this madness,” the captain said. “A mist like this on a cloudless day ain’t natural. This is an evil place. Don’t ye feel it?”

  “What are we to do now?” Brumley whined.

  “We leave ignorance and superstition behind.” Alistair threw a leg over the side and stepped down into the dark water. It rose to mid-thigh. Lord Montford followed suit.

  “But I can’t swim,” Brumley whimpered.

  “You don’t have to s
wim. You can walk, fool. Now come,” he ordered. When Brumley still hesitated, he added, “Or crawl back to your well-placed wife with your manhood tucked between your cowardly legs.”

  The moment Brumley lowered himself over the side, the tilt-boat crew hauled anchor and rowed away, pulling for all they were worth.

  “Come along, Brumley.” Alistair sloshed toward the island. He heard a yelp behind him and turned to see Brumley step into a hole and sink from sight, his white wig bobbing in the current. Alistair scrambled back to the spot, felt under the water and grasped a handful of his hair. He jerked him to the surface. Brumley came up sputtering and gasping and trying to climb up Alistair’s arm.

  “Good thing you’re not bald or you’d be a dead man,” Alistair said. He kept hold of Brumley’s collar as he waded back toward the island.

  Ahead of them, Lord Montford ploughed through the water steadily, but was not making much progress. He held his pistol over his head to keep his powder dry. Alistair would have to reload his later. For just a blink, it seemed as if the island retreated from them with every step, but Alistair dismissed that notion as fanciful in the extreme.

  “Evil place, my aunt Fannie’s arse,” he said with derision when he finally reached the steep shoulder of the island. He’d never admit it to a living soul, but for a few heartbeats, he’d been beginning to believe the island might indeed be “ill omened.”

  The men scrambled up the fifteen feet of nearly vertical face before the slope relaxed and the island spread out, a tree-covered oval with a high point in the centre.

  “Let’s get a fire going so we can dry our clothes,” Brumley said.

  “We can’t have a fire.” Alistair wished he’d never brought Brumley into this venture if the man was going to be so dense. “Someone might see the smoke.”

  “So we’re stuck here like this. Wet and miserable and . . . I’ll bet neither of you thought to bring any food.” Lord Brumley plopped down on the decaying trunk of a fallen ash. “Why didn’t we go to the village, like Rutland and the Drake girl?”