Or perhaps it was simply as Stephen had said as they finished checking the last of the crates in preparation for setting sail: He was too preoccupied with a pair of sapphire-blue eyes.
He remembered those bright blue eyes filled with wonder and joy as the new colt had struggled to its feet, and the way they lit up with shy humor over the stallion’s nightly antics. He grimaced at the memory of those blue eyes, dark as midnight and shining with tears as he took what he wanted with no more thought than a rutting bull. Lucy hadn’t deserved the kind of treatment she’d received at his hands, and he would make it up to her when he returned.
A tussle started up in the larboard doorway that led to his quarters, and just as he began to move toward the commotion, he saw something—a child—break loose from the knot of men and scramble several feet away, only to be tackled by Morgan. As the boy struggled furiously, arms and legs flailing, a stream of oaths and curse words came from Morgan, who was putting forth his best effort to end the fight.
Just as it seemed Morgan would win, for the child had almost stilled his frantic movements, Morgan yelled and released his quarry, falling to the deck and grabbing his side.
“The little bastard bit me, he did!”
Only a few yards away now, Derek stood implacable as the bundle of movement hurled itself in his direction and landed flat and hard against Derek’s body. He reached down to seize the errant boy and lifted him up to inspection as though he were a bug.
“I thought as much. What’s he doing here?” Derek asked.
“Cap’n, it weren’t our fault,” Morgan began. “He stowed away in America and by the time we found out, it was too late to drop him off anywheres. But he was told to stay in London. I swear, Cap’n, it were made clear.”
Derek stared down at the dirty, tear-smudged face of the boy he’d rescued from poverty in the streets of Baltimore, rescued after the lad had robbed him. The boy, who hadn’t expected to be chased so exhaustively by his victim, had been thin enough to slip through the bars of an iron gate of a factory only just built, but the size of his head prevented his escape. Before he realized his error and backed himself out, Derek had caught up with him, lifting him out and demanding back the expensive timepiece.
But as he had looked into the lifeless expression of opium-dulled eyes, and had felt the lightness of a body that should have weighed twice as much, something had happened to Derek, something he couldn’t explain even to himself. He had ended up offering the child a job as his part-time cabin boy and full-time errand boy, muttering something about the boy’s fleet feet.
Jimmy proved to be a good investment of Derek’s time, after he quit lifting items from Derek’s business acquaintances. Once the child realized he wouldn’t go hungry again, he even quit stealing food from the garbage.
Derek had been steadfast in his resolution that Jimmy not accompany the volunteers on this voyage, for there was no way to know what would happen. The men were being paid a fortune, for a man who could be trusted in all things was worth a fortune. His crew made their own decisions, knowing the voyage would be an uncertain one, fraught with dangers even Derek could not foresee. Jimmy, on the other hand, was a child, and he could not possibly understand the risks.
“Well,” Derek growled as he released the child who hadn’t yet known eleven years, his stern voice making the boy flinch, “what have you to say for yourself?”
Tears leaked from the corners of the boy’s eyes. “I couldn’t stay in London, Cap’n. Them press gangs, they don’t care who they take,” he said with a small sob, fitfully wiping the telltale signs of his cowardice from his cheeks with grubby fingers. “I had to run from ’em twice, and I almost got it the second time. I’d rather die with you, sir, than be taken by them. Please, don’t be angry with me, Cap’n.”
It was one more worry, Derek thought, but there was nothing he could do. “You smell like the rats in the hold,” he grumbled. “Fetch a tub to the deck and take a bath, and wash your clothes while you’re at it. I won’t be having that stench in my cabin for the next two months.”
It was the closest he could come to agreeing to keep the child on as his cabin boy without sounding softhearted, but glancing quickly about the deck, he could see the men weren’t fooled. His pilot, Williams, wore a knowing smile, one crewman elbowed another, and Morgan’s face sagged in relief.
“Any other surprises?” Derek barked. “Anything else I should know about? Then what are you waiting for? Get back to your posts!”
*****
The days passed uneventfully as the Siren sailed toward the West Indies, but Derek couldn’t shake the sense of foreboding. He spent more time than usual on deck, catching sleep at odd hours and only when he was so fatigued that sea and sky blurred together in the telescope.
On one of those days, when his eyes were scratchy from lack of sleep, he had just drifted off when he was awakened by the sound of the cabin door being flung open. Before Jimmy finished telling him of the approaching French corvettes, he was halfway to the door, stomping into his boots as he went.
French corvettes! The Siren flew an American flag, though she could just as easily fly an English flag since Derek held a Letter of Marque from the Crown, but the French wouldn’t care whose ship it was. It was a beauty, his finest design, and there wasn’t another like it. Tall, with acres of canvas, a knife-edged bow and the widest beam over halfway back, it could outrun any ship on the seas. The French would be fools not to go after such a prize.
As soon as he reached the helm, he took the spyglass from Morgan, noting the grim set of the older man’s face.
“There’s three of ’em, sir, comin’ from all directions. And they appear to be headin’ straight for us, almost as if they knowed in advance we’d be here.”
Snapping open the telescope and looking to the north, Derek felt the first wave of apprehension as he took in the sight. The French frigate carried twenty-eight eighteen-pounders on its gun deck, six more carronades on its fo’csle and two bow chasers. He didn’t need to examine the other ships to know they would be armored the same, but he did, and his trepidation grew.
He scanned the eastern skies. The storm that had been heralded by the clouds a little earlier was much closer now. The winds were whipping up, and heavy, dark clouds filled the sky, absorbing the weak golden glow of the sinking sun.
The sliver of a moon would afford little light, and he said a silent prayer of thanks. Attacked in daylight on calm seas, his lightly armed ship would be no match for the corvettes, but the Siren excelled in maneuverability and speed, and its perfectly balanced design could withstand the fiercest of storms. As heavily armed as the French ships were, they would have a tough time of it when the storm hit, at least that’s what he was hoping, and by the look of the black clouds rolling in, that would be any minute.
“Furl the sails,” he ordered, waiting while Morgan shouted out the order. “Tell the men to lash themselves to the ship!” There was no sense in trying to outrun the French now, not with their ships closing in from all sides and the storm but minutes from impact. And what a storm it would be. The rain came down in thick sheets and the foamy waters churned. His men stumbled about, their movements twice as slow as usual due to the roll of the ship and the gusty winds.
He knew about these summer storms, storms that could bring swells of over twenty feet with wind gusts too fast to be calculated. He made sure that every man was lashed to the ship, then he tied a length of rope around himself, one that was long enough to allow movement without letting him slip overboard, and he secured the other end around the base of the main mast.
The two closest corvettes were only now beginning to shorten sail. They’d been within firing range for a few minutes and their attack was imminent, but there was nothing Derek could do. The French would get off shots before the worst fury of the storm hit, and he could only hope the pitch and roll of their ships prevented good aim.
“That one’s not going to make it, Captain,” shouted Morgan above the how
l of the wind, pointing to the ship to the east.
Derek nodded as he looked through the pelting rain toward the ship. It was indeed in trouble; the sea and winds tossed it about as though it were a stick. As the Siren’s crew looked on, a giant wave pooped the frigate’s deck. Without a chance to recover, the ship rolled onto its side and within moments split apart into pieces, disappearing as though it had never been.
Not one hundred yards to the west, the flash of a fuse announced the first shot, the French captain’s decision spurred by desperation. A deafening explosion followed, but the shot that might have cut a swathe of death and destruction through the Siren overshot its mark, plunging into the roiling seas far off the bow. Another explosion followed, this time a round of grape shot that rained on his deck with bloody fury. As he was thrown backwards, attacked and bleeding from the force of flying splinters, he heard screams from his men and smelled the charring of flesh. Struggling to his feet, mindless of his own pain, he tried to make it to the nearest man downed by the exploding shot.
The storm was completely upon them now, its high winds and biting rain making it almost impossible for him to take a step toward Joseph Leadley, who lay moaning and clasping his leg. Then a huge swell washed over the deck, taking Leadley, whose lashing had been burned through by the grape shot, with it toward the rail and certain death. Derek propelled himself forward with all his strength and seized the man, managing to hold them both down while the water washed over the rail and into the sea. He cut himself loose from his rope, tying it around Leadley, and made his way to the center of the ship again.
Checking the corvette to the north, Derek saw a burst of wind fill its heavy, rain-soaked sails, flicking the foot-wide mizzenmast off the deck as though it were a splinter. Sodden canvas whipped about uncontrollably as the French crew was forced to forget their attack and save themselves, not only from the storm but from the cannons rolling back and forth across the decks, their five-hundred-pound weights annihilating everything in their paths.
Though the two damaged French ships might survive the storm, Derek knew they would not be able to resume their attack against his ship, not before he had the chance to get away, at any rate. And get away he would. The worst of the fast-moving storm was already behind them.
“Prepare to make sail!” he shouted to Morgan, who in turn signaled to the men, the howling wind still too loud to allow a verbal command. The men cut through the lashes that had saved their lives through the storm, and carefully took their places.
At the wheel, Williams maneuvered the ship into its proper position to make full use of the wind. The rigging shrieked as the Siren’s sails caught and billowed out, putting quick distance between Derek’s ship and the French.
A cheer went up from his crew, and Derek felt a dizzying sense of relief, though he knew they had not come through the adventure unscathed. With a bleeding body and grimly set jaw, he helped carry the wounded below.
*****
Derek turned over in his makeshift cot, unable to sleep. The summer heat was almost unbearable, but it wasn’t the heat that kept him awake. It was his conscience.
Joe Leadley would live, thank God, if his wound was properly taken care of, and it would be, even if Derek had to tend it himself.
But he hadn’t counted on Jimmy.
Jimmy lay a few feet away in Derek’s bed, unconscious, his wounds from the grape shot festering. By the time Derek learned of Jimmy’s injuries, the boy was delirious, ranting about how he’d wanted to save Derek. Jimmy had taken to the deck, though he’d been told to stay below, his sole purpose to look after the man who’d been everything to him for as long as he could remember.
The knowledge of Jimmy’s loyalty sickened Derek. Here was a boy who thought him a hero, and he’d hardly given the lad a thought since leaving America. And it wasn’t only Jimmy he had to answer to.
He thought of the injured crew who’d been told of the danger but had come willingly anyway, wanting the money that was offered, yet more likely because they trusted their captain to see them through. He thought of Lucy, awaiting his return, who had agreed to forget his past bad behavior, to start their relationship anew. He thought of Stephen, who had supported him from the beginning in his masquerade and whose own reputation might be sullied or even ruined because of it.
He was responsible for endangering the lives of all these people because of what could very well be a foolish need to live up to his father’s expectations. A father who, as Stephen kept reminding him, was not alive to appreciate his efforts. A father who might not even deserve them.
Derek wondered if the gossip Stephen hinted at was true. In reality Derek knew nothing of his father’s character. Derek had barely been tolerated as a child, and the hurt he’d felt had most likely kept him from any logical deductions when it came to his father’s behavior. He had received no communication from the man in the fourteen years of their separation, and the journal told him little indeed since it was mostly about the suspected smugglers. Even that information was puzzling. A few names, many suspicions, some clues, most of them ambiguous. None of it told him anything about his father, except that his father had been obsessed with proving the guilt of the smugglers, whomever they were. Everything else he knew about his father came from his mother. His sweet, tolerant mother who found no fault with anyone.
For the first time since he began his masquerade, he questioned his right to put the lives of others at risk. It didn’t matter anymore that the men he sought were traitors. He should have done as Stephen said and turned over his evidence to the authorities, men trained in such investigations, who wouldn’t endanger others.
He had never questioned his ability to do exactly as he planned, to bring the criminals to justice. He’d been sure he knew what was best for all concerned, in the same way his father had always been sure his decisions concerning Derek were for the best. He had despised his father most of his life for his arrogance in making those decisions, and now here he was, carrying on the tradition.
He had realized another thing during this trip. He wasn’t a sailor, he was an engineer, and maybe not even that. The joy he’d attributed to sailing the seas had been nothing more than pride in his designs. Each voyage on a newly designed ship had brought a feeling of exaltation, a euphoria that had nothing to do with the sea. It had been about proving his worth, to both his father and himself. His father was gone, and with him had gone Derek’s chance to prove himself a worthy son, but his father should never have made him feel that such proof was necessary.
As he closed his bleary eyes, he wondered if he should end the masquerade when he returned to England, whether or not he learned the identity of the smugglers and his father’s murderer. Stephen was right. It was it time to let go of the past and get on with his future.
*****
It seemed only a moment later that a knock rattled Derek’s cabin door, though a quick look at his pocket watch told him he’d slept away the night. The door opened and a worried-looking Morgan stuck his head in.
“Beggin’ your pardon, Captain,” Morgan said, “but there’s something you need to see.”
Without bothering to ask questions, Derek rolled off his cot and groggily followed his first mate.
All was quiet in the early light of dawn. Men stationed on watch stood like statues at their posts. Four more men prowled the perimeter of the ship, like constables on the lookout for thieves. A steady breeze carried the ship along, its bow cutting cleanly through the glassy waters.
Morgan hurried to the open hatch. Derek followed him down into the hold.
“I was checking on the cargo, sir, making sure the storm hadn’t done any damage. Some of the crates had fallen over, so Jenkins and me was rightin’ them. That’s when we saw this ’un here that’s all busted up.” Morgan moved his lantern closer to the shattered wood and the pile of goods that lay beneath it, goods that included not only the expected whiskey, but muskets as well.
Derek stared at the weapons, stupefied. “H
ave you checked any of the other crates?” he finally asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.
Morgan nodded, his face somber. “They’re all the same, Captain, in both holds, at least the crates that’s supposed to be whiskey. No wonder them Frenchies was after us.”
No longer the least bit sleepy, Derek’s mind reeled with the implications of the find. Someone had planned this, and there was no way to know if the goods had arrived at the warehouse packed this way, or if they had been switched in storage, though he suspected it was the former. Stephen spent too much time at his warehouse for the switch to have taken place there.
He remembered Stephen’s insistence that they inspect the crates, and he wished now that they had done more than a cursory inspection, though the fault was his. Stephen was right; his mind had been on other matters.
Rubbing his forehead to ease a sudden headache, he tried to think. Had the merchants shipping the whiskey managed the substitution, or were they pawns in this game too? Several different merchants had shipped whiskey; they couldn’t all be involved, could they?
Whatever the answer, he wouldn’t arrive in the West Indies with the weapons aboard, even if it meant tossing them over the side. He wouldn’t chance putting weapons into the hands of the French, who had evidently known exactly what he was carrying. Had, in fact, been waiting for him. Their knowledge of his cargo would explain the careful positioning of the three ships, the way they’d turned toward his in unison.
That meant the smugglers had infiltrated his operation and not the other way around.
Duke Of Deception (Wentworth Trilogy) Page 21