My Enemy, My Heart (The Ashford Chronicles)

by Laurie Alice Eakes

  Chloe clapped her hand over Juliet’s mouth. “Will you ever learn when to keep your tongue inside your teeth?”

  “I have bespoken dinner,” Phoebe said a little too quickly. “I told them to begin serving as soon as you arrived.”

  Deirdre’s head spun, and she leaned back in her chair.

  “Are you all right?” Kieran moved to crouch beside Deirdre’s chair, his eyes holding concern.

  Deirdre drew as far from him as the chair allowed. How dare he act the caring husband when her men were on their way to hell on earth?

  He covered her hand with his and squeezed. “They are at Dartmoor. I am sorry.”

  Her only hope for the crew now lay in either freeing them or praying the war would not last for long. Except the brevity of the war would likely mean America would lose, making them all British subjects again.

  She gripped the arms of the chair to stop herself from springing up and racing from the room.

  Kieran laid one hand over hers. “I went to church today and asked the vicar to pray for them.”

  “You went to church on a weekday?” Juliet swooped down on her brother and pulled his hair. “Does impending fatherhood make you truly repentant?”

  Phoebe moaned. “Where did I go wrong as a mother?”

  “You needed more discipline,” Tyne said.

  “Oh, Papa.” Juliet giggled. “You never needed to discipline me.”

  “He most certainly did,” Chloe muttered.

  The entrance of inn servants with trays of food ended that discussion.

  Kieran rose and drew Deirdre up after him. “Are you up to eating some dinner?”

  Deirdre wasn’t sure, but the scent of warm, fresh bread drew her to the table on Kieran’s arm. He pulled out the chair to the right of his father’s, then moved around the table to the other side and his mother’s right and Chloe’s left. Juliet sat to Deirdre’s right and tried to engage her in conversation, but Tyne shot her a look that shut her up more effectively than did words or actions from anyone else.

  “I enjoyed looking over your schooner today.” Tyne dipped his spoon into a bowl of lobster bisque. “I can see why she’s so fast. What a beautiful design. But she cannot carry much cargo with such a shallow draft.”

  “She’s so fast we don’t need to carry a great deal of cargo.” Deirdre knew too little about fashion for Juliet, but Tyne knew ships and cargo, and so did Deirdre.

  “So you concentrated on a light, high-profit cargo.” Tyne leaned back so the servant could exchange his soup plate for a plate of oysters.

  Deirdre shook her head at the waiter. “Since the Embargo Act five years ago, my father”—she swallowed the burning at the back of her throat—“concentrated on the China run. It has proved profitable.”

  Tyne looked thoughtful.

  The hairs on the back of Deirdre’s neck prickled, alerting her to be cautious about mentioning much more about profits. By law, that money belonged to Kieran as her husband, and she didn’t want him to find out where or how much she still possessed. To free her crew, she would more than likely need every last coin.

  Tyne pushed the oysters aside and picked up his wineglass. He gazed down the table at either Phoebe or Kieran, Deirdre couldn’t tell, with the former talking to Juliet and the latter to Chloe. Then Tyne turned his full attention back to her. “Kieran said you had land in Virginia.”

  “Yes, but it was only a thousand acres.” Because she knew these things mattered to Englishmen, she decided to give him her lineage. “My father’s family ended up there after the Jacobite rebellion in 1715. My mother’s family are descendants of Lord Fairfax.”

  Tyne smiled. “That sounds more prestigious than the Ashfords. Do you have relatives living? I can probably manage to get a message to them regarding your whereabouts.”

  “Some distant cousins in the western part of Virginia and into Kentucky. I’ve never met them, but they may wish to know about my father.”

  “Yes, your father.” Tyne touched her hand. “Please accept my condolences. As you have discovered by now, I know, Kieran has not been an exemplary son, but becoming a privateer is the worst of his transgressions, and depriving you of your only parent in doing so is unforgivable.”

  Deirdre looked at her husband, now laughing with his mother and elder sister over something Juliet had said, and shook her head as she turned back to Tyne. “I can’t wholly blame him for my father’s death. He would have died soon anyway, I’m afraid. According to the log, he was having such bad headaches and pains in his chest that he had been dosing himself with laudanum. I think he wanted to get me home safely.”

  Tyne sighed. “And my son kept him from fulfilling his wish. The least we can do to make up for it is keep you safe.”

  “As long as I keep my mouth shut about being from Virginia.”

  That was probably not polite, as the man was being genuinely kind to her, yet she couldn’t resist.

  He gave her a grim smile in acknowledgment. “It would be best as long as this little conflict with your country is on. Please. We have some . . . associates who are not fond of Yankees. I will know more about the situation when we return from London.”

  “We?” Deirdre crushed the rest of her bread roll. “You and Phoebe are going?”

  “Kieran and I are going. I still have some friends in the Admiralty . . . Ah, I smell fricassee of chicken. Will you take some of this, m’dear?”

  She would. The creamy sauce made her mouth water.

  At the far end of the table, Kieran was regaling his mother with the story of meeting her old friend from Savannah. “I do believe she intended me to make an offer to carry her daughters back here to England.”

  “Perhaps we should invite them,” Phoebe said. “They can’t meet many men there on Bermuda who aren’t military.”

  “We will see how the war goes,” Kieran said. “Both wars.”

  “Are they pretty?” Juliet asked.

  Kieran shrugged. “I did not notice.”

  That made his sisters laugh and scoff in doubt.

  “One matter I am seeing to in London,” Tyne said to Deirdre alone, “is the fact that I wish to purchase the Maid of Alexandria for myself rather than turning it over to the naval prize courts. Someone needs to start making regular runs of goods to the New South Wales colony, and that takes a fast vessel. But I am concerned about piracy in the Indian Ocean. Can she carry more ordnance than you have aboard her?”

  With the hairs on her neck prickling again, Deirdre thought before answering. “More ordnance would slow her, sir. And she lies so low in the water now, it might make her outright dangerous in a storm, especially when fully laden. Speed is your best weapon.”

  The waiter entered again and began to carve a joint of beef.

  “As long as the wind does not fail you.” Tyne looked thoughtful as he sipped from his wineglass.

  Suddenly, Deirdre thought she might fall asleep where she sat. Pushing back her chair, she glanced from Tyne to his wife, not sure whom to ask. “I know this is terribly rude of me, but may I be excused?”

  At once, Kieran was on his feet and around the table, assisting her to her feet. “Are you ill? Faint?”

  “Merely tired.” She forced herself to remain upright.

  “Take her up to your room, Kieran,” Phoebe said. “We dragged her about far too much today.”

  “No, no, Kieran,” Deirdre protested. “Stay with your family.”

  She wanted to be alone, think about any benefit she could have given the enemy with her answers to his questions, fall asleep before Kieran returned and she had to be alone with him again, knowing his solicitude was because of guilt over displeasing his family and not caring for her.

  “Nonsense. You cannot go up alone.” He slipped his arm around her waist and ushered her from the room.

  When they were inside their chamber and he had added some coal to the grate, Deirdre expected him to leave. As weary as she felt, she would not undress for bed until he returned to his fami
ly. She stood by the fire and waited for him to go.

  He began to prowl around the room, toying with her hairbrush on the dresser, lifting a swath of ribbons off the table beside the bed, rearranging the bed pillows. Finally, he reached the door.

  Deirdre opened her mouth to assure him he need not hurry back.

  He turned the key in the lock. “Tyne told you that we are going to London tomorrow, did he not?”

  “Yes.” Deirdre’s mouth was dry. “Are you going to petition the courts or the Church or whoever is in charge of these things to have our marriage set aside?”

  His eyes widened. “That would be Parliament, but why would you think I would do that?” He paced toward her. “You are my wife.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “Your wife you don’t want.”

  “That is not true.” He placed his hands on her shoulders and leaned toward her.

  She flattened her palms against his chest and held him off. “That’s not what I mean, and you are well aware of the fact.”

  Kieran covered her hands with his, pressing them hard against his chest so she felt his heart racing. “One purpose of this journey is to ensure Chloe will have a successful Season in the spring.”

  “Because of the scandal.” Her own heart rate matched his.

  Kieran nodded.

  A chill stole through Deirdre’s limbs. “You won’t fight another duel, will you?”

  “I did not fight the last one.” He released her and turned away. “But to reassure you, no, I will not fight any duels. Nor will I resume the behavior that got me into trouble the first time.”

  She thought she said she didn’t care what he did in town, but she did—for the sake of the baby, of course. Kieran’s child deserved a father he could be proud of, not a ne’er-do-well nobleman with too much money and too little responsibility. Boredom had driven him into activities that had persuaded his father the worst of him was true. As long as she was his wife, she didn’t want to be the recipient of others’ pity because her husband was a rakehell.

  “Your father should set you up in business so you have something to occupy you.” She spoke to his broad back.

  “I have business.” Those shoulders suddenly rigid, he began to unbuckle the straps of his valise.

  “Of course you do.” Deirdre clasped her upper arms, cold despite the fire on the grate. “You’ve brought in a rich prize. Will the Admiralty congratulate you even if you did marry the enemy?”

  “My father will take care of the Admiralty business.” The valise opened. Kieran reached beneath a pile of clean shirts. “I am going to take care of this.”

  He faced her with a sheaf of papers gripped between his hands.

  She didn’t need to look at them to know that he had found her father’s will and the certificates for Drummond’s Bank in London.

  Chapter 16

  Deirdre’s eyes widened. Her mouth opened, and for a moment, Kieran feared she would scream or begin to pummel him with her fists. He braced himself for an onslaught of sound or assault.

  She turned away, her flounced skirt swishing around her feet. “Get out.” Her voice was harsh, but barely above a whisper. “Get out before I smash something over your head.”

  Kieran didn’t move. He would risk the head bashing in order to talk to her, to explain.

  “I could not let it go, Deirdre. Tyne suggested I look for banknotes or certificates in your possession. He said it was highly unlikely your father didn’t have those aboard if the schooner was your home.”

  “So you looked through my sea chest.” She reached the windowsill and leaned her palms upon it, her brow against the frosty glass. “When? Last night after you shared my bed? Is that why you shared my bed?”

  “Why not?” Kieran glared at her back, his body shaking, but his voice low and even. “You were not going to stick with our bargain. You were going to run off to London, collect cash for these certificates, and leave me. Were you even going to wait for the birth of our—our, not your—child?”

  Deirdre’s shoulders stiffened. “I’d have done what I needed to see my crew not suffer in an English prison.” Her voice was cold. With her brow against the window, he couldn’t see her reflection in the glass.

  Her words said enough.

  Kieran returned the certificates to his valise. “I have established pin money for you. Tyne’s steward will give it to you when you return to Bishops Cove. I will also pay your dressmaker’s bills and the like, so you may use the pin money to send your crew any incidentals they may need in prison, but it will not be enough to bribe them into freedom. Nor, in the event one or all of them find their own means of escape, will you visit the prison and connect the Ashford name or earldom and viscountcy to the prisoners. I am sorry to renege on what I said earlier about you visiting them, but I cannot risk seeing us all hanged, including you, and our lands attaindered because we’re traitors. Do you understand?”

  Her response was short and vulgar, and he almost laughed. That was his Deirdre, the sailor maiden he admired so much.

  “They will be all right, Deirdre.” He would leave as she wished him to, but he could not walk away without touching her hair, without inhaling her sweet, sharp scent of ginger. “You will thank me in the end.” He kissed the side of her neck, the only bit of her flesh he could access, then left their bedchamber.

  The taproom was nearly empty at that hour. Kieran ordered brandy, then found a seat on a banquette in the corner and prepared for a long, uncomfortable night knowing he had protected Deirdre from her own loyalties, and perhaps begun the steps to restore his place in the family, all at the cost of harmony with his wife for whatever length of time they needed to stay together.

  Not for the first time in his life, he wished for the oblivion of inebriation. But it never came to him. As much brandy as he consumed throughout the night, long after the barkeep left for his bed and the fire burned down to mere winking eyes, he met his father at the coach that would take them to London tired, rumpled, and stone cold sober.

  Tyne’s valet traveled with them in the carriage, so Kieran felt no obligation to speak with his father during the five days of travel to London. During the evenings, however, at a posting house, the Ashford estate in Hampshire, and more inns, Kieran sat across from Tyne at supper tables and grates and wondered if he and his father had ever spent this much time together. When Kieran was not at school or university, Tyne seemed to be traveling between estates or sitting in Parliament. During the holidays, the family was together, and the girls held their father’s attention.

  But Chloe was five years younger than Kieran, and Juliet eight. What had happened in the intervening years?

  “Did you and Mama keep me locked away in the nursery until I went to school?” he asked one night over brandy and day-old London newspapers.

  Tyne set his paper aside. “Of course not.”

  “There is no ‘of course not’ about it. Most parents do.”

  “Your mother is not most parents.”

  “But you would have preferred to keep me shut away.”

  Tyne gave him a long, thoughtful look. “I did not trust anyone else to teach you to ride or fence. Do you not recall?”

  Kieran stared at him, his mind blank. Why could he not remember the patient man who had put him on his first pony, the master who had handed him his first foil, as his father?

  He covered up his confusion over this with a laugh. “I expect I am not terribly good at either of those activities.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  Was that hurt in Tyne’s eyes?

  Kieran shrugged and raised his newspaper. “You gave up teaching me to ride about the time Chloe was born and fencing when Juliet came along.”

  Tyne remained silent for so long Kieran thought that he was not going to continue the conversation. Then he folded his paper altogether and refilled their glasses. “When you were two years old, my elder brother died, making me the heir apparent. My father was getting on in years and had been
relying heavily on David’s assistance with things. I took on that role along with my other two estates. While I was in Northumberland, your mother delivered a baby a month early—a stillborn boy.” He cleared his throat. “We nearly lost her. I thought you might be the only child we would have, so arranged matters to be in Devonshire as much as possible, to ensure you rode properly.”

  “But Chloe was born when I was four.”

  “That she was, and she was a demanding baby, but such a blessing.” Tyne’s face was soft. “I did not have as much time for you as I would have liked, but I did begin your sword training shortly before Juliet came along two and a half years later.”

  “I do not believe you trained me for long before I went up to school.” Kieran could not release a memory of Tyne’s attention disappearing from his life.

  “I suspended your training and sent you up to Eton when Phoebe’s confinement was near.” Tyne’s brow creased. “We had concerns, and I did not want to leave Phoebe’s side. I neglected a lot of things right before and after Juliet’s birth.”

  “I never knew Mama was in such danger in childbearing.” Kieran felt humbled and ashamed for not thinking that his parents’ lives had not always been rosy.

  For a moment, a twinge of apprehension for Deirdre squeezed his heart. But Mama was small and delicate. Deirdre was a big, strong girl. Surely she would be all right.

  “You were too young to understand.” Tyne gave him the gentle smile he usually reserved for Mama and the girls. “You may understand a bit more now that you are going to be a father. Of course, a great deal can go wrong this early. Childbearing is a risky business for the ladies and those of us who love them.”

  “Our marriage has nothing to do with love.” Kieran managed a cynical twist of his lips to go with the declaration.

  Tyne laughed. “Neither did ours. But things change until every day away from the object of your affection makes you feel like someone is hollowing you out. And when the children come, you love her even more.”

  “If the children come.” Kieran held his brandy glass and spun it between his palms, watching firelight dance in the golden-brown liquid. “If she does miscarry, would it be better to have the marriage dissolved?”