“And Hampshire and Northumberland.” Deirdre shoved her hands up the sleeves of her dressing gown to warm her fingers. “I didn’t just marry a title; I married a man whose father made so much prize money in the Royal Navy he bought two estates.”
“Then why did he need to steal from us?” Blaze’s dark eyes glittered.
Deirdre sighed. “He and his father had a falling out. He thought he was going to be disinherited. But I think he wanted to prove he could accomplish something on his own, or gain his own money not dependent on his father.”
“Of course he wants his own money.” Blaze gave out a bark of mirth. “Has he worked out the money might not be worth getting leg-shackled to you?”
Deirdre grabbed his streak of white hair and yanked as she had been doing since she was six and he signed on board her father’s merchantman. “We don’t need to talk about me. Just tell me why you’re here.”
Chuckling, Blaze broke her hold with a thumb to her wrist. “I see the lady is in name only.”
“Yes, now talk. What are you doing here?”
Blaze sobered. “It’s not my first time I’ve been here. I needed to find you in this pile and make sure that that . . . person you married doesn’t share your bed like he did on Bermuda.”
Deirdre’s cheeks heated. “I made a bargain to save your hide. But he’s in London right now.”
“Good.” Blaze gave her an intense look. “You’re all right?”
“Yes.”
“You look different.”
Deirdre snorted. “I’m wearing something female. Now tell me why you’re here. You never liked me well enough to take this kind of a risk for my sake. You do know that they’ll hang you for what you did to Kieran.”
Blaze shrugged. “They’ll hang me for escaping, for being here . . . Can only hang a man once. And I had to find out about the crew. We need to get them out. America needs men to man the privateers. That’s the only hope we have of winning this war.”
“”I don’t know how we can ever win this war.” Deirdre clasped her forearms. “England is too wealthy. Its army, its navy, they’re all better than we are. I’ve heard our army is a disaster in land battles.”
“Have they turned your coat?” Orange flames glittered in Blaze’s eyes.
A shiver ran through her despite the fire. “Not at all. I don’t want to see the United States become British colonies again any more than you do. But England’s might frightens me. I’ve seen their navy at work.”
“But you haven’t seen our privateers at work. What navy we do have has acquitted itself well. Our ships are so much faster. And now we have you inside, so to speak. You can work for us.”
“I’m trying.” She drew her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, wondering how much longer she would be able to sit like that. “I saw Ross at the prison the other day.”
“So you can get in?” Excitement rang in Blaze’s voice despite its low tone. “Do they know how to get out?”
“We don’t know yet. Men manage it, as you know. We’re working out a system for exchanging information. And I know where to hide them if we can get them to escape. But we’ll have to get them out of the country after that.”
“That’s why I’m here.” Blaze stretched out, leaning back on his elbows. “If you can get them out of Dartmoor, I can get them out of England.”
“How will I let you know our plans?”
“On the other side of the woods out here”—he gestured beyond the balcony—“there’s an oak whose branches extend over the wall. It’s high, but not for someone who can climb like you. I loosened one of the stones in the wall beneath it. Leave messages behind that stone. I’ll find them or leave my own there.”
“It’s a great risk.”
“You’re not game?” His dark eyes challenged her.
She took a deep breath. “Of course I am. But I’ll need time.”
“Not too much. We need them.” Blaze stood. “When do you go back?”
“December twenty-second. The other ladies of the house are attending a village fete. I’ll feign illness and cry off.”
“You, ill?” Blaze snorted. “They’re fools if they believe you.”
They would believe her, the one blessing of her condition.
She shrugged. “They don’t know me that well. They’ll leave me alone to rest, and I’ll slip back to the prison. I’ll leave you a message that night.”
“Until the twenty-second,” Blaze said, then was gone back through the balcony doors and into the night.
The locked door warned Kieran that he did not want to hear what his father was about to tell him. He had known that his parents’ marriage was arranged. Most marriages were alliances for wealth and social standing. That Mama was a colonial seemed a bit odd, yet her father had been well off, and Tyne was simply the Honorable Garrett Ashford then, never expecting to inherit title, lands, and wealth. Younger sons had made far worse contracts with English ladies. Yet Kieran also knew that his parents shared a devotion few married couples enjoyed, a devotion he could only dream to have in his life.
“Sit down,” Tyne repeated.
Kieran sat, cradling his glass between his hands.
Tyne did the same. “You know I was stationed in Savannah, Georgia, after we took that city, do you not?”
Kieran nodded. “You met Mama there.”
“Yes, but how I met her . . .” Tyne stretched out his legs and gazed at a point beyond Kieran’s shoulder—a point over thirty years in the past. “My ship caught on fire one night. I was supposed to be on watch. But I was sleeping.”
Kieran stared at him. “And they didn’t hang you?”
“Erwine, my captain, threatened to at the least have me court-martialed. I doubt they would have hanged me. I was an earl’s son, and those are so few and far between in the navy, they are a bit cautious with our hides. Still, I could have been imprisoned on the ship until we got back here to England. And my father . . .” He smiled. “Suffice it to say that compared to him, I look like the most indulgent of fathers. I would rather have hanged than face him with a court-martial blot on my copybook, and Erwine knew it. I was wholly under his thumb, and I knew I would pay for him overlooking my dereliction of duty.”
Kieran sipped his brandy to fill the ensuing silence, then prompted, “And you did, pay for it, I mean?”
“Not for weeks. Then one night we got called out to search for a young woman who had helped a rebel escape capture. We suspected that this was an American who was causing havoc with the ships and troop supplies in the city, including the man who set my ship on fire. We hoped she would lead us to him if we caught her. But she was alone when we found her.” Tyne’s face softened, and he smiled.
Kieran stared, his glass at his lips. “Mama?”
“Yes, your mama, Phoebe Channing.” Tyne straightened in his chair, looked at Kieran now. “We all thought her father was a loyal Englishman, so no one wanted to put a lady like that in the guardhouse with the prostitutes. But her parents wanted her out of Savannah before she did anything else foolish.”
“Why did she do it?” Kieran asked. “Help the rebel escape?”
“He was her fiancé.”
Kieran choked. “Mama was betrothed to a rebel?”
“He was a privateer captain.”
“Oh, my—” Closing his eyes, Kieran leaned his head against the chair’s winged back. “I must have hurt her deeply going off like I did.”
“If you had come home much sooner, I probably would have barred you from Bishops Cove.”
“I bought the letter of marque, sir, because you had barred me from Bishops Cove.”
“Yes, well, you did pound a few nails in your coffin last spring, you must admit.”
Kieran bowed his head. “Will I ever be forgiven for that?”
“You already have been.” Tyne’s voice was gentle, a balm to Kieran’s spirit.
They sat in silence for several moments, both watching the crackling flames licking ar
ound a pile of coal.
Then Tyne sighed. “This is not getting the rest of this out. And in light of some things . . . About Phoebe and me . . .” His tone grew brisk. “The best way for her to get out of Savannah was on a naval vessel sailing. We were sailing. So Erwine, who owed Phoebe’s father rather a lot of money for gaming debts, blackmailed me into marrying her.”
Kieran choked on his brandy. “Blackmailed you? If he was sailing back to England, why would he care about debts to a colonial?”
“I will get to that.” Tyne sipped his own brandy. “I tried to get out of it. But once I was officially introduced to her, I realized how badly Phoebe was being treated by her father, and I wanted to help her. I was more than half in love with her before we reached Portsmouth. But she hated fighting men. She hated war. Still does. She wanted nothing more than a nice home and a loving family. I could have given her that. I had a nice home, and Aunt Bess was one of the kindest people I’ve ever known. But Phoebe did not want a family with me, a killer of men, I believe she called me. I preferred to think of myself as a defender of the kingdom.”
“Was that why you resigned your commission?”
That was what they had all believed. Even as he asked the question, Kieran knew it was not the whole truth.
Tyne pinched his nostrils together. “I should have, but I was ambitious and had to prove something to my father, who tried to keep me from promotion in the navy. So I accepted a commission as commander of my own little sloop. My assignment was to find the identity of the spy who was passing information to American privateers regarding our merchant and supply transport convoys in the Channel.”
Kieran’s heart skipped a beat, then began to gallop. He leaned forward, wanting to hear the rest, guessing the rest, afraid of the rest.
Tyne inclined his head. “I can see that you have worked that out. It took me a few months, but the clues were there. The spy was your mother.”
Despite seeing it coming, Kieran felt poleaxed.
“Why?”
Tyne rose, set his glass aside, and stood with his elbow propped against the mantel. “She wanted to end the war with the fewest people harmed. That meant having America win. But she made a mistake.”
“Only one?” Kieran tried to lighten the tension in the room.
Tyne did not smile. “She made a few, but her biggest one was to recognize that her spymaster did not care about who won the war so long as he got rich off the conflict. And she fell in love with me.”
“How was that a mistake, sir?” Kieran asked, surprised.
Tyne smiled then. “Thank you for that. I will accept it as a compliment.” He sipped from his glass. “She was supposed to run away with her spymaster, her fiancé before she married me, when she completed her mission. But she refused to continue her work, so he threatened to kill me if she did not give him more information.”
Kieran caught his breath. “He tried, did he not?” He had seen the scar on his father’s shoulder.
Tyne nodded. “He tried. Phoebe went along with him, but I was on to her by then and knew I either had to turn her in or find another way out of the fix.”
“Since Mama is alive and still wed to you, I presume you found another alternative.”
“Oh yes.” Tyne’s lips tightened. “I made a bargain with my father. He would get Phoebe a pardon from the king if I would resign my commission.”
“You loved the navy,” was all Kieran could think to say.
“I did. I still do.” The tension around his eyes and mouth relaxed into his full, warm smile. “But I love your mother more and would never go back and change a thing.”
“I believe you.”
But what did this have to do with him and Deirdre?
“Why are you telling me this now, sir?”
“Because you have a wife who could easily betray England, too.” He returned to his chair. “For the weeks we have been in London, I have been trying to find ways I can get her crew paroled so she is not tempted to help them escape again. I have been unsuccessful. My father was friends with the king, as much as any man can be, and I inherited some of that power. But the king is hopelessly mad, and Prinny is no friend of the Ashfords. With this new war with America and your mother’s history, as closely guarded a secret as it is, and now you bringing home an American wife . . . Our loyalty to the Crown is being questioned. The Phoebe’s crew talked. They know about how Deirdre tried to help her crew escape. Dartmoor is a bit more difficult to manage, and escapes do occur more often than the military would like us to know.”
Kieran’s chest tightened. “So I was right. My marriage was a mistake.”
“Yes.”
He did not realize that he hoped for a different answer until his father spoke that single affirmation.
“Just another blot on my copybook.”
He rose and began to prowl the room, picking up a copy of Waverly he had tried to read, setting it down again. Checking the locks on the windows, rearranging the drape of the curtains. Tyne watched him, he knew, though he did not look around. When he reached the door, he considered bolting. Yet he knew he had to stay, finish talking this out. Somehow, he would make up for being such a disappointment of a son to this man, who deserved even more admiration than Kieran previously believed.
He leaned his back against the door. “How can I untangle things? How can I make up for risking all of you, my family.” His voice broke like a youth’s, and he felt foolish.
Tyne’s gaze was so understanding that Kieran’s throat closed. “That she is breeding helps, regardless of what you think. Her own body will keep her close to home in a few months. Meanwhile, if you truly do not trust her to be loyal to us, we have no choice but to keep her virtually a prisoner.”
“She will hate me for it,” Kieran said, and sadness descended upon him like a sea fog. “But it is for her sake, too. I plan to leave in the morning. Will you join me?”
“Yes. My work here is done.” Tyne rose. “If the roads are not too bad, we should be home on the twenty-second.”
Chapter 19
The knowledge that Blaze and Zeb were alive and well and free eased some of Deirdre’s sadness after her visit to Dartmoor. That, unlike Ross, Blaze did not despise her, helped a great deal. So she woke far more cheerful than she had previously felt. The brighter spirits lasted throughout the day, until Phoebe announced that Deirdre must assist with the fete.
“As Kieran’s wife,” Phoebe explained, “you will have to do these sorts of things often.”
As was their practice in the evenings, they sat around the fire in the gold salon, the other ladies sewing, knitting, or embroidering. On the evenings Miss Pruitt joined them, Deirdre took turns with her reading to the Ashford ladies to have something to do. Reading was one part of her education her father had not neglected, unlike the feminine arts.
Now, with Phoebe’s remark, Deirdre set the book she had been about to open aside and exchanged a concerned glance with Chloe.
“What do I do? You saw what happened when I tried to knit a scarf.”
Juliet giggled.
Phoebe shook her head. “Laughing is not kind, Juliet. You have been knitting since you were small. Deirdre had a different kind of upbringing.”
“Which we are not allowed to talk about,” Chloe murmured.
“We have all the scarves we need,” Phoebe continued as though Chloe had not spoken. “One for each child. On Monday, we will set up trestle tables in the gallery here and arrange the items for the children. Tuesday, we will make the sweets and sandwiches to feed the parents and children.” She smiled. “I know you don’t cook either, but Cook and the maids are competent. They will show you what to do. I imagine that you can stir a pot of fruit juice for jelly.”
“I imagine so.” Deirdre did not need to feign a grimace.
“And you can cut pieces of cake,” Phoebe added.
“I cut things quite well,” Deirdre couldn’t resist saying. “I used to carry a stiletto in my braid.”
; “Oh, how amusing!” Juliet, who, being only seventeen, still wore her hair down, began to plait it. “What happened to it?”
“Kieran doesn’t like me carrying it, so it is in the chest beside my bed.”
Phoebe set her needlework in her lap. “You may wish to carry one on your rambles with Chloe. I expect she does.”
Chloe said nothing, bending low over her needlework.
“How would she carry it? She does not wear her hair plaited any longer,” Juliet said.
“I should.” Deirdre touched the coil on the back of her head that took so many pins to hold up it gave her a headache. “Much easier than all the work poor Sally has to do every morning and ten times in between.”
“May I pin my hair up for Christmas Eve, Mama?” Juliet asked. “I am almost eighteen, and Papa and Kieran will be home and we will have all those guests.”
Christmas Eve was not something to which Deirdre looked forward. She wanted to see Kieran, more than she wanted to admit, but his arrival would make visiting the prison more difficult. Worse than that, she could not avoid the hordes of visitors the family expected that day. Apparently, all the local gentry paid calls on the Ashfords, and several returned to the house after the midnight church service to consume the pudding.
Her need to rest would help her avoid some of the visitors, but not all of them. She had wifely duties to perform, demonstrations that she was a proper wife, if not a devoted one. She needed her marriage not to be a mistake for Kieran. Now that she had seen her men in the prison, even more so did she recognize the importance of making her husband and his family happy with her, giving them reason to trust her, so she could find a way of freedom for all of the crew.
One way she showed her commitment to the family was to write Kieran long letters filled with details of her life. She talked of playing with the dogs and meeting local children, of learning household management from Phoebe, and of listening to Chloe and Juliet play the pianoforte. In all her words, she tried to sound content with her life, not sad that she enjoyed comfort while her men suffered and lonely with the stillness of the house and emptiness of her bed weighing down upon her each night, especially after she received one of Kieran’s notes scrawled as though they were an afterthought penned in between social engagements.
My Enemy, My Heart (The Ashford Chronicles) Page 24