Captured for the Captain's Pleasure

by Ann Lethbridge

  Her face turned into his neck, she kissed his jaw, his cheek. ‘My husband,’ she whispered. ‘My love.’

  Her breathing slowed with sleep.

  Rigid beneath her limp delicate form, he stared at the ceiling. My love. He’d forgone all thoughts of love.

  A dawning realisation washed through him. If hope shone in her eyes in the morning and she asked him to stay, he might just forget about duty. As surely as she’d tied him with a strip of cloth, she had bound him to her, body and soul.

  A strong sense of foreboding closed his throat.

  Early the next morning, he poured her a cup of coffee in their little kitchen. ‘I’m leaving for London,’ he coolly announced, handing her the cup.

  Seeing him gone from the bed this morning, she’d come down to find him dressed and already breakfasted.

  She frowned. ‘If we are not staying, why did you send Simpson away with the carriage?’

  He glanced up then, and she saw guilt pulling at his mouth. ‘You are staying. I am not.’

  Prickles of unease darted across her shoulders. ‘You intend to leave me here alone?’

  ‘Alone? No. Simpson will return tomorrow. He has a room in the village. He will come each day, light the fires, run errands.’

  A horrible writhing sense of unreality twisted in her stomach. A sense of dread. ‘Was it something I said? Something I did?’ Had her behaviour last night disgusted him?

  He reached across the table and grasped her hand. ‘Listen. I will invest every penny in Fulton’s, but I won’t risk my ship to an unknown captain.’

  ‘You are going to sea?’

  A sharp jerk of his chin signified yes. ‘Your father will work with my man of business in my absence.’

  ‘Father isn’t well. He…’ She twisted her hands together under the table, hating to make public what she’d tried to keep hidden for so long. ‘His health is poor. I can help. I know the merchants, their reputations. What they buy.’ The begging note in her voice stopped her from saying more.

  ‘Your father’s a drunkard.’ Michael looked her in the eye. ‘But he’s promised to lay off the bottle. Your place is here.’

  She looked around the cottage and back to Michael’s face. ‘There is nothing for me to do here. Why not rent a house in London?’

  ‘My home isn’t good enough for you?’

  The edge in his voice gave her pause. Men were strangely sensitive about their ability to provide. She chose her words carefully, kept her face and voice cheerful. ‘It is a lovely house, but it is miles from anywhere. And from Father and Richard. In London I could continue my work at the hospital. Wait for your return.’

  ‘I can’t afford the expense. To be truthful I don’t want you in that den of iniquity. I’ve seen the fops who inhabit ladies’ drawing rooms with nothing better to do than flirt. I don’t like it. I won’t have them simpering over my wife in my absence.’

  He was jealous? She didn’t know whether to be pleased or angry. ‘Don’t you trust me?’

  He narrowed his eyes. ‘I don’t know how long I will be gone. You are a passionate woman, Alice.’ His voice roughened. ‘Men sense that. They take advantage.’

  ‘And it has happened before,’ she said coldly. ‘You think I won’t be faithful.’

  ‘I—no. I trust you, Alice. It’s them I don’t trust.’

  He brought her hand to his lips, kissed each knuckle in turn, the brush of his mouth velvet soft, his gaze a flare of heat. ‘Won’t you trust me to care for you, Alice?’

  Her stomach settled, then warmed. And Lord help her, her insides stirred and fluttered. She had no resistance when it came to this man. And yet something jarred, some underlying note sounded off key and alerted suspicion born of experience. Pushed and pulled. Torn in two directions.

  She took a deep breath. ‘I trust you.’

  He patted her hand. ‘Thank you.’

  If she trusted him, why did she see guilt in his eyes?

  Chapter Eighteen

  The rumble of male voices in the great subscription room of White’s was not unlike the sound of idlers below deck on a frigate. The dim lighting and wood panelling felt comfortably familiar to Michael. Only the comfortable chairs and fine brandy at his elbow and the attentive servants were different.

  That and the four finely clothed gentlemen around the table. Three peers of the realm and Fulton.

  The pile of guineas and vowels at his elbow were evidence of smiling fortune. Michael scooped the pot towards him. ‘Thank you, gentlemen.’

  ‘That’s me done for the night.’ Cargrew, a lanky viscount with fine light-brown receding hair, stretched and pushed to his feet. ‘I’ve a session to attend in the Lords tomorrow. Congratulations, Hawkhurst, on your call to the House, by the way.’

  Michael nodded his thanks.

  The brawny Sir Paxton also rose. ‘If I stay any longer I’ll be signing away my firstborn’s inheritance and my wife will have my head. You are a lucky bastard, Hawkhurst.’

  The other men laughed.

  ‘Then we’ll call it a night.’ The dandified Lord Dalrymple had almost as big a pile of winnings as Michael. ‘Will I see you at Lady Brandon’s rout tomorrow?’

  Michael flicked a glance at the sweating Fulton and shook his head. ‘I have to go out of town for a while.’ His plans were set. The executioner’s axe would fall tonight, and Jaimie must be told.

  And besides, he did not want to run into Lady Selina again. The woman was worse than the Spanish Inquisition with her questions.

  Fulton reached for his glass, his hand shaking wildly. He forced a smile, a baring of teeth. ‘I bid you goodnight, gentlemen.’

  The three men bowed their farewells and walked off arm in arm.

  Fulton drained his glass. He gazed at the pile of vowels, most of them his. ‘It is time I left also.’

  ‘Not yet,’ Michael said. ‘There is something we need to discuss. In private.’ He signalled to a waiter. ‘A private room, if you please.’

  The man gestured them to a room across the hallway. Michael palmed him a guinea.

  ‘Too generous, my boy,’ Fulton said as he went ahead into the small antechamber. He must have caught the flash of gold. ‘I told you, servants need only be given silver.’

  Fulton had taken Michael’s introduction to society very seriously, everything from proposing him for membership in White’s to finding him a dancing master.

  The servant followed them in with the brandy decanter and the two glasses on a silver tray. When he left, Michael dumped the vowels on the table.

  Fulton eyed them askance when Michael added a pile from previous evenings’ play. He swallowed. ‘Not all mine, surely?’

  A week. It had taken a week of playing the dutiful but green-as-grass son-in-law to bring Fulton to this point, to put him completely at Michael’s mercy.

  Deep in drink most of the time, the old man hadn’t seen it coming.

  Fulton wiped the sweat from his brow and grabbed for a glass. His skin had a liverish cast, a yellow tinge that had nothing to do with the lamplight. The man was drinking himself to an early grave without Alice to keep an eye on him.

  Michael didn’t want him to die. Not yet. Not before he received his full measure of punishment.

  Michael leaned forwards and twisted the glass from Fulton’s weak grasp. ‘You’ve had enough, old man.’

  ‘What! A little more respect, if you please.’ He lunged for the glass.

  Michael held it out of reach. ‘We need to talk.’

  ‘I’ve told you everything about the business. What more do you need to know?’

  Michael rose, turned the key in the lock and pocketed it. ‘I want to know when you are going to pay your debts. All of them.’

  ‘W-what?’ Fulton choked out and tugged at his collar. ‘We are family, dear boy. We don’t dun family members.’

  Michael watched the old man squirm in his seat with savage pleasure.

  He let his face show puzzlement. ‘I thought it was a d
ebt of honour?’

  ‘Well, yes, of course. But—but…’ He spluttered into silence, staring at the brandy decanter.

  ‘Tell me about the night of the fire.’

  Fulton raised his gaze, a blank look in his eyes. He was so far gone, he was barely processing Michael’s words.

  ‘The night my family died,’ Michael enunciated slowly. The night you murdered them, you bastard. He held the accusation inside him. It would be too easy for a simple denial.

  The bleary eyes misted. ‘It was so long ago. I don’t remember much. I’d been drinking.’

  No excuse for murder. Michael’s stomach churned. He kept his expression calm, his voice cool. ‘You and my father argued that night. Over money. You were heard.’

  Fulton squeezed his eyes shut. ‘I don’t recall. Doesn’t matter now anyway,’ he mumbled.

  ‘You did get your money, though, didn’t you? From the estate?’

  ‘I…’ He tugged at his collar. ‘My claim was proven, yes.’

  ‘Some say you were the only one who profited from the fire. And rightly so, of course. It was your money, after all.’

  ‘It was all done through the courts,’ Fulton said, gripping his hands together. ‘All legal.’ His gaze shifted away, but not before Michael saw shame and guilt.

  ‘There was no one left to contest the claim.’

  Indignation shone through the bleariness. ‘What are you suggesting?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Michael said. ‘I don’t need to suggest anything. You were seen.’

  ‘What? Yes. I was there.’ The confusion was back.

  ‘You left the ballroom with a lad under your arm.’

  Fulton frowned. ‘The little boy,’ he said. Gnarled fingers rubbed at the back of his neck. ‘Yes. Yes. I took him away.’

  The admission, so callous and uncaring, hit Michael like a blow to the kidneys. Excruciating pain. Nausea. The faint hope he’d harboured of Fulton’s innocence, for Alice’s sake, winked out. Cold fury filled his veins as he stared at the shrunken old man. No longer could he bear to be in the same room and not kill the murdering bastard who had callously left him at the dockside in the hands of the press gang. There was a time he’d have gladly hanged to see the light go from Fulton’s eyes, but now Michael wanted the life Fulton had stolen. The last night he spent with Alice had made him realise he wanted a home and a wife. He wanted Alice and he’d never be able to face her with her father’s blood on his hands.

  He dropped his gaze to the table. ‘About these debts.’

  ‘You have to give me time. The Conchita is still in Lisbon, before the prize courts. Once it is established that there was no reason for that cursed privateer to take her, I’ll be dibs in tune.’

  Fulton had no idea Michael was the privateer to whom he referred. ‘And if the prize court doesn’t find in your favour?’

  ‘It will.’ He swallowed. ‘It has to.’

  ‘I need the money now,’ Michael said, his voice cold. Implacable.

  Fulton rubbed a finger across his lips, staring at the pile. ‘How much is it?’ he croaked.

  ‘After tonight? A cool five thousand.’

  ‘So much? Surely you can wait a week or two?’ He poked one finger under his cravat and tugged, stretching his neck like a turtle.

  ‘You play deep, old man.’ Michael pursed his lips and furrowed his brow, pretending to think it over, when all the time his blood beat in time to the words You are mine. Finally, he met Fulton’s hopeful gaze. ‘I’d be willing to take the other half of Fulton’s in lieu.’

  Fulton shifted back in his chair, opened his mouth to accept, knowing full well it was worth nowhere near that amount.

  ‘And the house in Oxford.’

  The old man recoiled. ‘That is my son’s inheritance.’

  ‘All he will inherit is a pile of debts the sale of the house won’t cover. Come now, Fulton. This is a generous offer. More than you deserve. If you weren’t family, believe me, I would see you in the Fleet, along with that boy of yours.’

  ‘Richard?’ His jaw dropped. ‘I can’t give up Westerly,’ Fulton wailed and shook his head. ‘Without the revenues, I can’t pay for Richard to remain at school. I’ve already let the town house go. Where will I live? You are a member of this family now. You can’t do this.’

  Michael watched the man disintegrate before his eyes. It was what he had always wanted for this man. A living death.

  The same as he’d given to Michael and Jaimie.

  ‘As a family member,’ he said, not hiding the sneer in his voice, ‘I’m willing to pay for your son’s education and give him a place in the business.’

  Fulton slumped in the chair; he seemed to age twenty years. His skin turned the colour of parchment. Michael found himself feeling sorry for the old man. Something he hadn’t expected. Didn’t want.

  He snatched the agreement from the pocket inside his coat. ‘Sign here, and no more will be said about the debt.’

  ‘Please,’ Fulton said. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Sign,’ Michael shouted, clenching his fists, ‘or face the consequences.’

  Fulton’s chin bobbled. ‘I don’t have a pen.’

  Silently, coldly, Michael strode to the writing desk and brought back a pen and inkwell. He unrolled the document, holding it flat. ‘Sign it and I’ll tear up the vowels. You’ll owe me nothing and your daughter and son will be cared for. Sign it and no one else need know.’ Alice need not know.

  Fulton looked confused and fearful. In his drunken panic, he read not one word of the confession Michael had drawn up. Hand shaking and tears bright in his eyes, he simply scrawled his name.

  Michael had seen the signature often enough over the past two weeks to know he’d signed true. He blew the ink dry and rolled document in hand, headed for the door.

  Fulton was finished. Not dead. Worse than dead. Living in hell. He’d never see either of his children again, unless he wanted to end upon the gallows.

  He had expected triumph, perhaps even joy, but instead he felt empty. Joyless.

  ‘What about me?’ Fulton croaked. ‘Where shall I go?’

  ‘I’d leave town if I were you, before I change my mind,’ Michael said cruelly. ‘Before your other debtors find you’ve nothing left.’

  The old man gasped. ‘You devil.’

  Michael smiled. ‘No more devil than you.’

  ‘Alice. I should go to Alice. She’ll advise me.’

  He delivered the final blow without emotion. ‘Alice is where you will never find her. I’ll make sure you never see her again. Or your son. You’ve brought them nothing but shame.’

  Fulton let out a strangled cry, but Michael could see his acceptance in the way he crumpled.

  He unlocked the door.

  ‘What have you done with Alice?’ Fulton whispered. He spoke her name like an invocation to a goddess. But the goddess was Michael’s now.

  And if she ever learned what he’d done, she’d never forgive him.

  He hesitated. For some reason he couldn’t quite fathom, he reached into his pocket. ‘Go to the Mermaid in Portsmouth. There’s a man there, name of Bones. He’ll give you a berth, some work at the inn if you mention my name.’ He tossed Fulton a half-guinea. ‘Use this for the stage. But mark my words well, never let me catch you in town, or anywhere near Alice, or your life won’t be worth living.’

  Alice looked up from her weeding. Almost midday and still no sign of Simpson. He’d be too late to go to the post office if he didn’t come soon. After three weeks, she was sure there would be a letter today.

  Out of sight, out of mind.

  No. Selina had promised to write and Alice had walked to the post office in the village the day Michael left and sent word of her address. There had to be a reply soon. She rose to her feet, feeling the pull of muscles and the stiffness in her legs and back. A walk would be good after working in the garden all morning. With no hospital nearby and nothing else to keep her mind off worrying about Michael, the overgrown
garden had become her project. The neat rows of herbs, parsley, rosemary, thyme and sage, mint and hissop, gave her a feeling of something accomplished, as well as some supplies for her medicine chest. The fruit from the apple tree would make wonderful pies in the autumn and go with the blackberries on the brambles hanging over the wall.

  It wasn’t much, but it would help save a few pennies on food. She pressed her fingers into the centre of her back and stretched. After lunch, she usually walked up to the derelict house. Pulling weeds up there seemed almost futile, yet she felt it brought Michael closer for all that it was a mere drop in a gargantuan bucket. And she’d found a few treasures amid the debris. A child’s coloured marble that might have belonged to him as a lad. A statue of Venus, with only one small chip. She was keeping them as a surprise.

  She opened the gate and stared down the road. Where was Simpson? No sense in waiting any longer for luncheon. She went inside, cut some bread and a hunk of cheese and, as she munched, watched rain clouds gather. No weeding up at Hawkhurst Place today. But a little bit of rain needn’t prevent her from walking to the post office. She cleared the table, put on her coat and picked up her umbrella. She tucked the letter for Selina in her reticule.

  The two-mile walk to the village took close to an hour and because Simpson had taken a room above the stables at the local inn, he’d taken to bringing all their needed supplies each morning. Every day he’d also checked for letters.

  Today he had gone further afield, to the market in the nearest town, because Alice had decided she needed fabric for chair cushions. He hadn’t been very happy about going, but in the end he’d agreed.

  Sometimes Simpson had a mind of his own.

  The post office, a charming thatched cottage in the middle of a row of three, sat at the edge of the village. Farther along, beside the village green, lay the King’s Arms where Simpson boarded and on the other side of the green the village shop, which fulfilled most of their day-to-day needs.

  She pushed open the post-office door. A bell tinkled above her head. A grey-haired woman of about fifty, with gimlet eyes and spectacles on the end of a sharp nose, looked up from behind the official-looking counter. ‘Lady Hawkhurst.’ She dipped a curtsy. ‘May I help you?’