The Return of Lord Conistone

by Lucy Ashford

Verena felt her legs giving way. No. She would throw herself over the side, rather than that.

  Lucas was saying flatly, ‘Six guineas for her in privacy, Captain. Or when we reach port I’ll drop a hint in an appropriate ear that you’re planning to carry contraband goods back to England’.

  ‘You wouldn’t damn well dare…’

  ‘Try me. And don’t think to get rid of me on the way. Remember, Brooks, I’m expected in Portugal by friends who’d have you shot if anything happened to me on board your ship’.

  Were those friends French spies? Verena’s thoughts ran riot. Meanwhile Captain Jed Brooks had visibly whitened.

  ‘Very well,’ he muttered. ‘Very well. Any higher offers? Lieutenant Devenish? No? Then she’s all yours, Mr Patterson. Let us drink to your very good health, Mr Patterson, before you go to take your pleasure with the slut’. He gathered up Lucas’s coins, then poured more port into all their glasses and managed a shaky laugh. He drank deeply, but Lucas shoved his drink aside. Then, looking at Devenish and the Captain with cold scorn, he stood up.

  She’d forgotten how tall he was. How broad-shouldered. How magnificently male. For the first time he looked at her properly and she tilted her head in an effort to meet his gaze defiantly.

  ‘You lucky cow,’ whispered one of the waiting women to her. ‘I’d give it ‘im for free, as often as he damn well liked’.

  Verena clenched her fists. He was walking slowly towards her. Claiming her. This was intolerable. She whispered, through gritted teeth, ‘I will not go anywhere with you, Lucas! I will tell them who—’

  For one brief moment she was aware of his grey eyes blazing; then he clamped her to him and crushed her mouth under his. And all rational thought was obliterated as he fastened his lips over hers in a kiss that drew the soul from her body. For seconds—minutes—there was nothing else in her world but this man, his strength, the taste of him, as she became caught up in the meaningful possession imposed by his mouth.

  Every intimacy they’d ever shared was in that kiss. Her treacherous body ached for more. Her breasts longed for the caress of those firm, strong palms. Her womb was a throb of longing.

  By the time he released her, she could barely stand. He hissed in her ear, ‘Leave this to me. Or we’re both dead’.

  She wrenched herself away and tried to slap him, but he gripped her arm to lead her from the cabin, bowing his head almost politely to the Captain and the others. ‘Gentlemen. Wish me joy. You will observe that I’m set to have an entertaining night’.

  They raised their glasses, laughing, envious. The women looked on wistfully.

  Lucas got her outside and slammed the door so they were alone. He seized both of her shoulders and almost shook her.

  ‘You little fool. What in hell are you doing here?’ The skin round his mouth was white with anger.

  She tilted her chin, her eyes flashing also, though she was exhausted and sick at heart to find all her worst fears come true. ‘I did not intend to sail on this foul ship!’

  Disbelief etched creases around his eyes. ‘Then what—how—?’

  ‘I came to Portsmouth to find you, Lucas, before you sailed!’ She tugged herself free from him and put her hands on her hips. ‘You stole my father’s diary. And I want it back!’

  His grey eyes became almost black. ‘So you knew about it’.

  ‘Of course I did. And now I know you are nothing but a traitor!’

  He stared at her. Incredulous. Then without further speech he hauled her along the galleyway and opened the door to a tiny cabin that was more like a cupboard. Slamming and bolting the door behind them, he swiftly lit the lantern. She trembled at the force in his every move.

  ‘I will scream! I tell you, I will shout for help, Lucas, if you so much as lay a finger on me!’

  He let out a harsh laugh. ‘And who in hell do you think will come to your rescue? Captain bloody Brooks? Or that man Devenish? Do you know what he’d have put you through? Do you?’

  ‘I—I would have told the Captain who I am!’ This time her voice shook a little.

  ‘Do you think he would give a damn?’ scoffed Lucas. ‘My God, Brooks is notorious. He has trouble getting it up himself, so he likes to get his friends—on this occasion, Devenish—to try out a girl while he watches. You were lucky I was there. What the devil do you think you’re playing at?’

  She swallowed, hard. ‘Lucas, I want my father’s diary’.

  His eyes never left hers as slowly he drew the small leather-bound volume from a deep pocket inside his coat. She took it, clutched it tightly and said, in a low voice, ‘Was it really necessary to seduce me for this?’

  He was breathing harshly. ‘Seduction? That night in the pavilion? My dear, I rather thought we were both willing participants’.

  She raised her hand to strike him for that, but he caught her roughly again by the shoulders. ‘Verena. Do you have any idea why I took it?’

  He was holding her tight. Too tight. Yet his fingertips seemed almost to be caressing her through the fabric of her gown. His hooded grey eyes were burning into her. And, dear Lord, she wanted nothing more than to be enfolded in his strong arms.…

  But she could not trust him ever again, and felt as if she wanted to die.

  Yet she met his gaze steadfastly. She owed this to herself and to her father. ‘Why? It’s because my father’s diary contains information of great value to both sides in this war, Lucas! I think you were after it from the moment you came to Wycherley. That was why you insisted on helping my family. Why you were intent on—seducing me…’

  ‘Verena,’ he breathed, ‘what in hell do you think I intended to do with it?’

  She flinched at his scorn, but tossed her hair back and looked him straight in the eye. ‘Since you used every possible deceit to obtain it, what do you imagine I think? How can your intentions be honourable, Lucas? How can they be loyal?’

  He said, with menacing quiet, ‘I think that someone has been putting a great deal of rubbish into your head. Do you seriously think that—I’m a traitor?’

  ‘How can I know what to think?’ she cried. ‘Those Frenchmen, who attacked me on the cliff path that day you came to Wycherley—they were after me for what my father knew, weren’t they?’

  He said harshly, ‘I believe so, yes. And I also—unless I’ve got this completely wrong—remember that they tried to kill me when I came to your rescue’.

  She caught her breath. ‘They cannot have realised who you were and what you were up to—’

  ‘Neither the hell do you’.

  She tossed her head. ‘Then tell me. Try to explain why you are travelling under a false name—Mr Patterson!’

  He leaned one shoulder against the cabin door. Folded his arms across his chest and crossed his strong, booted legs. Only then did he say, in his familiar, chilling drawl, ‘I’m taking your father’s diary to Lord Wellington. This was the first ship I could find. The matter is urgent—and secret’.

  She whitened.

  He went on, ‘Your father’s diary contains vital information. Plans and maps describing the difficult route Wellington must use to get his army back to the safety of Lisbon before winter sets in. The French want Wild Jack’s maps and diary too’.

  ‘But—why didn’t you tell me this, that night in the pavilion?’ Her world was spinning around. Oh, his kisses. His tender lovemaking. ‘Why the secrecy, Lucas? How could you expect me to trust you, when you were never honest with me? How can I help myself believing that everything was—and is still—a lie?’

  Lucas Conistone wanted to pull her into his arms. He wanted to protect her from what was to come. He had never rebuked himself more bitterly. He should have told her the truth in the island pavilion. He should have told her on the day of that damned furniture sale.

  But—how could he have told her what was in that diary? How could he tell her now? Her world was built on her love for her father—who had tried to betray his country.

  As Lucas had feared, the diary made cle
ar—if you could understand the Portuguese dialect, and the code names for his contacts, which the Earl never could—that Jack Sheldon was starting to sell information to the French.

  It contained records of two years of Jack’s journeying across the unmapped and wild terrain of Portugal’s uplands. Records that could be vital in Wellington’s desperate bid to outwit the French in the race for Lisbon. Records of his meetings with the man known as O Estrangeiro—’The Foreigner’—who was a notorious French spy.

  Thank God Verena had not had the chance to read it.

  ‘My father,’ she was saying bitterly, ‘my poor, dear father, if only he had realised the value of what he had! He could have helped Lord Wellington…’

  * * *

  When Lucas had seen her being hauled into the Goldfinch’s stuffy cabin, he’d felt real despair. He’d wanted to jump to his feet and drive his fist into Brooks’s lecherous face.

  He felt despair again, now. He’d been desperate to protect her from knowing what her father had tried to do. Ironically, it was his own grandfather who’d thwarted Jack’s treachery—by hiding away that diary for the last two years, while Wellington’s spies—chief among them Lucas Conistone—searched for Jack Sheldon’s corpse, which lay lost and rotting in a remote river bed.

  They’d all thought the vital diary was with Jack to the end. They were all wrong.

  ‘Yes,’ Lucas repeated tiredly, ‘he could have helped Lord Wellington. Verena, as soon as we touch land, I’m putting you on the next ship home. You’ll be safe for the remainder of this journey, I promise you that. Though I won’t trouble you again with my actual presence’.

  She bit her lip. ‘Lucas, I—’

  He cut her off. ‘I think we’ve said enough, don’t you?’ He walked to the door. ‘Oh, and by the way, Bentinck’s on board’.

  ‘Bentinck?’

  ‘He told me you dismissed him, telling him you were going to your family in London. So he rode to Portsmouth, to join me. A good job you wrote that note, or I’d have had his hide. Didn’t I once tell you to trust him with your life?’

  Her eyes were wide and anguished. ‘How could I trust him—or you—when you told me so little?’

  He bowed his head. ‘You’re right, of course,’ he acknowledged quietly. ‘Now, get some rest’.

  He went, closing the door behind him. When all he really wanted to do was take her in his arms and kiss her doubts away and make love to her all night long. He’d hoped to marry her. And then some day he’d intended to tell her the bitter truth, softening his words with love.

  But if he explained everything now, it would mean the destruction of her entire world, and she would hate him for it. Even more than she did already.

  * * *

  Verena lay on the narrow bunk alone, utterly tormented by dark thoughts.

  Do not trust the heir of Stancliffe, her father had written. Why?

  The jagged rolling of the ship set all her questions tumbling anew in her mind. Why hadn’t Lucas told her earlier that he worked in secret for Lord Wellington?

  Because he felt he couldn’t trust her? Or because he was still lying to her about something, even now?

  * * *

  At last she must have slept, but she was woken by the even wilder motion of the ship as it ploughed through heavy seas, and she realised she was feeling sick. Also, she could hear voices, just outside the tiny cabin’s door. Two men were talking softly. Lucas and Bentinck. Bentinck, who had set off for Portsmouth from Wycherley only a brief while before she did, to join his master.

  ‘Have you told her the truth, milord?’ Bentinck’s rough voice. ‘Because if you ask me it’s damned well time you did!’

  ‘I’ve told her quite enough’. Lucas’s voice. Cold, forbidding. ‘And she’s sleeping. I won’t have her put through any more, do you hear me?’

  ‘But she has to know some time about that father of hers!’

  Verena got to her feet sharply, reaching to the wall for support, because the ship was rolling violently now, and her stomach clenched with seasickness.

  ‘Bentinck,’ Lucas was saying in a soft voice, ‘if you breathe a single word to her about her father, I’ll kill you with my bare hands, I swear’.

  ‘But it ain’t fair, milord! Not just! And one of these days she’ll find out all right that her sainted pa was trying to sell information to the damned Frenchies! Dealing with that vicious spy of old Boney’s that they called The Foreigner, whom you, milord, put an end to six months ago, though you nearly got yourself killed when he stuck his sabre in your ribs…’

  For a moment the world stood still around Verena. Then her head began to spin horribly round and round.

  Then O Estrangeiro paid me the agreed sum, with a promise of more next time.

  The diary. The crucial diary. Her father’s words: Some day soon, Verena, I’m going to make us all rich.…

  By betraying his country? No. She let out a low cry. No, it could not be true, it couldn’t.

  As the floor of her cabin rocked with the increasing swell of the sea, she struggled across to the door and flung it open. Lucas was remonstrating with Bentinck, his handsome face stark, almost haggard in the dim glow of the ship’s lantern. He snapped round to face her, breathing, ‘Verena’.

  ‘Lucas. Lucas, tell me it isn’t true. Tell me that this is a foul, foul lie!’

  Lucas shot a look at his companion and said evenly, ‘Bentinck, I think I really am going to have to kill you for this’.

  Bentinck glanced with dismay at Verena. Said stubbornly, ‘You do just that, milord. But she’d have found out soon enough about her pa! She ought to know that if it weren’t for you, the whole blasted world would know about Jack Sheldon’s doings!’

  The wind howled above them. The waves could be heard beating in fury now against the side of the rolling ship. ‘Bentinck, shut up,’ said Lucas. ‘Verena, go back into your cabin. I’ll be with you shortly—’ He broke off as the ship juddered violently to one side. Verena flung out a hand to save herself from falling; felt the nausea rising in her stomach.

  ‘No,’ she whispered, ‘I won’t go back into that cabin, not until you explain everything, Lucas!’

  Bentinck, obstinate as a mule, was saying, ‘Well, ma’am, I would ‘ave told you it from the start, but milord Conistone wouldn’t, to save your feelings, and a fool he is too, not to ‘ave let you know your father was bargaining with them Frogs! Yes, and your pa knew Lord Conistone was on to him! Lord Conistone only resigned from the army all quiet-like to be one of Wellington’s top spies, pretendin’ to be a gentleman of fashion, so he’d hear everything and see everything and no one would know! A real hero, is milord, just as much as any of them swaggering cavalry gents who go strutting around town with all their medals a-glitterin’. And Lord Conistone insisted that you should never be told about your pa, though I argued and argued with him!’

  Her father’s letter swam before her eyes. Do not trust him. He is our enemy.

  Her father wrote that to her because Lucas knew about his meetings with O Estrangeiro. And Lucas guessed that those meetings would be recorded in his diary, in which her father so foolishly wrote everything.

  She gazed up at him, white-faced.

  ‘If you still don’t believe his lordship,’ Bentinck was saying belligerently, ‘then just ask to see his letters from Lord Wellington! Lord Conistone’s spared you, ma’am, ’ cos he thought, firstly, that you’d be in peril if you knew about Wild Jack’s doings—’

  ‘Those Frenchmen at Ragg’s Cove,’ Verena said faintly.

  ‘Exactly! And secondly,’ went on Bentinck, ‘because milord thought it would break your heart to hear the truth about your pa. But I said you was bound to find out sooner or later, and I was right!’

  It all made terrible and perfect sense. She looked from one to the other, agonised. Remembered her father’s increasing desperation over their monetary woes, then his optimism. His brittle excitement on his last visit home. ‘I’ve found a way to make us al
l rich, Verena!’

  Yes. By selling his maps to the French. By then, both French and English were after his diary. But the Earl had got it first.

  Lucas and Bentinck were waiting for her reaction. For her to—say something. What did one do in such circumstances? she thought numbly. What course of action would Miss Bonamy recommend for a young woman, alone on board a rough sailing ship, who’d just been told her father was a traitor to his country?

  A huge spasm of grief filled her entire being.

  The matter was taken out of her hands when a great wave caught the ship and heaved it sideways, knocking her off balance. She was aware of Lucas lunging towards her, to save her… ‘Verena!’

  Too late. She caught her head against a low beam, and felt a bruising pain, followed by almost merciful blackness.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Verena woke to find her left temple throbbing as if it had been hit with a hammer. The nausea gathered again. Realising she was back on the bunk in Lucas’s cabin, she twisted sideways and started to retch helplessly.

  Everything was still swaying and rattling wildly. But someone was there, holding out a basin for her. She heard Lucas Conistone’s voice, saying gently, ‘My poor girl. We’re riding a westerly storm, I’m afraid. But we’re almost through the worst’.

  She finished being sick at last and hauled herself up, her head swimming. He held out a tin mug to her of lukewarm tea, sweetened with sugar. She drank it thirstily. He took the mug back, then bathed her face very carefully with a cloth wrung out in a ewer of water set on the cabin floor.

  Meanwhile, she remembered everything. Lucas is a British agent. And my father was—a traitor. She felt weak, and wretched, and sick with humiliation.

  She suddenly realised that she was dressed only in her thin white chemise. Someone had removed her gown.

  She burned with renewed shame. ‘Where is my…?’

  ‘You were sick all over it,’ he said. ‘I’ve brought another one for you’.

  She nodded, tight-lipped. Then realised it was a flimsy garment made of pale pink muslin. Short-sleeved. Extremely low-necked. Bedecked with tawdry lace and frayed scarlet ribbons.