“Make certain this gets back to my mother’s flat,” she said, pushing the valise toward Grimaldi with her foot. “Along with this.” She handed him the note she’d written to her mother, telling her and Mrs. Horton she’d be gone for a while and would return as soon as possible.
“I will,” Grimaldi said with a curt nod. “I’ll also ensure they have enough money while you’re gone.”
“Thank you,” she managed.
Realizing she was fully dressed, Grimaldi turned back toward her and pushed up his hat. All business again.
“What are my orders?” She pulled her short leather vest tightly against her shoulders. She glanced down to ensure that her breasts weren’t—ahem—noticeable. Thankfully, she wasn’t well-endowed enough to require much binding there. A cotton tunic beneath her shirt was all she needed.
“The Elenor sails at dawn,” Grimaldi said. “It’s chasing Capitan Baptiste.”
Danielle nodded. Exactly as she had suspected. She was meant to follow Lafayette Baptiste. It was time for a reckoning. “Is The Elenor friendly to the Crown?”
He studied her face. “It’s a privateer, friendly enough. I just learned tonight. It’s on the same mission we are.”
She turned her head to look out the window, searching the dark waterline for any sign of the vessel. “I suppose I’m to be a cabin boy.”
“No.”
The one word stopped her. Her hands dropped away from her vest and her head snapped up to face the general.
“There wasn’t an opening for a cabin boy. You’re to be the cook’s assistant this time.”
“Cook’s assistant?” Her mouth fell open. “But I can’t cook a bloody thing!”
“You didn’t know how to be a cabin boy once upon a time, either, but I daresay you’ll learn. You’ve always been a quick study, Cross. Besides, how difficult could it be?”
She pushed a couple of wayward strands of hair up into her cap. “Did you tell them I have experience as a cook’s assistant?”
Grimaldi smirked. “Of course I did.”
She scowled at him. “What do you think they’ll do when they find out I don’t know a potato from a carrot?”
He eyed her in that condescending way of his. “Potatoes are white. Carrots are orange. Any other questions?”
Danielle clamped her mouth shut and glared at him. Grimaldi did exactly as he pleased whenever he pleased and she and the other poor sops in his employ were left to make do the best they were able. All in a day’s work of being one of the Home Office’s best. “Fine. I’m a cook’s assistant,” she muttered. “Anything else I need to know?”
“Not at the moment. We’ll have another ship following you a day or so behind. I’ll be on it. You know what you need to do.”
She nodded once. There was only one more thing she wanted to clarify. “This is it, Grimaldi. My last mission. You promised. For my mother’s sake, I’m settling on the coast and living a life of peace and quiet.”
“You know I’m a man of my word,” he said. “I promised you.”
That was all she needed to hear. She nodded once. “Very well.” She finished tucking her hair into her cap. “You’re not going to ask me what I learned about Cade Cavendish?”
“No. I’ve recently received some additional intelligence about him. Cade is no longer our mark.”
“Who is?”
“Baptiste, of course.”
Grimaldi let down the opposite canvas window and pointed into the inky darkness. The light from the nearly full moon illuminated the water and the large ship that rested at anchor in front of them.
“There she is.” Grimaldi nodded toward the ship. The Elenor. She follows The French Secret on the dawn tide.”
Danielle could see enough of the ship to tell it was a sight better than many of the vessels she’d crewed over the years. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so horrible. A thought of Lady Daphne and Mary flashed across her mind. Had they discovered her absence yet? Were they angry with her? She tamped down the thought. No looking back. She nodded to the ship, too. “Are they going where I think they’re going?”
Grimaldi’s eyes glinted in the dark of the coach. “Yes.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Barely more than an hour after watching Danielle leave his brother’s house in Mayfair, Cade was sitting in his captain’s cabin aboard The Elenor. He’d traded his fine black evening attire for breeches, boots, and a loose white linen shirt. Bloody hell, he was much more comfortable and at ease. He’d always felt at home on the sea.
He didn’t belong in a town house at a stuffy ton ball. He’d left them a note, of course, Daphne and Rafe. They wouldn’t be surprised. The good thing about being the black sheep was you rarely let anyone down. They didn’t expect much from you. Who knew how long it would be before he saw his brother again, if ever.
Cade stood with his legs braced apart, breathing in the sea air and shaking his head. A vision of Danielle flashed unbidden through his mind. Normally, when he left a woman, he didn’t think of her again. Not so soon, at least.
This was different. This time Danielle had been the one to leave, and she’d left him a note. He’d found it there, sitting on his pillow when he’d gone to his room to pack his things. It was crumpled and the ink was smeared. It was what she’d been holding in her hands when he’d come to her bedchamber.
A bloody good-bye note that had barely mentioned she was leaving, let alone why. The woman had gone and she hadn’t looked back. Damned frustrating. Even more frustrating, they hadn’t even really had a dalliance. His balls still throbbed at the thought of what he hadn’t had.
Cade studied the map with one ripped corner that rested on the table in front of him.
St. Helena.
Lafayette Baptiste, the captain of The French Secret, was in charge of the latest plot to liberate Napoleon from his second island prison and return him to power. Again.
A knock sounded at the door. “Cap’n,” came the muffled voice of his first mate, Danny McCummins. Cade had met the man on a prison ship years ago. Danny had been about to have his hand sliced off for stealing from another man on the ship. Cade had helped the Irishman escape and they’d taken off together. Later, Danny had met up with one his mates, another Irishman named Sean O’Malley. They two had sworn their allegiance to Cade.
For his part, Cade trusted no one more than Danny and Sean. Together with their penchant for getting into trouble, exacerbated by their love of women and their perhaps even greater love of ale, Cade had bailed the both of them out of a fair number of scrapes over the years.
“Come in.” Cade rolled up the map and stuck it under his arm.
Danny came strolling in, humming a sailor’s tune, the remnants of last night’s supper smeared on his coarse shirt. That was typical for Danny McCummins. Danny. Damn. The name reminded Cade of Danielle. He couldn’t get her out of his thoughts.
“Are we ready to sail, McCummins?”
“Aye, Cap’n,” the first mate replied.
“Were you able to round up the rest of the crew on such short notice?”
“Aye, Cap’n. Everyone excepting Billy.”
Cade turned to face him. “Where’s Billy?”
McCummins’s smile revealed a hodgepodge of ill-tended teeth. “If’n I knew that, Cap’n, I daresay he’d be here.”
Cade cracked a smile. “I suppose we can make do without a cook’s assistant.” He strode to his desk, opened a drawer, and placed the map there. He shut the drawer and locked it.
“We don’t have ta, Cap’n,” McCummins replied, obviously pleased with himself, judging from the size of his grin. “O’Malley found us a replacement at the tavern last night. A chap what was looking fer work fer his son.”
“Son?” Cade narrowed his eyes.
“Aye. Says he’s sailed afore and knows his way ’round a ship.”
“Does he know how to cook?”
“Enough ta be an assistant, or so his da says.”
“You haven’t met the b
oy?”
“Not me’self. O’Malley seems ta think the lad might well be on the wrong side o’ the wharf police. Apparently, he’s looking ta set sail immediately.”
Cade sighed. It was a story he’d heard before. Often. Most of The Elenor’s crew had been on the wrong side of the law, himself included. Cade was more worried about O’Malley hiring the boy sight unseen. What if he was an opium addict or riddled with vermin? That wouldn’t do for a cook’s assistant. “Very well,” Cade replied. “Tell O’Malley it’s on his head if the lad is of no use.”
McCummins nodded. “He’s here now, Cap’n. O’Malley says he’s a right energetic thing, ready and willin’ ta work hard.”
“Is that so?” Cade stood looking out the window above his bed. “What’s his name?” he asked, not particularly interested in the answer.
“I believe it’s Cross,” McCummins replied. “Yeah, that’s the one. Cross.”
“Cross?” Cade narrowed his eyes at the skyline. Cross? LaCrosse. He shook his head. Damn. Was he to be plagued with thoughts of that woman forever? Would everything remind him of her? For how long? Bloody nuisance.
Dawn was beginning to break. It was time to leave. He grabbed up his spyglass from a hook on the bulkhead and focused it on The French Secret anchored far across the harbor but still within view. The French ship was hauling up its anchor. Cade spun around. “Weigh anchor!”
“Aye, aye, Cap’n.” McCummins headed for the door to issue the orders across the ship.
“McCummins,” Cade called.
The older man paused, his foot on the first step leading up the ladder. “Yes, Cap’n?”
“Not too close to The French Secret. Give it a sizeable lead, then…”
McCummins nodded. “Yes, Cap’n?”
“Bring the new cook’s assistant to me.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
“Then there was the time the captain gave the order to throw half the guns over the starboard bow and focus the rest on the masts of the Devil’s Joke. Why, we routed those blighters in less than an hour and they took off toward Portugal with a busted mizzen, limping like a three-legged dog.” Danielle listened attentively as this diatribe was proudly uttered by the first mate, a man named Danny McCummins.
It was yet another in a parade of stories featuring the captain’s heroics. In her short time on The Elenor, she’d already learned that these men were loyal, committed, and completely adoring of their captain. He had apparently fought traitors, saved helpless children, and even rescued a wounded dog from an enemy ship during hand-to-hand combat in the middle of the sea. The only thing she hadn’t heard so far was a tale about the captain wrestling a shark—though she’d little doubt that particular story would soon be told if she listened long enough.
She didn’t mind the stories. They served to distract the crew from asking her questions about herself and that was exactly how she wanted to keep it.
Bells sounded and Danny and the rest of the crew raced away. Danielle was left alone with the cook, a middle-aged man of few words who possessed a nearly bald head, a sturdy paunch, and spent most of his time rattling around in the pantry. She sat on a stool at the rickety galley table and dropped her head into her hands and allowed herself to expel her breath. It was the first moment she’d had alone since she’d been rowed out to the ship in a dinghy manned by Sean O’Malley, the second mate.
“I’ve never known an Irishman ta be second mate afore,” she’d said as she and O’Malley rowed toward The Elenor. She’d been attempting to make small talk with the man but it was true. She’d never known an Irish second mate, not on an English ship, with their prejudice against the Irish.
“Then ye’ll be even more surprised when ye learn the first mate is also an Irishman. McCummins is ’is name. Ye’ll be meetin’ ’im soon enough.”
“Is the captain Irish, too?”
O’Malley snort-laughed at that. “Nah, Cap’n is an English bloke. Oakleaf’s ’is name.”
Oakleaf? That sounded solidly English. Not that Danielle cared one whit. She’d been treated badly by both the French and the English at times. She knew the sting of prejudice. The captain of The Elenor seemed more kind to Irish than some of the French had been to her poor mother.
Danielle enjoyed her moments alone, for surely they would be brief and rare. All the other moments since she’d arrived on the ship had been fraught with tension as she hoped the crew believed she was a boy. Despite all the years she’d spent successfully pretending to be a boy and her familiarity with the role, she always experienced that moment when meeting a new person when she feared he’d see through her disguise and recognize her for a young woman instantly. Thankfully, that hadn’t happened after her advent to The Elenor. They’d all believed she was a lad. She’d held her breath at first. But she’d found over the years that most men didn’t stare too long or too closely at grubby little urchin boys, and the ones who did she’d long-ago learned to keep her distance from.
She’d spent the last hour after they’d got underway being regaled with distasteful jokes by the cook and a rotating cast of other crew members who made brief appearances in the kitchen after seeing to their chores. The galley, she learned, was the social hub of this particular ship. It was also hot as Hades with a constantly boiling pot over an open fire and a cookstove that belched black smoke into the air. The smoke leisurely dissipated through a dark hole that obviously wasn’t large enough in the deck above. The crew seemed a friendly, if bawdy lot and she’d already begun to feel she might fit in.
The door swung open and O’Malley came barreling into the galley. “Get up, Cross,” he barked at her. “The cap’n wants ta see ye.”
Danielle’s head snapped up. She’d expected to meet the captain eventually, of course, perhaps at dinnertime when she was serving him a meal, but to have a request for a private audience … that was rare. Her stomach dropped. Captains were often the most astute people on ships. If this one wasn’t just meeting her quickly in passing, but actually studying her, asking her questions … she didn’t even want to think about what might happen.
“Yes, yes. O’ course,” she replied in her best deckhand’s voice, using the common English accent she’d perfected over the years. She had a penchant for mimicking language that had served her well. She’d simply listened to a few of the younger males on a ship for a while and then said what they said just as they’d said it as if she were a quick-witted parrot. She’d blended right in.
“Come with me,” O’Malley said, gesturing over his shoulder.
Danielle followed him out of the kitchen, up the ladder, over the deck, and across the planks into a gangway where they descended another ladder into a darkened, cool space near the aft of the ship. Danielle pulled her sweaty shirt away from her tunic. No matter how this meeting went, at least she’d have a few blissful minutes away from the searing heat of the galley. Grimaldi was going to get an earful about forcing her to pose as a cook’s assistant.
O’Malley rapped twice upon the large wooden door to the captain’s cabin.
“Come in,” came a muffled deep male voice. The captain sounded young.
Danielle held her breath while O’Malley pushed open the door. The second mate stepped inside first. Danielle followed him. She’d never seen a captain’s cabin so grand. It must have taken up the whole aft of the ship. There was a desk, a set of chairs, and a brass bathtub of all things, with buckets hung on pegs near it. A large bed dominated the rear of the space, with emerald-green satin sheets covering it. No small bunk for this captain. The room smelled like lemon wax and a spicy mix of cigar smoke and something else vaguely familiar that Danielle couldn’t quite place. She glanced around, curious for a glimpse of the man who inhabited such a grand space.
“Here’s the new cook’s assistant,” O’Malley said, doffing his hat and gesturing back toward Danielle. O’Malley was a large man. Given her lack of height, Danielle couldn’t see around him.
“Captain Oakleaf,” she intoned. She ho
ped to dieu he didn’t question why she didn’t doff her hat, too.
“Cross, did you say?” the captain asked.
There was something familiar about that voice. Fear snaked up Danielle’s spine.
“Aye, Cap’n,” O’Malley replied. The larger man stepped to the side just then and Danielle was afforded an unencumbered view of the captain’s tall, broad-shouldered form. He stood with his back to her, but his physique caused the hairs on the back of her neck to stand up. He seemed so … familiar.
“Welcome, Mr. Cross,” the captain said, turning to face her.
Their eyes met and Danielle had to brace her hand against the bulkhead to keep herself steady. Time stopped. Whatever O’Malley was saying was unintelligible noise in her ears. She blinked twice, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. It couldn’t be … Cade. Cade was Captain Oakleaf?
She had fooled the others, but there was no fooling Cade Cavendish. She sucked in her breath and with a small gasp, took an instinctive step back.
Cade betrayed her by neither word nor deed. His eyes didn’t blink, his brows didn’t rise, and there was no gasp, small or otherwise, from his quarter. He stood there, outwardly calm and entirely in control. Damn him. He had to be surprised, didn’t he? He couldn’t have possibly known. The implications of that line of logic raced through Danielle’s brain at a speed that made her head ache. No. No. He couldn’t possibly have known.
“Don’t be afeered o’ the cap’n,” O’Malley said, poking Danielle in the ribs with his elbow and laughing. “He’s a large man, ta be sure, but I promise he won’t beat ye. Unless ye steal sumpin’ o’ don’t do yer duties. Then it’s the cat-o-nine fer ye,” O’Malley continued, still laughing good-naturedly.
All Danielle could do was nod. Nod and stare at Cade, willing him not to reveal her secret in front of O’Malley. She plucked at her shirt again. It was practically plastered to her chest. Had she really ever thought it was cooler here than the galley? Ridiculous.
Never Trust a Pirate Page 15