At fourteen, Tristan Easton was well aware of that fact as he scampered behind his twin brother along the creaking docks. They wouldn’t be together much longer. It was far too dangerous. They were matching bookends with pale blue eyes—“Ghost Eyes” the gypsies called them—that made them easily identifiable as the lords belonging to Pembrook. And when they were within each other’s shadow, they became an easy target for the one who wished them harm.

Through the midnight haze, barely illuminated by the occasional lantern or torch, Sebastian led the way because he was the older by twenty-two minutes. As such he was the eighth Duke of Keswick, now that their father was dead—murdered, no doubt, by their vile uncle who yearned to gain the titles and properties. But three lads stood in his way. Tristan was of a mind to see that it remained that way.

Even though his heart was galloping madly at the sight of the monstrous ship looming ahead of them, rocking on the water, fog swirling ominously around it. Bitter bile rose in his throat as the stench of brine mingled with decaying fish assaulted his nostrils.

Sebastian staggered to a stop, swung around—his black hair flopping into his eyes—and grabbed Tristan’s shoulders. “You understand that I have no choice. We must do this.”

He’d said the same words to their younger brother, Rafe, when he delivered him to a workhouse. But Rafe hadn’t understood. Not really. Four years their junior, he’d reacted the way he usually did when the twins formed plans that didn’t include him: he whined, blubbered, and begged not to be left behind. What a sniveling little pup!

Tristan was above putting on a similar disgusting performance, even though he could barely breathe with the dread of what awaited him churning in his gut, even though he had to clamp his teeth together so they didn’t betray that he was shaking with fear. Tiny chilled tremors that somehow seemed far worse than outright trembling. But he wouldn’t add to Sebastian’s burdens. He’d be a man about this, prove his worth.

He wished Sebastian hadn’t stopped, hadn’t given him time to think about what was happening. Their uncle, Lord David Easton, had locked them in the cold dark tower at Pembrook as soon as all the mourners had left following their father’s funeral. Their mother was long dead. They were in their uncle’s care now, and it seemed he intended to rid himself of them.

They’d still be shivering in that prison if Mary, their neighbor’s daughter, hadn’t helped them to escape. Tristan had wanted to use the opportunity to slay their uncle then and there, be done with the troublesome bastard, but Sebastian favored waiting until they were men, better able to command the situation. Unfortunately that plan involved going into hiding. Where better than far from England’s shores?

Tristan gave a brisk nod in response to his brother’s earlier words. He clenched his hands into balled fists to keep them from reaching out and clutching Sebastian’s shirt in a last vain attempt to avoid the impending separation.

Sebastian’s fingers tightened, digging painfully into Tristan’s shoulders. “Remember, ten years from now, on the night we escaped, we meet at the old abbey ruins. We’ll get our revenge, I swear to you upon mother’s and father’s graves.”

He nodded once again.

“All right then.”

Sebastian continued along the dock until they came to the hulking ship. It groaned in the darkness of the night. A large man stood near the plank that led onto the ship. His greatcoat barely stirred in the breeze coming off the water. A scar along the left side of his face brought the corner of his mouth up into a mockery of a smile. His eyes were as black as sin.

A shiver skittered down Tristan’s spine. He wanted to turn on his heel and head to the stable where they’d tethered their horses. He wanted to climb onto Molly and gallop away, never stopping. Instead he forced himself to stand beside his brother as he faced the captain to whom Sebastian had spoken in a tavern earlier.

“Have you the coins?” Sebastian asked.

“Aye.” The captain tossed a leather pouch into the air, caught it. The coins jingled. “You sure you be wanting this, lad? To be me cabin boy?”

Tristan nodded.

“Hard life on a ship. Neither of you look like boys accustomed to a hard life.”

Tristan fought to find his voice—

“He’s not afraid,” Sebastian announced confidently.

Tristan was grateful for his brother’s words, glad he was successfully hiding that he was truly terrified.

“All right then.” The captain tossed the pouch to Sebastian, who caught it with both hands, as though it weighed far more than it did, as though it carried the burden of his conscience. “Let’s get aboard.”

The captain turned and began to walk up the gangway. Tristan took a step—

Sebastian grabbed him, hugged him tightly. “Be strong.”

Tristan’s eyes burned. Dammit. He wasn’t going to cry. He wasn’t going to be a baby like Rafe. With a nod he slapped Sebastian on the back, broke free, and ran up the ship’s corridor. He leaped onto the deck.

When he looked back all he saw was Sebastian’s retreating shadow disappearing into the darkness. Tristan wanted to go with him. He didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want this.

The captain’s huge paw of a hand landed on his shoulder with enough weight to jar him.

“I’m called Marlow. Have you a name, lad?”

“Lo—” He stopped. He couldn’t tell anyone that he was Lord Tristan Easton, second in line for the dukedom of Keswick. Until they reclaimed their birthright he was only a commoner. He cleared his throat. “Tristan.”

“Well, Lo Tristan, who you be running from?”

Tristan pressed his lips tightly together. The captain had caught his mistake, was mocking him. He would never be so careless again. If he was to be nothing else, he would become a master keeper of secrets.

“So be it,” the captain said. “I’ll call you Jack.”

Tristan jerked his gaze up to the towering man. “Why?”

“When you’re seeking to hide, lad, you hide everything.”

Tristan looked back toward the looming black void into which his brother had vanished. He could do that. He could deeply bury everything about himself. He could become someone else. He
would
become someone else.

He only hoped that when the time was right, he could find himself once again.

Chapter
1

I had always heard
that the eyes were a window into one’s soul. As I stared into his, I could
not determine if they were merely shuttered or if the rumors about him were
true: that he possessed no soul to speak of because he’d traded it to the
devil for immortality. By all accounts, the life he pursued was one that
should have led him to an early grave. Yet, there he sat, his ghostly blue
gaze unwavering, challenging . . . dangerous. A time would come
when I would question the wisdom in not walking away, but I longed for more
than I possessed and so I stood my ground, refusing to be put off. I often
look back on that stormy night and wonder how different my life might be now
had I realized that the journey he would take me on was one that I would
soon discover I had little desire to travel.

—The Secret Memoirs
of an Adventurous Lady

London

April 1858

H
e didn’t
look at all like a hero.

Lady Anne Hayworth had expected him to
be . . . well, at least tidy. She’d never seen a man so unkempt,
with three buttons on his shirt undone to reveal a narrowing V of chest that to
her surprise seemed as bronzed as his hands. He sat alone at a table in the
corner of the tavern as though he owned the establishment, although she was well
aware that he didn’t. Or at least she didn’t think he did. The particulars about
him were as difficult to find as the man himself.

Standing before him she was sorely tempted to take
a pair of sharp shears to the ebony hair that hung to his shoulders and a razor
to the stubble darkening his jaw.

She was accustomed to gentlemen rising when she
approached. Instead, he continued to slouch in his chair, leisurely trailing one
long thick finger up and down his mug, his gaze fastened on her as though he
were imagining what it might be like to stroke that finger along her throat. It
was an absurd thought, and she had no idea from whence it had sprung. She was
not used to men openly looking at her as though they were contemplating doing
wicked things with her.

No, no, this man wasn’t hero material at all.

Perhaps the gentleman at the door, the one she’d
questioned, had directed her to this man as a cruel prank. If so, she would
demand he return the sovereign she’d paid him for his assistance. Still, on the
off chance . . .

She cleared her throat and said, “I’m searching for
Captain Jack Crimson.”

“Crimson Jack. And you found him.”

“I see. Captain Crimson Jack, the adventurer?”

One side of his mouth curled up slowly into a
mocking smile. “Depends. What sort of adventure are you looking for,
Princess?”

“I’m not a princess. My father is an earl, not a
prince or a king. He—” She halted. The particulars of her heritage—of anything
at all actually—were none of his concern. “I was told you are a man who could
help me.”

As he raked his insolent gaze over her, her stomach
quivered, and she balled her white-gloved hands into fists at her side to stop
them from trembling.

“Depends on what sort of help you’re needing,” he
said. “If it’s an adventure between the sheets—”

“Definitely not!” she snapped at the arrogant
cad.

“Pity.”

Pity? Obviously the man had no standards. She knew
she was not a beauty. She lacked color. Her hair was a ghastly white, her eyes
silver. Her nose too small, her lips too plump. She knew she should seek help
elsewhere, but he had come so highly recommended. Instead, she heard herself
ask, “May I sit?”

The chair in front of her wobbled a bit, and she
realized that he’d nudged it with his booted foot.
Mannerless jackanapes
. Still, she could not discount the fact that
she had been assured that he was a man she could trust not only with her life,
but with her virtue. He wasn’t in the habit of forcing women, but then based on
his handsome features alone—not to mention that wicked smile—she suspected women
stumbled over themselves clambering into his bed. She, however, would not be one
of them. She pulled out the chair farther and sat. “I am Lady Anne.” She halted
there. Her father and brothers would not approve of her plans, which was the
very reason that she’d chosen to be secretive. “I wish to hire you to take me to
Scutari.”

“Not a very nice place for a holiday. What say I
take you to Brighton instead?”

“My fiancé isn’t in Brighton,” she snapped. She
squeezed shut her eyes as they began to sting. Her family had told her it was a
bad idea to go to the place where so many soldiers had died during the Crimean
War, to visit the hospital and grounds where Florence Nightingale had fought to
save so many lives. But it wasn’t so much that she
wanted
to go there. It was quite simply that she
had
to.

She opened her eyes to the expressionless man
sitting across from her. If he thought anything at all about her outburst, he
didn’t show it.

“You don’t need me to get you to Scutari. You can
purchase passage—”

“I wish to journey on my schedule. I want to get
there quickly. I don’t intend to stay long, but it’s imperative that I—” Damn
the tears that once again threatened. She was stronger than this. She
would
be stronger than this. She swallowed. “—visit
with my fiancé and return home before the Season begins.”

A handkerchief, surprisingly white and pressed,
appeared before her, held in a large roughened hand. She took the offering and
dabbed gently at her eyes. “Thank you.” She looked down at the scarred table,
then lifted her gaze. “I didn’t expect this part to be so incredibly
difficult.”

“How long has it been since you saw him?”

“Four years, almost to the day. I saw him off at
the railway station on the morning that he and so many others in service of the
Queen began the journey to the Crimea. He looked so incredibly dashing, so
confident. Promised to be home in time to go pheasant hunting . . .”
She cleared her throat. “I’m frightfully sorry. I’m not sure why I’m telling you
all this.”

Especially when his eyes held no compassion, no
warmth. She didn’t know why he’d bothered to offer her the handkerchief unless
it was simply that he couldn’t abide tears.

“Have you ever been separated from anything, anyone
you held dear?” she asked.

He clenched his jaw, and she quickly shook her
head. “I’m sorry. That was a silly question. You’re a seaman. I’m certain your
life is filled with separations.”

“Where I’m concerned, don’t be certain of anything,
Princess.”

“I told you that I’m not—”

She saw triumph light his eyes. He’d baited her,
and her anger had shoved her sorrow aside. What sort of man was he?
Compassionate one moment, distant the next?

Very primly, she folded the handkerchief and
extended it toward him.

“Keep it.”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’ve not handled
this encounter at all well. As I said earlier, I wish to hire you to take me to
Scutari. I’ve heard you have a remarkably fast ship and you are an exceptional
captain.”

“True on both counts. But I transport cargo, not
people.”

“I’m willing to pay handsomely for your ship and
services: two hundred pounds.”

She’d shocked him. She could tell by the way that
he slowly trailed his gaze over her, without insolence, but with a new measure
of respect, as though truly seeing her for the first time.

“That’s a good deal of money,” he finally said.

“Enough to make you go to Scutari, Captain—” She
shook her head. “What is your last name, if not Crimson?”

“Jack will suffice.”

“I couldn’t be so informal.”

He plopped his arm down on the table, palm up.
“Give me your hand,” he ordered.

“Beg pardon?”

“Your hand.”

His eyes held a challenge that she couldn’t
mistake. She saw no harm in doing as he asked. She was wearing gloves after all.
Taking a deep steadying breath she placed her hand in his.

Before she could blink he curled his long fingers
around her wrist. Then slowly, ever so slowly, he began releasing the buttons on
her glove with his other hand.

“Captain—”

“Shh.”

She watched in horrified fascination as he
leisurely peeled off her glove and set it aside. With no request for permission,
he lightly trailed his fingers over hers, then circled them around her palm,
following the various lines as though he expected them to guide him somewhere.
His fingers were callused, rough, scarred. She doubted he ever wore gloves.

“Your skin is like silk. Your fiancé is a very
fortunate man,” he said, his voice scratchier, rougher than it had been moments
earlier.

“Not as fortunate as you might think.”

He didn’t question her further, but rather he
seemed enthralled by her hand, by the lines that traversed her palm. “There is
very little room on my ship for formality,” he said, returning to her earlier
comment regarding how she was to address him. “You would have to sleep in my
cabin.”

“But surely you would not be there.”

With no rush, he lifted his hooded gaze to hers.
Her heart was pounding so hard that she wondered if he could feel it in the
throbbing of her pulse at her wrist. “Not always, no. But I would eat my meals
there. Study my charts there.” A heartbeat of silence. “Bathe there.”

She swallowed hard. She could be on deck when he
was bathing. Besides, how many baths would the man need in the week or so it
would take to reach their destination? “I’m sure we could work out a suitable
arrangement.”

A corner of his mouth lifted. “It’s bad luck to
have a woman onboard. My men would not be particularly pleased by your presence.
You would have to remain very close to me so that I could offer you
protection.”

He was striving to manipulate her now, seeking to
intimidate, to make her wary. She had four brothers. She knew how the game was
played. “I sought you out because I’d heard that you were somewhat of a
hero—”

He tightened his jaw, narrowed his eyes, and she
realized he wasn’t at all pleased with that characterization.

“—although the particulars regarding your heroics
were not forthcoming. But I was assured you had excellent command of your men.
Surely if you tell them to behave, they will behave.”

“For the chance at one of your kisses, I suspect
they’d be willing to risk the bite of a cat-o-nine.”

“I don’t give my kisses freely.”

“And I have no need of your two hundred pounds. So
tell me, Princess, what else are you willing to barter?”

L
ord
Tristan Easton, more commonly known along the waterfront as Crimson Jack,
couldn’t stop his smile from widening as she released a small gasp and snatched
her lovely hand free of his grip. He wasn’t certain he’d ever encountered such
silkiness before. Or such fire in a woman’s eyes. But then he wasn’t in the
habit of taunting women. Yet something about her called to the devil in him.

“You’re a cur,” she snapped.

“I never claimed otherwise.” And he’d hang from the
nearest yardarm whichever of his men was spouting tales that he was a hero. He
wasn’t. Not like his brother Sebastian who’d fought in the bloodiest of battles
and barely survived to tell the tale. “You’re asking me to go someplace that I
have no desire to go. It needs to be worth my while to be so
inconvenienced.”

Although presently he had no commitments other than
lifting tankards of ale and doing as he pleased.

“Obviously the tales I’ve heard of you are
untrue—you’re not a man of honor.”

He refused to acknowledge how her words bit into
his soul. He’d long ago stopped caring how anyone judged him, so why the devil
did he give a fig what she thought?

She rose elegantly to her feet. “I’m sorry to have
wasted your time and mine. Good night to you, sir.”

With an indignant swish of her skirts, she pivoted
on her heel and marched toward the door. Someone jumped forward to open it for
her, and then she was gone into the storm.

Pity.

Tristan shifted his gaze over to the nearby table
where a lad of sixteen was trying to entice a serving girl onto his lap.
“Mouse,” he barked.

The boy immediately snapped to attention. “Aye,
Cap’n?”

He gave a quick nod toward the door. “I want to
know where she goes.”

Without delay or complaint the nimble lad took off.
If anyone could follow her, he could.

Tristan caught the eye of the disappointed maid and
signaled another tankard be brought to him. When it arrived he took a long swig
of the thick dark ale and leaned back his chair until it bumped against the
wall. His thinking pose.

He’d grown remarkably bored of late. Two years ago
he and his brothers had finally made good on their promise—a bit tardy, but
still they’d returned to London, routed their uncle, and reclaimed their
birthright as the lords of Pembrook.

But London Society had not been so quick to welcome
the lords back into the fold. Once Sebastian’s position as the Duke of Keswick
was secured and their uncle dead, Tristan had returned to the love that had
usurped Pembrook in his heart: the sea.

But after nearly twenty months of fighting tempests
and gales, he was back on England’s shores, feeling untethered, as though he’d
somehow broken free of his moorings. He had no desire to return to the tedious
London ballrooms. While there, he discovered women aplenty to warm his bed, but
they were all cut of the same cloth: satin and silk and lace. They were drawn to
the danger he represented. He had only to smile and they fell into his arms.
They presented no challenge.

The lady who’d been sitting before him was
different. She’d stepped through the door as though she owned the night, had
called down the rain, had commanded the thunder to rumble. With the most
gracious movements he’d ever seen, she’d reached up and moved aside the wet hood
of her pelisse.

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