Moonspun Magic (3 page)

But no one knew the identity of the Ram.

The Ram saw that the girl was slowly regaining her senses. She was twisting a bit and ruining the artistic position he'd arranged her in after the eighth had spilled his seed in her. He frowned. He didn't appreciate her detracting from the solemnity of the group, from their quiet fellowship. He waited a few more minutes, then raised her head and fed her a bit more of the drug in a cup of brandy. The brandy trickled down her chin. He shut her jaw. She would sleep now through the night. He rearranged her limbs to his liking.

At precisely one o'clock in the morning, each of the eight rose, placed his right hand on top of the red-vellum book, raised his left hand over his heart, and feeling like a complete fool, recited the speech the Ram had taught him. It was blessedly short, so despite the amounts of brandy consumed, it wasn't beyond any of the men's capabilities.

“We are the masters of the night. We extol each other and our power. Only we know of ourselves. We are silent. The world knows only of our deeds, and they are awed.”

The Ram nodded gravely when the recitations were finished. He said his own speech alone, his voice going deep to give the words a more moving, vibrant timbre. He was the Ram and he was the master of masters. The name suited him. He nearly forgot to keep his voice disguised, so moved was he at his own performance.

To dispute with a drunk man is to debate with an empty house.

—P
UBLILIUS
S
YRUS

“Y
ou drink any more of that swill, and Flash and I will have to bury you here.”

Rafael cocked a black brow at Rollo Culpepper, his first mate and longtime friend. “Swill, my dear fellow? This is the finest French brandy. Old Beaufort assures me he smuggles only the best. Just another little bit, I think. Lindy!”

“More like a bloody keg,” Flash Savory said, observing the huge snifter Rafael was holding. He wondered if he could snatch the snifter without Rafael knowing it. A pickpocket of the first order from the advanced age of five in London's gin-soaked Soho, Flash still boasted many unusual talents, but convincing his drunk captain to leave the ale house wasn't among them. He knew why the captain was getting drunk as a lord, knew as well as Rollo did. The captain was feeling cut loose and useless after five years of danger, excitement, and doing things that made a difference to the war. That was it: the captain no longer felt that he mattered. Whatever he did now wouldn't change or alter what was happening in
France or in Italy or in Portugal. And he was back in Cornwall, back where his damned twin brother, curse his eyes, lived and lorded it over everyone. A bloody shame about that Whittaker being a French spy and telling folk about the captain. Ruining everything he did. Flash felt a shiver of fear remembering that Whittaker—or whatever the bloody Frog's name really was—had nearly succeeded in killing the captain. Well, he'd lost, damn him. And Flash was now caretaker of the mangiest, most perverse, most randy damned cat that ever sailed quite happily aboard a ship.

“Lindy!”

Flash tried wheedling. “Now, Captain, don't you know that old Hero doesn't sleep well when you're not aboard? He meows and carries on, and the crew can't sleep either, what with all his bloody racket, and—”

“Flash, go away. Now. You and Rollo just go away.”

Rollo leaned forward, resting his elbows on the tabletop. “Look, Rafael—”

But Rafael wasn't looking at him. He was grinning at Lindy, a toothsome barmaid whose ample endowments were difficult to ignore even if a man were sober and bent on abstinence.

“Ye want more, do ye, my fine lord?”

“I'm not a lord, Lindy. I'm not an anything now. No, wait, that isn't true. Hero needs me, won't sleep without me, you see.”

Rollo snorted and Flash's fingers suddenly started itching. He didn't understand it until he saw the prosperous-looking merchant come into the taproom with his bulging pockets. He forced his attention away from those bulging pockets back to his captain, and stuffed his itching fingers into his own breeches' pockets.

“Well, tonight you don't need this Hero,” said Lindy, and poured him more brandy.

Rollo snorted again, then clamped his lips shut. They'd managed to limp the damaged
Seawitch
into Falmouth harbor the previous day. She'd been crippled in a freak, very vicious storm just a day beyond the Channel. Rollo guessed that Rafael, in addition to his other worries, wanted desperately to continue to St. Austell, to Drago Hall, but the papers he was carrying were bound for London, and according to Morgan, they were urgent. He looked at Rafael's abstracted expression and knew the captain was trying his best to bury his unhappy thoughts in a brandy grave.

“'Tis a comely man ye are, Cap'n. Aye, comely.” Lindy ignored both Rollo and Flash, her full attention on Rafael.

“Balm for a man's soul,” Rafael said, and downed the remainder of the brandy. “More balm, Lindy.”

“It grows quite late, Captain,” Rollo said. “Flash is right; you should come back to the ship and—”

“I suggest the both of you nursemaids take yourselves back to the
Seawitch
and sleep with that blasted cat.” He smiled vacuously up at Lindy. “I shall spend the night here in Beaufort's very comfortable inn. It is comfortable upstairs, isn't it, Lindy?”

“Unbelievable comfort, Cap'n.”

“There, you see?”

Rollo threw up his hands.

Flash withdrew his still-itching hands from his pockets and looked wistfully toward the steadily drinking, quite inattentive merchant. The urge to lighten the merchant's pockets wasn't as strong as it used to be, thank the powers. He'd be twenty in four months. Rafael had promised him that when he became twenty, all urges toward criminality would disappear. He believed Rafael implicitly.

“Ye're a divil, Cap'n,” said Lindy fondly. She ran light fingertips through Rafael's thick black hair. “Aye, a divil.”

Rollo rolled his eyes. “Come on, Flash, let's get back. He'll be all right.” The two men left the Blue Boar, the prosperous merchant, and their sodden captain.

“He'll be all right,” Rollo said again.

“He might not be the divil,” said Flash, a gamin smile lighting up his thin face, “but he'll feel the very divil tomorrow.”

“Aye, but his night will be pleasant enough.”

“Not if he keeps drinking that vile swill.”

“I daresay that the girl, Lindy, will know when he's had enough.”

Lindy, at that very moment, was gently prying the snifter from Rafael's long fingers. “It grows late, Cap'n. Me feet are weary.”

Rafael looked up at her, but his eyes didn't range further north than her bosom. “And the rest of you, my girl?” His look was lazy, his voice drawling.

She chuckled, and stroked her fingers over his jaw. “Ye come with me, me fine lad, and I'll show ye.”

As Rafael followed Lindy upstairs, he devoutly prayed that his major working parts wouldn't shut down and leave him humiliated as well as drunk. Lindy paused a moment, turning to face him from the step above. His face was on a level with her bosom. He leaned forward and kissed the soft white flesh.

“Ah,” said Lindy, and pressed his face close. He was right and randy, this lovely man. The moment he'd come into the Blue Boar, she'd known she wanted to bed him. It was the way he looked at her that made her know, simply know that he was a man who was generous with a woman, a man who enjoyed a woman's body and her pleasure. The fact
that he was one of the most beautiful men she'd ever served unwatered brandy to made her leap of faith final. His body, she had observed during the long evening, would be as magnificent as his silver-gray eyes. Ah, yes, she would enjoy him thoroughly.

She smiled as she slid her hand down his body. When her fingers closed about him, she said softly, with immense satisfaction, “Aye, ye are a divil.”

 

Elaine Carstairs, Baroness Drago, looked at her younger cousin across the breakfast table. It was an altogether lovely morning, the sun bright, a nip of fall briskness in the air. “What is wrong with you, Victoria? You are always up beforetimes. Is there something you wish from me?”

It was late, Victoria knew, and Elaine, now six months pregnant, didn't rise until at least ten o'clock in the morning. And Victoria had waited in her locked room until she guessed Elaine would be in the breakfast room.

“Well, Victoria?”

Yes,
Victoria wanted to shout at her suddenly,
I want you to keep your husband away from me.
But she only shook her head and bit into her now-cold slice of toast.

“I must say that you don't look yourself. I am the one increasing, and here you are with shadows under your eyes looking quite awful. I hope you aren't sickening with anything.”

How to tell her cousin that she hadn't slept, that fear of Damien had made her cower like a helpless creature in her bed, afraid even to answer the maid's knock.

“I trust you are well enough to take Damaris riding? The child could talk of nothing else when I visited the nursery this morning. If you call that prattle of hers talking, of course.”

“Yes,” Victoria said, looking up from her plate of congealed eggs. “I'll fetch her in just a little while.”

“Victoria! Really, what is wrong with you?”

“What's this? You aren't well, little cousin?”

Victoria felt the small amount of breakfast form a hard knot in her stomach at the sound of Damien's smooth voice. She forced herself to take a deep breath and look up at him. “I am well,” she said, her voice cold, stilted. “I will take your daughter riding.”

“Excellent,” said Damien. “I do believe I will join you. We will ride to St. Austell, if you like. I have business there.”

“She looks awful,” Elaine said, not mincing matters. “If she is sickening, I don't wish her to be near Damaris.”

Damien Carstairs, Baron Drago, walked to where Victoria sat, stiff as a stick, in her high-backed chair. He leaned down and looked at her closely. Victoria forced herself to remain still. She could do nothing. Not here, not now.

“Didn't you sleep well, Victoria?”

“Yes,” she said. “I slept very well. Very deeply, in fact.”

“Ah. That explains much, and yet it doesn't, not really.”

Elaine's voice was suddenly high and shrill. “Be certain not to overdo, Victoria. You know how terrible your leg looks if you push yourself too hard.”

Victoria wanted to thank her cousin. “Yes, it does look horrible, doesn't it? Ugly and disgusting. Yes, that is quite true.”

But Damien, to her chagrin, only smiled. He flicked a careless finger across her pale cheek, then straightened.

“Is there anything you wish in St. Austell, my love?”

Elaine shrugged. “I am thinking that perhaps
Victoria should remain here today. We are having a party, and Ligger could use her assistance. The silver, you know.”

“I know,” said Damien easily.

“Perhaps you don't wish to attend the party, Victoria,” Elaine continued to her cousin. “There will be dancing, and I don't wish you to be placed in an embarrassing situation.”

She knows or she guesses something is amiss with her husband, Victoria realized in that moment. She is trying to give Damien a disgust of me. Victoria prayed for her success. “You're right, Elaine. I shall help Ligger with the preparations. My leg is feeling particularly bothersome this morning. Dancing would doubtless embarrass all of us. I will keep Damaris and Nanny Black company in the nursery.”

Damien gave his wife a lazy look that was neatly belied by his voice, which brooked no further arguments. “Victoria will ride this morning, with Damaris and myself. She will attend the party and the dancing. I shall help her choose a gown, my dear. Perhaps one of yours that are no longer of any use to you. Now, if there is nothing more of grave importance, I shall be with Corbell. The stables, Victoria, in half an hour.”

“But I need her to help—”

“Half an hour.”

Victoria raised her chin. “I'm sorry, Damien. I will be riding with David. Damaris will be our chaperon,” she added with a nod toward Elaine.

“Yes,” said Elaine quickly. “That will be fine. I do wonder when David will speak to you, my dear.”

Damien stared at his wife. “David Esterbridge,” he said slowly. “So, that is the way of it, hmmm?”

“Yes,” said Victoria, “that is the way of it.”

Damien smiled suddenly, nodding to his wife. “Well, this is very interesting, yes indeed.”

Both women watched him stride from the breakfast room. The instant the door closed, Elaine rose and splayed her fingers on the table. She said in a low, hard voice, “You are wise to accept David Esterbridge. He is suitable. It is time you left Drago Hall.”

Things were moving rapidly, too rapidly. Victoria had always known that she hadn't a sou, and it hadn't been important. But now it was. She would have to tell David that she was poor, wretchedly poor, that she would bring him nothing. Squire Esterbridge appeared to Victoria to be a man of stern and rigid fiber, with even more fibrous notions of what was due to his family. Surely he couldn't want a daughter-in-law with nothing to recommend her but the Abermarle name, her blue eyes, and her straight teeth. She simply couldn't bring herself to believe that he did want her in the Esterbridge family, even though David had assured her at the beginning of each of the three proposals that his father was desirous of having her for a daughter-in-law. She lowered her head. She would speak to David, make him fully aware of her concerns before she accepted his proposal. Perhaps she was making problems for herself where there should be none. Surely David was certain of his feelings and of his father's attitudes toward her, for they were of long enough standing. She was worrying for naught. Perhaps, she thought, more optimistic now, just perhaps Damien, once he realized that he wouldn't gain his ends, would provide her with a dowry.

She left Elaine with a brisk step and went to the nursery. Nanny Black merely gave her her usual dour nod and straightened the pink velvet bow on the little girl's riding hat.

“You wish to be my chaperon, Damie?” Victoria dropped to her knees in front of the child, carefully, of course, favoring her left leg.