Of Noble Birth (26 page)

Tiny ran a hand over the
prickly new growth on his head, which was now barely a quarter of
an inch long. “I was ‘opin’ to catch ye before ye went back to the
ship. I ‘eard somethin’ at the Yard’s Arm I thought ye might want
to know about.”

The tone of Tiny’s words
caused Nathaniel’s stomach to tense. “What’s that?”

“England’s gone to war.
The infantry embarked to Malta March twenty-eighth, but the first
shots weren’t fired until April twenty-second, when our warships
attacked the port of Odessa. Everyone’s talkin’ about
it.”

That England and France
had finally, or rather, officially, backed Turkey in the fight
against Russia came as a shock, even though Nathaniel had been
expecting it for some time. Now that English blood was being spilt,
his father’s intentions to sell arms to the enemy became that much
more distasteful to him, especially because the Minie rifle was
more accurate and far-carrying than the smooth-bore firelock, which
was still the regulation weapon in line regiments.

Fleetingly, Nathaniel
wondered why a man with so much would commit treason, but then, he
had never understood his father. His desire to do so had been the
bane of his existence.

“That raises the stakes a
bit, doesn’t it?” Nathaniel asked.

Tiny nodded.
“Aye.”

Allowing himself no more
time to rest, Nathaniel got to his feet. He had to stop his father
from shipping any more guns to Russia, which meant he had to get
back to the
Vengeance
so they could leave for London at dawn.

The carriage Nathaniel
rented was an ordinary black conveyance that seated eight people.
Alexandra was squished between Tiny and the pirate captain himself;
Garth was on the other side of Tiny. John, Samuel, an
average-looking fellow with a thick head of hair, and Shorty, a
tall, heavyset man with a tattoo on the bald pate of his head, sat
with the marquess on the other side.

They started out shortly
after dawn, traveling in silence as they passed the elegant squares
and graceful crescents of Bristol. Alexandra had never visited the
city before. She loved the Georgian architecture, complete with its
colonnades and terraces.

“That’s Royal York
Crescent, the longest crescent in Europe,” Nathaniel pointed out as
they passed a long building of flats that curved like a half-moon.
“It was started before the turn of the century, but wasn’t finished
until 1820 or so.”

“Isn’t Blaise Castle
around here somewhere?” Alexandra asked. “My mother once mentioned
having seen it.”

“It’s in Clifton,” the
marquess said, speaking for
the first
time. “So is Bridlewood, my father’s home.”

Nathaniel glanced at his
half brother without responding.

“Then you’re familiar with
this area,” Alexandra said.

“The air and the water of
Clifton are unsurpassed.”

“So I’ve heard. So are the
beautiful hills and dales.” Alexandra smiled, wondering what the
marquess was really like. He was not unhandsome with his short,
sandy-colored hair and green eyes. His nose was rather wide, and
his stocky build was enough to suggest a preponderance of weight as
he grew older, but he had sensual lips and straight, nice teeth.
She marveled that, other than the lips, there was so little
resemblance between Nathaniel and his younger brother.

“Is the Clifton Suspension
Bridge as spectacular as they say?” she asked.

“Yes, though it’s not
finished yet. The Severn is one of the most beautiful rivers in the
world.”

Nathaniel had brought
Alexandra a basket of fresh buns that morning, together with a
small crock of butter, and she took two out now, offering one to
Lord Clifton. She was sure the marquess had eaten nothing but
hard-tack biscuits and salt pork since coming aboard the
Vengeance.
They’d had
nothing else.

Clifton smiled and
accepted the bread from her outstretched hand. “I can see why these
miscreants mistook you for my sister. You’re not only beautiful,
but generous as well.”

Alexandra gave him a
dimpled smile. The last thing she expected was a compliment as she
sat there in Nathaniel’s clothes. But she would have felt even more
self-conscious wearing the now ruined, expensive blue dress she had
taken from Lady Anne.

“Sometimes it’s wise for
prisoners to pull together.” Just as the marquess had
emphasized
miscreants
, she emphasized the word
prisoners
for Nathaniel’s benefit,
still goaded by his refusal to trust her enough to take her into
Bristol the night before.

Nathaniel ignored them,
but as Alexandra’s conversation with Lord Clifton warmed, touching
a variety of subjects from the Royal Strand Theater in London to
the hot wells of Bath, his gaze repeatedly flicked her way.
Evidently her friendliness with his half brother struck a nerve, so
she remembered to laugh gaily at whatever Clifton said.

Suddenly a large
crack
resounded, like
the snap of a whip, and the carriage tilted dramatically.
Nathaniel’s hard body slammed into Alexandra, but the reassuring
strength of his arm instantly encircled her waist and held her
steady.

“What happened?” she asked
as their carriage skidded to a halt. Dust rose all around, clogging
her nostrils and making her cough.

“We’ve probably lost a
wheel,” Nathaniel said. “Are you all right?”

Alexandra nodded, and he
disappeared through the door into the cloud of dust.

A moment later he poked
his head inside the carriage and spoke to Tiny. “It’s a wheel, all
right. Damned if this won’t cost us a day.”

Tiny heaved himself toward
the door. “Can we fix it ourselves?”

Nathaniel stepped back to
let the big man out. “No.” He squinted against the sun. “Someone
will have to ride to the next town and get a
blacksmith.”

“What about Clifton? If
someone stops to see if they can help, it might not bode well to
find a captive,” Samuel interjected.

“Don’t worry about the
marquess,” Nathaniel said, helping Alexandra down. “I’m sure the
point of my knife will convince him to act like one of us.” He
grinned at his half brother. “He’s so close to home, he’d be stupid
to raise an alarm now, anyway.”

“I’ll go for the
blacksmith,” Garth volunteered, seemingly eager to accept the task
at hand rather than sit in the heat and wait.

“No. You stay here with
me. Sam can handle it,” Nathaniel told him.

Garth frowned but nodded,
then moved with the captain and the other men to the shade of a
large oak tree, leaving the marquess to get out on his own and
hover about the carriage as Samuel rode away.

Alexandra climbed a small
hill not far from the road and sat at the top to survey the
countryside. She’d never been away from Manchester, but the verdant
grass and purple and yellow wildflowers around her couldn’t hold
her attention. Her gaze was drawn back to Nathaniel again and
again. Now that she was finally on her way to London, her anger at
him had softened, despite her best efforts to shore it up. And
though she had flirted with the marquess, Lord Clifton held no
attraction for her. Only the pirate captain could make her heart
pound with the simplest look or gesture.

She sighed heavily. Fate
had dealt her an unlucky hand. Perhaps she would never know another
who drew her as Nathaniel did, another who was so strong and
cunning and virile.

But it wouldn’t be hard to
find a man who wasn’t a criminal, she reminded herself. Even if she
and Nathaniel had a chance together, the duke would never let them
live in peace. She’d be forced to watch Nathaniel die or go to
prison, and she couldn’t endure that.

Neither had he asked her
to remain with him, in any capacity.

She lowered her lashes
when Nathaniel’s glance flicked her way. There was something
between them. She could feel it even from a distance. But whatever
the seed that had been sown, neither she nor Nathaniel would give
it room to grow. They couldn’t afford to.

* * *

Samuel brought back a
rotund man who set himself immediately to the task of fixing the
carriage.

Alexandra watched him work
from her perch at the top of the hill, enjoying the slow-moving
day. The time when she would be separated from Nathaniel was
looming too close already. She liked listening to his deep voice as
he spoke to Tiny, and she tried to catch every syllable that
floated to her on the wind.

He seemed equally aware of
her. Every few moments his eyes lingered on her almost like a
caress, as if he needed to reassure himself of her presence. Once
he smiled, and Alexandra’s heart swelled to see the
uncharacteristic abandon on his face. She wanted to make him smile
like that more often.

But she wouldn’t be around
to do it. Some other woman would have to soothe his hurts. And it
was for the best, she told herself as she watched Lord Clifton make
his way toward her.

Before speaking,
Nathaniel’s half brother jammed his good hand into the pocket of
the sailor’s breeches he wore. He commented on the weather and the
countryside, then cleared his throat and lowered his
voice.

“Nathaniel’s guard cannot
be raised against us both all of the time. Perhaps if one of us
were to create a diversion, the other could gain access to a
weapon, or escape and bring help.”

Alexandra didn’t have to
ask which role the marquess expected her to play. No doubt she was
to be the diversion. But she couldn’t do anything that would get
Nathaniel hurt, or worse, killed.

“He has the senses of a
cat,” she replied honestly. “I doubt it would be wise to try and
thwart him now. Besides, there’s no point in it. He’s already
agreed to release the both of us.”

“When it suits him,” Lord
Clifton responded bitterly. “I’ll not have him hold me as ransom
for that thief Richard.”

Alexandra studied Lord
Clifton’s injured arm. The marquess was brave, she had to admit,
but pride seemed to motivate most of his actions. “You could be
harmed if you don’t cooperate. Haven’t you paid too heavy a price
already?”

Hate contorted Clifton’s
features. “I’ll have that blackguard’s head mounted on the gate at
Bridlewood someday,” he vowed.

Alexandra’s stomach
clenched at the thought. “I don’t doubt that you will.”
Or
rather, that your
father will,
she added silently. “But
today is not the day. We’re too close to freedom to risk further
loss of life or limb. We’d be foolish not to go along with him
until he releases us.”

She noticed Nathaniel
scowling at them and stood, brushing bits of twig and dirt from the
trousers she wore. “I think it’s time to go. It looks as though the
wheel is fixed.”

* * *

Fortunately, the marquess
seemed to take her advice. The journey to the next small town was
uneventful. Lord Clifton didn’t speak again, to her or anyone else.
He stared out the window, his face an emotionless mask.

Nathaniel, on the other
hand, studied her every move. Alexandra felt his gaze upon her like
the sun beating through a window and wondered if he, too, dreaded
the moment when they would part. Had the desire for revenge
captured the whole of his heart, or had she managed to achieve some
small purchase there?

They rolled into
Farringdon long after dark. Alexandra had expected to continue
through the night, so she was surprised when Nathaniel called to
Garth, whose turn it was to drive, to stop at the first
inn.

“Why are we stoppin’?”
Tiny posed the question, but the rest of Nathaniel’s men stretched
and looked to him for the answer as well.

“I’m going to send a
message to Greystone. We’ll arrive in London tomorrow afternoon,
several hours after our message has been delivered.”

Tiny shrugged. “Whether we
wait in London or ‘ere is all the same to me. But I am longin’ for
a bed, that I am.”

“Aye,” a tired, dusty
Garth agreed.