Seduced by the Scoundrel (11 page)

‘Yes, thank you. Are you? Was anyone else hurt?’

‘I’m fine now, thanks to you, miss. And there’s nothing much wrong, just the few of ‘em with the odd scratch and bang. Cap’n knows what he’s about, I’ll say that for him, for all that he’s a hard devil.’

‘Is he? Hard, I mean? I thought all naval officers would be like that.’

‘Yeah.’ Patch leaned against the mast and sucked his teeth in thought. ‘They’re all for discipline, but he don’t rely just on that, see?’ She shook her head, not understanding. ‘He can relax, let out the rope, like, because he knows, and we knows, that if we don’t come to heel when he tugs it then there’s hell to pay. And I gets the feeling that he didn’t much care what happened to him, just so long as he could prove himself right and get the bug—um, get the traitors.’

‘It was a bit more than that, surely? They had taken his career away. His honour. They could have had him shot. He had a lot to lose and to prove.’

‘Aye,’ Patch agreed. ‘Dead men walking, the lot of us.’

‘Not any more,’ she said. ‘Thanks to the captain.’

‘You going to marry him, miss?’

‘What? No! I am betrothed to someone else.’

‘Oo-er,’ Patch said and she could hear he was grinning from his voice. ‘He’s going to be pleased about all this then, your gentleman.’

‘I was not the captain’s mistress, that was just a pretence to … to keep me safe.’

That provoked a muffled snort. ‘Pull the other one, miss, it’s got bells on. I’ve seen him kiss you. And I’ve seen him look at you.’

‘Captain d’Aunay is a very good actor,’ she said stiffly and had to listen to Patch chuckling to himself as he walked away.

At least this motley crew were not going to be acquainted with Lord Bradon! Could she get away with this editing of the truth? Would her future husband guess that she had kissed another man with passion, that he had caressed her, pushed her to the point of reckless surrender? He would know that she had been kissed; Luc had been very confident that he was the first and she supposed she had been getting better at it. That could be explained as the result of flirtations, not anything more serious, she supposed, and frowned into the darkness as the lights of Hugh Town on St Mary’s, the largest of the islands, came closer.

But it was not right to deceive the man she was contracted to, the man who would be the father of her children. The man she would spend the remainder of her life with. Should she confess to Andrew Bradon? The thought made her feel sick. She did not think she had even the words to describe what had happened, had
not
happened, let alone the will-power to speak of it to a complete stranger who was not going to be pleased about it, however tolerant he was.

Luc’s deep voice behind her made her start. He had come up on deck without her hearing him and was giving the orders to bring them in closer to the beach below the Garrison, high above the town, the place where Yestin the fisherman had signalled to them. That seemed like days ago, not hours.

The men were working the sails, Luc hailed the French brig and it altered course with them. The wind sent her hair whipping across her face.

‘There you are.’ He leaned against the mast as Tom Patch had done. ‘Are you cold?’

‘No.’ It was not the stiff breeze that made her shiver.

‘Tired, then? You can go below and lie down and rest for half an hour. I won’t disturb you.’

‘I want to watch. I want to see this brought to an end now I have come so far with it.’

‘Yes, for you this will be the end of the matter,’ he agreed, not looking at her.

‘I am sorry I was such a nuisance. It must have been a distraction you could have ill afforded,’ she said. It was like speaking to a stranger. She kept her voice polite and formal.

‘A distraction, yes, indeed. A nuisance? Never. This will soon become part of a bad dream, part of the nightmare of the shipwreck, and then you will gradually forget.’

‘I don’t think I could forget Ferret,’ she said with an attempt at a joke.

‘No, probably not,’ Luc agreed with a chuckle. He put his arm around her shoulder and gave her a quick, uncharacteristic, hug. ‘Almost there now, Miss Heydon.’

Averil let herself go with the tug of his arm, let her
head rest on his chest for an instant and breathed in salt and black powder smoke and damp wool and, under it, the essence of Luc. Her fingers lay on his sleeve and ached with the effort not to close and hold on.
Don’t leave me.

He moved away after a moment, the urgency of her feelings obviously invisible to him, and she clutched the mast for support. What was she thinking of to be clinging to this man, lusting after him? He had no interest in her beyond physical desire—and he would probably have felt that for any reasonably young and attractive female under these circumstances.

I am betrothed.
If she repeated that over and over she might, somehow, convince herself it was real, that the shadowy, faceless man she was going to in London was the one she would spend the rest of her life tied to, not this brave, angry, half-Frenchman.

T
he men swore under their breath as they took the pilot gig into the long sweep of Porthcressa beach. Averil held on to the sides of the pilot gig and stored the colourful language away. It was the early hours of the morning now, no one was about, so there were virtually no lights to guide them in.

Hugh Town was built straggling along a narrow strip of land between two great bites that the sea had taken out of the island, Luc had explained to her. The Garrison, the high mass of land to the east with the Elizabethan Star Fort planted on top and the encircling walls bristling with cannon, grew from one end of the town and the body of the island from the other.

The far side of the strip of town was where the harbour was, but he would not risk going in there and attracting the attention of the traitor. Who knew what watchers he had who would recognise Trethowan being brought back, a prisoner? Or someone might even know the French captain by sight.

But the shallow water and the lack of lights made the men twitchy and their mood infected Averil. She was almost jumping out of her skin by the time the keel ground on sand.

‘In you go.’ Luc dumped her unceremoniously over the side into water that came halfway up her thighs. A wave sloshed with a cold slap at the base of her belly and she bit back the yelp of discomfort. Luc followed her over, then Ferret, his long knife in one hand. The remaining crew pushed the prisoners out, jeering quietly as they floundered in the surf with their hands tied behind them.

‘Go back to the brigs,’ she heard Luc tell the crew as Ferret prodded the two men up the beach to join her on the dry sand. ‘I’ll send Yestin out with orders. And, Potts, they are both very nice little brigs and if they are not where I expect them to be I will hunt them, and you, down and there will be no prize money, no pardons and either you will hang or I will disembowel you. Or possibly both. Clear?’

‘Aye, aye, Cap’n.’ Potts sounded as though he was grinning. The pilot gig vanished into the pre-dawn gloom with a faint splash of oars and Luc urged the two captives towards the dark huddle of the town. ‘Up there, to the left. The sally port—Trethowan, you’ll know it, I have no doubt.’

The man grunted. Beside him the French captain muttered something, low and fast.

‘Capitaine, je parle français,’
Luc remarked. ‘I speak also the dialect of Languedoc,’ he added, still in French. ‘And any further insult to the lady will result in the removal of your ears. You understand me?’

‘Parfaitement. En effet,
you are a traitor to France.’ The man reverted to standard French.

‘Mais non,
your France betrayed my family, murdered my father. I will be a loyal Frenchman still when she returns to sanity.’ Luc prodded the captain round a corner beside a looming chapel and the road steepened.

‘Ah! Un aristo.’
The Frenchman spat.

‘Absolutement.’
Luc sounded amiable in the face of the insults. Averil trudged up the hill behind him, her wet trousers glued to her legs. They chafed the soft skin of her inner thighs, she was sweating in the heavy Guernsey, the cobbles hurt her bare feet and Luc had forgotten about her with the stimulus of trading insults. She cleared her throat.

‘Keep up,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘It gets darker and steeper here.’

‘Good,’ she muttered mutinously. ‘I needed some exercise.’ Just in front of her Ferret gave a snort of laughter, then all four men seemed to vanish into darkness. She baulked at the entrance to the cave, then saw it was simply a narrow way through rocks that lead to the base of a high defensive bank. When she tipped her head back she could see ramparts above her.

‘How do we get in?’ she asked.

‘Quietly.’ Luc placed one hand over her mouth. ‘There are sentries patrolling the top.’

‘How do we get in then?’ she repeated, resisting the temptation to either bite or kiss his palm.

‘I have a key. Here, Ferret, take it and go first.’ The little man vanished into the darkness at the foot of the wall. Luc followed, pushing the prisoners in front of him and Averil, reluctant, brought up the rear.

They were in a narrow twisting stone stairway
climbing up through the bank and out by an iron gate that Ferret was holding open, on to a roadway wide enough for a horse and carriage. ‘Sentries down there.’ He nodded to the left where trees grew thick. And then gestured to the right. ‘And I can hear some that way, too.’

‘That’ll be the guard on the Governor’s house. This is where it gets interesting. Don’t try to be quiet now or we’ll get shot first and questioned afterwards. Just walk along the road so they have plenty of notice we are coming.’

They strode out towards the sounds of voices. Stones crunched underfoot and Ferret began to whistle. Averil smelled wood smoke and bacon. Breakfast. Someone was beginning to cook breakfast. She could eat a horse.

‘Who goes there?’ The challenge was a shout, then there was the sound of boots approaching at the run.

‘Captain Luke d’Aunay of His Majesty’s Navy to see the Governor,’ Luc said loudly, his accent once more impeccably English. ‘With escort and two prisoners.’

‘Halt!’ A new voice. An officer by the sound of it. A lamp appeared, illuminating black boots, white breeches and a scarlet coat. ‘Identify yourself. How the blazes did you get in here?’

‘With a key,’ Luc stopped and held up a hand to halt them all. ‘I have my papers here, if you will permit me?’ He reached into his coat, pulled out a slim oilskin package and proffered it. ‘Can we discuss this inside? These two are prisoners—one French captain, one English traitor. Their capture needs to be kept quiet.’

The officer looked up from the papers. ‘These appear to be in order. Why aren’t you in uniform?’

‘Clandestine mission, Lieutenant.’ There was an
edge to his voice that would remind the army man who was the more senior officer.

He doesn’t trust us,
Averil thought, standing on one leg and rubbing the other dirty, aching foot against the calf while she watched the officer’s face.
I don’t blame him.

‘Titmuss, Jenkins! Bring them inside under guard until the Governor has seen these.’ They were marched forwards, across a sweep of grass and in through the wide front doors of a house.

Civilisation. Averil looked round at polished wainscots, pictures on the walls, heavy silk curtains drawn against the night, and felt weariness sweep over her. Her filthy bare feet sank blissfully into the deep pile of the rugs.

‘Keep them here. Sir George is not going to be pleased, being woken at this hour.’

The silvery chime of a clock struck five. Averil looked with longing at the chairs that lined the walls, then set her feet apart, locked her knees to stop herself swaying and resigned herself to wait. Luc caught her eye and tipped his head slightly towards the guards. He did not want them to realise she was a woman, Averil realised. So, it seemed, did Ferret.

‘You lean on me, mate,’ he said, standing next to her. ‘You’re in no state to be standing about.’ Averil swayed against him until their shoulders were touching. He slipped one arm surreptitiously around her waist and held on. With a sigh of gratitude she let his wiry, malodorous body support her.

‘Wake up.’ It was Ferret, an elbow in her ribs. ‘Here’s ‘is nibs.’

A big man in a splendid brocade robe, his grey curls
still tousled from removing his nightcap, spoke to the officer in the hallway, then took Luc’s papers and scrutinised them.

‘Mr Dornay, the poet. I see I have been entertaining you on one of my islands under false pretences, Captain.’

‘Sir.’ Luc was unapologetic. ‘I need to speak to you alone as a matter of urgency.’

‘Very well. My study. What are we to do with these four, might I ask?’ He studied with disfavour the human flotsam dripping sand and seawater on his rugs.

‘The two with their hands tied need securing somewhere apart from each other and where there is absolutely no risk of them communicating with anyone in the town. He—’ he pointed at Ferret ‘—needs breakfast and somewhere to rest while he waits for me. That one …’ He leaned towards the Governor and murmured in his ear.

‘What? Well, I’ll be damned. Very well. Better stay in here then. Foster, close the door, let no one in to disturb this, er … person.’

Luc added something else. ‘Yes, yes. Foster, fetch a rug so he … er, they can sit down without ruining the upholstery. Now, let’s hear the whole of this.’

The officer went out and reappeared with a rug which he threw over a
chaise,
then Averil found herself alone. The room swayed a little as she stood there, but she found if she went with the motion it took her down on to the
chaise
and that was soft and solid and held a faint trace of perfume. With a sigh she let herself drift. It would all be fine now, she thought. She was safe, Luc knew what to do. Safe …

* * * 

‘A female? George, really, you drag me out of bed and some ungodly hour to ask me to look after some disreputable female—’

‘Olivia, please! I beg you to keep your voice down.’ The door opened as Averil struggled upright and the Governor came in followed by a tall woman, fully dressed and with an expression that, Averil thought hazily, would stun wasps. Luc brought up the rear and closed the door.

‘This is Miss Heydon, Lady Olivia. She was washed up on St Helen’s after the shipwreck and, because of the extreme secrecy of my mission, I was unable to bring her over here at once. However, as you may know, there is the old isolation hospital there and Miss Heydon was able to sleep there behind locked doors.’

‘To which you hold the key, no doubt, Captain.’

‘Madam, Miss Heydon is betrothed to Lord Bradon—’

‘But not for much longer, I’ll be bound. Look at her!’

Averil struggled to her feet. ‘Lady Olivia, I am aware that I must present a most disreputable appearance, but—’

The older woman fixed her with a withering look. ‘Have you, or have you not, spent five nights in the company of this man, Miss Heydon?’

‘Well, yes, but nothing … I mean, it was all perfectly—’

‘Your blushes say it all! George, for you to expect me to lend countenance to Captain Dornay’s
amours
is outside of enough. Must I remind you that you have two daughters of an impressionable age? They have already seen and heard things that they should not with
the house full of half-drowned persons for days on end and whatever is going on up at the Star Fort with Lavinia’s friend—’

‘Oh, of course! You will know about Dita!’ Averil interrupted her. ‘Please, can you tell me who was saved?’

Lady Olivia looked down her nose. ‘Dita?’

‘Lady Perdita Brooke. She is a particular friend of mine.’

‘You know Lady Perdita?’ The Governor’s wife relaxed a trifle.

Old snob,
Averil thought. ‘Yes, very well. Please—’

‘Lady Perdita was heroically rescued by Viscount Lyndon.’ From her expression Lady Olivia obviously approved of Alistair. ‘They both left for the mainland yesterday along with most of the other survivors.’

‘Thank goodness.’ Averil sat down again with a thump. ‘And Mrs Bastable, my chaperon? And the Chatterton twins? Daniel and Callum?’

The room went very quiet. ‘Mr Daniel Chatterton was drowned. His body was recovered and his brother has taken it back to the mainland for burial,’ the Governor said. ‘I will have my secretary give you a list of those saved, those known to be dead and those still missing.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, the schooled politeness forming the words for her while her chest ached with the need to weep. Daniel dead? All that fun and intelligence and personality, gone in an instant. Poor, poor Callum. What a tragic homecoming for him. And Daniel was betrothed—Callum would have that awful news to break to a woman who had been waiting years for her lover to return to her.

‘Miss Heydon should rest,’ Luc said. ‘She has received bad news and she is exhausted. We have been at sea all night.’

‘And why it was necessary for her to accompany you out to sea, I really cannot understand,’ Lady Olivia interjected.

‘And why should you?’ Luc said with a smile that would have frozen water. ‘All this can wait, surely? Miss Heydon should retire. She will need a bath, some food—’

‘Kindly allow me to know what is required for female guests in this house, Captain Dornay or d’Aunay or whatever your name is. Miss Heydon, if you will accompany me, please.’ It was an order. Averil did not miss the point that she was a
female,
not a
lady,
in Lady Olivia’s eyes. Friendship with Dita might save her from a room in the garrets with the servants, but the Governor’s wife had not forgotten the scandalous circumstances of her rescue.

It was an effort not to seek out Luc’s eyes, not to send a message—
help me, take me back to our island and make love to me
—but pride stiffened her spine and allowed her to stand, smile at her reluctant hostess and bid the gentlemen good-night as though she was a house party guest.

‘Good night, Sir George. Good night, Captain d’Aunay.’ She pronounced his surname with care, not that the older woman seemed to notice the implied reproof. She wanted to ask when she would see Luc again, but that would raise Lady Olivia’s suspicions even higher. ‘Thank you, Lady Olivia.’ If a curtsy had not been ridiculous in damp cotton trousers and a
smelly Guernsey she would have produced one before she followed her hostess out.

‘I will send a maid to you.’ Lady Olivia seemed to unbend a trifle now they were away from the men. ‘Goodness knows what we can do about clothing. We have had the house full of survivors for days, none of them with so much as a pocket handkerchief to their names, of course.’

A blonde lady in her mid-thirties appeared round the corner, a list in one hand. ‘Oh, there you are, Olivia.’ She peered at Averil, then raised her eyebrows. ‘Another survivor from the
Bengal Queen?’

‘Indeed, Sister. Miss Heydon has fallen into most undesirable company—’

‘But at least she is alive,’ the other woman said, her warmth reaching Averil like a comforting touch. ‘I am so glad for you, my dear.’ She held out her hand. ‘I am Lavinia Gordon, Sir George’s sister.’