Gallant Rogue (Reluctant Heroes Book 3) Read online

  “Rose is an annoyingly curious woman,” Donovan said. He uncorked the decanter of fine brandy that sat on his desk and poured them each a generous portion. “She’s looking for fanciful stories for her book.” Donovan pushed one glass across the desk to Jack. “If it’s any consolation, she’s been scratching at my hide for the past month about my mysterious past.”

  “So that’s the direction of the wind,” Jack commented. “I’m glad I was able to offer her my creaking hull for a broadside, if only to shield yours for a short time.” He lifted his glass and Donovan did likewise. They saluted one another and drank heartily.

  “I have a favor to ask,” Donovan said, swirling his glass in his hand as he spoke. “A serious mission that I would not entrust to anyone else, my old friend.”

  “Transporting your oldest lads to England?” Jack took a stab at the possibilities of this nefarious task he was about to be given as he leaned back in his chair in a casual pose.

  “No.” Donovan sighed and shot Jack a look of consternation. “We’ve agreed to hire a tutor to teach the boys here until they are thirteen. Then, Elizabeth may allow me to send them to school in England.”

  “Whatever became of Marceau?” Jack asked, attempting to make light conversation. “Why didn’t you keep him on as a tutor for the boys after Michael left?”

  Donovan’s visage darkened. “The jack nape showed far too much interest in my wife. He wrote love songs dedicated to her and then performed them for us after dinner. It was all I could do not to bludgeon the bla’guard when I discovered the nauseating songs he kept assaulting us with were all written to Elizabeth. When she found out they were written as a tribute to her she was disgusted and rightly so. The man is thirty years her senior.”

  “I pity you. It must be a curse to have such a beautiful woman as your wife, a woman with wit, intelligence and charm, a woman with a kind heart to soothe all your cares. Poor Donovan. However do you manage?” Jack could not help himself. Donovan Beaumont took himself far too seriously most of the time, and that was putting it mildly.

  His jest worked. Donovan smiled, a truly besotted smile that made Jack envious.

  Jack secretly yearned for the ideal of a devoted wife. And didn’t the wily Lady Greystowe pick up on that like a hound scenting a wounded bird hiding in the bushes?

  “What is this monumental task? Extracting Michael from yet another difficulty?” Michael was Elizabeth’s younger brother, an artist and ne’er-do-well who floated about the world with no ambition or purpose in life but who seemed to find danger without ever searching for it.

  “It’s not Michael this time,” Donovan was quick to assure him. “And yes, the brat has a knack for falling into trouble like a love struck poet stepping in horse shit. No, old friend, this time, I’m entrusting you with the safety of a woman.”

  Jack sat up straight in his chair, astounded. “That pretty little nanny? Is she pining for England already? She’s only been here a year.”

  “No. It’s our dear Chloe. She is for Spain. She has family there and means to find them.”

  “That’s not advisable, not with that French upstart slicing up Europe like a roasted goose at Christmas. Have you tried to talk her out of this pea-brained idea?”

  Donovan’s eyes widened with exasperation. “Yes,” he hissed with impatience, as if the question itself were ridiculous. “She is determined. Lizzie is frightened about what might happen if Chloe goes off alone to hunt for relatives she’s never even met. It’s worrying enough for Lizzie knowing her younger brother is in Italy, given Napoleon’s strong presence there.”

  “Simply forbid it. You are the head of the family.”

  Donovan scowled. “You know nothing of women. Doing that would only make Elizabeth support Chloe’s idea all the more and make me into a tyrant in their minds for addressing the situation with logic and reason. They’ve memorized that Wollstonecraft woman’s writings. They quote her word for word. The woman went from England to France alone during the Revolution. Alone! Can you imagine it? And by design, simply to observe the horrors first-hand so she could write about them.”

  “Wollstonecraft?” Jack quirked an eyebrow at his friend. “Never heard of the woman.”

  “How fortunate you are, my friend. I’ve never forgiven my mother for introducing that damned book to my wife—or was it given to her by Lady Greystowe?” Donovan’s lips curled up in disgust as he tried to recall just who had introduced his darling Lizzie to the idea of women being equal to men and capable of managing their lives without masculine interference.

  “No matter, it hardly signifies.” Donovan waved the question away after a moment of puzzling over who was responsible for introducing his wife to the notion of feminine independence. “The woman has fallen out of favor since the book was written, yet my Lizzie quotes her faithfully whenever the need arises. No, Jack, I’m not so pigheaded as to start a domestic war by forbidding our beloved Chloe to journey abroad in search of her true relations.”

  Jack nodded and sipped his drink. Donovan was an enlightened man, more so than most, but he tended to be extremely protective of his wife. It was surprising to hear the man skirt around the issue and refuse to be high handed with his darling Lizzie. Jack recalled his friend being strict and forbidding with his wife in the early years of their union. Years of domestic bliss seemed to have blunted his sharp teeth, tamed the tiger and made him a house-pet, so to speak.

  Donovan continued to vent his frustration. “I cannot prevent Aunt Chloe from leaving us. And I cannot accompany her to an unstable country myself to assure her safety. Not with Lizzie and a newborn in tow. For, if I were to offer to go myself, Lizzie would insist on coming—and she wouldn’t leave the children behind, so …” He sliced his hand through the air in a dramatic gesture to make his point, “The safer choice is give our dear Chloe passage on the Pegasus and provide a suitable escort to accompany her. The only alternative to going myself is to ask the bravest and most calculating man I know to take up the responsibility of ensuring her safety during her sojourn to a foreign land.”

  Jack tugged at his earlobe, impressed by the rare compliment. “So, you’ve asked Mr. Duchamp and he refused, and now you’re asking me?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Donovan said with annoyance. “I’d not ask Duchamp. It would be like asking a wolf to guard a tigress. They cannot abide one another. One of them would murder the other before they even arrived in port. I can hire anyone, but I trust you. I trust you with my life, with the lives of my family. Gareth’s widow is part of that family.”

  It was a singular honor to be held in such high regard by a man who trusted no one.

  Jack straightened in his chair and set his empty glass on the desk. “I’ll do it.”

  Chapter Five

  It was inconvenient.

  Jack considered himself an accommodating fellow, for the most part.

  Having a woman on board—an unattached female—was damned inconvenient.

  The Pegasus featured not one but two master suites. The count had the ship modified years ago to create two smaller cabins instead of one large one. It was a waste of space, his lordship decided, citing that no one needed that much room. The truth was that his lordship didn’t wish Jack to be inconvenienced on those rare occasions when he sailed to England himself. The comfort of the ship’s owner would always trump that of his captain’s. The count rarely left his island paradise, so in recent years Jack seemed to be ferrying his lordship’s scattered relations hither and yon like a glorified delivery boy. Recently he’d endured a long voyage with Lord and Lady Greystowe, their children, a nanny, two maids and a valet, all of whom had to be put up in the crew’s quarters.

  Now, Jack was to be responsible for the safety of a widowed female. It would be a shorter voyage than one westward due to the wind direction, but even so, it was going to be a difficult journey to endure.

  He scowled at the wall separating his room from the one she would inhabit.

  Was it thick enou
gh to blunt the nightly weeping? A widow of hardly a year with an infant son to mourn as well as a husband, it did not calculate into a smooth passage.

  He set his ledger aside, unable to focus his mind on his navigational notes.

  There were things to be attended to before they set sail on the morrow. The men must be reminded of their duty to remain sharp and precise. A female always caused distraction among the crew, even when accompanied by a husband. Mrs. O’Donovan didn’t have a husband to protect her from the leering grins of Jack’s crew. Instead, she had Jack.

  What was he thinking the other night, agreeing so heartily to the count’s request?

  He hadn’t been thinking, not with so many glasses of brandy under his belt.

  Regardless of his lack of lucidity when agreeing to this ill-advised scheme, one did not find it easy to say no to Count Rochembeau. Donovan Beaumont had a habit of helping a fellow out so thoroughly that one found it impossible to deny his lordship’s occasional little requests. The count had saved Jack’s life more than once in the East Indies. He continued to be an obliging bloke even after they returned to the West. He’d insisted on paying Jack’s gambling debts and offering him the command of his own merchantman when Jack lost Amelia’s Revenge in a card game. All the count asked in return was for Jack to ferry his in-laws about at will.

  It was a great inconvenience.

  There had been several nerve shredding incidents over the years involving the countess’s younger brother, Michael. Once, as a lad of sixteen, he’d become stuck in the crow’s nest. After he reached that dizzying height, the lad was afraid to attempt to climb back down. It was hours before anyone realized where the boy had gotten off to. Jack had been about to climb up to retrieve the little shit, but one of his crew rescued the lad first. Still, the possibility of facing the count or the lad’s sister, the countess, to give a report that the adolescent boy with whose care Jack had been entrusted had climbed up on to the rigging unnoticed and fallen to his death was a nightmare Jack could do without. He’d not slept well for the rest of that voyage.

  The recent journey with the Greystowes brought trouble of a different kind; the men were all agog over the women on board and neglected their duties when the nanny and maid emerged with the children to give them daily exercise. The little boy found a knife a crewman left lying about and sawed through a rope while they thought him angelically playing near the rowboats. If a sailor hadn’t noticed the hacked rope there could have been an unfortunate accident on deck when a lifeboat slipped loose and hit a crew member—or one of their passengers.

  Jack exited his cabin, intent upon inspecting the count’s suite before his latest passenger was brought aboard. Her trunks had been delivered, but the lady was spending one last night up at the manor house. They would set sail in the morning, at high tide.

  “Evening, Cap’n. You’ve a visitor.” Jinx, his first mate, met Jack in the narrow hallway. “Old gent from the plantation house. Says he has something important he needs to tell you.”

  “Send him in here,” Jack said as he entered Donovan’s cabin. A full wall of windows faced the west, allowing the setting sun to gild the cabin in an eerie orange splendor. The count’s souvenirs from his days in Ceylon were everywhere: exotic statues of pagan deities and mythic creatures, expensive vases, and intriguing paintings depicting Far East landscapes.

  Jack moved about the room, taking note of the luxury accommodations and making certain all was in order. There were various novels on the bookshelf. It was something to pass the woman’s time during the long days. Some drawing tools and paper were left behind by one relative, probably Michael. A few wood blocks and a wooden horse, toys belonging to the Greystowe’s children, occupied the floor in one corner. Those, Jack picked up and stuffed in the storage cubby under the window seat. No need to add to the woman’s schedule of tears with reminders of what she had lost.

  The bed in the smaller room had been given fresh linens and the tiny port window was open to let in the fresh sea air. He returned to the larger room and opened the door to inspect the privy closet. Clean, spotless, just as he instructed. Excellent. He moved to the washstand. An enamelware pitcher was settled on it, cradled by the small rails that bracketed any table on a ship to prevent items from slipping to the floor in rough seas. The pitcher was filled with fresh water for washing. A wooden keg sat next to the slender mahogany stand, offering a private store of water for the cabin inhabitant. It was a trick Jack learned early on for the convenience of the traveler, and more importantly, to prevent said traveler from tying up his crew with constant requests for water to be delivered to them at their whim. That was another irritant, having his crew at the beck and call of Donovan’s relations as if they were running hotel, not a ship.

  “Captain Rawlings, how good of you to receive me.” Nicholas Barnaby stepped into the count’s cabin. His mug registered wonder as he took in the regal splendor of the small, low-beamed room. As with most people who rarely sailed, Barnaby must have assumed all ship berths were comprised of tight, poorly lit cubicles with swaying hammocks, dark, dank closets surrounded by rough wet boards and populated by rats. That was the lot of passengers traveling in steerage because they did not possess the coin to pay for a private cabin.

  “You can tuck your chin back up to your face and close your mouth now,” Jack commented. “This is the ship owner’s cabin, and as you are acquainted with Count Rochembeau, you are aware he is not a man of tight means.”

  “I sailed on the Pegasus recently, with the Earl of Greystowe, as you recall.” The old apothecary bobbed his head like a seagull. “I shared a room with the cook. I was never admitted into this cabin. The lord and lady were indisposed for much of the journey. Some are not suited for sailing, are they, Captain?” the eyes framed by round spectacles seemed full of wisdom.

  Jack cleared his throat, ashamed to realize he didn’t recall the old man being on board last month. He’d been too distracted by rough seas, and as the main party—Lord and Lady Greystowe—had been indisposed, Jack did not hold a traditional captain’s dinner. He hoped the man had fared well during the journey. Next time, he reminded himself, when the group returned to England, he’d make certain the old bugger was given due consideration by offering him one of his officer’s cabins on this deck. Old bones, and sharp ones judging by Barnaby’s sparse frame, should be well cared for. “How can I be of help, Mr. Barnaby?”

  “I came to warn you. There is something you must be made aware of, a bit of mischief from years ago that may… er…has the potential …” Barnaby paused and leaned closer to a watercolor painting in the fading red light. “I say, does that woman have six arms?”

  “Shiva, a goddess in the east. You were speaking of mischief from years ago?”

  “Ah, yes. Thank you.” Barnaby pulled back from his close inspection of one of the count’s art pieces and glanced about. “Might we have a little bit of light? I can hardly see the room with the sun almost swallowed by the sea.”

  “Here, my cabin is just this way.” Jack led the way to the door. “Follow me. I’ve brandy and plenty of lanterns in my own berth.” He heard Barnaby’s footsteps behind him. The slatted doors of the officer’s bunks passed them by as they moved down the narrow corridor and soon they were inside Jack’s private repose.

  “I say, very deceptive. From the dock this deck doesn’t appear large enough to have all these cabins within it.” Barnaby’s head bobbed up and down in that queer fashion again, like a damned bird on the docks. He looked like a grey seagull, as even his arms were behind his back.

  “Yes.” Jack gestured to the table, offering his guest a seat. Unlike the count, he didn’t require a room full of fancy furniture. He had a round table that could accommodate his officers for dinner or cards. He had a cushioned window seat, a well-worn reading chair and a desk. It was enough, more than enough for a man accustomed to the basics in life.

  “I recall we shared a brandy some years ago. On a special night.”

  “Th
e Ravencrest Christmas Ball.”

  “The first!” Barnaby’s bony finger rose to make that distinction. “Ten years ago this past Christmas.” His hand shook a little as often happened with those of advanced years. “And much has changed since those days, hasn’t it, sir, for all of us.”

  “Your apprentice, the humble Mr. O’Flaherty, has come into his own. A remarkable transformation, going from being an indentured servant to possessing one of the most powerful titles in England.” Jack delivered the drink to his guest.

  “Kieran was always the Greystowe heir. He was just misplaced for many years, lost and found again.”

  Jack nodded. Lord Greystowe had an unusual history. No one had suspected the freckle-faced, sunburned redhead known only as the apothecary’s apprentice in Basseterre was a lost heir to an earldom. This humble apothecary had treated that unfortunate child with kindness during his indenture, securing the restored earl’s affections and support for the rest of his days.

  “What is it I can help you with, Mr. Barnaby.” Jack asked, reminding the man of the reason for his visit.

  “The lady you admire greatly is now free again. Just as she was on that night long ago, when you and Mr. O’Donovan nearly came to blows.”

  Aye, there it was, the rock hiding under the surface of the sea, waiting to crush his hull.

  Jack said nothing. He found it best to do so when in these peculiar circumstances, to listen and wait before acting recklessly. He’d done the reckless bit often in his youth. A man his age must show more wisdom than folly.

  “You do recall the incident?” Barnaby prodded when he didn’t answer.

  “Vaguely,” Jack muttered as if it didn’t matter when it mattered a great deal.

  “Mrs. O’Donovan, back then Miss Ramirez, was a fetching young woman,” Barnaby added, as if Jack needed reminding. “As I recall, the two of you shared a tender moment.”

  “I danced with her,” Jack replied evenly. “Nothing more.”

  “Oh, there is more to it, my good man,” Barnaby countered, his tone taking on a sharp edge. “You kissed her under the mistletoe.”