For the Love of a Pirate Read online

“Hard to do when he was cashiered out of the army, lad. For gambling. Well, not so much for gambling as for cheating. Well, not so much cheating as shaving the cards, because he thought it fun to run a rig. But you can’t, not with gents, not when you’re gambling, y’see.”

  Constantine closed his eyes again. “You can prove that?”

  “Aye,” the captain said. “He’d been quit of His Majesty’s service for two years when he was felled.”

  “By the pistol of a disgruntled traveler who refused to give up his purse,” Constantine said woodenly.

  “Aye. The lads didn’t know that the guards on that coach had been warned about them. A sad day. My Jeremy wept for a month, and he wasn’t a soft man.”

  Constantine’s head came up. “Your son didn’t die when my father did?”

  “Oh, nay,” the captain said in surprise. “He got winged, but got away, though he had to wear a sling for weeks. But he lived to go to your poor father’s funeral. Nay, my Jeremy died later, at the hands of a jealous husband. Well, but if that bastard hadn’t of killed him, his wife would of done it when she found out he had a few other women on the side. So he was dished either way. Your father was betwixt a rock and hard place where money was concerned. Too proud to take a loan from my boy, and my lad too full of devilment not to join him on the high Toby out of friendship.”

  “And you say I’m betrothed to your orphaned granddaughter because my father and your son signed a pact saying that if your son ever had a daughter, I’d marry her?”

  “Signed in blood,” the captain said proudly.

  “May I see it?”

  “Aha!” the captain said craftily, wagging a finger.

  “And wouldn’t I be the fool for carrying it here, to you, where you could read it and then throw it in the fire—over my dead body, of course,” he added.

  “And the fact that my father was a nobleman, and your granddaughter obviously is not of noble blood, didn’t matter to my father?”

  “Ha,” the captain said without humor. “We ain’t so highly placed as you, but if you rattle our family tree, it would rain barons and lords down on your head. Some of us are wanderers, some are gents, but the name is a good one and the fortune’s solid. My son went to the same school as your father, with all the nobs. That’s when they partnered up.”

  Constantine slowly rose from his chair. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It might have been amusing to see the document, at least. But I thank you for a most entertaining evening anyway. A stranger tale I have never heard, quite gothic. I don’t believe a word of it. Even if I did, that pact, signed in blood, or spit, or ink, wouldn’t stand up in any court of law.”

  “Maybe not,” the captain said, scratching his beard. “But it would certainly get the world’s attention.”

  Constantine sat down again.

  “Why didn’t you come to see me before this?” he asked slowly.

  “Well, first my girl was too young. Then, I figured you were biding your time. Then I saw that announcement and knew you’d left her in the lurch.”

  “There was no lurch to leave her in,” Constantine said. “Again, I didn’t know any of this. I still don’t. I don’t believe it.”

  The captain shrugged. “Don’t blame you. Tell you what. You go see your uncle and ask him. He knows.”

  Constantine’s eyes widened. “My uncle Horatio knows?”

  “Aye. Of course he does. He had the raising of you, didn’t he? Your grandfather knew too. Everybody did, seems to me, but you.”

  “I’ll go to my uncle and speak with him,” Constantine said.

  “Aye, that’s the ticket, lad. He knows all. Then, come to us.”

  Constantine frowned as another unbelievable and horrible thought occurred to him. “Why would your granddaughter want to marry a stranger?” he asked.

  “Because she’s a good girl, and does as I tell her. I had the raising of her, y’see.”

  Constantine felt a chill just imagining this man’s granddaughter, a woman willing to marry an utter stranger. No, she had to be a woman who was of age, who hadn’t married yet and was desperate enough to marry an utter stranger.

  “I’ll discover what I can,” Constantine said stiffly. “And act accordingly.”

  “That’s all I ask,” the captain said piously.

  Constantine meant it, he would discover all. Tonight, he was tired, shocked, and incredulous. But one thing he knew. There was no way on earth he’d agree to the mad captain’s bizarre scheme, or honor his long-dead father’s idiotic pact, if indeed he’d ever made one.

  Still, there was a lot of smoke, and even if there were only a little fire causing it, it would be best to put it out before any hint of it came to his fiancée’s nose. Or the ton’s ears. Or to his own, ever again.

  Chapter Two

  It was growing dark, it was getting late, and a thick dank fog was rolling in from the nearby sea, covering the setting sun. Constantine was annoyed, damp, cold, and angry. He couldn’t blame anyone for the filthy weather, he couldn’t blame his lead horse for casting a shoe a few miles back, he couldn’t really hold anyone responsible for the fact that there wasn’t a decent inn, or an indecent one, for that matter, for miles along this lonely road.

  So he blamed Captain Bigod for the mission that had sent him careering out of London as if his tail were on fire. He also blamed his uncle for being unable to refute the bizarre story, having kept it a secret in order to hide the disgrace. And he definitely blamed the unknown woman who was trying to hold him to his dead father’s idiotic scheme. He’d always worshiped the idea of his father, because he couldn’t remember the man. Now, he positively disliked him, and his feelings of disloyalty matched his disappointment. Constantine, Lord Wylde, was not a happy man.

  The one good thing he’d done, Constantine thought as he rode through the growing dusk, was to take this heavy coach with a team of four. He’d been in a hurry but never traveled without his valet. A gentleman had to present himself correctly, wherever he went. Still, now he almost regretted it. With only three horses pulling, and the fourth going slowly behind, ridden by his tiger, the boy who usually rode with him in his lighter curricle, the going was slow. The coach held his valet and his luggage, and a footman rode on the back of it. He’d turned down the company of his best friends, but only an utter fool would venture into the countryside without a few other men beside him. Especially here, on England’s southwestern coast, where smugglers and wreckers, highwaymen, and such villains, were still said to be as common as pickpockets were in London.

  But all he’d met up with thus far was misfortune and bad weather.

  “Wait! What’s that? A light?” he shouted to his coachman as he peered into the murk. He was sitting up on the driver’s seat of his coach, because he’d gotten too impatient to sit inside.

  “Aye,” the coachman said uneasily. “But I doubt we should make for it, milord. This is a wild coast. Y’know the wreckers hereabouts lure the unwary to their doom with false lights.”

  “That’s ships,” Constantine said.

  “Mebbe,” the coachman said darkly. “But if men hereabouts lure ships into ports that ain’t there, so they can shatter on the rocks, so’s to loot the dead washed ashore, I don’t doubt it would be easier for them to lure innocent travelers on land. I’ve my musket right here by my side. And I thinks if you got a pistol, you should do the same, sir.”

  Which is how it came to be that when the door at Sea Mews was flung open to see who was pounding on it in the gathering dusk, Captain Bigod saw Constantine standing there, with a pistol in his hand.

  Captain Bigod took a step back. Then he drew himself up, planted his legs apart, and seemed to swell to fill the doorway. “So, you’ve come to end the bargain by killing me?” he demanded. “Well, can’t say as to how I’m not shocked, because I am. That’s a paltry thing to try to do and I didn’t expect it from you. Your father would be ashamed of you, lad.”

  “What? Oh,” Constantine said. “This.” He looked at
the pistol in his hand as though seeing it for the first time. “This wasn’t for you. We’ve been lost for hours, and my coachman told me to go armed if I went to ask directions. Sorry.” He slipped the pistol into his jacket.

  “Not saying as to how that ain’t a bad idea,” the captain said magnanimously. “But didn’t you see the marker, down the road? Says ‘Sea Mews’ clear as anything.”

  “I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face.”

  “Aye, it is getting dark. C’mon in.”

  “I will and gladly,” Constantine said. “But I’ve a coach; a coachman; a team of four, one of which cast a shoe; a boy riding him; a footman; and a valet. Have you accommodations for them as well?”

  “For them, and all their uncles and cousins,” Bigod said happily. “I’ll send my servants to help them out, and stow them accordingly. If there’s one thing we have here at Sea Mews, it’s room, good fires on a chilly night, and good food. Welcome, welcome. Taunton, go see to the gentleman’s horses and servants,” he told an elderly butler who was standing nearby. “And send someone up to get the sea view room ready for him. We’ll have dinner together once we get you warm and dry. C’mon,” he said to Constantine. “A swallow of brandy will take the chill off. It’s going to rain, y’know.”

  “I do,” Constantine said, and repressed a shudder, because the dampness seemed to have gotten under his skin.

  He stepped into the house and looked around. If he hadn’t known the crusty old captain lived there, he’d not have believed it. It was a manor house equal to any he’d ever seen. The hall was high and wide, and the tiles on the floor were marble, and gleamed. There was a staircase beyond; it twinned in the middle and went up both left and right from there, leading to a gallery on the second floor. The furniture he saw was of old carved wood, heavy and luxurious. He could smell fresh burning firewood and a delicious dinner on the air. And that air was wonderfully warm. There were no painted ceilings or frescoes on the walls, but otherwise it was a house that spoke of comfort and riches.

  He followed his host, both relieved and cautious.

  The room the captain led him to surprised Constantine. Not the array of oddments that the captain obviously had collected in his travels, but the fine leather-bound books. Constantine walked in behind his host, who headed straight for the bookcase on the far wall. This gave his visitor a chance to inspect the room. He smiled with pleasure when he noticed a lively fire roaring in the hearth, and lamps everywhere lit and glowing. The curtains were drawn against the night. The room was both sumptuous and cozy, far more pleasant a place than he’d have expected from the brash old sea captain’s appearance. And then, as he strolled over to the fire to warm his hands, he noticed that a little old woman was sleeping in a deep leather chair at the fireside.

  “Perhaps we ought to go somewhere else,” Constantine whispered.

  The captain turned his head. “Oh, it’s Lovey, is it? Never mind. If she’s had her tot, a cannon won’t wake her; if she hasn’t, she’ll be lively company. My daughter’s governess,” he added. “Or used to be. Now she just lives here. Everyone does,” he mumbled absently. “Better if she does wake up. Be blamed if I can remember the book I’m looking for. Wouldn’t be here a’tall if I hadn’t sent old Taunton scrambling to see to your arrival, and if I wasn’t looking for something good and old, better than I usually partake of. Well, special company and all. Ho, Lovey!” he bellowed so suddenly that Constantine’s shoulders jerked. “Give us a hand here, will you?”

  The old woman’s eyes fluttered open. She glanced up, looking unfocused, Constantine thought.

  “Where’s the good book, eh?” the captain demanded.

  The old woman sat up, blinked, and then frankly goggled at Constantine. “But where are your manners, Captain?” she asked in a strangely youthful, teasing voice. “Who’s the handsome lad?”

  “He’s here for Lisabeth,” the captain said. “Lord Wylde. You remember, and if you don’t, no matter. Where’s the damned good book?”

  “Aren’t you going to introduce me?” the old lady asked, looking very much offended.

  “Aye, here’s Lovey, Miss Esther Lovelace, my lord,” the captain said. “Lovey, here’s Lisabeth’s intended.”

  Constantine frowned.

  “Now, must I ask you again, woman?” the captain bellowed. “What’s the book?”

  “It is the volume of Plutarch’s Lives,” Lovey said with enormous dignity. “The very rock upon which William Shakespeare built his immortal plays. Do you attend plays, Lord Wylde?”

  “What? Who? I?” Constantine said, confused by her sudden change of demeanor, from icily formal to downright kittenish when she addressed him. “Why, yes. I do enjoy the theater.”

  “And so will dear Lis-Lisabeth,” she said, putting her hand over her mouth as she hiccupped. “She’s never been, you know. To the theater, that is. She’s been to local plays, church pageants and the like, of course. But how lovely that you will be taking her to the London theater. ‘The world’s a s-stage,’ ” she said, her chest leaping with another hiccup. “As the bard said. It’s too bad that she has not yet seen famous thespians tread upon it, isn’t it? Name a number from one to twenty,” she commanded, so suddenly Constantine wasn’t sure whom she was talking to. But she was staring at him.

  “Ah, eighteen,” he said.

  She smiled, closed her eyes, sucked in a long breath, and held it. Her pale face was growing pink when she let it out in a sigh. “That’s done it,” she said with satisfaction. “No more hiccupping. So inelegant, you know. But now you’re here, and all will be well. And end well. As the bard—No!” She frowned at the captain, who was about to touch a book on the shelf he was squinting at. “That’s never the book. Higher, the next shelf. Yes, there.”

  Governess indeed! Constantine thought. If she had been, he shuddered to think what she’d taught her young charge. The old woman was either addled or drunk.

  When the captain pushed the volume she’d pointed to, the bookcase swung back to reveal another room, complete with what looked like a fine array of bottles and a serviceable counter to put them on. Constantine had difficulty keeping his expression serene. This house was elegant. It was the only thing he’d seen so far tonight that was. A raven might move into a dove’s nest. It couldn’t change its feathers to suit its new nest. The captain was beneath him; his people were too. All that there was left to do was to meet the captain’s daughter, tell her that he was already spoken for, make sure no one was angry enough about it to make a public fuss, and then he could leave this place forever, and good riddance.

  He might have to pay the captain a goodly sum for his silence. But Constantine had enough money, and he knew no price was too high to pay for his continued respectability.

  “Ah, here we are. Good brandy, old enough to vote!” The captain chortled. “Care to join me?”

  “I’ll have the Jamaican rum,” Lovey said quickly. “I was drinking it and reliving old memories. The islands were where we met, Captain, remember?”

  “Can’t hardly forget. Took you aboard there and hauled you home again after your man passed on. When I heard you were a governess before you met him, ran away, and sailed with him to nowhere, the thing was simple. My Lisabeth needed a woman of learning and spirit. You’ll have your rum. But I was talking to young Wylde here. So, my lord. Care for a tot? This one,” he said, squinting at the bottle, “was your father’s favorite of a damp night.”

  “Thank you,” Constantine said. “I will.”

  He accepted the glass the captain handed him, and sipped some of the dark liquid. It was a potent brandy, and drinking it was a strange feeling, because it was the first time he’d actually had a living link to his father, his preferences and personality. His uncle never told him anything personal about the man, and as it turned out, what little he had told him was false.

  “Ah!” the captain said, turning around eagerly. “Here’s our Lisabeth! Lizzie, come meet your …” He saw Constantine’s expressi
on, and changed what he was about to say. “Won’t make your mind up for you, Lizzie, my love. But come on in and meet Lord Wylde.”

  Constantine turned to see the woman his father had selected for him as his bride. He breathed a great sigh of relief.

  If she’d been a beauty, he would have had a more difficult time rejecting her. He’d always had a soft spot for a beautiful woman. If she’d been a taking young miss, all airs and graces, he might have felt like a monster in denying her. But this! She was a plain little thing in a plain day gown, the hem liberally spattered with mud. Her hair was wet and pressed down flat, her nose pink from the weather, and she had no graces at all because she stood stock-still, gaping at him. Her eyes, he thought absently, were fine, the color of topazes, and very bright. At least the poor creature had something of feminine merit. He decided to be kind to her, because he doubted she’d had a hand in this, any more than he had. And it was easy to be kind to such a female. He’d always been taught to be considerate of those less fortunate.

  He gave her a melting smile.

  Those great topaz eyes blinked.

  “How do you do?” he said, and bowed, feeling as foolish as if he were bowing to a barnyard creature.

  She ducked an answering bow. “How do you do?” she echoed. “I was out walking. Then the rain began. I look a fright, excuse me.”

  “Aye, you do,” her grandfather said. “Look like you got dragged through a hedge backward. Go up and change. I’ll have Cook hold dinner.”

  She flashed a sudden smile at Constantine. “I won’t make you wait long,” she said, and fled the room.

  “She’ll clean up better, you’ll see,” the captain said. “Have a seat. Or do you want a wash before we eat? Lovey, go upstairs and have a lie-down until dinner.”

  “I’ll do, right here,” Lovey said, her eyes crossing and closing as she tried to stare at their guest.

  Constantine bowed. “I think I would like to freshen up, thank you,” he said. He had many things to say to his host, but this was neither the time nor place. But he’d say them this very night, so there’d be no mistaking his intentions. And the foremost of those right now was to leave this madhouse as soon as he could.