“I’m so sorry,” she’d ended. “I just got used to doing what needed to be done without discussing it with anyone first, and this needed to be done without delay. So it’s all been arranged, Lord Malory has agreed to help. His ship sails with the next tide—and I’m going to be on it.”
“You? Why?”
“Because I refuse to reward the Earl of Manford for being evil. There has to be a way out of this contract without his harming our businesses and besmirching our family’s good name. Richard’s answer was to disappear, but that’s not an option for me. So I’m helping Richard out of this horrendous situation his own father has forced on him. Now he will be beholden to help me figure out a way to end this.”
“And that’s all you’re hoping for?”
“Yes—of course.”
Why had she blushed when she’d said that? She still didn’t know. But he must not have noticed because all he’d said was “You really have grown up, haven’t you, dearest?”
She didn’t feel grown-up as she stood on the deck of The Maiden George three days later. The vast ocean surrounding the ship could make anyone feel small and insignificant. Even the convict ship appeared as only a dot on the horizon.
James and Drew had spotted the other vessel last night. They could have reached it sooner if they hadn’t run into a storm while crossing the Channel that first night. James’s ship was unusually fast because he’d removed all the cannon for his last trip, when speed had been essential. But the transport ship had left London only two days before they had set sail, not a whole week earlier as they’d initially thought. Apparently, convict ships could be docked in London for weeks, even months, because they wouldn’t sail until they had a full load of convicts to deliver.
James had insisted they wait until morning to close the gap between the ships. No one had argued with him because his reasoning was sound. He didn’t want British officers who were eager for their beds to be making decisions rashly. That could lead to unnecessary conflict.
Gabrielle joined Julia as The Maiden George raced to catch up to the convict ship. Gabrielle said nothing, just offered quiet support. Julia needed that. She was afraid they’d find Richard ill because of this ordeal, maybe even physically hurt again, too hurt to be reasoned with. And she would only have a couple of days with him.
But then she found herself talking to her new friend about her fiancé. Whatever Ohr had told them would have been Richard’s version. Not that she wanted to paint herself blameless when she wasn’t. Her temper and Richard’s snobby, nasty remarks had been a volatile combination. They were equally at fault for never being able to get along.
“I had such a terrible temper back then,” Julia admitted, ending the tale. “And he always seemed to know just how to provoke it.”
“Do you still?”
Julia chuckled. “I don’t really know! I don’t recall any tantrums after Richard’s last visit. But just thinking about him still makes me angry, so I stopped thinking about him.”
“That doesn’t sound like the Richard I know,” Gabrielle said. “From the time I first met him, he was a happy-go-lucky charmer, always grinning or laughing, always teasing and joking about something with his friends. He appeared not to have a serious bone in his body.”
Hearing that, Julia felt a wave of sadness and guilt that turned her stomach. Had she taken the joy of life from him when they were children? She’d seen glimpses of the man Gabrielle knew and cared about. The teasing charmer Julia first met at the ball before she knew who he really was. The gallant man at the hotel who had jumped up and swatted a bee away from her despite his sore body. The laughing man at the hostelry who had tossed her on his bed and kissed her—that definitely hadn’t been the old Richard! Of course, he was an adult now, and her old nemesis resurfaced directly after that kiss.
“You’re right, we’ve described two different men,” Julia said quietly. “In all those meetings I had with him through the years, I never once, ever, saw him smile. He sneered a lot though.”
“Amazing how a few years can change someone, isn’t it?” Gabrielle said.
“Years, possibly, but more likely circumstances. You met and knew the man who had left his troubles far behind. Away from his father and the threat of an unwanted marriage, he found peace, I guess, and became the man he always could have been if he hadn’t grown up with a tyrant for a father. And I’m sure he will again be the man you know, once he puts all this behind him.”
“But you’ve had it just as hard, haven’t you? With this unwanted marriage always hanging over your head?”
“It wasn’t so bad when we were children. Once I went home from those visits, or Richard did, my life returned to normal and I was quite happy. It was only when I reached a marriageable age that I began to worry about my future. I do want children after all, a real husband. Love.”
“Do you have someone in mind?”
Julia laughed bitterly. “I’ve been engaged all my life, and to a lord no less. Everyone knows that. The men of my acquaintance treat me as if I’m already married. I was only just going to start looking for a husband because enough time had passed and I was having Richard declared dead. Then he showed up and ruined that plan.”
Gabrielle flinched. “This is such a sad situation. Richard’s never caused me any worry, until his misguided infatuation with a married woman, but that is nothing, compared to his being hauled off to a penal colony on the other side of the world! But who could imagine a father like his.” Gabrielle sighed. “I wouldn’t be surprised if James had the right of it. The earl probably isn’t Richard’s real father and has treated him so abominably because he was forced to accept and raise his wife’s bastard.”
“You mean a convoluted punishment for her sins taken out on the boy, revenge as it were?”
Gabrielle nodded. “More understandable than a parent being this cruel—unless he’s insane.”
“No, he’s not insane. If he is, he’s able to mask it with a normal facade.”
“Ohr said Richard truly hates his father, so I don’t doubt that he would prefer it if he was a bastard.”
“That doesn’t get him and me out of this situation, though,” Julia said. “Throwing that in the earl’s face isn’t going to make him hand over that horrible contract. By law, Richard bears his name, and so he fulfills the requirement of the contract, bastard or not.”
“Time to go below deck, ladies,” Drew said as he walked up to his wife and put an arm around her waist. “While it’s reasonable that the man’s fiancée and friends would come along to see to him released, James doesn’t want the distraction of women on deck.”
Gabrielle snorted at her husband. “That ship is only five days out of England. They aren’t starving for the sight of a woman yet.”
“Are you going to argue with James about it?”
Gabrielle chuckled at him. “Not a chance. Come along, Julia. We should probably let Richard get cleaned up before we talk to him anyway. I don’t doubt it’s going to be all he’s thinking about, after being locked up for over a week. He’s so meticulous about his appearance. He can dress in rags but they have to be clean rags! I always thought that was a little odd, but of course I had no idea he was a lord. More understandable, knowing that. Lordly types do seem to be raised to always put their best appearance forward.”
Julia realized how little she knew about the man she’d been engaged to all her life. But she had to agree with Gabrielle’s last remark. She couldn’t recall ever seeing Richard other than neatly attired and clean. Another edict of the earl’s, that his boys weren’t allowed to ever get dirty?
They were nearly abreast of the other ship. Julia hadn’t even noticed, they’d been so deep in conversation. She was suddenly beset with acute nervousness.
“I’m glad you’re so confident of the outcome of our intervention here,” she said to the couple.
Drew replied, “Don’t worry. Never known a man who could twist arms as well as James Malory can.”
C
hapter Twenty-eight
JAMES SUMMONED DREW BEFORE he crossed over to the transport ship. James had dressed for the occasion. He didn’t often make the effort to look so lordly, but today he did. Though his white cravat wasn’t excessive, his buff-colored jacket was superbly cut, his boots gleamed, and his waistcoat was of the finest silk.
“You come with me,” James said. “If the captain denies his involvement in this plot, someone who knows Richard will have to go down in the hold to point him out.”
“I take it you’d rather not?”
“It’s not a matter of druthers, Yank. After I establish how bloody high and mighty I am, the captain will find it more plausible if I decline to enter his hold and delegate the onerous task to Richard’s manservant. The stink, you know. It’s bound to reek already.”
Drew choked back a laugh. “So I’m to play the role of servant who can’t afford to be so fastidious?”
“Exactly, and not one bloody word from you or you’ll give away your nationality.”
“Oh, come now.” Drew grinned. “Americans make just as good servants as Englishmen do.”
“Perhaps, but an English lord wouldn’t be caught dead with one.”
That was an old dig. James was much too fond of referring to Americans as barbarians to ever admit it just wasn’t so. And Drew had grown immune to those particular digs over the years. Mostly.
The captain didn’t meet them on deck, but they were shown directly to his cabin. Having them brought to him was a rather obvious tactic to establish his superiority. Which evaporated as soon as James introduced himself.
“James Malory, Viscount Ryding. Good of you to see us, Captain … ?
“Cantel,” the man answered as he leapt to his feet behind his desk.
“Captain Cantel.” James tilted his head slightly in greeting. Drew had to admire James’s own tactic. Earlier, Drew had shouted across decks that the matter was urgent, which got the other ship to lower their sails and prepare to be boarded. But James had just put the captain at ease with his cordial greeting. To leave him unprepared for a broadside …
The first salvo took the form of the official documents James took out of his breast pocket and dropped on the desk. The captain gave him a curious look as he picked them up and began reading one. He began to frown. James didn’t wait for him to finish reading.
“As you can see, it has come to our attention that you are transporting an innocent man. You are to release him to me immediately.”
Captain Cantel didn’t answer for a moment. He was still reading, then his eyes flared wide. “One of the prisoners is a lord? Mistakes of this magnitude don’t happen, Lord Malory. There is no one by this name in my hold.”
“Hadn’t thought you’d be stupid,” James said drily. “But I’ll allow that you already fully understand the consequences of your involvement in this plot, so I actually can’t blame you for trying to deny it.”
Captain Cantel’s face flushed with color. “Truly, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I can show you my manifest. Every prisoner below is listed and accounted for.” Then he barked an order to the crewman who’d escorted them: “Go take a head count.”
“Stand where you are,” James countered that order in a tone that paralyzed the sailor.
“Now see here—,” Cantel began to bluster.
“You don’t actually think I’m going to give you the opportunity to hide the evidence, do you?”
“Don’t insult me any more than you already have, Lord Malory.”
“Or?”
Drew groaned inwardly. James was supposed to be pulling rank, not throwing weight, but Drew had to allow his brother-in-law was much more accustomed to the latter.
James didn’t give the man a chance to answer, adding, “You aren’t thinking of actually crossing me, are you?” He unexpectedly grabbed the crewman standing next to him by his shirtfront, lifted him by it, and slammed one of his meaty fists into his face. He let the fellow fall slowly to the floor, quite knocked out, before he glanced at the captain again and said with distinct menace, “I wouldn’t advise it.”
“This is an outrage,” the captain blustered, but his statement lacked any heat.
“I quite agree. Lords of the realm aren’t dealt with in this manner, no matter their crimes. You do realize that, correct?”
“Of course.”
“Very well. Against my better judgment, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt that you actually didn’t know anything about this. I suppose the earl’s son could have been handed over to you with a false name, might even have been unconscious and therefore unable to correct this outrage before it went any further. Although,” James added thoughtfully, “he’s more’n likely to have been shouting who he really is loud enough to have been heard back in London.”
“The guards wouldn’t have believed him,” Cantel said quickly, obviously preferring James’s last version if he had to hand over his prisoner, but he was foolish enough to try one last time not to, adding, “I’ll have the guards questioned immediately. You’ll see that someone has been misinformed over the whereabouts of Lord Allen.”
“And waste even more of my time? I think not. Here are your three options. You can hand Lord Allen over to me now and you might be able to talk your way out of losing your commission when you return home. Highly doubtful, but I’m sure you’ll find that option preferable to being arrested at your next port.”
“You don’t have that authority!”
“Doubt my credentials, do you? Perhaps you haven’t heard of my family?” Then James added in an appalled tone, “Good God, am I actually about to drop names?”
Drew almost laughed. But James’s attempt to ease tensions, if that’s what his last comment was intended for, worked.
“That isn’t necessary,” the captain said. “Your family is well-known, Lord Malory. Shall we adjourn to the hold to see if this missing lord was erroneously placed on my ship?”
Maintaining innocence to the last? James wasn’t fooled. Lifting one tawny brow, he said, “Me? In the bowels of a convict ship? Not bloody likely. Allen’s manservant here was brought along to identify him. Issue the order directly.”
The captain nodded curtly and moved to the door to shout for his first mate before returning to his desk. After a few minutes the man arrived.
The first mate stared pointedly at the unconscious crewman on the floor as he entered the cabin. This prompted the captain’s impatient explanation “A disciplinary matter.” Then: “These gentlemen have come to retrieve an innocent man we may mistakenly be transporting. If it’s true, he’s to be released immediately. His manservant here can identify him.”
Drew was following the first mate out the door when he heard Captain Cantel ask James, “What was the third option, Lord Malory?”
“That I kill you.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
I THOUGHT I WAS DONE for. You wouldn’t believe some of the punishments those guards taunted us with,” Richard said.
He’d bathed. Ohr had brought along Richard’s bag of clothes so he’d had clean ones to change into. Now all he could think about was food and stuffing himself until he couldn’t take another bite.
He hadn’t had a good meal since he’d been dragged out of that hostelry near Willow Woods more than a week ago. The ship served nothing but gruel before it departed, but at least fresh bread went with it. As soon as they sailed, the bread stopped coming with the gruel, and one guard had laughed that the slop they were being fed would stop, too, as soon as supplies ran low, because of the lack of ports on the last half of the three-month journey where supplies could be replenished. Most of the less hardy prisoners weren’t expected to survive the trip.
That wasn’t even the worst of the guards’ taunts of near starvation, backbreaking work, whippings at the whim of the guards, containment in cells so small a man couldn’t even lie supine to sleep. The convicts at the colony killed each other just so they would be hung in order to escape that hell.
That’s what the prisoners on that ship had been told they had to look forward to if they survived the trip.
“Did your father really do this to you?” Drew asked.
“Yes, and I’m not even surprised. He used to have servants beat me and lock me in my room.”
“Hardly the same thing,” Drew pointed out in a somber tone. “But how did they even get you on that ship without proper documents?”
Drew and Ohr were the only ones with Richard in the main cabin. Food had been set out on a table for him.
From the moment Drew had appeared in the convict ship’s hold and the chains had been removed from his hands and feet, Richard had been on the brink of laughter. He was still incredulous and overwhelmed with relief. He’d hoped, prayed, to be rescued before the transport ship sailed and had completely given up hope when it did.
“My father is friendly with the local magistrate,” Richard explained. “But worse luck, the captain of that ship was the man’s brother. The captain wasn’t going to take me. They had an argument. But I guess a favor got called in, since I was tossed in the hold with the rest of the prisoners. Don’t think the captain was even told who I was. Don’t think it would have mattered by then. But how did you find me? Did you beat the hell out of my father to get him to confess?”
Richard asked that of Ohr and would have preferred to hear a yes, but Ohr smiled wryly and said, “No, that didn’t even occur to me. After I had your brother search your old home, and he assured me your father was behaving quite normally, I—”
“That man has no emotions,” Richard cut in. “So his behavior wouldn’t have revealed anything.”
“He wouldn’t even be gloating that he was finally getting what he wants?”
“Oh, he would,” Richard said bitterly. “But he’d keep it to himself. He certainly wouldn’t let Charles see it. He knows Charles and I are close. If Charles found out about this, it would sever their relationship for good, pitiful as that relationship is.”