The Captain Claims His Lady

‘How about drawing straws?’ sneered Captain Hambleton.

‘Yes,’ said Lieutenant Thurnham eagerly. ‘Place it in the hands of fate.’

‘Are you sure you only want one man for your...task?’ Lieutenant Nateby said, twirling his brandy glass round and round. ‘If it is as difficult and dangerous as you were suggesting before Captain Bretherton joined us,’ he said, darting a rather sardonic smile at Harry, ‘then it might be easier to accomplish if two of us joined forces.’

‘No,’ said Lieutenant Thurnham. ‘That would mean splitting the fee. Unless you would pay each of us the same amount you mentioned?’

‘This is a job for one man, working alone,’ said Rawcliffe repressively.

‘Oh, well then,’ said Lieutenant Thurnham with a shrug, ‘let us draw straws. Save you the pain of making the decision about which one of us to pick.’

Rawcliffe already knew which one of them he should pick. Dammit, Archie had been one of his oldest friends. If anyone had the right to hunt down his murderer and bring him to justice, it was he. Rawcliffe and Becconsall had no business hiring men to do the job. Not when they knew he, Harry, would have done it for nothing.

‘A sensible solution,’ said Rawcliffe, infuriating him still further. ‘Kendall!’

His footman poked his head round the door. ‘Yes, my lord?’

‘Procure four straws. Three cut short and one left long. Then come back and present them to these four gentlemen one at a time, in the prescribed manner.’

‘Yes, my lord,’ said Kendall, leaving at once.

Harry clenched his fists on his lap. All five men at the table sat in silence, broken only by the grating noise of Captain Hambleton dragging the ale jug across the table, then refilling his tankard.

Good god, did Rawcliffe and Becconsall really consider such a fellow preferable to him? To bring their friend’s murderer to justice? True, Harry had felt, and looked, a mere shadow of his former self when he’d first returned to England. And, admittedly, he’d been drinking too much. But even foxed, and at half-strength, surely he was more suitable, not to say reliable, than any of these three?

Kendall returned after only a brief interval. Though heaven alone knew where the fellow could have found any straw in this neck of the woods. He made as if to hand the bunch of straws over to his master, but Rawcliffe held up his hand.

‘No, it is better if you present them to the candidates for the post. Less chance of anyone accusing me of cutting a sham, should they be disappointed.’

‘Seems fair,’ said Thurnham, holding out his hand.

‘Hold hard,’ said Captain Hambleton. ‘We should do this according to rank.’

Kendall raised his brows in a manner that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a drawing room. ‘We will do this,’ he said repressively, ‘according to who’s nearest the door. And that’s this fellow.’ He extended his fist in the direction of Lieutenant Nateby, who gave his senior officer an insolent grin before plucking out one straw.

It was hard to tell whether it was short or long compared to those still clenched in Kendall’s fist. The only thing anyone could tell for certain, when Nateby held it aloft, was that it was about four inches long.

‘Have I won?’

If he had, then why was Kendall offering the remaining straws to Lieutenant Thurnham? The straw he drew was of the same length as Nateby’s. Which meant that Kendall must be still holding a much longer one.

Kendall held out his fist to Harry. ‘Your turn, Captain,’ he said.

Harry studied both remaining straws carefully, his heart pounding sickeningly. He had to pull out the long straw, he just had to. He’d been robbed of too much, these past few years. His command, his liberty, his health, his self-respect and, finally, his timid, yet loyal, friend Archie. He couldn’t lose the right to avenge him, too. It would be...well, the last straw.

He closed his eyes, briefly, took a deep breath and laid hold of one of the two remaining straws clutched in Kendall’s fist. And tugged at it. And kept on tugging as, slowly, the length of it kept on emerging.

He breathed again. He’d got the long straw. And the job.

Kendall ushered the other three men out of the room, amidst much grumbling and cursing. Leaving him alone at the table with the Marquis of Rawcliffe.

A man who claimed to be his friend.

‘I can’t believe,’ Harry growled, ‘that you could even consider hiring anyone else. I was the obvious candidate all along.’

Rawcliffe’s thin mouth clenched into a hard line. ‘No, you were not. I thought you heard me explaining that this task will entail acting in a dishonourable fashion. And you are not a dishonourable man.’

‘You have no idea what kind of man I am nowadays.’

‘We didn’t give you the nickname of Atlas for nothing. You—’

‘You see? You are basing your judgement on the boy you used to know at school. You have no idea how much I may have changed since then. And don’t bring up the letters I wrote bragging about my so-called heroic exploits. Most of them were a pack of lies.’

‘You stayed with me for weeks this spring. Until I married Clare—’

‘And you didn’t notice how much brandy I got through? Or how keen I was to sponge off you? Are those the actions of...?’ He stopped and ran his trembling fingers through his hair, slightly stunned by the fact that he was deliberately trying to persuade a man he was dishonourable, as though it was an asset, when, ever since his release from his French captors, he’d been wallowing in the certainty he was no longer of any use to anyone.

‘You ceased sponging off me, as you like to put it, the moment you knew I was to marry. I know that since then you have been living in extremely reduced circumstances, quite unnecessarily, I might add—’

There he went again—trying to attribute noble motives to account for his actions. When the truth was that since their marriages, both Rawcliffe and Becconsall had been so nauseatingly happy Harry could hardly stand being anywhere near either of them. Or their frilly little wives.

‘Look, Rawcliffe, while you’ve been living in idleness for the last dozen years, I have been sailing all over the world fighting England’s enemies. I’ve employed whatever means necessary to destroy them. Whatever means. There isn’t a dirty trick I haven’t resorted to, if it has meant preserving the lives of my men, or slaughtering our foes. Didn’t you think I’d be prepared to go to the same lengths, to bring Archie’s murderer to justice?’

‘To be frank, no, we didn’t. You didn’t seem to care about anything much, beyond getting to the bottom of the next bottle.’

That took the wind out of Harry’s sails. Even though the jibe had been well deserved.

‘Look,’ said Harry, ‘when you and Ulysses started getting all worked up over the disappearance of some jewels, I admit, I couldn’t get the slightest bit interested.’ What did he care about the baubles that hung round the necks of fat, old, rich women, when out there, on the high seas, men who deserved so much better were daily being ground to pulp by cannon or shredded by flying splinters? Especially when he knew that those same pampered matrons would turn their noses up at the odour those men produced, due to a combination of their hard work and lack of sanitary conveniences? ‘And I could see that Ulysses was just looking for an excuse to impress Lady Harriet, anyway. And that when you went off on that search for the thief, it was a way to relieve the tedium of your existence. In the same way, when Archie went down to Dorset to visit that old relative of his, who seemed to be implicated in some way, I just thought it would do him good to stop hanging on your coat-tails and prove himself.’

Now it was Rawcliffe’s turn to flinch. At least, he began to tap his forefinger on the stem of his wineglass, which was the nearest he ever got to displaying agitation.

‘But somebody killed him,’ Harry continued. ‘That changes everything.’

‘Not quite everything. To be frank, neither of us think that you have the stomach to employ the stratagem which Ulysses and I have deemed necessary.’

‘Haven’t the stomach for it?’ That was one thing about himself he’d never doubted. He might have done a lot of foolish things, but nobody could deny he’d fought like a tiger to try and mitigate the results of his mistakes. ‘I am no coward.’

‘It isn’t a question of cowardice. And don’t repeat your excuse about me not knowing you any more. You have been back in England for several months, during which time I have had ample opportunity to discover what kind of man you have grown to be. You were the only one of us, remember, who made any attempt to defend poor Lady Harriet, when we found her in the park, alone, at dawn. The only one to treat her with respect.’

‘Well, that’s different. A female...alone...’

‘Well, that’s just it,’ said Rawcliffe with a touch of impatience. ‘The task of bringing Archie’s murderer to justice is going to involve deceiving a female. A gently born female. It is at the very heart of the plan Ulysses came up with. And unless I’m very much mistaken, seducing a gullible virgin is not something you would be comfortable doing.’

‘Seducing a...?’ He shook his head. Then looked at the straw clutched in his fingers. ‘It’s too late now. It appears to be my fate.’ And anyway, could anything he did make him despise himself more than he already did?

‘Damn fate!’ Rawcliffe slapped his open palm on the table, in a display of emotion that was so uncharacteristic it made Harry jump. ‘I don’t have so many friends I can afford to lose another one.’

Just like that, Harry understood why Rawcliffe had held this meeting in secret. Had made plans with Becconsall behind his back, too. People might assume Rawcliffe was cold-blooded and unfeeling, but he wasn’t. It was all a façade. Behind it beat the heart of a man who detested injustice. He hadn’t changed all that much since he’d been a boy at Eton, either. Not deep down, where it counted. At Eton, they’d given Rawcliffe the nickname of Zeus, not simply because he out ranked them all, but because he really was a natural leader. Just as they’d nicknamed him Atlas, because not only was he bigger and stronger than anyone else in the school, but he’d been willing to take on the burdens of those who needed his protection. And Becconsall, the third of their band of brothers, had been Ulysses. So named for his cunning and intelligence.