Beware Of Virtuous Women

ELEANOR BECKET SAT in her usual chair near the fire, bent over her embroidery frame.

Her sisters Fanny and Cassandra, the latter still downstairs only because their papa had retreated to his study and didn’t know she’d left her bedchamber, were playing a card game they’d invented together, and neither of them quite knew the rules.

Morgan Tanner, Countess of Aylesford, sister to the three and quite happily pregnant, sat with her legs up on a Chinese hassock, wiggling her slipper-clad toes in delight, for the slippers were new, and she rarely saw them. At least not while standing up and attempting to peer straight down.

A log fell in the large fireplace in the drawing room where they sat, and all four women momentarily looked up from what they were doing, then settled back to passing the time as best they could.

“They’re fine,” Eleanor said a few minutes later in answer to the unspoken question that had been hanging in the room all evening, and Fanny agreed that of course they were.

“Just enough mist over the water to hide the Respite, not enough to hamper them. And the moon couldn’t be more perfect,” Morgan said, looking toward one of the large windows and the dark beyond. “Callie, stop chewing on your curls. You’ll end up with a hair ball in your belly. Odette will pour castor oil down your gullet, and there will be no lack of volunteers to hold you down.”

Fifteen-year-old Cassandra Becket used her tongue to push the light brown corkscrew curl from her mouth, then frowned at its damp length. “I can’t help it, Morgie. I’m nervous.”

“And hours past your bedtime, as it’s nearly three,” Eleanor pointed out, taking another stitch in her embroidery, pleased that her hands were steady. “You, too, Morgan.”

“Me? I’m pregnant, Elly, not delicate. In fact,” she said, looking down at her stomach, “I’m about as delicate as a beached whale.”

Fanny giggled. “Maybe if you didn’t eat so much…?”

Morgan reached behind her and drew out one of the small silk pillows she’d placed there to make her comfortable, then launched it at her sister’s head.

Fanny neatly caught the pillow, then stood, pressed it against her own flat stomach. She bent her spine back as far as she could, still holding the pillow to her, and began walking across the room, her feet spread wide. “Do I have it right, Callie? Enough of a duck’s waddle to look like our dear, sophisticated countess?”

Callie considered this, then said, “Perhaps if you had first stuffed your cheeks with sugarplums?”

Eleanor smiled as she continued to bend over her embroidery. It was so good to have Morgan home with them after so many months away, but if her baby didn’t come soon even Eleanor would be harboring a few fears that the girl would simply explode on her own, and not need Odette’s midwifery.

“What was that? Fanny, Callie, sit down and be quiet. I think I heard something. Elly? Did you hear anything?”

Eleanor stood and walked over to Morgan, gently pushing her back down into the chair. “We don’t want to appear to be too anxious, Morgan. It’s bad enough we’re all sitting up with you, just as if we don’t expect them all to be fine. Ah—now I hear it, too. They’re back. Everyone, do your best to appear unconcerned.”

Fanny and Cassandra had already picked up their cards again, and Eleanor was once more bending over her embroidery frame as the Becket men entered the drawing room to catch Morgan in the middle of a prodigiously overdone yawn.

“Oh. Look who’s back,” Morgan said, “and none the worse for wear. Although, darling, could you possibly manage to wipe that ridiculous grin from your face?”

Ethan Tanner, Earl of Aylesford, pulled at the black silk scarf tied loosely around his throat and lifted it up and over his mouth and nose. “Better, darling?” he asked, then bent down and kissed her rounded belly. “Up late, aren’t you, infant?”

“Are you referring to me or the baby? Come here, let me hold you. I know you were enjoying yourself romping about playing at freetrader, but I haven’t had a peaceful night waiting for you.”

Eleanor watched, glad for her sister’s happiness and yet somehow sad at the same time, as Morgan yanked down Ethan’s mask and grabbed his face in her hands, pulling him close for a long kiss on the mouth.

“At it again, Ethan?” Rian Becket said as he stripped off his gloves and accepted the glass of wine Fanny had fetched for him. “I think I should point out that the damage is already done.”

Cassandra giggled, which drew the attention of Courtland Becket. “Been chewing on your hair again? And what are you doing down here at this hour? Get yourself upstairs where you belong.”

Eleanor hid a sympathetic wince as Cassandra’s pretty little face crumpled at this verbal slap and the child plopped herself down on one of the couches, to sulk.

Didn’t Courtland know how desperately Cassandra worshipped him? Or perhaps he did, poor man. “Court? Does Papa know you’re back?”

“He does. We came up the back stairs from the beach,” Courtland told her, pouring himself a glass of claret. “And, before you ladies ask, the run was completely uneventful.”

“You may say that, Court,” Ethan said, sitting perched on the arm of the chair, holding Morgan’s hand. “If it’s uneventful to you that we had to evade the Waterguard and make land two hours behind schedule.” He lifted Morgan’s hand to his mouth, kissed her fingers. “God, but it makes your blood run, darling. I’ll have to do this more often. Can’t let everyone else have all the fun.”

Morgan rolled her eyes. “Yes, of course. There’s nothing like a good smuggling run to liven your exceedingly dull and boring married life. You should go out on every run, really. And don’t you worry, I’ll be sure to tell our child what you looked like before the Crown hanged you in chains.”

“Ha! I think we’ve all just been insulted, Court,” Rian said, pushing back his sea-damp black hair as Fanny looked at him, her heart in her eyes. “As if the Black Ghost could ever be caught.”

Eleanor picked up her needle once more, not bothering to follow the lively exchange of jokes and verbal digs that were so commonplace in this rather wild, always loving clutch of Beckets. Like little boys, the men were still riding high on their excitement, and the girls were all more than willing to play their happy audience, even if that meant poking a bit of fun at them.

Was she the only one who saw beneath the surface of that banter? Saw that Fanny believed herself in love with Rian, and that Cassandra’s devotion to Courtland was much more than that of a youngest child for her older brother and staunch protector?

This was what happened when you lived in the back of beyond, isolated from most of the world. Siblings in name, but not by blood, as the Beckets had grown into the healthy animals they were, problems had been bound to arise.

But not for her. Not for Eleanor. She was the different one, the odd Becket out, as it were. The one part of the whole that had never quite fit.

Perhaps it was because she had been the last to join the family, and as a child of six, not as an infant or even as experienced as Chance and Courtland had been; already their own persons, older than their years when Ainsley Becket had scooped them up, given them a home on his now lost island paradise. She had landed more in the middle, and had been forced to seek her own identity, her own place.

And that place, she had long ago decided, had been with Ainsley Becket, the patriarch of the Becket clan. She had made herself into the calm one, the reasonable one, the quiet voice of sanity in the midst of so many more earthy, hot-blooded young creatures who eagerly grabbed at life with both hands.

The others would leave one day, as Chance had when he’d married his Julia, as Morgan had when she’d wed her Ethan. Spencer was also gone, his commission purchased, and he’d been in Canada the last several months, fighting with his regiment against America, much to Ainsley’s chagrin.

No matter how loving, how loyal, one by one the perhaps odd but yet wonderful assortment of Becket children would leave Becket Hall. Much as they loved and respected him, they’d leave Ainsley Becket alone with his huge house and his unhappy memories of the life he’d loved and lost before fleeing his island paradise and bringing everyone to this isolated land that was Romney Marsh.

But she’d stay. She and Ainsley had discussed all of that, in some detail. She would stay. As it was for Ainsley, it might even be safer for her to stay.

Eleanor watched now as Rian recounted the night’s smuggling run to Fanny, who listened in rapt attention. As Courtland gave in and let Cassandra fuss over him, even try on the black silk cape that turned the sober, careful Courtland into the daring, mysterious Black Ghost. As Morgan and her Ethan whispered to each other, their heads close together, Ethan’s hand resting casually on her belly.

Eleanor put aside her embroidery and got to her feet, barely noticing the dull ache in her left leg caused by sitting too long, her muscles kept too tense as she’d held her worries inside by sheer force of will. Her siblings, everyone, believed her to be so composed, so controlled…and never realized how very frightened she was for all of them, most especially since the Black Ghost had begun his nocturnal rides to aid the people of Romney Marsh.

She left the drawing room unnoticed, her limp more pronounced than usual, but that would work out the more that she walked. By the time she reached Ainsley’s study, it would barely be noticeable at all, which would be good, because her papa noticed everything.

The door to the study was half open and Eleanor was about to knock on one of the heavy oak panels and ask admittance when she heard voices inside the large, wood-paneled room.

Jacko’s voice. “And I say leave it go. Cut our losses and find other ways, other people. There’s always enough of the greedy bastards lying about, willing to get rich on our hard work.”

Eleanor stepped back into the shadows in the hallway, realizing she’d stumbled onto a conversation she wouldn’t be invited to join.

“True enough, Jacko,” Ainsley agreed, “but we must also deal with this now, or else face the same problem again. Jack?”

Eleanor’s eyes went wide. Jack? Her breathing became shallow, faster, and she pressed her hands to her chest. He was here? She hadn’t known he was here. He must have arranged for a rendezvous with the Respite off Calais, then sailed home with them.

Jack Eastwood’s voice, quiet, with hints of gravel in its cultured tones, sent a small frisson down Eleanor’s spine. “Ainsley’s right, Jacko. Someone got to these people, and if they did it once, they can do it again. Two men dead on their side of the Channel, most probably as an example to the others, and the rest now understandably too frightened to deal with us. My connections on this side of the Channel are also shutting the door on me, on us. This is the last haul we’ll get, the last we can deliver anyway. Much as I want to keep the goods running—and I can do that, I know of other connections I can cultivate—I want to find out who did this to us, who discovered and compromised our current connections.”

“And eliminate them,” Ainsley said, his voice low, so that Eleanor had to strain to hear. She could picture him, sitting behind his desk, his brow furrowed, his right hand working the small, round glass paperweight she’d given him this past Christmas. “I thought we were done with bloodshed when we rousted the Red Men Gang from Romney Marsh.”

Eleanor heard the creak of the leather couch, and knew Jacko had sat forward, shifting his large, muscular frame. “You think it’s them, Cap’n? It’s been two years since we trounced them, sent them on their way. You really think they’re back?”

“Who else could it be? Perhaps its time to put a halt to all of this.”