Lord Of The Privateers

After the head ostler shut the door and the coachman cracked his whip, the carriage—excellently well-sprung and obviously new—rocked out of the inn yard and wound its way out of the town and onto the highway.

She waited as long as she could—as long as she could bear the impact of his nearness without reacting in any way. They were bowling along, the repetitive thud of the horses’ hooves a steady, reassuring rhythm, when the sense of being private and alone with him at close quarters grew too intense, and she surrendered and broached the first topic on her list. Or, at least, the first point she thought it safe to address.

The implication underlying Royd’s discussion with Duncan over breakfast that morning had been that, when in Freetown, she would accompany him off-ship. While that was precisely what she wished, she had to wonder how far his new policy of including her in his mission would stretch. Now, however, wasn’t the moment to examine that issue; better to wait until she knew more about Katherine’s whereabouts and the details of his mission.

That said, he would know she would have noticed the change in his tack.

“I’ll admit that while I’m”—reassured? appeased?—“impressed by your willingness to take me into your confidence with respect to this mission, I’m unsure as to whether you will be, for instance, interested in my opinions on the matter.”

He was sitting opposite her; across the carriage, he met her eyes. “I am. I expect to hear your opinions.” His lips twitched. “Indeed, I feel supremely confident that I’ll hear your opinions whether I invite them or not.”

She sent him a distinctly unimpressed look.

His smile deepened, and he settled more comfortably against the squabs. “But yes, I expect us to work together on this. Unless your cousin has fallen prey to some other scheme entirely—which, frankly, is unlikely, not in such a relatively small settlement—then I expect our goals will align, and our paths forward will be intertwined.”

She studied him for a full minute, trying to see, to imagine... “You’re no more likely to invite a woman to share command than the next captain.”

“But I’m not inviting just any woman to join me—I’m inviting you.”

The intensity in his gray gaze assured her he meant exactly that with full knowledge of the consequences. She couldn’t stop herself from baldly asking, “Why?”

“Because despite all the storm water under our joint bridge, we’ve always—since I was eleven and you were six, for heaven’s sake—worked well together. Our characters are similar, so we understand each other instinctively, often without the need for explanations—which we both find boring—and our talents are astonishingly complementary.” He hesitated, then went on, “You might not realize how rare that is, but as a team...we’re blessed.”

“Together we’re more than each of us separately?”

“Exactly.” He paused, then said, “You know my mother often sailed with my father—more or less whenever she could. When she was on board, she was Papa’s first mate in every sense, except the actual sailing. That wasn’t an interest of hers, but everything else to do with his voyages was as much her domain as his.” He held her gaze levelly. “So in my family, having the captain’s wife aboard, functioning more or less as an equal partner, is not a novel concept.”

She wasn’t his wife...except she was. Rather than venture into that quagmire—one topic she was definitely not ready to discuss—she inclined her head and turned to the next item on her list. “Speaking of your family, who can I expect to meet in London?”

“Declan and Edwina—we’ll stay at their house. And Robert’s there at present, along with Miss Aileen Hopkins, who returned from Freetown with him. Robert and Miss Hopkins intend to marry, but because of the ongoing mission, they haven’t announced their betrothal yet.”

She’d heard of Declan’s wedding, held at a ducal estate somewhere in England. “I gather Lady Edwina visited Aberdeen after their wedding, but we didn’t meet. She’s a duke’s daughter, isn’t she?”

Royd nodded. “As you’ll have noted, that didn’t prevent her from sailing with Declan to Freetown and immersing herself in his leg of the mission. It seems her contribution was significant—she manages social situations very well.”

Declan had always struck her as the most conservative of the brothers; she found herself rather more interested in meeting his wife than she had been. “What do you know of Miss Hopkins?”

“I’ve never met her, but she’s the younger sister of two navy men I know. They have an even younger brother who’s a lieutenant with the West Africa Squadron, and like your cousin, he, too, has inexplicably disappeared.”

“He was one of those sent to look for the army engineer who vanished, wasn’t he? That was in Declan’s and Robert’s letters.”

“Indeed.” Royd paused, then grimaced. “While I understand why Caleb took Robert’s journal, I wish he’d left a copy.”

“By the sound of it, there wasn’t time.”

Royd humphed. “He didn’t waste time setting sail so no one could stop him.”

Why did he want Robert’s journal? “Is Robert’s journal like yours?”

He shook his head. “Mine’s more like a captain’s log. Robert keeps a much more detailed record. There’ll be lots of descriptions and sketches. It’s a habit he picked up from my mother, and in circumstances like this, it’s a godsend.”

“Presumably Caleb will bring Robert’s journal back. You’ll have time to read it before we reach Freetown.”

He nodded absentmindedly, his gaze shifting to the trees flashing past.

The carriage was rocketing along; they’d passed onto a properly macadamed stretch, and the pounding of the horses’ hooves resembled thunder.

After the coachman took a curve at speed, forcing her to steady herself with a hand against the side, she looked at Royd. “Did you say something to the coachman about being in a rush?”

“I offered him ten guineas if he got us to Stanhope Street before three o’clock.”

She considered that as the reckless, unquestionably risky pace continued unabated. The sooner they reached Stanhope Street—presumably where Declan and his Edwina lived—the sooner she’d be able to put some space between Royd and her, and the sooner her nerves, tense in a way she recognized from long ago, would ease.

After weighing the risk against the reward, she concluded it wasn’t in her best interests to protest. She sat back and, like Royd, stared out at the scenery whizzing past and waited for journey’s end.

CHAPTER 1 (#u66122d7e-371b-5468-bfb8-c5f3bb76c67e)

The carriage slowed and drew up outside a town house in a typical Mayfair street. Royd glanced out. He didn’t have to check the house’s number—the door stood open, and as he looked, Robert and Declan appeared in the doorway.

They hadn’t known he was on his way; he had to wonder what had brought them to the door—with, he noted, papers in their hands. He glimpsed Edwina beside Declan, and a lady with hair of a brassy shade that suggested she was a Hopkins peering over Robert’s shoulder. “It appears we’ve arrived at an opportune moment. For some reason, we have a reception committee.” He leaned forward, opened the carriage door, and stepped down to the pavement.

He looked up at his brothers and their ladies for a second, then turned to the carriage and gave Isobel his hand. She put her fingers in his—such a simple, mundane thing, yet he felt possessiveness surge as he closed his hand about her slender digits and assisted her down the carriage steps.

Once on the pavement, she straightened. With her hand still in his, she, too, looked up at the group filling the doorway. Then she smoothly drew her hand from his and turned to look up at the postboy and direct him to hand down her bandbox.

By the time the postboy had retrieved the box, three footmen had emerged from the house. Isobel consigned the box into the hands of the youngest, along with Royd’s traveling bag. Leaving the two older, burlier footmen to wrestle with her trunk, she turned to Royd, just as, having paid off the coachman and postboy, he turned to her.

He met her eyes, offered his arm, and quirked a brow. “Shall we?”

Shall we operate as a couple? Shall we try it again and remind ourselves what it feels like?

She looked into his gray eyes and read the challenge therein. Given that they would pursue his mission together—given the decision they would face when the mission was over and they returned to Aberdeen—seizing the opportunity to see how well they managed in this more social sphere was arguably wise. She arched a brow back, then, sternly suppressing her leaping senses, calmly laid her hand on his arm.

Side by side, they faced his family, then she raised her skirts, and they climbed the steps to the narrow front porch.

Swiftly, she surveyed the “reception committee”; she maintained a serenely assured expression, but inside, she couldn’t help but grin. While Declan and Robert were glad to see Royd, they were uncertain how to interpret her presence. They’d been at sea for most of her and Royd’s handfasting; she had no idea what they thought was the reason for the failure of the relationship. As they, of all people, knew, Royd rarely failed at anything. Yet knowing him, she sincerely doubted he’d explained anything at all about her; in the few seconds it took to reach the porch, she decided to assume that Robert and Declan knew nothing beyond the bald facts.

In stark contrast to the wariness evident in the men, the fairylike blond beauty peering around Declan and the brassy-haired lady by Robert’s side appeared intrigued and keen to make her acquaintance.

“Royd.” Declan held out a hand.

Royd smiled, and the brothers clasped hands and buffeted each other’s shoulders.

“Robert.” Royd and Robert repeated the process.

Isobel struggled to suppress a grin; both Lady Edwina and Miss Hopkins were all but jigging with impatience—not to meet Royd but to be introduced to her.

Declan turned to her. “Isobel.”