Blaggard's Moon (16 page)

Jenta marveled, putting fingers to her lips. “He didn't seem like a pirate at all.”

“And yet, he is, and among the bloodiest on the seas,” Wentworth scolded. “A pirate king, some call him, with great pirate captains at his beck and call.”

Jenta saw the depth of his emotion. “I'm so very much in need of your guidance. How will I know these things unless a gentleman tells me?”

“I shall tell you,” he vowed. “I shall tell you all about these things, and much more.”

The more Wentworth thought about it, the more he knew he must tell her everything. And not just tell, but vow everything as well, if he were to keep her.

Shayla watched the young man, wondering why she felt a dull dread.

“It's not possible.” Shayla said it dismissively, serenely. “It's far too early. I will not hear of it.”

“Well, I see we're no longer laughing,” Runsford replied, just as placid, from behind his enormous desk. “That's progress.”

“Please forgive me. I only laughed because I felt sure it was an attempt at humor. Mr. Ryland, it's a simple matter. He proposed to her and she declined. It's not over between them. She's not uninterested. It's just…well, there has been no courtship.” She couldn't believe she needed to explain these facts. “She has only just arrived.”

“And with all the eligible men of society throwing themselves at her feet, why, she might not even choose Wentworth.”

“She is charmed by him. But it takes time to win a girl's heart. These things must run their course.”

“Must they?”

“Mr. Ryland, what would people think, to see such a mad rush to marriage?”

He nodded. “You make a good point there. If the pair were to suddenly become man and wife, it might seem…almost desperate.” Ryland placed the fingertips of his hands together before him. “You should know that my son has been at the center of many rumors. I want this to be the
end of them, not the beginning of a new round. Perhaps a year of courtship is the thing to do it.”

“Thank you.” She smiled, relieved.

A clerk entered with a document.

“Not now!” Ryland barked at him.

“But sir, you asked for—”

The boss snapped his fingers. “Yes, yes, bring it here. You should have stated your business when you entered.” The clerk put the folded parchment in Runsford's hand and quickly retreated. If he was dismayed by his employer's behavior, he didn't show it.

Now Runsford Ryland, proprietor of the world's premier shipping line, stood up from behind his desk and walked over to close the door. Outside, clearly visible through the large panes of glass on all four sides of his office, clerks busied themselves along enormous bookshelves, moving ladders to and fro, extracting huge leather-bound volumes, opening them up on gloss-finished tables, inserting new sheaves of parchment here, taking old sheaves out for examination there, making notations and entering figures, reinserting the sheaves, then returning the volumes back to their places.

“Every transaction has a contract,” Runsford explained. “Every shipment has a bill of lading. Here we account for every barrel of whale oil, every cask of rum, every nail in every crate that passes through Skaelington or any other port in a Ryland ship. All transactions, all movements are documented here in neat rows of numbers by men whose minds run day and night with sums. They dream of ledgers, I'm told.”

“Truly extraordinary,” she said drily. But it struck her as an intricate dance, with columns of numbers moving the men's minds and hands and feet, rather than bars of musical notes.

“I do nothing without a reason, Mrs. Stillmithers. I do not spend money foolishly. Nor do I simply invest it and hope for the best. I manage my investments. I expect them to profit me.” He returned to his desk, set the folded document at one corner just so, its outer edges aligning with the corner of the desk. “Courtships are delicate things. They break, and they break off, for many reasons. Too fragile. Not a good investment. But courtship it must be. So I ask myself, how might Wentworth court Jenta, and yet there be no chance that she would decide to look elsewhere?”

Shayla's alarm returned. “I shall instruct her according to your wishes, of course.”

“Ah, but that would be your bargain, not hers. Young women are willful things.”

Shayla waited, ready for almost any piercing suggestion.

“It was Wentworth himself who came up with the solution. Bright lad. Great future. But in truth it was there all along. And it is this…They shall wed immediately, as he proposed. But…they shall do so in secret.”

She felt she had been struck. “In
secret?
To what end?”

“You don't see it? Why, they shall appear to be courting for an entire year, when all the while they are married. She will be unable to look elsewhere. She will learn how to behave like a lady. He will learn how to behave as a gentleman. You will help me manage my investment. And then a year from now, perhaps two, we shall have a great, formal, public wedding. And I shall have my return.” He folded his hands before him.

Shayla did see it. She saw it too clearly. “Mr. Runsford, I cannot submit to such a scheme. Jenta is a lady whose heart must be won, not jailed—”

“Come now, Mrs. Stillmithers.” He walked toward her now, put his hand on the desk near her, and leaned in. He spoke softly. “Or should I say, Miss Flug. I know your history. I did my due diligence. You had your fling with a gentleman nineteen years ago, but there is reason to question whether your daughter is actually his.”

“That was settled long ago,” Shayla said coldly. “I have made no claims.”

“I'm sure of it. For there was another man, wasn't there? Something of a pirate, I believe. And wasn't his name Stillmithers?”

She sat stonily, her eyes focused elsewhere. Then she looked at her hands, folded in her lap. “No. It was Mithers. And nothing happened between us.”

“But you still carry a flame for Mithers. It's still Mithers, in your heart, isn't it? Quite clever. And yet, all those years ago you tried to convince your well-heeled gentleman that the child belonged to him.”

Her eyes flashed. “It did belong to him! Jenta was…is…not the daughter of Ander Mithers. There were wild rumors, all speculation. Was I attracted? Yes. He was…but I was…”

Ryland straightened up. “He was what? Dashing? Exotic? Dangerous? And you were what? A good girl?”

Her silence was hard, and dark.

“You wanted to move up in society, didn't you? But you failed. You still might have succeeded, until you were tempted by a rogue. Your fiancé found out, and suddenly he couldn't trust that the child was his. But I'll wager he was in love with you, wasn't he?” She said nothing, and he
continued. “Of course he was. Just as Wentworth is in love with Jenta. And Jenta's been a good girl, too, hasn't she? But there are many more temptations in Skaelington than in Mann. You of all people cannot afford to see who or what wins her heart. It must be captured and pinned down now, so that she will submit to what's good for her. You must see the wisdom of this.”

Shayla's eyes went distant. “She does not love him.”

“Yet! She does not love him
yet.
Come, Mrs. Stillmithers. Let's look at it. She is the daughter of a washerwoman, born out of wedlock. And she refuses an offer of marriage from the heir of Ryland Shipping and Freight? Listen to me.
Now
is the time to assure that she does not follow your path. This is the moment when her future can be secured. And your past can be erased.”

Shayla felt all her efforts being crushed under the dual weight of his logic and her own failures. This was, after all, what Shayla had wanted; it was precisely what she'd hoped for. But to ask Jenta to marry Wentworth Ryland? She simply could not do it. She could not look her daughter in the eye and ask her to marry a man she could never, would never, love.

So Shayla shifted the argument. “How is it a good plan, though? Such could not be kept secret. The two are both young. An indiscreet comment is all it would take…And there must be a priest at the ceremony, and witnesses. Someone will talk. It will be known.”

“No priests. And you and I shall be the only witnesses.”

“If not a priest, then who?”

“A ship's captain.” And now Runsford beamed. He was proud of his plan. “I know a man who knows how to keep a secret. I know one who, even if he doesn't keep it secret, will never be believed by polite company.”

She shook her head, trying to ward off an image that would not go away. “This cannot have been Wentworth's idea.”

“No. The secret wedding was his. But the ship and the captain, that was my own.”

“Mr. Ryland, I must speak my mind.”

“Speak away.” He walked back to his chair and stood beside it.

“I came here at the invitation of a gentleman. I brought my daughter here under that same gentleman's protection, trusting to his good faith and kindness, and his promise that he would provide an introduction to society here. But now it seems he has done no more than arrange
a marriage for his son, a young man who seems to have a great deal of trouble living up to the title of gentleman.”

Runsford's look went cold.

“I'm sorry, but it's true. Jenta is a lady, and both she and her mother have a right to choose whom she marries.”

Runsford's eyebrows went up.

“If you insist on this path, sir, I shall be forced to pursue every means at my disposal, including the law if necessary, to alter this outcome.”

He waited. “Is that all?”

“Yes.”

“You do put on a good show of gentility, I'll grant you that. I'm sure I would believe you actually were a gentlewoman if I didn't know better. But let us not waste any more time. If you wanted to make amends for your past, the church has homes for women like you. But it's not your way to run to priests looking for pardon, is it? No. You run to businessmen, looking for a bargain. Well, here is the bargain you have struck. You will live to see all your dreams come true. All that is required is that your daughter marry far above her station. How is this possible to refuse?”

Shayla was silent.

“You are a foolish, ungrateful woman. You kick and struggle against the inevitable, when you should be thanking me for the sacrifice I am making.”

“Sacrifice? What sacrifice?”

“Why, the potential for your past to be known. Stillmithers? Really? This is not just your sham anymore—I share in it now. And I don't think I even need mention what this does to the Ryland bloodlines.”

The crushing weight descended within her. “You are not a good man,” she whispered. “I will never allow it.”

“But of course you will allow it.” He picked up the folded parchment from the corner of his desk, and fingered it gently in his hands. “I care not whether you are conversant with the moral principle of chastity, dear woman; that is your concern. But I very much care that you understand the business principle of investment. It is this: One invests so that one might profit. Not so that another might profit. Your daughter will marry Wentworth. You shall be faithful in this, at least.”

She stared at him coldly for a moment, then said, “If that is a contract, I will not sign it.”

He looked at the parchment in his hands. “A contract? No. Well, I suppose in a manner of speaking. It is a letter from the Sheriff of Mann.”
He opened it, turned it so she could see the seal, pressed into the bottom of the page. Then he pulled it back and read over it silently. “It seems you are wanted for some rather heinous criminal activities, both you and your daughter.”

Her mouth dropped open. “What crimes?”

“Does it really matter?” he asked sweetly. “But since you ask: extortion, theft, various confidence schemes that entrap gentlemen like myself and my son, using your womanly wiles. Seems you have even lied about your name.”

She sat rigid, her eyes wide, the mask cracking.

“Run to the sheriff, Shayla. Go anywhere you like, tell any story you please. All roads will lead back to me, and this bit of parchment. ‘She spins a good yarn,' they will say. ‘My, she had me fooled.' No, Shayla, you don't want that. You want to see your daughter marry Wentworth. And she will, or you shall find yourselves on the next Ryland ship bound for Mann. And you will not be leaving in finery and accolades, but in chains and humiliation.” He set the paper down again, just so. “Is any of this unclear to you?”

Her look hardened again, the mask returned, colder than before. “No.”

“Good. I hope that in time you will come to see this as simply a necessary bit of leverage to help you and Jenta leave the past behind, and ease into the privileges of your new, elite positions in Skaelington's refined society.”

“I'd like to refine his elite position, that no-good—” The remainder of the exclamations from Ham's audience was drowned in grumbles and oaths, all aimed at the falseness of society, and of rich men with power.