Duke of Thorns (Heiress Games 1) (35 page)

“It is a shame you’re not the blackguard I thought you were. If you were, I wouldn’t care to tell you that Captain Hallett took a room at the nearest inn last night.”

“He’s in Salcombe?” Thorington said. “You waited until now to tell me this?”

“I only heard it a few minutes ago myself.”

Since Ferguson looked as well-dressed as he always did, Thorington suspected it had been more than a few minutes. But however the man had come by his intelligence, Thorington wasn’t going to waste it. “If you’ll excuse me, I must go.”

He stepped around Ferguson, headed for the Tudor wing so he could put on something other than the previous evening’s clothes. But Ferguson’s voice followed him.

“Meet in the entry in twenty minutes. Salford is coming with us.”

Thorington turned. “I wasn’t aware I had asked for company.”

“An oversight on your part, I’m sure,” Ferguson said.

Thorington sighed. But wasting time trying to evade Ferguson might cost him his only chance of finding Hallett before the wedding.

“Very well. Try not to undermine my threats with your poorly-timed humor.”

Ferguson smiled. “If you give me the chance to interrupt, that’s your own doing.”

Thorington gave him a rude gesture before walking away. As he returned to his room and dressed, he should have focused on Hallett and how he would handle the man. But his thoughts returned, as they always did, to Callie.

He’d left her sleeping, curled up in the bed he already thought of as theirs. He was awake when Ferguson had knocked, facing her, content to breathe the same air as her. The pain of sleeping next to her, when he knew he couldn’t have her during their days, was sharply sweet.

If he couldn’t talk to her during the day, he was determined to have as much of her as he could at night. And she, true to their agreement, had given him everything he asked for. It had left him exhausted, exhilarated, as he’d searched for Hallett. He’d barely slept when he was with her, either from lovemaking or from the whispered conversations she wouldn’t grant him during daylight.

The sky outside his window lightened as he dressed. After only three days, sunshine felt cruel. His old, familiar loneliness was somehow harsher when illuminated. All the miles he’d covered between Maidenstone and Dartmouth, all the inns and taverns he’d visited, all the neighbors he’d called upon in his search for Hallett — they were important, but they were merely a distraction.

He couldn’t bear the thought that his days would always be like this, when his nights were the opposite. The heart Callie had rescued couldn’t survive starving during the day and gorging itself at night.

He had agreed to the deal she had demanded. Already, though, it wasn’t enough.

And as soon as he eliminated Hallett from their lives, he was going to renegotiate.

*     *     *

They reached Salcombe as the sun broke over the horizon. Thorington dismounted before the other two caught up to him. “Ferguson, take the horses to the stables and watch the back of the inn while Salford and I go in,” he said.

It was wishful thinking to hope that Ferguson would obey him. Ferguson’s laugh confirmed it. “I shall bribe the stable hand to do it. I won’t miss this interview.”

Salford slid off this horse. “Accustom yourself to his help, Thorington. Hard as it is to believe, Ferguson has his uses.”

They found a stable boy and left their horses and the back entrance under his watch. Then they went into the inn and gave the innkeeper a guinea to arrange the private parlor to their liking. Thorington had originally planned to roll Hallett out of bed so there was no chance he could escape. But on the ride to Salcombe, Salford had urged a different approach.

“If you awaken him and try to have this conversation while the man is still in his nightshirt, he will be even more defensive than he’s already likely to be,” Salford said. “A cornered animal will bite. Unless you intend to kill him, you’d be better served by inviting him to join you in a private parlor.”

Thorington had thought of killing him. It was the only way to guarantee that he couldn’t spread rumors about Callie, and it was cheaper than buying him off. But Hallett’s father was in Parliament and would likely raise an outcry. Even if Thorington didn’t swing from the neck for it, Callie wouldn’t be happy with him for disgracing them both.

So he took Salford’s advice and sent a message up to Hallett. When the man arrived twenty minutes later, his expression was an odd mixture of smugness and fear.

“Have you come to apologize for your threats, your grace?” Hallett said.

Thorington sat, entirely at ease, behind the table he’d used as his desk when he and his siblings had stayed at the inn before. Salford and Ferguson sat on either side of him, giving the room the air of a tribunal. There was a single, armless chair directly in front of the desk. Thorington gestured toward it. “Sit,” he commanded.

Hallett’s jaw tightened. “I don’t take orders from you.”

Thorington shrugged. “As you wish. Why are you in the neighborhood again?”

“I heard there was to be a party at Maidenstone today. I thought I might attend.”

If someone like Thorington or the men of his acquaintance had said that, it would have sounded like a dire threat. But there was something too indecisive about Hallett’s eyes, too weak about his voice. He had already proven that he was the type who would hesitate over firing his guns until all was lost — or fire too soon and miss his chance.

So Thorington went in for the kill. “I shall be brief. You will leave the neighborhood immediately. You will never speak to Miss Briarley again. And if you speak of her to anyone, I shall destroy you.”

He’d kept his voice cool, almost pleasant. Next to him, Ferguson silently applauded.

Hallett clenched his hands on the back of the chair he’d refused. “She ruined me. She owes me what she cost me. I want revenge against Jacobs so that the Navy will take me back.”

“I doubt it,” Thorington said, tapping his fingers on the table. “I think you’d far rather have a soft life on land, if you had the money for it. And anyway, I heard it was your incompetence that cost you your ship. If you’d been as good at sailing as you are at writing letters to the
Gazette
, you might have stopped the Scourge of the Caribbean before he captured anything.”

“Did that bitch say it was my fault?” Hallett said.

Thorington started to stand. Salford put a hand on his shoulder. “Manners, Captain Hallett,” Salford chided as Thorington sat again. “If we allow Thorington to kill you, as he so wants to do, Ferguson and I will have to support him at the inquest. None of us want that, do we?”

Hallett paled. The implication was obvious — if he was killed, there was a chance that two dukes and an earl could bury the crime before his body was even cold. But he was still too angry about his disgrace to behave rationally. “Did your
fiancée
say it was my fault?” he spat out.

“She knows her business on the sea,” Thorington said. “If she told me you were incompetent, I would believe it.”

She hadn’t told him that — he’d heard it when he’d received news of
Crescendo’s
loss, and had it confirmed by his messenger. But there was a part of him that wanted Hallett to attack. The idea of planting his fist in Hallett’s face was appealing.

Hallett dropped his hands from the back of the chair, then clenched them again. “I won’t have a traitor telling tales about me,” he said. “Better for me if everyone hears my side of the story before she says anything.”

“Better for you to keep your mouth shut,” Thorington said. “My wife will not stoop to speak of you at all.”

“But I’m
ruined
,” Hallett whined. “I will never have another ship. My brother will inherit my father’s estate. I’ve got nothing.”

Ferguson yawned. “This is tiresome. Pay him off, Thorington, so we may go back to our beds.”

Thorington didn’t have the money to pay Hallett off, and Ferguson knew it.

But Hallett’s eyes lit up. He was willing to strike a deal. “Twenty thousand pounds and you’ll never hear from me again.”

It was an exorbitant sum. In the past, when he could afford to be careless, Thorington would have given it to him without blinking just to rid himself of the annoyance.

Today, though, when he most needed the money to save Callie’s future, he couldn’t do it.

He rolled his eyes, hoping Hallett didn’t sense his hesitation. “I’ll see it done for cheaper. Twenty thousand pounds would be better spent bribing your father to look the other way while I kill you.”

“And how would your father feel if he knew that his son wanted to marry a pirate? What if your firstborn isn’t yours, but belongs to the Scourge…”

He cut himself off when Thorington surged to his feet. Salford didn’t stop him this time, but Thorington stayed behind the desk, still marginally in control of his temper. “Ten thousand pounds, and you can be grateful that I haven’t rearranged your face,” he said. “And if you break our agreement and talk to the press, I will win a libel judgment against you so large that you’ll be transported for your debts.”

“Ten thousand pounds and Lucretia Briarley,” Hallett said, all bravado. “And her share of Maidenstone.”

“That’s not a deal I can make,” Thorington said.

Ferguson examined his cuffs. “I can’t abide the thought of being related to you, Hallett. Nor can Lucretia, I would guess, since she told me you were here.”

Hallett deflated. “Briarleys,” he muttered, disgusted. “Faithless creatures.”

Thorington leaned over the desk. “I tire of you, Hallett. Take the promise of ten thousand pounds and leave now. Or you can stay and let me practice my boxing. Your choice.”

He knew when the man was defeated. Hallett’s eyes flickered over the three of them, looking for any support at all, but Salford and Ferguson wouldn’t abandon Thorington’s cause. Hallett’s shoulders slumped.

“Ten thousand pounds,” he said. “I need it immediately.”

Thorington’s mouth soured. He knew what he would have to do.

But he nodded. “Give me your bank’s direction and I will transfer the funds.”

“I would wish you happy, but I don’t mean it and you won’t be anyway,” Hallett said, his voice small and nasty in his defeat.

Thorington pointed at the door. “The feeling is mutual. Go before I change my mind.”

He waited until Hallett was gone, then turned to Salford. “Does your offer of a loan still stand?”

Salford exhaled. “Well done with Hallett. I shall loan you the money for as long as you need it.”

“It may take a few years to pay you back,” Thorington said slowly. He didn’t want to say it aloud because it would make it real, but he was honor-bound to tell the truth about this. “I plan to rebuild my fortunes, but it will take time. It may not even be possible now, with my luck.”

“You’ll have your ships back when you marry Callie,” Ferguson said.

“Those are hers,” he said. “And they shall remain hers.”

“I was entirely misled about your character,” Ferguson complained again.

Salford contemplated him soberly. “Your luck may surprise you.”

“I doubt it,” Thorington said with a short, bitter laugh.

“Do you have a pair of scales at home?” Salford asked.

“Of course.”

“And when you put all the weight in one pan, what happens when you remove it suddenly?”

Thorington pictured the wild swing as the scales rebalanced. “What are you saying?”

“We have no way of knowing, of course,” Salford said. “I don’t think anyone has been in precisely our situation before. But your current luck may be an overcorrection of your previous luck. When it evens out, I suspect you’ll be back to the same luck as everyone else.”

It was an interesting theory. Plausible, even. And he hoped Salford was right.

Ultimately, though, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was whether he could give Callie the life she deserved.

His doubts suddenly fell away. He knew the answer to that question. It had nothing to do with his fortune, and everything to do with the heart she’d rescued.

He just had to convince her of it.

He opened one of the drawers, digging out ink and paper. Then he scrawled a note, sealed it, and handed it to Salford. “Do me another favor, if you will, and make sure Callie gets this. Ask one of my sisters to deliver it — she’s more likely to trust them than either of you.”

“Where are you going?” Salford asked.

Thorington smiled. “I’m going to make my own luck.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Callie stopped on the very edge of the circle around the Maidenstone. She left her horse where it was, knowing there was no point in trying to coax it out of the trees. Thorington wasn’t in sight, but she trusted he would find her there.

For the moment, the circle was hers and hers alone. She looked down at her toes. Her boots just barely touched the manicured grass. Had it only been a week since she’d been here for the first time?

It felt like a month. She stepped into the circle.

The grass, the sun, and the stone were the same as before. The Maidenstone clearing was completely at peace — an ancient sort of peace, unconcerned with whatever momentary problems Callie struggled with. The stone had seen any number of Briarleys come there, either for guidance or penance.

No one would carry the Briarley name after her generation. All lines ended, eventually, and the Briarleys had survived longer than they might have. Did the Maidenstone sense that she was one of the last?

She scoffed at her own superstition, but her scoffing was half-hearted. She walked to the stone and traced her hand over the family motto again.

Briarley contra mundum
. It felt like those words had been engraved on her heart at birth. Tiberius had whispered them to her often enough.

But maybe she didn’t want the motto of her ancestors to control her future.

She wished, almost bitterly, that everything had been different. That she had met Thorington somewhere else — somewhere bright and cheerful, where the weight of history didn’t press down upon them. That she hadn’t been an heiress, and he hadn’t been a duke.