Never Trust a Pirate (2 page)

“So go up to the big house and investigate the usurper,” Sophie said in dark tones.

“Viscount Griffith’s not a usurper—Somerset was built by his family, and we only lived there because Father won the rights to it in a gaming club,” Maddy pointed out fairly. “We were bound to give it up sooner or later if the mad viscount’s heir had the money to redeem the deed.”

“Well, apparently he did, thanks to the collapse of Russell Shipping,” said Sophie tartly. “Which seems awfully suspicious, given the circumstances. I think you should go after him.”

“Father had begun to distrust Captain Morgan. I don’t know if he was even aware of Viscount Griffiths. I certainly wasn’t,” Maddy said, stretching out her legs and climbing from her cozy perch, restless as always.

“Oh, and if you didn’t know, then no one must have,” Sophie shot back. “You don’t know as much as you think you do.”

“I know more than you, that’s a sure thing,” Maddy snapped.

“Girls!” Nanny Gruen said, and Maddy felt a flush cover her face. She was being childish, scrapping with her nineteen-year-old sister when she needed to be cool and controlled if she was going to succeed in their investigation.

“Sorry, Nanny,” she muttered.

“You should be apologizing to your sister.” As Sophie began to smirk Nanny turned to her. “And you should apologize right back, missy! The two of you—I wonder if you remember anything I taught you.”

Maddy crossed the small room and gave Nanny a kiss on her cheek. Sophie stuck her tongue out at her when Nanny couldn’t see, but Maddy ignored it. “Sorry, baby sister,” she said. “It’s easy to forget you’re a grown up.” That was just barbed enough to satisfy her annoyance. “But neither of you are changing my mind. Remember the note Father left? It said ‘never trust a pirate.’ ”

“Captain Morgan isn’t a pirate,” Sophie said, plopping herself down beside Nanny on the worn sofa. A cloud of flour billowed out from her peach-striped gown. “He was a privateer at one point in his long and checkered career, but he was hardly swinging a cutlass and making people walk the plank. You’ve read too many novels.”

“You’re the one who steals them from under my bed,” Maddy retorted. “And I have no illusions about Captain Morgan. I’ve met other captains Father employed. They’re old, weather-beaten, and have no use for women. Given what we know of Captain Morgan I expect he’s ancient—at least forty, and dull and dry. But there was a reason Father distrusted him, and I intend to find out why. We need to look at the facts clearly, without emotion. It appears as if Father embezzled a fortune from Russell Shipping, the very company he founded, ran off with the money, and then conveniently died on Dartmoor, with no sign of the money left behind, no word to his daughters. But why would he be heading for Devonport? If he’d simply been trying to escape from England he would have left from Dover. The captain is the obvious one to investigate first. I don’t know why Bryony decided to bother with Kilmartyn.”

“Because Kilmartyn was right there in London, you ninny,” Sophie said. “And the Dark Viscount is right here. It makes no sense to go haring off—”

“I’m not haring off. This is a well-thought-out plan, and I’ve even had Mr. Fulton’s assistance.”

“Our useless solicitor? What’s he done besides tell us that we’re penniless and disgraced and will never marry?”

Maddy could feel a nerve tick in her jaw. “We’ll marry,” she said grimly. “You’ll have men falling at your feet and they won’t care what our father did. But first I’m going to find someone titled and very wealthy, a baronet at the very least. Lord Eastham’s been writing me letters, you know. He’s got more than enough money to clean up our reputations.”

“But he’s so old! And what about Tarkington? Won’t he come back once he thinks about it?” Sophie said in a worried voice.

Maddy kept her face expressionless, ignoring the pain in her heart. “Tarkington is gone forever, and Godspeed. I’ve decided if I have to marry for the good of my family, it might as well be someone with a title and a bit more money.”

“I rather thought that was my job,” Sophie said. “You’re quite beautiful, Maddy, but you know I outshine you. People tend to prefer sweet, witless blondes to dark-haired viragoes.”

“I am not a virago!” Maddy was outraged.

“Girls!” Nanny said again, this time in a pleading voice. “You’re giving me a headache. Must you always bicker?”

“Things will be much more peaceful when I’m gone, Nanny, and by the time I return we can all leave and get out of your hair.”

“Now, Miss Madeleine, you know perfectly well I don’t want that!” Nanny Gruen said stoutly. “You can stay here as long as you like—for the rest of your lives if you wish.”

“Don’t worry—you won’t be stuck with us that long. It’s going to be fine. Mr. Fulton owes me a favor, after his total uselessness with Father’s estate. He happens to be acquainted with Captain Morgan, and he heard he was in need of a maid of all work. So I had Mr. Fulton tell him he knew just the girl.”

“You didn’t!” Sophie breathed, her bright eyes round.

“I did. And I know I can trust Mr. Fulton not to betray who I am. He feels guilty.”

“You could marry him and forget all this nonsense,” Nanny Gruen said sternly. “He’s a good-looking young man with prospects. A solicitor’s a respectable profession, not like a shopkeeper or something.”

“I have no intention of marrying anyone who has to work for a living,” Maddy said firmly. “If I don’t choose Lord Eastham then I’ll find someone with at least twenty thousand pounds a year and a title to boot. I’m not throwing myself away on a penniless solicitor.”

Sophie sighed dramatically. “Haven’t I already told you I’m the logical one to marry a title? You’re already twenty-two.”

Maddy resisted the completely childish urge to pinch her sister hard. “Then we can both marry titles. The more, the merrier. And I’m hardly at my last prayers.”

“Do you suppose Bryony really married Lord Kilmartyn?” Sophie said, clearly not realizing her imminent danger. “She always said she would never marry. And Kilmartyn could have anyone.”

“Are you suggesting that anyone’s more precious than our Bryony?” Maddy said in a dark tone. Sophie was going to end up black and blue at this rate.

“Of course your sister is suggesting no such thing. And shame on you, Miss Maddy, for even thinking your older sister would run off with a man without the benefit of matrimony. Miss Bryony isn’t going to do anything she ought not to do,” Nanny Gruen said with a determined tone they’d learned long ago not to thwart. “I know I can count on you not to do anything you shouldn’t. There’ll be a proper housekeeper there and all, won’t there?”

Maddy managed to hide her astonishment. She’d girded her loins, metaphorically speaking, for a major battle full of dire threats and recriminations. Instead Nanny Gruen seemed to be surrendering at the first shot across her bow.

“Of course there is,” she said soothingly. “Mrs. Crozier and her husband are in charge of the household, and there must be a boy for the heavy work. They just need extra help.”

“I can’t say that I like it, Miss Madeleine,” Nanny said in a worried voice. “But if there’s a respectable older woman in the house to look after the maids, and if young Mr. Fulton is going to be around, then I suppose I have no choice but to let you go. My mind won’t be easy until you return, but at this rate if you two don’t kill each other then I may very well drown you both.”

“Thank you, Nanny!” Maddy said in a properly subdued voice,
but the look the woman sent her was far too wise. They both knew there was nothing she could do to stop her. In the end she was going, whether her old nanny liked it or not.

“Well, I expect it’s going to be a dead bore,” Sophie said with a yawn. “Some prosy old sea captain stomping around smelling of snuff. Do you suppose he has a wooden leg? If he does and he gives you too much trouble you could always steal it.”

“Captain Morgan isn’t going to give me any trouble,” Maddy replied airily. “You forget—I’m used to seafaring men. Father used to let me accompany him to his office on occasion, and I met a fair number of the men who captained his vessels, though fortunately not Captain Morgan. He’ll probably be just like all the rest of them. Old and gruff and boring. The man has no wife and apparently never bothered to marry. The ocean probably arouses his passions, not the female sex.”

“Miss Maddy! Your language!” Nanny protested weakly, having given up the battle.

“Gender? Is that any better?” Maddy offered.

“A proper young lady wouldn’t bring up such things in the first place.”

“I don’t think we’re considered very proper anymore, Nanny,” Sophie pointed out. “We’re disgraced.”

“All the more reason to be above reproach.”

“I will be above reproach,” Maddy said cheerfully. “It’ll simply be in Captain Morgan’s household rather than here. Don’t worry—if the captain truly had something to do with destroying our father it won’t take me long to find it out. I’ll be back before you even know I’m gone. Trust me—one landlocked old man is no match for me.”

The man currently calling himself Thomas Morgan walked down the sun-bright streets of the seaside town of Devonport, at peace with
the world. It had been a long time since he’d been Luca, half-gypsy street rat, and while deep inside he knew he could never be anyone else, the role of Thomas Morgan suited him well enough. It was a clear spring day, though the weather was crisp, and the breeze blew the salty smell of the ocean straight to him, a taunt from his jealous true love. It had been too long since he’d been out to sea. Ever since that bastard Russell had pulled him off his ship he’d been landlocked, and he cursed the lying, thieving old man every chance he got. Not that he hadn’t managed to profit in the end. He’d spent his twenty-nine years surviving one disaster after another, always coming out on top, as he had this time. With most of the assets of Russell Shipping disappearing into thin air the solicitors had had no choice but to put the few remaining resources, including the ships, up for sale, and he’d managed to buy two of them and was in negotiations for a third. It didn’t hurt that his fiancée’s father and his firm were in charge of settling Russell’s disastrous estate.

And now negotiations were almost settled, and the
Maddy Rose
was almost his. All they had to do was find one of Russell’s daughters to sign off on it. Every time he thought about the ship he felt a totally unaccustomed emotion swell inside him. The lines, the speed, the sheer beauty of the ship owned him as nothing else could. He’d sailed on many vessels, steam and sail, and commanded a large portion of them, but none of them moved him as the clipper ship did.

It was strange. He was used to lust stirring his privates, anger making his head pound, laughter in his belly. But his feelings for the
Maddy Rose
were in between, somewhere in the area that a heart was supposed to reside.

He didn’t have one, of course. Oh, the thing still did its job, thumped obligingly in his chest, but he’d stripped that body part of any feelings when he was seven years old and his stepfather had sold him to Morris the Sweep, who’d run the chimney sweeps. Eight pence had been his worth, and the old man had starved him. Luca was no use as a climbing
boy if he was too big to fit in the chimneys, and he spent endless years edging his way up and down the innards of the chimneys of rich, happy families in their rich, happy houses. By the time he was twelve he looked half his age, covered with burns and the mark of the lash.

He’d run away, of course, and kept trying till he succeeded. Tried to run back home but his family had already moved on, as the Travelers did. His gypsy heritage was in his face, his dark skin and eyes, curling black hair always filled with soot. His heritage was in his soul as well—rebellion and a determination to escape had always burned bright in him.

He should never have expected his mother to save him. He’d been born from a previous marriage to a non-gypsy, a
Gadjo
, an Englishman who’d given him his height and little else. His mother’s second husband hated him and the reminder that he wasn’t Anselina’s first. Luca shouldn’t have blamed her for letting him go—he knew how heavy his stepfather’s fists could be. But he did.

He’d escaped Morris as soon as he was big enough to fight back, taking his friend Wart with him. Together they’d become the finest child pickpockets in London. They’d serviced gentlemen when they were starving and found their way into many a wealthy household in the middle of the night to relieve them of whatever silver they could carry. So the life of a pirate had been a natural move for him.

It hadn’t started out that way. It had never been his idea to go to sea—the Rom had a natural aversion to it. But he’d been taken up one night when he hadn’t run fast enough—coshed on the head, and when he’d woken up the next morning he was already in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight.

It still made him laugh to remember how sick he’d been those first weeks. He’d spewed all over himself, the sailor who had kidnapped him, and the burly captain whenever they got close. Eventually there was nothing left to spew, and he lay in the small hammock they’d rigged up for him, stinking of vomit, hoping he’d die.