Once Tempted (21 page)

“What are you doing out here? Someone could see you,” she scolded quietly, glancing back over her shoulder to make sure she’d closed the door to Robert’s cabin tightly.

“I’m starving,” he complained. “I’m also demmed tired of all this darkness and lurking about. I want to see the sun and I want to own up to the Captain.”

“I don’t know, Jemmy. It could be dangerous.”

“All this slinking about is hardly honorable, I’d say.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I need to stand up and take whatever fate deals me.”

“Jemmy, I think it’s better if we keep your presence a secret right now, at least until I can speak to Captain Danvers first.”

“No secrets, eh?” a voice from the end of the hallway asked.

Olivia turned and found Robert leaning in the doorway of his cabin, the blanket around his midsection, his face white from the exertion.

“I’d say you are hiding more than you bargained for, Miss Sutton.”

Robert found the warmth and brilliance of sunlight on his face more rejuvenating than any pot of broth. After more than a week of being kept in his berth until Olivia declared him well enough to venture above deck, he was glad to finally be free of his prison. A fortnight, all told, of being cooped up had nearly been his undoing.

It was a good lesson to him not to get caught by the French—for he imagined he’d go mad in a prison cell. Especially if his gaoler was as strict as Miss Sutton.

He’d conned Gavin into stealing a pair of breeches and a shirt from his brother’s trunks, and to his surprise Gavin had produced Robert’s boots, cleaned and polished.

Once he’d gotten dressed, he’d checked on Aquiles, who’d also been at Miss Sutton’s tender mercies. The poor sot had practically begged Robert to pitch him overboard, and Robert couldn’t help wondering if it was the
mal de mer
or the ocean of broth and Miss Sutton’s cheerful nursing that had Aquiles longing for death’s welcoming embrace.

As for himself, while he was glad for the opportunity to get out of his blasted bunk, a part of him had to admit he’d miss the lady’s bossy attentions.

Olivia had spent hours trying to keep him amused, reading to him, testing his skills in languages and asking him endless questions about Spain and his life there, before and after Napoleon’s occupation. She obviously had an insatiable curiosity, and he enjoyed having such an avid audience with whom to share his love of his adopted homeland.

She was certainly a woman of many facets, and he found each one intriguing. Yet he knew she carried some long-held secrets. And he suspected they all dealt with the night of Orlando’s murder. A point he couldn’t help puzzling over.

What had happened in those last minutes? And how deeply had she been involved?

“Hey there,” his brother called out from the poop deck. “Do you have permission to be up here?”

Robert glared up at his elder sibling.

Colin only laughed. But it annoyed Robert even further when he watched Colin glance over at Olivia to see her nod in agreement to his arrival above deck.

The wretched woman! His brother had better watch out, or the next thing they’d know, she’d be directing course corrections.

Robert took the ladder to the upper deck as swiftly as he could, but his shoulder was stiff and his arm weak. When he got to the top, he was sweating and his muscles burned, but he’d be damned if he’d admit it in front of her.

She’d have him at her mercy for another sennight, trapped in his berth and drinking endless cups of broth.

“Good to see you up and about,” Colin said, a grin teasing at his serious expression.

“Would have been up sooner, if I’d had my way,” he grumbled. “Sorry about dragging you into this mess.” Robert nodded at where Jemmy Reyburn stood with one of the crew, getting a lesson in knot tying.

“I’m not complaining. The boy is a hard worker. It’s like having an extra hand on board. And we are short this trip. Besides, he feels so bad about stowing away, he’s working twice as hard as my crew—he’s putting them all to shame.” Colin grinned.

“What about your other passenger?”

Both of them glanced over at where Olivia sat curled up on a coil of rope, a basket of sewing beside her and a length of cloth in her hands, her needle swiftly plying a long seam.

Sitting on her perch, she sat with her head cocked as she continued her task at hand. The salty breeze curled and whispered around her hair, sending lazy red tendrils dancing around her face. Not even her strict attempt to bind her hair in some matronly design could keep the fiery and wayward strands in place.

The southern sun was starting to kiss her once fair cheeks, for now they were starting to hail a rich glow. Most women would have shunned the warmth of the sun, but Olivia seemed to bloom beneath it like a wild, unkempt rose.

And just as tempting to pick, he thought, despite the threat of thorns.

“What is she doing now?” Robert asked. “Dressing the crew in more respectable uniforms?”

“Actually she is refitting some of my clothes so that you’ll have something to wear. But I see you’ve already had a hand in that yourself,” Colin said, glancing first at the breeches and then at the shirt. “Let me guess, Gavin picked the lock on my trunk?”

Robert hated to see his nephew get in any more trouble, since he’d been assigned to scrubbing decks from dawn to dusk since the discovery of Jemmy Reyburn aboard. “No, this was all my own doing,” he said.

Colin appeared unconvinced but didn’t say anything more on the subject.

Robert glanced again over at Olivia. Whereas most women would have taken an indignant stand of protest over their situation and locked themselves in their room, she had not. He knew from what Colin had told him earlier that she’d pitched in wherever she was needed, in the galley, chatting with the sailors in their native languages and quoting the now infamous Lady Finch’s advice on any number of subjects. She had turned a disastrous situation into a great lark.

He had to admire her adaptability.

“I’m surprised she’s not making me restraints to keep me locked in my sick bed until we reach Lisbon,” Robert joked.

“You should be in restraints,” Colin said. “What were you thinking kidnapping a woman and hauling her to Portugal? Aren’t there enough dulcineas there to keep you happy?”

“It isn’t like that,” Robert said. “This is a military matter, pure and simple.”

“The war going so bad that Arthur is taking to recruiting widowed women into his ranks?”

Robert didn’t see any way of avoiding the issue. “She’s no mere widow. That woman could be the key to ending the war or the most treasonous threat yet.”

“Mrs. Keates? A treasonous threat? Are you sure that bullet didn’t rattle more than your shoulder? She’s an army widow who works as a lady’s companion.”

“Mrs. Keates is the name she took after she left London seven years ago. Before that she was known as Miss Olivia Sutton.”

Colin paled and turned to survey anew the woman he’d so easily given sanctuary on his ship. “Olivia Sutton.” He shook his head. “It can’t be.”

“Mark my words, the lady over there is none other than Olivia Sutton. She was there, Colin. She was with Lando when he died.”

“She didn’t have anything to do with it.” Colin made his statement with such firmness, such finality that it left Robert stunned.

“Of course she had something to do with it,” he shot back. “Chambley’s been hunting for her ever since that night. And our cousin went to great personal lengths to secure her aid. She has a hand in this, mark my words.”

“That means nothing,” Colin told him. “That woman is no more capable of murder than Gavin is of keeping out of mischief.”

“She shot Chambley. You should have seen her. She took aim and shot him. If she hadn’t been so blind with rage at the time, she would have put that bullet straight through the man’s heart.”

“And why, may I ask, was the lady blind with rage?”

Robert paused. “Chambley had told her that he was behind her father’s death. Apparently Sir Sutton didn’t commit suicide; he was murdered by him and Bradstone.”

Colin’s mouth fell open. “Eh gads. That puts an entirely different light on things. You’d have done the same thing.”

Colin had a good point there. But that still didn’t explain what happened the night Orlando died. Or why she was found at the murder scene, the pistol in her hand.

“I know what you are thinking,” Colin said, “she was involved in Lando’s death. You’re wrong.”

“And you aren’t listening,” Robert said. “She may well have fired the shot that killed Lando. She is certainly capable of having done it.”

Colin shook his head. “No, Hobbe. That woman did not murder our brother. She is no more than an unwitting pawn in all this. Mark my words on it. Why don’t you just ask her?”

Ask her
? Robert had never heard anything so stupid in his life.
Excuse me, Miss Sutton, did you murder my brother
?

As if the chit would tell the truth.

He shook his head. “I wish I could claim your assurance on the matter, but I don’t trust her. She’s holding something back. She hasn’t been entirely honest. Why, she even—”

“Perhaps if you weren’t half in love with her, your judgment wouldn’t be so clouded,” Colin remarked, then turned to answer a question Livett had on their course.

Half in love? With Olivia Sutton? He’d never heard of such a stupid notion. Obviously, Colin had finally gone mad after all these years aboard ship. And yet, even as Robert tried to form the words that would deny his brother’s assessment of the situation, they died in his throat as he gazed across the deck at Olivia Sutton.

Her hands worked nimbly with the needle, but it appeared her thoughts were elsewhere, because suddenly she pricked herself. When she brought her finger to her lips, she caught sight of him watching her and offered a tentative smile.

It caught his heart unawares and nearly knocked him off his already unsteady feet. Like her kiss in the park.

If Napoleon wanted to win the Peninsula, Robert thought, he should just send a battalion of Miss Suttons to Spain. They would turn the entire English army as traitorous as his own once stalwart heart.

“She thinks you are taking her to Wellington,” Colin said, as he rejoined Robert and followed the direction of his brother’s intense gaze.

“I intend to.”

“Whatever for?”

“She claims to know where The King’s Ransom is buried.”

“Mother of God,” Colin sputtered. “Does she know what that means?”

“I think so, but not the entire extent of it.” Of this Robert was certain. Only someone raised in Spain would understand the almost mystical sway of
El
Rescate del Rey.

A treasure powerful enough to unite a country. Or leave it in ruins.

“If anyone knew—”

“Exactly,” Robert said. “She’d be prey to every opportunist, every spy Napoleon has loose in the Peninsula and England. Not to mention the Chambleys of the world.”

“No wonder you hauled her out of London so fast. I would have done the same thing.” Colin rubbed his chin. “Do you really think she knows where it is?”

“She believes she does, and I suppose that’s all that matters. I’ll deliver her to Wellington and then she’ll be his problem, not mine.” Robert turned and left, as if with that said, he could just as easily walk away from Olivia Sutton.

Colin watched him stalk across the deck and smiled.

His brother was about to learn a hard lesson in matters of the heart.

Chapter 9

R
obert thought about Colin’s advice for two days before he got up the nerve to approach Olivia.

Just ask her,
his brother had said.

Seemed simple enough, once he got right down to it, until he found himself crossing the deck to where she stood chatting amiably with one of Colin’s crew—and in a language he’d never heard.

As Robert came up to them, the sailor bobbed his head, said something to Olivia that left her laughing and went back to his work.

“What language was that?” he asked.

“Slavic,” she said, her eyes alight. “The man is most fascinating. He was kidnapped as a child from his village and hasn’t spoken his native tongue in years.”

“How did he know you spoke Slavic?”

She shrugged. “They all want to see if I speak their language. And it is quite exhilarating to get to practice again. I’ve only been stumped once so far—by one of the crew whose mother was an Iroquois Indian from the Americas. I must say, your brother has quite a diverse and interesting crew.”

That was putting it mildly, Robert thought. He wondered if Olivia would still say that if she knew his brother’s crew had been culled from the very dregs of the Royal Navy—some of the most nefarious and cutthroat sailors in the fleet. And she looked upon them as a London lady might greet her guests at an afternoon tea party.

There was no denying that Olivia Sutton was an unusual minx. Innocent one moment, defiantly maddening the next. It made Robert only that much more curious to uncover her secrets . . .  her past . . .  .

“How many languages do you speak?” he asked, trying to come up with some way to broach the subject he wanted to discuss, and finding only an idle question to bridge the silence.

“Speak?” She shrugged. “About sixteen. I can read many more. Speaking is difficult without someone to practice with.” She paused for a moment, her expression turning wistful.

Robert could have kicked himself.

Her father.
She was remembering her father. He could see the pain and anger on her face as clearly as it had been there when Chambley had told her about Sir Sutton’s murder.

She seemed to shake off the unhappy recollection and settled down again on the coil of rope, where she’d obviously been doing some mending.

Robert sat on the deck beside her. While the subject may not be a pleasant one for her, perhaps it would give him the opening he needed. “Did you practice your skills with your father?”

She nodded. “He and I used to speak in a different language each day, so neither of us would get out of practice.”