The Prize (7 page)

The door was solidly
shut behind him. Liverpool, slim, short and dark-haired, smiled at him.
"It's been some time, Devlin. Do sit. Would you like a Scotch whiskey or a
brandy?"

Devlin sat in a plush
chair, removing his felt. "Is the brandy French?"

The earl was amused.
"I'm afraid so."

"The
brandy," Devlin said, stretching out his long legs in front of him.

Farnham appeared
annoyed. St. John sat down behind his desk. "It has been some time since
we have had the privilege of your appearance here."

Devlin shrugged
dismissively. "The Straits are a busy place, my lord."

Liverpool poured the
brandies from a crystal decanter, handing one over to Devlin and passing the
others around.

"Yes, very
busy," Farnham said. "Which is why deserting the
Lady Anne
is
an exceedingly serious offense."

Devlin took a long
sip, tasting the brandy carefully, and decided his own stock was far superior,
both on his ship and at home.

"Do you have
anything to say for yourself?" St. John asked.

"Not
really," Devlin said, then added, "she was in no danger."

"No
danger?"
Farnham
choked on his brandy.

Liverpool shook his
head. "Admiral Farnham is asking for your head, my boy. Was it really
necessary to leave the
Lady Anne
in order to chase that American
merchantman?"

Devlin smiled slightly.
"The
Independence
was loaded with gold, my lord."

"And you knew
that when you spotted her off the coast of Tripoli?" St. John asked.

Devlin murmured,
"Money, my lord, buys anything."

"I know of no
other commander as audacious as you. Who is your spy and where is he?" St.
John demanded.

"Perhaps it's a
she," he murmured. And in fact, the wench in Malta who ran an inn often
used by the Americans was just that. "And if I do employ spies, I am
afraid that is my affair entirely—and as it does aid me in the execution of my
orders, we should lay the question to rest."

"You do not
follow orders!" Farnham said. "Your orders were to convey the
Lady
Anne
to Lisbon. You are lucky she was not seized by enemy ships—"

He was finally
annoyed, but he remained slouched. "Luck has naught to do with anything.
I
control the Straits.
And that means I control the Mediterranean—as no one
can enter her without getting past me. There was no danger to the
Lady Anne
and
her safe conveyance to Lisbon has proved it."

"And now you are
rather rich," Liverpool murmured.

"The prize is
with our agent at the Rock," he said, referring to Gibraltar. He'd towed
the
Independence
to the British prize agent there. His share of the
plunder was three-eighths of the total sum, and a quick estimation of that
figure came to one hundred thousand pounds. He was wealthier than anyone would
ever guess, and he had far exceeded his own expectations some time ago.

"But I do not
care about the fate of the
Lady Anne,
a single ship," Liverpool
said. "And while you directly disobeyed your orders, we are all prepared
to ignore the matter. Is that not right, gentlemen?"

St. John's nod was
firm, but Devlin knew it killed Henry Farnham to agree, and he was amused.

"I care about
finishing this bloody war, and finishing it soon." Liverpool was standing
and orating as if before the House. "There is another war on the horizon,
one that must be avoided at all costs."

"Which is why
you are here," St. John added.

Devlin straightened
in his chair. "War with the Americans is a mistake," he said.

Farnham made a sound.
"You are Irish, your sympathies remain Jacobin."

Devlin itched to
strangle him. He did not move or .speak until the desire had passed.
"Indeed they are. America is a

sister nation, just
as Ireland is. It would be shameful to war with her over any issue."

Liverpool said
bluntly, "We must retain absolute control of the seas, Devlin, surely you
know that."

"His loyalties
remain selfish ones. He cares not a whit for England—he cares only about the
wealth his naval career has afforded him," Farnham said with heat.

"We are not here
to question Devlin's loyalties," Liverpool said sharply. "No one in
our navy has served His Majesty with more loyalty and more perseverance and
more effect."

"Thank
you," Devlin murmured wryly. But it was true. His battle record was
unrivaled at sea.

"The war is not
over yet, and you know it, Devlin, as you have spent more time than anyone
patrolling the Straits of Gibraltar and the Mediterranean, as well. Still, our
control there is without dispute. You will leave this room with your new orders,
if I can be assured that you will effect them appropriately"

His brows lifted with
real interest. Where was Liverpool leading? "Do continue," he said.

"Your reputation
precedes you," St. John pointed out. "In the Mediterranean and off
these shores, every enemy and privateer knows your naval tactics are superior,
if unorthodox, and that if you think to board, you carry fighting men, men who
think nothing of carrying a second cutlass in their teeth. They fear you—that
is why no one battles you anymore."

It was true more
often than not. Devlin usually fired a single warning shot before boarding
with his marines. There was rarely resistance—and he had become bored with it
all.

"I believe your
reputation is so great that even near American shores, the enemy will flee
upon the sight of your ship."

"I am truly
flattered," he murmured.

Liverpool spoke.
"We are trying to
avoid
war with the Americans." He gave
Devlin a look. "Sending you there could be like releasing a wolf in a
henhouse and then expecting healthy, happy hens and chicks. If you are sent
westward, my boy, I want your word that you will follow your orders—that you
will scare the bloody hell out of the enemy but that you will not engage her ships.
Your country needs you, Devlin, but there is no room for pirate antics."

Did they truly expect
him to sail west and play nanny of sorts to the American merchants and navy?
"I am to chase them about, threaten them, turn them back—and
retreat?" He could scarcely believe it.

"Yes, that is
basically what we wish for you to do. No American goods can be allowed to enter
Europe, that has not changed. What has changed are the rules of engagement. We
do not want another ship seized or destroyed, another American life
accountable to our hands."

Devlin stood.
"Find someone else," he said. "I am not the man for this
tour."

Farnham snorted, at
once satisfied and disbelieving. "He refuses direct orders! And when do we
decide to hang him for his insubordination?"

Devlin felt like
telling the old fool to shut up. "It is a mistake, my lord," he said
softly to Liverpool, "to send a rogue like myself to such a duty."

Liverpool studied
him. And then he smiled, rather coldly. "I do not believe that, actually.
Because I know you far better than you think I do." He turned to the two
admirals present. "Would you excuse us, gentlemen?"

Both men were
surprised, but they both nodded and slipped from the room.

Liverpool smiled.
"Now we can get down to business, eh, Devlin?"

Devlin turned the
corners of his mouth up in response, but he waited, unsure of whether he was to
receive a blow or a gift.

"I have
understood your game for some time now, Dev-

60                           

lin." He paused
to pour them both fresh drinks. "The blood of Irish kings runs in your
veins, and when you joined the navy you were as poor as any Irish pauper. Now
you have a mansion on the Thames, you have bought your ancestral home from
Adare, and I could only estimate the amount of gold you keep in the banks—and
in your own private vaults, You are so rich now that you have no more use for
us." His brows lifted.

"You make me
seem so very unpatriotic," Devlin murmured. Liverpool was right—almost.

"Still, a fine
man like yourself, from a fine family, always at sea, always seizing a prize,
always at battle—never on land, never at home before a warm hearth." He
stared.

Devlin became uneasy.
He sipped his brandy to disguise this.

"I wonder what
it is that motivates you to sail so fast, so far, so often?" His dark
brows lifted.

"I fear you
romanticize me. I am merely a seaman, my lord."

"I think not. I
think there are deep, grave, complex reasons for your actions—but then, I
suppose I will never know what those reasons are?" He smiled and sipped
his own brandy now.

The boy trembled
with real fear. How could this stranger know so much?

"You have
fanciful imaginings, my lord." Devlin smiled coolly.

"You have yet to
win a knighthood, Captain O'Neill," Liverpool said.

Devlin stiffened in
surprise. So it was to be a gift—after a blow, he thought.

Once, his ancestors
had been kings, but a century of theft had reduced them to a life of
tenant-farmers. He had changed that. His stepfather had happily sold him
Askeaton when he

had come forward with
the bullion to pay for it. His grand home on the River Thames had been
purchased two years ago when the Earl of Eastleigh had been forced by financial
circumstances to put it up for sale. Liverpool knew Devlin had used the navy
to attain the security that comes with wealth. What he did not know—could not
know—was the reason why.

"Do
continue," he said softly, but he had begun to sweat.

"You know that a
knighthood is a distinct possibility—you need only follow your orders."

The ten-year-old
boy wanted the title. The boy who had watched his father fall in an act of
cold-blooded murder wanted the title as much as he wanted the wealth, because
the added power made him safer than ever before.

Devlin hated the boy
and did not want to feel his presence. "Knight me now," he said,
"and barring any unforeseen and extenuating circumstance, I will sail to
America and threaten her shores without inflicting any real harm."

"Damn you,
O'Neill." But Liverpool was smiling. "Done," he then said.
"You will be Sir Captain O'Neill before you set sail next week."

Devlin could not
contain a real smile. He was jubilant now, thinking about the knighthood soon
to be his. His heart raced with a savage pleasure and he thought of his mortal
enemy, the Earl of Eastleigh—the man who had murdered his father.

"Where would you
like your country estate?" Liverpool was asking amiably.

"In the south of
Hampshire," he said. For then his newly acquired country estate would be
within an hour of Eastleigh, at the most.

And Devlin smiled.
His vengeance had been years in the making. He had known from the tender age of
ten that in order to defeat his enemy, he would have to become wealthy and
powerful enough to do so. He had joined the navy to gain

such wealth and
power, never dreaming that one day he would be ten times wealthier than the man
he planned to destroy. A title added more ammunition to his stores, not that
it truly mattered now. Eastleigh was already on the verge of destitution, as
Devlin had been slowly ruining the man for years.

From time to time
their paths crossed at various London affairs. Eastleigh knew him well. He had
somehow recognized him the first time they met in London, when Devlin was
sixteen and dueling his youngest son, Tom Hughes, over the fate of a whore. The
wench's disposition was just an excuse to prick at his mortal enemy by wounding
his son, but the duel had been broken up. That had only been the beginning of
the deadly game Devlin played.

His agents had
sabotaged Hughes's lead mines, instigated a series of strikes in his mill and
had even encouraged his tenants to demand lower rents en masse, forcing
Eastleigh to agree. The earl's financial position had become seriously eroded,
until he teetered on the verge of having to sell off his ancestral estate.
Devlin looked forward to that day; he intended to be the one to buy it
directly. In the interim, he now owned the earl's best stud, his favorite
champion wolfhounds and his Greenwich home. But the coup de grace was the
earl's second wife, the Countess of Eastleigh, Elizabeth Sinclair Hughes.

For, during the past
six years, Elizabeth had been the woman so eagerly sharing his bed.

And even now, she was
undoubtedly waiting for him. It was time to go.

Waverly Hall had been
in the possession of the earls of Eastleigh for almost a hundred years—until two
years ago, when a cycle of misfortune had caused the earl to put it up for
sale. The huge limestone house had two towers, three

floors, a gazebo,
tennis courts and gardens that swept right down to the river's banks. Devlin
arrived at his home in an Italian yacht, a prize he had captured early in his
career. He strolled up the gently floating dock, his gaze taking in the perfectly
manicured lawns, the carefully designed gardens and the blossoming roses that
crawled up against the dark stone walls of the house. It was so very English.