The Wayward One (The De Montforte Brothers Book 5) (30 page)

She sat down on the hard, blood-stained planking and gently gathered him in her arms, stroking his heavy curls as he rested his forehead against her shoulder.

“
Tá tú mo banlaoch
,” he whispered. “My heroine. My savior….”

“Sleep, Ruaidri. The ship is back in your men’s hands and you, my love, are safe in mine.” She threaded her fingers up through his hair and gently caressed his scalp, wincing at the hard swelling she found there. She did not want to think about how he must have received it. She did not want to think of him being hurt, she did not want to think of anything but how grateful she was that he was alive and safely in her arms.

Hadley…the Royal Navy… Lucien.

Strength and a hard, ruthless confidence filled her heart. She had come this far.

She could deal with all of them.

Ruaidri’s forehead grew heavy against her collarbone. He murmured something unintelligible and, with her hand still quietly caressing him, finally gave himself up to the demands of his body and slept.

Two decks above, Lieutenant Morgan was in command of the American brig
Tigershark
, and her proper colors were once again flying proudly at her gaff. The dead—including Bates, who’d been taken down by a well-aimed shot to his groin from young Midshipman Cranton—were buried at sea and what remained of the British prize crew was rounded up and herded below to the same hold that had so recently imprisoned the Americans.

When that British crew arrived, resentful and angry, they found Lieutenant McPhee bound and gagged, and in the hold itself, the boy that Captain O’ Devir had presumably buggered. He was holding the Irishman in his arms, his lips buried in the thick, curling black hair that lay like a mantle over the wide span of his uniformed shoulders.

The midshipman’s eyes lifted to regard the Royal Navy sailors and in that moment, to a man, they saw that it had been no boy that O’ Devir had presumably been buggering.

It was Lady Nerissa de Montforte.

She had returned the ship to the enemy. She had betrayed them all and committed treason against her king and country.

For Nerissa, there was no going back.

Chapter 23

It was Lieutenant Morgan and two brawny seamen who personally came down into the hold and helped their very weak captain to his feet, up the short ladder, and topside. For Ruaidri, his head swimming, his vision going light and dark and darker still as he fought to stay conscious, it was a journey through the gauntlets of hell on a leg that was on fire beneath his left hip. But he’d be pickled in vinegar if he allowed either of the seamen to actually pick him up and carry him. Injured or not, he was in command here and he would not show weakness when there were others who were injured just as badly, who were fated to die, or who’d lost their lives this day.

Nerissa stayed at his side, discreetly offering her arm so that he might steady himself. She knew. She knew, and he loved her for it.

They reached the quarterdeck, dark beneath the stars. As they emerged on deck, cheering erupted all around. Cheers for the strength of their captain, who was on his feet. Cheers for the fact he was back in command. And mostly, cheers for the beautiful Lady Nerissa, whose bravery and sacrifice had saved them all from Mill Prison, the gallows, or both.

If they were fond of her before, now she was their heroine and savior—just as she was his. She had won their hearts.

“Three cheers for the captain’s lady!” They all but swarmed her. “Hip hip, huzzah! Hip hip, huzzah! Hip hip, huzzah!”

Ruaidri heard the cheering as though from a great distance. He had not been up here since before the battle and now he paused, surveying the damage in the darkness. Only Nerissa beside him knew how heavily he leaned against her as the men went back to repairing rigging, sails and planking, scrubbing blood-stained decks and upending a heavy gun that lay on its side.

“Damage report, Mr. Morgan.”

“Five dead, sir. Mr. Tackett, the carpenter’s mate Pettengill, and three able seamen. Sears, Moody, and McCafferty. Brits threw them all overboard.”

Ruaidri nodded once, measuring his breathing in order to fill his dizzy brain with the air it needed to keep him on his feet and get him through this grim task.

“Wounded?”

“Twelve, sir. One not likely to make it.”

“I wasn’t likely to make it either, but damn the eyes of anyone who says I won’t. And the ship, Mr. Morgan?”

“Rigging cut up some, sir, but we’re working on it. The Brits weren’t aiming to damage her so things could have been a lot worse. They rammed and boarded us. Fought like tigers, our lads did, but we were outnumbered three to one.”

“Outnumbered? What about Le Favre, that little maggot in command of the French frigate? Where was he durin’ all this?”

Morgan shrugged. “Bolted as soon as things got hot.”

“Bolted, did he? When I catch up to him he’s goin’ to wish his arse had been blistered in butter and set afire.”

“Aye, if he hadn’t gotten greedy and tried to take the English frigate, things would’ve turned out a lot differently. He ruined it for everyone. At the end of the day though, we got what we came for.”

Ruaidri regarded him keenly. “The explosive?”

“Lord Andrew de Montforte, sir. He refused to leave his sister and
she
refused to leave us.” He quickly filled his captain in on what had happened. “Someone—” he cast a pointed look at Nerissa—“locked His Lordship in his cabin, but we freed him and brought him below. Figured he could help Dr. Jeffcote with the wounded while we tried to decide what to do with him.”

Ruaidri just stared at him. Lord Andrew de Montforte? Here? Now?

It was all he could do to contain his grin. “Well, now, things have just got a whole lot better, they have. Thank ye, Mr. Morgan. Time to beat it back to Boston, then.”

“Boston?” He’d all but forgotten Nerissa standing quietly nearby. “We’re still going to Boston?”

He looked at her as if she were daft. “Well of course we are, lass, what did ye think?”

“I
thought
you would release Andrew, maybe in France or Jersey…that you’d let him go because he’s my brother—”

Ruaidri just stared at her. Had he missed something here? Were they both reading the same page? Inhabiting the same earth? He bit back a wave of sudden nausea. Damn his dizzy brain for its inability to think. Damn his weakened body when the ship and the situation in which they found themselves needed everything he had to give. He was close to either puking or passing out or maybe both, and now this? Fire burning up his leg and the musket ball that Jeffcote had dug out of the back of his lower thigh now a grim souvenir in his waistcoat pocket, he straightened up, cursing the sudden look of dismay on Nerissa’s face as she realized her brother would not be spared, and certainly not released.

“For the love o’ God, woman, I didn’t come three thousand miles just to feck around in the English Channel. I have what I was sent here to get, and my orders are to deliver him and his secrets to John Adams.”

Her face had gone flat. “So you’ll go through with this, then. Take him away from his family, his wife and baby girl, and bring him to the rebels.”

He felt suddenly wearier than he’d ever imagined he could be. “This is a discussion for another time, Nerissa.”

Her mouth tightened. Her fingers dropped from his arm, and he was left to stand on his own, weaker than a newborn kitten and just as unsteady on his feet. The world swayed and his skin went clammy. Morgan was looking at him critically, and Ruaidri turned away to lean against the deckhouse, thankful for the darkness that hid his body’s violent shaking from the crew. What had Jeffcote said? That the ball had nicked a blood vessel which, if not for poor old Tackett and his quick thinking with an improvised tourniquet, would have killed him? Damned if he knew. He certainly didn’t remember anything between shouting for Nerissa to get below as the world had blown apart, and waking up on a bench in the surgeon’s quarters, a bandage around his thigh and the smell of death and suffering all around him. Thank the living Christ they hadn’t taken his leg.

And now he’d upset the one person in the world for whom he’d have given that same leg if only to spare her a single ounce of pain.

“Mr. Cranton,” he said, using all his strength to raise a hand and summon the midshipman. “Go get Lord Andrew and tell him I fancy a chat with him. Settle him in my cabin with some refreshments. I’ll be in to speak with him shortly.”

“Aye, sir.”

He bent his head, suddenly nauseous, the wind blowing hair that was damp with salt spray and probably blood, around his face. Gone was the ribbon with which he’d queued it when he rose this morning and in its place, a hard, painful, goose-egg. He rubbed distractedly at it and looked over at Nerissa, feeling the accusatory weight of her stare.

He met that stare, unwilling to back down. Unable to back down.

“What do you possibly have to say to my brother?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

She made a sound of angry disgust, turned and stalked off.

A wave of vertigo caught him and he briefly shut his eyes, trying to keep what blood was left in his body in the places where it was most needed. His gaze lit on the compass, tried to make sense of it in the darkness, and failed. He glanced up at the trim of the sails, saw they were drawing well, and swaying drunkenly with sudden dizziness, caught himself before he could topple off to the side and end up as a sorry mess on the deck.

He missed Nerissa’s strong, slim arm.

But there was time to miss it later. They were not out of danger. Not by any stretch of a leprechaun’s luck.

Placating her was going to have to wait.

“A night glass,” he said, and Morgan handed one to him.

Ruaidri opened it, struggling to hold up the heavy instrument in arms that were failing him. Sweat dappled his forehead. Cranton was materializing from out of the darkness and impatiently, Ruaidri motioned to the young officer.

“Yer help if ye please, Mr. Cranton.”

“Aye, sir.”

Cranton turned and bent, and holding the instrument to his eye while balancing it against the youth’s shoulder, Ruaidri scanned the eastern horizon. Darkness lay heavily all around them, but he had the night vision of an owl and the glass, its image inverted, was almost redundant.

Morgan pressed close. “Is he out there, Captain?”

They all knew who ‘he’ was. In a few hours, dawn would be lighting up the sea and as the light strengthened, Hadley would see that his prize had gone missing—and he’d come looking for her with a vengeance.

“I don’t see him, Morgan, but that doesn’t mean a thing.” He shut the glass, swaying on his feet. “We can’t linger here.”

“Your orders, sir?”

“Wind’s decent out of the east. Slap as much canvas on her as she’ll carry without rippin’ the sticks out of her and let’s get the hell out of Europe. ’Tis time to go home, lads. Time to go home.”

Sudden cheering erupted all around. Weak, dizzy, and white with pain, Ruaidri pushed himself off the deckhouse, impatiently motioning for Morgan to help him to his cabin where Lord Andrew and his next battle surely awaited him.

One skirmish won, he thought, the next about to begin.

* * *

Lord Andrew, slouching in Captain O’ Devir’s chair with a glass of Irish whiskey in his hand, stared morosely out the darkened stern windows and contemplated the absolute mess in which he and Nerissa now found themselves.

The absolute mess that
she
had brought about.

His wife Celsie back home at Rosebriar with little Laura and surely worried sick about him. Nerissa ruined, a traitor to England and now, God help them, in love with a rebel who was destined to die when his leg turned gangrenous, the Royal Navy returned, or Lucien caught up to him.
Lucien.
His brother wouldn’t give O’ Devir a chance to even explain himself before he executed him. Andrew raked a hand through his hair. A fortnight ago his life had been secure and orderly, full of hope and excitement as he’d planned for the explosive’s demonstration and finally, recognition for his achievements. Now the world was turned upside down.

And why?

The explosive, of course.

That damned explosive.

He tossed back another swallow of the whiskey. Had he ever come up with an invention that didn’t cause mischief, upend people’s lives and in general, prove to be a thoroughly useless addition to the society it sought to improve?

The explosive.
He was beginning to rue its existence, just as he had rued that damned aphrodisiac he’d accidentally discovered. His inventions were supposed to better the world, not make it worse. The aphrodisiac though, had led him to Celsie. The explosive, on the other hand…it should never, ever have been invented. Whether it ended up with the Royal Navy or the Americans, its existence would lead to nothing but death, destruction and misery, and he’d sure seen enough of that today to last a lifetime.

Death, destruction and misery.

O’ Devir bleeding out on his own quarterdeck. English dead, American dead, severed limbs and battered corpses. Soon-to-be grieving widows, mothers, children and lovers. Lives wrecked, bodies broken, dreams shattered and futures destroyed. Such was war. There was nothing patriotic about it, nothing justified and certainly nothing noble, and sitting there contemplating the darkness beyond the windows, Andrew suddenly realized that he wanted no further part of any of it. That no invention, solution, substance or creation to ever spring forth from his brain and hands would ever contribute to the suffering or death of another human being.