My father jogged toward the beach to chase his hounds, leaving me in an incommodious stare down with his new quartermaster.
I fought the urge to cross my arms over the revealing bosom of my gown. Charles didn’t rest his gaze there, but he was looking at me, scrutinizing and assessing my unsightly appearance.
“Did you come from a party?” He canted his head, and a lock of black hair fell from the defined V of his widow’s peak.
“No.” I stabbed the cutlass into the sand and leaned on the hilt.
“Did you roll in every mud puddle you could find on the way here?” “I’m certain I missed one.”
He glanced between his ripped sleeve and the soiled rags of my dress. “Are you in the habit of ruining fine garments?”
“Are you in the habit of filling perfectly good silence with tedious questions?”
“Not usually.” He scratched his whiskered face. “You’re nothing like the well-bred ladies I’ve…” He cleared his throat. “Spent time with.”
“I should hope not.” My cheeks heated at his meaning. “I’m not a strumpet.”
His gaze dipped to his boots, and the corner of his mouth lifted. “God save the man who sets his sights on you.”
“Speak plainly, Mr. Vane.” I anchored my fists on my hips. “What are you saying?”
“You’re Captain Sharp’s daughter.” “Yes, she is.”
I jumped at the growl in my father’s voice and found him standing a few paces away, watching me.
The hounds bounced around his legs and nipped at his fingers, but he paid them no heed. Prowling toward me, he searched my eyes, and what he saw there made his expression grow dark, overcast, heavy like rain clouds.
I knew that look, and it hurt my heart. “Don’t say it.” “It’s uncanny how much you resemble her.”
“Please, don’t—”
“It’s true, lass.”
I released a sigh. The truest truth was that he still loved the countess. It was an eternal love, as deep and ungovernable as the ocean.
But she wouldn’t have him. Not when she was carrying his child. Not after fourteen years of letters, in which he offered her marriage, wealth, and undying devotion.
“Do you still write to her?” I curled my fingers around his callused hand.
“Aye.” His gaze slipped to Charles and shuttered before returning to me. “Naught has changed.”
“Maybe she’s not getting your missives?”
“She’s getting them. My courier waits as she reads them, shreds them, and hands back the pieces without response.” Pain flashed in his eyes. “Has she still not given you my identity?”
I shook my head.
She never mentioned his name. Not once. Whenever I asked who fathered me, she punished me with her silence. If she knew about our visits… God’s blood, would she have him marched to the gallows and hanged? I didn’t know and couldn’t risk it.
So I never begged him to stay. Instead, I voiced my usual demand. “Take me with you.”
His expression blanked, and he released my hand. “No.” “Please? I can’t go back. Not after what I’ve done!”
“Listen, Bennett. Stealing a horse is one thing. In time, Abigail will forgive you. But pillaging the king’s ships is something else entirely. There’s no forgiveness in my business, and the sea is no place for a child.”
“I’m fourteen!”
“She needs you.” He brushed a springy curl from my face. “I would not steal you from her.”
“Steal me? She’s trying to get rid of me.” He went eerily still. “You say?”
“She’s arranging a betrothal. If she succeeds, you’ll be visiting me in England. And that’s if I can sneak away from Lord Grisdale.”
His nostrils pulsed with a furious snap of breath. “Who?”
“A marquess of the realm. Deep in the pockets. Gray under the wig. I stole the old lobcock’s horse and—”
“Slow down.” His hands flexed, and the vein in his forehead looked ready to pop. “Did you say gray?”
“Well, I haven’t confirmed that detail because I missed our introduction.
But the rest is true! He’s a whole decade older than you!”
In a blink, his eyes lost their humanity, the depths sinking into an abyss of malice and ice.
A shiver rippled down my spine as his entire demeanor took on that coldness. Rigid shoulders, white-knuckled fists, uncompromising scowl— he no longer stood before me as my father, but rather as the infamous captain of an eighteen-gun warship.
His blade-sharp eyes cut to the tree line behind me. “That’s his horse?” “Yes.”
“You stole it?”
“I was in a hurry.”
He glanced at Charles, and a hint of pride softened the edge of his anger. “Already pirating, this one.”
“And thrusting blades at devilishly good-looking rogues.” Charles arched a brow at me.
I winged up mine in return. “Careful, Mr. Vane. One might think you enjoyed it.”
“She makes a point, Charles.” My father’s voice grew quiet. A deep, bone-chilling kind of quiet. “Around my daughter, your eyes are for decoration only. If you use them on her, I’ll carve them out and feed them to the gulls.”
Charles looked away with a grimace. “I’ll head back to the ship and give you some privacy.”
“Good plan. Return for me at dusk.”
The bothersome yet curiously droll quartermaster ambled toward the south side of the inlet. When he vanished beyond the outcrop, presumably where the jolly boat waited, I turned back to my father.
He stared out at the sea, his eyes a turbulent aqua green. The line of his jaw was so unyielding I could’ve sharpened a blade on it.
“You’re angry with the countess,” I said.
“Rightfully so.” He scraped a hand through the thick tousle of his red hair. “She’s stubbornly ambitious, stubbornly independent, stubbornly beautiful…” He blew out a breath. “Just flat-out stubborn.”
“If I stay here, her stubbornness will send me to England.” “Don’t concern yourself with that.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’ll deal with her.” He paced toward the woods and picked up a fallen branch from the ground. “Your skill with the cutlass needs work.”
He tested the weight of the stick and tossed it away to grab another.
With my thoughts still whirling around his plan with the countess, I wasn’t prepared for his attack.
He lunged, wielding the stick like a sword, and swept my feet out from under me. I landed on my backside and rolled, all flailing limbs, tangled skirts, and curse words. He swung again, and I dodged, flinging myself toward the cutlass.
With the hilt in my grip, I rose into a strike. He blocked. I slashed, and for the next hour, his training distracted me from stolen horses and betrothed marriages.
As the fire-orange sun hauled itself across the sky, sweat pooled beneath my stays, and the wind blew knots of curls across my face. I clawed the wild tresses out of my eyes until my tangles had tangles.
My father went through multiple sticks, each one hacked away by the blade of the cutlass.
“You’ve been practicing.” He dropped another broken branch and wiped the sweat from his brow.
“Only with wood.” I gestured at the chopped twigs around his boots. “If I had my own cutlass…”
“I would give you my finest blade, lass.” He tapped my nose. “But Abigail would discover it.”
“How are you going to deal with her?”
A strange expression creased his face, and he looked away. “What I have planned for her isn’t proper for your ears.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Would you like to hear about my latest prize?”
“Yes!” I bounced on my toes and dropped the cutlass. “Was there a battle?”
“Many battles.” He laced his fingers through mine and led me to the shade of the woods.
Lowering to the ground, he gathered me on his lap and told me every heart-pounding detail of his attacks on the king’s warship, a French brigantine, and numerous merchantiers.
“Then, two months ago, I encountered a Spanish treasure fleet. Twelve ships in total.” His eyes lost focus. “We were outgunned and would’ve never attempted something so dangerous, but there was a deadly storm on the horizon. We waited in safe waters for the tempest to take its toll. Then we moved in, attacking the battered ships and claiming their salvage.”
“They fought back?”
“The storm did. I thought it had passed, but a surge unlike any I’ve seen followed in its wake. I lost my ship.” At my gasp, he pinched my chin and smiled. “I seized a new ship that night.”
“You did?”
“Aye. A Spanish galleon. She was neither broken nor sinking like the others in the surge.” His expression glowed with veneration. “She was spitting fire and laughing at the storm.”
He explained how he rallied his surviving crew and boarded the fifty- gun galleon, even as his own ship was swallowed by the king tide.
I committed the particulars of his ambush to memory, hoping one day I might have a need for such knowledge and become half the wise, courageous captain that he was.
“What did you name her?” I asked.
“Jade.” His gaze lowered to my necklace. “She’s a beauty, she is. When I saw her, I knew I had to take her. For you.”
“For me?”
“She’s yours, Bennett. I’ll captain her until you’re old enough to decide.”
“Oh, Father!” My heart burst from my chest and soared with savage joy. “There’s nothing to decide. I want to be a buccaneer like you.”
“You’re too young to know what you want.” “I’m old enough.”
“But not too old to sit on your father’s lap, are you now?”
“Just so.” I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and burrowed into his hard chest.
“Someday you might wish to travel to England in your own right and follow your mother’s dream.” He chuckled. “God knows, you would make a meal out of the beau monde.”
“No, thank you. I wish to follow you.”
“I’m honored, lass, and should you choose the sea, you have a ship. But I fear that path might end with your neck bent on the gibbet.”
My breath stilled, and a metallic flavor rose beneath my tongue. “What about your neck? You could be captured or killed in battle. I can’t lose you.”
His gaze sank into mine. “Such big grown-up worries in your child’s eyes.” He ran a thumb across my cheekbone. “I’m careful. Which is why I cannot visit as often as I’d like.”
I didn’t remember the first time he came to me, but there wasn’t a day I didn’t know him. He’d always been a part of my life. My very own secret to cherish and protect.
When I was younger, he visited more frequently and stayed longer. Sometimes months. But as his reputation grew, so did the risks. Now I was lucky to steal a few hours with him each year.
“I have something for you.” I jumped up, retrieved the linen-wrapped package from the horse’s saddle, and proffered it to him.
Nervous energy flapped beneath my breast as he unfolded the cloth and removed the gift.
“The natives wear these on their feet.” Crouching beside him, I traced the deerskin coverings. “The women scrape and smoke the skin to make it feel soft like this.”
The shoes were gathered at the toe and sewn above and behind with a raised flap on either side. Colorfully dyed porcupine quills and white glass beads decorated the folded edges in artistic designs.
“Exquisite.” He removed his jackboots and slipped the shoes onto his bare feet. “A comfortable fit. I shall wear them every night and think of you.”
My heart turned over so hard I felt it in my throat.
“How did you acquire such a thoughtful gift?” He guided me back onto his lap and stroked my hair.
“The servants make them. The cook maid is always kind to me, and she traded them for a spool of ribbon. I was discreet.”
“You did good.”
I snuggled into the warmth of his embrace, perfectly content and blissfully happy. I loved him so deeply and so completely. It went against logic that my mother could not.
“I’ve been stowing my prizes in a safe place over the years.” He kissed my forehead. “Enough riches for you, your children, and your grandchildren.”
“I don’t care about that.”
“You will. I want you to have this.” He removed the compass that hung from a chain on his belt. “It’s a map. When you’re ready, you will follow it and claim what’s rightfully yours.”
“A map?” I cupped the gold casing and lifted the lid to reveal the navigational needle within. “I don’t see a chart.”
“It’s there if you know how to unlock it.”
I examined the compass, tracing its smooth surface with my fingers. “So, where’s the key?”
“You already have it. Begin and end north. When the time comes, you’ll figure out what to do.”
“I’m not great with riddles,” I said, handing it back to him. “Why not just take me there now? Kidnap the countess. You love her, don’t you? We could have a real family and live off your treasure.”
“That’s just a fairytale. Life’s not that simple.”
“It could be.”
“Not for us.” He looped the compass chain around the sash of my gown, fastening it securely. “When Abigail was cast out of English society, it broke something inside her. We come from different worlds. Picture her living with a criminal, always on the run and fearful of capture. It would drain the life out of her.” He paused, licking his lips. “If I could, I’d give up the sea and stand beside her in society. But I’m neither a nobleman nor a law-abiding citizen. That path was never available to me.”
“But she was with you once.”
“In secret.” He grunted. “When she was young and blinded by love.”
Blinded by love.
The sound of that made me feel warm all over, and I smiled against his shoulder. “If I ever marry, he will be a man of your fortitude and spirit. A man who loves me above all else. Only me. And we shall be blinded by our love for life and beyond the ends of the sea.”
“Accept nothing less, Bennett.” He lifted my chin with a knuckle. “Promise me.”
“I promise.”
His eyes glittered with approval, his voice a deep well of affection. “That’s my girl.”
A few paces away, the hounds lounged in the shade. Seagulls cawed overhead, and late afternoon sunlight sparkled on white-crested waves.
He would be leaving soon, and his impending absence built a burning ache behind my eyes. Anguish coursed through me, so internal, so deep, it embedded itself before rising to the surface.
After a lifetime of goodbyes, I’d learned how to cope. To smother the hurt. Crying never took the pain away.
“Tell me another story about her.” I lay my cheek on his chest, relishing his scent of leather and salt. “Like the day you met.”
“You’ve heard that one many times.” “I wish to hear it many more.”
“Very well.” He settled into a sprawl with a tree at his back and his arms holding me tight. “I spotted her from the ship deck I was scrubbing. The sun was so bright that day, high in the sky and heavy with heat. But it wasn’t worthy in the light of her radiance. She stood on the dock, glowing in ivory silk, so fair and arresting I couldn’t feel my legs.”
I devoured every word as he told me how he approached the noble maiden, whisked her away from her chaperon, and fell hopelessly in love with the Lady Abigail Leighton.
A poor Irish seaman and a beautiful English countess. It was my favorite fairytale.
He always ended the story on their first kiss, but this time, his tone was different. Harder. More determined. “I couldn’t let her get away.”
“You couldn’t?” I leaned back and searched his flinty expression. “She’s had fourteen years to move on, and she hasn’t.” He lifted me
from his lap and stood.
A question wasn’t voiced, but it was there, flickering in his eyes.
“No, she’s not happy.” My heart skipped a beat. “It’s not me that she needs, Father. She needs you.”
“Aye.” He paced along the tree line in his deerskin shoes, each step growing faster and more resolute. “I want you to return to the estate.” His gaze turned to the sea, where the horizon darkened with the approach of dusk. “I’ll come for you tonight. For both of you.”
Exhilaration and confusion tangled through me. “I thought living with a criminal would suck the life out of her?”
“Is she living? Does she smile? I will put life back into her!” He bared his teeth. “By God and the devil, I will spend every last tarnal breath in my body making her happy.”
An overpowering sense of hope welled up in my chest. “I believe you.” “I love you.” He pulled me against him and lowered his mouth to the
top of my head. “I’ve committed a lifetime of crimes and paid dearly for them. Fourteen years without my girls. There is no greater punishment.”
“It ends tonight?”
He released me with a wolfish grin. “Yes, it—” A deep, threatening growl erupted behind me.
I spun toward the hounds and found them standing, noses pointed toward the shore and hackles up. My father went still, his hand locked tightly around my arm.
The dogs exploded into snapping snarls and took off toward the southern end of the beach. They sprinted around the copse of trees and out of view as their barking rose in volume.
My scalp tingled. I’d never heard such ferocious sounds. “Has Mr. Vane returned?”
“That’s not Charles.” He hauled me toward the horse and lifted me onto the saddle, his voice low and urgent. “Return to the house at once.”
“Father, what is it?”
He untied the reins and removed a sheathed dagger from his belt. “No matter what happens, keep going.” With a grip on my wrist, he wedged the sheath into the sleeve of my gown, concealing it beneath the fabric on my upper arm. “Do not turn back.”
In the distance, the barking grew feral, high-pitched, and terrifying. My belly twisted into knots, and my lungs couldn’t take in enough air beneath the vise of my stays.
“Go!” He slammed a hand onto the horse’s flank, sending me into the woods.
I grabbed the reins and adjusted my balance before twisting to look over my shoulder.
He was gone.
My hands trembled, and a fiery pang stabbed beneath my ribs. I tried to ignore it and focused on controlling the horse.
Until startling, pained cries rent the air. The cries of a dying dog.
My heart stopped as a second agonized yelp echoed through the forest before fracturing into whimpers. Then silence.
The hounds. Mercy God, what happened to them? What would happen to my father?
Panic surged, freezing muscles and locking joints. Only my pulse hammered wildly as the horse raced onward, hurdling fallen trees and putting more distance between me and my entire world.
I couldn’t leave him.
No matter what happens, keep going.
I trusted him implicitly and had never disobeyed him. Never.
My jaw clenched. He’d told me once to trust my instinct, and right now it was screaming at me to go back.
I pulled on the reins, and with a savage howl, I turned the horse about.
How many minutes had passed? How many kilometers? Too damned many, and I experienced every one of them in breathless agony as I galloped back to my father.
Nearing the beach, I approached slowly. The sound of the crashing surf reached my ears, bringing with it the din of voices. Stern, commanding voices.
Dozens of them.
My heart thundered toward hysteria as I nudged the horse closer, quietly picking along the brushwood and squinting through the trees.
When the sea came into view, I slapped a hand over my mouth.
Redcoats.
They swarmed the shore, their distinctive regimental facings gleaming white against the darkening sky. Armed with rifles, some mounted horses. Others invaded on foot as they overtook my father with fists and guns and sheer numbers.
There were too many to count, and he went down fighting and spitting blood.
Sticky nausea filled in my belly, clotting with fear and helplessness. My lungs ached to contain the wheeze of my breaths, and my fingers and toes shook uncontrollably. Why the rest of me refused to move, I couldn’t fathom. I was paralyzed.
When his body fell limp beneath their strikes, they grabbed his arms and lugged him toward a waiting cart. His head lolled between his shoulders. The deerskin coverings on his feet dragged through the sand, and something inside me broke.
His jackboots lay just beyond the tree line, and a few paces from there was his cutlass, the blade sharp, lethal, beckoning.
With visions of rescue and bloodshed in my head, I inched the horse toward my father’s weapon.
Until a twig snapped behind me.
“Benedicta.” The familiar masculine voice sent a chill through my veins.
No, no, no! God damn me and the devil, too!
How would I explain my presence here, sitting astride a stolen mount, while planning an attack on the king’s soldiers? I would be arrested alongside my father, unable to save him.
I swallowed, caught up my breath, and schooled my features into that of a well-bred maiden who would have no association or attachment to Edric Sharp.
Then I turned in the saddle and met the ratlike eyes of the Marquess of Grisdale.
