Once a Scoundrel (Rogues Redeemed #3) Read online

  She saw no one below decks. Moving carefully because it was so dark, she made her way up to the main deck. The low bray of a sleepy donkey sounded deep in the bowels of the ship. The mere thought of the creatures below made her smile. She’d visit the animals the next day after the ship had settled into a routine.

  The air on deck felt cool and clean, with a sea breeze teasing her hair loose from its night braid. A sliver of moon combined with starlight illuminated the ship reasonably well. The crew members on watch saw her and nodded acknowledgement when she raised her hand in quiet greeting, but no one attempted to speak with her or stop her from roaming. Night on a calm sea was a time of peace and silence.

  She headed aft, automatically adjusting her steps to the ship’s gentle rolling. As she climbed the steps to the quarterdeck, she was surprised to see a broad-shouldered figure leaning on the taffrail with his arms crossed as he gazed into the night.

  Even in the minimal starlight, she recognized the captain. Hoping he wouldn’t mind company, she joined him at the taffrail and took up position to his right, also crossing her arms on the railing and saying nothing. If he didn’t want to talk, she’d be quiet, but she liked being near him and enjoying the motion of the sea, which, on a quiet night like this, was like a mother’s cradling arms.

  He turned his head and gave her a smile of welcome. “Restless in the night?”

  She nodded. “I like to explore a ship when I first embark so I know what is where. It feels so good to be out of the harem!” She smiled ruefully. “The quiet gives me time to fret about what this voyage will bring.”

  “As do we all,” Gabriel murmured.

  Curious, she asked, “Do you know why Malek is making this great, complicated voyage? You might not know yourself, or if you know you might not tell me, but my epitaph will say, ‘It never hurts to ask.’ ”

  “That’s not always true, but curiosity is a hungry beast.” Gabriel glanced behind them, scanning the length of the ship. The helmsman was at the wheel not far from them, but his back was turned and the splashing sounds of the ship cutting through the sea would mask quiet speech. “Malek told me after we embarked. It’s not precisely a secret, but I doubt he wants it bandied about. You can tell your cousin and I’ll tell Landers, but it’s up to Malek to give a general announcement if he wishes.”

  Rory assured him, “Constance and I are both discreet.”

  “Given your adventurous life, I’d be surprised if you hadn’t learned discretion along the way.” Gabriel’s serious gaze caught hers. “Malek’s wife and children were kidnapped by an enemy, one of his cousins. He hopes that a combination of money and exotic beasts will be enough to persuade the cousin to release his family. He said in as many words that he would do anything to get his wife and two children back.”

  “Good heavens!” Rory said, barely remembering to keep her voice low. “No wonder the man looks ready to explode all the time. This is his favorite wife?”

  “I don’t think he has other wives. From the way he spoke, he is devoted to his Damla. Though Europeans are fascinated by the idea of harems, many Muslim men have only one wife.” Gabriel’s eyes lit with amusement. “Several have told me that one wife is more than enough trouble and expense.”

  “The same could be said of husbands,” Rory said tartly.

  Gabriel chuckled. “And yet marriage remains popular.”

  “There are compensations, especially on cold nights.” Her comment was light, but as she felt the warmth radiating from his broad, powerful form, she felt a shiver at the thought of sharing a bed with him, and not only for comfort on cold nights. Though she had long since decided that marriage was not for her, the thought of taking a lover was suddenly appealing.

  Needing to change the subject, she said, “Does Malek have reason to believe he can appeal to his cousin’s better nature and free his family? Along with a massive bribe, of course.”

  “I had some dealings with his cousin Gürkan once, and I’m not sure he has a better nature.” Gabriel hesitated, then said slowly, “He’s greedy and a large ransom might suffice, but I suspect it’s going to be much more complicated than that and you must prepare yourself for any possibility. Malek said in as many words that he’ll do anything—anything—to bring his family home. As he charmingly explained, he’ll see me and my crew dead on a blood-soaked deck if need be. And if he needs more money, he will sell you and your cousin to the highest bidders.”

  Chapter 9

  He will sell you and your cousin to the highest bidders. The words were like a splash of icy seawater. Rory drew a shuddering breath, trying to conceal her fear. “Thank you. I needed that reminder of how precarious our situation still is. Out here on the sea on a British ship, it’s easy to feel that I’m free. But I’m not.”

  “I hope that the worst won’t happen. But as you say, the situation is precarious for all of us.”

  “Malek’s men outnumber your crew and are probably better trained in combat, and of course the crew of the Devon Lady is still within his power. In Constantinople, we’ll be outsiders in an ancient and alien capital city.” She sighed. “My overactive imagination offers far too many ways this might turn out, and most are not happy outcomes from my point of view.”

  Gabriel asked, “Is it a nuisance to have a vivid imagination?”

  “No one has ever asked me that, though sometimes I’ve been scolded for it!” She thought. “Imagination makes it far too easy to picture disaster, like a long-dormant sea monster awaking from the bed of the sea to drag this ship to the drowning depths.”

  Gabriel smiled. “An interesting possibility, though I’d consider it unlikely.”

  “So do I, but we might be struck by a monster storm that would be as destructive as any leviathan. I always have such ideas dancing through my head. I can entertain myself indefinitely by considering ‘what ifs?’ and creating stories.”

  “Very useful if you’re a passenger on a long sea voyage,” he commented.

  “That’s why Constance and I have written so many stories! Another good result of imagination is that very few things surprise me because I’ve already considered so many possibilities.” She made a face. “I casually imagined what it might be like to be captured by a corsair, though I never expected that to happen. Yet here I am, shocked and very annoyed, but not really surprised.”

  “The situation is volatile, but not hopeless.” He smiled wryly. “In my first week in Portugal, I was sentenced to death twice, yet here I am.”

  She blinked, distracted from her own concerns. “How did you manage two death sentences, and more importantly, how did you survive?”

  “I’d been asked to undertake a commission for a friend. It should have been simple, but I had the bad luck to arrive in Porto just as the French were invading. Some of the local troops caught me. They were in a bad mood, and since I didn’t look or talk like a Portuguese, they decided to hang me as a French spy.”

  “How did they reach that conclusion?” she asked, appalled.

  “As I said, they were in a bad mood,” he explained. “So I was strung up from the nearest tree, but my hands had been tied very badly and I managed to free them as I was strangling. I caught hold of the rope above my head and contrived to keep breathing while I performed some wild acrobatics to free myself. I’m not too clear on the details, but several of the men shot at me, and one of the balls severed the rope.”

  Rory touched her throat, almost feeling the strangulation. “I guess you weren’t meant to die that day!”

  “That’s what my would-be executioners decided, particularly since a storm was roaring in and an earth-shaking crack of thunder blasted right over our heads,” he said, amusement in his voice. “Someone shouted that it was God’s will I should survive and they ought to turn their attention to the oncoming French army. So they left me gasping in the mud and went charging off in search of the enemy. I’m not sure if it was God or good luck, nor did I care.”

  Gazing at him in fascinated horror, she s
aid, “I’d use that in a book except that no one would believe me. Were you badly injured by the near hanging?”

  “I could barely talk for a couple of days.” His voice dropped roughly. “And my voice was gruff as a bear’s for a fortnight, like this, but I felt I’d got off lightly.”

  “I should say so! How did you get condemned to execution the second time?”

  “The city was in turmoil as the Portuguese fought the invaders. The local troops destroyed the main bridge over the Douro River to stop the French advance, but the civilians on the north side were desperate to escape when another French troop came in on the southern bank.”

  “I don’t blame them. At the time, the French seemed like an unstoppable force that would conquer the farthest corners of Europe.”

  “They almost did. Eventually Portugal became the first step on a road that led to Napoleon’s defeat, but at the time, Porto was screaming chaos,” he said grimly. “Did you ever hear of the bridge of boats?”

  Her brow furrowed. “This was about five years ago, wasn’t it? Yes, I did read a report written after the battle. Small riverboats were lashed together to create a temporary bridge to the southern shore, but it broke apart as people were fleeing from the French. A vast number of people were drowned—no one knew how many.”

  He nodded, his expression as grim as his voice. “By chance, I was on the south bank within sight of the bridge when it broke up. Women and children fell shrieking into the river, drowning in front of our eyes. I joined the rescuers who went into the water to try to pull them out.”

  She shivered as his description brought the chaos and panic to vivid life. “Were you able to save at least some?” she asked in a hushed voice.

  “A fair number of people were rescued. I saw a group of nuns and their students go into the river and went after them. I’m a good swimmer and pulled several out, and other men were doing the same.” His gaze was distant, as if he was remembering the victims who hadn’t been saved.

  “I was so busy diving into the water and pulling people to the riverbank that I didn’t see a company of French soldiers charging into the crowd on the south side. Some of the rescuers escaped, but many of us were rounded up at gunpoint. The French let the women and children and the elderly go, but they arrested adult men of military age.”

  “Which is how you were condemned to death again?”

  “Yes, a really vile French colonel discovered that five among the rescuers were British, so he locked us all in a windowless cellar and ordered that we be shot as spies the next morning. Easier to shoot us than to take prisoners.” His mouth twisted with wry amusement. “The guards were a decent pair. They gave us two bottles of rather bad brandy to help us make it through the night.”

  “Yet again you survived,” she said faintly. “How did you manage that time?”

  “One of the men in the cellar was an engineer, and he discovered an old escape tunnel,” Gabriel said. “We managed to crawl out and get away on stolen French horses. Before we went our separate ways, we declared ourselves the Rogues Redeemed and promised to keep in touch through Hatchards bookstore in London. There was a vague plan that any of us who survived the war would meet up and tell each other lies of our adventures over bottles of really good brandy.”

  Rory laughed. “How very, very male! I create adventures in my mind, but you’ve lived them. Did you succeed in the mission that took you into Portugal?”

  “Yes, a British wine shipper and his Portuguese wife who feared the French invasion asked me to bring her parents to London. Once I escaped my second execution, I located them and we were able to reach my ship safely. Since they were Portuguese, no one accused them of being spies. They said I was their simple grandson who couldn’t talk.” He smiled. “Leaving Porto was much easier than entering it.”

  “Have you met any of your Irredeemable Rogues again?”

  “Yes, the man who chartered my ship to go to the United States was a fellow rogue, redeemed rather than irredeemable. He said that two of the others are alive, so that’s at least four. Now that the fighting is over, maybe we’ll manage to get together and share that brandy.”

  If he’d been able to rescue an elderly couple from Portugal in the middle of an invasion, perhaps he could rescue her and Constance. It was a cheering thought. Wanting to learn even more about him, she asked, “How did you come to be disowned? I have trouble imagining you as such a disreputable youth that your family would wash their hands of you.”

  His face shuttered. “I’ve talked enough about myself. Tell me about India. I’ve never been there.”

  Ignoring his request, she said quietly, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked you that.”

  His expression eased. “It’s much easier to talk of death than dishonor.”

  And that long-ago estrangement from his family still hurt deeply. Without thinking, she laid her hand on his where it rested on the railing. She meant it as a gesture of comfort, but when they touched, she was shocked by a surge of energy between them. Of feeling. She remembered the thought she’d had when she’d first seen him. This man. Now.

  Unnerved, she would have pretended the moment hadn’t happened, but before she could withdraw her hand, he interlaced their fingers. That clasp felt deeply intimate and she wondered if he could feel the pounding of her heart through their touch.

  He gazed at her with an intensity that made the rest of the world fade away. “I knew returning to the Barbary Coast wasn’t wise,” he said in a husky whisper. “But as soon as I saw your picture in your mother’s locket, I agreed to go. I had to.”

  Glad that he wasn’t denying the unexpected connection between them, she said, a little unsteadily, “This is really inconvenient, isn’t it?”

  His intensity eased into a smile. “So it is. This far astern in the dark, I doubt that anyone will notice us holding hands, but if we were seen by Malek or one of his men, it could cause trouble. Anything more than hand holding could prove disastrous.”

  She swallowed, imagining what it would be like to move into his arms for a kiss. That warm, powerful male body, enfolding and protecting hers. The wildfire energy would throb through her whole body, her heart beating in time with his....

  She forced herself to withdraw her hand. “I write outrageously romantic characters who are entranced by each other after a single glance, but I’ve never experienced anything remotely like that myself. Until now.”

  He exhaled roughly and made no attempt to retrieve her hand or touch her in any other way. “Whatever is between us may be fleeting and sparked by our circumstance, but it is real. And it is impossible for us to act on it.”

  She swallowed hard, knowing he might be right about circumstances triggering this firestorm of emotion. But she didn’t think so. She would always have been drawn to Gabriel Hawkins. The circumstances just quickened the process. “I shall dream up a new story with bold rescues and characters who escape to live happily ever after.”

  His smile was warm and teasing, almost as intimate as a touch. “Please do. I’ve heard that sometimes dreams come true. What do your dreams look like?”

  She thought about it. “I dreamed of traveling to far distant lands. I’ve done that and I don’t need to keep doing it. Now that Napoleon has abdicated, I’d like to visit places on the Continent that have been closed to the British for so many years. But even more, I want to go home to England and live close enough to my family to enjoy them, but not so close that we annoy each other.”

  He laughed. “You’ve thought of this, I see.”

  “There is nothing like being trapped in a harem to make one dream. I want to continue to spin tales, and perhaps get them published. I want to have a comfortable home with cats and dogs and horses and pigmy goats and a garden. Simple pleasures.”

  She also realized that she was beginning to find the idea of a husband appealing. And perhaps children, though she could not say that. “What about you? You must love the sea. Is it your dream to continue sailing the world like a
free wind blowing?”

  “I love the sea, but I also love the land. I like horses and riding and long walks in the woods and along the ancient ridge ways. Perhaps I’ll retire from the sea and start a new life on the land. Maybe I’d even visit those members of my family who would still receive me.”

  His voice thinned on that last sentence, and she realized that was approaching too close to the subject of his being disowned. It was a relief to feel something rub against her ankles. She looked down to see a large, odd-looking cat, mostly white below and splotches of gray on top. “Who is this come to visit?”

  “The ship’s cat,” Gabriel said, accepting a topic less personal. “Peculiar looking, isn’t he? His eyes are crossed and he has long legs like a deer and there’s something unusual about the angle of his ears, but he’s very good at his job. We hired him as soon as he applied for the position.”

  “What are his duties?” She bent and made small feline noises in an attempt to coax him closer, but he skittered back, watching her warily.

  “He’s the official ship’s mouser. Cats have gone to sea on sailing ships for as long as men have sailed, I think.”

  She smiled. “So useful for keeping the ship’s supplies from being ruined by vermin. How did he apply for his position?”

  “He presented himself to me with a still-struggling rat in his mouth. Then he looked me in the eye and snapped its neck. I hired him on the spot.”

  She laughed. “A fierce fellow! What is his name?”

  “He doesn’t have one. He’s only the ship’s cat.”

  “Surely he deserves a name of his own!” She bent and again tried to lure him closer. Once more, he skipped away. “How about The Spook since he’s spooky?”

  “The name does suit him,” Gabriel said thoughtfully. “He can be quite friendly when he becomes accustomed to you. He likes to sleep on my desk when I’m working there, but he’ll bolt if a stranger comes in.”

  “So very easily spooked. Do you like your new name, Spook?”