Brazen Temptress (27 page)

"I don't think your uncle would approve either."

He glanced back at her and then down at the bed. "I suppose this does look rather compromising, but we don't have any other choice." He paused for a moment.

From down the hall rattled the footsteps of half a score of men. The Lord Admiral's bellowing orders echoed right behind them.

"Find her! Find her now!"

"Do I have your vow that you will not reveal what you are about to see?" Charles asked.

Maureen glanced toward the closed door to the hallway and then back at him. From the sound of it, it was apparent the Lord Admiral was undertaking a rather unethical search of his hosts' house.

It wouldn't be but a minute before he arrived here.

"Yes," she said hastily, wondering what the devil Charles was up to.

"You vow on the honor of the D'Artiers?"

"Yes, Charles, I promise, I vow, I swear. But get on with it!"

He nodded and then turned to the tapestry hanging on the wall. He stepped behind it and then, moments later, poked his head out and gestured for her to follow.

"Grab that taper," he said, nodding to the unlit candle on the nightstand.

She snatched it up and followed him. What she found amazed her. Behind the tapestry the oak paneling gave way to a secret door. In moments they were inside a small chamber and the paneling moved silently back into place to fill the opening. Just then she heard the Lord Admiral burst into the bedroom.

Maureen didn't ask Charles why his parents — the very proper and stylish Lord and Lady Trahern — kept a secret passageway in their London town house.

So Julien wasn't the only one in the family with secrets.

After the Lord Admiral finished his search of the room and it had been silent for a few minutes longer, Charles struck a light and lit the candle. From there he led her down a steep, narrow stairway and then through a long, stone-lined passageway.

She had heard of such places but thought they hadn't been used or built since Cromwell's time. And the Traherns' Mayfair home wasn't more than ten or twenty years old. If that wasn't odd enough, the passageway appeared clean and free of cobwebs or dust, evidence that it was oft-used.

They exited in the alley beyond the gardens, and Charles bid her to wait in the shadows.

He came back to the hidden entranceway, an ivy-covered doorway, about twenty minutes later with his phaeton and team.

Always the gentleman, he started to climb down to assist her, but Maureen waved him off and bounded up into the carriage without a second thought.

Charles let out a low whistle at this. "I suppose you are also going to hold me to our wager."

"Of course I am. A wager is a wager," she said, grinning at his crestfallen expression. "This team ought to suffice." She nodded to the matched blacks prancing in their traces.

"Not my best set!" he moaned.

"This will teach you a good lesson,
nephew,"
she said. "Never wager with a lady."

"Does Uncle Julien know about your mercenary ways?"

"Only too well," she said softly, realizing she'd let her pride and stubborn hold on the past cloud her judgment.

Julien had tried to tell her, tried to warn her, but she had refused to believe him. Even when her own common sense had told her he was probably right.

Now what had she done? Made a mistake more grave than his eight years ago. She'd scorned him and betrayed him and put their son in even greater danger.

Perhaps there was still time to stop it, to erase their past and start over. Just as Julien had proposed.

Plucking off her mask, she yanked free one of the ties and set to work braiding her hair and binding it out of her way.

The truth whirled through her mind — Julien had been right all along. The Lord Admiral was her enemy, not him. And there was more to Cottwell's anger with her than just this de Ryes affair.

What had he said?

I'll remove all traces of you, as I did your father.

Why would he be so concerned about her?

Unlike her father, she didn't stand in the way of his being promoted in the Admiralty. Yet the man hated her, was almost afraid of her, as if she could turn back time and avenge the wrongs of the past with just her presence.

It all revolved around one question: Why had he betrayed her father to begin with? He'd risked far too much just to gain a promotion.

No, it went beyond what Julien had been able to uncover.

And if the Lord Admiral had Ethan, she could only assume her son's fate would be just as dire as the one Cottwell had planned for her. The vile, deranged man seemed bent on removing any trace of the Hawthorne lineage. Maybe that explained why he had her take another name while she was in London.

He hadn't wanted anyone to know who she was.

But why?

She shook her head. There must be someone who knew the answers, for the Lord Admiral couldn't have carried out such an elaborate court-martial and deception without witnesses, people who would vouch for his veracity over her father's word.

Witnesses.

People the Lord Admiral had coerced into helping him. People who would more than likely still fear the man's wrath.

Like Captain Johnston.

Why hadn't she thought of it before?

She considered her choice of actions. She glanced up at the sky to guess the hour, but the pall over London covered the stars and the moon from her. "What time is it?"

He pulled a timepiece from his jacket. "Quarter past ten. Are we for the docks, or do you have another plan?"

If Julien had stayed the course they'd set out originally he would already by sailing up the Thames with the last vestiges of the tide.

Charles had pulled the horses to a stop in the middle of the intersection. "Which way,
Auntie?"

She glared at his use of her familial title. Why, he made her sound like an old lady in her dotage. She'd teach him a thing or two about ladies before the night was through.

"Cheapside. I have unfinished business there."

Julien's plans went better than he expected. Earlier in the evening he'd had the barrels of rum delivered to the two naval ships moored on either side of the
Retribution.

As he sailed his yacht past the dock, it was easy to see that the sailors aboard were taking full advantage of the free bounty, having quickly drunk themselves into a frenzied stupor rather than keeping a sharp watch on the smuggler's vessel they were supposed to be guarding.

Whores, courtesy of an anonymous patron of the Navy, danced on the decks, flashing white calves and parts even higher up, for the men still able to stand.

The officers were nowhere in sight, but that was to be expected. While the regular sailors were rarely, if ever, granted shore leave, the officers were free to come and go. Such a debauchery had probably driven the high and mighty from their cabins and into the city to find a more refined form of entertainment.

Higher priced rum and a better class of light-skirts, Julien thought cynically.

He glanced at his watch and saw the
Retribution's
crew scurrying silently along the quayside like shadowy rats.

Right on time.

Freed just a few hours ago from a prison hulk not far away — through the same liberal use of rum and whores — the crew of the
Retribution
were only too happy to escape their inebriated guards.

The men now slipped one by one onto their ship, climbing up the mooring lines and readying their vessel. The tide would be with them for only a short time; then it would turn, and pursuit would be difficult if not impossible.

When everything seemed to be in order, Julien struck a match and lit the first of the Chinese rockets he and Charles had stolen earlier that afternoon.

It sailed straight and true into the sails of the first Navy ship, exploding in a hailstorm of blue and green sparks. He sent the second one and the third one into the ship that flanked the
Retribution's
port side.

He continued sending up the volleys of flame and fire until he was out of his stolen stash. Then he sat back for a moment and watched as the two drunken crews tried to stop the small fires glowing and flaring up in the tar and sails.

And in the ensuing chaos, no one paid any heed to the
Retribution
as she slipped her mooring lines and began drifting with the tide out to sea.

Reenie had her ship back.

Julien wondered, as he pulled hard on the rudder and set a new course, if she'd have him as well.

He knew only one way to find out.

Maureen bounded up the steps of the Johnston house. The Lord Admiral's guards were gone, probably having been ordered to seek her out, as well as to find Julien.

The house was strangely silent, the Captain nowhere in sight and Lucy probably having sought her bed after the exhausting day Lady Mary had put her through. Satisfied no one was about, she continued upstairs to her room.

There, much to her relief, Mrs. Landon was still waiting for her. The last thing she wanted was another innocent life in harm's way. It was bad enough Aunt Pettigrew had become embroiled in all this mess.

"Miss Maureen, you've come back." The lady rose from the chair in the corner. "I've been worried sick."

"You'll need to come with me," Maureen said over her shoulder to the woman, as she tried to shake herself free of her costume.

The housekeeper stepped forward and helped her get out of the elaborate gown, but when she saw what Maureen intended to put on instead, the lady clucked her tongue in displeasure at the breeches, shirt, and dark coat.

"You're going to find nothing but trouble wearing those rags, Miss Maureen."

"I'm counting on it," she told the woman, as she stowed her dagger in the top of her boot. She looked around the room to see if there was anything else she needed, but this was all she'd arrived with, and it seemed fitting it was all she would take with her.

But she needed something more. She needed answers.

"Come on, Mrs. Landon. I want you to meet your new employer."

They started down the stairs, only to be greeted by Captain Johnston. And in his hand he held a pistol.

Mrs. Landon let out a nervous shriek.

"She has nothing to do with any of this, Captain," Maureen told him. "Let her walk out of here."

The Captain shook his head.

"How much more innocent blood do you want on your hands?" she asked him. "Let her go."

He seemed to consider her words and then nodded to Mrs. Landon.

Maureen turned to her and said softly, "There is a man in a phaeton outside. Go to him; tell him you are his new housekeeper. If I don't come out in five minutes, have him take you to his house and tell him he is to pay you twice what you made at my aunt's."

If Mrs. Landon found these instructions strange, one more glance at the pistol aimed in their general direction erased whatever questions or objections she seemed about to lodge.

The woman hurried down the remaining steps and sidestepped the Captain in a matter of seconds.

"Thank you," Maureen told him, moving slowly down the steps until she came to the last one. There she sat down and looked up at the man who might well hold the keys to her past and her future. "You know that I am Lord Ethan Hawthorne's daughter."

He flinched at the name, but after a moment he nodded.

"And you know why the Lord Admiral is so determined to see not just de Ryes hang, but me as well."

His hand wavered, and Maureen knew from the sight of his bloodshot eyes that he'd been drinking again.

Drinking to erase the past.

She decided to test her suspicions. "You testified at my father's court-martial. You know what all of this is about. Tell me, Captain Johnston, I'm not so wrong when I say there is more to this than just a court-martial based on false evidence, am I?"

He remained silent, unwilling to give her the facts she wanted.

Straightening up, she faced him. "How is it that you've continued all these years, knowing what you did to my father?"

She took a step toward him. "That he was forced to take to piracy." And then another one, even closer. "Into a hard life that killed my mother." Another one. "That he was eventually hunted down and murdered because you drove him out of the world he belonged in."

She stopped as the muzzle of the pistol came to rest in the middle of her breastbone. She took hold of it and moved it over her heart. "You can pull the trigger now and give me a quicker death than the one you condemned my father to, or you can tell me the truth. Wash the blood off your hands." She looked up and stared hard into his watery gaze.

William's hand wavered, his finger shaking over the trigger, but then his shoulders slumped and he shook his head. "I can't kill you, lass. How could I?"

"That didn't stop you from what you did to my father. You might as well have pulled the trigger."

"It was because I had no backbone that I let the likes of Peter Cottwell chart my course, rather than standing up to him." He sighed and walked over to the steps, slumping down on the threadbare carpet covering them. He put his hands on either side of his head and sobbed.

Maureen crossed the entryway and sat down on the step beside him. "Tell me about my father."

It took some time for the Captain to find the words, but when he did, the entire sorry tale spilled forth.

"Your father was like a brother to me. Ethan kept me safe when we were just lads starting out. We weren't much more than nine or ten, any of us — Ethan, me, Peter, and James Porter."

"Porter?" she said, wondering why the name sounded so familiar.

"You know Porter. The judge who tried your case."

Maureen had always thought it unusual that their case had been moved to an Admiralty court, but now she saw the Lord Admiral's hand in even that twist of fate.

"Ethan was the best of us, but Peter was the cunning one," William said, continuing his story. "Never seemed to matter much, cause we all rose through the ranks together. Helping each other out. I thought we'd always be friends, until ..."