Of Noble Birth (12 page)

Alexandra stood and walked
to the window. One story below, the street was jumbled with women
selling flowers, gypsies recaning chairs, peddlers plying their
wares. Horses and carriages plowed through the melee amidst
singsong voices—”Who’ll buy my sweet lavender?”—and she longed to
walk freely among them.

“Why does Nathaniel hate
the duke so badly?” she asked.

Trenton spoke from behind
her. “When Nathaniel’s mother bore your father a deformed son,
he—”

“Deformed?” Alexandra
glanced over her shoulder. In her mind, Nathaniel was anything but
deformed.

“His arm, of course.
Greystone refused to have an imperfect heir. He tried to smother
him, and would have succeeded if his housekeeper hadn’t stopped
him. Martha Haverson rescued Nathaniel and ran away with him,
raised him as her own.”

“The duke tried to kill
Nathaniel?”

Trenton nodded. “Aye. Your
father’s a dark man.”

Alexandra didn’t reply.
She couldn’t imagine a man attempting to murder an innocent
newborn, much less one of his own flesh. But then, she didn’t know
Greystone.

Still, Nathaniel’s past
didn’t justify his actions now. She was as innocent as he had been
as a baby, and she could be in just as much danger. “How did you
meet Nathaniel?”

“We served in the same
frigate during the Opium War. Nathaniel was only eleven then.”
Trenton’s voice softened as he warmed to the tale, no doubt as
eager as she to keep their minds off their present anxiety. “He was
a powder monkey, and the quickest one I’ve ever seen. At first, the
other men teased him about his arm. They liked to rile his temper,
and Nathaniel’s got a good one.” He chuckled. “But through the
years he stood toe-to-toe with every last one of them until no one
dared say anything about his arm or anything else, especially as he
became stronger and quicker with only one than they were with two.
He certainly earned my respect. I was a bit older than he when we
met, closer to seventeen or eighteen—”

“You don’t
know?”

Trenton shook his head. “I
grew up as an orphan. My mother abandoned me when I was young, and
I was raised in a workhouse. That place was hell,” he murmured, his
words holding no self-pity. “I ran away to join the navy early on,
and believe me, I’ve never looked back. Nathaniel’s all the family
I’ve got.”

Alexandra couldn’t help
but feel a twinge of empathy for the tall, brown-eyed man in front
of her. When he fell silent, she tried to draw him into
conversation again. “How long did you serve together?”

“Nearly five years, until
our ship was decommissioned. Then we struck out on our own. We
worked for a Swedish merchant for a while who took quite a liking
to Nathaniel. Said he was the son he never had. When Sven died, he
left his ship to us.”

“So why would you risk
your lives and your ship stealing other people’s cargo?”

Alexandra’s words caused
Trenton to glower. “I don’t expect you to understand. You were
raised with all the money you could ever dream of, with finery and
plenty to eat. Nathaniel and I had nothing, some days less than
nothing.” He paced in front of the door, brooding. “Even still, for
Nathaniel, it’s not the money.”

“What about the
housekeeper who rescued Nathaniel? You said she raised him as her
own. Certainly he knew love.”

“Martha did her best, but
servants don’t make much, and she had to live with her employers.
Nathaniel stayed with her sister, Beatrice, and Beatrice’s eight
children. I guess Bee was none too kind... or generous.”

“I see.” Alexandra tucked
a loose strand of hair behind her ear, understanding to a small
degree what might have formed Nathaniel into the bitter man he was.
“Is Martha still alive?”

“No.” Trenton spat into
the empty chamber pot and arched a brow at her. “Your father staged
an accident. Nathaniel was nearly killed, too. It happened just
after Martha took him to meet the duke—”

“Meet him?” Alexandra
repeated in surprise.

“Aye. He was only seven or
so, and she thought Greystone might change his mind when he saw how
capable and clever Nathaniel was. Evidently he didn’t.”

Alexandra shivered. “How
did the, er, accident happen?”

“They were traveling post.
Someone ran their carriage off the road, and it overturned. Martha
was pinned beneath it. Another fellow was killed, too. A stranger.
But Nathaniel managed to crawl out.”

“Did he go back to
Martha’s sister’s then?”

“For a while. But without
Martha’s income, times got even harder, and Beatrice became more
resentful of his presence. He ran away several times. Lived on the
streets for almost a year. Then he joined the navy.”

“By the law, Nathaniel is
the duke’s rightful heir. There is nothing Greystone can do about
that,” she pointed out.

“There is if no one can
prove the duke is lying.” Trenton gave her an aggravated look that
told Alexandra he didn’t believe she hadn’t heard any of this
before, but he continued with the story anyway. “Your father claims
the son his first wife bore him died the day of its birth, only
minutes after his mother. Martha was the only person who knew
otherwise, besides the midwife, who was old at the time and died
shortly after.”

“But why didn’t Martha try
to establish the truth while Nathaniel was still a baby? It would
have been far simpler back then.”

“I don’t know. She was
probably afraid of the duke at first, afraid for Nathaniel. And she
wanted him as her own. She went to London and lived in hiding for
several years. Then she heard about your birth and decided, since
you were a girl, that the duke might welcome Nathaniel back after
all, especially when he saw that the boy’s arm was no handicap. She
knew she could never give Nathaniel all the duke could, so she
risked her life to take him home—and she paid the
price.”

“Could the duke be so
evil?”

Trenton’s eyes became as
hard as flint. “You have no idea.”

“Listen,” she said, hoping
an honest appeal to Trenton might help her case. He seemed like a
decent man. “I’ve not heard any of this before. I’m not Lady Anne.
I don’t even know her or the duke. Can’t you see that? If you don’t
let me go, I’ll miss my boat to India and then—”

Frantic banging at the
door made them both jump as Nathaniel’s voice came through the
panel.

“Trenton! Let me
in.”

Trenton appeared relieved
by the sound of his captain’s voice, but Alexandra suspected he was
equally glad to be saved from having to respond to her entreaty. He
crossed the room and threw back the bolt, and the pirate captain
pushed inside.

“We must go. Now,”
Nathaniel told him, a determined look on his face.

“What happened?” Trenton
followed his friend around the room as Nathaniel stuffed into a bag
what few belongings he had brought with him the night
before.

“Mary’s been found out. My
father’s on his way here.”

“But what about Richard?
And her?” Trenton indicated Alexandra with a nod of his
head.

Nathaniel lowered his
voice, but Alexandra could still hear his words and the anger that
infused them. “He’s coming after us, so he must have no plans to
release Richard, even for her.”

“What do we do
now?”

“She goes with
us.”

“Why? What good would that
do?”

“What other choice do we
have?”

“She’s no good to us if
the duke won’t trade for her. I say we let her go.”

“Not on your
life.”

“But the
Royal Vengeance
is no
place for a woman!”

“That’s the way things are
for now.” Nathaniel held his bag next to his body so he could tie
it shut with his hand. “We’ll simply have to do the best we
can.”

“It’s too dangerous. Even
if we could keep our own men from molesting her, the
Vengeance
could take a
ball and sink, or we could lose our lives in the middle of a
boarding. Then what would happen to her?”

Alexandra held her breath
as she awaited Nathaniel’s response. Besides the dangers Trenton
had already enumerated, she knew Aunt Pauline would be long gone if
she didn’t get away from Nathaniel and his men soon.
Please listen to him,
she prayed.
Let me go. Let me
go.

“Then her life shall rest
on my father’s conscience. He had the chance to rescue her, and he
didn’t take it,” Nathaniel responded.

Alexandra felt her heart
plunge to her knees.

“Nathaniel—” Trenton
began.

“Look,” the pirate captain
interrupted, “when my father’s played his ace and comes here only
to find us gone, maybe he’ll see that we’re serious and agree to
the trade. If we let Anne go, there’s no telling what he might do
to Richard. Things are too precarious to go after our own right
now. My father’s been counting upon our taking the bait all
along.”

Trenton nodded, and
Alexandra could have guessed his next words before he spoke them.
Concession, pure and simple.

“Then we have no
choice.”

“None.”

“But how can we go?”
Trenton asked. “We don’t have much by way of supplies. We weren’t
planning on leaving for another three days.”

“Get what you can,”
Nathaniel told him. “Regardless, we sail tonight.”

Trenton crossed to the
door, then turned back, his hand still on the knob. “Where
to?”

“To the Black Sea. One of
my father’s ships is heading there, and I want to intercept
her.”

“To Russia?” Trenton’s
brows drew together.

“I’ll explain later.”
Nathaniel motioned him away. “There’s no time now. I’ve got to take
care of a few details before we go. I’ll meet you at the dock at
midnight. And one more thing. That man I met today, Rat, will be
joining us.”

“Why—”

“Later. For now, get back
and stock the ship. We’re going to need all the provisions we can
get if we’re sailing to the Crimea.”

Trenton nodded. Glancing
almost apologetically back at Alexandra, he saluted his captain and
was gone. And with him went every hope Alexandra had of being
released.

“Don’t say a word.”
Nathaniel spoke from behind her. Alexandra could feel him, tall and
rigid, his hand on her arm like a vise. She wanted to jerk away or
cry out for help, but she dared not. He had been in a vile mood the
entire day. After Trenton had left, he had gagged her again and
tied her to the bed while he went out.

When he returned a few
hours later, he had stalked the room, silent and brooding, his rage
worrying Alexandra. The Duke of Greystone was no easy mark. What
did His Grace have in store for these pirates? Would she be able to
escape before calamity fell?

Alexandra walked through
the inn, not daring to turn her head to the right or to the left.
She had promised Nathaniel she wouldn’t scream or try to get away,
if only he would forgo the hood and his blasted ropes; and his dire
threats should she break her word echoed in her head.

Still, she was tempted to
bolt. It wasn’t too late to head to London, if she could only get
away.

Voices clamored about her,
but the people behind them remained a blur. They ate, drank,
laughed, and toasted the Queen, all in complete oblivion to her
plight.

“Did you enjoy your stay,
sir?”

The hotel steward
intercepted them, and Alexandra gave the man a pleading look. He
nodded and turned a solicitous smile on Nathaniel, no doubt intent
on the vails he expected to receive.

“Everything was
satisfactory.” Nathaniel tossed the man a coin and prodded
Alexandra on, but the steward was not so easily put off.

“And the fare, sir? Did
you find that to your liking as well?”

“Indeed.” Nathaniel
flipped him another coin, his quick movements evidence of his
impatience.

The steward beamed. “Thank
you, sir. Come again, sir.”