A ghost of a smile flitted over Max’s lips, and for a moment they were the same two brothers who had plotted beneath the blankets to toss an unlucky frog into their father’s bathwater. Despite their father’s best efforts to drive a wedge between them with his lavish praise of Max and his constant criticism of Ash, they had once been as thick as two thieves.
That had all changed after Ash had returned from Eton to find the brother he adored had vanished, only to be replaced by a man as cool and contemptuous as their father. Ash’s hurt and bewilderment had slowly hardened to anger, then indifference. Since Max refused to confide in him, Ash could only assume Max no longer cared to be bothered with a younger brother whose cravat always hung crooked and who could be counted on to blurt out a sarcastic remark at just the wrong moment in every conversation.
Even now, Max’s amusement at Ash’s quip was short-lived. As if desperate to occupy his hands, he began to straighten an already perfectly aligned stack of papers. “This matter is in regards to my fiancée. Three months ago she was being escorted to Burma for our wedding when her ship was boarded and she and her companion were abducted.” No longer able to keep up their charade of meaningful activity, his hands went still. He lifted his head to meet Ash’s gaze, finally revealing the depths of his desperation. “By Corsairs.”
Ash couldn’t quite hide his sympathetic flinch. They both knew any woman unfortunate enough to fall into the hands of those barbarians was better off dead.
“Have they sent a ransom demand?” he asked. Her captors would be far less likely to soil the merchandise if they thought there was a handsome profit to be made from its return to its rightful owner.
Max shook his head. “I’ve received no word whatsoever, but I have made inquiries. According to a reliable source, she was”—he averted his eyes and swallowed, obviously having great difficulty getting out his next words—“sold. To a powerful sultan in the province of El Jadida.”
For the first time Ash understood why his brother had set up camp in this godforsaken desert. El Jadida was on the coast, less than three days’ ride from where they sat. “You have an army of men at your disposal. Why should this concern me?”
“Because you know the lay of the land, the history, the language, but you’re not bound by the ties of convention or politics. My duties as a director of the Company put me in an extremely awkward position. I can’t afford to jeopardize everything we’ve worked so hard to achieve in this region by storming some sultan’s palace. Why, I can’t even send a note to this sultan without engendering hard feelings all around, not just toward the Company but toward England herself.”
“Ah! Now there’s the Max I remember. More concerned about his own future than his bride’s!”
“My future
is
her future! Do you think I’m enjoying sitting here on my hands while she suffers God-only-knows-what degradations at the hands of those barbarians? But I know that if I have any hope at all of giving her the life she deserves, especially after this incident, it will take every ounce of influence I’ve earned through decades of hard work and sacrifice. I can’t afford to throw all of that away in a moment of rash desperation when there’s a more viable solution sitting right in front of me.”
While Max visibly struggled to contain his temper, Ash took a long drag on his cigar, pondering the novelty of being considered a solution instead of a problem. He had escaped his brother’s orbit long ago with little more than his pride intact, and he had no intention of being pulled back into it. Despite what Max claimed, there were other men who were far more suited to such an undertaking. Honorable men who would consider it a privilege to risk their lives to earn the much-sought-after approval of the Earl of Dravenwood.
“How much?” Ash asked coolly.
If his brother was startled that he would demand payment after Max had just stopped a firing squad from blowing off his head, Max betrayed no sign of it. “Name your price.”
Ash arched a surprised brow. Max’s frugality, except when it came to his own comforts, was legendary. His management of their dwindling family fortune had saved them all from the poorhouse. His rapid rise through the ranks of the East India Company had enabled the Burke name and its accompanying titles to flourish while others of their rank were being forced to do the unthinkable to survive by selling their family estates or marrying brash American heiresses without a drop of noble blood in their veins.
Ash pretended to ponder Max’s words for a moment, then named a price so ridiculously exorbitant his brother would have no choice but to refuse him.
“Done,” Max said, drawing a book of cheques toward him and dipping his pen once more into the inkwell. “And this is only half of it. I’ll double the amount you asked for once the job is completed to my satisfaction.”
Ash’s mouth fell open. The lit cigar hung on his bottom lip for a precarious moment, in imminent danger of tumbling into his lap. The very notion of his brother putting a woman before his precious profits was unthinkable.
Max signed the cheque with his customary scrawl, then slid it across the desk toward Ash. Ash took it and fingered the expensive vellum, marveling at the surfeit of zeros. “Wouldn’t it be cheaper to just forget about this woman and find another bride?”
Max slammed his fist down on the desk, startling Ash. It wasn’t like his brother to betray his passions. For most of their adult lives, Ash had suspected Max didn’t have any. But now the cool gray smoke in Max’s eyes had cleared, revealing the smoldering embers beneath. “There is no other woman who can compare to her! Her wit, her kindness, her courage, her passion for life, surpass every idle charm so prized by society. She is more than just a bride, both in my eyes and in my heart!”
The thunder of his voice faded, leaving his impassioned declaration hanging awkwardly in the air.
“So … ” Ash drawled, “just who is this paragon of feminine virtue I’m to rescue from the clutches of the evil sultan?”
Max stiffened, dropping his gaze to the desk. “Miss Clarinda Cardew.”
Without a word, Ash tossed the cheque back on the desk, rose, and went striding toward the flap of the tent.
He heard Max surge to his feet behind him. “Please, Ash,” he said hoarsely. “I need you.”
Ash stopped in his tracks, hearing in that plea an echo of the brother who had once been his staunchest ally.
He had never dreamed this day would come. Never dared to hope his proud, self-sufficient brother would once again confess such a thing.
Max valiantly struggled on. “I know you’ve never borne any particular fondness toward the young lady, but surely even you wouldn’t be so heartless as to abandon her to such a cruel fate.”
Ash closed his eyes briefly before wheeling around to face his brother. “Fondness? You are speaking of the same Miss Clarinda Cardew whose father’s property bordered our own? The same Miss Clarinda Cardew who devoted her entire youth to making my life an utter misery? Because I’d hate to think I was tainting some other poor young woman’s reputation with the venom and rancor deserved only by that … that …
creature
!”
Max sank back down in his chair with a defeated sigh. “She is one and the same.”
“Well, that’s a relief!” Ash exclaimed with a harsh bark of laughter. “Because for a minute there, I thought it couldn’t possibly be the same Clarinda Cardew who dogged my every step from the time she was old enough to clamber over the fence between our properties. The same Clarinda Cardew who smeared the inside of my gloves and stockings with boot black, left a branch of poison sumac in my bed, and snuck into our stables to loosen the cinches on my saddle only minutes before I was to perform an important riding exhibition for Father and a handful of his most influential friends.”
Max shook his head ruefully. “There’s no denying she was a bit of a handful when we were lads. Especially when it came to you.”
Ash felt his face harden even further. His brother didn’t know the half of it. Apparently, Clarinda had never told him that the spark of animosity between them had finally flared into something so combustible it had threatened to incinerate them both.
Max continued, “It’s her father who should be held accountable for her high spirits as a girl. The man always had more money than good sense. She was only eight when her mother died and he was the one who allowed her to run wild when what she needed was a firm but gentle feminine hand to guide her.”
“What she needed was to be laid across someone’s knee and have the working end of a coal shovel applied to her impertinent little backside.” Ash closed his eyes briefly as a tantalizing image of that backside as he had last seen it flitted across his memory. “I suppose now you’re going to try and convince me the nefarious little hoyden has somehow transformed herself into a genteel lady fit to be the wife of the Earl of Dravenwood … and a future duchess?”
Once again, Max seemed to be having great difficulty meeting Ash’s eyes. “I think I can safely say she is not the same girl you knew.”
Given that Clarinda had agreed to marry his brother, therefore dooming herself to a lifetime of staid respectability, Ash could find no argument for that. He turned to pace the confines of the tent as if the purposeful motion could somehow contain the turmoil mounting in his mind and heart. “I heard she was to wed that Dewey fellow years ago. Shouldn’t she be long married by now and settled in the country with her own brood of brats?”
A frown clouded his brother’s brow. “I’m afraid Viscount Darby perished in a horseback-riding accident before the wedding could take place. It was a terrible blow to all who knew him. Darby was such a decent chap.”
“Probably rode his horse off a cliff so he wouldn’t end up leg-shackled to her,” Ash muttered.
Max’s icy glare brought him up short. “That’s a bit cold, isn’t it? Even for you? Must I remind you that you’re talking about my future wife?”
Ash smirked down at his brother with deliberate insolence. “What are you going to do? Call me out for insulting her?”
Ash could tell that at the moment Max would like nothing better than to do just that. But they both knew Ash was a dead shot who could drop a charging rhinoceros in its tracks at a hundred paces.
Instead, Max chose a weapon calculated to do even more damage to Ash’s heart. “You’re the only man I know with both the brawn and the brains to carry out this mission. I want her rescued, not killed. If I send in a regiment of men with muskets blazing, the first thing her captors will do is cut her throat. Will you help me save her?”
Ash turned away from the desk, running a hand through his already tousled hair. He was trying desperately not to imagine Clarinda at the mercy of some randy sultan with a sadistic streak and an appetite for lovely green-eyed blondes. Given her refusal to curb that sharp little tongue of hers for any man, it would be a miracle if her pretty little head wasn’t already rotting on a pike in some sun-baked courtyard.
When Ash, his eyes grim and his face set in pitiless lines, turned back to his brother, few men of his acquaintance would have recognized the happy-go-lucky adventurer they knew. “Have you considered the full ramifications of what you’re asking me to do? Even if I succeed in retrieving Clar—Miss Cardew, she will be considered damaged goods. She could still be as pure as the driven snow, but who’s going to believe that after she’s spent the last several months in a place most of society would consider little more than a brothel? Not even your vaunted reputation or your standing in the Company will be able to protect her from the wagging tongues and venomous whispers of the professional gossips. If you insist on marrying her, you’ll be the laughingstock of all London. Even my exploits will pale in comparison.”
Max rose from the chair and moved to stand before the Constable landscape suspended from the ceiling of the tent. For the first time, Ash realized just how closely it resembled the countryside around Dryden Hall. It was impossible to count how many times he had seen Clarinda scampering across just such a meadow, her grubby little face wreathed in a mischievous grin, her long blond braids flying out behind her.
“I’ll deal with society when the time comes,” Max finally said. “Just bring her home to me.”
“Dear Lord,” Ash breathed as his brother’s words struck his already reeling heart a fresh blow. “You really do love her, don’t you?”
When Max turned to face him, his eyes as unguarded as Ash had ever seen them, there was no need for him to speak.
Ash shook his head. “Then may God help you.”
Feeling the inescapable weight of his brother’s gaze upon him, Ash retrieved the cheque from the desk and slipped it into his pocket. He was almost to the flap of the tent when he realized their business was not yet concluded.
He glanced back over his shoulder at Max. “You’re one of the most sought-after bachelors in all of England. Out of all the women in the world you might have loved, why her?”
Since that same question had been haunting him for nearly a decade, Ash was not surprised when his brother had no answer for him.
W
hat in the bloody hell is that fool doing?” Ash muttered, crouching down behind the rock and lifting the brass spyglass to his eye to get a closer look at the man he was about to abduct.
For nearly three-quarters of an hour he had been watching Zin al-Farouk, the current sultan of El Jadida, drive his mount back and forth across the valley road below as if pursued by some foe only he could see.
“Why don’t you go down there and ask him yourself, Captain?” Ash’s companion suggested, popping another grape in his mouth before taking a long, noisy swig from the canteen in his hand.
Ash lowered the spyglass long enough to give Luca a sideways glare. His friend and frequent comrade-in-arms was lounging behind the rock next to Ash’s as if he had nothing better to do than spend the morning sunning himself beneath the relentless rays of the Moroccan sun. The product of a brief but passionate union between an Italian count and a beautiful Gypsy girl, Luca’s angelic good looks were surpassed only by his talent for indolence. The negligible effort of riding their horses to the top of the bluff so they could get a clear view of the desert road below had apparently sapped what little energy he had. If they didn’t act soon, he would probably curl up behind the rock for an afternoon nap.