Devil of the High Seas, page 2
When lightning flashed a second time, she gasped as a figure loomed out of the darkness behind her, briefly reflected in the window glass. She whirled around, but no one was there. The hall was empty, save for a painting that hung on the paneled wall opposite her and the window.
It was a large portrait, but despite its size, there was an intimacy to the subject and how he had been painted. She recognized the man immediately. It was her future husband.
Then Josephine silently corrected herself. No, that was not him. There were minute differences in the features. It would have been easy to assume the painter had simply failed to paint the subject exactly, but when she read the name beneath, she knew her suspicions were correct.
The small gold plaque under the portrait read: Gavin Castleton, 1735. Gavin, not Griffin. This was Castleton’s brother. They must have been twins, just like her and Adrian, only Griffin and Gavin must be identical.
Gavin . . . The name caused the hairs on her arms to rise. This was Castleton’s brother. Given the year on the plaque, she guessed he had to have been around nineteen when it was painted. A year older than she was now . . .
“He’s a handsome fellow, isn’t he?” a deep voice said, and Josephine jumped.
Her brother Dominic stood a few feet away, studying the portrait with her. “I knew Gavin when we were younger. He was a good sort of fellow, but a bit wild . . . like me.” Dominic smiled at some old memory, and Josephine’s heart ached. She hated being so young sometimes. Dominic had had an entire life while she’d been a child on leading strings. It was the same with Lord Castleton. He was twenty-six, though that wasn’t terribly far from her in age given that many women her age married men in their forties. Yet when she was around Lord Castleton, there seemed to be an ancient pain inside him that put a century between him and her.
“What happened to him?” she asked.
“No one is quite sure. He and Griffin quarreled one night during a ball much like tonight, and Gavin left. He simply vanished.”
She scowled at her older brother. “You’re trying to frighten me.” Dominic gave her a curious look that she couldn’t quite read, and she had the strangest sense that he wasn’t telling her everything.
“I would never want to frighten you, little butterfly,” Dominic said quite seriously, using his brotherly pet name for her. “It’s true. Gavin was never seen in this house again. Some think he drowned in floodwaters, others think he was murdered by footpads, but . . .”
“But what?” She took hold of her brother’s arm. “What, Dom?”
“I think he went to the sea, like me,” Dominic said quietly, as if thinking deeply on the matter. The way he said I think sounded strange, though, as if he was more certain than uncertain.
“But he never came back. He must be gone.” She didn’t say dead. Somehow she could not put that word to the man in the painting. Even the oil on the canvas seemed to breathe in that quiet candlelit corridor while the storm continued to rage outside.
“Not all men lost at sea are dead . . . some are simply lost,” Dominic said. For the first time since her older brother had miraculously returned, she saw some of the darkness he must have faced in those fourteen years he’d been away from home.
“Then he might return someday?” she asked, her tone as quiet as her brother’s now.
“That depends,” Dominic said.
“On what?”
“Sometimes all a man needs is light to find his way to shore, but not everyone is looking for that light. Some men stay trapped in the dark.”
She and Dominic stared up at Gavin Castleton’s portrait until a crash of thunder shook the house.
Dominic put an arm around her shoulders. “Come, Josie, let’s go return to dinner.”
She let her brother lead her to the dining room, but she had the strangest feeling that the eyes in Gavin’s portrait followed her. Her brother’s words echoed over and over in her head.
Not all men lost at sea are dead . . . some are simply lost . . .
Off the coast of Cornwall
“Cap’n!” Ronald Phelps bellowed through the storm. “Look out!”
Gavin Castleton leapt out of the way as a member of his own crew tried to slice him with a scimitar. The quarterdeck of his ship, the Lady Siren, was overflowing with battling pirates. Gavin swung his own blade, catching the nearest man in the arm and slicing through his biceps. The man’s howl of pain was swallowed by the raging sea and a clap of thunder overhead.
Beauchamp and his men had been fools to start their mutiny in the middle of a storm. Men were being tossed over the sides every few seconds as grayish-black waves of furious water surged over the decks. The Lady Siren was a strong ship, a fast ship, but in such a squall, unmanned like this, she would break her masts and founder on the distant rocks.
“Ronnie!” he bellowed at his quartermaster. The red-haired man waved a blade before stabbing a man in the stomach and kicking him over the side.
“Cap’n?” he called back.
“Abandon ship!” Gavin ordered.
The quartermaster took the order and began to cut a path to the small dinghy that a loyal few men were attempting to lower into the water. Gavin had one goal: save the Siren. The only way he could do that was to leave her. Beauchamp was a fair sailor and could right the ship before the storm capsized her, but that meant he would have to stop trying to kill Gavin, and the only way that would happen was if Gavin wasn’t on board. The day was Beauchamp’s, damn his eyes.
Someday he would find his way back to his ship, and when he did, he would kill every man who’d dared to take her from him. He was the bloody Admiral of the Black, leader of the pirate fleet in the Caribbean. There would be consequences with the Brethren of the Coast for such a mutiny.
“Castleton!” Beauchamp shouted in challenge as he started toward Gavin. The usurper was not as tall as Gavin, but he was built as thick as a bull. He held two blades and swung them effortlessly, even though the deck pitched beneath them. Gavin tightened his grip on his own blade.
“We offered to maroon you,” Beauchamp called and flashed his yellow teeth in a grimace of a smile.
“And I politely declined that offer,” he reminded his enemy. “Ronnie and I rather objected to being stranded together on an island with one pistol and one bullet between us.”
Beauchamp lunged, both of his swords raised. Gavin braced himself and used his short sword at an angle to parry Beauchamp’s blades in a mighty clash. All he had to do was survive long enough for Ronnie to get the dinghy in the water. Beauchamp caught him in the shoulder with the tip of one blade. It sank deep enough for a fiery pain to radiate through Gavin’s body. But Gavin arced his blade in the air, nearly finding its mark and forcing the other pirate to step back, wrenching the blade from Gavin’s shoulder.
Beauchamp advanced again, swinging fast at Gavin, who retreated a step. But as he did so, he caught a loose rope from the mainsail and hoisted himself into the air with his good arm and danced out of the other man’s reach just as a wave rolled over the deck. Gavin escaped the dangerous wave, but Beauchamp was not so lucky. The black water knocked him onto the deck, and he slammed into several crates that were tied down against a railing. They were the only thing that kept the mutineer from washing over the side.
Some bastards have all the bloody luck.
Gavin dropped back onto the deck, noting that the fight had died down.
“Ronnie?”. Ronnie was nowhere in sight, nor was the dinghy or the rest of his crew who’d defended him in the mutiny. Gavin could only pray that meant his quartermaster had gotten the boat into the water. The remaining mutineers now converged on Gavin in a semicircle, trapping him with his back to the railing on the waist deck of the ship.
“Kill him!” Beauchamp ordered as he climbed to his feet. “Send him to Davy Jones!”
Gavin couldn’t stay on the Siren, but he wasn’t a man to turn and run, especially not from something he loved. The Lady Siren was his mistress, his love, his very soul. She had been the thing to save him all those years ago when he had fled home with a broken heart. And now he was forced to leave her in the hands of his enemies.
“By all means, jump—the sea will kill you for me,” Beauchamp sneered as he joined the circle of men who had Gavin surrounded.
Gavin glanced at the distant shore behind him, seeing a familiar cliff face and a distant house whose lights flickered through the storm.
“Oh, Beauchamp, that was always your problem. You forget, I’ve been dead for seven years. You can’t kill a ghost!”
With that, he dove over the side of the ship. The water rose up in a dark wall to meet him, and with his arms pointed above his head, he cut through it with the ease of a boy who had learned to swim and dive in fathomless stormy waters like these.
As the water swirled and crashed around him, he kicked and swam until he broke the surface. He glimpsed the outline of the dinghy rolling on the waves and started toward it. As expected, Beauchamp and his men now rushed to tack the sails and guide the Lady Siren away from the rocky coastline of Cornwall. When Gavin at last reached the dinghy, Ronnie helped pull him over the side.
“Christ, Cap’n, you’re hurt.” Ronnie reached for Gavin’s shoulder, but Gavin held up his hand.
“Where are the others?” He’d expected to see at least a few of his loyal crew on the boat with Ronnie.
“Lost ’em. They helped me get the boat in the water, then turned to fight to give you time to escape. A wave took them overboard.”
Gavin said a quiet prayer to the sea, asking for peace for the men who’d perished in his defense.
“Let’s get to shore. Scavenger crews watch for ships to wreck on this stretch of beach. We could be killed if we’re spotted on the shore for long, even if we have nothing worth stealing.”
“You know this bit of land?”
“Aye, Ronnie, I do, it’s . . . a place I’ve been to many times.” The word home almost left his lips. But this hadn’t been his home for a very long time.
They rowed the dinghy in the direction Gavin gave. Once they were just out of reach of the waves rolling in, Gavin urged Ronald to stop rowing.
“What do we do now, Cap’n?” Ronald asked. He wheezed a little as he breathed. As a man in his late forties, he’d seen and done much as a sailor, and Gavin was fortunate to call him a loyal friend.
“You must go to town and find a crew for me, and then a ship. Then we’ll go after Beauchamp and get the Siren back.”
“Right,” Ronnie said. “What are my orders?”
“Row down the coast until you see a trail up the cliffs. It will take you into a village if you follow the path. There’s an inn on the edge of town, the Stag Antlers. Tell Mary McGiver, the woman who runs it, that you’re an old friend of mine. She’ll know to take care of you. I’ll be in touch with you soon. I have something to tend to first.” Gavin stared at the cave entrance.
Ronnie followed his gaze. “What do you have to do, Cap’n?”
“I must see my brother. Then, when all is prepared, you and I will be off.” He handed Ronnie a bag of coins that he always kept tied to his belt. “Be careful and wait for me in the village.”
“Aye, aye, Cap’n,” Ronnie said.
Gavin slipped off the side of the boat and rode the waves toward the shore so Ronnie could keep rowing away. Once he reached the cliff face and the hidden cave entrance, he stopped and touched his shoulder, his fingers coming away soaked in blood. There was a chance, he realized grimly, that he would not rendezvous with Ronnie in the village at all. And if that was the case, he wanted to see his brother one last time. There were things that lay heavy upon his heart, and he needed to unburden himself.
Whatever happened after that? Only fate and the sea could tell.
CHAPTER 2
Josephine lay in the large bed, a candle lit on her bedside table as she stared unseeing at the pages of a very dull book in front of her. She’d chosen the book to put her to sleep, and somehow it was so dull it failed even at that simple task. Outside the storm continued, but the wind had ceased to rattle the windows, at least. After a long moment, she gave up and blew out the candle.
She burrowed deeper into the blankets and thought of how tonight had not at all gone as she had expected. Dancing, dinner, and then the storm arriving, which had kept her at Lord Castleton’s estate. Now she was in an unfamiliar bed in that home that would never feel like hers. Was this to be her future? To live in this house, sleep in a bed that didn’t feel like hers, and pretend to be someone she wasn’t?
That was nonsense, of course. The storm had forced all of Lord Castleton’s guests to remain for the night. Everyone was likely as uncomfortable as she was, being so far from their homes.
Yet she couldn’t escape the reality of the one thought that was keeping her awake. When she married Lord Castleton, she would have to find a way to settle into his life here, wouldn’t she? This would be her new home, her new life. Everything she was used to would no longer be hers.
She didn’t blame Lord Castleton for her discomfort. How could she? He had been a consummate gentleman all evening. He’d even escorted her to her chambers, explaining that these had been his chambers as a lad before his father had died and he’d moved into the opposite wing of the house. He’d wished her a good night and pressed a kiss to her hand.
With a hiss of frustration, she flipped onto her back and stared up at the ceiling, trying to will herself to fall asleep.
A sudden thump against the door made her tense. Was someone attempting to barge into her room? Or was she imagining things? Old homes creaked and groaned often. Surely a thump or two during a storm was normal? The handle of the door suddenly turned with a soft squeak, and the door opened to the darkened corridor beyond.
Josephine lay motionless, terrified, as a dark figure lurched toward the bed. She must have fallen asleep, and now she was having a nightmare. She’d always been afraid of ghosts, and this must be a ghost.
A hand clamped hard on her shoulder, giving her a violent shake.
“Griffin . . . ,” a deep voice groaned. “Griff . . . help . . .” The figure slumped to the floor next to the four-poster bed.
This was no ghost. It was a man, a man seeking her future husband. Her fear vanished and she leapt into action. She located the flint box and managed to light a lamp rather than a candle so she could better see the unexpected visitor. She carried the light around to where the man sat up against the post of the bed frame .
“Who are you?” She bent forward, trying to peer at his face, and then gasped. It was Castleton . . . but not Castleton. In a flash, she realized it must be Lord Castleton’s long-lost brother. Gavin.
“Where’s . . . Griffin?” She could barely hear the man’s breathless words.
“Griffin? You mean Lord Castleton?”
The man winced. “Aye, bloody Lord Castleton.” He then collapsed onto his back on the floor. It was then she saw the blood soaking his left shoulder.
“Oh heavens! You’re injured.” She set the lamp on the table by the bed and touched her hand to his forehead and cheek, trying to see if he was fevered. His eyes were half fogged with pain as he stared up at her. Eyes that matched Lord Castleton’s. Yet when she looked into those eyes, Josephine felt like she was falling from the cliffside. She sucked in a breath as something deep within her shifted. She knew in that moment she would do anything to save him.
She laid him flat on his back and brought the lamp down on the floor next to him. He was pale, and blood soaked his shoulder. Josephine thankfully had a strong stomach, so she peeled back his torn shirt to better see the wound. It was a fairly deep gash, as though someone had stabbed him with a blade. How had he gotten such an injury? She needed to wake Griffin and have him send for a doctor.
Gavin moaned and his lashes fluttered weakly. Somehow, she felt his pain deep within herself.
“Please hold on. I will wake your brother and summon a doctor.” She brushed her fingertips over his brow in an attempt to comfort him. His hand shot up, catching her arm before she could leave. His long, strong fingers curled around her wrist in a shockingly tight hold, given his wounded state. He stared at her more clear-eyed than he had been moments before.
“No doctor—no one must know. Please . . .” The first part of his words were a clear command, but the way he said please was a plea she could not ignore.
“Why?” Josephine asked. She was not nor would she ever be a person who just did something she was told to without knowing why.
Gavin’s eyes seemed to stay on her for a long time as he replied in a quiet tone, “Because everyone here believes me dead, and it needs to stay that way.”
Josephine thought of what Dominic had said about Gavin going to sea and being lost. If he’d pretended to die, or let that rumor spread, it would have given him a relative amount of freedom to live his life the way he wished, just like Dominic had.
“Are you a pirate?” she asked.
His lips twitched in a weary hint of a smile. “Aye, that I am. A feared, lawless pirate. It’s best if you stay away from me. Once I’m better, I’ll be gone.”
She tried to hide the flicker of excitement that gave her. “Well, that is ridiculous. I’m not the least bit afraid of pirates. I know quite a few.”
Gavin arched a brow. “Do you now, lass?”
“Yes,” Josephine replied primly. “Now, if you don’t want a doctor, someone still has to tend to your wound. Why don’t you sit on the bed?”
“No, I cannot be seen here. There is a room . . . back the way I came. It has a bed. I can rest there without anyone discovering I’m here.” He finally released her wrist.
“All right, but you’ll have to show me.” She grasped his hand on his uninjured side and helped him to his feet. “Put your arm around my shoulder.”
He did so, and she felt the cold seawater on his skin and the briny roughness of drying salt on his clothing. She would need to get him out of those wet clothes before they stiffened, and she didn’t want anything rubbing against his wound that might aggravate it.
