Beau jumped and bit back a curse as he spun around.
C.C. sat nearly engulfed in one of the enormous wing-backed chairs facing his portrait.
Alarmed at how he’d once again been caught with this mysterious, forward woman, he bowed. “Sorry to disturb you.” Wheeling around, he made for a hasty exit.
“If I’m not mistaken, you appear to be avoiding me.”
He stopped but didn’t turn toward her. “Indeed. I’d hoped to quietly go our separate ways with no one the wiser.”
“Did you now? Since you burned my letters we still have much to discuss.”
He squared his shoulders. “I think not. Our brief association is at an end. I do not wish to be a part of your mad games. After the night before last—”
“After the night before last?”
“It seems best to allow you your distance.”
He heard a quick intake of breath and a rustle of silk. Her voice seemed to rise in pitch, “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone what you almost did with crazy ol’ Miss Collins. But then you have lots of secrets, do you not, Captain Tollier? What’s one more?”
“I don’t know what you mean, nor do I care.” He started walking again.
“Looking at all these…lovely portraits, I can see why people whisper you’re the family’s cuckoo.”
Lurching around, he clenched his fists in an effort to control his temper. Not only did the insult shock, it cut into one of his earliest, deepest insecurities. He lowered his voice to a dangerous calm. “You are fortunate to be a woman, madam. Were you a man, such an insult might force me to call you out.”
She stood and gave him a look so sultry it almost begged him to teach her lessons of a different sort.
“Ah yes, call me out. And what should I call you?”
He turned to leave, hoping to prevent saying or doing something he’d regret. Before he’d taken two steps, C.C. said in a voice full of authority, “Mr. Wainwright. Perhaps Captain Scott? Or would it be Cornelius Dolan?”
The hairs on his neck stood straight out. Where did she hear those names? He’d been very careful using aliases. Some of the names still had a price on their head.
Making a slow, controlled turn, he assumed the tall, rigid military stance he’d mastered years before: the bearing of strength and authority. He strode to within a foot of her and glowered down with his most intimidating captain’s stare. The well-practiced glare never failed to shut an insolent sailor’s yap.
She continued. “All your relatives are dark, many harsh-featured with an undercurrent of anger.” Her gaze traveled across the portraits as if he were not standing right in front of her. “Yet you have blue-green eyes, blond hair and features designed to break hearts. You look full of life and joy in your portrait, ready to spin the world on its ear, and you did, didn’t you?”
“What is it you’re about, madam?”
Only now did he notice her violet, exceedingly expensive bell-shaped gown—another fashionable masterpiece. The skirt’s gauzy valances reminded him of a cloud or perhaps…meringue? He took his time assessing her. Besides having remarkable taste, he’d never seen a more perfectly groomed, comely woman—not a hair or thread out of place. So different from the woman at the pleasure gardens, but one he knew fit his body as if it were the other half.
She locked gazes and said significantly, “My mother and relatives in North Carolina are in desperate circumstances. They must be rescued.”
He leaned in, scowling. “Then you’d best find yourself a good captain and a fast ship. London and Liverpool have many in need of work. I could provide names if you like.”
“I’ve already found a captain and have it on the best authority he knows his way to North Carolina.” She didn’t move, returning stare for stare. Challenging him again.
An uncomfortable ache pulsed his loins. “Then you should hire him, straight away. There’s a war on, in case you haven’t heard. No one in their right mind would sail those waters now.”
She smiled at him for the first time since he’d come to Grancliffe Hall…a knowing smile…with a quirked eyebrow.
He maintained his stern expression, refusing to respond to her humor. Even through his anger and suspicion she roused something in him he didn’t want to acknowledge.
“If I’m not mistaken, this captain made regular runs in and out of Nassau and Wilmington on the St. Charles, the Tropic Flyer and the Annie Milford, to name a few.”
He shoved his tongue against the roof of his mouth to keep from showing his shock. How did she know those names? A week ago, he didn’t even know this strange, beautiful woman existed. He’d been first mate on the commerce raider, the St. Charles. Powerful Yankee noses were still bent out of shape over those involved in commerce raiding. “I’ve decided to swallow the anchor and seek a different livelihood.”
She took a step toward his portrait and then turned back to him. “I was very sorry to hear about Millie and little Freddie. Typhus is such a treacherous disease.”
Rage ripped through him so quickly he could barely control his temper. In a strained, soft voice, his men knew better than provoke, he said, “No one outside of a few trusted friends knew about Millie and our little boy.”
Fury, hurt and longing clawed at him. Millie and Freddie had been his most cherished secret—the tenderest part of his heart. In the world where he came from, the son of an earl did not marry his mistress. Millie had been a lovely blend of several races. When her mother passed, she’d been virtually enslaved by her madam.
He’d rescued her from that way of life and built them a home on a secluded Caribbean island. There, Millie and sweet little Freddie were safe from stupid comments and vile gossip. Safe from people like C.C.—the spoiled, lazy, self-centered society women who messed up their own lives and then went to work on others for entertainment.
Swallowing against the lump in his throat, and the threat of falling into the black hole of grief, he concealed his pain with a mask of anger.
She looked down at her hands, her face falling.
Was that remorse in her expression? Did the woman even possess such a thing?
Rubbing her temple, she sighed, “I’m terribly sorry for bringing up such a devastating loss. Please forgive me for my insensitive bluntness.”
He clenched his fists to keep a hold on his temper. If there were anything that could humble him, cut right to the most vulnerable part of his being, it was the pain and guilt he felt over Millie and Freddie’s deaths. He now knew why people called C.C. unbalanced. She trampled convention. The woman was everything unnerving, even frightening.
Suddenly all business, she said again, “My mother, uncle and his children are all I have left on my mother’s side of the family in America. They’ll die if something isn’t done. I wish to hire you to command a ship going to Wilmington, North Carolina.”
“I said I’m retired.”
“You have a reputation for the most experience and success of any captain to have run the Union blockade. To hire the best, I’m prepared to offer more than twice the going rate. A certain acquaintance of mine is a shipbuilder in Liverpool. His latest vessel is on its way to the Azores. Investors have a similar desire to bring urgently needed cargo through the blockade.”
Beau only partially heard the rest. A conversation he’d overheard in London came back to him. Pay had gone up since he’d been in prison. Captains running the blockade now made five thousand dollars a round trip. The zeros on the doubled amount seemed to float like champagne bubbles before his eyes. Good God, he could make a fortune.
An