Page 34
“What makes you think we are pretending?” Sebastien asked.
Rose could not help the startled look she sent his way, one that Ramsey happily missed as he exclaimed, “The hell you say!”
Sebastien only shrugged and smiled.
Ramsey looked to Rose, who could think of nothing to say other than, “We saw Father. We met him at the Nobbins.”
“And he approved of this … this farce , did he?”
“He was happy to see me and not entirely hostile to Captain Fonteyne’s presence.”
Ramsey snatched the decanter of wine off the sideboard and carried it to the table. When he was angry, upset, or frustrated, he was less able to control the limp as he walked. At the moment, he was stumping his way to the dining table as if walking on an uneven log.
“You’ve not answered my first question. What the devil are you doing here?
Are you aware there is a price on Fonteyne’s head?
A reward of ten thousand pounds has been posted by the Dutch East India Company.
Apparently, they have taken offense at the number of their merchant ships he has relieved of their cargo.
As for yourself—” He paused and looked at Rose.
The face that was burnished by the candlelight was a face he had seen only in his memories these past few years.
She had been the first person he’d seen when he had been carried off the ship on a stretcher, his body burning with fever.
Craving her smile, her laugh, her brazen, ribald humor had been what kept him alive in the long voyage home after Trafalgar.
She had looked after him, changed his stinking bandages, and nursed him back to health day by day, and even found a carpenter who could fit him with a new leg.
The anger bled out of him as if through an open cut. “Rose?—”
She smiled softly. “I have missed you too, Brother.”
He closed his eyes and bowed his head slightly, shaking it. “What the bloody hell am I to do with you now?” He looked up from under his brows. “Is it true you’ve been running the blockade lines to deliver supplies to the Americans?”
When she hesitated, he held up a hand. “No, please do not placate me with a lie.” He raked a hand through his hair and sighed.
“Fonteyne is not the only one carrying charges of piracy and treason. The Cygnet has recently been cited in several news sheets but, in a small mercy, at least the results of your antics these past months have been credited to your husband’s name.
I don’t suppose Father mentioned the Whitticomb estates have been placed under threat of seizure? ”
She bit her lower lip. “No. No, he didn’t.”
The heated color began to rise in Ramsey’s cheeks again.
“Not two miles from here there is a fleet of ten British warships. Fifteen thousand troops are on board. Experienced troops fresh from victory in Europe and eager to claim a second victory against the rebelling Americans. Even now, the city is preparing to host a ball to give them a royal send off. The governor’s mansion is filled with a hundred officers from the Royal Navy, not to mention judges, magistrates, and council members.
A whisper in the wrong ear and this house would be surrounded by soldiers and there wouldn’t be a damned thing I could do about it.
” He paused for a moment when another thought struck. “You came in on the Nighthawk ?”
Rose nodded. “Yes.”
“God spare me, is Father with you? Is he on board?”
“Um … no. We left him and most of his crew behind on the Nobbins.”
Ramsey’s eyes narrowed to slits. “You—? Why—? No. No, no, no, no ! I don’t think I want to know why. Or how. Or if he agreed to this mad scheme. You need to leave here. Now. Tonight. Before too many people start asking questions.”
Sebastien looked at her. “We should take your brother’s advice and get back to the ship.”
“Good God, man, I do not need you to take up my side in the matter,” Ramsey said. “I am one thin thread away from skewering you where you stand.”
“With what, pray? Your finger?”
Quicker than the eye could follow, Ramsey pulled the ornate silver wolf’s head off the end of his walking stick.
Twenty inches of gleaming steel was attached to the knob, a rapier-thin sword honed to a wicked sharpness.
The tip flashed up beneath Fonteyne’s chin, the point forcing him to tilt his head back.
The two stood frozen, eyes locked, bodies rigid.
Rose blew out a cautious breath. “Ram … please.”
“We were friends once,” Ramsey said, his anger throbbing through a vein in his temple. “Great friends.”
“Yes, we were. You saved my life a time or two, just as I saved yours. For that, I would save it again now by telling you to take that blade away from my throat.”
Another long, chest-squeezing moment passed before the tip of the blade wavered … then was lowered.
“You need to leave here,” Ramsey said again. “You are putting this entire household in jeopardy. Gather your things, leave nothing behind that would indicate you were here. I’ll have a word with Josiah then have one of the stableboys saddle two horses. A carriage might draw too much attention.”
The tightness in Rose’s chest eased a little. “Ram, I’m sorry to have put you in this position.”
Ramsey slid the sword back into his walking stick, slapping it in the last inch to lock the blade in place.
“You’re my bloody sister, Rosie. Mother would have me hobbling on two wooden legs if I had you arrested.
Him, on the other hand,” he glared at Fonteyne, “Be advised, our slate is now cleared of favours owed. The next time I see you it will be with pistol in one hand and iron manacles in the other.”
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