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Daron advanced on the vicar. “You. Say the words. I’ve two pistols on me, and Darch has more.”

Stanley swallowed again, his shoulders moving back. “If y-you shoot me, you know, there will be no sanction at all upon this marriage. I can’t say it will hold in any case, given?—”

“Do it!” Daron screamed. Then he tipped to one side—they all did—as the boat lurched beneath their feet. Behind her own cry and the shouts of men above deck, Anne heard a bellowing boom and the splinter of wood, smelled hot tar and sulfur.

Darch pushed Daron aside and charged toward the stairwell. “Someone’s firing on my ship!”

“God’s teeth, Vaughn, you were right.” The Duke of Beaufort grinned as he peered at the splintered hole in the hull of the brig racing in the tide before them. “Landed the shot right where you said you would, and didn’t need to turn broadside at all.”

“That’s why they call them bow chasers.” Hew patted the bore of the cannon beside him, still hot from the charge and the explosion.

“Handy for firing on ships ahead of you. Put one on the stern and you can fire on a ship chasing you, too. Broadside presents too much field for damage if they return fire. Keep a narrow profile and you’re harder to hit. ”

The master’s mate raised his spyglass as men poured onto the deck of the other ship, turning out to inspect the damage. “They’re past the seawall but not yet to the Point,” he reported. “Like to turn in at the Goldcliff Pill, I’d say.”

“And Darch will know the area. That bloody Monk’s Ditch is lined with smuggler loot,” the duke said grimly. “How far could they make it if they sailed on?”

“Tide’s in their favor, but Cap’n put a nice square hole in their hull, port stern,” the mate answered. “They’ll be taking on water afore they hit the Severn.”

Anne was on that ship. So were her parents, her aunt, her brother, his brother—half brother. Hew hadn’t time to think about the consequences of his mother’s revelation.

He’d pushed the cob as hard as he might to Pillgwenlly, poor Cadfael getting his first good gallop in years. And there, tied up at the wharf, was a beautiful brig, the Fierce , dispensed for the use of the Monmouthshire Militia, which Beaufort commanded.

A worker had straightened from leaning on a stack of crates and approached Hew at once. He recognized the little man he’d seen at the smuggler’s hideout with Darch.

“You,” Hew said.

“Morys.” The other jerked a thumb over his shoulder, indicating the square-rigged brig curving its way down the Usk toward the Bristol Channel.

“Yer lady’s aboard, and all her folk with her.

They’ve the vicar and the Vaughn dandy with, and he as thinks to be the new Hound. ” Morys spat into the sand.

“You’ll swing for helping them.”

“I’ll get a pardon from His Grace for turning informant,” the small man said, scrambling after Hew as a sailor on the Fierce lowered the yawl in response to Hew’s hail. “Vouch for me, won’t ye?”

“Hero of Acre.” The Duke of Beaufort grinned and advanced, arm extended, as Hew stepped on deck. “Shake my hand.”

Hew did, reflecting that his mother would faint with joy to know her son had touched a ducal glove. “I need your ship to foil a kidnapping.”

“And a smuggler. Suspected Darch for years, but never been able to catch him at it. Carried off your lady, did he? Well, the King won’t stand for that, and neither will I.”

The duke’s expression beamed excitement. Henry Somerset, fifth Duke of Beaufort, peer of the realm and nearly threescore in age, was a man of action. His crew ran up the sails and cast off faster than Hew had ever seen.

Hew stepped back as the gunner’s mate swabbed the cannon, cleaning and readying it for the next round. “How many gunners are they mounting?” he asked.

The master’s mate swept his spyglass back and forth. “Looks like four guns on each side. Not sure what size?—”

Hew plucked the spyglass from him and knew in an instant. “Ten pounders. Light, but then they’re made for blockade running, evading ships and not attacking. Your eighteen-pound cannonades can take them, Your Grace.”

“Beaufort to you,” the duke said genially, “and we’re not going to sink her with women aboard, I’d wager.”

“No,” Hew said grimly, “we are not.”

The mate blinked as Hew handed the spyglass back. “Ye mean to run ’em onto the Welsh Grounds, Cap’n, sir?”

“Those spits turn to quicksand with the coming tide,” Morys, who had attached himself to the rescue effort, spoke up. “Darch knows that.”

“I don’t intend to wreck them,” Hew said. “Only bring them about so we can board.”

“Those smugglers’ve been running goods through Goldcliff for a while now,” the master’s mate said.

“But the deeper channel’s to starboard, on the Avonmouth side.

He’ll run into the gravel bank here, or the Bedwyn rocks just ahead.

Unless he’s light enough in the ballast that he thinks to float straight through. ”

“We’re not light enough to follow,” Hew said. “I have to stop them.”

“I say.” The duke pointed. “Who’s the gel?”

Morys chortled with delight. “His mort, and no mistake. Knew she wouldn’t let the rotters hold ’er.”

Hew blinked as a head of golden-blonde hair, gleaming like a fresh-struck guinea, emerged on deck.

Anne ran to the railing, her pelisse soaring behind her like a sparrow’s wing.

Across the yards that separated them he saw her white face, and the fear in her bright blue eyes stabbed his heart.

She stood dangerously above the hole he’d put in the smuggler’s ship, and Hew prayed the deck would not give away beneath her.

“Hew!” She waved her arms wildly, joy and relief chasing one another across her exquisite face. She was hale and they had not hurt her.

“Tell the captain to come around!” Hew cupped his hands to shout back. The wind was against him, blowing the words back in his face.

“What?” Anne shouted, placing her hands to her ears.

“Tell Darch to heave to! Turn into the wind!”

The smuggler ran to the wheel to confer with the helmsman, while sailors converged on the capstan to pull ropes.

If they loosed the sheets to full sail and weren’t high enough in the water, they’d run aground on the sands.

The Fierce couldn’t clear the sandbanks known as the Welsh Grounds until the higher tide flooded the estuary.

The militia ship had a heavier draught than the smuggler’s, carrying more guns and a full crew.

He had to get to Anne.

“Daron,” she began, then whipped around at a shout behind her.

Her brother charged onto the deck, waving a pistol. Calvin pounded up the stairs behind, then Vicar Stanley stumbled onto deck, looking as if he’d been keel-hauled. Sutton ran straight to his sister.

Hew heard part of their exchange as the Fierce drew nearer, but it was enough to see the gun and Anne’s fear, her mouth open in protest. His blood turned to ice, a roar filling his ears.

Anne was in danger, and Hew was a bloody boat length away.

He curled his hands into fists around the railing of the ship until he thought his knuckles might burst their skin.

“Let her go, Sutton!”

“She’s my sister,” Sutton screamed back, closing a fist in Anne’s hair. She swung at him, without success, back arched and arms windmilling.

“Call this off, Calvin, or by God I will shoot you out of the water,” Hew bellowed.

“You’ll do what, Captain ?” Calvin’s sneer cut across the distance, rife with disdain. “You’re no hero. Not even a decent gunner. You’d never’ve ended up in prison if you were worth a groat to the army or anyone. We all know it."

Calvin didn’t know the half of it; he didn’t know what had come after prison, for Hew. He couldn’t bear the questions on Anne’s face.

“Reload,” Hew ordered.

“Yes, sir.” The gunner’s mate scrambled to push the cartridge into the gun.

“Fuse three point five.” Hew held out his palm. In a real fight he’d have another gunner and six soldiers to assist him. He’d have a trigger line, not a linstock for firing, but this was an older cannon, without a gunlock.

In Acre, in the last stage of the siege, he’d fought with confiscated cannon, one powder monkey, and a quarter gunner who’d taken grape shot to the hand, and he’d still won.

“This all I got, sir.” The gunner, a boy with the accent of the Black Mountains, handed Hew the line from the supply bucket. Morys watched with interest, craning his neck to see.

Hew pricked the fuse into the touch hole, the action so familiar he could do this blindfolded, in his sleep. “Home.”

“Stop him!” Daron demanded, shaking Anne so hard that she cried out.

“Won’t shoot us!” Calvin taunted. “Can’t be that mad.”

“Loading shot.” Hew picked up the wooden rammer and drove in the ball, an iron round shot, heavy, lethal. “Prime her, soldier.”

The gunner’s mate scrambled forward, ladling powder into the pan at the touchhole. “Primed and ready, sir.”

Calvin gripped the rail, leaning forward to hurl his insults. “Parents’ll never let her marry you, you know. Worthless. Reason our father hated you.”

“Run out your guns!” Hew roared the command. It took all of them, the master’s mate, gunner’s mate, and Morys, along with the duke, straining the gun tackles to heave the cannon into place at the bow. The carriage dropped into place like a key in a lock.

“Hold your fire!” Darch bellowed from the helm of his ship.

Finally. “Then heave to, Darch, and put a stop to this.” Hew pointed to the man behind him. “I’ve the Duke of Beaufort on board. His Grace says kidnapping’s a hanging offense.”

Daron swung the pistol on Darch, training the gun on the smuggler while holding Anne like a squirming cat. Darch swallowed his reply, raising his hands in the air. Even from this distance Hew could see the man’s eyes were stony flints. He wasn’t with them, but he couldn’t help Anne.

A cold calm he knew well rolled through Hew, lifting his limbs. He moved to the rear of the cannon, levering the heavy mechanism that sighted his gun.

“Left two hundred,” Hew called out, his training at work even though the duke didn’t know the commands. “Elevation minus five minutes.”

“You won’t, er, fire at them, Vaughn,” the duke said. “Right-o?”

“Course he wouldn’t!” Morys scoffed, then caught his chuckle. “Would ’ee?

Sweat gathered across Hew’s back, that familiar, ominous prickle. He braced his legs and found his sight line, feeling for the roll of the ship. He’d trained on land and at sea, in swells larger than this. But he’d never had a target that meant everything.

Anne was trapped at the rail, her brother’s elbow around her neck while he held Darch at bay with his pistol. She fought and screamed, but Sutton had Calvin to help subdue her. The rest of her family huddled near the stairs, too far to help, too weak to intercede. Only Hew could stop this.

Calvin leaned over the rail, his face turning crimson. “You lost, Hew! Admit it. You’ve finally lost. I’ve won, the girl and the money, and you’re nothing but a?—”

“Five seconds!” Hew bellowed, lifting the linstock.

The long wooden pole held the burning match at its tip, lit and ready.

Sulfur sizzled in the damp air, and Hew welcomed the burn in his nostrils, his throat.

This was his element. This, he knew. His gun was his arm, an extension of his body.

He could shoot in the rain, through the mud, through a hell of return fire.

He would not fail. He waited for the next swell, counting.

Calvin faltered. “You wouldn’t?—”

“Do it!” Daron screamed. “Try to stop me.”

“Three!” Hew shouted. “Two … one …”

The men behind him fell back, hands covering their ears.

Anne paused to stare at him, mouth agape.

Awe transformed her face as she watched, but not a hint of fear.

His magnificent woman. Hew lifted the linstock, meeting her eyes, and she read his command as if she heard it.

She dropped to the deck, throwing her arms over her head.

The ship rose on a swell, in time with the beat of his heart.

“ Fire .” Hew dipped the burning match to the fuse. It hissed like an asp shooting from its burrow, and the touch hole ignited. The boom of the cannon echoed in his bones, a euphoric rush. The gun recoiled into the breech line, straining the tackles, a veil of smoke drifting from the bore.

The ball soared through the air, whistling like a shepherd boy at play, and rammed into the keel of Darch’s ship, slamming the brig sideways. Hitting the wind, she lurched and stilled, her sails furiously fighting one another as they belled with air.

Daron staggered, the bore of the pistol cutting empty air. Anne rose with her teeth latched on her brother’s hand. He howled and loosed her. She sent one flaming look at Hew, her face fearless.

“Come fetch me!” she called.

“Anne, don’t!” Hew rushed forward, guessing her intent even as she hiked up her skirts, showing dainty stockings and her favorite boots.

Nimble as a goat she hopped onto the rail of the ship, then swung her legs over the side as if she were a child on a picnic at her favorite lake.

She’d told him of that lake, of her summers upon it, but?—

“I can swim!” she shouted, her voice nearly cheerful. She sent one smug glare at Calvin, who lunged for her, and then, as the ship listed, she slipped out of his grasp and plunged into the cold, frothy water.