Chapter Eight
Bella woke early the following morning. Originally, she’d planned to inquire about another cottage on the outskirts of Blackhaven. She still proposed to do so, although her enthusiasm seemed to have waned. All she could really think of was Alban and their passionate encounter in the cloakroom.
“When I do ask, you’d better say yes.” Did he really mean to ask her to marry him? Was marriage even possible with a man like Alban? Shockingly, she wasn’t sure she cared. She only cared that he might love her. And the very thought made her ridiculously happy.
She wore a fresh dress of fine muslin with printed rosebuds that made her feel almost pretty. It seemed a shame to cover it up with the old travelling cloak, but she needed to in order to have any chance of remaining incognito while she searched for her cottage.
Whisking herself quietly out of the suite before anyone else was abroad, she almost bumped into one of the hotel maids.
“For your ladyship,” the girl said, holding out her hand with a curtsey and a sly smile. Between her fingers was a piece of paper, folded and refolded until it was thick and tiny.
Bella took it from her, her heart beating suddenly so loudly she was sure the maid must hear it. Fortunately, the girl hurried away, leaving her to the tortuous unfolding of the paper which she was sure had to be a missive from Alban. He must have returned from Whalen one way or another, or decided not to go. After all, there were the children at Roseley to think of. And her.
Although his writing was unknown to her, she saw at once that it was certainly terse enough to be typically Alban. She could almost hear him uttering the words.
Come to Blackhaven Cove at 8 of the clock.
He hadn’t even troubled to sign it. Nor did it contain any of the soft endearments one might appreciate from a man making, essentially, an assignation. Laughter bubbled up inside her because it was so like him. In his eyes, it wasn’t even a command. He expected her to understand the unwritten provisos, if you wish, if you can, and she did.
Hastily, she refolded the note and dropped it into her reticule as she hurried along the passage to the stairs, a different spring in her step, because she had a new and exciting purpose.
The town was quiet at this hour, with only a handful of townspeople and market sellers about their business. A few horses and carts made their way to deliveries along the back lanes to the high street and elsewhere, but there were no fashionable vehicles abroad. Ladies and gentleman of quality did not normally rise at this hour. At least not in Blackhaven.
Bella hurried through the streets toward the edges of town and the path down to Blackhaven Cove. She wondered if Alban would have brought the horses they’d ridden out to Roseley. She would enjoy a gallop along the beach.
But as she glimpsed the sea, she saw that the tide was in. There was not much sand to ride on. However, a rowing boat was pulled up on the beach and the solitary figure of a man stood with his back to her, gazing out to sea. From the angle of the path, the morning sun shone directly into her eyes, half-blinding her, even with her spectacles on, but she knew it was him and her heart drummed with fresh excitement.
He turned, walking toward her out of the sun, and her spontaneous smile froze on her lips. The disappointment was like a blow in the stomach. Not Alban. Mr. Tranter.
She recovered quickly, forcing the smile to stay on her lips. “Mr. Tranter. What brings you here so early in the morning?”
“The hope that you would come, of course.”
Her eyes widened. “You sent the note?”
“Of course.” He gave a faint smile. “I see I have disappointed. You were expecting another, which rather disappoints me.”
She wasn’t quite sure what he meant by that and didn’t want to speculate. “Why did you want to see me?” she asked hastily. “And why all the secrecy?”
He regarded her thoughtfully, more than a hint of doubt in his expression. He sighed. “To be honest, I wished to ask for your help, but I can see now I was too impulsive, that it is neither fair nor kind.”
In spite of herself, Bella was intrigued. “Well, you may always ask.”
“Truly?” he said eagerly.
“Of course.”
“It would commit you to nothing,” he said anxiously.
“Exactly.”
Mr. Tranter took a deep breath. “I wished to ask you to act as chaperone for a young lady.”
Bella blinked. “I did not expect that,” she confessed. “Which young lady?”
“Anne,” he said reverently. “The lady I told you about? From whom I was parted by the lies of…supposed friends.”
“Ah.”
“It turns out she is not married at all. She held out for love of me and by chance discovered I was here in Blackhaven. She is being held more or less prisoner in her home just a few miles along the coast, but she managed to get word to me.” He sighed. “In short, we are going to elope. Please don’t be shocked, but you must see that for us, this is the only way.”
“I can see that it might be,” Bela said cautiously. “But sir, where do you intend to elope to? I cannot come with you to Gretna Green!”
“There is no need to go to Scotland. Anne is of age now, and I have a special license and an old friend who is a clergyman and will be happy to oblige me. I just wish to make Anne comfortable by having the presence of another respectable lady with her on the journey. It is not far. It will take but half an hour to row to Anne, and from there it is but an hour to my friend. After the wedding, we will all return to Blackhaven and there is nothing either Anne’s father or Lady Crowmore’s vengeance can do to hurt us.”
Although the last sounded somewhat melodramatic to Bella, her romantic soul was touched by the lovers’ story. If it was true. Kate had called Tranter a gazette fortune hunter.
She came to a decision. “I will come and meet your Anne at the least.”
Tranter took her hand and squeezed it warmly. “You are wonderful,” he said fervently. “Hurry, we have no time to lose. Let me help you into the boat.”
Since the waves were showing an alarming tendency to lap around her feet, Bella was happy to oblige. Mr. Tranter had to get his feet wet as he pushed the boat into deep enough water to float before jumping in and seizing the oars.
Watching him row, Bella couldn’t help remembering her first meeting with Alban, who’d worn no coat when he rowed her back to the harbor. And no clothes at all when he’d first entered her boat. Blushing as she recalled his golden body, muscles rippling in his back and arms, glimpses of his strong thighs and flat stomach with that tempting line of hair… Go no farther! she warned herself.
Mr. Tranter rowed strongly enough but with the faint awkwardness of someone to whom the exercise was rare. With Alban, the oars had seemed like extensions of his arms. Leaving the cove, Mr. Tranter hugged the coast, heading away from Blackhaven. She’d known this was going to happen and yet for some reason, she felt unable to relax as she usually did on the water. Trying to establish the normal sense of peace, she gazed all around her. Ahead, a small ship, perhaps a yacht, lay at anchor some distance out from the coast. Behind her, even farther out to sea, a larger ship sailed on in the same direction as their boat. It looked oddly familiar. She pushed her spectacles further up her nose, but the sea spray prevented her seeing clearly.
Mr. Tranter had fallen silent, presumably lost in thoughts of his lady love.
“I suppose your mother would have been a better chaperone,” Bella observed. “Though I expect she couldn’t have managed such a journey!”
Mr. Tranter permitted himself a small smile. “Sadly not.”
He rowed on a little farther. Bella, still searching for her sense of peace, closed her eyes and waited for it to come. She even tried imagining Mr. Tranter were Alban, but it didn’t work. His movements were too jerky.
She opened her eyes again, and found that they had left the coast some distance behind. They were heading, in fact, out to sea.
Bella sat up straight. “You need to row closer to the shore,” she said urgently. “The tide is turning and the current is strong.”
“I’m rather relying on that to give my arms a rest,” Mr. Tranter retorted, his manner no longer quite so polite.
Bella, used to rudeness being directed at her, although not normally by strangers, blinked and looked around her for a reason. They seemed to be heading directly toward the yacht.
“I understood Anne was meeting us ashore,” Bella said, puzzled. “Is she aboard the yacht?”
“Yes, with my tame clergyman,” Mr. Tranter said mockingly. “Do you really believe everything anyone tells you?”
Bella frowned. “I don’t understand. What is it I believe so gullibly and should not?”
“Everything,” Mr. Tranter returned. “My poor foolish creature, there is no Anne. There is no clergyman.”
“No elopement!”
“Oh, the elopement is true. Sort of. But you are my bride. Or will be when your family gets word of where you are.”
She stared at him. “I’m afraid you need to explain yourself. You may indeed find me foolish, but I suppose I’m too used to conversing with gentlemen.”
His eyes narrowed at the implied insult. “What, gentlemen like Captain Alban?” he mocked.
“Yes, like Captain Alban,” she said firmly, “Who is, in fact, the greatest gentleman I know.”
Mr. Tranter laughed. “Really?”
“Really!” she said furiously. “He, at least, would never think of abducting me!”
Mr. Tranter laughed harder. “What a wonderful mark you make! Who do you imagine came up with this idea in the first place? We’re in this together, to divide the money we extort from your family. When they pay up, I’ll marry you, and all you have will be mine.”
Bella sprang to her feet and the boat rocked precariously. She didn’t care. She was acting from appalled agitation.
“Sit down you little fool!” Tranter barked. “You’ll have us both in the drink.”
The drink. The sea, with Tranter’s yacht straight ahead, where he meant to hold her hostage to her father’s permission to marry. Not that she needed his permission, but Tranter needed him to disgorge the dowry set aside for her husband. And given that ruin was the alternative—in fact it was inevitable now, surely—her father would agree in total fury.
But further out was another ship, which might or might not help her, to which she might or might not be able to swim. If Tranter had told her the truth, if Alban had lied to her, she didn’t really care whether she reached the other ship or not. She just knew she would go nowhere with Tranter.
“Why all the lies?” she wondered aloud. “Why the melodramatic story?”
“So I didn’t have to wrestle you into the boat and deal with hysterics where half the town might hear you.”
“I shall have hysterics now if you don’t row me back ashore immediately.” After all, everyone deserved one last chance.
“No, you won’t,” Tranter said dryly. “You’d overset the boat and drown. Be a good girl and sit down. And when we get aboard, I’ll show you how kind I can be.”
Slowly, Bella loosened the strings of her cloak and let it fall to her feet. Tranter’s eyes lit up. “Good girl. You’re really rather pretty, you know, once one actually looks. Take off the spectacles.”
She glanced behind her, fixing the position of the other ship in her mind. It was almost parallel with the yacht now. Then, with regret, she dropped the spectacles on her cloak.
“Do you know,” she murmured, “once one actually looks, you really are quite commonplace.” And with that, she simply jumped out of the boat.
*
Alban stood on the deck of The Albatross, gazing toward Blackhaven with something very like regret.
But he had several things he had to do before he could return there, not least deliver the French brandy which they’d taken possession of from a sister ship during the night. They were taking a chance, delivering it in broad daylight, but Alban had a personal appointment to keep.
“Captain,” said Barnaby, his quietly-spoken lieutenant from further along the rail. He had the glass to his eye and was looking ahead but slightly further inland. “That yacht you wanted us to look out for? I think that’s it.”
Alban strode to join him, snatching his own glass from his pocket as he went. Even with the naked eye, the anchored yacht was quite clear, as was the small boat rowing toward it.
“He’s moved it,” Alban remarked, focusing the glass on the yacht until he could make out its ornately painted name. Neptune. “He must be up to something.” There was someone on deck, a seaman in a woolen hat, gazing toward the rowing boat.
“Who?”
“Tranter,” Alban said. “I made a few inquiries in Whalen. He borrowed a yacht from one of the young landowners there and is now offering to buy it for some vastly inflated sum. Which, of course, he won’t pay.”
“Keeps the owner quiet and the law off his back,” Barnaby said with instant understanding. “And we care, why?”
“Because he expects to muscle in on our business without sharing his,” Alban said.
Barnaby regarded him doubtfully. “Do we care about a couple of small deliveries?”
“No. I don’t like the man.”
“You don’t like anyone,” Barnaby said dryly.
“You wound me,” Alban remarked with blatant untruth.
Even from his very cursory survey, the yacht did not appear to be in the best condition for a long voyage. Alban turned the glass to the approaching small boat. Tranter was rowing himself and a woman.
For the first time, genuine unease prickled up and down Alban’s spine. Without warning, the woman jumped up, rocking the boat quite alarmingly. Something in the way she staggered and righted herself hit him in the stomach, even before he caught a glimpse of the face beneath the bonnet. He knew that bonnet and that old cloak. She’d been wearing them the day he first met her and whenever she wished to be incognito.
“Change course,” he ordered grimly. “Head directly for the yacht.”
The treacherous bastard had moved faster than Alban had imagined, to snatch the girl while Alban was too far away to demand a share of the proceeds. Of course, Tranter’s proposition had only been made because he knew he was rumbled and wished to get Alban’s acquiescence, if not his cooperation. Tranter had never meant to share.
Even as he felt the tug of The Albatross’s change of direction, Bella took off her bonnet and dropped it. Her cloak followed and suddenly Alban couldn’t breathe. Tranter had stopped rowing to gaze at her with a smug mixture of mockery, triumph, and lust. Alban would ram that down his throat along with all the rest.
And then she jumped.
With quiet deliberation, she simply jumped into the water.
Oh, dear God… “Launch the boat!” Alban snarled, striding down the deck, all the while keeping his desperate gaze on Bella’s position. But she didn’t go under. She was swimming, swimming toward The Albatross with strong, swift strokes. After a few moments of stunned astonishment, Tranter began to row after her. By good fortune, he missed his first couple of strokes, no doubt through sheer agitation, which granted Bella an extra few seconds.
Alban’s own longboat was soon lowered into the water with all the efficiency he exacted. The crew heaved the oars to his demanding rhythm, and they ploughed through the waves toward Bella’s bobbing figure.
Alban had more oarsmen and a bigger, better boat, but although he moved faster toward Bella, Tranter was still closer. And as the swine realized who his rival rescuer was, his eyes widened and he frantically redoubled his efforts.
Worse, Bella was tiring. Although her arms still struck out, she was covering less ground. In fact, she was only marking time as Tranter leaned out of the boat and grabbed her by the neck of her gown.
Alban tore off his coat. “Keep your pistol trained on that bastard, and if I don’t kill him, shoot him.”
With that order, which he knew would be obeyed to the letter, he dived into the water, shooting forward with such momentum that it took him very few strokes to reach Tranter’s boat. Tranter was desperately trying to haul Bella’s dripping, struggling figure on board. She was sobbing with the effort, but showed no sign of giving up, even though Tranter was so clearly winning.
Alban didn’t hesitate, merely took hold of the side of the boat in one hand and leapt upward, releasing his flying fist into Tranter’s face. The man’s head snapped back and he fell in the boat, letting go of Bella at last, so suddenly that she would have slipped under the water had Alban not seized her around the waist. He doubted she’d even seen Tranter fall.
She saw Alban, though, a look of astonishment frozen for an instant on her exhausted face. With a sob, she threw her arms around his neck. His throat constricted as he turned with her in one arm to strike out for the longboat.
However, Tranter was not yet ready to give up. Something—an oar?—thudded into Alban’s shoulder with enough force to hurt. And Alban knew it would come again, harder, before he could get out of range. He didn’t mind the pain, but he didn’t want his shoulder paralyzed, however temporarily. He needed it.
Alban solved the problem swiftly, while the oar was already lashing down for its second strike. Simply, and forcefully, he tipped up Tranter’s boat and kept swimming.
“Alban,” Bella whispered in his ear.
In any circumstances, his name on her lips did something to him. In this fraught situation, he wanted to kiss her to oblivion. But there was no time.
“Alban!” Tranter screeched behind them amidst massive splashing. A quick glance showed him clinging on to the upturned boat. “Don’t be like that, Alban! I was driving her to you! We can still work together… Alban!”
Alban ignored him. Eager hands were already reaching out for them from the longboat. Grasping onto the side, Alban heaved the exhausted Bella upward into their hold.
“Keep her warm, take her to the ship and tell Mr. Barnaby to look after her,” he commanded breathlessly. He glowered at Cairney, his coxswain. “With every respect.”
“Aye, Captain. Where are you going?”
Bella, who’d landed in a wet heap inside the boat, loomed up, staring at him over the side. She was soaked and bedraggled, seawater and even seaweed running from her loose hair down her face and neck. And she’d never been more beautiful.
“To collect your share?” she asked clearly.
She might have kicked him in the gut. Certainly, he couldn’t seem to breathe or speak. And then he found his voice. “Yes. To collect my share.”
He swung around and struck out toward Tranter. At least his men wouldn’t let her jump again.
Tranter clearly couldn’t swim. Clinging to the upside-down boat with one hand, he paddled furiously with the other, moving slowly in the direction of the anchored yacht. From the yacht itself, came no move to rescue him. The same laconic seaman stood on its deck, watching events with apparent interest but no desire to intervene.
Alban, who’d swum like a fish even in boyhood, caught up with Tranter easily.
“Look, I heard you were coming, thought we should move things forward as quickly as possible,” Tranter babbled. “You hold her. I’ll speak to the family—”
“Did you touch her?” Alban interrupted.
“God no. I spun her a tragic yarn to get her into the boat. Looking back, I should have kept it up until we were safely aboard the yacht, but there, it’s worked out for the best. You can play the rescuing hero now and get a devoted wife along with half her fortune.”
“Oh, I’ll have all her fortune. And you—since you didn’t hurt her—may have a quick death.”
From desperate instinct, Tranter lashed out when Alban grabbed him. A fist connected painfully with his jaw just before he plunged the bastard under the water and held him.
Tranter’s will to survive was strong. He struggled manfully, but Alban was implacable. The man deserved to die for what he had done and what he’d tried to do to Bella.
Bella. It was she who’d been abducted and frightened. Would she want Tranter to die? She was, after all, forgiving and soft natured. It was one of the things he loved about her.
Jesus, don’t even think love at a moment like this. Then of what should he think? Of the plans he was trying to make? His hopes of rehabilitation and a legal return under his own name? His duty to care for his dead brother’s children… None of which he could do from a jail cell, or while being hunted for murder.
With a groan of fury, Alban yanked Tranter out of the water and shook him, unspeakably relieved to hear his rasping, spewing gasps for air. Alban dragged the inert, wheezing man the rest of the way to the yacht.
“Here,” he barked at the watching seaman. “Sail him and this tub to Whalen. The owner wants it back.”