Chapter Eleven
Hours after the Sea Wolf navigated the narrow harbor inlet past the one-hundred-fifty-foot jetty and moored at the quay—sails reefed and sheeted home—Selina and Wolf ventured into town to acquire a pair of horses at the Waterfront Inn. The innkeeper, Sam Bolten, made no effort to hide his delight at Selina’s sudden reappearance.
“Mr. Herding will be pleased ye’re alive,” Sam said, his stare settling on the pistols shoved into Wolf’s trousers before escorting them to the stables. “Folks say they’ve never seen him more distraught. Beside himself, he’s been.”
They waited for Sam’s steward to saddle their horses as he continued to fill her in on the details of what had happened in her absence. “News spread as far north as Newquay and south to St. Ives. Ye and yer brother have been in the weeklies, Miss. The Royal Navy has been alerted, as well.” Sam massaged his neck in a circular motion, looking past her. “Is he with ye?”
Selina paled as Sam’s question stabbed the air. “Who?”
Sam’s face went grim. “Yer brother, Miss,” he said. A tremor coursed through her as the steward led a nice-sized mare out of the building. Selina grabbed the bridle and rubbed the animal’s nose, burrowing her face in the horse’s nuzzling head. “I had hoped—”
“I’m sorry, Miss. I didn’t mean to pry. It isn’t every day a woman is kidnapped before her weddin’. Can ye blame folk for bein’ interested?”
“No.” She glanced at Wolf. “Of course not.”
Wolf stoked a cigar with his mouth, puffing at his leisure. Smoke swirled about his head as he removed the end from his lips. “People should mind their own business.”
She glanced his way, catching the slight downward turn of his mouth as he plugged the figuerado between his lips again. The fact that he was needed in London while he played chaperone to her was never far from her thoughts.
“People will talk,” she told him. “That is the way of things.”
Times were hard, and stories like hers were bound to attract unwanted attention.
“If ye don’t mind me sayin’ so, Miss,” Sam said, “the way ye’re dressed doesn’t help.”
“What’s wrong with the way Miss Herding is dressed?” Wolf asked, stepping menacingly forward.
“Nothin’,” Sam said, backing away, “if ye’re a pirate. She isn’t, is all.”
Oh, Sam! Don’t provoke him.
Oblivious, Sam took the reins from his steward and presented Wolf with the horse he’d use for the duration of their journey.
Selina glanced down at herself, inspecting her attire and trying to determine what Sam saw. She preferred trousers and boots to the inconvenience of female fripperies and skirts. She would never have been able to climb the shrouds dressed as she normally did. Even though she had almost fallen, her mind thrilled and her pulse raced at the danger. The breeches she wore were well suited for travel, too. From the Waterfront Inn, she’d traverse five miles to Redruth and then Trethewey House, a journey more pleasurable astride rather than sidesaddle. Though she doubted Sam had a sidesaddle available for her use anyway. He didn’t normally cater to wealthy females.
“I traded my gown for a disguise, Sam.” She offered the information, knowing it would be passed on to eager ears.
“Ye sold yer own clothes?” Sam asked.
“Aye, she did.” Wolf growled and stomped toward Sam, who quickly shied away, eyes wide. “She did what she had to in order to escape slavers in Cadiz. It’s easier for a boy to survive on the streets.”
Fury and something else—heartache?—tainted Wolf’s explanation.
Sam’s mouth formed an o. “And how did ye end up on the Sea Wolf?”
“She met me . . . in a tavern.” The finality in Wolf’s answer signaled an end to the conversation as he deftly mounted the saddle. “I’ll return the horses to you when I come back for my ship.”
“I’ll be waitin’.” Sam nodded as they wheeled their mounts toward the village.
“Goodbye, Sam.” Selina kicked her heels into the mare’s side, putting the hullabaloo of her kidnapping aside for now. But it wouldn’t stay repressed forever. She’d have to acknowledge what she’d done to survive when she faced her father. Until then, she’d focus on leading Wolf along the five-mile trek to Trethewey House.
Bays of coal, limestone, and ore, and fish cellar sheds, boat yards, and lime kilns lined the harbor to their left where dockworkers hauled cargo aboard seabound ships. A horse-drawn tramroad was being constructed to deliver copper and tin to the harbor from the mines, its looming carriageway following an incline on the horizon ahead. Around them, villagers roamed the streets, casting curious glances at Wolf. How could she blame them? He was an impressive sight sitting tall in the saddle, his broad shoulders like crosstrees on a mast. He’d be a frightening figure to those who did not know the compassionate man he truly was.
Mothers shielded children as they passed to protect them from horses’ hooves as they clip-clopped on the cobblestone streets between thatched cottages and businesses that sold flax, hemp, iron, timber, salt, faggots, slate, and saddles along the main thoroughfare.
Bristling, Selina gripped the reins, trying to ignore the chafed rings around her wrists. The discolored, raw skin peeked out from beneath her sleeves, forcing her to remember the events that had led to her being freed. Wolf’s salve had helped heal the wounds but not completely. The scars that would be left behind would fade eventually, but the ones inside her would be a constant reminder of what she’d suffered. And for that reason, she was loath to re-experience those hardships when she relayed them to Papa.
Sunshine beat down on Selina and Wolf, perspiration beading on her forehead. The silence became almost tangible as the trail led inland. Their ambling horses blew air out their nostrils, nickering as a donkey cart passed them on the narrow lane with a tiny ocher-colored stream running beside it.
Wolf glanced at the water and grumbled something under his breath.
“The mine shafts stain the water,” Selina explained. “Just above the wood, there is an ancient fort,” she added, attempting idle conversation. “We should be able to see the spire of Illogan Church soon. It’s a whitewashed landmark for seafarers, but keep an eye out, mud can be a problem here, as well.”
Wolf puffed on his cigar, the leather of his saddle grinding beneath his weight. His shadow mimicked his motions as the trail veered into a clearing, and the clippety-clop of his horse’s hooves assured her he was still there.
They passed several hedges in the fields before the landscape opened, revealing Carn Brea Castle in all its aged glory. She caught Wolf staring at it. “Carn Brea,” she said. “I’ve been to its ramparts. Quite extraordinary.”
The fourteenth-century folly dedicated to St. Michael was used by the Bassets as a hunting lodge. Below it, smuggling caves tunneled from Carn Brea to Redruth.
Wolf merely nodded.
Selina sighed and looked around. The quiet, heather-clad countryside and the angled planes of gorse-covered grassland and hillsides attempted to repossess the earth that the miners had excavated for minerals from Portreath to Redruth for centuries.
“What is it like to know you are almost home?” Wolf asked, breaking the silence between them.
She turned and examined his handsome profile. Smoke swirled about his face as he blew out a cloud, and the peppery scent of tobacco wafted on the air. He’d pulled his tricorn low over his forehead, but that didn’t stop her from catching the slight furrowing of his brow. What did he really want to say?
She sighed again and reined her horse closer to his. “Redruth doesn’t feel like home without Owen.” It never would, which made it imperative she found a way to persuade Wolf to help her go back to Spain and locate her brother, if he wasn’t already waiting for her at home. Her head told her it wasn’t likely Sam didn’t know that information, but her heart clung to the possibility like a lifeline. “I owe my brother my life. Were it not for him, I wouldn’t be who I am today. I’d be a mindless chit fussing over this and that.”
Leather tack groaned as Wolf shifted his weight. “I barely remember my brother,” he said.
“You have a brother?” she asked, incredulous. She’d gotten the impression Wolf was all alone. It appeared they finally had one thing in common, other than their attraction to each other. “And you cannot remember him, either? How terribly sad.”
“Aye. Vague memories, flashes of a childhood I cannot place.”
A buzzard circled over the canopy of wind-pruned trees. “Go on. What do you remember?”
“My earliest memory includes a boy not much older than my eight-year-old self. He and I ran away together, though from what or who I cannot determine. We were separated somehow, much the same way you and Owen have been.”
A shiver swept down her spine. “Were you captured by corsairs, too?”
He didn’t answer at first but emitted a growl. “Aye.”
“What happened afterward?”
Wolf veered his horse away from a fallen log, forcing her to prod her mount to catch up.
“There is nothing left to tell,” he said, a flicker of pain crossing his features.
He was holding something back.
Patience.
She knew very little about Wolf other than that he was a compassionate man who protected innocents, putting his own life at risk to do so. His name was Wolfgang. He had no memory of his parents or his childhood, and he and his brother had been separated when they were children. There was more that he wouldn’t say, and she wasn’t quite sure how to help him remember the things he did not recall.
She’d portrayed herself as a boy, but she wasn’t. She was one-and-twenty years old and, as bad as her experiences were, she was more equipped to handle them than a youth of a lesser age. She couldn’t imagine being a child forced to endure men like Cuvier or Robillard. Her respect for Wolf soared to greater heights, even as her heart ached for what he’d lost.
“Was there no one to come to your aid?” she asked, fearful of his answer.
“No one.” He was silent several moments as they passed another traveler carrying a pack over his back. Wolf nodded to the man, who returned a nonverbal greeting.
She stood up in her saddle and looked back over her shoulder to make sure the stranger was out of range. “How did you survive?”
“I did what I had to do until I was old enough to strike out on my own.” Cold triumph filled his voice, sinking a chill deep into Selina’s marrow.
She swallowed a thick lump in her throat. Incapable of speech, she nodded, though she wasn’t sure Wolf could see her response. The sickening dread coiling in the pit of her belly kept her from looking his way. Corsairs were cruel to young boys. She’d seen it with her own eyes, heard their screams renting the night. It was by the grace of God that she hadn’t experienced the same.
“I owe you my life, Wolf,” she said, feeling humbled and saddened by the years he’d spent in the hands of evil men. “I want you to know I will never forget it.”
He took off his tricorn, scrubbed his hand through his hair, and studied the sky. Then he placed his hat back on his head, took his cigar out of his mouth, and looked out over the hillside, averting her gaze.
Selina sat back in her saddle, the tack protesting as she did so, and pressed her lips together. “Do you recall anything about your brother?” she asked.
Wolf regarded her indifferently. “Why?”
“I thought, perhaps, if we spoke about him . . . it might help.”
“Help what?”
Oh, the man was acting as if he were a dolt! “Help you remember something important about him.”
He dodged a low-hanging branch and looked at her. His eyes reflected a wide range of intrigue, pain, and unflinching curiosity. “I do this under protest because I cannot see how it will do either of us any good.”
“It cannot hurt to try.” She conceded this might cause Wolf unnecessary stress, but in the end, if she was able to help him pinpoint something crucial about his brother that would help him find the man, any discomfort would be worth the result. “Don’t you agree?”
“Very well.” His hips rose and fell as he posted in his saddle. His big black mount blew air out of its nostrils, the sound erupting into the quiet that surrounded them on the trail. “What do you want to know?”
“What is your earliest memory of your brother?”
Wolf grimaced. “I told you, I don’t remember much of anything.”
“You must remember something or you wouldn’t even know you have a brother. Am I correct?”
He released a steady breath and grabbed his cigar again. “You have a point.”
“What memory calls to you the most?”
Wolf closed his eyes. He puffed on his cigar, the smoke creating a foggy mist around his head. For the first time since they’d left the ship, she wondered where he’d gotten the cigar. Hadn’t he complained that he’d been forced to hand his stash over to Robillard? Or had he lied about the amount of cargo he’d brought back from Portugal?
“He had brown hair like me,” he said, startling her from her musings. “I can only recall snippets, rare glimpses that don’t make sense.”
“Can you remember anything about your brother that would distinguish him from anyone else?”
“He was taller and leaner than I was, always quick to act, determined to improve our circumstances, and—”
“Yes?” she asked, encouraging him to continue.
“He’s missing a finger.”
“Which finger?” Her mind fluttered with anxiety. She urged her horse closer to his. Captain Falchion was missing a finger, but surely that was coincidence, nothing more. “Imagine yourself as a child again, Wolf. See if that will help.”
He was quiet as they passed a clump of holly, hazel, and hawthorn bushes, and then traversed a stone bridge, the horses’ hooves loud against the road as they trotted to the other side. There, a landscape of hedges bordered a steep incline that gradually took the eye up to a series of rolling hills.
“Bollocks,” Wolf spat. He stopped on the other side of the bridge and dismounted, leading his horse to the rushing water of the stream they’d just crossed. Stones littered the watery bed and several moorhens flicked their wings and scurried away.
“Did you remember something?” she asked, dismounting quickly and coming to stand beside him.
“Aye.” He nodded gloomily as he stared at the rolling stream. He turned to her. “I did it.”
“Did what?”
Wolf stiffened. “I cut off his finger.”
His admission sank over her, weighting her down with an unease. Could this be the reason he and his brother had parted ways?
He was silent as he watered his horse. She followed suit and led her horse to the stream. Selina stood beside the beast, soaking up the rays of sunlight that penetrated the shadowy haven, rubbing her arms to ward off a chill.
“What happened between the two of you?” she asked softly as the horses lapped at the water coursing over the rocks.
Wolf rolled his shoulders, stretched his neck, and took his cigar out of his mouth. He glanced down at her. “We had a disagreement about how far we were willing to go to steal for Captain Kent, an English captain who’d taken us in.”
“What happened?” She reached out and touched his shoulder. “I will not judge you, Wolf. The past stays where it is—the past.”
“You wouldn’t understand,” he said, flicking his cigar into the stream.
“I understand that whatever this is—a memory, an event—it’s preventing you from connecting to your past. And until you can make peace with it, you will never be free.”
Wolf raised his hand and traced the shape of her cheek. “Freedom.”
“Yes, Wolf. We must accept our mistakes so we don’t make them again.”
He nodded, frowned, and closed his eyes. For a moment, she thought he’d given up, but then he spoke. “My brother refused to leave Captain Kent’s employ.”
“And?”
He squeezed his eyes shut tighter. “He said he was ashamed of me. Told me I was weak.”
“Go on,” she said, laying her hand on his arm.
“There was only one dagger between us. When he tried to forcibly take it from me, we fought.” His breath became ragged as if reliving the memories in his mind. “We struggled, and I . . . I cut off his finger.” His eyes flew open, and he broke away. He threw down his hat and shoved his hand through his hair.
Selina’s breath suddenly caught. Wolf’s brother had brown hair and he was missing a finger? Her first captor’s face flashed in her mind, and the world around her spun out of focus. Surely the two men couldn’t be one and the same . . .
“Which finger?” she asked, hardly able to get out the words.
“The little finger on his right hand.”
Stunned, Selina could only stare back at him. Her mouth went dry. She swallowed, desperate to smother the shriek threatening to burst from her throat. It couldn’t be! It was impossible, wasn’t it? Plenty of men had lost fingers and limbs during times of war, by accident, or due to sickness.
“What’s wrong, Selina?” he asked, lifting her chin to force her to look into his eyes. “Do I repel you? Am I the monster I believe myself to be?”
“No.” She shook her head, averting his gaze. She had no proof to confirm what she suspected. Nothing except Wolf mentioning his brother’s brown hair, the man’s childhood height and the similarity to Wolf’s build, plus the missing finger. It would be silly to contemplate that the man who’d kidnapped her, Captain Falchion, could be Wolf’s brother, wouldn’t it?
She inhaled a steady breath, trying to keep Wolf from reading her thoughts. “You’ve carried a heavy burden for too long,” she said, looking into his eyes. “It’s time to forgive yourself.”
“I cannot.” His brows furrowed, and he frowned as he shook his head. “I cannot.” He growled low in his throat. “After I saw what I’d done to my brother, I ran and never looked back.”
“You left him?” She didn’t mean for her voice to sound so shrewish.
He lowered his head. “I feel like there is more, but I cannot remember everything. Captain Charve found me brawling with a bunch of foxed men who’d decided to use me for their sport. He stopped the fight, dispersed the men, looked me over, and took me in—”
“Just as you’ve done for me,” she said without hesitation.
“Aye.” For a brief moment, serenity flickered in his dark eyes. “I could have ended up anywhere, most likely dead in a gutter. Charve treated me like his own son. I followed him to sea. Aboard his ship, L’échole, he taught me a hard-earned lesson of the bonds of brotherhood and honor, everything there was to know about being a man . . . until he was cut down in his prime.”
He leaned down, picked up his hat, then led his horse back to the road.
Selina grabbed her horse’s reins and hurried after him. “Captain Charve is dead?”
He slammed his tricorn on top of his head. “I’m only alive now because someone found a purpose for me elsewhere.”
“Who? And for what purpose?” she asked, cursing herself for plying him with questions. He was so fascinating, she couldn’t help wanting to know everything there was to learn about him. And she suspected the who and what of his life was connected to the past he couldn’t remember and the barmaid Jolie, who’d impressed Selina with her hand-to-hand fighting techniques. Who was Jolie, and how did she know Wolf? Jealousy flared in her chest at how well the two had worked together in the Wasp. Why, it was as if they’d trained for that particular moment. If that was the case, what had drawn Wolf and Jolie to the tavern in the first place?
Wolf led his horse back up the trail. Pulled by an elusive thread, she followed, ambling up the steep bank until she stood on the hillside beside him.
He stooped down in front of her and formed a rung for her boot with his hands. A gentleman and a pirate! She stepped on his interlocked fingers, grabbed the saddle for balance, and swung her right leg over the mare until she sat astride. The leather tack scrunched beneath her as she readjusted her position and leisurely admired Wolf as he mounted his horse.
No matter what else could be said of him, Wolf was vigorous and virile. Transfixed by the natural grace with which he moved, Selina fought back the jolt of pleasure that gripped her insides.
Lord Gariland had never intrigued her like this, that was for certain. In fact, she found more to dislike about the man than value whenever he was in the same room, though he’d given her no reason to do so. But not so with Wolf. Whenever he was near, her sanity fled, and she was simply a woman reacting to a man. Passion was a treacherous thing when unleashed and even harder to escape. She’d never reacted to a man the way she did with him.
“It’ll be dark soon. We’d better be off,” he said, walking his mount into a trot.
“Aye.” It wouldn’t do to be forced to seek shelter before they reached Trethewey House. Being alone on the moors with Wolf wasn’t wise, though she suspected she’d enjoy it immensely.
Why couldn’t life be as simple as it once had been? She darted a glance at Wolf. Did she really want to return to the woman she used to be? She’d not been given a choice who to marry, and Wolf hadn’t been a part of her life then. There was no denying that truth. Papa, however, was an unchanging sea powered by ambition. She’d been on the receiving end of his ire, and she feared how Papa would wield it when they reached Trethewey.
From this point on, there would be no turning back.