Chapter Eighteen
“Fire!” someone shouted as bells suddenly started to ring. Voices and footsteps clamored throughout the house. “Fire!”
Selina blinked, shaking her head to ward off the fog that muddled her senses. What had happened to her? She was sitting at the vanity and then . . . Lord Gariland!
Her eyes fluttered open, and fighting back nausea, she listened to the sounds of someone pacing back and forth in the room.
“He’s here. He’s here!” Lord Gariland shouted.
“Who?” she croaked, her throat scratchy and dry. She tried to get up, to see what was happening, but she couldn’t. “What?” She tried to move again, but realized she was tied down. “What have you done to me?”
She looked up at the ceiling, recognizing her surroundings. She was lying on top of her bed. Her legs were tied together, her arms stretched outward and tied to something else. She couldn’t be sure what.
Selina cried out as the ropes cut into her already-injured wrists as she struggled to jerk free. Warm blood oozed over her skin as her exhaustive efforts reopened the wounds.
“Save your voice. No one can hear you,” Lord Gariland said.
“Why?” she asked.
“I knew I couldn’t count on Falchion,” he said. “I could kill the man for allowing you to escape.”
“Captain Fal—”
“Yes,” he interrupted. “That’s right.” His laughter hinted that he’d come unhinged, and there was a deep gash on his forehead, likely from when she had struck him. Dried blood caked the side of his face, and his skin was an angry red where the hot tea had scaled his flesh.
How long had she been unconscious?
“You arranged everything, didn’t you?” she asked, horrified. “Why?”
Lord Gariland smiled as if she was a simpleton. “It was all part of my plan.”
“What plan?”
He scoffed. “To get rid of Owen, of course.”
“Owen?” Nothing he said made sense. “Why?”
“You really must stop behaving like a parrot.” He came to stand beside her, gazing down at her as if she was the one without scruples. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand, my dear. It is one thing to live a rich life surrounded by beautiful things; it is another to keep them.” He left her to walk over to the window, pushing aside the drapery to glare through the glass, the movement allowing a golden glow to reflect off the pane.
“Unfortunately, I have a terrible habit of losing money, and Owen, while working for Clotworthie, discovered the truth.” He lifted his hand and gave it a twist. “I suspect he was waiting to make his announcement on our wedding day and humiliate me before all and sundry—with Cothworthie and the magistrate present, no less.” He began to pace. “I thought your father would ride with you to the chapel, but when he announced he’d never deign to be in a carriage with you, I did what I had to do.”
She tried to process Lord Gariland’s justification for his actions, but she couldn’t. “With Owen out of the way, you still would not inherit Papa’s corporation.”
“Ah, but if a distraught man can be persuaded to disinherit any male relatives, bestowing all his worldly goods to his daughter and her heirs . . .”
Had Papa told Lord Gariland he had living heirs? Was that the way he’d tricked Lord Gariland and forced him to offer for her hand, providing Papa what he really wanted—a way into the ton? Nothing could be further from the truth. There was no one else. That was why Papa had doted on Owen.
She managed to laugh.
“What is so funny?” he asked, scowling.
“You are, my lord,” she said. “You actually believed Papa.”
He slapped her across the face. She winced as she tasted blood on her lips. “I have that man in the palm of my hand, my dear. Do not doubt it. There was—and still is—only one significant flaw to my plan. I needed to get rid of Owen after the service, not before. My . . .” He paused, somewhat reluctantly. “My associates blundered and commandeered your carriage on the way to the service instead.”
“So my kidnapping wasn’t part of your plan?” she asked.
“Sad to say, no. I needed you to marry me.” He paced to the door and back, lifting the curtain at the window once more. “Those lobcocks ruined everything. I couldn’t inherit the money without the marriage taking place first!”
She struggled against the ropes tied around her wrists, not caring that they were cutting deeper and deeper into her skin.
“I argued for your release, my dear. Falchion refused to give you back to me and to hand over my share of the ransom money, damn him. Then he tried to bash my head in.” He shook his fists. “When I awoke and discovered you were gone, I was desperate to fix my blunder. I did the only thing I could do: I lied about what had happened. Who would suspect a distraught husband-to-be?”
“You’re a monster!” she shouted.
Lord Gariland reacted as if he’d been slapped. He marched toward her and grabbed her face, squeezing her jaw until she thought it would snap. “No one is coming for you. When the reverend arrives, you will be sedated with laudanum. I’ll plead the ordeal of your kidnapping had taken a toll and that your only wish is to prevent being scandalized by your association with pirates. You will nod and agree to anything I say. That,” he spat, “is the only reason you are not already dead.”
Boom!
The door to the bedchamber flew open. Wolf rushed in, his blades out, ready to kill. A feral, unrelenting rage contorted his face, and veins bulged in his forehead as his gaze settled on Lord Gariland’s hands cupped around her jaw. He rushed forward and yanked Lord Gariland away from Selina, throwing him to the floor.
“I heard everything,” Wolf growled. He moved his head to the side and inhaled a deep breath. “I should kill you now and be done with it!”
Lord Gariland raised his hands to ward off the blades coming at him. “Don’t. Please,” he pleaded.
“Why should I spare you?” Wolf cast a glance at Selina, then looked back at Lord Gariland. “You sent men to kill me.”
Selina’s heart skipped a beat as she noticed a wet patch of blood oozing from Wolf’s leather coat. She fought back images of him lying in a gully, his bones drying in the wind. “Are you hurt?”
Wolf rushed to her side. He stroked her face, then her arms before removing the ropes that bound her wrists. “No one can kill me,” he said.
Arms freed, Selina clung to him, never wanting to let go. “Oh, Wolf. I was afraid you were—”
“What is going on here?” Papa yelled, appearing in the doorway. “What are you doing with my daughter?”
Lord Gariland shuffled to his feet. “He broke the door down, Herding. When I objected to what he was doing to Selina, he tried to kill me! Look what he’s done to her.”
“He’s lying. Your son is alive, Herding,” Wolf told Papa, “and I know where to find him.”
“Alive?” Papa asked, his eyes taking on life.
Wolf nodded. “Yes.”
“Owen is alive?” Selina repeated, hope swelling in her breast.
“Aye.” Wolf picked her up in his arms and turned her toward Papa. “And Lord Gariland is responsible for the kidnapping of your children.”
“You?” Papa asked as he cut his gaze to the man. He blinked. “But that’s impossible. The man is a saint. Why would her betrothed—”
“Money,” Wolf interrupted. He looked down at Selina. “Gariland is in debt and was willing to do anything to escape the consequences.”
Selina dabbed the wound on Wolf’s shoulder, feeling as if he was talking to her about himself, not to Papa about Lord Gariland.
“But that’s impossible,” Papa said. “Nay, I do not believe it. Lord Gariland was just as distraught as I when he learned—”
“That the men he’d paid to do the job took all his money? Aye. That would, indeed, affect a man indebted to criminals.” Wolf’s voice deepened with emotion. “Life is not about money or the tools with which you wield it, Herding. Life is about honor, integrity . . . and love.”
Selina grabbed Wolf’s chin, forcing him to look at her. “Wolf?”
He glanced down at her. “Yes?”
“Did you say love?”
Suddenly, Lord Gariland scrambled to flee the room, making a mad dash for the bedchamber door.
Herding caught him. “Where do you think you’re going? You’ve taken something from me that I may never get back. And you can expect that I will drag you through the mud for it. Everyone from Redruth to Exeter will hear of your diabolical plans to kill my son.”
Papa dragged the detestable man away, his insistence on again recognizing Owen above Selina filling her with immense sadness. She’d been a fool to ever try to win her father’s love. But what about Wolf’s?
The overly loud obscenities that Papa was shouting could be heard from all the way down the hall as the fire bells continued to chime outdoors.
“What will become of Lord Gariland?” Selina asked.
“Do not worry. I suspect he will be crying off very soon at detriment to his reputation, not yours.” Wolf smiled down at her. “You were wrong about only one thing . . .”
“What?” She’d been wrong about so many things she’d begun to lose count.
“You play exceptionally well, Selina. Just like my mother did when I was a child.”
Her heart hitched. “You . . . remember?”
“Aye.” His stare softened with emotions she’d never seen in his eyes before. “I remember everything—my childhood, my mother, my brother . . . my father.” He shook his head. “I must warn you, though. What I’ve done cannot be undone.”
She nodded. “Whatever it is, Wolf. We will face it together.”
He lowered her to her feet. “Can you stand?”
“Yes,” she said, as he knelt to the floor and untied the ropes around her feet. “I am quite well.”
Now that you are here.
“If I’m correct,” he said, tossing the ropes to the side and standing, “we have a mutual heading.”
“Cadiz?” Her heart pounded against her rib cage. “Does this mean—”
“Aye. No more running. My brother is the one who kidnapped you, Selina. You cannot know how sorry I am to tell you that truth.”
“Captain Falchion?” She gasped and swallowed thickly. “He is your brother?” But of course. Hadn’t she already suspected it?
“My past is ugly,” he said, with no hint of remorse.
Her insides turned molten as she reached up to touch Wolf’s face. “But you are not.”
“I’ve done terrible things.”
“And yet you are here. You came back for me, Wolf.” She held her breath, trying not to force him to do anything he didn’t want to do. After all he’d been through, losing his memory, growing up alone, saving her life, being subjected to Lord Gariland and her father’s disdain, and then gaining his memory back, she couldn’t burden him with more. “That is enough.”
“No, it isn’t,” he said. “Now let’s go.” He took Selina’s hand. “You don’t belong here anymore.”
“Where do I belong?” she asked. If she left Trethewey, she had no home and no family other than Owen, though God only knew when she’d see him again. Still, she smiled, damning the tears that stung her eyes.
“With me,” he said. “Though you are much prettier than the filthy waif I found taking on a horde of corsairs in a tavern.”
Selina giggled. “That must have been a sight.”
“Aye, you were.” He grabbed her chin and tilted her face up to his. “You are the strangest and luckiest thing that has ever happened to me.”
Oh, how she wished what he said was true. She wanted him to kiss her, to take her in his arms and promise he’d never leave. But that could never be. He was a mercenary pirate, and she suspected that, by some other allegiance, his life was not his own.
Selina and Wolf came from two different worlds as much as she wished it otherwise. He would return to the Sea Wolf, and his mission to London would take him far away, widening the chasm between them.
Selina straightened her shoulders, resigned to bring Owen home. She would carve out her own path, a trail that would never lead back to Trethewey House again. Now that she’d gotten a taste of adventure, she could never be satisfied living in a home without love or appreciation. Her life was on the verge of a new beginning. She would forge a destiny no one would scoff at. And if they did, she wouldn’t care as long as Owen was back where he was meant to be at Trethewey.
“Wolf?” It was time to live by her own rules. “Where is your brother holding mine?” she asked.
Wolf grinned. “If I tell you, you’ll go after him yourself.”
“Someone has to.” It was her turn to grin.
“I’ve been searching for my brother for years.” He brushed her hair out of her face. “Joanna—you know her as Jolie—knows I will chase any lead I find that will uncover my brother’s whereabouts. I’m not about to let this opportunity pass.”
“You’re not?”
“No.” A mischievous glint filled his eyes. “And it just so happens I’m in the market, as it were, for a good cabin boy.”
Her mouth twisted wryly. “Oh? I happen to know one.”
“My last cabin boy turned out to be a claw-cat. I have actually decided that I prefer her to an impressionable yearling.”
She placed her hand on Wolf’s chest, feeling his heart beat beneath her fingers as she locked her eyes with his. “You do?”
“You shine up real nice, but if I was to be truthful—”
“Always.” She placed her finger on his lips. “No lies must ever come between us, Wolf.”
“As I was saying, I prefer the naked Selina sitting in a barrel in my cabin to the prim-and-proper one I’ve watched walk on glass.” He leaned down and pressed his lips to hers. The heat of his kiss was a potent, dizzying current rushing through Selina. He broke away, leaving her breathless, hungry for more of him. “Are you ready to join me, no matter where I go, no matter where I lay my hat?”
She glanced up at the top of his head, realizing he wasn’t wearing his tricorn. “Do you have a hat?”
“Lost it.” He shrugged. “I’ll have to get a new one.”
Wolf picked her up and cradled her to his chest.
“Your shoulder,” she protested.
“It’s nothing now that you are safe.”
Selina wrapped her arms around Wolf’s neck and placed a kiss on his lips. Just the act of being in his arms again created a tidal surge of welcoming heat and excitement inside her. Her heart hammered in her ears. Heat throbbed in places she’d only ever wondered about when in Wolf’s presence. She’d never experienced this kind of rapture with a man. Could it be that she truly loved Wolf?
Her pulse quickened. Being next to him made her feel alive. And without a betrothal or a wedding, that was enough for now. Her heart swelled in her chest, and her lips throbbed for more of his touch.
“Take me with you,” she said, her throaty voice breaking. She had no desire to return to her old life. She needed Wolf. He needed her. Together, they could blaze a trail of discovery that would rock the very foundations of their childhoods, building bridges where none were previously found, replacing old memories with stronger, newer ones.
He captured her lips with his own again, more demanding than ever before, and then buried his face in her neck. “Selina.”
“Wolf,” she said, hating the excruciating, thrilling punishment he gave her every time he drew away or said her name. She quivered, craving his taste and his heat, desiring more than he was willing to give her at the moment. “Let’s find our brothers.”
“Haul up the main sails!”
“Taut that line!”
Sea dogs scurried about the deck. A long line of men hauling rope hand over fist tightened the braces as the Sea Wolf cut through the swells.
A south wind plowed up the Channel. Canvas thundered overhead, a sail luffing in the breeze as yard ropes, buntlines, and clew garnets allowed topmen on the halyard to lug sheets into place.
Crowle monkeyed to a lanyard, tightened the braces, and waved. “Heva!”
Selina, who was stationed at the topmast cap, waved back.
Wolf wrinkled his brow, marveling at the way she had instantly connected with his crew, all of whom admitted to her that they’d known she was a woman all along. Crowle had taken an immediate liking to her and began teaching her about the sails, rigging, tack, and braces. Ike and Hawk fought over who was the better tutor, tempting Wolf to throw the two men overboard. Keegan, the cook, put on airs, producing meals catered to Selina’s tastes. Even Cyrus and Mr. Savage whistled and joked with each other during their watches.
According to his men, Selina was one of them, and Wolf couldn’t agree more. She belonged on the Sea Wolf—and with him—and could stay as long as she wished, displacing the men’s superstitions that having a woman aboard was bad luck.
To prove his point, they hadn’t had a mishap since they’d left Portreath and rounded Land’s End. Was Selina their lucky charm? She had certainly invigorated him.
Open ocean spread before them now. The Bay of Biscay and Cadiz were a sennight away. Soon he and Selina would find the answers to all their questions. Word on the docks was that the Constrictor was last seen headed back to Cadiz. Once they found the Constrictor and Wolf’s brother, they would find Owen.
Wolf had chosen not to go to London. Wellington and the men in his employ were aware of the promises that had been made to Wolf. And Wellington’s spies and the Legion could handle whatever was happening in London. They didn’t need him, not yet, but Owen had no one.
He had promised he’d never lie to Selina. He meant to abide by that promise. He was a man of integrity, albeit highly temperamental when he was pushed to the breaking point. His men knew it. Selina knew it.
He lived by Captain Charve’s code of honor, but his brother, who Wolf had been told was Captain Kearney Falchion did not. What had happened in Kearney’s childhood after they’d parted ways in Bristol that had led his brother into darkness? Had it been that moment when he’d cut off his brother’s finger? He meant to find out. He was responsible for the fact that they’d been forced to run away from home. After Wolf had killed their father, Kearney had protected him. He deserved a chance.
Wolf adjusted his wrist guards and glanced at the woman who stood beside him. Her curly hair was tousled by the light breeze, the strands longer than they’d been when they’d first met. Selina’s skin glowed as if kissed by the sun, and she squinted, looking into the distance.
“What are you looking at?” he asked.
No longer the niminy-piminy woman her father had tried to mold her into at Trethewey, Selina turned to Wolf and regarded him with bafflement. “Our future,” she said as if he was daft. She pointed east. “It’s there. Just beyond reach.”
He glanced at the southern horizon where Spain and Portugal waited—and another stash of figuerados could be bargained for—and then returned his gaze to Selina. He adored every inch of her. She’d come into his life like a storm, earning his compassion and cracking open the emotions he’d buried deep inside. Long ago, he’d decided that emotion weakened a man and put any woman that man loved in danger. It had always been the case with Wolf. But Selina made him want to love again. She’d shown him that strength was not determined by the body but by a man’s resolve to live.
“The future is not out there, Selina,” he said, basking in her beauty as they stood on the topmast cap together.
“It isn’t? I must be blind.” She gazed at him curiously. “Where is it, then?”
He pointed between them. “It starts here, with us.”
Her lips parted, and her eyes stared back at him in wonder. “You are learning, Wolf.” Her laughter was music to his ears. “I shall teach you things yet.”
“Come here,” he said, drawing her closer. Cloaked by the Sea Wolf’s crisp, whipping wings, Wolf wrapped his arm around Selina’s waist and pulled her toward him. Her body melded to his. “There are still quite a few things you don’t know about me.”
She smiled up at him. “Such as?”
“I’m heartless.”
She shook her head and laid her hand on his chest. “I will make sure your heart is always full.”
His heart took a perilous leap, beating foolishly in his chest. “I won’t give up my cigars.”
“And I won’t ask you to,” she said, amusement dancing in her eyes.
“I still don’t have a cabin boy,” he complained.
“That is true.” Selina glanced out to sea and then buried her head in Wolf’s neck. She nipped at his skin, teasing him with a flick of her tongue. “I will be whatever you want me to be, my love.”
His composure snapped, and an ache unlike any Wolf had ever experienced gripped him, his blood rushing to places it shouldn’t when high above the deck. Distractions weren’t wise.
“I will never tire of hearing you call me your love,” he admitted with a smile.
She leaned back, grinning up at him. “I will make sure of it.”
“How?” he asked. “You cannot make me love you more than I do now.”
“No?” Her brows rose a fraction. “Careful or I’ll be forced to prove you wrong.”
“You little claw-cat.” The very thought of Selina’s nails scoring his flesh filled him with desire and an eagerness for privacy. “I have a cabin.”
“And I am quite fond of it.” Selina placed a series of slow kisses on his lips. “My life began there.”
He cupped her face and kissed her brows, her nose, and then gazed into her eyes. “That is a memory I will never forget.”