Never Trust a Pirate (Scandal at the House of Russell 2)

bsp; She didn’t trust Mr. Brown. Didn’t trust his determination to remove her, though it might simply be a favor to Gwendolyn Haviland. The woman viewed Maddy as some major rival, which was absurd. Luca would hardly trade a solicitor’s daughter for a housemaid, and while he might be interested in bedding her, that was most likely a normal male reaction and meant nothing. He would have kissed any marginally pretty woman.

No, his relationship with his fiancée would rise or fall on its own merits, and Maddy had the strong feeling that it was descending rapidly. The captain was too wise to chain himself to a harpy like Gwendolyn Haviland, and Maddy expected the woman would be gone soon after she herself left Devonport, if not sooner.

Of course, that was assuming that the captain wasn’t guilty of conspiring against Eustace Russell. That kind of scandal would send Gwendolyn packing at the first hint—she wasn’t a woman to stand by her man in the face of adversity. Even if Maddy was wrong, and they were married before she found proof, Miss Haviland would be out the door if the captain was accused of murder.

Except if that were the case, she’d be Mrs. Morgan by then. Mrs. Thomas Morgan. Which wasn’t even his name—would the marriage be legal if he used an alias? And wouldn’t the additional scandal be delicious, if Gwendolyn found she’d been living in sin?

Maddy leaned back. She never would have thought she’d be so petty, but the captain’s fiancée had declared her enmity the moment they met. She deserved anything she got. Maddy and her sisters had had disaster rain down on their heads through no fault of their own. At least Gwendolyn might get a taste of it.

Except, of course, she was coming to the reluctant conclusion that Luca was innocent, and perhaps she was wrong and he truly adored Gwendolyn and they would marry, have herds of children, and live happily ever after. Maddy heard an odd noise, and realized it had come from her. She’d made a growling sound.

She shook her head, rising and taking her plate into the scullery to wash it. Far be it from her to add to her fellow servants’ duties. The sun was almost up, she could hear the faint stirrings above stairs, and her stomach knotted.

Not Luca, she reminded herself. He had disappeared again—it was simply the new servants. She wasn’t quite ready to face anyone, though she wasn’t sure why, and she quickly slipped back into her rooms, closing the door just as the first footsteps reached the kitchen.

She leaned her forehead against the panel, listening to the cheerful voices. This wasn’t her life. Neither was cozying up to the captain, chatting with him about his books. She didn’t really belong anywhere. Finding the proof about her father wouldn’t fix everything. Even if she managed to get his name cleared and the money back, the hint of scandal would always attach to their name. The House of Russell was no more, and assuming they all married, even their name itself would disappear. Probably just as well, but it would have broken her father’s heart. He’d almost convinced Tarkington to change his name to Russell, just to keep the name alive. And instead the bastard had deflowered her and run off to South America, leaving her brokenhearted.

Or close enough to brokenhearted that it didn’t matter.

She wasn’t going to think about that. In fact, she hadn’t thought about it in days. And when she did, there was no lingering pain—just a righteous anger that was deliciously liberating. She was over it. She was free.

At least, if she could talk herself out of her ridiculous fascination with the captain. Blast him. And blast her, for being such a cotton-headed romantic, that his gypsy beauty and his dark eyes set off ridiculous longings inside her. She was a practical woman, and she had no proof he wasn’t a villain. She had to remember that.

She would use her time wisely while he was gone. If she were lucky, she’d find what she needed before he returned, and never have to see him again. Never have to risk temptation.

The door to the library was no longer locked—in fact, now that warmer weather was upon them the door was wide open a few hours later when Maddy wandered by with a deliberately casual air. No one was there to see her, so her affected languor was unnecessary. The two new maids had scoured everything Maddy hadn’t gotten to, but in fact Mrs. Crozier had worked Maddy so hard that there wasn’t much left to work on. Apparently even the formerly sacrosanct library had been put in order.

She slipped inside, then hesitated. If she closed the door then there was no risk of anyone seeing her as they passed by on their various duties. If she closed it, though, it might rouse curiosity. The day was sunny, though the sky over the harbor was hazy, and a light wind was stirring the trees. On impulse she closed the door, turning the key in the lock. If anyone tried to get in she would explain she’d been looking for a book to read, and the door had locked by accident. It was a thin enough excuse, but at least for now there was no one on the premises who would suspect her of anything. Just to make sure she had her excuse in hand, she went straight for the first section of bookshelves.

And was promptly lost. He had everything—the latest Charles Dickens serials now bound in volumes, older books by Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters. George Eliot and William Thackeray were there, as well as whole shelves of what looked like novels in French, Italian, and Spanish. Even odder, the books looked as if they’d been read fairly recently—their placement on the shelves slightly uneven. Did the captain really speak and read those languages? She wouldn’t put it past him.

Hadn’t he said something about the long voyages? Perhaps that’s when he learned the other languages as well. She plucked a slim volume of one of her favorite French writers and tucked it under her arm before moving on to the next set of shelves.

Good Lord, the man had books on everything! Geology, history, maps and sea charts, plant characteristics and gardening tomes, astronomy and mathematics, and some sciences that Maddy, who had always preferred novels, had never even heard of. The idea of the fascinating, dangerous captain being a reader of such complicated and arcane subjects made him even more mysterious. And even more compelling.

On impulse she pulled out a book on trade routes in South America—she knew a bit about them already, having been at her father’s side, but she’d only heard his views. An expert opinion on them might be fascinating.

Putting the books down, she turned to the desk. The sheaves of rain-splattered papers had disappeared, but they didn’t matter—she’d read every one of them while she’d endeavored to save them. She half expected the drawers of his desk to be locked, but they slid open easily enough, revealing any number of fascinating things, including a small gun that was clearly loaded. Who did he think was going to accost him in his library, for heaven’s sake? What kind of enemies did he have, and why?

Three hours later she was hot, sweaty, and dusty—the new staff hadn’t been as thorough as downtrodden Mary Greaves had been—and she had absolutely nothing to show for it but the two books. No mysterious communications—the letters she found written by her father were reasonable and even vaguely affectionate, and she remembered that the man calling himself Thomas Morgan had always been her father’s favorite among his captains. He once explained he liked the man’s sheer effrontery, a pirate, someone with gypsy blood, living as a prosperous seafarer. She should have realized that the man he was talking about was no ancient salt but a far younger man.

His affection for the captain had made the possibility of his betrayal all the more heinous. What exactly had the note said?

Don’t trust any of them. Someone’s stealing money, and it looks like Kilmartyn’s in league with them, no matter what excuses he makes. Don’t trust Morgan either. Never trust a pirate. Something’s going on, and I’ll get to the bottom of it, or…

If only they knew what in heaven’s name he meant. Couldn’t he have written something a little more detailed? Like names, dates, reasons? Dealing with a scrap of paper and a half-finished, almost illegible note was almost worse than nothing. If there’d been no clue to their father’s innocence they might have accepted the inevitable.

No, they wouldn’t. They were Russells, in the end, and they wouldn’t allow their father to be calumnized without proof.

Could Luca have done it? Could he have somehow managed to embezzle half the assets of Russell Shipping and then arranged for her father’s murder? The longer she stayed here the less she thought it possible, but maybe she was being blinded by her attraction to him. She needed to pull back, view all this with an impartial eye, or she’d never find the truth.

There was nothing, nothing in the library to give her any kind of hint. Where else would he keep papers? Up in the locked closet? Might he have an office down by the docks—that was a reasonable supposition, and a good place to hide anything. Or even the less-than-forthcoming Fulton might hold some secrets that he hadn’t mentioned.

She sat at the desk, frustrated. On impulse she pulled a piece of paper and wrote a note with her exquisite hand, one that her Swiss instructors had insisted upon before she was deemed ready to make her debut in the world. She couldn’t exactly summon Fulton, but she could ask him a question about Luca and his acquisition of the ships and hope he found a way to see her, or at least answer her. Not that it mattered. In the end the captain had figured out a way to take possession of the Maddy Rose, her ship, without her agreeing to it. Fulton had said it was pro forma, and apparently he was right. And the very thought infuriated her.

What right did he have to the Maddy Rose? He’d taken everything else—the cream of her father’s steamers, possibly his reputation, and his life. Not to mention casting some kind of romantic spell over his stupid, vulnerable daughter and making her a total nitwit.

Not that she’d ever thought of herself as vulnerable. Nor had she thought herself a nitwit, until now. She ripped up the note and pushed away from the desk. She went over to drop it in the fireplace and paused, admiring the neatly swept hearth. She doubted if she’d take a clean surface for gr