Moonspun Magic (Magic Trilogy 3)

Morgan fell silent for a moment and reached for his ever-present glass of lemonade. “To the Black Angel,” he said, giving Rafael a smile meant to soothe and conciliate. “You did excellently. Lord Walton, my contact in the War Ministry in London, agrees with me, naturally. Go home, Rafael. You have avenged your parents’ death. You are still alive. Return to Cornwall.”

Rafael paced the long, narrow room. It was filled with Morgan’s books. They overflowed from the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. They were stacked on the floor, on the chairs, even on top of an overturned wastebasket.

Morgan eyed the young man thoughtfully. He was a fine man, a fine captain, and his courage in the face of overwhelming odds bordered on the reckless. Morgan liked him. He sometimes wondered how this was so when Rafael Carstairs was so bloody handsome, but he’d discovered that most men liked Rafael, despite the fact that their women stared at him with longing bordering on lust. Morgan grinned. Thank goodness his daughter was in Kingston, visiting her aunt. If she were here, Lucinda would oggle Rafael until he turned red.

“You have saved many lives during the past five years. You have aided England immensely.”

Morgan was in his gentle, cajoling mood, Rafael thought, his eyes narrowing. Damnation, he didn’t want to quit now. But he’d known, oh yes, deep down he’d known after LaPorte’s attack that it was over. Then Whittaker. That piece of treachery still enraged him.

“LaPorte is disgraced. Three of their ships against your one. I should have liked to see it.” His voice sounded a bit wistful and Rafael was forced to smile, remembering that night.

“LaPorte couldn’t navigate in that storm,” Rafael said. “I sent a cannon broadside, he fell back, and I slipped the Seawitch between the other ships and was away before they could regroup.”

Morgan finished off his lemonade and reached for a letter opener. He twirled it with some skill between his fingers. “I also heard about your two passengers. Lucien Savarol’s daughter and an English earl. What is his name?”

“Lyonel Ashton, Earl of Saint Leven. Incidentally, Lucien Savarol’s daughter, Diana, is now the Countess of Saint Leven. Lord, if I’m forced home, I shall probably see them in London.” He grinned suddenly. “I married them, you know. My first experience in that sort of thing. I was more nervous than they were.”

Morgan laughed, showing the wide space between his front teeth. “Is it true you had them jump overboard? They spent a week alone on Calypso Island?”

How, Rafael wondered silently, did Morgan know all this? It was obvious he was just affirming his information. “True. I believe they enjoyed themselves immensely. I wasn’t worried for them. Diana Savarol was raised here, after all. That young lady is a born survivor.” He smiled, a gentle smile, remembering the day he had returned to rescue them. He’d seen them through his spyglass on the beach, Lyon naked, holding Diana in his arms, her arms and legs wrapped around him. His timing had not been of the best.

“My days of adventuring are over,” he said now, aloud. He sighed, turning to face Morgan. “I do miss Cornwall.”

“Go home, Rafael. Go home and pick up your life. Perhaps your brother has changed over the past five years.”

Once, when Rafael had been deep in his cups, he’d told Morgan of his brother, his identical twin brother born thirty minutes before him, Damien Carstairs, fifth Baron Drago. He wished now that he’d kept his drunken mouth shut.

“Probably not,” he said.

“He is now married, is he not?”

How did Morgan know that? The information the man gleaned was frightening in its scope. “Yes. A baronet’s daughter from Dorset. Elaine Montgomery. She brought him a huge dowry.”

“I will tell you something, Rafael. Miss Montgomery’s father, Sir Langdon, isn’t a fool. I know about him—quite a lot, as a matter of fact.”

“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.”

“Yes, well, the fact is that he didn’t just hand over the dowry to your brother. The settlement was made in yearly payments. He protected his daughter.”

Rafael could only stare at him. “You are bloody frightening.”

Morgan merely laughed. “I knew your father. Did I tell you that? No? Well, now, your father was a strong man, fierce, loyal, something of a feudal lord in the modern world. You are much like him.”

“Thank you, sir. Oh, yes, I will sail to Spain before returning to England. I wish to visit my grandparents. Surely there is some information of value I can take to our people there.”

Morgan shook his head. “I don’t want you anywhere near Spain. Postpone your trip to your grandparents. Another year or so and Napoleon will be dead or incarcerated. His ill-fated Russian campaign did him in. He lost most of his experienced officers and veteran soldiers. Now he has nothing but raw recruits, boys most of them. It will all be over soon, Rafael.”

Rafael hated to admit that Morgan was right. He felt as if he’d been abruptly cut adrift. He walked to one of the narrow windows and stared out toward Montego Bay at the ship-dotted harbor beyond the squalid town.

“The damnable bastards,” he said under his breath, staring unseeing out of the window. He would never forget the day he’d learned his parents’ ship had been attacked and sunk by the French.

“I myself will be returning within the next six months to London,” said Morgan. He rose and automatically straightened his cravat, which didn’t need straightening. Didn’t the man ever rumple or sweat?

Morgan extended his hand. “Perhaps the both of us will cut a fine figure in London. What do you say, Rafael?”

“I don’t plan to go to London. The city never interested me. Too big, too noisy, and too many utterly useless people doing utterly useless things.”

Morgan grinned. “Well, I wish you wo