don’t have to explain my reasons. Tell me where you’re hiding the shipping passes and whatever else the Virginia Trading Company gave you before you set sail.’
‘There aren’t any papers.’ The Captain threw out his wide hands in feigned innocence and glanced at his first mate to reinforce his claim, but the first mate, silenced by his cowardice, stared at the deck.
‘Bollocks there aren’t.’ Richard snatched a pistol from his sash, then grabbed the Captain by the back of his thick neck and jerked him close. The stench of rum and dirty clothes engulfing the man was more pungent than rotting fish and so different from the faint scent of roses that had surrounded Cassandra. ‘Where are they?’
‘I don’t know,’ the Captain sputtered, struggling against Richard’s grasp.
Richard cocked the pistol hammer with his thumb and jammed the muzzle beneath the Captain’s chin, determined to find the documents. ‘Is hiding them worth your life?’
The man’s small eyes widened with the same fear Richard had witnessed in Cassandra’s and guilt tripped up Richard’s spine. At one time he’d been an admired and respected gentleman who only had to ask politely to receive things, not a brigand willing to kill a man over flimsy pieces of parchment. ‘Where are they?’
The Captain raised a shaking hand to point at something behind Richard. ‘There, in the cask by the mizzen mast.’
Richard shoved the man back to his first mate, holstered his pistol and stormed to the cask. He knocked aside the lid and reached inside. His fingers brushed nothing but a rough twist of rope before, near the bottom, he touched the smooth leather of a folio. He pulled it out and flipped through the air-dampened and watermarked contents, his hope fading with each turn of the vellum. He removed a shipping pass and held it up to the sun.
‘Anything?’ Mr Rush examined the pass over Richard’s arm.
‘I can’t tell. Either it’s real or Vincent is hiring more talented forgers.’ Richard laid it on top of the other papers in the folio and snapped it shut.
Curse the bastard. Vincent would pay for all his sins. Richard would make sure of it, but it wouldn’t be because of what they’d found on this ship.
‘Maybe we should search the Captain’s quarters?’ Mr Rush suggested. ‘Might be something more damning in there, something we missed.’
Richard looked at the Captain’s cabin and the crooked door which had been returned haphazardly to its jamb. Cassandra sat inside, preparing for their meal. He could almost see her dark blonde hair arranged in soft rows of curls framing her face, with the long curls at the back just brushing the nape of her neck when she tilted her face up to his, her eyes the same rich green and brown he used to lose himself in during those spring evenings in Williamsburg.
What the hell is she doing here? She should be in London, the grand lady of the manor like she’d always wanted to be in Virginia, not aboard one of Vincent’s ships complicating Richard’s plans and threatening his peace of mind. The accusations of selfishness she’d flung at him before he’d set sail from Yorktown five years ago came back to him like a punch in the gut. She’d gloat if she knew how right she’d been and still was. She might yet get the chance. ‘No. We’ve unsettled the lady and her child enough. I won’t disturb them again.’
Mr Rush hooked his thumbs in the belt of his breeches. ‘You’ll risk letting good evidence go because of the nerves of some titled woman?’
Richard folded the folio in half and used it to motion Mr Rush to join him at the balustrade, out of hearing of the others. ‘The lady in the cabin isn’t simply a titled passenger. She’s Walter Lewis’s niece.’
Mr Rush let out a low whistle. ‘Did she recognise you?’
‘No, and there’s no reason she should. Like everyone in Virginia, she thinks I’m dead.’ He tapped the folio against his palm, thinking of Cas and the odd opportunity that had all but landed in his lap. ‘I may resurrect myself before we leave. Walter’s a mere solicitor. He doesn’t have the connections in Williamsburg to collect information or wield influence, but a woman whose family used to be among the finest in Williamsburg might. Arrange for a meal in my cabin in one hour. I’m going to dine with the lady.’
‘And try to win her to our side, to have her risk the hangman’s noose for helpin’ pirates after you lied to her and attacked her ship?’ Mr Rush crossed his arms in disbelief. ‘I don’t care how skilled you are with the ladies of Port Royal, no man is that good.’
‘I am.’ He tapped the folio against Mr Rush’s chest with an arrogance he didn’t feel. If Richard revealed himself to her, Mr Rush was right, she would despise him for having lied to her, but he’d seen the faint flashes of recognition in Cas’s eyes and the desire that had clouded them when he’d teased her. Her mind might not have allowed her to believe he was still alive, but her heart had recognised him. It had been there in the faint blush that had coloured her cheeks when he’d stood close to her. It was wrong to play on this, but he’d long since stopped caring about right and wrong. All he wanted now was justice. Revenge. ‘See to the meal.’
Richard grabbed a hold of the rigging and swung himself up on to the planks connecting the two ships. He strode across the wood and dropped down on to the deck of the Devil’s Rose. Men stepped aside to allow him to pass as he bounded up the forecastle stairs. ‘Progress, Mr O’Malley.’
‘Another excellent haul, Captain,’ Mr O’Malley congratulated from where he stood at the helm while the rest of the crew continued to load the Winter Gale’s cargo into the hold. There it would stay until the next time they careened the ship at Knott Island when they’d bury it with the rest of their seized wealth.
‘It is.’ Richard clapped the helmsman on the back. ‘We’ve struck another well-deserved blow. There’ll be more to come before we’re through and we won’t stop until the Virginia Trading Company is wrecked.’
Richard’s triumph faded at the sight of Dr Abney watching him. Dr Abney knelt beside one of Richard’s men, treating the gash on his forearm. He looked away the moment he caught Richard’s eye, but there was no mistaking the accusation and disgust in his expression. Justice for his men was what Richard had sought since the beginning, but in Dr Abney’s aged eyes Richard caught a shadow of the darker man beneath the mask, the one who didn’t care about wealth or the future. Only bringing Vincent down.
He wondered if this was what Cassandra would see, too, when she dined with him.
He snatched up a map and rolled it out with a quick flick.
It didn’t matter what Cas saw or thought so long as she agreed to help him.
‘It isn’t wise to dine alone with him, Lady Shepherd,’ Dr Abney cautioned from where he stood guarding the door. She and the Virginian surgeon had become friends during the crossing. He was one of the few people who’d heard the rumours about her in London and chosen not to believe them. Cassandra appreciated his fatherly attitude and the many pieces of advice he’d offered her about returning to Williamsburg since they’d set sail.
‘I have no more choice in whether to join him than you did in assisting his surgeon.’ Cassandra sat on the edge of Dinah’s bed, stroking her daughter’s dark hair and watching the child’s eyelids flutter while she slept. Jane stood on the other side, her small face with the snub nose still white with fright.
‘I understand, but others may not see it the same way and think you went to him willingly. It might bring you more heartache than you left behind in London.’
Cassandra paused in her stroking of Dinah’s hair. She was going to him willingly because he’d asked her to in exchange for the crew and the passengers’ freedom, not because he’d demanded it, but it didn’t change her lack of choice in the