Not their hard-headed, hard-eyed, hard-bodied captain.
With a groan, Sarani gritted her teeth, swallowing the foul oaths about the man fulminating on her tongue. If a little work was the price to pay for safe passage, she would do it. And she would do it without complaining. She wouldn’t voice her murderous thoughts, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy the idea of punishing the captain with slow and gratifying delight.
In fact, as she started to shovel the fresh clumps of manure into a heap, she took great satisfaction in imagining his stupidly handsome face beneath it.
* * *
Rhystan consulted the cartographic charts on his desk and downed the rest of the whisky in his tumbler. His eyes burned from lack of sleep, but he was studying the maps to see if there was an alternate route, at least to see if the ship behind them would follow. But he needed fuel, and turning back toward Cape Town wasn’t an option. He had sailed enough oceans to know that the other ship’s identical course wasn’t by chance.
And his gut had never failed him.
It wasn’t a ship from the Royal Navy. That, he’d already ascertained. It was a private passenger ship, one that looked like an East India Company steamship, but it was too far away to tell. It wasn’t a trading vessel or he would have taken no small delight in blowing it to pieces. It was also too far away to determine if it meant them harm. In other circumstances, he would slow his pace and allow the ship to catch up. While most of the guns on the Belonging had been removed for the sake of weight and speed after her redesign, there were still a few, and they were kept in good working order.
He wasn’t afraid to use them.
But with Sarani onboard, he couldn’t risk endangering her life.
Slumping back in his chair, he poured another glass of whisky, letting the spicy burn of the liquor numb his brain. With continued luck, they would reach port in less than a week. The winds on the journey had been advantageous, and apart from the ship on their heels and the initial threat of the cyclone and a few smaller squalls in between, the voyage had been uneventful. Well, with the exception of one willful passenger.
Rhystan glanced around the spotless cabin. Everything was in meticulous order—the bed made, bookcase neatly stacked, his clothing laundered, folded, and put away. Even the furniture shone, polished to within an inch of its life. Something was on her mind. Normally, he would find telltale signs of rebellion, like watered-down whisky bottles, salt in his morning coffee, or barnacles in his bedsheets. That last one he was certain had been Red’s idea, considering the boatswain was responsible for scraping them off the hull.
But the last couple of days, Sarani had been on task and quiet. Too preoccupied for pranks.
Stop thinking about her.
Willing himself to focus, Rhystan studied the charts again and gave up after a few minutes. Despite his mental exhaustion, he was restless, agitated. Mostly because of what awaited him in England and the fact that he had been urgently summoned by his mother, the Dowager Duchess of Embry, purportedly because of ailing health.
He had no doubt that it was yet another ploy to get him back to English shores. Marry some insipid, docile debutante. Beget an heir and a spare. Take control of the dukedom. Settle down. Become his blasted father.
Bile climbed into his throat. That was his worst nightmare. His eyes chased longingly over the map around the coast of Africa into the Atlantic Ocean. How easy would it be to replenish supplies and coal in St. Helena and change course? Head to France or Spain or even New York?
You want another family death on your conscience? Your mother’s this time?
His inner demons were right, curse the lot of them.
He had no way to know if his mother was pretending or was actually on her deathbed, but he hadn’t been there when his father and brothers had died. Despite his fractious relationship with his father, guilt over that had eaten away at him, mostly because of his brothers.
Though Roland had been a miniature replica of the duke, Rhystan had idolized Richard when they’d been children. He’d taken their deaths hard. All of them, even the duke’s. At the funeral, the desolation on his mother’s face had been a potent reminder of his failures.
Of the fact that he could never measure up.
On top of that, he hadn’t seen his nieces or his own sister in two years. He had spared them a thought or two, but no more than that. Last he heard, Roland’s widow had recently remarried and moved to Northumberland.
Clearly, Rhystan wasn’t and would never be of ducal caliber. And his father had known that, drummed it into him. Fate had buggered them both, it seemed. Because once he returned to London, his mother, in her dubiously ill state, would probably waste no time putting pressure on him to marry and secure the future of the dukedom. His legacy.
Rhystan had almost written to her and said, “Pick one.” He knew it wouldn’t matter to his mother who the future Duchess of Embry was as long as she was of the right bloodline and could carry the next ducal heir to term. His mother would have a list of eligible young ladies waiting for him, and then he’d be expected to do his ducal duty.
Hell.
Duty was an exacting master.
Rhystan loosed a breath, for the first time understanding what had possessed Sarani to marry another for the sake of court and country. It wasn’t enough to forgive her completely, but he wished she could have trusted him. Given him a chance to offer his own suit, to use his eminent family name for their sakes. But she hadn’t…because she hadn’t known. Because he hadn’t been honest with her from the start about who he was. Back then, he’d wanted nothing to do with the Duke of Embry.
Cursing, he slung back another two fingers of whisky, aware of the pleasant fog expanding in his brain. A vision of hair so black it absorbed light and a pair of laughing autumn-colored eyes danced in his mind’s eye.
Her Highness, the Princess of Joor. Now, Lady Sara Lockhart.
His Grace, the Duke of Embry. Now, Captain Rhystan Huntley.
He wasn’t unaware of the similarities between them. Both hiding behind other names and fleeing from their pasts, and now running into each other here on the high seas. He would laugh if it wasn’t so absurdly tragic. A pointless Shakespearean tragedy, in which the real bedevilment was how bitterly ironic it was that the only woman he’d ever wanted to marry had been her.
And then she had let him go without a qualm.
She had never loved him. Not truly.
He rose, stumbling slightly, and made his way next door, only to halt at the hushed sound of arguing. The two women presumably, considering both voices were female. Rhystan didn’t care that he was shamelessly eavesdropping.
“There’s nothing you can do, Princess,” Asha was saying. “If you are right, then we will have to face it when the time comes. Worrying about it now does nothing.”