Chapter 30
“Will you sleep?” Luke asked Linus Welty, dimming the lantern in the small cabin. His surrogate father was propped in the
bunk, tracing the planks of wood with a bony finger. The old man looked, to Luke’s worried eyes, like a half-starved string
of bones. One swift wind would snap him in two. How he’d managed to stay alive in Surcouf’s dungeon, Luke had no idea.
Luke had hired a wagon to transport Linus to Calais after he recovered him; but the old man was so very slight, Luke had ridden
with him slumped on the same horse. They were in a race to the coast, and they made far better time with no vehicle.
Fernsby, God love him, had flanked him, and the three of them had torn through the forest, keeping clear of the roads, praying
that Dani and her party were making the same progress. After Luke had fled the castle, he’d made his way to his team of hired
men. Poor Linus hadn’t been moved from the trunk in which they’d smuggled him out. Luke dispatched the mercenaries to serve
as decoys. He bade the men move slowly, clumsily, through the forest in the opposite direction, drawing the French patrols
away. When Linus was stable in Luke’s saddle, they’d made their way to Dani at Killian’s rendezvous point.
The relief he’d felt when he’d seen her was like the first breath of air after a near drowning.
It had been life-giving, and dizzying, and unaccustomed tears had filled his eyes.
He’d nearly fallen from his horse and taken Linus down with him.
She’d run to him, spooking the animal, and he’d leaned down to catch her against his knee while the horse danced and spun.
With Surcouf’s castle in an uproar and a manhunt underway, there had been no time for more of a reunion. Luke’s priority—in
fact, everyone’s priority—was to vacate the forest and sprint to the coast.
Traveling in twos and threes had been safer than plowing through the forest in a pack, so Dani had ridden with Killian Crewes
and Sister Marie. Luke traveled with Linus on his horse and Fernsby beside. Only Dani’s brother, Gabriel, had set out alone,
riding over the Orleans lands as he went.
The seven of them had convened outside of Calais by sunrise, and Marie had led them to a convent that could harbor them long
enough to eat and wash. The nuns provided care to Linus’s most pressing damage after the year of neglect.
The final freedom had been this sailing from Calais across the Channel to Dover. A month ago, Luke had bought and stored a
small vessel with the idea to sail it to England himself—but that was before he’d taken on five comrades. There wasn’t room
for everyone. Buying a larger boat was a public enterprise that would cultivate gossip on the docks. Also, it would take time,
and they must leave France at once. There was a daily public packet with room for everyone, but it would mean aliases, boarding
separately, and blending in with the crowd. A sick old man was difficult to disguise; likewise a beautiful young woman. What
Luke and Killian really wanted from the crossing was to disappear with no trace.
In the end, Luke made a chance encounter with the young smuggler who’d sold him Danielle’s crown.
The boy’s boat was modest but, according to the smuggler, very fast. Best of all, he agreed to sail as soon as their party could convene at the wharf.
Luke paid the smuggler in advance, praying he wouldn’t double-cross him, and returned to the convent to rally their party.
True to his word, the boy had waited; by sunset, they sailed for Dover.
The smuggler’s schooner was fast, but there were only two cabins. Luke had settled Linus in one of them. He told Dani, who’d
endured a week of breakneck travel and a castle siege, to rest in the second. The journey to England was six hours, and she
could sleep while the men kept watch. Luke intended to join them on deck as soon as he saw Linus settled.
“A well-built schooner,” Linus was telling Luke now, his voice creaky, “but the fastening will need to be replaced before
the end of the year.”
“With the money I’m paying the young captain for passage, he can see the repairs made tomorrow, I’d wager.”
“We can help him,” suggested Linus. “If he has time to sail to my workshop in Helford, I can see to it myself.”
“Remember L, I don’t intend for us to return to Helford. I’ve been given an estate in Kent. I’ve been married. I hope to make
a go of life”—he sighed—“inland.
I’ve plans for a new workshop for you, L. In Kent.”
“Oh yes,” whispered Linus, his voice a wheeze, “the girl.”
Luke chuckled. It had been a struggle to explain to Linus how he’d acquired a wife while the old man was a prisoner.
Luke had found the words, admitting his incredible guilt and worry about the conditions inside the dungeon, about his plan to marry Surcouf’s French princess, about falling in love instead.
The story had—as Luke suspected—delighted the old man.
Linus had always been sentimental and selfless; he’d always wanted Luke to find a girl.
Now a knock sounded. Luke turned the knob, allowing the door to swing open.
The girl in question stood in the doorway. Luke had been expecting Fernsby, and he shoved up.
“Danielle,” he said. Their relationship was so very new, Luke felt a little startled every time he saw her. His mind went
through the confusing geometry that had made her his wife—his willing, eager, proper wife. He was forced to accept that she
did things like beam at him, and reach for him, and seek him out behind the doors of boat cabins.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Danielle said, “but the nuns sent us away with far too much food. I would try again to tempt Mr. Welty
with their bread and cheese?”
“Will you take some food, L?” Luke asked, speaking loudly.
“But is that her?” Linus asked.
“Do you mean my wife?” Luke teased. “Yes, it is her.” He held out a hand and Danielle went to him. Luke had introduced them—several
times now. Linus seemed to have as much difficulty believing the reality of Danielle as Luke did.
“How will I ever wrap my mind around the fact that you’ve gotten yourself married?” Linus wondered. “I was only gone a—”
“Do not say it,” Luke complained. He pulled Danielle against him.
“Say what?” the old man wheezed.
“That while you were rotting in a French dungeon, I was acquiring wives and stately homes. That’s not how it happened—”
“Well, it is a little bit how it happened,” cut in Danielle.
“I returned to France again and again, trying to recover you, L,” defended Luke. “When Surcouf would speak only of this exiled princess, my strategy shifted to acquiring her to use as leverage.”
“A bit shortsighted, don’t you think?” Linus asked, and Danielle laughed. She looked less tattered and mud-streaked after
their hours at the convent, but he knew she was exhausted. Despite this, she pushed away and knelt beside Linus’s bunk. She
began unpacking a basket of bread.
“Entirely shortsighted,” Luke said. “My plan was to haul her to France, but I didn’t reckon on fancying her for myself. Even
more remarkable, her fancying me.”
Linus laughed, although it quickly devolved into a fit of coughing. Danielle reached out to him, resting a hand on his shoulder.
“The dungeon was worth it, then,” the old man finally said.
“Never say it,” Luke warned, although this was exactly the sort of selfless proclamation Linus Welty had said to Luke all
of his life. It felt revelatory to have this conversation in front of Danielle. Luke’s crew had accepted the easy affection
Linus demonstrated for Luke, but their circle had been small and tight. Beyond the crew, Luke was known as a cunning smuggler
and an aggressive seaman. He was a private man by design, enigmatic. Certainly, conversations like this were private. But
Luke reminded himself he had nothing to hide from Danielle. She knelt beside the bed of his surrogate father and cut slices
of bread. She’d moved seamlessly from abandoned wife, to castle infiltrator, to doting daughter-in-law. It was remarkable
that a woman like Danielle existed on this earth, let alone that she’d somehow consented to marry him.
“You were always too clever to be a smuggler,” Linus was saying, “and too bighearted to be a bachelor. You wanted to horrify your mother’s family with your smuggling, and you’ve done it.
You wanted to escape your mother’s rejection by being alone, and you did that for many years, too, didn’t you?
Now you may live your life free from all of it. Now you may do as you please.”
For this, Luke had no reply.
“Oh, I’ve news of Lady Nancarron,” Danielle said, rising to pour water into a cup. “We’ve begun an informal correspondence,
she and I.”
“You haven’t done,” Luke said. He had no wish for the worst bits of his old life to interfere with the hope of his new one.
“I have, actually,” she said. “A topic for another time, perhaps, but she is not exactly what you’ve thought.”
“I’ve given her no thought,” he said, a reflex.
“So you haven’t,” Danielle said, kneeling again with the water. “Her detachment, Luke—the years of being willfully unavailable—was
not because she did not want you. She protected you by keeping her distance.”
“Protected from whom?” Luke sounded bored, but his heart had begun to pound.
“From her own father. The Earl of Canham. He’s dead now, thankfully, but she was quite the prisoner there, in her childhood
home. For most of her life, she had no freedom. Not for herself, and certainly not for a child.”
“There are worse prisons than Fern Vale,” Luke said, trying to keep his voice light. “It’s one of the finest estates in Cornwall.”
He could feel himself purposefully not understanding—he did not want to understand.
“The house may have been fine, but the sort of tyranny she endured from her father was very brutal, indeed. It was, as she
puts it, no place for a child.”
Luke stared at her. The words slowly circled his heart, knocking on various weak spots.