Chapter 5
“I wonder if we might begin again, Miss Allard?” Luke asked. He forced his voice to take on a mild sort of wondering.
“I beg your pardon?”
“It occurs to me that this arrangement might feel less fraught if we approached it in the spirit of negotiation.”
“Negotiation?”
“The betrothal. Would you consider a compromise?”
If Luke knew nothing at all, he knew that everyone had a price. It was a cardinal rule of smuggling: there was a price to
sell, and a price to buy, and a price to look the other way. Luke had become a smuggler because he hadn’t the money to set
himself up as a proper merchant. In the end, he’d been better at the deal-cutting bits than moving contraband in and out of
caves. The more Luke knew about a person’s price, the more effectively he could get what he wanted without mucking about in
the dark. What he knew of Danielle Allard could fit inside a snuffbox, but he knew she wasn’t pining to return to the royal
life in France, and that she wanted a vacant house in this Kentish backwater. A house that he owned. Against all odds. Remarkably.
If he’d researched for a year, he couldn’t have arranged a more perfect incentive.
Using the house as a ploy changed what he would do with her after he’d recovered Linus Welty, but he could manage that.
He could easily give her the house; he’d never wanted it anyway.
Another cardinal rule of smuggling: adaptability.
And now Luke would adapt to a new plan. He would rescue his old friend, leave Vincent Surcouf with nothing, and deposit Danielle Allard in the little village where he’d found her with Eastwell Park as her payment.
It wasn’t so much a new plan as a more defined, specifically tailored plan. Which better served all of them.
Meanwhile, Luke would nurse Linus back to health, and set him up with a proper pension somewhere sunny with a view. Luke himself
would build a new boat, or buy an old one, or crawl into one of his smuggling caves and wait for the tide to carry him away.
His own future after recovering Linus was less specifically tailored, but what difference did it make? Luke refused to think
that far in advance. He didn’t care. He only cared about saving his friend.
“I don’t understand what you’re asking,” she was saying.
He looked at her pretty face and then away. “It’s less of a request, more of an offer to collaborate. Let us cut a deal, shall
we? You’re shocked that I’ve come, and you’re resistant to an unplanned marriage.”
“To say the least.”
“Anyone would be. You’re also intelligent and purposeful. I’ve no desire to curtail this. I’m trying to ease the way for us
both by meting out terms that are mutually beneficial. Would you consider such a negotiation? With me?”
“I cannot say,” she admitted.
Luke waited.
“Possibly,” she added.
Luke waited again.
“Look,” she finally said, “the thing I want most at the moment is clarity. Any negotiation must begin with this. Tell me who arranged this betrothal. Tell me how binding it is. And, for the love of God, say—why me? If these things are known, perhaps we can negotiate from there.”
Luke nodded, pretending to agree. He could tell her some things. All of it? This was not strategic. He needed to consider
her parents’ request. He needed to think about the greatest benefit to himself. But for now he could give a little away.
“The betrothal has been arranged by His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales,” he said. “Prince George, future king, current
Regent.”
“No,” she countered, shaking her head. “Impossible. The letter came from St. James’s Palace, but not from the prince himself.
Surely.”
They’d reached the first building in the winding line of homes and shops on Queen Street. Dark timber beams slanted diagonally
through white plaster walls. Gables peaked at points. Ivy vines furred the sides of buildings. He’d not lied when he said
Kent looked like a storybook. Every window had a flowerbox, and every box overflowed with colorful geraniums.
She added, “I am entirely unknown to the Prince Regent.”
“Well I’m not, because I fished his cousin out of the Atlantic Ocean and treaded water for three days, keeping us both alive.”
“Oh yes. The heroism.”
“Well, some might simply call it swimming. Had you read of the rescue, Miss Allard, before we— Well, before?”
“Apparently I was shown your portrait in the broadsheets, but any memory of this evades me.”
“If there is a more forgettable portrait, I’ve not seen it.”
So much for notoriety, he thought. Of course her life priorities would preclude hero worship.
If he admired this about her, he refused to admit it.
All that mattered was that she did not know she was a princess and that she did not care he was a hero.
Another rule of smuggling: play the hand that you’re dealt.
“Returning to the topic of the betrothal,” she pressed. “So you saved this royal cousin, and Prince George was so very grateful,
he bade you marry an unknown woman from Kent? That makes no sense.”
“Actually, he was so very grateful,” and here he spoke in a flat, bored voice, closing in on the juicy carrot, “he granted
me a reward. And that reward was property and a manor house.”
“You’ve been given a house by the prince?”
“Yes,” Luke confirmed. “Trust me when I say that no one was more surprised than me.”
He could see the wheels turning inside her head. For half a block, he said nothing, allowing her to think. Both sides of the
street were lined with snug dwellings built in the Tudor style, each connected to the next, a ribbon of fairy-tale houses.
Old women watched their progress from upstairs windows. A quartet of little boys chased a dog with a fish between his teeth.
“But what house were you given?” she finally asked. Her voice was a little breathless.
“Funny thing,” he said, going in for the kill. “I believe it to be the very estate you’ve just described. Eastwell Park? That’s
the property you named, correct?”
“Eastwell Park?” Danielle Allard repeated. She stopped walking. Behind them, an old man on a plow horse was forced to rein wide and clomp
around them.
“Good day, Miss Allard,” the man called.
She waved but said nothing.
Someone from a shop doorway called her name and she ignored her. She reached out with both hands and gripped his sleeve.
“Eastwell Park?” she repeated. “The Prince Regent has placed a new owner in Eastwell Park? And it’s you?”
“He has done,” Luke said, looking at her small, gloved hands on his coat. The imprint of her hand seemed to sink to his bone.
When she touched him, they were strangers no more. Whether this was useful or an obstacle, he could not say; but he had the
errant thought that some line had been crossed.
“But this is the very property I described,” she enthused. “This is the vacant house with the dead baron and no heirs. The landlord of
Eastwell Park will control the future of Ivy Hill. Forgive me, Captain Bannock, I’ll need a moment to comprehend the fact
that the house has been—”
She tried to laugh, but it came out a hitched intake of breath. “That the house will be occupied. It’s actually gone to you.
You’re certain? This was the reward from the prince?”
“Yes,” he said. “I am certain.” It was the truth, after all—it felt like a lie, but he had been given the house by Prince George. He met her eyes, and she beamed up with a bright expression of joy and hope that lit
her pretty face. Luke squinted against the glow.
“Captain,” she whispered, and the sound of her voice and the look on her face should have made him feel like a savior, but it did not.
It made him feel like sludge on the bottom of the Thames. She was light and youth and idealism. He wanted only to bring Vincent
Surcouf to the bottom with him, a goal that required no light.
“Captain,” she repeated. She squeezed his arm and leaned, smiling up.
“What are the odds?” he said lightly.
“But this is remarkable news. We have petitioned for this. We were told the property was too expensive to find a buyer, but
if Prince George simply gave it to you . . .”
“Prince George is very fond of his cousin, I believe.”
“I have a hundred questions about your plans for the estate, but first I must know—why did the Prince Regent combine the reward
with me? With marriage to me?” she asked.
Two young women bustled around them, unable to hide their stares or giggles.
“Hello, Dani,” sang one of the girls.
“Not now, Margaret,” Dani said, but she released her hands from his sleeve and stepped back.
Luke nodded up the street, a silent request to keep moving. Danielle Allard turned and continued walking, but her eyes did
not leave his face. Luke looked down, ever so carefully crafting what he would say next. He could tell her about her royal
blood, the Dinwiddies be damned—but to reveal this as they walked down the street? With her neighbors passing by? With the
incredible leverage of Eastwell Park hanging in the air? This felt un-strategic. Why make enemies of her surrogate parents
and pile on life-changing news about her heritage?
No. This moment called for one thing: the potential of being mistress of Eastwell Park taking root in her heart.
“In the end,” Luke told her, “I believe the prince thought the estate should have a new landlord and a wife to help him properly manage it. Eastwell Park wants a duo who’ll see the place reborn. Hearing you describe it, I
cannot disagree. The house will want a mistress, and I will need a hostess.”