Chapter One #3
Deandra knew that Draco had worked alongside this sea captain on several missions, although she was not fully convinced they had actually worked together. More likely, they had been hired by opposing interests and gone after the same objective.
“Are you saying that you are working on behalf of King William?”
He arched an eyebrow. “I’m not saying anything at all, since I am not at liberty to speak about my work.”
“And I am supposed to trust you?”
“Nay, lass. Ye can think what ye like. But I need to get in touch with Draco as soon as possible, for I am in need of his assistance. Where is he?”
Deandra was not ready to reveal that information to him.
Why should she trust his intentions? What if he planned to kill her cousin?
All she knew about Captain McTavish was that he had assisted Draco in taking down a serious rebel threat to the Crown five years ago.
True, she had heard occasional mention of him in the following years, usually Draco cursing McTavish for taking unwarranted risks. Their cordial working situation could have changed drastically since then.
“Draco is my friend,” he said, obviously reading her thoughts again as they slowly began to make their way off the beach toward Woodley Lodge. “I would never hurt him, no matter what was asked of me. There isn’t a monarch in existence that could pay me enough to ever betray him.”
“Is that a pirate code of honor?” she asked, tucking her shoulder under his arm and wrapping her arm around his waist to help him up a row of wooden stairs that she wasn’t certain he could manage even with her assistance.
“It is my code of honor. I protect my friends…and their lovely cousins,” he said with a seductive smile.
“Ugh, stop with your false flattery. Another word out of you and I shall toss you back into the water.”
He laughed. “All right, sweet lips. Sorry, Lady Deandra. I’ll be on my best behavior. Ye see, I may need a little help…quite a bit of help…”
She noticed a dark red splotch of liquid spreading across his shirt.
“Oh! You clot!” she cried as he faltered and fell to his knees a few steps shy of the top step.
His stumble also brought her to her knees because she refused to let go of him when he tried to release her.
Splintered wood lightly scraped along her ribs, but she ignored the discomfort because his injuries were far more serious.
“Why did you not tell me you were bleeding?”
He cast her a pained glance. “I did not think it was all that relevant.”
“Not relevant? Unbelievable!” But she mostly chided herself for assuming the dried spot she had noticed on his shirt upon turning him over in the sand was not anything of great concern.
“What happened to you? How did you get injured? Was it a splinter from the jagged mast of your sinking ship? Or did you scrape your ribs on a rock?”
“My ship is in Portsmouth and quite safe, as I’ve told ye.
Perhaps it would be more useful if ye ran for help rather than ask me questions at the moment.
” His words were punctuated with pained grunts as he crawled his way up the last two steps and then sank onto his back on a patch of soft meadow grass, releasing an agonized breath.
The beach stairs led up to a small meadow that one had to cross before reaching the Woodley Lodge gardens and then the manor house. Captain McTavish would never make it on foot that distance.
“Parrot, come here,” she said.
The dog had been chasing butterflies in the meadow and now loped to her side, noticed McTavish’s distress, and immediately curled up beside him.
Deandra realized this meant Parrot trusted McTavish, or else he would have been growling at him from the first moment they had encountered him on the beach.
The color had drained from McTavish’s face and his skin was pale as snow. “Deandra, go. It could be that I was shot.”
“Shot!”
“But ye mustn’t summon a doctor. No outsiders can know I am here. ’Tis only a flesh wound.”
“Flesh wound, my backside,” she muttered, but tore from his side and raced toward her house to summon the head butler and a team of footmen.
“Bring the litter, Wescott!” she cried, bursting into the house. “There is an injured friend of Lord Woodley’s… I found him on the beach. Summon our strongest footmen. He’ll need to be carried back here.”
“A friend of his lordship’s? Who, m’lady?”
“That isn’t important now. Please, Wescott. Hurry.” She next turned to her housekeeper, who had rushed to the entry hall upon hearing the commotion.
“M’lady! You are soaking wet.”
Deandra glanced down at her gown of pale blue muslin that was now dampened by seawater and dripping onto the entry hall floor. “It couldn’t be helped. Mrs. Angel, prepare a guest room and bring my sewing basket in there. I’ll need fresh cloths and boiling water brought up there, too.”
“Right away, m’lady.”
“And laudanum, too.” If the clot insisted on no doctor, then she would have to tend him. This assumed his injury was something she could manage on her own, of course.
She led Wescott and the footmen at a brisk pace through the garden and across the meadow. All the while, two very important questions plagued her mind.
Should she trust this castaway pirate captain?
And if she did, would he kill them in the middle of the night?