Becket's Last Stand
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“Because you love me,” he said, pulling the hood up over her hair, tucking her curls away from her face. “Cassandra, you have no idea what that word even means. You’re too young.”
It was an old argument, and she had no new answers.
“My mama knew she loved Papa when she was no older than I am now. A year from now, she was a mother. I’m not a child anymore, Court, except to you.”
“You’re a child as long as you act like a child, Cassandra,” he told her, putting his hands on his thighs, as if preparing to stand, walk away from her.
But not this time. This time she wouldn’t let him dismiss her so easily. As Morgan had told her just the other night, it was time she took the initiative.
“Is this the action of a child?” she asked, grabbing on to the edges of his cloak and pulling herself toward him.
Before he could react, push her away, she aimed her mouth at his, sealing herself against him with more enthusiasm than finesse, for it was her first kiss.
She felt a shock, a shiver, run through them both. Hers delicious. His, probably more one of surprise, hopefully not disgust.
She let go of his cloak and flung her arms around his neck, holding him close, grinding her lips against his, goading him into reacting, daring him to remain his stoic, quiet, immovable self.
For a moment, she felt his mouth soften.
For a moment, she felt his arms raising up, as if longing to clasp her close, hold her against him.
For a moment.
And then he pushed her away and stood up, looking down at her in that stern, solemn way he had, that fruitless display of being So Grown-Up when she was Such A Child.
“Cassandra…” he began, and then sighed. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“But I did do it,” she told him, getting to her feet. “And you liked it, I know you did.”
“No, sweetheart, I didn’t. I know we’re not brother and sister, we’re not bound by blood. But that still doesn’t make it right. You’re Ainsley’s daughter, a man I owe my respect, my admiration, and definitely my life. It would not be fair to him, or to you, to deny you the world that’s out there because of some wrongheaded idea you’ve got that you and I are destined to be together. And I’m too old for you, in any case. Years too old.”
“Papa was nearly as old as you are now when he married my mother. We have a life to live, Court, and you’re wasting it, being so stubborn.”
He smiled, seemed to relax somewhat in his skin. “Is that supposed to be in the way of a proposal, Cassandra? If so, I think the wrong person is speaking here. And this person is not speaking of proposals.”
“Only because that person is thick as a plank!” Cassandra said, losing her temper. “Just you wait, Courtland Becket. One day you will go down on both knees, begging for me to love you, and I will snap my fingers—like this!—and laugh in your aged face.”
She turned on her heel and lifted her skirts as she ran up the steps, chased by his voice. “And don’t put up your hair again!”
Tears were stinging at Cassandra’s eyes by the time she threw open the French doors to the drawing room and burst inside, intent on crossing the room and heading up to her bedchamber, to have herself a good cry, probably, or to curse Courtland in private.
“Callie? Where are rushing in from, sweetheart?”
Cassandra stopped, wiped at her eyes. “Nowhere, Papa,” she said. “It’s…it’s coming on to rain.”
He folded the newspaper he’d been holding in front of him and motioned for her to join him on the couch. “It’s difficult to find a moment not crowded by so many other people, isn’t it? Let’s take advantage of this one, shall we?”
She nodded, untying her cloak and folding it over the back of a chair, pretending not to notice when her father looked at her hair, that was as wild as the wind could make it. “Is there something you wanted to discuss with me, Papa?”
“Must there be something in particular to discuss?” he asked her as she sat down beside him, kissed her cheek.
Cassandra believed her father to be the most handsome man in creation, and had no doubt her mother had taken one look at him and fallen desperately, totally in love. Even now, with silver working its way into his coal-black hair, he had the look of a prince, perhaps even a king. Tall, slim, straight.
She looked at the portrait of her mother, life size, hanging above the large fireplace, and wished, not for the first time, that her father had posed with her, so that she could just once see them together as they were on the island, young, wonderfully in love, and so very, very happy.
“Mama was so beautiful,” she said, sighing. “Do you still miss her?”
“Every day,” he said, also looking at the portrait. “You’re so very like her, you know.”
Cassandra shook her head, having heard this before, but never believing it to be true. Posed in a gorgeous, full-skirted striped dress of vibrant hues, her ebony hair hanging in ringlets past her shoulders, eyes such a vibrant green, her mother had been glorious, so alive, Cassandra had often, as a child, felt certain she would jump down from the painting at any moment to give her daughter a hug. “I’m small, like she was, but she was so colorful and I’m so…so bland.”
Ainsley Becket laughed, rubbing at her curls. “I can think of many ways to describe you, pet, but bland would never be one of them. You’ve got your mother’s features and curls, but my mother’s more honeyed coloring. And she was also a beautiful woman. I look at you, Cassandra, and see the women I love. I thank God every day for you.”
Cassandra blinked furiously, fighting back tears once more as she leaned her cheek against Ainsley’s shoulder and he put his arm around her. “You never told me that, before, Papa. About your mother. Was it sad, leaving her to go to sea?”
Ainsley was quiet for some moments, and Cassandra believed he was thinking about what he would say to her next, how he would say it.
“Cassandra, I’m not proud of my past, and offer no excuses for what I’ve done, for there are none. But I know you’re old enough to hear this story now,” he said at last. “My family made its living smuggling from the shores near Deal, until my father was caught and hanged at Dover Castle and my older brother and I escaped on the first ship leaving port, a ship heading for Haiti, although we had no idea where we were going. Haiti? We’d never even heard the word. We could have been sailing to the moon, but we had no choice. It was either the ship or the hangman, or at the very least, transportation. I was thirteen, my brother four years older. We didn’t even have time to say goodbye to my mother, and by the time I was in a position to write to her—once I’d learned to write— it was to discover that she’d died mere weeks after we’d sailed.”
Cassandra sat up straight, amazed at one part of the story. “You have a brother? You never told me that, Papa.”
“Will and I sailed with some fairly unlovely men for several years, learning our craft, until he was killed during an assault on a Spanish ship. The captain gave me my share and Will’s, and I combined that with everything we’d saved over the years, bought my own small sloop, a true wreck of a ship,” he said, smiling at some private memory.
“How old were you then, Papa?”
“All of twenty. And rather full of myself, I suppose. I managed to hire a crew, and had some small successes as a pirate. Very small successes. A year later Jacko and I met over exchanged fists in a wharf-side pub, he explained Letters of Marque to me, and we became licensed privateers. I was, hopefully, on my way to respectability and, eventually, a return home, to England. From the very beginning, my objective was to return home.”
“Until Edmund Beales betrayed you, tricked you into attacking Eleanor’s ship and becoming a pirate again,” Cassandra said, sighing. “There isn’t a conversation that doesn’t lead back to Edmund Beales, is there? Not for so many years.” She looked up at the portrait once more, tears spilling onto her cheeks. “He took so much from you, Papa, from all of us. I hate him!”
Ainsley took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped at her cheeks. “Don’t hate him, Cassandra. Be aware of him, be alert to danger, prepare yourself as we are all doing, but don’t waste your time hating the man.”
“Lisette says he’s a monster.”
“As his daughter, that’s quite a damning indictment of the man. But, yes, Edmund Beales is a monster. One of his own making. But he’s also brilliant, as I learned to my great sorrow when he engineered his betrayal of us so many years ago. We can’t underestimate him. Which brings me to something I’ve been considering for some weeks now. Until this is over, until Edmund strikes at us and is defeated, I want to send you, all of the women, to Chance’s Coventry estate.”
Cassandra shook her head, sending her curls falling into her face. “No! No, Papa, don’t do that. Please don’t do that. Lisette should go, probably, as she should never have to see her father again. But I can’t leave you, and I know Morgan would never agree, or Mariah or Fanny. Oh, and Elly! Papa, she can’t leave. Not with the baby coming in another month.”
“I agree. Odette and Eleanor will have to remain here.”
“But, Papa, if Elly stays, why should the rest of us go? Elly will want us here with her, I’m sure. And how could any of us be so far away, not knowing what’s happening here at Becket Hall? No. I won’t go. I won’t, Papa.”
“I lost your mother…”
“I’m not my mother, Papa. I’m me, Cassandra. And we know he’s going to strike at us this time. We’re prepared, we’re ready.”
“Are we?” Ainsley asked, as if posing the question to himself. “Edmund excels at treachery, and we’re preparing for a frontal assault. A battle, a war. I’ve agreed to all that we’re doing, but I’m not certain any of it means anything.”
“Then we can stay?” Cassandra asked, pushing her question as her father looked up at the portrait of her mother. “If you really don’t believe he’s going to attack us, there’s no reason for us to go, is there?”
“Oh, he’s going to attack, Cassandra,” Ainsley told her, looking at her, his usually bright eyes unaccustomedly dull. “Soon. I only wish I knew how.”
“It doesn’t matter how,” Cassandra said bracingly, leaning against his shoulder once more, praying her father had now given up the idea of sending her away from Becket Hall, away from Courtland. “You’ll defeat him. There can be no possible other ending.”
CHAPTER FOUR
COURTLAND WALKED ALONG the shore with his head down, the brim of his hat shielding him from the wind, his unquiet thoughts occupying all of his attention.
She’d kissed him.
Christ Almighty, she’d kissed him!
He hadn’t seen it coming, hadn’t suspected she’d ever do anything like that.
And the hair? She’d looked so grown-up. Not prim, definitely, but not the child he was used to seeing, doing his best to dismiss as a perennial pest, God bless her, believing herself in love, when she was too young to know love. Wasn’t she?
Eighteen. Cassandra was eighteen.
He was, he thought but couldn’t know for certain, thirty-one.
Ridiculous! Unacceptable!
God. She’d kissed him.
Worse, he had almost kissed her back, almost put his arms around her, drawn her closer against his body.
Taught her how to kiss.
Which, he knew, would be disastrous, if her inexperienced, almost clumsy attempt had been enough to send him reeling like some raw youth.
He stopped, bent to pick up a few stones, held them in one hand as he began tossing them, one by one, into the sea. He threw hard, launching the stones as if they were his thoughts, his damning, betraying thoughts.
And then he hesitated, his arm drawn back, as something Cassandra had said to him danced lightly in his brain. We thought. That’s what she’d said, wasn’t it? The idea to put up her hair hadn’t been hers alone. We.
“Damn it!” he said, throwing the stone past the third line of waves making their way toward the beach. His shoulder hurt, he’d thrown so hard, and he dropped the rest of the stones, began walking parallel to the water once more.
This is what happened when all the Becket women gathered in one place. Trouble. Mischief. Deviltry.
And he knew who the ringleader had to be. Morgan. The woman was a mother now, a countess. You’d think she would have curbed her deviltry at least a little bit, become more sober, circumspect. Then again, look at whom she’d married. Ethan was almost as bad as she was. If their twins grew up to be half as troublesome as the two of them, it would be only simple justice.
Courtland turned to his left, making his way across the beach and into the main street of Becket Village, home to the crews of the Black Ghost and the Silver Ghost, those who had survived the massacre, and paused, as he always did, to look at the mermaid masthead carved so many years ago by Pike, the ship’s carpenter, and set deep into the sand, looking out at the sea they’d all forsaken.
Pike had been dead these past five or more years, a victim of the Red Men Gang, and the reason Court¬ land had first donned the black mask and cloak of the Black Ghost and ridden out to protect the local smugglers, little knowing that the Red Men Gang had been headed by Edmund Beales.
Life was so odd, and it seemed to travel in circles, as Ainsley was prone to say, each one drawn smaller than the last, until the past and present collided.
Courtland mounted the wooden flagway, heading for The Last Voyage, the one place Cassandra could not follow, and the pint or two of ale he felt necessary at the moment, hesitating only when he heard hoofbeats coming toward him through the misty dusk.
“Chance,” he said, waiting until his brother dismounted from his large stallion, Jacamel, and stepped up on the flagway. “You’re alone?”
“Rian and Ethan are somewhere behind me,” Chance said, lifting his hat and pushing back his nearly shoulder-length blond hair that had escaped the ribbon he used to secure it at his nape. “Our brother handles the new mare well, but Ethan insists the two still have to get to know each other better, especially since Rian’s learning how to direct Miranda only with his knees.”
“Leaving his hand free to hold a sword or pistol,” Courtland said, nodding his head. “If anyone can do it, Rian can. Although I question his choice of name for the mare. Miranda?”
“Lisette chose it. If she’d told him to call the damned horse Mud Fence, he would have done it. She holds quite a bit of power over our youngest brother,” Chance said as they entered the tavern. “I don’t know that I like that.”
“Because she’s Beales’s daughter? She proved her loyalty, Chance. Hell, she tried to kill the man.”
“Granted. But she also helped keep Rian in France for months after he could have returned to us, with us believing him dead all that time. She only had her epiphany about her father when he killed that servant who tried to help her, or so she says. We have no proof the man is dead.”
Courtland lifted the two mugs Ivan poured for them and carried them to a table in the corner. “I believe her,” he said before taking a long drink from the mug. “And so do you. What else bothers you about Lisette?”
Chance smiled, toasted Courtland with his own mug. “I’m that transparent? Rian told me that, once this mess is over, he and Lisette will go to New Orleans, to claim land and money left to her by her grandfather. That makes two now, you know, with Spence and Mariah heading for Hampton Roads. I’ve never considered myself particularly sentimental, but I find I dislike the idea of having two of my brothers on the other side of the ocean.”
“Not just Rian and Spence,” Courtland said, looking into his mug. “Ainsley has purchased property in Hampton Roads. A boat-building company he acquired at no small price. He’ll be leaving us, too, taking Cassandra with him.”
“Ha, that is a piece of news I already knew, thanks to Julia, although I won’t believe he’ll leave here until he actually sails away,” Chance said, and then smiled. “But if he does, you’ll go, as well. According to my wife, Callie wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“Cassandra has nothing to say about where I go, what I do.”
Now Chance grinned. “Oh, brother mine, you’re as thick as you ever were. Maybe I should have knocked you down more often. But I suppose, as your brother, I should warn you—the ladies are plotting your demise. Julia says it is to keep their minds away from thoughts of Beales, but I think they’re using our old enemy as an excuse to cause mischief.”
Courtland lifted his hand, and Ivan brought him a fresh mug. “I already figured that out, earlier. Cassandra put her hair up today. She looked ridiculous.”
“Did she now? You know, I’ve always thought she’d grow up to be a pale imitation of Isabella, but she hasn’t. She’s her own person, and even though she’s my sister, I can say with a clear conscience that she is a very lovely young woman. If we were to take her to London for a Season, she’d have half the eligible gentlemen clogging up my drawing room every day. Maybe all of them.”
“And that’s where she belongs,” Courtland declared hotly, wishing he didn’t sound so angry. “Not here, not with me. Fanny was the same way with Rian, believing herself in love with him, until she met Valentine. Proximity. That’s all it is, but Cassandra refuses to believe me when I tell her so.”
“Which you do, daily,” Chance pointed out, accepting a second mug from Ivan. “You know, our Alice is only ten now, but females, I believe, are females. And do you know what I’ve learned from my daughter? The more I tell her she shouldn’t have something, the more she wants it.”
“Meaning?”
Chance shrugged. “Meaning, brother mine, that maybe it’s time you stopped protesting so much. Give Callie a small taste of your attention—and not the doting uncle, brother, father, whatever you think you are, but the man. Once you stop treating her like a child, perhaps she’ll stop acting like one, and leave you alone.”
“Do you hear yourself? What you’re suggesting? I can’t do that. My God, man, she’s Ainsley’s daughter.”
“I’m aware of who she is. I can remember Isabella. God, she was beautiful. Inside and out. I was mad for her at seventeen, and so were you, following her like a puppy hoping for a treat. That’s probably how Callie sees you. I don’t know why, you’re such a stodgy old nag, but she truly believes herself in love with you.”
“Who’s in love with whom?” Rian Becket said, pulling out a chair and sitting himself down even as Ivan brought him a mug of ale. Even mussed, coated with road dust, he had the look of a young Greek god. “Tell me everything, and don’t leave out any of the juicy bits. Quick, before Ethan comes in to tell you how I fell off Miranda and bruised my pride.”
“You fell off a horse?” Courtland looked at his brother, visually checking for injuries. “You’ve never fallen off a horse. Rian, maybe you’re pushing too hard.”
“And there she goes—Mama Courtland, believing herself in charge of everyone,” Chance said, lifting his mug. “Rian lost an arm, not his wits. He’ll master the horse, just give him time. And a few falls, if that’s what’s needed.”
“Thank you, Chance,” Rian said, grinning at Courtland. “Now, who’s in love with whom? And note my use of whom, which I think reflects very well on Ainsley’s incessant lessons over the years.”
“Callie thinks she’s in love with Court here,” Chance supplied quickly.
“Pfft! And here I thought you were going to tell me something that isn’t already abundantly clear to everyone, and has been since the little hellion entered her teenage years.”
“You know,” Courtland said sourly, “I came here to drink alone. I should have known better.”
“Never drink alone, Court,” Rian warned him. “Not when we’re here, more than ready to increase your misery. Did you know the ladies have been giving Callie lessons in how to seduce you? Lisette told me last night. Her contribution, by the way, was to tell Callie to toss any maidenly shyness to the four winds. I blush to think what else she said, and didn’t repeat to me. When it comes to love, women hold all the cards, and we men can only pretend to have any say in the matter. Hullo again, Ethan. What kept you?”
“Your Miranda seems to have picked up a stone,” the Earl of Aylesford said, seating himself. Having ridden the same roads as Rian and Chance, Ethan looked as if he’d just finished a long session with his valet; nattily dressed, every blond hair sleekly brushed back from his finely-boned face. A man could look at him and see a well-dressed, amiable fool of fashion—and that man would very, very wrong. “I walked her up to Jasper at the smithy. I’d like to say he met me halfway, carried Miranda on his back the rest of the way, but none of you is probably deep enough in your cups yet to believe me.”
“Don’t think my giant couldn’t do it, if pressed,” Rian said, grinning. “Have I told you how he carried both Lisette and me out of that burning house, running with us both as if we were no heavier than feathers?”
“Twice,” Courtland said.
“Three times, at the least,” Chance added. “Although I still chuckle over the cannon, I’ll give you that.”
“No matter what, he’s quite a find,” Ethan said. “And I’d trust any of my horseflesh to him. In fact, I’ve already considered stealing him away from Waylon, who promised to break my head if I so much as tried.”
“The day may come when Jasper does take you up on the offer to be part of your horse farm, Ethan,” Court¬ land said, trying to keep the men concentrated on any subject other than him and Cassandra. “Once everyone feels free to leave Romney Marsh, much of this village may cease to exist, having served its purpose.”
It was a valiant try, but Chance must have seen through it, for he said, “Court is all a-twitter because Callie might be sailing off to Hampton Roads with Ainsley, leaving him to molder here, dying of a broken heart.”
“Oh, for the love of God—” Courtland got to his feet, pushing back his chair with some force. “When did I become an object of amusement to you all? This isn’t funny. I think Cassandra may be out to…to seduce me.”
“I think so, too,” Chance said, and looked to Rian. “You?”
“Oh, yes, definitely,” Rian said, smiling up at Courtland. “Shall we have a drink to the shameless little minx?”
“Spence and I discussed just this subject last night,” Ethan told them, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand—an earl in name, but not one who worried overmuch about his manners when out of sight of the society he wished to have believe him a fool. “We’re considering placing bets as to the timing of the thing, actually. We’ve tentatively settled on fifty pounds to the winner. Court? I give you two weeks before you succumb. Spence says a full month, but we all know he’s never right about anything. At least I hope so.”
“Three weeks, and we each ante up fifty pounds for the winner,” Chance said, holding out his hand. “Rian?”
“Chance took my guess,” he said, winking at his brother. “Very well, fifteen days. I could say thirteen, but our dear brother is made of sterner stuff. Aren’t you, Court?”
Courtland sat down again, with a thump. “Aren’t any of you the least bit concerned that Cassandra is, in all but blood, my sister?”
They all looked to one another and answered almost as one.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Callie doesn’t seem to be put off by it—or that ridiculous beard.”
“I can’t speak for myself, having only married into the family,” Ethan said, “but Morgan seems to think you and Callie are fated. And my wife, I warn you, is not averse to helping Dame Fate along, when she thinks it appropriate.”
“I know what it is,” Chance said when Courtland glowered at them, one after the other. “You think Ainsley wouldn’t approve. God, Court, the man thinks the sun rises and sets on you. You really should be embarrassed.”
“He thinks the sun rises and sets on all of us,” Courtland said, feeling his cheeks growing hot, for Ainsley’s approval was all he’d ever wanted out of life, ever since the day the man had saved that life. “We’ve all been very, very lucky to have him.”