The Prodigal Hero Read online

  Over the next hour, he watched the barmaid carrying pints of ale to Connor and Finch. He knew it wouldn’t be long until they’d need to avail themselves of the privy behind the tavern. When Connor at last came stumbling across the floor toward the back door, MacHeath placed one booted leg in his path. Connor banged up against it and glared at him resentfully. “Let me through, Mackie ...”

  “Not until we settle your account. I gather your, er, business went smoothly.”

  “Can’t say that I’m happy,” Connor whined. “Finch set up this rig ... so he’s claiming the larger cut. But I’m one step from the noose, and if I get nabbed for carrying off a lady, I’ll swing for sure.”

  “Desperate times call for desperate measures,” MacHeath said, and then added softly to himself. “And these are most desperate times.” He cocked his head up at Connor. “So Finch’s gentleman is arranging the abduction of a lady. Not my idea of romance, but then I’ve always had traditional notions in that department. You know … flowers, carriage drives, music, and moonlight. But who am I to quibble if abduction is the latest rage in the ton?”

  “It ain’t the latest rage.” With a grumbling sigh Connor sank down into the chair beside MacHeath. “Finch’s gentleman tried all those other things. The lady wants nothing to do with him.”

  Smart girl, Alexa, he thought approvingly.

  “So he’s fixed it that Bully and me will carry her off while she’s traveling down to her da’s house for Christmas. A few miles outside Reading we’ll waylay the coach.” He cast a nervous look over his shoulder, but Finch was obscured behind the settle.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t be telling me this,” MacHeath said idly. “None of my concern.”

  “Aw, I’m not giving you any of the particulars. The thing is, I’m not sure I can trust Bully not to tup the chit. He’s always had a weakness where females are concerned. And the gentleman won’t pay up if the lady is ... well, you know.”

  “Compromised, I believe is the word.”

  “Right. Because, you see, the gentleman is the one who’s goin’ to do that. We’re to take her to some hedge tavern, where he’ll rescue her, pretend to chase us off like a fine, brave lad. Of course, he and the chit will be forced to spend the night together, which will leave her reputation in tatters.”

  MacHeath caught himself before he blurted out, But he’s her cousin. Still, it made no sense; a lady traveling with her cousin, however loathsome the individual, was hardly compromised.

  In his next breath, Connor offered an explanation. “If she don’t throw herself into his arms in gratitude—which I take leave to doubt—I expect he’ll have to resort to a bit of coercion. And now Bully’s gotten spleenish ‘cause he wants to be the first one in.”

  “Is she such a beauty, then?” he asked, toying with the bottle cork. “That the gentleman can’t live without her?”

  Connor blew out a breath. “Pull the other one, old sod. Money’s the lure here ... it always is. Chit’s father is rolling in the ready, and she’s his only get. Finch’s gentleman’s got hisself in deep with the bloodsuckers ... so he told them he was betrothed to the girl to keep them from pounding him into the next year.”

  “Next year’s not far off,” MacHeath said softly. He quite liked the image of Darwin Quincy being beaten to a pulp by outraged moneylenders. He did not, however, like the image of Alexa Prescott being ravished by her cousin.

  Connor pushed back his chair abruptly and stood up. “I better go….”

  He took a step toward the back door, and MacHeath’s left hand snaked out and grabbed him by the wrist. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  Connor winced. “Lord, Mackie, you got a wicked grip for a cripple.” He dug around in his breeches pocket and pulled out a pile of sovereigns, tossing them onto the table. “Good thing Finch’s gentleman paid us sommat in advance.”

  As he staggered away toward the door, MacHeath swept up the coins with his good hand, Connor had paid him something over what he’d owed—in sovereigns and in information. Which was fair, considering the debt was over a month old.

  He left the tavern before Connor returned. The night air was frigid, but with gin in his belly and gold in his purse, MacHeath hardly noticed. He tucked both hands into the deep pockets of his greatcoat and turned into the wind.

  It was chiming midnight when he reached his rooming house; the booming bells of St. Mary-le-Bow echoed across the clear night. At the doorway, he paused to look up at the sky. Orion and his hounds coursed the heavens off to the east. In the northern sky the two Dippers hung suspended, with Polaris visible in the smaller constellation.

  Once, in another lifetime, those stars had been his guide, the beacons he followed with as much certainty and awe as those three wise men who had followed a lone star to a stable in Bethlehem. He’d never been a religious man, but that particular story had always appealed to him, the timeless tale of a wondrous light shining down from the night sky, leading weary travelers to their goal. There wasn’t a sailor born in any century since, whose heart didn’t quicken to that image.

  Sailor. He gave a dry laugh. Damned pointless to even think that word.

  He avoided, at all costs, any thoughts of the time when the sea had been his life. But seeing Darwin Quincy, being reminded of Alexa Prescott and her father, had brought it all back to him—those three blessed years when he had designed ships for the old man. But that happy time hadn’t lasted. Nothing good ever did, he knew that now. He’d been cast out in disgrace, left without the good name he’d been born with.

  So he’d taken on another name and another life, as a Channel smuggler. And though the choice had placed him on the far side of the law, he had the solace of a life at sea. Eventually he’d inherited a ship from an aging smuggling captain whose arthritis forced him to retire.

  The Siren Song he’d named her, though she’d been called the Black Bess under old Tarlton. He knew it was bad luck to change a ship’s name, but by the time he’d finished making modifications on her, she was hardly the same ship. The Siren had brought him only good luck. And good profits.

  That was before he’d met up with an English spy in a tavern in Dover. The man had gotten him drunk, and had somehow convinced him to work for the British government carrying intelligence officers to France. No one knew the Channel better than he did, the fellow had insisted, no one had a faster ship.

  MacHeath had been flattered, but there was more to it than that. He’d realized that night—or more truthfully, the next morning when his head cleared—that he wanted more than anything to reclaim the part of himself that he’d lost, his sense of purpose and some small particle of honor.

  So he’d agreed to work for the Home Office, though in a most unofficial capacity. For the first time since he’d left the shipyard, he felt he was doing something worthwhile.

  But that had ended abruptly two years ago. The Siren Song had been waiting off Calais to pick up her usual human cargo, when a French man o’ war had appeared around the headland. The French ship had the weather gauge and, after a short chase, she’d blasted the Siren from the water. The sea was no longer an option for MacHeath after that, not only because he’d lost his ship. His hand had been crushed by a falling mast, and a French surgeon had been forced to amputate it.

  Now there was only pain when he thought of the sea … pain and an incredible sense of loss.

  And he blamed it all, every wretched course his life had taken, on one man—Darwin Quincy. It was Quincy who had been responsible for his disgrace at the shipyard, and his hatred of the man had festered for all those years since. Now, he realized, he had the means to pay him back. In spades.

  Ah, but what was the use of it? It wouldn’t regain him his lost hand or the good will of Alexander Prescott, the man he’d once thought of as the best master in the world.

  With an oath he pushed the door open and went into the dim hall of the rooming house, still fighting off the strains of the cheerful carol that refused to leave his head.
r />   “Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat.”

  Chapter 2

  Mrs. Reginald was sniffling every two minutes. And blowing her nose every five minutes. Alexa thought crossly that she could mark the stages of their journey by those noises.

  Sniffle ... sniffle ... honk.

  When she could stand it no longer, she reached over and pushed down the spine of the book her companion was reading. “Reggie,” she said, “I love you dearly. Except for my father, you are my favorite person in the world.” She took a deep breath. “But I shall go quietly insane if you don’t stop sniffling. We have only been on the road two hours, and already my nerves are shattered.”

  The stout older woman, once her governess and now her hired companion, shook her head. “It’s no use, my dear. Your father would insist that the upholstery in his new coach be stuffed with goose down, and you know how I am around feathers.”

  Alexa’s black brows drew down. “You weren’t this bad when we traveled to Bath in the summer ... in this very coach.”

  “That is because the weather was mild, and we drove with the windows open. Now we are shut up tight in here, not that that is a bad thing. I can’t remember a winter this cold in all my years.”

  “I’d rather be cold than driven to madness,” Alexa pronounced under her breath.

  Mrs. Reginald gave a weary sigh, and then leaned forward and let down the canvas panel that covered one window. She tried to hide her wince of dismay as a shaft of icy wind shot through it.

  “Here,” Alexa said as she drew off her thick sable muffler and leaned across the compartment to wrap it around her companion’s throat. “This will keep you warm. You know I never feel the cold.” She sat back with a satisfied smile.

  Mrs. Reginald picked up her book, a collection of poems by William Wordsworth, and tried to make a show of reading. Alexa did not miss the shivers that coursed through her every so often, making the small book tremble in her mittened hands. The sniffling and honking had stopped, which was a relief, but Alexa now felt a lump of guilt somewhere in her middle. There was nothing Reggie would not do for her, and Alexa feared she had once again taken advantage of the woman’s good nature.

  Half an hour later, after Reggie’s nose had gone quite red from the cold, and her lips a tight, pinched blue, Alexa shifted around and drew up the window covering. Her companion’s smile of gratitude was hard to decipher in her nearly frozen face.

  “Sorry,” Alexa muttered. “That wasn’t a very sensible plan. But thank you for making the attempt. If you like, I’ll have the coachman order us extra hot bricks at the next posting house.” She racked her brain to think of some other way to make amends. Alexa often told herself that she didn’t possess a cruel nature, only a slightly selfish one. She now pondered where that subtle distinction lay.

  She tried to sleep, head canted against one padded corner of the seat, hoping to give herself over to slumber before the sniffles started again. It was a vain hope. Within minutes of the coach’s interior being sealed up, Reggie’s nose began to misbehave.

  Sniffle ... sniffle ... honk. Sniffle ... sniffle ... honk.

  Alexa ground her teeth and gave up any notion of sleep.

  “It’s a pity your cousin won’t be joining us for the holiday,” Mrs. Reginald said from behind her book. “We will be sadly lacking in company this year, especially since your aunt again chose not to accompany us.”

  Alexa chuckled softly. “If you will recall, the last time Aunt Elizabeth ventured into Papa’s house for Christmas, they were at loggerheads the instant she walked through the door. They never got on, even when mama was alive to act as mediator. No, I think she will be much happier spending the holiday with her friends in Norwich.”

  “Even more reason, then, for your cousin to be there among his family.”

  “I don’t wish to discuss my cousin,” she said sharply.

  Mrs. Reginald’s plump chin took on a decided jut. “I will never understand why you are so severe with Mr. Quincy. He is all that is pleasing in a young gentleman ... such polished address, such a winning manner. You would do well, as I have told you countless times, to make of him your beau ideal—I wager there is not a gentleman in the ton who can match him for looks, breeding, or conversation.”

  “He is a swine,” Alexa said just loud enough for Reggie to hear.

  “I am not saying you should marry him, though that would not be beyond thought, since he is your second cousin. I do not hold with first cousins marrying, as you know, but—”

  “Enough,” Alexa cried softly. “Please, Reggie. I realize Darwin has made a point to win you over. But you must understand that any connection with him is unthinkable. He is vain and idle, among other things.”

  “And what young man of the ton is not? You think I do not note them at the assemblies and balls, with their peacocking ways and their languid airs? It’s the fashion for them to appear thus, and none is so fashionable as your cousin.”

  Alexa bit back her heated response. It would not help to point out Darwin’s other, less savory, pursuits to her companion. Reggie would merely humph and reply that her cousin’s vices were nothing more than a display of manly character. Alexa could almost hear the words; they’d been down this road many times before.

  She retreated back into silence, but her thoughts were no longer easy. Darwin Quincy had taken hold of them, and she could not shake him off.

  A week earlier he had come to see her at her Aunt Elizabeth’s home, offering his usual tale of woe. It did not surprise her to learn that he was once again sunk deep in debt. She was surprised, however, when he mentioned quite casually, that he’d made it known to a few friends that he and Alexa were to be married. She’d been outraged by that startling bit of news, but he’d pleaded with her to acknowledge the betrothal, even in pretense, for just a short while.

  “I am bound to come about in time, Alex,” he assured her. “I always do.”

  “What you always do,” she proclaimed snidely, “is ride off to Cudbright and blackmail my father into giving you more funds. And no, don’t look daggers at me, cousin. Blackmail is the proper word. I’ve heard you myself, reminding him how poor my matrimonial prospects would be with a cousin in debtor’s prison.”

  “You’re a selfish little bitch,” he muttered. “You’ve never had to do without, never had to pinch every farthing as I have. You don’t have to watch your friends spending all over town, and know that your own pockets are empty.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “You gamble and drink to excess. I could find it in my heart to pity you, for I know that such things can take hold of a person. But I’ve also heard how you attach yourself to young men who are new to the ton and take advantage of their inexperience. There was Lord Spence, sent home to Ireland in disgrace, and young Vincent Berringer, who tried to hang himself after you’d ruined him.”

  He flicked his fingers. “I am not responsible for men who do not know how to go about in Society. If they choose to play at cards with me, and are unlucky enough to lose great sums, how am I responsible?” He gave a dry laugh. “Though better I should relieve them of their blunt, than some well-heeled nob.”

  When no humor surfaced in her expression after that sally, he changed his tack, becoming coaxing and conciliatory. “Come now, cuz. You don’t really want to see old Quincy carried off by the bailiffs, do you? Let the ton believe we are to be wed for, say ... a month. My creditors will give me some breathing space if they think I am about to marry into a fortune. I promise I will stay away from my clubs during that time—”

  “Liar,” she spat. “You will live at the gaming tables, hoping to recoup your losses. I know how your mind works. At the end of the month, you’d be even deeper in debt.”

  “Unless my luck changes. I’m due, Alex ... I can feel it. Why, only last night I—”

  “No,” she cried. “I will not be part of this charade, I value my good name, Darwin Quincy, a deal more than you do yours. There will be no betrothal ... you are the la
st man I would choose to ally myself with, even in pretense.”

  She’d gone from the room then, left him white-faced and quaking in anger. The memory of it still shook her—the whole encounter had been unpleasant, but what she most recalled was the unveiled hatred she had read in his eyes just before she closed the door. Thank goodness he wouldn’t be plaguing them with his presence during the holidays—rumor had it that he was to spend them in Shropshire, with the latest in his long line of gullible young sprigs.

  “Think of Christmas instead of your wretched cousin,” she muttered. She forced herself to picture her father’s house adorned with holly sprigs and evergreen boughs, the mantels bright with red ribbons, the presents beneath them wrapped in tissue paper in a rainbow of colors. It was a heartening image.

  His house came alive during the holidays. There would be twelve days of feasting and merriment. Their neighbors would stop by for a visit—she especially looked forward to seeing Mr. Featherbridge, the local vicar. On Christmas Eve her father’s workers and their families would come caroling in the great hall. She would prepare the traditional wassail bowl, as her mother had done before her, to welcome their guests.

  Her father would be Lord Bountiful, his face beaming as he stood in the midst of his men, a sprig of greenery on the lapel of his finest coat. His generosity to his workers was well-known, but his bounty to Alexa was limited to the twelve days of Christmas.

  When the holiday merriment ended, when the last morsel of the last plum pudding had been consumed, he would send her away again. Because, dear Papa, in his misguided way, was convinced she would never find a proper husband if she lived under the same roof as a shipbuilder.

  Her permanent exile had begun the year she turned seventeen. He’d sent her from his home, first to a hellish lady’s academy, and then to while away the spring and fall in her great-aunt Elizabeth’s mausoleum of a house in London. Summers were spent with her godmother in Bath. She had been so miserable those first years, missing the sea and the shipyards and the workers.