Chapter 7

Inside the ill-lit warren of the Devil's Books' tap room, Nylander sat under the low ceiling and anchored his elbows on smooth oak. He took a long, deep draw from his first pint of the night. He knew in his bones there would be a second, and, possibly, a third. The ale, red and strong, worked its way through him, flowing from the base of his skull and spreading by warm increments.

Mostly recovered from his fever, he'd awoken this morning restless and jittery, needing to occupy himself with something, anything, that had purpose. But he'd found nothing. The servants mostly avoided eye contact, uncertain about his status in the household. He felt like a ghost that everyone would rather be rid of, beginning with the house's mistress.

True to her word, the Dowager hadn't crossed his path since he'd watched her gallop into the hills two days ago. No surprise there. She was a stuck-up lady who didn't feel the need to show the likes of him anything more than the thinnest facade of courtesy. Her kind wasn't obliged to his kind. She'd gotten what she'd needed from him.

He took another sip of his bitter.

Tomorrow morning, he'd leave a note, informing her of his departure and thanking her for her hospitality. He'd be halfway to London by the time she opened it.

Even with this plan in place, he'd been unable to suffer through another solitary night beneath Wyldcombe Grange's silent, sprawling roof. So he'd prowled the house until he happened upon a passing footman and asked for directions to the nearest town.

"That'll be Upper Wyldcombe Lacey. 'Tisn't more than half an hour by foot." The man cocked his head. "You'll be wanting a public house, I reckon?"

"Aye."

"The Devil's Books on High Street is the one you want. Tell Jeb that Ollie sent you, and he'll treat you right."

The man hadn't been wrong. The Devil's Books combined the necessary elements of the perfect English tavern: ale, warmth, company in the tap room, if one was inclined, and solitude, if that better suited the mood. Nylander took another draw of his ale and caught Jeb's eye.

"Curious name, the Devil's Books." He found himself more inclined toward conversation than he'd been in a good number of days.

Jeb poured an ale halfway and spoke as he let the head settle. "Well, a curious sort of bloke built it more than a hundred years ago. We got four floors representing the four suits of a deck of cards. You're on the diamond floor. Each floor has thirteen doors and fireplaces for the number cards in each suit. And to top it off, we have a total of fifty-two stairs in the place." Jeb finished the pour. "Ale up!" He started another pint. "Rumor has it the man made his fortune off cards, but no one knows. He died a childless bachelor, and the place was bought and converted into this public house. Who knows why the original owner chose such a quixotic"—the man pronounced the word as if he'd just learned it—"name for his tavern."

Nylander gave an agreeable nod and tapped his drained glass for another. Jeb had hardly set a full pint before Nylander when a loud, brassy voice rang out, "Why if it ain't the Captain Nylander, or me name ain't Liza Bickle!"

Every last hair on Nylander's neck prickled to a stand. He knew that voice, and clearly it knew him. He swiveled on his stool and faced the woman, whose words had drawn every eye upon him. She was short, buxom, and possessed of a specific promiscuous charm welcome in every tap room around the world.

"Aye," the woman called over her shoulder as she stacked half a dozen empty pint glasses and carried them to the bar. "'Tis ye aw'right."

"Have we met?" he asked, cautious.

"'Ave we met?" A rough laugh scraped across her throat. "Guess I can't expect ye to remember, seein' as 'ow ye were out of yer bloomin' mind the 'ole time."

Dread crept in at the edges of his confusion. There was a question he must ask, an answer he feared. "Were you my nurse on the journey from London?" He seemed to recall some rough treatment. That it would've come from her hands wasn't too far a stretch.

"Aye." She sucked her teeth. "But 'Er 'Ighness put an end to that the minute we rolled up to her big, fancy 'ouse. Slicked me palm wi' a few quid, then sent me down the road without a reference." The woman's voice quaked with umbrage. "I coulda made the finest nurse the world ever seen!"

"Liza, I got summat you can nurse!" one of the patrons called out, followed by a lively round of catcalls and whistles.

The woman gave a dismissive toss of her head, even as she adjusted her low-slung bosom to its best advantage. Her tale of woe continued. "Good thing Jeb needed a serving lass or Liza Bickle woulda been out on 'er arse. But me ma always said Liza lands on 'er feet. So 'ere I be."

Jeb rolled his eyes and busied himself with another pour.

The woman's eyes glinted. "'Er 'Ighness tell ye to turn out, too?"

"Not in so many words," Nylander replied, gruff, dismissive. He had no inclination to continue conversing with the fractious Liza Bickle. She was the sort to expect their conversation to lead to a place he had no intention of going with her.

His brow furrowed as a question occurred to him. Where had Liza Bickle been that night? It was Liza Bickle the Dowager Viscountess had sought when she'd left his room the first time.

Like a strike of lightning, a very specific memory sparked. The creases on his forehead deepened into tense grooves. The woman he'd had in the inn had been a virgin, which meant…

The Dowager was a widow and a virgin. How in the blazes was that possible? She'd been a man's wife. And she was a virgin?

Or, more accurately, had been a virgin.

He inhaled the groan that wanted release.

I don't deflower?—

Shehadn't let him finish the sentence.

"Oi," a man called from across the room. "Didn't I see you out in the fields a few days back?"

Nylander recognized him as one of the men who had been arguing with 'Er 'Ighness, to borrow the phrase from Liza Bickle. Her Highness suited the woman better than the Dowager.

"Aye."

Another man piped up. "Will, 'ow do you know 'e's not 'er spy?"

"That'll be enough, Walt," Will cut in. "Anyone with eyes can see this man works with his hands. Besides, her ladyship ain't got no spies. She may be a lot of things, but she ain't no sneak. Does everything on the up and up, her ladyship does."

A few men grunted in grudging affirmation, and that settled the matter. About Her Highness, that was. Nylander could see they still had their doubts about him. He was a stranger in their village haunt. It was up to him to make them comfortable with his presence. A sailor most of his born days, this was nothing new.

"I sailed with the current Viscount St. Alban for over twenty years," he said by way of provenance.

"Was that before 'e was a nob?" The question garnered a smattering of amused snorts.

"Aye," Nylander assented easily, no offense taken. "I got laid low in London and came here to recover. Seems the Devon air agrees with me." A bit of regional flattery never hurt in these situations.

"Aye, aye," the men chorused, and the mood settled. He may be a stranger to these parts, but, at heart, he was one of them.

However, Will wasn't finished with the churlish Walt. "What do you mean speaking all disrespectful about her ladyship like that? The last few years of her running the Grange been the most prosperous the place ever seen."

Nylander settled his elbows back onto the bar and let the men talk. Silence usually yielded more answers than questions.

"Modernized it, you mean?"

"Nah, she ain't modernizing, not the way you're saying. She ain't replacing no man with no machine. A diversity of interests is what she calls it. There's enough for every man to put in an honest day's work on the Grange. That's the long and short of it."

A man, wizened, decrepit, and clearly the elder of the group, spoke up. "Those other viscounts"—he pronounced it vis-count, derision in the word—"ne'er cared a whit for the runnin' of the Grange or what it meant to the village. They just wanted their dues without payin' in." The man spat on the floor. "Not 'er ladyship. Within a fortnight of that last viscount dyin', she got the roofs on the estate and in the village fixed. Those roofs 'ad been leaking fer years. I canna tell ye 'ow many buckets I 'ave in my collection."

"And then it was the school," Jeb chimed in. "And the schoolmarm she brought in. The proper sort with London credentials, teaches the tots a different word every day. Sally comes 'ome and teaches 'em to me. Quixotic was the word today. Quixotic." He spoke as if each syllable was newly invented. "Can you imagine such a word?"

"Then she started in on the animals and land. Got that apple orchard all pruned and the wheel mill brought in."

"Aye, 'tis the cider that'll make the biggest difference. Mark me words."

"She's worked a wonder, truth be told."

Walt gave a grudging nod. "But that ain't to say she ain't a right 'oity-toity one."

No one would hear Nylander arguing with that assessment.

Will nodded. "She's got her airs, but she mostly just keeps to herself."

"Neither is she one to be naysayed. Ain't shy 'bout bullockin' right o'er a man, if she don't agree with 'im."

Again, the estate worker nodded. "Took a bit of gettin' used to, truth be told."

"'Oo's gittin' used to it? Upsets the nat'rul order fer a woman to be commandin' a man."

Some men grunted their agreement, others waved a dismissive hand and pshawed.

The elder man of the room spoke again. "The woman gets results better than any man in my lifetime."

This silenced everyone for a minute. Nylander signaled Jeb for another red bitter.

Another man, who had been quiet, shifted forward, a conspiratorial edge about him. "If she'd just listen to reason, we could be a sight more prosperous."

"No more of that talk," Will said, stern.

"Why not?" the man defended. "Ain't no 'arm in a little apple business on the side. Everyone knows the Grange 'as that brandy still, and Old Pete 'as been usin' it. I 'eard there's a stockpile of a 'undred kegs of the stuff."

Kegs. Nylander could only reckon they related to the conversation he'd heard two days ago. He gave a mental shrug. It didn't involve him.

"Freebooters would be in on the action faster than you can say Jack Robinson. Free money is whut, I say."

"Until the excise man catches wind and confiscates it all," Will spoke up. The man might not agree with everything about Her Highness, but he was loyal to her. "The Wild Hair is too smart for that."

"The Wild Hair?" Nylander found himself asking, unable to help himself

A flurry of sheepish glances passed among the men. A devilish glint in her eye, it was Liza Bickle who spoke up as she settled her ample rump onto the lap of a man who looked like he'd won a lottery. "Just a little nickname the village 'as for 'Er 'Ighness. If ye stay around long enough, ye'll see why." She gave him a saucy wink.

Her Highness did have quite a mane of wild red hair.

Moonlit room, the silky slide of hair across his skin, shorts bursts of humid breath hot on his neck…

"Anyone else hear about a freebootin' ship spotted near the cliffs at Hawkset Cove?"

Nylander froze. Ears attentive, he listened.

"Ye hear which one?"

"I 'eard it whispered 'twas the Free Reaver."

One of the men gave a low, long whistle.

"If that ain't quixotic, I don't know what is."

"That ain't no mere freebootin' vessel. Those men are right out 'n' out pirates."

Nylander considered the possibility of coincidence. Mayhap the ship that had followed him from the Bay of Biscay to Cornwall happened to arrive on the north coast of Devon around the same time as he. Could it be?

Not bloody likely.

He drained the last dregs from his pint, thanked the men for their hospitality, and placed a few shillings on the bar. He caught the barkeep's eye.

"Which way to Hawkset Cove?"

Somehow,Nylander was lost.

For the last hour, it had been his lot to stomp through a never-ending stretch of knee-high scrub, bracken, and moor grass. He was bound to run out of land eventually and find himself on the edge of a cliff, wasn't he?

While his seafaring directional skills were quite refined on the water, they were sorely lacking on dry land. At sea, all one needed for navigation was a clear night sky and a compass. He glanced up at stars twinkling at him in mockery, their constellations no useful guide for him here.

He stopped and assessed his surroundings. A sound caught his ear. An animal racing across the coastal heath, underbrush crackling beneath swift, sure feet. Instinctively, he crouched, hoping to blend into the landscape and not startle the creature.

The waxing moon crept out from behind a cloud, its mellow light gently illuminating the surrounding landscape. It wasn't an animal, but a man…

Running.

Hackles raised, Nylander poked his head up and scanned the heath for the man's pursuer, but he saw no one else. His gaze narrowed on the runner. Familiarity lay in his tall, whippet-thin form…

Recognition streaked through him. It was no man. Across the heath ran Her Highness, the Dowager Viscountess St. Alban.

He glanced around for her dog, but saw no sign of the animal. Once she'd passed, he scrambled to his feet, hoping to keep her in his sights, but the woman was fast. Under normal circumstances, when he wasn't recovering from a ten-round bout with malaria, he might be able to keep up with her, but, in all honesty, he wasn't sure.

Where was she going? What was her purpose? And, most importantly, why was she running?

Not a walk. Not a dash. But a measured run, each footstep in time with the last, her arms pumping in perfect rhythm with her feet. Her body moved fluidly, without hurry, assured, as if she'd been born to this sort of activity. She'd done this before. She was running for, what… pleasure?

A note of the familiar threaded into the extraordinary, at the very notion of pleasure in relation to this woman, in the way she moved. He knew the movement of her, intimately. A quick burst of lust shot through him, straight to his cock.

He followed at a distance, her sure step indicating she knew this land as well as any wild animal. He stumbled on a clump of moor grass. He could've slapped his forehead with sudden understanding.

She wasn't the WildHair. She was the Wyld Hare.

Wyldcombe Grange. Ran like a hare.

Ahead, she slowed to a walk before stopping and bracing her palms on her knees, presumably to catch her breath. Beyond her lay the cliff's edge, the Bristol Channel glittering in the distance, a barque sitting atop its placid surface. In his bones, Nylander knew the name of that boat.

The confounding woman straightened and set her gaze across the cove. She couldn't miss the pirate's barque.

The blood froze in Nylander's veins. The rumors were true. 'Twas the Free Reaver in Hawkset Cove.

And the mistress of Wyldcombe Grange didn't seem the least bit alarmed at its presence.