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“I’d gladly tell you if I knew,” Lord Templemore said tightly, “but I don’t. Not precisely. However, I’ve been led to believe he lies at the bottom of the Atlantic.”
Her heart gave a horrible lurch. “Wh-what do you mean?”
He kept his gaze steady on her. “Morgan was serving aboard a merchant ship when it was wrecked off the coast of Haiti. We believe him to be dead.”
Chapter 2
She is wondrously like the immortal goddesses to look upon.
Homer’s Iliad, embroidered on a pillowcase by Juliet Laverick
“That’s impossible!”
Sebastian barely restrained his groan at hearing Juliet’s adamant disbelief. Bad enough that Knighton had come, but to have brought her…
“Why impossible, Lady Juliet?” his uncle drawled.
Sebastian shot him a warning glance. Uncle Lew must go along with Sebastian’s claims or all was lost. Surely the man would have the presence of mind to hold his tongue and let Sebastian deal with this in his own way.
“Morgan can’t be dead,” Juliet said simply. Her gaze settled on Sebastian, suspicious, apprehensive…worried. “He…I just can’t believe it.”
By thunder, she had to believe it! He and Morgan were enmeshed in a dangerous net, and only Sebastian could cut them out. He had to shake off Juliet and her relations to gain breathing room until this insanity was resolved.
“That doesn’t make it any less true.” Sebastian wondered at the calmness of his own voice, when inside he was anything but calm.
Devil take it, why were they here? In the beginning, he’d expected Knighton to hunt him down, but when no one had come after two years, he’d thought himself safe.
Safe! He must have been mad. But he’d never expected that she would come with them. Pretty Juliet, with her soft, accusing eyes and lush, tempting mouth…
He stifled a curse. Why had they brought her? It wasn’t as if they needed her to identify him—Daniel Brennan or Lady Helena could have done it, since both of them had been present at the final confrontation with Jolly Roger Crouch, King of the Smugglers. Her family should have kept Juliet at home where she belonged. She was too delicate for the maneuverings of men like himself and Knighton.
“By any chance,” Knighton asked, “was the ship that Morgan Pryce went down on named the Oceana?”
Ah, so Juliet had apparently told them everything. How “Morgan” had refused to hand her over to Crouch unless the smuggler first revealed the name of a ship and a particular date—the Oceana and July 17. Fortunately, the reason “Morgan” had wanted the information hadn’t come out. That would make it easier to hide the truth—that Sebastian himself had been acting as Morgan at the time. “How did you know the name of the ship?”
“Your brother asked about it. And when did Morgan board the Oceana?”
Those dates, those sticky dates. “November 1815, from what I was given to understand later.”
“How peculiar. I thought it would have been some months later, in July of 1816.” When Sebastian looked deliberately obtuse, Knighton added, “July 17 seemed to be important to your brother, as well.”
“Did it indeed?” Uncle Lew put in dryly. “I wonder why.”
Sebastian scowled at his uncle. Blast him, he knew very well why. Uncle Lew would plague him endlessly over this; he’d always claimed that no good would come of Sebastian’s masquerade as Morgan among the smugglers.
He flashed Uncle Lew a steely smile meant to head off any blundering. “I don’t know why July 17 was significant. All I know is that Morgan left here sometime in the spring of 1815. Our investigator said he boarded that ship in November.”
“That does fit with what I’ve learned of his activities,” Knighton interjected.
Knighton had taken the bait. Good. Sebastian was stretching the truth only a little, after all. Morgan had left in spring to join the smugglers, but they’d forced him aboard the Oceana in July. That was why Sebastian had ended up dealing with them in October.
Now it was time to play the grieving brother. “See here, if you know how Morgan ended up on the Oceana, do tell me. I’ve tried to find out for two years without any luck.”
“That’s all I know,” Knighton admitted. “Why do you think we came here?”
“Actually, you haven’t yet said why you came here,” Uncle Lew commented in seeming innocence, the smug devil. “I confess to being curious about your connection to my nephew. Sebastian seems convinced that Morgan is dead, but I haven’t relinquished hope that he’ll one day return home, having survived that ghastly shipwreck.”
Of course Uncle Lew hadn’t relinquished hope. He knew very well Morgan was alive. Now if only he’d keep his wits about him and realize that it was better if the Knightons believed otherwise.
