With Talbot’s corpse slung over his shoulder, Drex boarded The Dragon’s Lair, which had been brought to London and disguised to resemble a merchant ship called Lady Christina.
Hancock greeted him first with a gasp. “Blimey, Cap’n. Who ye got there.”
Drex lowered the body to the deck. Hancock lifted his lantern over the corpse.
“Talbot?” Hancock looked to him in confusion. “We left him in Grand Bahama.”
Drex nodded. “He came here and attacked me in an alley. He told me someone hired him to kill me.”
Hancock’s eyes grew rounder. “Who?”
With a shrug, Drex answered, “I have a guess or two, but nothing solid.”
“What will you do with him?”
Drex paused, considering. “I have an idea.”
“Your ideas always frighten me,” Greg called from the gangplank.
“You’re late,” Drex pointed out.
“Fashionably.” Greg merely grinned. “What is your idea?”
Drex rubbed his clean-shaven chin. “Perhaps my death would be more convincing with a body. And since Talbot…volunteered to provide one when he attacked me, I thought he would do.”
“Manchester isn’t a thick one,” reminded Hancock. “If ye give him Talbot, wouldn’t he notice the difference?”
Greg looked up again with a frown. “I know he has at least a vague description of you.”
Drex shrugged. “The basics? Or more?”
“At least the basics. Remember, Manchester has been pursuing you with single-minded vengeance these last two years. And your tattoo— everyone knows. Since the old goat has your description, that must be included.”
“Even drunk, it hurt like hell to have it done. It also required someone with a lot of skill to create it.” Drex paused. “Any chance Manchester has decided such a tattoo is pure fancy?”
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“That is possible,” Greg conceded. “At this point, I daresay anything is. Just in case, I will suggest that very point to him.”
“The ploy might work, at least long enough to free Ryan,” Drex said.
Greg grinned. “Let’s dress the old chap up, shall we?”
* * *
Later the following night, Drex sat in the library, pretending to read the Times. Christina had retired to her room without dinner. Again. And he worried.
Had she been more affected by the Black Dragon’s presence than she had acted? Anger had brought the vitality back to her cheeks, the color and spark back to her eyes. How he’d wanted her there, across her lacy bed bathed in silvery moonlight. But he wanted her as her husband, not as her former lover, especially since she’d claimed to harbor some affection and respect for the man she had wed.
Drex frowned. How would she react once she learned the Black Dragon was
“dead”?
Greg burst in a moment later, unannounced. He came bearing toward Drex with a single-minded stride.
“Your visit must be urgent, indeed, for you to have so little care for the seams of your tight breeches,” Drex teased.
Greg reached his side, chest rising and falling rapidly beneath an azure coat. “Then you haven’t heard?”
“What?” Drex said, folding his paper and setting it aside.
“Manchester has fallen for our ruse.”
Drex smiled.
Greg whispered, “I overheard Manchester bragging at Boodle’s that he caught a man red-handed with all the appropriate garb, right down to the mask.”
“I planned to go with my father to the Lord Admiral’s office once the body was discovered and recommend Ryan’s release. He refused to let me
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accompany him, saying Manchester might become suspicious of me, a man with a questionable past, demanding the release of the very man the Black Dragon had sought.”
“Can’t disagree with that logic,” Greg said.
“Traitor.” Drex teased. “Let’s find my father and celebrate.”
“Not yet. Manchester sent a page to dispatch a note to his granddaughter.
You must know what it says.”
“Christina,” he whispered, then focused on his friend. “Of course. Go. Talk to my father. I will find you later.”
After Greg departed, Drex walked the length of the hall buoyed by happiness. After the Black Dragon’s appearance last night and his odious request, Christina wouldn’t mourn the man.
He knocked on her door. She did not answer. Drex knocked again. Still no reply.
He pressed his ear to the cool wood. A series of sniffles, nearly silent, reached his ears.
Lifting the latch with a frown, Drex entered to find her sitting on the edge of her bed. Her head shot up at his approach.
Misty green eyes, drowning in a pool of anger and sorrow, overshadowed the rest of her pale face. In one hand, she clutched a missive. In the other, a handkerchief.
She grieved the Black Dragon, without artifice. Her stark, torn expression told him that. Drex tried to stifle his surprise. She had truly loved him. And he had let her go.
Telling her the truth had become infinitely more complicated. God, what a tangle.
“He—he’s dead,” she pronounced between tears.
Drex strode the rest of the distance to her and knelt by her side. “I know. “
To his surprise, she reached out for him. Drex took her hand and squeezed.
Sitting beside her, he gathered Christina’s huddled form into the shelter of his arms. She felt so small, so uncertain and cold. Trembling pervaded her body as she raised questioning eyes to his, as if to ask why or how. He could hardly
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provide her the answers she sought, or confess his alter-identity. Not until he felt certain she loved him enough to deal with the knowledge. Not until she was less fragile.
“Do you still love him?” he asked, the anticipation of her answer making him ache. Though he liked the idea that she had fallen in love with him, as a husband, he found himself jealous.
A moment of silence stretched between them as Christina studied his face.
Finally, she shrugged. “When I first met you, I saw shades of him each time I looked at you. Similar eyes, similar noses and chins. Even similar voices.
Maybe because I was distraught or that’s what I wished to see in you. I’ve no notion why.” She hung her head. “Now when I look at you, I see the kind of man the Black Dragon could have become, had he given up crime and his selfish ways. I see a better man.”
Drex stared at the top of her pale head, feeling his heart in his mouth. He wanted to tell her everything—now, before the charade became any more deceitful.
Christina glanced up at him again, this time with dry, determined eyes.
“But I refuse to love a man who thinks of no one’s wishes but his own.”
With his wife harboring such sentiments, his confessions would have to come later, once she had accepted him as her husband completely.
He stroked the crown of her head, thankful she did not pull away.
“Someone I knew once taught me that refusing to love another is difficult, even when you know their faults. You can only stop pining for someone when you’ve reconciled with the past and are ready to accept a new future. Concentrate on that.”
Christina’s green gaze rose to his face. A frown creased her delicate brow as she studied him, as if solving a visual puzzle. Moments later, her brow smoothed. Clarity lit her eyes.
She sniffled, then smiled. “Thank you.”
Drex’s reply stuck in his throat when his wife threw her arms about him.
Her face rested inches from his. Their breaths mingled and merged. Her lips parted, filling his vision. The ticking pulse at her throat beat in rhythm with his own heart.
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The desire he had held in check since reciting their vows leaked beneath the barrier of his will. Clutching her shoulders, Drex closed his eyes and dipped his head toward her.