If You Give a Smuggler a Secret & If You Give a Rake a Reason

2. Chapter Two

2

Chapter Two

A Terrible Mistake

She’d made a terrible mistake.

A stupid mistake.

Keelan trotted through the pines. She yanked Daniel’s dirk from the trunk and her own poorly thrown dagger, which she jammed into the sheath.

“Too bad your short blade is weak. My men can do better,” she mimicked. “We fight privateers and pirates. Gah!” She placed Daniel’s dagger into the back of her waistband. “I’ve been training with Daniel for over ten years. I can throw a bloody dirk as effectively as any gritty sailor,” she muttered, then sighed. “And now I’m talking to trees.”

The heady aroma of pine surrounded her. She tore some needles from a drooping branch and rubbed them between her fingers to further release the refreshing scent, hoping to calm her nerves a bit.

She couldn’t resist the impulse to prove her worth to the men in the meadow. Why did she need to shock Captain Hart as he had shocked her? Her panic had expanded while he adjusted her grip on the dagger. However, what happened next almost sent her to flight like a quail from the brush.

Captain Landon Hart touched her in a place no man had ever dared. When he nudged his knee against the inside of her thigh, the outline of his leg left a lingering heat, even after he stepped away. Even more annoying, the desire to breathe momentarily abandoned her. She almost failed to repress the overwhelming urge to kick him.

Her brain only focused on the fact that he was touching her.

Not the dirk.

Not her grip.

Not the target.

She studied her wrist. The warm impression where his fingers touched still tingled. Keelan frowned. In the past, enough suitors pushed their presence upon her: an arm casually brushed against her breast while fastening her cloak, a thigh pressed against hers while seated on a settee. While such errors certainly earned them her instant retreat from the room, a short route to the door, or occasionally a stinging slap, no man had ever jumbled her thoughts the way Hart had done so nonchalantly.

Then the captain had reached around her chest to adjust her hold on the dagger; his arm almost skimmed her breasts. She fought to restrain her outrage, because of course it was outrage. Doxies played loose with favors, not a commodore’s daughter. She’d almost slapped his hands from hers and bolted away.

It had been terrifying.

Perhaps the word “terrifying” was a little dramatic. Still, it wasn’t proper behavior between an unmarried lady and a gentleman, and Keelan was conditioned to react accordingly. Since he had been unaware of her true identity, it was hard to cast the blame solely upon his shoulders.

A greater problem existed now. Hart discovered she was a female. If he told her uncle— the consequences were dire enough to make her shiver in the dense humidity of the southern spring dawn.

Normally, she wouldn’t care if he uncovered her fairer gender. However, circumstances being what they were at the moment, it was best to keep activities such as this secret.

Now, that point appeared to be mute.

The entire episode showed her with no rational sense. She’d acted as if no discourse existed at all, just another day of forbidden training in a hidden field.

Pent up frustration and anger at her own stupidity made her want to scream. Instead, she kicked a pinecone, sending it flying into the dusky underbrush. Embarrassment and humiliation had distracted her from exercising good judgment. And she always exercised good judgement.

Now all involved were in jeopardy because of her, Daniel, especially.

Acidic penalties churned in her stomach. She’d never forgive herself if Daniel was punished or released from service because of her reckless behavior.

Stupid, stupid, stupid!

After witnessing a drilling session between Keelan and Daniel, her Aunt Sarah nearly fainted from shock. Uncle Jared talked with her father and demanded that the exercises cease. For added insurance toward her compliance, he confiscated her boots.

Out of respect for his sister-in-law, her father acquiesced publicly, but privately encouraged Daniel to continue schooling her.

With good reason.

An assassin killed her mother, her other aunt and cousin all within a few weeks of each other, forcing her and Papa to escape to the Carolinas, fearing for their lives. Uncle Jared should be more understanding, but he coddled his wife, rather than put safe guards into place to protect her.

Keelan groaned. If the captain mentioned what he’d seen, then her uncle would flog Daniel for disobedience, and her father would use the occasion to bring up marriage. He believed he could secure her future by wedding her to ancient Mr. Pratt. For some reason, hebelieved that if she married and took another name, the killer wouldn’t be able to find her, which was a ridiculous assumption.

The more pressing objective at the moment was silencing Hart. It was crucial she meet with him alone and persuade him to remain quiet about the scene he’d witnessed. Would he agree to keep her secret?

What kind of man was he?

Respectable? He was a ship’s captain; that had to count toward an honorable reputation, did it not? A man with influence and responsibilities? A leader of men? Surely a crew wouldn’t stay with a commander they didn’t trust.

Distinguished by their dress, both were men of significant means. With his sun-bronzed skin, and hair dark as pitch and hanging about his shoulders like a wild mane, it was easier to picture Captain Hart as a Persian or better yet, a pirate.

Maybe a Persian pirate.

He displayed the cocky arrogance of a man accustomed to taking what he pleased. His strong self-assurance was unnerving. Even the air about him vibrated with intense power and confident composure.

His russet-haired business partner O’Brien, with his neatly trimmed mustache and beard, seemed amiable. Quite the contrast to the smug, bold and terribly conceited Captain Hart.

The path broke through the trees near the stables, and she crept inside to return the boots she’d borrowed earlier from one of the slumbering grooms.

Keelan headed toward Slaney, her maid, who stood amid a flock of at least two hundred chickens and geese. The petite woman with boisterous pepper-and-salt curls and twinkling gray eyes had been with her family for as long as she could remember. Back home in Chatham, England, Mother was content to let the maid care for her and raise her.

Mother acted as if she resented Keelan’s intrusion into her life and spent most days in her shop. Time with Slaney had been much more enjoyable than with her melancholy mother, who never spoke unless to criticize.

That life was gone now.

The scandal surrounding Papa’s court-martial, followed by the strange deaths of her mother and aunt, disrupted the orientation of her plans like a stream of water redirected by a jagged rut carved into the earth.

Slaney, quite the opposite from Mother, teased and laughed and told exhilarating stories about pirates and giants and magic faeries. Slaney, dried Keelan’s tears, wrapped her scrapes, and taught her how to draw and mix healing herbs.

Daniel taught her the significance of strength and speed in defending herself. She chewed at her lip.

And now, she had just endangered his well-being and employment.

“This squawking and honking is enough ter wake the dead,” Slaney grumbled. She scattered another handful of grain over the dirt yard and shrieked when a bold rooster pecked at a stray kernel from the top of her shoe.

“These are the only shoes I have, ye wicked c**k! Be off with ye!”

With an insulted squawk, he flapped away to dodge Slaney’s swinging foot. The sea of poultry parted briefly with his departure, but soon clucked its way back into a mass of scratching and pecking fowl.

“Good morning, Slaney.”

“A fair morning to ye, Mistress,” the maid replied with a frown. Slaney clucked her tongue with disapproval, sounding much like the chickens still milling at her feet. “Yer a sight! The entire house will soon be awake. Should Himself see ye, there will be hell to pay, for sure. Best ye go inside and clean up, lass.”

“Is Uncle Jared about yet, then?” Keelan asked, ignoring the maid’s mild tirade. “There are two merchant ship captains here to meet with him and Papa.”

“I’ll tell him. ’Tis already almost seven o’clock, and ye know breakfast is served at half-past eight.”

“I’ll be on time, Slaney, don’t worry.” A movement caught her eye, and she glanced up. Daniel and their visitors led two horses down the lane toward the stable. There was still time to have a word with Hart.

Slaney lowered her brows in an unconvincing scowl. “Well, don’t get distracted this morn. Your father will want to speak to ye, and I’ll not have him see ye lookin’ like a common street rat.”

“How is Papa?” Hopefully his color and appetite had returned with a sound night’s rest.

Slaney’s expression softened. “Weary. He’s up and sittin’ in the chair by his window. Perhaps if you sit with him, he’ll eat something.”

She nodded. “I will.” Slaney appeared happy here in America. It was a magnificent country, to be sure, but life on a plantation differed vastly from living in England.

“I miss home,” Keelan murmured.

“Ye are the daughter of a Commodore and a shopkeeper. Ye have known only the bustling world of Chatham, buying wares at the docks from ships loaded with items from exotic places.” Slaney rested a hand on her arm. “It’ll take time to get used to the slower pace of country life.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Keelan stared at the pecking birds. “He’ll wish to talk about how an alliance with Mr. Pratt would merge the two plantations into the largest in the Lowcountry.”

Slaney could only give her a sympathetic look.

“I don’t want to get married.”

Not yet.

And wedlock to Pratt? Not ever.

Marriage.

The word tasted bitter, like rancid oil, and unripened nuts.

“’Tis Pratt ye be rejecting, not marriage,” Slaney said, voicing her concerns exactly.

“After seeing how those bonds affected my parents, why would I be in a hurry to wed?” As a commodore in His Majesty’s Navy, her father was away for months at a time, leaving her mother alone and unhappy. During the short time he spent in port, Mother commanded most of it, becoming jealous of the small intervals he gifted to Keelan.

Slaney sighed. “Not all marriages play out like yer parents’, lass.”

Still... plenty were. Keelan withdrew a handful of corn from Slaney’s bucket, then tossed it across the ground. “Why are you feeding the chickens? Isn’t little Joseph supposed to do this?”

Slaney blew a wayward wisp of silver hair from her face. “You needn’t concern yerself about such matters. But if you must know, he’s tending the smokehouse because they just put up a hog.”

Keelan couldn’t help but smile. Although she tried to hide it, Slaney had a soft spot for chickens.

The maid flung the remaining grain with the breeze and waded through the mass of birds. “I’ll warm the water for yer bath. Don’t tarry long, child.”

Shaking away the dark musings of marriage and her ill father, Keelan turned and ran to the rear of the house, enjoying the bracing coolness of the dew-laced grass on her bare feet. She’d never had such liberties in Chatham. One thing about residing in the Americas, the broad stroke of “Freedom” stretched well past British social conventions.

Most mornings, she sneaked in the back servants’ door, to avoid any encounters with members of her extended family. While she was grateful Uncle Jared agreed to run the plantation until her father’s stable health returned, she must now interact more with her spoiled cousin, Doreen. Thankfully, the girl slept most mornings until midday.

She paused. Would it be better to wait by the barn and hope to catch Captain Hart before he went into the house, or should she change first?

What if they saw her dressed in boys’ breeches? She should change.

Keelan grabbed the latch and sucked in her breath at the sting that shot across her injured thumb. Fresh blood streamed along her palm and dripped off the heel of her hand. It wouldn’t do to track it inside. She needed the marigold tincture Slaney used for cuts and bruises, so she darted for the kitchen house to find the maid’s herb box. It shouldn’t take long to dress the cut and dash back to her room.