Not that he believed he deserved it. On the contrary.
The memories of war never left a man. As a gentleman who operated for gain—albeit within the sanction of the Crown when Boney began wreaking hell upon the Continent—the quest for power and wealth came with a hefty price.
Giving up on any rest this night, Arran swung his legs over the side of the bed. Barefoot, he padded across the hardwood floors and stopped at the Bath stone fireplace. He stared through the brass grate and into the healthy flames dancing before the screen.
He’d acquired ships, spices, teas, jewels, golds, silver, and treasures too great to name. But as a captain of lawless seas, Arran also carried a different type of loot. One a man didn’t speak of: the acrid stench of gunpowder and smoke on the air. Blood thirsty cries of battling soldiers.
Oh, Arran’s career on the high seas hadn’t started as ignominiously as all that. As a younger son of an earl, a path in the military had been the natural course for him. After England’s heavy losses at the start of the Napoleonic Wars, they’d needed privateers to expand their reach. Not just any privateers, but rather gentlemen like Arran who came from noble families with funds to outfit a vessel.
If he were a better man, Arran would feel greater shame than he did for his work. He didn’t. Which is likely why the demons of moments and fights at sea kept him company at night.
One nightmare carried as a token of a time at sea was the same as the next.
That’s what he’d believed anyway.
He’d been so wrong.
Arran scrubbed a hand along his jaw.
There’d been one battle, one sailing, that showed Arran just how bloody wrong he’d been.
He’d convinced his young cousin Linnie to join him on a sailing. He’d never considered he’d land her trapped in the middle of the bloodiest battle he’d ever wage.
The brass hearth reflected the bitterness he carried in the lines of his face.
This night, however, it was not the nightmares that robbed him and then lulled him into a blank sleep.
It was her.
Filled with a wave of restlessness, he quit his post at the fireside and went and collected a fresh set of garments.
The stranger amongst them.
While everyone else, reassured by Campbell’s recovery, slept deeply, Arran kept his focus on Lucy. He’d given up his regular bedroom suite in exchange for a set of guest chambers on her corridor.
And he was rewarded for his suspicions.
Click.
Arran went still for only a second.
Fully alert, he hurried to collect a change of garments. He hastily drew them on as he went, and then, unlike the mysterious Miss Lucy LeBeau, exited the room like a specter.
As he pulled the door shut soundlessly behind him, Arran adjusted his eyes to the dark.
Then, with careful steps, he set out after the lady.
Lucy LeBeau had a lead on him, and yet what she maintained in distance, she lost completely in furtiveness.
All the while she wound her way through the halls, the curious minx alternately muttered and whispered to herself. She stopped several times. And then resumed her search for…whatever it was she sought.
Arran kept close in the shadows and followed her all the way downstairs.
He ducked his head around the corner, just as the young woman sailed inside…the kitchen.
His brow dipped.
What in hell?
