LITMIR.BIZ

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the baby coming in another month.”

      “I agree. Odette and Eleanor will have to remain here.”

      “But, Papa, if Elly stays, why should the rest of us go? Elly will want us here with her, I’m sure. And how could any of us be so far away, not knowing what’s happening here at Becket Hall? No. I won’t go. I won’t, Papa.”

      “I lost your mother…”

      “I’m not my mother, Papa. I’m me, Cassandra. And we know he’s going to strike at us this time. We’re prepared, we’re ready.”

      “Are we?” Ainsley asked, as if posing the question to himself. “Edmund excels at treachery, and we’re preparing for a frontal assault. A battle, a war. I’ve agreed to all that we’re doing, but I’m not certain any of it means anything.”

      “Then we can stay?” Cassandra asked, pushing her question as her father looked up at the portrait of her mother. “If you really don’t believe he’s going to attack us, there’s no reason for us to go, is there?”

      “Oh, he’s going to attack, Cassandra,” Ainsley told her, looking at her, his usually bright eyes unaccustomedly dull. “Soon. I only wish I knew how.”

      “It doesn’t matter how,” Cassandra said bracingly, leaning against his shoulder once more, praying her father had now given up the idea of sending her away from Becket Hall, away from Courtland. “You’ll defeat him. There can be no possible other ending.”

      CHAPTER FOUR

      COURTLAND WALKED ALONG the shore with his head down, the brim of his hat shielding him from the wind, his unquiet thoughts occupying all of his attention.

      She’d kissed him.

      Christ Almighty, she’d kissed him!

      He hadn’t seen it coming, hadn’t suspected she’d ever do anything like that.

      And the hair? She’d looked so grown-up. Not prim, definitely, but not the child he was used to seeing, doing his best to dismiss as a perennial pest, God bless her, believing herself in love, when she was too young to know love. Wasn’t she?

      Eighteen. Cassandra was eighteen.

      He was, he thought but couldn’t know for certain, thirty-one.

      Ridiculous! Unacceptable!

      God. She’d kissed him.

      Worse, he had almost kissed her back, almost put his arms around her, drawn her closer against his body.

      Taught her how to kiss.

      Which, he knew, would be disastrous, if her inexperienced, almost clumsy attempt had been enough to send him reeling like some raw youth.

      He stopped, bent to pick up a few stones, held them in one hand as he began tossing them, one by one, into the sea. He threw hard, launching the stones as if they were his thoughts, his damning, betraying thoughts.

      And then he hesitated, his arm drawn back, as something Cassandra had said to him danced lightly in his brain. We thought. That’s what she’d said, wasn’t it? The idea to put up her hair hadn’t been hers alone. We.

      “Damn it!” he said, throwing the stone past the third line of waves making their way toward the beach. His shoulder hurt, he’d thrown so hard, and he dropped the rest of the stones, began walking parallel to the water once more.

      This is what happened when all the Becket women gathered in one place. Trouble. Mischief. Deviltry.

      And he knew who the ringleader had to be. Morgan. The woman was a mother now, a countess. You’d think she would have curbed her deviltry at least a little bit, become more sober, circumspect. Then again, look at whom she’d married. Ethan was almost as bad as she was. If their twins grew up to be half as troublesome as the two of them, it would be only simple justice.

      Courtland turned to his left, making his way across the beach and into the main street of Becket Village, home to the crews of the Black Ghost and the Silver Ghost, those who had survived the massacre, and paused, as he always did, to look at the mermaid masthead carved so many years ago by Pike, the ship’s carpenter, and set deep into the sand, looking out at the sea they’d all forsaken.

      Pike had been dead these past five or more years, a victim of the Red Men Gang, and the reason Court¬ land had first donned the black mask and cloak of the Black Ghost and ridden out to protect the local smugglers, little knowing that the Red Men Gang had been headed by Edmund Beales.

      Life was so odd, and it seemed to travel in circles, as Ainsley was prone to say, each one drawn smaller than the last, until the past and present collided.

      Courtland mounted the wooden flagway, heading for The Last Voyage, the one place Cassandra could not follow, and the pint or two of ale he felt necessary at the moment, hesitating only when he heard hoofbeats coming toward him through the misty dusk.

      “Chance,” he said, waiting until his brother dismounted from his large stallion, Jacamel, and stepped up on the flagway. “You’re alone?”

      “Rian and Ethan are somewhere behind me,” Chance said, lifting his hat and pushing back his nearly shoulder-length blond hair that had escaped the ribbon he used to secure it at his nape. “Our brother handles the new mare well, but Ethan insists the two still have to get to know each other better, especially since Rian’s learning how to direct Miranda only with his knees.”

      “Leaving his hand free to hold a sword or pistol,” Courtland said, nodding his head. “If anyone can do it, Rian can. Although I question his choice of name for the mare. Miranda?”

      “Lisette chose it. If she’d told him to call the damned horse Mud Fence, he would have done it. She holds quite a bit of power over our youngest brother,” Chance said as they entered the tavern. “I don’t know that I like that.”

      “Because she’s Beales’s daughter? She proved her loyalty, Chance. Hell, she tried to kill the man.”

      “Granted. But she also helped keep Rian in France for months after he could have returned to us, with us believing him dead all that time. She only had her epiphany about her father when he killed that servant who tried to help her, or so she says. We have no proof the man is dead.”

      Courtland lifted the two mugs Ivan poured for them and carried them to a table in the corner. “I believe her,” he said before taking a long drink from the mug. “And so do you. What else bothers you about Lisette?”

      Chance smiled, toasted Courtland with his own mug. “I’m that transparent? Rian told me that, once this mess is over, he and Lisette will go to New Orleans, to claim land and money left to her by her grandfather. That makes two now, you know, with Spence and Mariah heading for Hampton Roads. I’ve never considered myself particularly sentimental, but I find I dislike the idea of having two of my brothers on the other side of the ocean.”

      “Not just Rian and Spence,” Courtland said, looking into his mug. “Ainsley has purchased property in Hampton Roads. A boat-building company he acquired at no small price. He’ll be leaving us, too, taking Cassandra with him.”

      “Ha, that is a piece of news I already knew, thanks to Julia, although I won’t believe he’ll leave here until he actually sails away,” Chance said, and then smiled. “But if he does, you’ll go, as well. According to my wife, Callie wouldn’t have it any other way.”

      “Cassandra has nothing to say about where I go, what I do.”

      Now Chance grinned. “Oh, brother mine, you’re as thick as you ever were. Maybe I should have knocked you down more often. But I suppose, as your brother, I should warn you—the ladies are plotting your demise. Julia says it is to keep their minds away from thoughts of Beales, but I think they’re using our old enemy as an excuse to cause mischief.”

      Courtland lifted his hand, and Ivan brought him a fresh mug. “I already figured that out, earlier. Cassandra

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