The Pirate's Duty (Regent's Revenge #3)(3)

~ Trewman’s Exeter Flying Post, 15 September 1809


Smuggler’s End Cove, Devon, 15 September 1809

“Miss Thorpe wasn’t part of the bargain.” Captain Pierce Walsingham regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth.

“A penance, it is,” said Angus Pye, his first mate. Dressed in a sad-looking navy coat—one size too small—faded white trousers, a calico shirt, and a neckerchief, he didn’t flinch as the carpenters hammered topside. “But a deal is a deal, is it not?”

“Aye.” Walsingham propped his feet on his desk and crossed his arms. “A deal meant to keep the devil from patrolling shipping lanes, killing innocent victims, and making orphans.”

“Spit ’im out, ’Ades did.”

“And we’ll throw him back in.” Walsingham gave Pye a triumphant smile.

As a former pirate hunter with the Board of Excise—a man all but a few thought was dead—Walsingham actually enjoyed the anonymity of being the Black Regent, Cornwall’s Robin Hood. He’d accepted the Regent’s mask from the Earl of Markwick, now Marquess of Underwood, on his sister Chloe’s wedding day and had promised Chloe that he’d protect the owner of the Marauder’s Roost, Miss Oriana Thorpe. And he’d be damned if he didn’t.

He owed Miss Thorpe a debt he could never repay. And therein lay the problem. Before he could actually step into Miss Thorpe’s life, a plan to ensnare Carnage had to be put into place. Which meant he had to use her and protect her at the same time.

First, he needed a fleet to sink Carnage’s ship. Second, Carnage expected the Regent to go on the attack sooner rather than later, and Walsingham would need to disguise his easily recognizable ship, the Fury. To the former, Walsingham had deepened his relationship with the Seatons of Talland Bay, whose frigates far exceeded any in the Royal Navy in agility and speed. To the latter, he’d enlisted the youngest son, Keane, to refurbish the Fury so the vessel could hide in plain sight.

“Carnage wrecked the Mohegan,” Walsingham went on, trying not to think about what would have happened if Markwick had not saved Chloe’s life. “And he sank the Windraker.” Walsingham’s former ship now sat at the bottom of the Channel due to his own idiocy in thinking he could outwit Carnage without a plan. “Though, I blame myself that over half my men are dead. If I hadn’t attacked his ship . . .”

“Ye cannot blame yerself, Cap’n,” Pye said. “These things ’appen.”

“Not to me they don’t. I captained that ship. As its commander, I am solely responsible.” He closed his eyes, trying to block out the sights and smells that haunted him. “I will not sail half-cocked again.”

Pye pulled out his pipe and a pouch of tobacco. “The crew believes in ye and stands behind ye, and the Seatons sent their best carpenters and sailmakers. We’ll be ready.”

Walsingham picked up Chloe’s letter and studied Underwood’s seal. “Keane is quite the naval architect. I’m impressed with his work. No one will recognize our ship when it leaves Smuggler’s End.”

“’E knows.” Grinning, Pye tapped tobacco into his pipe reservoir. “And ye’ll be pleased with the results, sir. ’E expects the Fury to be fully outfitted for our mission within a sennight.”

Almost as if on cue, the hammering above them stopped.

“Pray he’s right.” Walsingham tossed Chloe’s letter onto his desk and stood, keeping his back to the mahogany bulkhead. “I will not be satisfied until Carnage can never harm Miss Thorpe or anyone else again.”

“As in yer sister, sir?”

“Damned right. If we fail to stop him, he’ll come after Chloe next, just as he threatened to do. ‘No witnesses,’ remember?”

Pye nodded and reached for the lantern. “Any new word as to Carnage’s whereabouts?”

Walsingham grabbed his tankard. He looked down at the scar that angled from the first knuckle of his forefinger to the underside of his left palm, reminding him that brutal men did inhuman things.

Severity depends on circumstances, and whenever I have been severe, circumstances have rendered it necessary. So said his commander on board the Fulminante, Lieutenant Corbet, before the cat-o’-nine-tails had destroyed Midshipman Jellet’s back and caused the young officer’s death. Sickened, Walsingham moved to the sideboard and poured himself another drink.

“Cap’n?” Pye asked.

“Hmm?”

“Any word?” his first mate repeated.

“Oh . . . yes. After acquiring a ship in France, he’s seaworthy again.” As was the now Captain Corbet.

“Traitorous.” Pye lit his pipe and stoked it, releasing several puffs of smoke. “What good will it do ’em, do ye suppose, to join the Frenchies?”

“There’s a price on his head.” He took a drink. “I suspect after nearly killing a marquess, Carnage did the only thing he could once we blew his ship out of the water—go where the best frigates can be found.”

“Nay,” Pye said. “Talland Bay makes the best frigates.”

“Except you forget the Seatons have chosen sides,” Walsingham reminded him. “And if Blackmoor is right—his information has never been wrong, mind you—Carnage has outfitted his frigate to resemble the Fury. A sacrilege the Seatons would never have agreed to.”