Breaking the Rake's Rules

‘Tell me, there’s no use holding back. I’m not the pregnant one.’ Ren pitched his voice low, too, aware of how sound carried in the dark Caribbean night. With Emma expecting, Kitt knew Ren was eager nothing upset her, yet another reason Kitt was reluctant to be the bearer of such news. Ren shared everything with his wife. Kitt didn’t think he’d be able to keep this from her.

‘It was a trap.’ Kitt still couldn’t believe it, couldn’t understand it, no matter how many times he replayed the ambush in his mind. ‘They waited until we’d unloaded the barrels and then they charged, right there, on the beach in daylight.’ Not that it made much difference if it was night or day on a deserted beach. There was no one to see either way. Things like this happened to others who were less meticulous, less prepared, less cynical. But he had a certain reputation, which made him all the more suspicious about the motives behind the attack. What had he missed? It was a simple run, the kind he made all the time. What had he missed? The words had become a restless, uncontainable mantra in his mind that obliterated other thought.

Kitt rose and began to pace the length of Ren’s French doors, some small part of him registering Ren’s eyes on him. But most of his mind was focused internally, replaying the ambush, running through potential scenarios, potential suspects responsible for the attack. What had he missed? This had been the first deal with a new client he’d contracted with a couple weeks ago. Someone, it appeared, who might not have been who he claimed to be.

Kitt stopped pacing and leaned his arm against the frame of the doors. He felt dirty, as if he’d unknowingly picked up a disease and then unwittingly spread it to a friend. Who? Who? Who? pounded relentlessly in his head, his mind was determined to solve this mystery. Kitt closed his eyes, thoughts coming hard and fast. It wouldn’t be the first time someone had given a false name to their agent. Follow that line of thought, Sherard, his mind urged. He was aware of Ren talking as if from a distance. He couldn’t concentrate on Ren’s words just now, but four managed to break through.

‘They took the rum?’ Ren asked quietly, neutrally.

Kitt’s eyes flew open in disbelief. The day second-rate bandits took a cargo from him was the day he’d quit the business. ‘Of course not! We fought like berserkers to protect your rum. You should have seen young Passemore with his knife, stabbing away like he fought the fiends of hell for his very soul.’

‘Stop!’ Ren’s interruption was terse, his eyes hard as he grasped the implications. ‘You fought to protect the rum? Are you insane?’

‘They were bandits, Ren, they had weapons,’ Kitt answered one-part exasperated, one-part incredulous. Did Ren not know him at all? Did Ren think he’d give up his friend’s cargo without a fight when he knew how much Ren and Emma were counting on it? On him? Kitt pushed a hand through his hair. He owed Ren a debt of friendship he could never truly repay.

‘We had to do something, Ren.’

‘You should have let them have it, that’s what you should have done. It’s only rum, after all,’ Ren scolded.

Only rum? Kitt almost laughed, but Ren would not have appreciated the humour. Ren had only been here a year. Island nuances, or the lack of them, were still relatively new to him. Rum was Caribbean gold. Taking a man’s rum in Barbados was like robbing the Bank of England in London. People did indeed die for it, although Kitt didn’t plan on being one of them.

Kitt looked out into the night, his mind working hard. Behind him, he heard the shift of his friend rising from his chair and crossing the room to him, determination in Ren’s footfalls. ‘Dear God, Kitt, you could have been killed and for what? For rum?’ Indignation rolled off Ren. Kitt didn’t have to see him to feel it.

‘What would you have me do? Do you think so little of me that I would give up your cargo when I know how much you and Emma were counting on it? Counting on me? I couldn’t just let them take it.’

The bandits had known that. Kitt’s mind lit on those last words. Or at least whoever had hired them had known, had guessed that he would fight. It had been what they’d wanted. He recalled now how, after he’d shot the man leading the charge, the bandits had not been deterred. He remembered muttering to Passemore, ‘This means war.’ Those bandits had been spoiling for a fight, looking for one even. He remembered being surprised by their fierceness, their determination to go up against Kitt Sherard and his men—something most were unwilling to do. The rum had been a cover to get to him, or had it?

Beside him, Ren was still bristling. ‘I’d never forgive myself if you died over one of my cargoes, neither would Emma. Promise me you won’t take such a chance again. I don’t want you dead.’

But someone did. That was the part that niggled at him. He’d had five deliveries this week. If whoever had hired the bandits had wanted him, they could have taken him any time that week and had better opportunities to do it. All right, where does that lead you? If that’s true, what does it mean? His brain prompted him to make the next connection. It meant the rum was not a cover or a coincidence. Kitt tried out his hypothesis on Ren. ‘They weren’t trying to kill me over just any rum. They were after me and your rum.’ And when that had failed, they’d been happy to settle for just him in a back alley of Bridgetown.

Ren blew out a breath and withdrew to the decanter. ‘I’m going to need more brandy for this. What aren’t you telling me?’ Kitt could hear the chink of the heavy crystal stopper being removed, the familiar splash of brandy in a glass, but he didn’t turn, didn’t move his gaze from the opaque darkness of the night, not wanting any sensory distractions to interrupt his thoughts. He was close now, so close, if he could just hold on to the ideas whirling through his head and form them into a cohesive whole.

‘There were two men waiting for me back in port,’ Kitt said.

Ren moaned and gave the decanter a slosh to judge the remainder. ‘I don’t think I have enough. Is that why you were late to the Crenshaws’? And here you had me believing it was because you were out carousing.’

Well, that and a certain woman on a certain balcony—not that Ren needed to know that part. The carousing part wasn’t entirely untrue. The fewer people who knew about Bryn’s balcony the better, especially Ren, who had done so much to get him on the list of potential bank investors. Ren had enough bad news tonight without hearing he’d been kissing Mr Rutherford’s daughter, no matter how accidental.

‘Would it be fair to conclude those men are still out there?’ Ren returned to him and handed him the glass. Kitt nodded and waited for the other conclusion to hit. It did. ‘And you travelled out here alone? They could have had you any time on the road. Dammit, Kitt, have you any sense?’

The thought had occurred to Kitt, too. Traffic on the road between Sugarland and Bridgetown was light, especially during the heat of the late afternoon. There were places where an attack would draw no attention even if anyone chanced along. ‘I was prepared for them.’ Kitt shrugged, thinking of the knife in his boot and the pistols he’d slung over his saddle. Part of him had been hoping they’d try again, hoping he could wring some answers from the bastards when they did.

They were standing close together now, Ren’s gaze on his face searching for answers he didn’t have yet. ‘Who would do such a thing? Do you have any idea who wants you dead?’ There was real concern in Ren’s tone and it touched him. Until last year, he’d been alone, cut off from all he knew, all social ties gone except the ones he’d created in this new life of his, but they would never be close, would never be allowed to replace the ones he’d given up. It was too dangerous. Closeness created curiosity and that was a commodity he could not afford. Then Ren had shown up and it was like coming back to life. Here was one of the two people left who knew him and it was gift beyond measure. ‘Who, Kitt?’ Ren asked again.

Kitt shook his head. ‘That’s not the question to be asking.’ That list was rather long, definitely distinguished and would result in a needle-in-the-haystack sort of search. ‘The real question is who would want revenge against both of us?’ That list was considerably shorter. Ren was well liked and an earl besides. There were few who would dare to be his enemy. But there was one...

Suddenly Kitt knew with the starkest of clarity who it was and why it was. It was the scenario that made the most sense, and frankly, it was the scenario he preferred to the other possibilities. The other scenarios were far worse to contemplate, like the one where his past came to the island and destroyed everything he’d built, everything he’d become. If that happened, he wasn’t sure he could protect himself.

He felt better now, back in control. There was relief in the knowing, in having a concrete enemy, although he doubted Ren would share that relief. It was all fairly simple now that all the pieces had come together. He faced Ren. ‘I know who it is. It’s Hugh Devore.’

‘No, it couldn’t be,’ Ren answered in almost vehement denial, but his face was pale. ‘Devore is gone, he promised to leave the island, to leave us alone.’

‘A man will promise any number of things when his life is on the line,’ Kitt said. ‘He’s had a year to rethink that promise and it probably didn’t mean much to him anyway.’ Last year, he and Ren had forcibly exiled three planters from the island after Arthur Gridley had assaulted Emma and attempted to burn down Sugarland. Gridley was dead now, shot by one of his own, but the others were at large, a deal he and Ren had struck with them to avoid exposing Emma to the rigours of testifying at a public trial.

‘Do you know where?’ Ren asked quietly.

Kitt shook his head. He had been the one to sail them to another island and leave them to their exile. The island had been rather remote, barely populated. They’d been free, of course, to leave that island, as long as they didn’t return to Barbados.

‘Cunningham went back to England,’ Kitt said. It wasn’t Cunningham he was worried about. Cunningham had been the one to shoot Gridley, the ringleader. He was done with the group. It was the other two, Elias Blakely, the accountant, and Gridley’s right hand, Hugh Devore, whom Kitt was worried about. ‘I have no idea where the others might have gone.’ Devore would be dangerous. Exile had cost him everything: his fortune, his home and even his wife. Devore’s wife had refused to go with him. She’d taken Cunningham’s cue and gone back to her family in England.

Ren’s face was etched with worry, as well it should be. Devore was vindictive and cruel and Ren had a family now; a wife and a new baby on the way, beautiful things to be sure, but liabilities, too. Devore would not hesitate to use those treasures against him and Ren knew it.

Kitt clapped a hand on Ren’s shoulder in comfort. ‘I’ll find them.’ He could handle trouble of this nature. He would protect Ren with every breath in his body. It had been Ren who had hidden him that long last night in the dark hours before the tide, Ren who had stood against the watch when they’d come. Kitt would never forget.

‘You don’t need to protect me,’ Ren said with quiet steel. ‘This is not England, Kitt, and I’m not your addle-pated brother. You do not need to sacrifice yourself for me.’

Kitt dropped his hand, his gaze holding Ren’s. Ren was one of the few who could make that comment, in part because it took a certain boldness to remind Kitt of his family, and in part because there were only two people outside of that family who knew the truth. Ren was one, Benedict Debreed was the other. Kitt blinked once and looked away, the only concession to emotion he would make. ‘Perhaps not sacrifice, but you’ll need me to watch your back and Emma’s.’

Ren grinned. ‘That offer I will take.’

The emotion eased between them and Kitt smiled back. The crisis, the bad news, had passed for now. ‘In the meanwhile, I’ll set up another deal for your rum and you can tell Emma everything will be fine.’

Ren’s eyes drifted to the clock on the desk at the mention of his wife. Kitt laughed. Even after a year of marriage, Ren was thinking about bed, about Emma. ‘You don’t have to stay up with me,’ Kitt assured him with a wolfish grin. ‘I can finish my brandy all by myself.’

Ren hesitated. ‘I can wait a few more minutes—you haven’t told me about the new banker in Bridgetown yet.’

‘No, you can’t wait. It’s written all over your face how much you want to be with her.’ Kitt chuckled. ‘Go, the rest of my news can keep until morning. We’ll have another good talk before I leave tomorrow.’ He shooed Ren off with a gesture of his hand.

‘Well, if you’re sure?’ Ren set down his glass, already halfway to the door.

‘I’m sure. Goodnight,’ Kitt called after him with a laugh.

Kitt took a swallow, listening to the tick of the clock. The room was quiet without Ren and he let all the dangerous thoughts come, the ones he’d struggled to suppress these last few days, the surge of envy at all Ren had and that he could never have. It wasn’t that he coveted Emma or the baby or the plantation. It was that he could never have such a family himself. Nor could he ever claim the family he’d once had.

In the last year both Ren and Benedict had married happily and against no small odds. That wasn’t the strange part. Men like them, men with titles and obligations, got married all the time. They were expected to. They were expected—required even—to stand at stud for the benefit of their great families and procure the next generation in exchange for dowries that would sustain the financial burden of expanding the family line. The strange part was, despite those expectations, Ren and Benedict had managed to marry for love, to marry beyond their obligations.

In doing so, they’d turned marriage into something otherworldly, something Kitt had not thought possible when he’d made his sacrifice. But now, seeing that it was possible, well, that changed everything. Only it was six years too late to change anything for him. He was Kitt Sherard, adventurer extraordinaire, lover nonpareil, a man who lived on the edge of decency in his occupation as a rum runner among other things. He didn’t pretend all his cargoes were legal, just some of them, enough of them, to massage Bridgetown society into tolerating him among their midst. He had only what he’d created for himself: a home, a ship, even his name. He was a self-fashioned man who came from nowhere, belonged to no one, was claimed by no one. This identity as a man from ‘nowhere’ suited him, even if it made him socially questionable. It wasn’t the sort of background mamas wanted their daughters to marry into. Nor would he allow them to. That meant he should leave Bryn Rutherford alone. There was no need, no point, in tempting them both into foolishness.

She had been right today. More right than she knew. He wasn’t the marrying kind. She’d only been talking about his flirtatious behaviour. The life he lived was dangerous and unpredictable, enemies lurking in the shadows, as illustrated by the latest turn of events. But he didn’t have a choice, not a real choice anyway. It had to be this way. He was destined to be alone. Alone kept him safe, kept others safe.

His life kept him busy, made him rich enough to buy any pleasure he wanted, any distraction he needed to keep his mind off the past, because it wasn’t just the past he remembered, it wasn’t just the sacrifice he remembered, but also the guilt—he’d run to save himself when perhaps he should have stayed and saved others first.

Kitt poured a third glass, trying hard to push away the memories. He could not imagine bringing a wife and a family into the mire of his past or the peril of his present. Indeed, they would only be liabilities and they would always be at risk. He’d not be able to concentrate on his work if he was always worried about them. What was the point of having a wife, a family, if he didn’t care enough to worry about them? He knew himself well enough to know he’d want to worry. It had been concern over another that had brought him to this state of life in the first place. His thoughts went to the man Passemore had shot. Was there a wife and children waiting for the dead man even now? Were people wondering and worrying when he didn’t come home?

He saw his own family in the sad picture such an image painted; his once-brilliant, sparkling family. Had they learned to laugh again without him? He hoped so. He didn’t want to imagine them grey and wilted—the way they’d looked the last time he’d seen them. The scandal had broken them. Did they still wait expectantly for some small piece of news about him from Benedict the same way he coveted the mail packet?

Benedict’s letters were the only connection he allowed himself, the only risk he allowed himself where his family was concerned. He cherished each scrap of news. His brother, his twin, was courting Viscount Enderly’s daughter. An engagement was in the offing.

Kitt had rejoiced over that in the last letter. It proved his choice had been worth it. The scandal had been survived, by them at least. But there was pain, too. He wouldn’t be there for the wedding, wouldn’t be there to stand beside his brother as a witness, wouldn’t be there to act as uncle to the children that would follow. Only in the dark, fortified with brandy, did Kitt ever permit himself to admit how much he missed his brother. But to see him, to contact him, would be to condemn him and Kitt loved him far too much to risk it even if it had killed him to sever that tie. To those who suspected he still lived, he was a pariah. To those in London who believed him dead, his death was considered a good riddance and a just one.

Kitt couldn’t imagine a woman who would be willing to risk stepping into his life once she truly understood it. His bed, on a temporary basis, was one thing. A woman needn’t know too much about him to enjoy his bed. He had a woman in every port and in some places, he had two. But permanently? Therein lay the risk.

* * *

A hazy, brandy-induced thought came to him. What would Bryn Rutherford do if she knew how he’d amassed his fortune? Would she run screaming to her father or would she throw caution to the wind like she had yesterday? One had to wonder if Bryn Rutherford was in the habit of living recklessly when no one was looking or if it was merely a momentary lapse in judgement? Kitt hoped for the latter.

It had been rather heady business today in the garden, sparring with her, the lightness of their banter cleverly interspersed with a more serious hunt for information. She’d been a rather tenacious opponent, shrewd enough to know he was not all he seemed. He’d actually found arguing with her a bit arousing, watching those grey eyes flash, knowing her mind was working as they stood close enough to do something other than argue. He’d thought about it—about silencing her with a kiss—she’d thought about it, too. He’d seen it in her eyes. She’d been aware of his intentions when his eyes had dropped to those full, kissable lips of hers.

Here in the dim room, the darkness encroaching, the memory had the power to pleasantly rouse him. But Kitt decided against it. Kissing her would have been the easy answer and a belittling one for such a fine opponent. If he couldn’t have her trust, he’d at least have her respect. It was a starting point at least. Ren had used his title, his English influence via Benedict back in London, to get his name on the list of potential investors. Kitt would not let the opportunity go languishing for the sake of a few kisses.

Kitt shifted in his chair to a more comfortable position, letting his mind drift. Bryn Rutherford was something of a conundrum. She’d been fire in his arms, eager to meet him on equal ground. Yet the woman he’d encountered at the dinner party had been concerned with propriety, which posed a most certain dichotomy to passion. Under usual circumstances, such juxtaposition would be worth exploring, intriguing even. But circumstances were not ‘usual’, not even for him. He had a cargo of rum to trade, new investments to consider and an assassin on his heels.

As tempting as an affaire was, it was too distracting for him and too dangerous for her. His safety and hers demanded he keep her at arm’s length. If ever there was a time to pursue a new flirtation, this was definitely not it. He needed all his wits about him.

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