How to Be a Proper Lady

Lady Justice

In Care of Brittle & Sons, Printers

London

Madam,

Your persistence in seeking the identities of the members of our humble club cannot but gratify. How splendid for us to claim the marked attentions of a lady of such enterprise.

You have hit the mark. One of us is indeed a sailor. I wish you the best of good fortune in determining which of the legion of Englishmen upon the seas he is. But wait! May I assist? I am in possession of a modest skiff. I shall happily lend it to you so that you may put to sea in search of your quarry. Better yet, I shall work the oars. Perhaps sitting opposite as you peer over the foamy swells, I will find myself as enamored of your beauty as I am of your tenacious intelligence-for only a beauty would hide behind such a daunting name and project.

I confess myself curious beyond endurance, on the verge of seeking your identity as assiduously as you seek ours. Say the word, madam, and I shall have my boat at your dock this instant.

Yours,

Peregrine

Secretary, The Falcon Club

Dear Sir,

I planted the missive bearing the code name so that LJ might find it and busy herself chasing shadows. The old girl’s pockets are no doubt as empty as her boasts, and she must keep her publishers happy.

In fact, the code name Sea Hawk may well be defunct. I have had no direct communication from him in fifteen months. The Admiralty reports that he yet holds a privateer’s commission, but has had no news from him since the conclusion of the Scottish affair more than a year ago. Even in his work for the Club he has rarely followed any lead but his own. I suspect he has resigned as we previously imagined. We must count England fortunate that he is now at least nominally loyal to the crown, rather than its enemy.

In service,

Peregrine

Chapter 2

Jinan Seton stared at his true love, and the blood ran cold in his veins. Rain-splattered wind whipped about him as he watched her, beauty incarnate, sink in a mass of flames and black smoke into the Atlantic Ocean.

The most graceful little schooner ever upon the seas. Gone.

His chest heaved in a silent groan as the final remnants of burning wood, canvas, and hemp disappeared beneath foamy green swells. A scattering of parts bobbed to the surface, slices of planking, snapped spars, empty barrels, shreds of sail. Her lovely corpse rent asunder.

The American brig’s deck rocked beneath his braced feet, rain slashing thicker now, obscuring the wreckage of his ship fifty yards away. He clamped his eyes shut against the pain.

“She was a good ’un, Master Jin.” The hulking beast standing beside him shook his chestnut head mournfully. “Weren’t your fault she’s gone into the drink.”

Jin scowled. Not his fault. Damn and blast American privateers shooting at anything with a sail.

“They acted like pirates,” he said through gritted teeth, his voice rough. “They lowered a longboat. They shot without warning.”

“Snuck up on us right good.” The massive head bobbed.

Jin sucked a breath through quivering nostrils and clenched his jaw, arms straining against the ropes trapping him to the brig’s mast. Someone would pay for this. In the most uncomfortable manner possible.

“Treated her like a queen, you did,” Mattie mumbled above the increasing roar of anger in Jin’s ears that obscured the shouts around him and the moans of wounded men. Jin swung his head about, craning to see past his helmsman’s bulk, searching, counting. There was Matouba strapped to a rail, Juan tied to rigging, Little Billy struggling in the hands of a sailor twice his breadth. Big Mattie blocked his view of the rest of the deck, but thirty more-

“Th’ others scrambled for the boats when she caught afire,” Mattie grunted. “Boys are well enough, seeing as these fellas ain’t pirates after all. Nothing to worry about.”

“Nothing to worry about.” Jin cracked a hard laugh. “I am trussed like a roast pig and the Cavalier is hundreds of feet below. No, I haven’t a care in the world.”

“Don’t you try fooling me. I knows you care more about our boys than your lady, no matter how much you doted on her.”

“Wrong, as usual, Matt.” He glanced up and saw clearly now the flag of the state of Massachusetts hanging limp in the rain that pattered his face. He’d lost his hat. No doubt it happened at some point during the scuffle from longboat to enemy deck when he’d abruptly realized he had ordered his men to board an American privateer, not a pirate vessel. Rain dripped from the tip of his nose into his mouth. He spit it out and slued his gaze around.

Shrouded in silvery gray, the deck of the brig was littered with human and nautical debris. Men from both crews lay prone, sailors seeing to wounds with hasty triage. Square sails hung loose from masts, several torn, a yardarm broken, sections of rail splintered and cut through with cannon shot, black powder marks everywhere. Even taken unaware, the Cavalier had given good fight. But the Yank vessel was still afloat. While Jin’s ship was at the bottom of the sea.

He closed his eyes again. His men were alive, and he could afford another ship. He could afford a dozen more. Of course, he had promised the Cavalier’s former owner he would take care of her. But he had promised himself even more. This setback would not cow him.

“We seen worse.” Mattie lifted bushy brows.

Jin cut him a sharp look.

“What I means to say is, you seen worse,” his helmsman amended.

Considerably worse. But nothing quite so painfully humiliating. No one bested him. No one.

“Who did this?” he growled, narrowing his eyes into the rain. “Who in hell could have crept up on us like that so swiftly?”

“That’d be Her Highness, sir.” The piping voice came from about waist-high. The lad, skinny and freckled, with a shock of carrot hair, stretched a gap-toothed grin, swept a hand to his waist, and bowed. “Welcomes aboard the April Storm, Master Pharaoh.”

Every muscle in Jin’s body stilled.

April Storm.

“Who is the master of this vessel, boy?”

The lad flinched at his hard tone. He flashed a glance at the ropes binding Jin and his helmsman about waists, chests, and hands to the mizzenmast, and the scrawny shoulders relaxed.

“Violet Laveel, sir,” he chirped.

“Quit smirking, whelp, and call your mistress over,” Mattie barked.

The boy’s eyes widened and he scampered off.

“Violet la Vile?” Mattie mumbled, then pursed his thick lips. “Hnh.”

Jin drew in a slow, steadying breath, but his heart hammered unaccustomedly quick. “The men are prepared?”

“Been pr’pared for months. Won’t do a lick o’ good now they’re all tied up.”

“I will do the talking.”

Mattie screwed up his cauliflower nose.