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  “My sister, Becky, and I.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “Please tell me you have a man traveling with you.”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because we don’t—have a man traveling with us that is.”

  He sighed. She was a walking, talking disaster, who blatantly signaled her dilemma to the world. In a port town filled with rogues and criminals, what sort of miscreant might notice and take advantage of her plight?

  “Where are you staying, Miss Barnes?”

  She pointed down the street. “We have a small suite at a hotel. It’s in the next alley.”

  “Let’s go. I’ll see you there.”

  “I probably should get back. Becky will be worried.”

  They started off, and he linked his arm with hers in case she lost her balance again. He would send her a basket of food once he returned to his camp outside town, but as he realized he would, he had to tamp down his aggravation.

  He had no desire to be embroiled in her problems. He was busy, his own plans finally coming to fruition. He wouldn’t be distracted by a deranged Londoner who was in the one place on the globe she shouldn’t be.

  But she exuded an aura that made a man want to assist her, and he was a gullible idiot when he stumbled on a pretty face.

  “Who are you looking for?” he said.

  “My father.”

  “It’s the middle of the afternoon. Why are you searching for him in the taverns? Is he a drinker? A gambler?”

  “No, he’s a vicar.”

  “A vicar! Is he in there saving souls?”

  “I wouldn’t think so. He’s not very pious.”

  Hayden snorted. “So he’s not preaching to the sinners?”

  “My father? No, definitely not.”

  “In this desperate spot, people wouldn’t listen. He’d end up with a knife in his back.”

  They arrived at a corner and turned down an alley. Shortly, they approached a decrepit building. The windows were boarded over, and it leaned slightly, as if the foundation was gradually giving way.

  He supposed poorer, reputable occupants stayed there occasionally, but he predicted the rooms were more likely to be rented out by the hour. By whores. Miss Barnes was so straitlaced. Had she recognized the dubious characters who were sneaking in and out?

  “Is this your hotel?” he asked, somewhat aghast.

  “Yes.”

  “It doesn’t look very safe.”

  “It’s safe enough,” she claimed.

  “Could I convince you to move?”

  “As with my clothes, if I had the money for better accommodations, wouldn’t I have retained them?”

  He stared down at her. Her bonnet had slipped off when she tripped, and it was hanging by the ribbons. She’d lost a comb, so her brunette locks were tumbling down too. She appeared bedraggled and miserable and adorable.

  “Are you in trouble, Miss Barnes?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Are you intending to remain in Santa Cruz?”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  “I’m relieved to hear it.”

  It was on the tip of his tongue to offer her funds, advice, information. He was rich now, richer than he’d ever been. He could open his purse and give her all the gold coins in it, and he wouldn’t miss them, but…he would not involve himself.

  A fellow who tried to aid her would be sucked into the mud of her life and would never be able to climb out. But she stirred every chivalrous impulse, all the ones he’d presumed had been drummed out of him during his lengthy ordeal.

  “I’ll just be going then,” he said.

  “Goodbye.”

  He grinned. “Will you thank me again for chasing off those brigands?”

  “No.”

  “Why not? You have to shower me with a bit of gratitude. If you won’t, how will I have fond memories of our meeting?”

  “You’re a very vain man, and I can’t abide vanity in a male. I won’t stroke your ego anymore than I’m sure it has always been stroked.”

  She’d judged him correctly, but she hadn’t too. The first twenty years, he’d been spoiled and cosseted and constantly told he was wonderful, but the previous decade hadn’t been all that great. He wasn’t wonderful anymore, and it was the reason his nickname was so apt: Nine Lives.

  In light of the perils and catastrophes he’d suffered and survived, he should have been dead a hundred times over. Yet he’d muddled through, and he was finally heading home. Nothing could be allowed to delay him. Especially not a reckless woman who didn’t have any sense.

  She turned to step into the dilapidated hotel, and the oddest wave of regret swept over him. Though it was bizarre, he couldn’t bear to part from her. Apparently, he was a tad besotted, which meant the heat of the day must have addled his wits.

  “Be careful,” he said.

  She glanced at him over her shoulder. “I will be.”

  “Watch out for yourself.”

  “I’ll try my best.”

  “You shouldn’t tarry in Santa Cruz. Can I persuade you to sail for England?”

  “If I could afford to purchase a ticket to England, I would depart tomorrow.”

  Buy her a ticket! Buy it you fool!

  The words rang in his mind, but he ignored them. He would not enmesh himself in her petty predicament!

  Instead, he said, “Maybe I’ll see you before you leave. Or before I leave.”

  “Maybe.”

  She didn’t look as if she’d like to see him again, and she was right that he was very vain. Women fawned over him. They always had. They’d pursued him in his prior life, when he’d been young and wealthy and exalted, and they pursued him now when he was simply a handsome rogue with no past or history.

  Miss Barnes didn’t seem impressed in the least, and he was irked that he hadn’t charmed her.

  “You didn’t even ask me my name,” he said. “Aren’t you curious?”

  “Not really.” She was so insolent! “Goodbye.”

  She went inside, the dark shadows swallowing her.

  He stood on the dusty street, sincerely considering marching in after her, announcing his identity, demanding she be awed. But years earlier, he’d learned to shut up about who he’d once been. In the world of pirates and criminals where he’d been trapped, people scoffed with derision, and he was never believed.

  By her being so rude, she’d saved him a ton of exasperation. She was beautiful and gutsy, but capricious and erratic too. What man could tolerate a woman like that? Not himself certainly.

  He was busy, and he didn’t need to bother with her. She didn’t want to be bothered. So…to hell with her! He had better things to do than rescue a damsel who didn’t wish to be rescued.

  He spun away and stomped off.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Any news about Father?”

  Helen peered over at her sister, Becky, and shook her head. “I didn’t have a chance to check many of the taverns though.”

  “Why not?”

  “There was a bit of an incident.”

  “What sort of incident?”

  “I was accosted by a trio of drunken sailors.”

  “Helen! Don’t say so.”

  Helen waved a weary hand. “They were simply flirting, and it grew a tad…strident.”

  “Strident!”

  “I could have extricated myself, but a British gentleman ran them off for me. After that, I didn’t feel like continuing.”

  “Who was the gentleman?”

  “I didn’t catch his name.”

  “You should have. In this wretched spot, it would have been beneficial to make his acquaintance.”

  “Perhaps.”

  Or perhaps not.

  Helen smiled a tight smile and hung her bonnet on a hook. They’d managed to rent accommodations that weren’t h
orrid. There was a tiny bedchamber and a sitting room with a door that opened onto a bricked courtyard. There were shade trees, a bench, and a fountain that gurgled with tepid water, so it supplied them with more space than they might have had.

  The ceiling was low, the floor packed dirt, and shutters deflected some of the heat. Under the circumstances, it was better than she might have anticipated.

  Normally, she wouldn’t have been upset by the dastardly episode she’d endured out on the street, but her nerves were frayed and her anxiety spiraling.

  She shouldn’t have travelled to the Canary Islands. She shouldn’t have come, but as usual, her father had convinced her to trust him. How many times had she listened to him? How many times had disaster struck because she wasn’t wary?

  Her father was very charming, the type of roué every woman wanted to save, and she was an obedient, fond daughter. She tried to heed him, to have faith in him, but she’d just turned twenty-five. She couldn’t use the excuse that she was naïve or immature and thus blind to his faults.

  She had to face the fact that her father—defrocked vicar, Simon Barnes—was an unreliable, dishonest scoundrel. He would do anything to anyone. He’d proved over and over that moral conduct was beyond him.

  There was a facet missing in his personality that should have kept him on the straight and narrow, which certainly indicated that a career in the ministry had been a very misguided choice.

  He was a silver-tongued, flamboyant devil, but he was also a blatant philanderer who had a sordid history of misbehavior with females in his various parishes. When Helen’s mother had still been with them, she’d tamped down his worst impulses, but she’d died birthing Becky.

  Since then, Simon had been out of control, and church authorities had dealt with his scandals by moving him from parish to parish to conceal his proclivities—until they couldn’t be hidden any longer. He’d been fired and kicked out.

  “I thought we could search for him again this evening,” Helen said, “when it’s not so hot. Would you accompany me?”

  “Of course. I should have been with you this time.”

  “The temperature is sweltering.”

  “I wish we could buy some dresses that weren’t sewn from such a heavy fabric.”

  “It would be splendid, Becky, but I can’t figure out how we’d afford it.”

  Her father had always brimmed with plans and ideas. After he’d committed his final sin and had been relieved of his duties for good, they’d been in dire straits.

  Ultimately, he’d signed on with the Evangelical Missionary Society. The group hired ministers to spread the gospel to native people around the globe, but they must not have been very picky as to who they employed. They couldn’t have checked his references. He didn’t have any.

  The position had sounded like an answer to their prayers. He’d been assigned to a small chapel on the island of Tenerife, and he’d been given a cottage that would serve as a rectory and where they could all live.

  He’d journeyed to the island by himself to verify the conditions, then he’d sent funds for Helen and Becky to join him in the foreign locale.

  Helen hadn’t hesitated. It had seemed prudent to leave the country, to start over in a new place where no one was aware of Simon’s inclinations. And he didn’t know how to do anything except preach and counsel and pray.

  She and Becky had sailed at once, stupidly assuming all their difficulties were about to vanish. But Simon wasn’t in Santa Cruz. Or if he was, they couldn’t find him. There was a chapel owned by the Missionary Society, but another pastor and his family were there, and they claimed they’d never heard of Simon Barnes.

  Helen had been hunting for him for an entire month and had spent nearly all of the funds he’d provided. She was down to her last farthings and couldn’t guess what would become of them after her purse was completely empty.

  She would like to wring her father’s neck.

  “Did you bring any food?” Becky asked.

  “There was no opportunity to shop, and I don’t really have any money. We’ll scrounge up a bite when we’re out later.”

  “I’m hungry now,” Becky protested. “I can’t wait until later.”

  “I’m hoarding my pennies so we can book passage to the next island over. He might be there.”

  “You can’t believe that, Helen. Will we search island by island? There are a dozen or more, and we’re strangers in a strange land. How is that a practical decision?”

  Helen agreed it was a mad scheme, but she couldn’t bear to be chastised. “Oh, Becky, please don’t badger me. I’m so fatigued.”

  Becky was sixteen, idle, and lazy. Her goal was to flirt and woo so she could snag a husband, and she would bat her lashes at any handsome boy. No doubt about it, she had too much of their father’s blood running in her veins and not any of their mother’s.

  Mostly, she declined to exit the hotel where the tropical sun might shine on her pristine skin. She passed the long, slow days lounging on the bed in the bedchamber with a cool cloth over her eyes while Helen shouldered all their burdens. In their convoluted relationship, it was their typical mode of carrying on.

  Helen staggered to the chair and plopped down. Her stomach growled just from thinking about food, and she was very close to bursting into tears. But what good would it do to weep?

  She merely had to dig up some evidence of where Simon was hiding. He’d definitely been on Tenerife. The postage on his letter confirmed it, and if he was laying low, he’d likely already caused trouble and was staying out of sight. She had to keep a visible profile so he’d learn that she’d arrived.

  In the interim, she had to accumulate some method whereby they could eat occasionally then—if Simon was never located—head back to England.

  The language in the islands was Spanish, coupled with a native tongue she couldn’t pronounce. She couldn’t speak either one, which made it impossible to explain her predicament or garner any assistance. She ought to be out applying for a job, but she had no skills. She’d only ever taken care of her father and his many rectories.

  She recalled the gentleman who’d rescued her out on the street. He’d been English, and she might have prevailed on him, but he’d been so arrogant and rude. After reeling through her father’s many ordeals, she’d had enough of men blustering and ordering her about.

  “I’m sorry, Helen.” Becky looked chastened, but not very much. “I don’t mean to nag.”

  Yes, you do. “We have to continue searching while we stretch the last of our money as far as we can.”

  “We never should have come here,” Becky griped for the thousandth time. “We knew better than to trust him.”

  “He’s our father,” Helen loyally stated, “and we had no other option. How could we have refused?”

  “We had an option. You should have accepted Cousin Desdemona’s offer.”

  “Probably.”

  Their cousin, Desdemona Henley, had stumbled into a windfall by marrying her husband, Jasper. He’d been a distant heir to the Middlebury earldom, but hadn’t expected to ever inherit. The prior earl had been hale and healthy, his son too.

  Then they’d both perished in an accident, and suddenly, Jasper had ascended to the title. Desdemona had risen on the tide that lifted him up. She was very snooty now, very pretentious, but she was a spendthrift and shrew who was hard on her servants so they quit in droves.

  When Simon had been fired, and Helen frantic, Desdemona had suggested she travel to Middlebury and work—for free—as her housekeeper. Cousin Des had told her she could bring Becky too, so they’d have had a place to live.

  With how condescending Desdemona had become, none of their Barnes kin could stand her, and Helen hadn’t imagined she could abide being under Des’s thumb. She’d avoided the horrid fate by her father begging her to join him on Tenerife.

  Yet she should have remained in England. She should have saved herself and her sister. She should
have humiliated herself by toiling away as the housekeeper in her cousin’s grand mansion.

  Why did she always choose exactly the wrong path?

  “I bet Cousin Des hasn’t found anyone else,” Becky said. “You know how awful she is to work for. Who would put up with her besides you? Why don’t you write her?”

  “How would I pay for the postage, Becky? And it would take months for her to receive a letter, then reply. How would we support ourselves as we waited for her answer?”

  “I’m just trying to help, Helen,” Becky snottily retorted. “You don’t have to shoot down my every idea.”

  “Let’s not quarrel.”

  “All right.” Becky sighed with frustration. “I guess I’ll…I’ll…lie down. I can’t bear this heat.”

  “Yes, have a nap. I’ll wake you later, and we’ll walk through the town again.”

  Before Becky could flounce off, there was a knock on the door, and it startled them. In the weeks they’d been at the hotel, no one had ever knocked.

  “Could it be Father?” Becky whispered.

  Helen leapt to her feet, her anticipation nearly too painful, as Becky hurried over and peeked out. It wasn’t Simon, and they sagged with disappointment.

  A young man was there instead, and he was about Becky’s age. With his black hair and blue eyes, he was incredibly handsome, which was vastly annoying. Becky would be enthralled, and before the hour was out, she’d be planning her wedding.

  “Miss Barnes?” he said to Becky.

  “Yes, I’m Miss Barnes. I’m Becky Barnes.” She gestured to Helen. “This is my sister, Helen.”

  He held out a basket. “It’s from Nine Lives.”

  Becky raised a brow at Helen, then asked him, “Who might that be?”

  “He met your sister earlier. She mentioned you’re new to Tenerife, and he thought you might enjoy a sampling of some of the local cheeses and wine.” They gaped at him, and he extended the basket. “It’s a gift.”

  The comment shook Becky out of her stupor. “Marvelous. Let me take it from you.”

  She set it on the table as he added, “There’s a note too. For your sister? I’m to wait for a reply.”

  Becky snatched it up and brought it to Helen. Helen was so astonished that she sank onto her chair. Then she flicked the seal and read the words that had been penned.