The Prize

“Your reputation precedes you,” St. John pointed out. “In the Mediterranean and off these shores, every enemy and privateer knows your naval tactics are superior, if unorthodox, and that if you think to board, you carry fighting men, men who think nothing of carrying a second cutlass in their teeth. They fear you—that is why no one battles you anymore.”

It was true more often than not. Devlin usually fired a single warning shot before boarding with his marines. There was rarely resistance—and he had become bored with it all.

“I believe your reputation is so great that even near American shores, the enemy will flee upon the sight of your ship.”

“I am truly flattered,” he murmured.

Liverpool spoke. “We are trying to avoid war with the Americans.” He gave Devlin a look. “Sending you there could be like releasing a wolf in a henhouse and then expecting healthy, happy hens and chicks. If you are sent westward, my boy, I want your word that you will follow your orders—that you will scare the bloody hell out of the enemy but that you will not engage her ships. Your country needs you, Devlin, but there is no room for pirate antics.”

Did they truly expect him to sail west and play nanny of sorts to the American merchants and navy? “I am to chase them about, threaten them, turn them back—and retreat?” He could scarcely believe it.

“Yes, that is basically what we wish for you to do. No American goods can be allowed to enter Europe, that has not changed. What has changed are the rules of engagement. We do not want another ship seized or destroyed, another American life accountable to our hands.”

Devlin stood. “Find someone else,” he said. “I am not the man for this tour.”

Farnham snorted, at once satisfied and disbelieving. “He refuses direct orders! And when do we decide to hang him for his insubordination?”

Devlin felt like telling the old fool to shut up. “It is a mistake, my lord,” he said softly to Liverpool, “to send a rogue like myself to such a duty.”

Liverpool studied him. And then he smiled, rather coldly. “I do not believe that, actually. Because I know you far better than you think I do.” He turned to the two admirals present. “Would you excuse us, gentlemen?”

Both men were surprised, but they both nodded and slipped from the room.

Liverpool smiled. “Now we can get down to business, eh, Devlin?”

Devlin turned the corners of his mouth up in response, but he waited, unsure of whether he was to receive a blow or a gift.

“I have understood your game for some time now, Devlin.” He paused to pour them both fresh drinks. “The blood of Irish kings runs in your veins, and when you joined the navy you were as poor as any Irish pauper. Now you have a mansion on the Thames, you have bought your ancestral home from Adare, and I could only estimate the amount of gold you keep in the banks—and in your own private vaults. You are so rich now that you have no more use for us.” His brows lifted.

“You make me seem so very unpatriotic,” Devlin murmured. Liverpool was right—almost.

“Still, a fine man like yourself, from a fine family, always at sea, always seizing a prize, always at battle—never on land, never at home before a warm hearth.” He stared.

Devlin became uneasy. He sipped his brandy to disguise this.

“I wonder what it is that motivates you to sail so fast, so far, so often?” His dark brows lifted.

“I fear you romanticize me. I am merely a seaman, my lord.”

“I think not. I think there are deep, grave, complex reasons for your actions—but then, I suppose I will never know what those reasons are?” He smiled and sipped his own brandy now.

The boy trembled with real fear. How could this stranger know so much?

“You have fanciful imaginings, my lord.” Devlin smiled coolly.

“You have yet to win a knighthood, Captain O’Neill,” Liverpool said.

Devlin stiffened in surprise. So it was to be a gift—after a blow, he thought.

Once, his ancestors had been kings, but a century of theft had reduced them to a life of tenant-farmers. He had changed that. His stepfather had happily sold him Askeaton when he had come forward with the bullion to pay for it. His grand home on the River Thames had been purchased two years ago when the Earl of Eastleigh had been forced by financial circumstances to put it up for sale. Liverpool knew Devlin had used the navy to attain the security that comes with wealth. What he did not know—could not know—was the reason why.

“Do continue,” he said softly, but he had begun to sweat.

“You know that a knighthood is a distinct possibility—you need only follow your orders.”

The ten-year-old boy wanted the title. The boy who had watched his father fall in an act of cold-blooded murder wanted the title as much as he wanted the wealth, because the added power made him safer than ever before.

Devlin hated the boy and did not want to feel his presence. “Knight me now,” he said, “and barring any unforeseen and extenuating circumstance, I will sail to America and threaten her shores without inflicting any real harm.”

“Damn you, O’Neill.” But Liverpool was smiling. “Done,” he then said. “You will be Sir Captain O’Neill before you set sail next week.”

Devlin could not contain a real smile. He was jubilant now, thinking about the knighthood soon to be his. His heart raced with a savage pleasure and he thought of his mortal enemy, the Earl of Eastleigh—the man who had murdered his father.

“Where would you like your country estate?” Liverpool was asking amiably.

“In the south of Hampshire,” he said. For then his newly acquired country estate would be within an hour of Eastleigh, at the most.

And Devlin smiled. His vengeance had been years in the making. He had known from the tender age of ten that in order to defeat his enemy, he would have to become wealthy and powerful enough to do so. He had joined the navy to gain such wealth and power, never dreaming that one day he would be ten times wealthier than the man he planned to destroy. A title added more ammunition to his stores, not that it truly mattered now. Eastleigh was already on the verge of destitution, as Devlin had been slowly ruining the man for years.

From time to time their paths crossed at various London affairs. Eastleigh knew him well. He had somehow recognized him the first time they met in London, when Devlin was sixteen and dueling his youngest son, Tom Hughes, over the fate of a whore. The wench’s disposition was just an excuse to prick at his mortal enemy by wounding his son, but the duel had been broken up. That had only been the beginning of the deadly game Devlin played.

His agents had sabotaged Hughes’s lead mines, instigated a series of strikes in his mill and had even encouraged his tenants to demand lower rents en masse, forcing Eastleigh to agree. The earl’s financial position had become seriously eroded, until he teetered on the verge of having to sell off his ancestral estate. Devlin looked forward to that day; he intended to be the one to buy it directly. In the interim, he now owned the earl’s best stud, his favorite champion wolfhounds and his Greenwich home. But the coup de grâce was the earl’s second wife, the Countess of Eastleigh, Elizabeth Sinclair Hughes.

For, during the past six years, Elizabeth had been the woman so eagerly sharing his bed.

And even now, she was undoubtedly waiting for him. It was time to go.

WAVERLY HALL HAD BEEN in the possession of the earls of Eastleigh for almost a hundred years—until two years ago, when a cycle of misfortune had caused the earl to put it up for sale. The huge limestone house had two towers, three floors, a gazebo, tennis courts and gardens that swept right down to the river’s banks. Devlin arrived at his home in an Italian yacht, a prize he had captured early in his career. He strolled up the gently floating dock, his gaze taking in the perfectly manicured lawns, the carefully designed gardens and the blossoming roses that crawled up against the dark stone walls of the house. It was so very English.

Unimpressed, he started up the stone path that led to the back of the house, where a terrace offered spectacular views of the river and the city. A man rose from a lawn chair. Devlin recognized him instantly and his pace quickened. “Tyrell!”

Tyrell de Warenne, heir to the earldom of Adare and Devlin’s stepbrother, strode down the path to meet him. Like his father, Ty was tall and swarthy with midnight-black hair and extremely dark blue eyes. The two men, as different as night and day, embraced.

“This is a very pleasant surprise,” Devlin said, pleased to see his stepbrother. It made the homecoming to which he was so indifferent suddenly inviting.

“Sean told me you were on your way home, and as I have had some affairs to see to in town, I decided to stop by the mansion to see if you were here yet. My timing is impeccable, I see.” Tyrell grinned. He was darkly, dangerously handsome and had had many love affairs to prove it.

“For once,” Devlin retorted as they strolled up to the terrace. “How is my mother? The earl?”

“They are fine, as usual, and wondering when you will come home,” Tyrell said with a pointed glance.

Devlin pushed open French doors and entered a huge and elegantly appointed salon, choosing to ignore that particular subject. “I have just accepted a tour of duty in the North Atlantic,” he said. “It is unofficial, of course, as I have yet to receive my orders.”

Tyrell gripped his shoulder and Devlin had to face him. “Admiral Farnham is in a rage over the Lady Anne, Dev. Everywhere I go, I am hearing about it. In fact, even Father has heard that Farnham plots against you. I thought this was your last tour.” His gaze was dark and frankly accusing.

Devlin moved to a bell pull, but his butler had already materialized, smiling as if pleased to see him. Devlin knew the Englishman detested having an Irishman as his overlord; it amused him, enough so that he had kept Eastleigh’s staff when he had bought the mansion. “Benson, my good man, do bring us some refreshments and a fine bottle of red wine.”

Then Devlin turned back to his stepbrother. Like the rest of his family, Tyrell thought he spent far too much time at sea and there was a general effort being made to convince him to resign his commission. “I am being offered a knighthood, Ty.”