Free Seduced by the Scoundrel by Louise Allen Page A

she should say
Luc—
shrugged again, but it was not modesty, she could see that. He knew what he had achieved and against what odds and he was not going to discuss his feeling about his mother’s death with her.
    ‘What went wrong?’ she asked. She wrapped her arms around her knees, wincing a little as the movement stretched the bruise on her shoulder where the stone had hit.
    ‘Admiral Porthington was what went wrong,’ Luc said. He took the knife from his pocket and began to throw it into the tabletop, pull it out, rethrow. ‘I was seconded to assess intelligence and I found a pattern of events that pointed to leaks originating from here. The islands are used a lot by navy shipping, and by supply vessels, and they are conveniently close to France. I dug deeper and found that it all appeared to lead back to a certain gentleman who has interests here. I presented my evidence and it was set aside.’
    ‘But why would it not be accepted and the man investigated?’
    ‘He is Porthington’s second cousin. I had not dug deeply enough.’
    ‘Oh.’
    ‘Oh, indeed. I was not permitted to investigate any further. Porthington ridiculed the work I had done and refused to countenance any action being taken. I lost my temper.’ Averil could imagine, but she bit her lip, unwilling to provoke him now by saying as much. ‘I brooded on things, drank rather too much and decided to confront him in his quarters—this was at Portsmouth. I would give him an ultimatum—do something or I would go to the Admiralty and lay it before them.
    ‘I barged in and found he had company—veryunwilling company. A young woman who he was about to force.’
    ‘What did you do?’
    ‘Asked him to stop. He laughed in my face and told me to get out. I hit him.’
    ‘Oh, my goodness.’ Averil knew what would have happened to an East India Company naval officer if he had done such a thing. ‘What happened?’
    ‘Porthington demanded a court-martial, but someone in the Admiralty seems to have had his suspicions, too. I was called in and given one chance—two months to prove my theory right or I would face a court-martial, which, if it chose, could sentence me to death for striking a superior officer. I could not deny I had done it.’
    To face death as it stared you in the face at sword point or, as she had experienced, in the form of a towering wave, was one thing. To live with a potential death sentence hanging over you for weeks was a refined form of torture.
    ‘That is terrible,’ Averil burst out.
    ‘It was more than I deserved for striking him. I have shot men for less.’
    ‘You were doing your duty by pressing for him to listen to you and you were acting as any gentleman should by defending that woman—surely they saw that?’
    ‘Porthington denied that he had forbidden me to proceed and said I had been told merely to exercise caution while he considered tactics. He portrayed me as headstrong and likely to blunder in and blow the entire investigation. Losing my temper did not help prove him wrong! And as for the woman, she was a servant, not a lady. They seemed to think it made a difference.’ Heraised one of those slanting eyebrows. ‘Don’t make me a saint.’
    ‘I am very well aware you are no such thing,’ Averil retorted. ‘I might dislike you personally—’ he raised the other brow ‘—but I hate injustice. Where did the crew come from?’
    ‘The condemned cells. If I am correct and we track down the source of the leaks, then they are pardoned. If I am wrong, or we fail, they die.’
    ‘They do not have very much to lose by killing you and escaping, have they?’ And if they killed Luc, then they would not hesitate to do their worst with her.
    ‘No, they do not. Leadership with men like these is a confidence trick. It is much the same as the way a rider needs to convince a horse that is infinitely stronger and heavier than he that it must obey his commands and bear his weight.’
    ‘But you use brute force when