Page 48 of A Countess Captured for the Captain
Despite the dirt, she sat down next to him and put her arm around him.
“Surely there is something we can do, something I can do. What about your uncle?” she asked, and again he shook his head.
“My uncle seems to believe I am guilty. He came to see me last night and told me as much. He said that he believed I was still enchanted by the life of a pirate and that if that was the case then there was little he could do for me,” Nox replied.
It seemed a dreadful thing to say, as though Nox’s uncle had as readily washed his hands of Nox as he had been ready to embrace him. Samantha felt hopeless and all she could do was try to reassure Nox that all would be well – even if she knew it would not be. For a moment they held one another, and Samantha feared it may be the last time she knew his touch.
“I believe you,” she whispered, and he looked down at her and gave a weak smile.
“Then nothing else matters. I swear on all that is good that I am telling the truth. But if it cannot be proved then you must know that I love you and that my last thought will be of you and all which might have been,” he said, just as the guard’s footsteps came along the passageway.
“Come along, My Lady. You have had your time,” he said, but Samantha clung to Nox, desperate not to let him go.
“It will be all right, Samantha, I promise you,” he whispered, and he kissed her, their lips lingering together in a final embrace.
“I will do all I can,” she said, as the guard beckoned her to follow him.
“I know you will,” Nox said, and with a final anguished glance, the cell door was slammed shut.
Samantha felt tears running down her cheeks, desperate for a final moment with her beloved husband. She felt helpless, as though the whole world had conspired against them. There could be no justice for Nox, not for a pirate, and not for the Earl of Brimsey. He was a condemned man, and Samantha knew it would take a miracle to convince her father otherwise.
The guard walked her back toward the prison gates, the sounds of the prisoners moaning and wailing at their fate still filling the air, a mournful song of pity. It made Samantha shudder, knowing the fate which would soon be Nox’s. She wanted desperately to do something, but there was nothing she could do and stepping out through the gates, she hurried toward the waiting carriage, brushing the tears from her eyes.
“Lady Osmond,” a voice called out, and she turned in surprise. “I think we need to talk.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Samantha was astonished to see Strap leaning on a wall. He was dressed in rags, his face dirty, but there was no mistaking the man she had sailed across the Atlantic with, the man she had thought disappeared forever.
“What are you doing here?” she exclaimed, beckoning him toward the carriage.
“You did not think I would abandon the Captain, did you?” Strap asked as she ushered him inside.
With the door closed, she turned to him in amazement. When Nox had first been arrested, she had thought the rest of the crew to have suffered a similar fate. Nox had made little mention of his former crewmates, and she had assumed that he had wanted to put such past deeds behind him, an assumption she had believed until the incident of the night before.
“Have you been following me?” she demanded, and Strap smiled.
“I have been keeping my eyes on the Captain, My Lady,” he said, as Samantha tapped the carriage roof and it set off along the street.
“Spying?” she demanded, and he shrugged his shoulders.
“I have always done my duty to the Captain and now it seems he needs me more than ever,” Strap replied.
Samantha was wary. She had never entirely trusted Strap. He, unlike Nox, was a true pirate, a man raised by the seas, more at home on boardThe Rosa Mysticathan he ever was on dry land. Could it even have been him that stole the Naval Treaty from her father’s desk, she wondered?
“I do not know what any of us can do to help him now. I have tried, but my father will not be persuaded to believe anything but Nox’s guilt. It is all too terrible for words,” she exclaimed, but Strap shook his head.
“We need to look elsewhere,” he said, and Samantha stared at him in surprise.
“But where else?” she demanded, and Strap tapped his nose.
“You leave it to me, My Lady,” he said, and opening the carriage door, he leaped out onto the street, even as the carriage was moving.
* * *
Samantha returned to the home of Rebecca and Nicholas in a state of confusion. What had Strap meant and could he really do anything to save Nox from his fate, she wondered? She found Rebecca taking tea with Catherine, and it was clear that the two of them had come together in the hope of offering moral support.
“Come and sit down, Samantha. You have had a dreadful ordeal this morning, though I am sure you are glad for having seen Nox,” Rebecca said, pouring Samantha a cup of tea.
