Wicked at Heart Read Online Free

once-proud men-of-war were
now home — and hell — to thousands of French, American, and other prisoners of
war, who spent their miserable existences hoping for either escape or death. 
Anchored in every major British port, prison hulks were the most ignoble
command glory-seeking officers in His Majesty's Royal Navy could glean.
    And in Portsmouth,
on a spring day of 1813, just such a command was that of the sixth Marquess of
Morninghall.
    It was not a
happy situation.
    "My lord?  About
this visitor?"
    So absorbed was
he in his reading that Damon hadn't even heard Midshipman Danny Foyle slip into
his cabin.  "Visitor?" he asked absently, not bothering to look up as
he slowly ran his forefinger down a paragraph of text.
    "Er, the
uh, woman, sir . . ."
    "Ah, yes,
the indefatigable, abominable, venerable Lady Gwyneth Evans Simms."  Damon
shut the book and turned his unsettling gaze on the midshipman, nailing him to
the bulkhead with a stare that could penetrate steel.  "As if a visit from
Admiral Bolton, the stabbing of the purser, and now, the escape of three more
prisoners isn't enough for one bloody week —"
    "Surely,
sir, last night's escape wasn't our fault," Foyle whined. 
"Everyone's saying it's the work of the Black Wolf —"
    "Black
Wolf, my arse.  This Black Wolf character is naught but that
insufferable American captain who escaped from our ship last week — what
was his name? — Matson?  Morgan?  Yes, Morgan something-or-other —"
    "Merrick,
sir.  Connor Merrick, that is —"
    "Morgan,
Merrick, it matters not.  Why everyone thinks this Black Wolf fellow is the
ghost of some dead prisoner, come back to get his revenge, is beyond me.  It
doesn't take a genius to figure out that this mythical moron — who, incidentally ,
started vexing us directly following Merrick's escape — is the American
himself.  And now he's targeting my ship just to get his revenge on me. 
'Tis enough to plague a man right into the grave, the whole bloody lot of
it."  With a curse, he shoved the book aside and stalked to the stern
windows, his commanding height making the deckhead seem to drop several feet.
    "Christ, I need air ," he swore, flinging a window open.
    Foyle gripped
his hands behind his back, hard, to still their trembling.  He was afraid of
Lord Morninghall.  All of them were, right down to John Radley, the
heavy-handed lieutenant who commanded Surrey 's compliment of Royal
Marines.  And now his Lordship was in one of his black tempers, though Foyle
figured he certainly could not be blamed for it.  It was damned humiliating
that the American prisoners had escaped, and even more humiliating that the
whole of Portsmouth — thanks to the newspapers, which picked up on everything
in this busy naval port — knew about it.  Foyle bit his lip and risked a glance
at the big book His Lordship had been reading.  It was a copy of Peterson's
Index of Illnesses, Complaints, and Physicks .
    "Are you
ill, my lord?"
    The marquess
shot him a threatening glare.  "Do I look ill, Foyle?"
    "You look .
. . uh, fatigued, sir!"
    "Fatigued. 
Well, yes, of course."  The captain turned toward the open window, his
head bent as he absently inspected his thumbnail.  He was a picture of calm,
but Foyle was not fooled; Morninghall was adept at hiding his emotions beneath
an unimpassioned cloak of ice.  "So, what does the old harridan want,
anyhow?"
    "Old
harridan?"
    "This
infernal Welshwoman, damn you."
     "Oh. 
Yes.  Well, as you know, sir, the, er, old harridan has decided to take
up the plight of prison ships as her latest cause and crusade, and wishes to
start with ours."
    "I
see."
    Still toying
with his thumbnail, the marquess stared hard across the glittering waters of
the harbor.  Sunlight reflected off the waves below and radiated over his
diabolical countenance.  Foyle thought the flames of hell must look like that,
reflected in the face of the devil who surveyed them, and the very thought made
his throat go