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later. “He says you can go on down.”
    “Thank you.” Pinkard turned to the others—“You two wait here”—then to Julian, who gripped her arm in a deathlock. “Let’s go.”
    Down the ladder, across the salon, a quick knock on the low wooden door, and a deep voice told them to come in. Julian thrust her through the opening, making her stumble; Pinkard stepped in behind her; then Julian walked back outside.
    “What the hell’s going on?”
    Silver’s brown eyes swung to the tall dark blond man with the scar on his cheek who surged to his feet at their dramatic entrance.
    “Salena,” Pinkard said to her, using her given name, “this is Major Morgan Trask, recently of the Texas Marines.” He arched a thin black brow in amusement and looked at her as if expecting her to give a formal greeting in return. “I’m afraid Salena can’t answer,” he said to the major, “but I’m sure she’s pleased to meet a man who was once her father’s friend.”
    Silver cursed behind her gag and tried to kick the Spaniard in the shins. She got a ringing slap across the face for her effort. The tall major’s brutal grip on Pinkard’s arm and his hard warning glance stilled the blow that would have followed.
    “I asked you what’s going on,” the major said. “Now either you tell me, or I untie the girl and she tells me.”
    “I wouldn’t advise that if I were you. Salena has a terrible temper.”
    “So it would seem.”
    “The friend I’m speaking of is the earl of Kent.”
    The major seemed annoyed by Pinkard’s game. He was a tall man, well built, without an ounce of excess flesh. The scar on his cheek gave him a hard look butdidn’t detract from the strong line of his jaw or his straight patrician nose.
    “What’s she got to do with William?” he asked.
    Pinkard chuckled softly, and his thin mustache tilted up in a crooked half-smile. “That dark-eyed, vile-tempered bundle you see before you is none other than his daughter.” He untied the gag and pulled it from her mouth. Silver cursed him roundly and tried to kick him again. “Major Morgan Trask meet Lady Salena Hardwick-Jones.”
    Morgan’s practiced eye moved over her. She stood no taller than the average female, but the way she lifted her chin and squared her shoulders made her seem so. Her stringy gray-blond hair clung to a pair of smooth pale breasts that rose and fell above the low-cut bodice of her blouse.
    “My name is Silver Jones,” she said. “I work at the White Horse Inn on Bay Street. This man is out of his mind.”
    Morgan’s mouth twitched in what, under different circumstances, might have had the makings of a smile. Even with her dirty face and soggy garments, he couldn’t miss William’s defiant stance with its healthy dose of arrogance or Mary’s big brown eyes and thick-fringed lashes. The slim, straight nose and delicate cheekbones were all Silver Jones.
    “Silver, is it? Not Lady Salena?” The last time he’d seen William, Morgan had been a youth of fifteen. The earl of Kent had been a friend of his late father’s, friend and mentor to him. Salena had been a toddler, smiling and climbing up on her father’s knee.
    Then William had broken with family tradition and set off on his own. He bought a tiny island in the West Indies named Katonga that he had never seen and sailed away to run a plantation. Time and againMorgan had wondered about him but had never taken the time to visit.
    It was beginning to look as though he’d finally get the chance.
    “I told you my name is Silver. I work at the White Horse Inn. These
gentlemen
are mistaken.”
    Morgan ignored her, turning his attention instead to Pinkard. “What exactly is it you want me to do with her?”
    “Take her home,” the Spaniard said simply, “which, you may rest assured, will be no easy task.”
    Morgan fastened his eyes on Salena. Wet clear through, the bodice of her blouse revealed a pair of pert pink nipples that had hardened against the cold and a