“Nay.” Mucknell didn’t even need to raise his spyglass to see that three Parliamentarian ships had completely cut off the path to his base in the Isles of Scilly, off the coast of Cornwall. He’d met the Constant Warwick once already today, near Land’s End, and they’d both gotten in a few good shots.

Shots that had left them both weakened. But the enemy had now rendezvoused with the Cygnet and the Expedition. And Mucknell’s fleet . . . well, they were pirates. There’d be no help for him, unless he could lure the enemy into range of the isles’ batteries, but that wasn’t likely.

“Our course of action, sir?”

The wind blew, snapping the sails taut overhead and lifting strands of hair from Mucknell’s shoulder. His mouth ached for a sip of rum, but he’d not indulge it, not until this crisis was well past. His fingers twitched over the pommel of his sword. His mind, sharp and fogless, spun through what he knew.

His hold was loaded with the booty from a significant haul—one that the Prince of Wales would be most eager to receive: much-needed supplies of food and cloth and metal, casks of wine, spices.

Silver.

Mucknell’s fingers traced the circle of the pommel. Silver and more silver. Some of which he’d decided wouldn’t be among the cache he turned over. He’d branded his own name on the crate, making it clear to his men that this one wouldn’t be off-loaded with the rest. It was a man’s right, after all, to take a fee. And his would be the pieces already engraved with his wife’s name, as if they’d been made for her.

His gaze flicked toward St. Mary’s Island—so close, but too far to be of any help. Was his Lizza there, watching from a lookout? Or at their house on Tresco? She never breathed a word of her distaste for his new career. She just went where he asked her to go. Uprooted herself from their comfortable, if bare, life in London and followed him here to the very edges of England.

In moments like these, he knew she deserved better than a scoundrel like him for a husband. But she’d never say such a thing. Not his Lizza.

He’d get that silver to her. And the rest of the supplies to his prince. He’d outfox that triple-strength enemy bearing toward him. Somehow. He’d win. Because Vice Admiral Sir John Mucknell might be a pirate, but he was blamed well the best pirate these waters had ever seen.

As the closest of the enemy ships drew near, he pulled out his sword and held it high—the signal all his men would recognize as their cue to man their stations. And he shouted the words that were their battle cry.