“It was fine.” Brief, the sloop he had hired at Port of Spain a fair enough vessel.
“Mr. Smythe, at the time of our previous meeting I had been misinformed as to the whereabouts of the object which you seek.”
Jin revealed none of his surprise, or disappointment. He had hoped that this time Joshua would bring him the box. He had, in fact, prayed. But prayer from a man like him did not take God’s attention, only right actions. Of late, Jin’s actions had nothing of rightness about them. But perhaps God simply did not exist, which would explain a great deal.
“Ah,” he only said.
“The information I received from my contact in Rio did not satisfy me, you see. He indicated that the object had changed hands in Caracas in October of 1812, when in fact from the itinerary with which I supplied you last August, it seemed impossible that its courier at that time would have been anywhere in that region. He was, in fact, in Bombay.”
“Bombay, hm?” Jin nodded thoughtfully. He cared nothing for this minutia. But Joshua would insist on relating it; he relished the details of his work, and he could not share it with any other. Jin only wanted the contents of that box, if after sixteen years its contents yet remained within. He was fairly certain of that impossibility. Nevertheless, he played this game. He had become quite adept at playing such games, like the game he had played with Viola Carlyle three days earlier on the deck of the April Storm before he left Trinidad.
The barkeep dropped a smudged tumbler on the table and glanced at Jin’s full measure of rum. He wrinkled his nose, then thumped the bottle down and moved off.
Joshua reached into the pocket of his paisley waistcoat and withdrew a kerchief. With precise care he wiped the glass clean, refolded the linen and returned it to his pocket, and set his glass forward for Jin to fill. He took one sip, then placed the glass on the table.
“As I said, I was unsatisfied with this information. So I went to Rio to pursue that avenue personally.” His smile flashed. “I am happy to report that in Rio I discovered that which we have all along sought.”
Jin’s heart tripped. His fingers slipped across the glass in his palm ever so slightly.
“Did you?”
Joshua’s narrow nostrils flared, his mouth curving into a smile now.
“I did. And may I say, sir, how happy I am to now offer you the information which you hired me to find three years ago?”
“You may.”
A wave hurled itself against shore, sending white vapor into the pristine blue sky. Wind whipped at the heavy palm fronds about the pub’s roof, the heat of the sun bearing down all around the shaded canopy. Because of this moment, whatever the outcome of his quest, he would remember this place clearly. His curse was remembering that which would be best forgotten-like the woman he had called mother, and the last thing she said to him before she allowed her husband to take him to be sold at the slave market.
“Where is it, Gupta?”
“It is in the possession of His Excellency Bishop Frederick Baldwin of the Church of England.” He fairly wiggled on the chair, growing taller as his spine stretched in pride. “In his house in London, sir. It has been there for several years as part of a collection of treasures from the East.”
London. Not in a distant land. Not gone forever, destroyed as it should have been with the rest of his mother’s belongings when she died five years after her husband sent her bastard son away.
In London. And so Jin would be in London by late summer, after he returned Viola to her family in Devonshire.
“Thank you for this, Gupta.” He stood. “Where would you like your fee delivered?”
Joshua blinked, his eyes widening. Jin supposed he ought to reward the man with more, with some display of satisfaction or anticipation. But at present he hadn’t the will for it.
Shaking his head once, Joshua stood and tucked his satchel beneath his arm neatly. “To the usual place, Mr. Smythe.”
Jin held out his hand. “It has been a pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Gupta.”
“Likewise, sir. I hope you will not forget Gisel Gupta the next time you have need.”
“I will contact you.”
Joshua stepped away from the table.
“Gupta. Wait. I do have need of you at this time. In Boston.”
“Yes, sir. Boston is a fine city.”
“I need you to find a sailor and interview him for me. The sailor’s name is Crazy.”
Two minutes later, he watched Joshua weave through the tables and chairs and walk across the pebbly yard to his horse, then mount and ride away.
He glanced down at his untouched glass of rum. He might indulge in a moment of celebration. For three years he had paid Joshua Bose to search out the box. For twenty he had thought about it, imagining that box held his salvation-the key to his identity. Now, finally, he knew it to be within his reach. But he had no taste for rum, or any of the other spirits he’d had before him over the past three days.
Three days, and the sweet, rich flavor of her still lingered on his tongue. Three days and he could not yet erase her scent from his senses. Three days that already felt like a millennium.
He still wanted her. He wanted her hands on him and her soft lips caressing his skin and her dark eyes hot with desire and pleasure as he had her. He wanted her again. Goddamn it, he wanted her every day for a month. A year. He told himself to cease thinking of her. He failed at it.
Castle would follow her home; he was certain of it. He had passed the planter heading toward the April Storm as he left Port of Spain.
He had engineered it, but he did not like it. Castle might be an unexceptionable sort, but he didn’t like the opportunist bastard.
But, no. That was unjust. Castle was not a bastard. Jin had spent the evening with the harbormaster and naval officers and their wives learning about Aidan Castle, and he was unsurprised. Castle was the favored son of a modestly situated family in Dorset, a solid member of the respectable English gentry, a man who might as well try his hand at marrying into a noble family through an illegitimate daughter.
Jin was the bastard. The man without family or home. The mercenary. The thief. The murderer who would never fully atone for the evils he had done. Not when he was still committing deeds that went against his conscience.
She did not wish to return to England, to leave her life on the sea, and yet he was forcing her to do so. Perhaps his guilt was mitigated by what he was giving her in return. She deserved better than Aidan Castle, but she loved him. Jin might take comfort in his good deed if he weren’t so damned distracted by his own desire.
The journey would take a month or six weeks if the wind stayed with them. The neat little thirty-gun brig he’d purchased the previous day would make it a comfortable trip. But it was going to be a hellishly long month trying to remain aloof from her. If he touched her again, he would be playing them both false. He was not the man for Miss Viola Carlyle.
When she had come into his room at the hotel seeking to seduce, he told himself it would not harm either of them to enjoy another night together. But when she asked if he wished her to leave, he’d had the insane urge to grasp her hand again and insist that she never leave. The panic that had sloshed through him then lingered even now.
“Captain Seton?”
Slipping his palm over his cuff, the slim weight of the dagger tucked within his sleeve at ready use, he turned.
“Aha! I knew not that I would be so fortunate so swiftly! They told me at the wharf that you had gone in this direction not two hours ago.” The naval officer rode toward the canopy on a fine dappled gray, in blue and white uniform with gold encrustations of rank and honor on his shoulders and chest. Behind him two other officers drew their mounts to a halt at a distance, the wind blowing about their hat plumes.
Jin released the dagger hilt and moved to the edge of the lean-to, into the sun.
“How may I help you?”
The officer removed his hat and bowed smartly from the saddle. “Captain Daniel
Eccles, at your service, sir.”
Eccles, Halloway’s lieutenant when the Royal Navy finally caught up with the pirate Redstone.
“As I am at yours, Captain.” He bowed.
Eccles smiled broadly. “May I join you for a drink?”
“Of course.”
Eccles motioned his officers to dismount and introduced them. They were sober-browed and neatly disposed in their crisp uniforms, so different from the ragtag collection of sailors aboard the April Storm. But men of the sea were largely the same at heart. With few words they made themselves agreeable and showed their intelligence, and both were gentlemen, as was Eccles.
“That must be your ship anchored at Scarborough,” Jin said, watching them drink. “She is impressive.”
“I was fortunate to get her. But I did not see the wily Cavalier at dock. Where is she berthed, at Crown Point?”
“She has been sunk.”
Eccles’s eyes widened. His officers glanced at one another.
“Sunk? The Cavalier?” His brow wrinkled. “I hadn’t thought it possible, not with you at the helm.”
“It was, I admit, unexpected.” As was this tightness in his chest that would not abate. “Where are you bound? I understand from the port official at Port of Spain that you have been cruising this sea for some months.”
“Ah, then my next question is answered. I hope he gave you the letter I left with him for you.”
“He did. Thank you.”
Eccles smiled. “When my admiral commands a task of me, I obey, of course. You have influential friends at Whitehall, Seton. I think I am nearly jealous.”
“A man with a ship like yours needn’t be jealous of anyone, Eccles.”
The naval officer laughed. “You are quite right. But we are bound for England shortly, in fact. Our cruise is at an end and we’ve only to take on provisions, then will be heading home.”
Slowly Jin leaned forward, finally taking up his glass of rum. Here was a solution.
“Captain Eccles, I myself have been given a challenging task for which I am in need of assistance. I wonder if you could help me.”
“If it is within my power, of course. Any favor for the man who turned the crafty Cavalier’s purpose from thieving to good work. Redstone would not have done it, no matter how we hounded him.” He regarded Jin quite seriously. Eccles knew Redstone’s true identity, as only those who had been there on the sea off the coast of Devonshire that day. The pirate Redstone who had preyed on the vessels of wealthy peers had not been forgotten-or entirely forgiven. It was ironic, given that Jin had actually captained the Cavalier most of the time Alex Savege-in his other persona-had been its master. Yet now Jin was the hero and Alex ever after the mistrusted villain despite his noble lineage.
Not irony. Rather, a mockery of decency.
“Thank you,” he replied. “I have the honor of conveying a lady from Trinidad to Devonshire, the daughter of Lord Carlyle. I have no doubt she would be infinitely more comfortable aboard a ship of the line in the company of naval officers, than otherwise.”
Eccles nodded. “We have accommodation for ladies aboard. Modest, but suitable. My wife is with us and will be glad for feminine company. Will you join us aboard then?”
“I will accompany you in my vessel.”
Eccles nodded. “The more guns the better should we meet with threats.”
Jin swallowed the last of the rum, and felt the heat slide down his throat into his gut.
“Eccles, might you have room aboard your ship for yet another passenger? I have an acquaintance, also on Trinidad now, who may be looking for passage to England shortly as well.”
“We can make space for him if you wish.” Eccles lifted his glass. “Any friend of yours is welcome aboard my ship. Who is he?”
“A planter. English-born but now quite American. And he is a friend of the lady. His name is Castle.” The man who would spend the month with her instead of him, as she would have if he had not found her and altered her life.
He glanced at Joshua’s half-filled glass still on the table. After three years, his search for his father would soon come to an end. And after two years, he would finally cease living with Viola Carlyle as the purpose for his actions. His quest would be over, his debt paid.
Eccles raised his rum. “To England, then,” he toasted.
Jin shifted his gaze to the querulous sea. “To England.”
Chapter 18
Fellow Subjects of Britain,
The arrogance of the aristocracy never ceases to amaze. Consider the following, which I received yesterday from the Head Bird Man:
My lady,
It is with great pleasure that I alert you to the news that Sea Hawk has returned to England and is forthwith available for you to run to ground. I fear that once you become acquainted with him you will have no use for the remaining members of our inconsequential little club; as many sea captains, he tends to turn ladies’ heads. If this comes to pass, my heart will suffer for loss of your attention. But I cannot regret that finally you may discover the identity of one of us. Therefore, if you should in fact learn his true name, pray do me the honor of conveying to me your meeting place and time so that I might hide in the bushes and sigh over the loss I am myself now bringing about. A lady must be given that which she wishes, however, and if I am able to fulfill your desires even in this manner I will eagerly do so, even though it is to my disadvantage.
Yours devotedly, &c,
Peregrine
Secretary, The Falcon Club
He teases as though I were some demirep he could charm with childish flattery. He imagines women bereft of the capacity to reason, susceptible to empty foolishness instead.
Note this, Peregrine: I am unmoved by your flirtation. I will discover Sea Hawk’s true identity and will reveal him and all of you to the poor citizens of Britain whose wealth you squander playing games like little boys at Pick-Up Sticks.
– Lady Justice
Chapter 19
“It is… bigger than I remember.” Viola stared through the carriage window at the house rising before her.
Not house. Mountain.
Savege Park was a rambling mass of stone, mortar, parapets, and about a hundred chimneys, with dozens of windows to the west reflecting the ocean, and windows to the east mirrors of emerald green hills dotted with sheep and striped with late-summer crops.
The country home of her sister, the Countess of Savege.
Not five miles away, Glenhaven Hall, the manor house of the Baron of Carlyle where Viola had lived her first ten years, was tucked behind a high bluff. But when they had disembarked in Exmouth and Jin offered her the choice, Viola decided to come here first, to meet Serena before again encountering the man who was not truly her father.
Possibly she had made a mistake.
“But I only saw it once or twice, I think,” she mumbled. She was weary from the swift journey, her bones and muscles rattled from the carriage’s constant bumping, but her nerves jittered like a cabin boy in his first squall.
“It’s a pity your friend, Mr. Castle, is not here to enjoy the sight,” the gentleman sitting beside her said pleasantly. Mr. Yale was always pleasant, although slightly satirical, and certainly inebriated. But the latter did not seem to affect his gentlemanly address or the clever glint in his silver eyes. During the long drive he had provided agreeable company. Distracting company.
Jane, the dust-colored-beanpole maid Jin insisted she accept in Trinidad, barely said a word.
Jin had ridden.
For a man who six weeks earlier said that he would not allow her out of his sight until he delivered her to her sister’s home, he’d been conspicuously absent lately. In Trinidad before departing they had a single conversation in which he introduced her to Jane and told her she would be traveling to England with the navy. It seemed he had many influential friends. Like the Admiralty.
During the voyage she’d seen only glimpses of him across the sea. They were two ships strong, and encounte
red no unfriendly vessels. Captain Eccles’s frigate boasted one hundred twenty guns, and the ship Jin had acquired in Tobago was remarkably fine-not as beautiful as the Cavalier but considerably better than the April. Viola had not been worried, merely perpetually out of sorts.
Aidan’s company aboard hadn’t helped. His announcement at Port of Spain that he must travel back to England to visit his family astounded her. He insisted he could leave the repairs to his farm in the hands of his steward. But his solicitous, appreciative attention on board had swiftly begun to chafe, and Seamus’s company was predictably awful. The naval officers as well as Captain Eccles’s wife provided some relief. But mostly she’d kept to herself reading in her cabin. She didn’t like being a passenger aboard another master’s ship. She wondered how Jin had borne it.
And now he was fulfilling his promise to deliver her home. He had been a shadow for a month. Shortly, he would disappear altogether.
It must be for the best. She could not forget him if he remained constantly in her life.
“Yes, I suppose Mr. Castle would like it,” she replied, shifting her gaze from the sprawling mansion to Mr. Yale. At the dock in Exmouth, Aidan had taken one look at the darkly attractive Welshman who was to accompany her and Jin to Savege Park, and his face went stony. Viola didn’t know why he should bother being jealous. The elegant Londonite was certainly handsome, his black hair, coat, waistcoat, and breeches giving him a decidedly mysterious air. But he couldn’t hold a candle to the former pirate. Still, Aidan had been fidgety about leaving her to see his parents in any case, constantly repeating during the final days of their voyage how sorry he was not to be able to be there for her reunion with her family.
“He’s no doubt accustomed to this sort of thing,” she murmured, “being English, of course.”
“As are you, of course.” Mr. Yale slanted her a sidelong glance.
How to Be a Proper Lady Page 19
