In the Arms of a Marquess (25 page)

“You must take me to him, Abha. You would not have told me otherwise.”

“I will convey to him a message from you.”

“All right.” She went into the parlor to the writing table, scribbled a few lines, and handed the sealed paper to him. “Please request a reply.”

Abha bowed and departed.

Tavy ran to the back of the house, digging into her pocket for a coin. The kitchen boy sat in a corner by the door, a scrap of a lad with bright eyes.

Tavy bent to him. “Mr. Abha is taking a walk now. Please follow him and if he goes inside a building return to me swiftly and tell me where he has gone.” She pressed the silver into his hand. “There will be another just like it when you are finished.”

He nodded and darted out the door. Ten minutes later Tavy was restlessly pacing the parlor when Abha reappeared, his hand gripping the kitchen boy’s skinny shoulder.

“He saw me, mum.” The lad shrugged. “Don’t know how. Trailed him like me pap taught me, in the shadows an’ corners.”

“Mr. Abha is very clever,” Tavy consoled him, directing a thin-lipped look at her old friend. She produced the promised second coin. The boy palmed it and scurried away.

Abha crossed his thick arms over his chest. “I will take you there.”

Her eyes widened. “Do you think you ought?”

He shook his head. “But I do not like this man and you must not wed him.”

“I will not wed him anyway, you know, whether I see him now or not.”

“Still, I will take you.” Warning weighed in his deep-set eyes.

“I will not like what I find there.”

“No. But you will no longer allow any person to sway your judgment on the matter.”

“Any person?”

“Come.” He turned and went toward the front door. Tavy grabbed up her cloak and bonnet and hurried after.

The carriage halted before a respectable apartment building near Piccadilly. Tavy didn’t know what she had expected, but something along the lines of a squalid alleyway near the docks seemed more in the line of a blackmailer’s haunt. She produced a guinea for the doorman, but the fellow remained reluctant. Abha stepped into the foyer, arms crossed, head bare, and the doorman retreated behind a chair. Tavy gave him another coin and, as directed, she and her hulking bodyguard ascended three flights of stairs.

At the door to the flat, Abha did not knock. Instead he produced a small sack containing several tiny dowels of iron and fitted one into the lock. Tavy watched, oddly unsurprised. He turned the handle and the door swung wide.

The apartment’s furnishings were sparse yet tasteful, a rug, a piecrust table, two chairs, and a small dining table still containing the remnants of breakfast. Two cups, two plates, two sets of flatware. A pair of doors let off from the small main chamber. Tavy moved toward one but turned at the sound of the opposite door clicking open.

Marcus stood in the aperture, wearing only breeches. Tavy gulped at sight of so much skin and hair covering pale albeit well-toned male flesh. She snapped her gaze upward.

“Octavia.” His face was even paler, mouth agape. “What are you doing here?”

She found her tongue. “Rather, I should say, what are you doing here when you have told me you were in the country? And where is here? Although—” She scanned his barely clad person again. “I am rapidly beginning to see. Far too rapidly.” She pivoted around. Abha stood like a statue blocking the door. “Let me past.”

“Did he bring you here?” Marcus demanded.

“Let me past, Abha. This instant.”

“Marcus?” A voice came from the chamber behind the baron, inflected with cockney. It was light, like a girl’s. And trembling. “Who is it?”

Nausea swirled in Tavy’s midsection. Marcus’s brow was drawn, his eyes closed.

“Nothing to concern you, Tabitha.” He opened his eyes to Octavia, and his look pleaded. “I hope.”

Chapter 20

CARGO. The lading, or whole quantity of whatever species of merchandise a ship is freighted with.

—Falconer’s
Dictionary of the Marine

B
y the time Creighton arrived with the former quartermaster’s report from the
Eastern Promise
tucked beneath his arm, Ben had already spent hours aboard ship, lamp in hand, examining every crevice, plank, and coil of rope for imperfections. And clues. He found nothing except a perfectly ordered vessel ready to haul away as soon as its cargo came aboard.

“You’ve already done the inspection, my lord? Thank you, sir. I would have had to do it this afternoon after the loading, and what with the—”

Ben waved an impatient hand. Awake since before dawn, he had welcomed the distraction. He could not call upon Octavia this early, no matter his impatience.

“Show me the quartermaster’s report.”

“Yes, sir.” Creighton pulled the papers from his stack. “I’m sorry about not coming up with anything on that odd cache of hair, sir.”

“I am as well. But I’ve—” At the bottom of the page, a scrawl of ink arrested his gaze. “Creighton, I cannot clearly read the quartermaster’s name here. What is it?”

“Jonas Sheeble. I was about to mention that.”

“And what did you discover of him in my absence?” Ben said with calm he did not feel. His extended foray at Fellsbourne into inebriated self-pity rose thick in his throat. If not for it, he could have known this days ago.

“He’s a shady fellow, sir. Not much trusted around the docks, although quite well-to-do for a sailor.”

“He sailed with this vessel to the East Indies, and returned with it?”

“Yes sir. Several times before the owner offered her up for sale, it seems.”

“When, most recently?”

“She embarked nearly two years ago, made it to Madras and sailed right into Calais less than six months later, where our French contact purchased her.”

Ben’s gaze traveled across the deck he’d just studied so carefully, then to the hatchway to the hold. “Her cargo?”

“The usual. Printed cotton piece goods and tea imports. Woolen exports.”

“Only wool?”

Creighton nodded. “According to Sheeble’s report, the lading bill, and the port inspector’s document.” He drew the other papers from beneath his arm and proffered them to Ben.

“Has Sully checked in with you lately?”

“No, sir. He must not have found Lord Crispin yet.”

“Send him to me as soon as he does, wherever I am. At any hour.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Ben’s gaze shifted to the gangplank. A sailor in tattered clothing hung about the dock end, his face dirt-smudged, casting glances up at them. Creighton moved across deck. In the lightening hours the docks had come alive with activity, sailors and workers moving amongst carts and onto berthed ships, hauling cargo and tending to their vessels.

“You there,” Creighton said across the gangway. “Have you business here?”

“Gots me a message for his lordship there,” the fellow grumbled and tugged his filthy cap brim.

Creighton held out his palm. “Give it over, man.”

The sailor plucked a square of paper from the brim of his cap and exchanged it for a coin, then scampered away. Creighton offered the missive to Ben. A single line crossed the scrap.

Take particular care of your loved ones.

The hand was bold and undisguised. Ben knew it as well as his own. Styles.

He stared at the scrawled line. Last night he had shown his hand, trying to force his old friend to tell the truth concerning the fire. Ben had not expected instant capitulation, but he had not expected threats either.

It smacked of guilt.

Guilt could drive a man to threats. But so could the fear of being revealed. Guilt for an accidental crime. Fear of being discovered for an intentional one.

Lady Fitzwarren’s warnings tugged at Ben. Styles had always been active in Parliament, and had been openly critical of Ben’s father’s politics. But political differences did not necessarily translate to assassination, and he had loved Jack like a brother. He could not have wanted Jack dead.

“My lord?” Creighton’s voice came to him as though through a tunnel.

“It is nothing,” Ben forced through his lips, folding the message and slipping it into his waistcoat pocket. Nothing but a threat meant to control him. If he pursued the matter of the fire any further, Styles would hurt Constance.

He moved toward the gangplank.

“My lord, I thought you would wish to know, this vessel partnered with another ship on its last voyage east, the
Sea Bird
. She is shortly to set to sea again.”

“To Madras?”

“Apparently, sir.”

“The original owner of this ship is the man who still owns the
Sea Bird
, I presume?”

“No.” Creighton paused. “Lords Crispin and Nathans now hold the
Sea Bird
’s papers. They bought her several weeks before you purchased this vessel.”

Crispin.

A strange, humming urgency threaded through Ben’s veins.

“Creighton, from whom did Lords Nathans and Crispin and our French friend in Calais purchase these vessels?”

Creighton tilted his head in an oddly wary gesture. “I thought you might already know, sir. It’s Lord Styles.”

The wind seemed not to stir. It could not be coincidence. Or perhaps coincidence only in so far as the community of traders wealthy enough to purchase a ship with cash was quite modest. Modest enough so he would never have connected Crispin and Styles if Octavia had not made him aware of Crispin’s troubles.

But perhaps he was looking for connections that did not exist. Crispin had kissed Octavia for Styles’s benefit, and the burr beneath the saddle had not been an accident. But how could Styles have committed arson or even blackmail yet he hadn’t an idea of it? Their friendship could not have been a lie. Not so many years of it.

“Creighton?” Ben’s voice sounded peculiar in his own ears. Tinny.

“Yes, sir?”

“How difficult was it for you to discover that Lord Styles once owned these vessels?”

“Extraordinarily, sir,” his secretary replied promptly. “The dockmaster’s registers were incomplete. I went on something of a scavenger hunt before I found trace of the original owner. I was obliged to grease a dozen sailors’ palms before I even knew where to start looking.”

“Were you surprised at this difficulty?”

“Yes, my lord. In fact I was. But—” He halted, obviously reluctant to continue.

“But what?”

“You said it yourself, my lord. A man has no need to protect himself from prying eyes when he has nothing to hide.”

“I will return later if I am able.” Ben did not hear his secretary’s response, or see the faces of the sailors he passed on his way to his horse. The morning was advancing. He had little time before Constance left home for the day on visits. And, as much as he wished only to see Octavia now, as much as he ached to bring the doubt-filled waiting to an end, he could not have this conversation in her presence.

At the Duke of Read’s town house he sent his card up and paced the receiving room until Constance appeared. Her eyes were red. She did not come to him, or extend her hand as usual.

“Did I wake you?”

“Heavens, no.” She pulled the bell rope, an unstable smile crossing her lips. “I was writing correspondence. I am not always a social butterfly.”

“I know that.”

“Of course you do, hypocrite.” She did not meet his gaze.

“Constance, I would like you to go home.”

Her eyes snapped up, strangely dull. “I drink a bit too much champagne at one party and you wish to exile me to Scotland?”

“I do not ask it because of last evening.”

“Papa is coming to town soon. I would be silly for me to make the journey then turn around and immediately return.”

“Then go elsewhere. Entertainments are thin now. Lady Fitzwarren may be willing to retire to her home at Stratford for the winter.”

“Lady Fitzwarren? Good heavens, why on earth would you wish to exile her too?”

“She merely came to mind. You seem to be in her company frequently of late.”

“I am in Octavia Pierce’s company frequently as well but I doubt you wish her gone from town.” Her slender brows knitted.

“Constance, listen to—”

“No. I will not go simply because you say so.”

“You are in danger.”

“I am not.”

Her reply came too swiftly. Ben moved toward her. She seemed to force lightness into her eyes, the glint in them unnatural.

“You are a thorough widgeon, Ben. I am quite content and not at all in any sort of distress.”

“I did not say distress. I said danger. And I did not realize that copious tears are evidence of happiness.”

“I was foxed.”

“Why?”

She turned away with a shrug. “Those gentlemen kept giving me champagne. They were enormously diverting.” Her voice sounded edgy, the Scots burr rather stronger now.

“Constance, tell me.”

She whirled around. “Why should I? You don’t tell me anything. And there is nothing to tell. I am perfectly well and perfectly weary of you imagining you can dictate to me.” Her gaze skittered away again.

“I have only your safety in mind.”

“I do not doubt it,” she said in a smaller voice. “But you are wrong this time.” Her fingers pleated and repleated folds in her skirt. Ben’s chest and limbs felt numb, the goodness of the past entirely lost, first his brothers, then Styles, now Constance. He went to the door.

“I am not the person you always expected me to be, Ben.” Her voice broke. “I am not strong like you.”

He left without a word.

Traffic was smooth beneath the unusually brilliant sky and he reached his destination in short time. He deposited Kali in the mews near Hauterive’s. The entrance to the club was locked now, shutters closed. But Ben hadn’t any interest in the place. He moved along the narrow, unpaved street, glaringly naked in the bright daylight, straw strewn about in the dirt. A filthy pie seller vended his fare, a pen of suckling pigs for sale squealing at his heels. A prostitute lolled in a doorway, glassy-eyed with the aftereffects of too much gin and too little sleep, her rouge from the previous night smeared.

A tiny coal-blackened sweep curled around a mutt sleeping across the gin house’s threshold. Ben stepped over boy and dog and pushed the door open. His throat tightened at the odors of stale ale and unwashed bodies. God, but it was good he’d always been drunk when he had come here.

The tables seemed clean, though, which they never were when the tavern was fully occupied. A handful of patrons slumped upon benches, slack-jawed with drink though it was not yet noon. Given his three days at Fellsbourne, Ben withheld judgment.

Lil looked up from behind the tap. Her lips curved into a sloe-eyed smile.

“Well, look what the cat drug in so soon after the last visit.” Her gaze traveled up and down him. “You look good enough to eat, duck. But I don’t suppose that’s in the cards for ol’ Lily today, is it?” She winked. Her skin looked thin over tired bones, her hair combed but in the daylight garishly tinted.

“Thank you, Lil. I have come to speak with you.”

“ ’Bout what, love?”

“The other night when I was here, my friend Lord Styles came in. Do you recall?”

She nodded, her mouth settling into a line.

“You seemed unhappy with him.”

“Unhappy weren’t the word, love.” She tilted a mug beneath the tap and drew ale into it, and set it on the bar before him.

“Why, Lil?”

“Seeing him got me to thinking about the girls. Especially my Missy.”

“The girls?”

“All them girls who went off at once.”

Ben’s grip tightened. “Who is Missy?”

“Not but a sweet little one. Used to stay with me when the gentlemen weren’t, you know. Didn’t want to get herself into my line o’ work, see, but we was good friends still. I used to know her mother ’fore she drank her sorry hide into a hole in the ground.”

“Do you still see Missy?”

She shook her head and placed her palms upon the bar’s surface as though for support. “Just the one letter in two years.”

“Why did she go?”

“Told her she shouldn’t, of course. But she liked the idea. All them girls did, but they was too young to know. And none of them ever came back, so I was right to worry, wasn’t I?”

One letter in two years. Ben released the glass carefully.

“Do you still have Missy’s letter?”

The doxy’s gaze fixed firmly in his. “What would you want with a thing like that, duck?”