Not Quite Married (30 page)

“Soon, everyone knows vhat a whore she is.”

“So it’s her reputation you’ve threatened.” Cold determination set Aaron’s face with predatory sharpness, turning his pleasant features into a stony mask. “You propose to embarrass the lady.

Well, I’m afraid I cannot let that happen.”

“You t’ink you scare me?” the fat man challenged. “Go tell your whore I am not afraid.”

The anger rising inside Aaron was more dangerous than any of Van Zandt’s baiting. It would be so easy; it was so tempting to let his hand apply a bit more pressure and rid the world of this wretch’s evil.

“You underestimate her, Van Zandt. She didn’t send me. She is a true lady. Proud and stubborn to a fault, but not a whore or a coward.” He sniffed the fetid air of the room. “What is that smell? This place stinks like a skunk’s lair.” He leaned toward the fat man and sniffed again. “Damn, Van Zandt, that’s
you.
Come to think of it, all of Boston would smell sweeter with you gone.”

“You don’t scare me, Durham,” he said, growling like a trapped animal.

“Well, I should. I have friends who remember your activities during the war, Van Zandt.” Aaron’s voice suddenly matched his blade: cold and sharp. “I visited New York recently and called on a few mutual acquaintances. They have placed their testimony at my disposal and would gladly bear witness to your wartime deceptions. Get out of that bed and start packing. If you are not gone with tomorrow’s first tide, I will lead soldiers to your door and arrest you myself.”

Long-held rage and suppressed memories flooded back to tighten Aaron’s throat and shiver his taut muscles with tension. The burning powder’s smoke once more burned his eyes and seared his lungs, while a quivering heap of flesh pleaded with the captain of the
Challenger,
begging and bargaining for his life . . . offering to turn coat.

In the end, Van Zandt had won a stay, bought with treachery and blood. He’d agreed to furnish information on colonial movements, even other smugglers, for the right to ply his trade unhindered and free of competition. Playing friend to the colonial cause, Van Zandt lined his pockets while betraying the rebels at every turn. And ironically, Van Zandt was proclaimed heroic by the colonials for his successful breach of the British blockade.

They never suspected that his “luck” was provided by the British navy itself.

“Your treason will hang you in any of these thirteen colonies,”

Aaron said. “Which will it be? The gallows of Boston or a plantation in the Indies?”

VAN ZANDT PUSHED his bulk about his lavishly furnished bedchamber, snatching up costly items, gathering them into leather bags. A small, gray-faced serving woman moved similarly about the adjoining sitting room, hurriedly packing what she could into two large wooden barrels in the middle of the room.

The scene was being repeated in other rooms of the house, but much would be left behind. He had always known this day might come. He gave the chest on the bedroom floor a possessive stroke as he passed. That was why he kept most of his wealth in portable gold and precious jewels.

He thought of the cause of his hasty flight and his mood darkened.

“Dat whore.” His yellow smirk appeared. “Her and Durham . . . I leave dem somet’ing to remember. Hulda!” His voice rumbled through the house over and over until the worn little woman appeared at his bedchamber door.

“Ja, mein herr?”
She dipped nervously before him, gauging his mood and the safety of her proximity to him.

“Forget vhat you do. Fetch Steiger and Moran. I haf one last job for dem to do.”

THE NEXT MORNING Van Zandt was in a cabin on the ship
Marguerite.
The captain had orders to sail with the tide for Jamaica and an armed guard from the
Secret
had watched the ship until late afternoon when she sailed.

As Aaron watched the ship clearing the harbor, he felt little satisfaction and no relief. Van Zandt’s simmering but subdued manner, as Aaron escorted him to the ship, had made him uneasy.

The Dutchman had surrendered too quickly. And where were the toughs that always accompanied him?

As the ship disappeared on the horizon, he sought out the chief constable of Boston and deposited with him a packet of documents that proved beyond doubt Van Zandt’s treason during the war. Warrants would be drawn and if he ever set foot again on American soil, he would be arrested and likely hanged.

Once more on board
The Lady’s Secret,
Aaron puzzled over his lingering anxiety. Van Zandt had left too quietly. The
Marguerite

’s captain was trustworthy; he would certainly deliver the Dutchman to the islands. His hatred for Van Zandt rivaled Aaron’s.

What, then? A plan for revenge? It would be weeks before they reached Jamaica and triple that time before Van Zandt could mount an expedition. Did he plan to strike at
The Lady’s Secret
?

She would sail within two weeks for England—too soon to feel the Dutchman’s wrath. Unless . . . unless a plan for revenge was already set in motion.

Aaron prevailed upon Hicks to pay a call on Jeannie Trowbridge and to carry a message to Dyso. It was just before sunset when the hulk appeared on the gangway.

“Something isn’t right,” Aaron told him. “I believe our lady, her property—or both—are in danger.” He watched the big man carefully. “You must not leave her, even for the shortest time, until we find out what he has planned. Can you manage that?”

A quick, determined nod was the reply. Then, before Aaron could continue, one huge hand knotted into a fist and was soon wrapped carefully, tenderly in the other one.

Fascinated by the simple eloquence of the gesture, Aaron stared at him. Then he shook his head to clear it and once more focus his mind.

“I’ll take my men to watch the warehouse and send Hicks around to check with you every few hours. I think it best that Brien not know of our concern or our efforts.”

Dyso, already halfway to the door, turned back from the door with a glimmer of what Aaron fancied as amusement in his eyes.

Then he was gone.

THE WARMTH OF the July night droned onward, making the vigil a battle between boredom and fatigue. Sweat trickled down his neck and the occasional buzz of an insect near his ear increased his annoyance. Then, toward dawn, his determination was rewarded.

A faint light appeared in the alley near the rear door of the warehouse. He rose stiffly to his knees and waved to a crouched figure on the warehouse roof, who repeated the signal to another in the chain of men stationed around the warehouse.

Aaron coolly calculated their steps as he climbed over the rooftops to join two dark figures near the gable of the roof. A handful of shadows in the alley below moved swiftly to cover the doors and the lower windows, to cut off any escape attempt.

The weathered gable window yielded easily to the pressure of Aaron’s shoulder. His heart drummed as their rope uncoiled into the darkened void below. Their descent seemed to take forever as the rope ate into his hands and his eyes raked the darkness.

Once at the bottom he tugged the rope as a signal and silently moved away, pulling a pistol from his belt. Feeling for the wall he knew must be near, he touched the cool, rough brick and suddenly had his bearings. Hicks joined him moments later and together they edged forward through the darkened warehouse.

Muffled voices and dim light came from the area where cotton bales were stored. Aaron motioned Hicks to circle around the other side and they separated, keeping to the shelter of stacked crates and barrels. Suddenly Aaron spotted them. Two men. Van Zandt hadn’t cared to pay too handsomely for his revenge.

Small, bright tongues of flame licked at the oil-soaked rags they had tucked at the bottom of some cotton bales.

“It’s caught.” The shorter, scrawny figure rubbed his sweaty palms on his thighs.

“Aye,” the other one growled. “’At’s good enough. Let’s git now. Our part’s done.” In a hurry to see the job done, they turned to leave the growing circle of light. But they stopped short, eyes widening.

The cold black barrel of Aaron’s pistol hovered inches away from the short one’s face.

“No sudden moves, gents,” Aaron said with icy calm. “Get your arms up and turn around slowly.”

Hicks stepped out of the shadows and searched the pair for weapons.

“Just knives, Captain. They’re half-drunk, to boot.”

The flames licked hungrily at the bales and showed an eagerness to spread. A quick glance told Aaron there was no time to lose.

He snatched up shovels and blankets and tossed them to the thugs, yelling at them to start beating out the flames.

“Get the others,” he ordered Hicks, who took off for the street door to summon the rest of the
Secret
’s crew.

Soon the warehouse was filled with the smoke of extinguished flames and the arsonists were trussed and being trundled out to Boston’s central gaol.

Brien awakened the next morning to the sound of knocking and of Helen’s strained voice calling to her through the door. When she slid from the bed, she spotted Dyso lying across the threshold, blocking the door from opening.

“Dyso!” She knelt beside him and touched his shoulder to make him look at her. “What are you doing here?”

Before he could answer, the door banged open and Helen squeezed in and stared at the bodyguard and the blanket on the floor.

“He’s been in there, lying across your door all night?” Helen asked. “Why?”

Dyso wasn’t forthcoming, but within minutes they had the answer anyway. Silas came rushing up the stairs with news of an arson attempt at the warehouse and of its timely discovery. Brien realized Dyso had slipped into her room to protect her.

It seemed some sailors, rousted from their night’s amusement for lack of funds, had spotted smoke billowing out a window, and they sounded the alarm. The arsonists were trapped inside by the commotion and were unable to flee the building. When the fire was extinguished, they were hauled out gasping, and confessed to a plot to burn all of Weston Trading’s properties one by one.

Fortunately, they had chosen to begin with the main warehouse and the damage there had been confined to a few cotton bales.

Brien gasped as Silas revealed the name of their employer—Horace Van Zandt. A cursory search of the Dutchman’s residence showed he had fled, taking little with him.

The search would continue, but the constables believed he was well away from Boston.

Brien insisted on going down to the docks to see the damage for herself. They arrived just after dawn, and in the street outside the warehouse she spotted familiar faces.

“But they’re from
The Lady’s Secret,
” she said, hurrying toward them just as Aaron stepped out of the warehouse with the fire warden. Suddenly it began to fall into place. Aaron’s warnings about Van Zandt . . . the sailors “happening” by in the dead of night . . . Aaron striding from the warehouse with an air of authority . . .

“What the devil are you doing here?” she demanded, planting herself in his path.

He halted, looking down at her with glowing eyes.

“The men who first reported the fire were—”

“From your ship.” It sounded like the accusation it was. “And the first person I see upon arriving at the scene is you. Not exactly a coincidence, is it?” She stalked closer. “What did you do—plant them here to watch the place?”

He opened his mouth to protest her ingratitude, but closed it.

“Yes, I did.”

She blanched. “But we had already posted a watch.”

“One old man who was bashed over the head before he could make a noise. Not very effective protection.” He folded his arms and stared down at her. “If you like, I can take it all back . . . go in and set everything on fire again . . . let you and your senseless watchman discover it on your own. How does that sound?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Then don’t be ridiculous yourself,” he said shortly.

“I’ve told you to stay out of my business.”

“And I’ve told you that I intend to honor a commitment I made.

That includes helping you when I know you need it.” He lowered his voice and his gaze. “Isn’t that what friends do for each other?

Help in whatever way possible?”

“So now I’m your
friend
?”

“Unless you’d rather be known by something more binding and personal.”

“‘Friend’ will do,” she declared, feeling her hostility taking a last sickly gasp. “Why didn’t you just tell me you suspected a threat?”

“It wasn’t anything more than just that, a suspicion. You’d have dismissed my hunch as just more interference in your life and your business. Wouldn’t you?” He nodded to induce an affirmative answer, and when she bit her lip to remain silent, he edged closer and lowered his voice even more. “Look, I would have done the same for any friend. It was the right thing to do, and I’m not going to quit following my conscience and common sense just because it might annoy you.” She opened her mouth to speak, but he added one last thing. “Needing help now and then doesn’t mean you’re weak or incompetent, you know. Even kings and queens need allies.”

She stared at him, feeling a strange empty sensation in her stomach. He was right; he had done exactly what any good and rational man would have. She had needed help, and she was foolish to disdain it just because it came from him.

“I’m sorry, Aaron.” She suddenly felt a little woozy. “I appreciate what you’ve done here . . . how you helped to save the inventory and warehouse.” She prayed it was the dizziness talking. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

He laughed.

“Well, I do. Invite me to dinner on Sunday.”

ALL THROUGH SUNDAY dinner, Aaron could hardly take his eyes from Brien. They took coffee in the small parlor after dinner. After a bit of conversation, Helen excused herself and asked Silas to come and help her in the garden. After a puzzled silence, the reason for her sudden interest in their weedy rear garden struck and he followed enthusiastically. Helen drew the parlor doors discreetly together behind her.

Brien groaned in frustration. “Now see what you’ve done.”

Aaron smiled lazily, leaning back in his chair to better appreciate the sight of her. “Our hostess is a perceptive woman. I doubt her leave-taking was all my doing. It was you who invited me to dinner.”