The Dog and Partridge loomed ahead. The turn down Duke Street toward Seaton’s boarding house on the corner of Jermyn was a short distance from the popular pub. He raced on past, praying young Charles Lambert would be at home. Arnaud couldn’t help suspecting he knew more than he’d revealed the first time they’d met.
He took a deep breath before knocking on the front door. In the space of that breath he heard a familiar sound. Someone was beating the dust out of carpets. The noise seemed to come from outside the boarding house. He descended the steps and peered down the narrow, crooked walk between the buildings. He followed the sound of the solid, rhythmic whacks around to the rear of the building in the tiny space between the rear of the Lambert house and a small, public mews.
And there, mid-sneeze, was his quarry. The sight of the tall young man brought back the sights and sounds of the bloody battle in the Bay of Algiers. He looked so much like his father, Captain Lambert, Arnaud could not breathe for a second. Memories of the smell of gunpowder and blood on the decks paralyzed him with horror. He could not blot out the vision of Charles’s father lying on the deck, nearly cut in half by a cannonball shot to his side. The innocent face with his father’s steady blue gaze turned to stare directly at Arnaud, and in that moment he saw shame there.
Arnaud walked to his side and put his hand on his shoulder. “You have something to tell me.” It was not a question.
Charles hung his head and motioned for Arnaud to follow him into the house.
Mrs. Lambert must have observed the scene in the back garden, and had started preparation of a tea cart.
As soon as they settled at the small, battered table, Charles revealed what he knew in a rush. Yes, he’d been the bearer of messages between Seaton and his contact at the Dog. Charles’s description of the man who’d delivered the messages matched the one given by Seaton under questioning.
The most frightening discovery was in the final note the young man had picked up. When he’d heard Howick’s men at the pub searching for information on Sophie and realized what danger she was in, he’d opened the last note for Seaton since his mother’s lodger hadn’t returned for weeks. “I sent a message to the address you gave me when you were here before.” He showed Arnaud a note detailing how Sophie had to be delivered to the duke’s men for transport on a ship waiting at the West India docks.
Damn. Arnaud had given the young man his mother’s address on Hanover Square, and she’d been gone for days between the house party and the time it had taken for the bullet graze on his forehead to heal.
He read the part of the note about the duke’s men again. Arnaud’s heart froze, as cold as a night watch in the Channel. The only duke the note could possibly refer to would be Sophie’s uncle. What in the name of God was he about? Why destroy an innocent young woman over a paltry inheritance when he was the Duke of Wolford, one of the wealthiest men in England?
Later, after finishing his confession of being Seaton’s go-between to the Dog and Partridge, Charles gave a huge sigh. “I saw sketches Howick’s men circulated of that poor young woman. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you sooner. She is so beautiful, and you love her.”
His last statement was not a question either.
Arnaud nodded and did not contradict him. “I thank you for all your help.”
“Will you find her in time?”
“I have no choice. Her life and mine depend on it. I cannot fail.”
Sophie slowly opened her eyes. Lead weights seemed to work against the effort. When she rubbed at her eyes to force them open, a sticky, sandy substance kept them nearly sealed shut. She felt for the jug of water the last sailor had left on the floor near her bunk.
Splashing water on her face helped to pry her eyes open. When she swung her legs around to sit upright, the ugly, tiny cabin spun. She lay back down abruptly. She must still be alive at least. This certainly was not heaven, and even hell could not be this bad.
She’d been fearful and full of dread the previous day. Now she was angry. Her mind was back to working on the puzzle, turning and clicking parts into place until at last she had a plan. The ship’s crewmen were punctual to a fault. If one of the little toads failed to re-appear after dumping nasty biscuits and stale-tasting water in her cabin, the rest of the shipboard automatons would probably fly into a panic and rush to her room to see what was wrong. By her calculation, she might have ten or fifteen minutes, give or take an extra five before one of the other toads would check on the missing toad.
The question was, where would she go after she escaped? The Howicks would welcome her back, of course, but they were not her family. She had no family, considering how her uncle was trying to destroy her and have her sent God knows where.
And then there was her late, beloved grandmother. Sophie understood why she would have stipulated a safe marriage before releasing her inheritance, considering Paolo Brancelli’s spendthrift ways. But Sophie had learned the most important lesson of her life from her father.
Every penny she might earn would be allotted only to bare necessities or savings. Whenever her father had received a large royalty check from his publisher, he would throw a huge party for all his friends. Then Sophie would be obliged to spend the rest of the month in barter and ingenuity to keep food on the table and coal in the fireplace.
She fingered the key on the chain around her neck. The sailor who had stolen her watch had turned up his nose at the key.
Thank the gods.
She tensed and jerked upright at a sudden scraping at the entryway when the latest toad barged into the cabin. The dark shadows in her bleak abode worked in her favor when she grasped the water jug and took aim. His head thunked like a ripe melon, and he sank like a sack of potatoes. Was he dead? She listened and touched his chest. Still breathing. Time to go. Jupiter.
Nearly every one of Arnaud’s instincts screamed he should corner the Duke of Wolford in his lair and demand the bastard tell him what he’d done with Sophie. The few remaining instincts whispered he should take the fastest mount in Howick’s mews to the docks and bully every dockside denizen and ship’s captain until someone revealed where Sophie was being held.
The only reason Captain Arnaud Bellingham had survived so many sea battles and the worst the ocean could throw at him was his utter calm under fire. He had the ability to analyze all of his options before committing to a single path. That was the way to stay alive. And that was what he had to force himself to do now to save Sophie. He needed his men.
Arnaud headed back up to Piccadilly and soon found Bourne and Neville, as well as Cullen and Artemis. After giving up on convincing his hard-headed patient to rest a few days longer, his surgeon had borrowed another mount from Sir Thomas and ridden directly to Howick House from Clifford Park. Arnaud’s mother, Honore, and Admiral Thornbrough had followed close behind in her carriage.
Arnaud pulled all of his men to the nearest pub to put their heads together while they decided on a course of action.
Once Arnaud and his men took over a quiet corner table in the back room of the Crooked Candle, everyone offered different ideas on the best way to find Sophie. They finally decided Bourne and Neville would attempt to convince Sophie’s uncle, Wolford, to reveal what he knew of her whereabouts. They agreed they would leave a message at the Candle if they discovered any sign of her. If all else failed, the two men would scour the neighborhood for servants’ gossip.
“But before we proceed in this mad business, there is one very important thing we should do.” Arnaud’s men all turned quizzical looks his way. “We should retrieve our uniforms from my rooms at Albany. We may have more luck getting our questions answered dressed as Royal Navy officers.” Without further debate, he and his men rose and headed down the block toward Albany.
Less than an hour later, Neville and Bourne left for Wolford House on Piccadilly while Arnaud and Cullen set off for Howick House to acquire fresh mounts before heading to the London docks. Artemis agreed to keep looking for the street sweeps along Piccad
illy.
Sophie glanced both ways outside the cabin door and tried not to breathe too deeply. The stench of the toad’s clothes filled her senses as well as possibly the entire passageway. She’d relieved him of his sailing slops down to his small clothes. How sailors could stand each other for months at sea was beyond her if this was how they smelled while still in port.
She’d covered the fetid, toad-like sailor with her mourning dress and put the veiled hat over his face for good measure. She stuffed her hair beneath his odorous watch cap. Maybe the crew’s confusion on finding him dressed that way would buy her a few more minutes if the gods were with her.
When she reached the top deck, she grabbed an empty crate and hefted it to her shoulder. She clattered down the wooden gangway to the dock as if she were on a very important sailor-like errand, whatever that might be. Fortunately, the downed toad had been more than a little rotund. His shirt covered her curves which she’d laced up as flat as possible with the front-lacing corset she’d borrowed from Lydia’s maid. That had been only the day before but felt like a lifetime ago.
The toad’s shoes had been entirely too large, so she’d kept her boots, hoping no one would think her footwear odd before she’d had a chance to put distance between herself and the ship. That ship surely would have borne her to some doom planned by her uncle.
When Sophie had put four or five ships between her and her jailers, she stopped a dock worker pushing a cart of goods and asked about the ship she’d been on.
Sophie threw her voice into a lower octave. “The Calcutta down the way. D’ya know where she’s bound?”
“Aye. She’s carryin’ provisions and goods bound for Jamaica. The captain be lookin’ for crew if yer interested.”
Sophie shook her head and hurried on, tears filling her eyes. What had she ever done to her uncle to be treated so? Even though she was illegitimate, they still shared the same blood.
She continued walking, falling in with groups of dock workers whenever possible so as not to appear an odd person wandering alone. She walked briskly, still toting the crate, until she reached the west edge of the dock area. She abandoned the box on the side of the New Road before heading north, hoping to encounter a hackney carriage.
She’d have to cajole the driver into taking her to her father’s old townhouse in Kensington with the story that her father would pay the fare for the long ride once they got there. Mrs. Winters had hidden emergency funds in the house, and Sophie could use them to pay the man.
Arnaud and Cullen cantered down the Strand, slowing their mounts often to pick their way through traffic to and from the docks until they reached the landing at the Tower of London. Lancelot ranged alongside them, full of sniffs and meandering to investigate river smells when they neared the Thames. “Is that troublesome dog going to stop to smell everything?” Cullen snapped, sharp annoyance in his voice.
Arnaud stopped and slung Lancelot across the front of his saddle. He patted the pup’s head to calm him. “Now you’ll have to limit your sniffing to the horse.” He was rewarded with an impatient yip. “All right. We’re going as fast as we can.” Did Sophie’s silly stray somehow sense the importance of their quest in search of his mistress?
A lighterman waited with his narrow barge to transport them on the river along the final leg to the docks. The tide was still going out, so they had to get to the docks and find Sophie before the currents reversed later that afternoon. One of his mother’s warehouse guards was there to take charge of their horses. He’d be waiting with fresh mounts when they returned, including an extra horse for Sophie.
When he’d sent Artemis with a message to his mother at Howick House, she’d sent word to her oldest London partner in shipping, lighterman Elias Woodson. And she’d also bullied Artemis into delivering Sophie’s little dog, Lancelot, to Arnaud.
Arnaud stood near the berth of a ship fully loaded and ready to set sail for Jamaica, according to the men along the dock. He kept Lancelot in a tight hold in his arms. When they’d neared the Calcutta, the pup had gone crazy sniffing and barking.
For at least the thousandth time in his life since he’d transitioned from short trousers, he thanked God he’d been born to one of the most intelligent women in London. As usual, she was right about something he thought was sheer madness.
His lungs relaxed, and the breath he’d been holding flooded out. Once they’d entered the West India docks, it had been simple to locate the ship. He was familiar with the area, since his mother’s family business had warehouses here that dealt in rum imports from Martinique. Once Lancelot had whiffed Sophie’s scent, there was no stopping him until he’d skidded to a halt in front of the huge merchant ship.
When he and Cullen ascended the gangway, a guard stopped them at the top deck level. “What is your business here?”
“I have a message for your captain.” Arnaud and Cullen straightened their shoulders and Arnaud gave silent thanks for his last-minute inspiration to search in full Royal Navy kit. The guard swept both of them with a slow, insolent look before motioning for them to follow him.
Arnaud handed Lancelot to one of the deck hands polishing brightwork. “Please hold this lad until we’re through with the captain, and mind he’s not hurt,” he ordered. Arnaud gave Lancelot the sternest look he could muster, said “Stay,” and marveled that the unpredictable creature calmed and sat quietly next to the deck hand.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Arnaud wanted to howl and pound the walls of the cabin of the Calcutta’s Captain Worsham, but instead forced himself to ask as many questions as possible in the hopes that the stern man staring back at him would flinch and accidentally reveal something of Sophie’s whereabouts.
“I cannot tell you more than I’ve already said. She came to us as an indentured servant bound for Jamaica. Someone paid for her passage in the expectation that the wench would show up at the other end to do the work she agreed to in writing in exchange for the cost of the voyage.” The man waved a much crumpled paper which was so damaged, Arnaud doubted anyone would be able to decipher what had been written thereon. He knew for a certainty whatever signature had faded away was not Sophia Brancelli’s.
“We were told that a young woman was brought aboard your ship against her will. We are here at the direction of Admiral Thornbrough. If we find you are not being truthful, the full force of the Royal Navy will come down on you as well as the ship’s owner.” Arnaud snatched the grubby paper away from the man and crumpled it into a ball. He threw the faded contract back onto the chart table where it rolled a little with each lurch of the ship at its moorings. The outgoing tide was high and about to turn back inland. They could not linger much longer.
The man seated behind the chart table leaned back, his legs splayed out beneath a huge belly. Grease dotted his shirt. He spread his arms wide. “Maybe the young woman that walked away from her contract was someone else, not the one you seek. I will tell you one thing. We are well rid of that hellcat. If she was the one you seek, you’ll have your hands full dealing with her. I’ve a mind to have her brought up on charges for injuring one of my crew.”
“You have not heard the last of this matter,” Arnaud clenched his fists until he feared he’d draw blood, but realized any violence would have him and Cullen thrown into prison and drummed out of the Royal Navy. Instead, he turned on his heel and shoved the guard when he moved in close. At a look from Cullen, the man moved smartly away and let them pass.
Arnaud picked up Lancelot on their way across the deck and headed back to where the lighterman waited with the barge to return them to the tower.
When they neared the edge of the docks, Cullen exploded into laughter. “You have to make that lass your wife. She is afraid of nothing, and no one.”
Arnaud stopped and faced his surgeon with a frown. “I’m glad you find the humor in this situation. Now I have to figure out where in the name of all that’s holy that impossible woman would have gone.”
“We’ll start at Howick House.�
� Cullen clapped him on the back and shoved him onto the lighterman’s barge.
Sophie built a fire in her father’s ancient stove and boiled enough pots of water to fill her old hip tub still stored behind a screen in the kitchen. After her ordeal, all she could think about was ridding herself of the stench of the ship.
She’d sent a request to Mrs. Winters to collect her things through Lydia and have them sent to her father’s old townhouse on Edwardes Square in Kensington. She’d begged her to make Lydia promise not to reveal where she’d fled. She’d sent word to her uncle that she would forfeit her grandmother’s inheritance to him if he would desist plaguing her and all of those close to her, especially Arnaud.
And Sophie had finally received word from her father’s publisher the day before her ill-fated attempt to make her uncle see sense. In a reply nothing short of miraculous, he said he wanted her poems and memoir of Venice. The advance would see her through the end of the year. Maybe by that time, she could sell the novel she worked on now. Any excitement and celebration had had to wait until she emerged from her ordeal at the docks.
She’d found a leftover cake of the lavender soap she’d made before her father died and sank into the steaming waters with a hiss of gratitude. Her father’s gift shawl hung from a peg near the tub, in all its woolen paisley glory.
Sophie lifted the calf of one leg for a thorough sudsing and silently mused. She did not need her inheritance, she did not need a “gentleman of the ton.” Nor did she need a maddening, proper Royal Navy officer dogging her every move. All she needed was the kindness of friends and her own tenacity. She would not give up on the life she wanted.
Pride Of Honor: Men of the Squadron Series, Book 1 Page 23