by Erica Vetsch
Should he try to question Coyne again? He had taken a couple of runs at him last night, and so had Partridge. Even Sir Noel had questioned the man before tucking him away under guard at a safe location. Had they gotten everything they could from Ratcliffe’s shady bookkeeper?
Unable to stay idle, Marcus grabbed his cloak. He could glean nothing more from the paperwork either, and he needed to be an active part of the search.
As they left the bookshop, a small, dirty hand snaked out and latched on to his cloak. “You the one what they call Hawk?”
“Here, you little street grubber, be on your way. There’ll be no pocket picking today.” Partridge made to brush the child off, but the boy leapt away with the agility of a squirrel.
“Look ’ere, guv. I ain’t pocket divin’. At least not at the moment.” The boy gave a sly grin. “I been sent wiff a message for Hawk. It’s right urgent.”
“What is it?” Marcus asked, hope flickering. Perhaps Sir Noel had located Ratcliffe or Pippa or both.
“If you’re Hawk, it’s about your missus.” He narrowed his eyes, as if reciting something he’d been told and needed to concentrate to get it right. “The bloke yer lookin’ fer busted into some lady’s house on King’s Place, roughed up the woman as works there, and took yer missus and Pippa Cashel herself.” He shook his head, as if in awe of the audacity of someone to kidnap London’s most coveted doxy. “Left the woman what works in the house pretty well bashed about, tied up like Christmas pudding, and took Pippa and your lady away out the back. Brandishing a pistol, he was.”
As the words sank in, a ringing started in Marcus’s ears. He’d sent Charlotte to Aunt Dolly’s, and Ratcliffe had been there the whole time. His vision narrowed, and his heart pummeled his chest.
“Who told you this? Who sent you out to find me?” He grabbed the child by the shoulders.
“’Ere now, it ain’t my fault I’m telling you bad news. No need to rough me up. Your guv sent me. White-haired fellow. Found me on the street outside the magistrate’s place and said he’d pay me a shilling to deliver the message. Said he was your boss and said to start looking for you at this here bookstore, even though it’s supposed to be shut up on a Sunday.” He grinned, his eyes hopeful. “Said if I found you, you’d give me a reward.”
“Did my guv say where Ratcliffe had taken the women?”
“Din’t know, but he said he was taking some men with him to the docks an’ the Isle of Dogs, ’cause the bloke what took ’em has some property there. Said you was to join him there.”
The docks. Ratcliffe had shares in some shipping companies. If he got the women to one of his ships, he could sail them down the Thames and to anywhere in the world.
Pull yourself together and focus, man. This is your job. This is what you do.
He couldn’t think straight. Though he stood in the crisp, spring air, he couldn’t seem to take a deep breath. Where was his logical mind and discipline? Why couldn’t he put aside his feelings and focus on his job the way he had always been able to do before?
Because this wasn’t just a job. This was about Charlotte. Charlotte, who was trying so desperately to believe him, to trust him.
This was Charlotte, his wife, yes, but beyond that, the woman he loved.
And Ratcliffe had her.
For a moment, Partridge waited for Marcus to move, to issue an order, to lead, before he shook his head, flipped the boy a shilling, and strode into the center of the street. He held his hand up, causing a coachman to haul on the reins, the horses of a private carriage skidding to a halt on the cobbles.
“Government business. Take us to the dockyard,” Partridge ordered.
“Get out of my way,” the coachman called. “Here, let go!”
Partridge had rounded the team and reached up to grab the coachman, hauling him down and removing the whip from his hand in one fluid motion. “Get in, sir,” he called to Marcus. “I’ll drive.”
Marcus unstuck his boots from the sidewalk and wrenched open the carriage door. Two surprised faces greeted him, an elderly couple coming home from church, by the look of their clothes. “Urgent government business.” There wasn’t time to let them get out. Marcus swung aboard as Partridge popped the whip over the horses’ heads, and the wheels leapt off the pavement.
He tumbled into the empty, backward-facing seat, grabbing the window frame for support as the door smashed shut.
The old woman righted her bonnet and poked her husband, scowling at Marcus.
The gentleman swallowed and asked, “Are you going to rob us? I haven’t much money with me at the moment.” He fumbled in his pocket.
“I’m not here to rob you, sir.”
The old woman straightened, clutching her cloak about her. She leaned in and whispered to her husband, yet so loud Marcus could hear it. “Do you think it’s those white slavers we’ve been hearing about?” Her faded-blue eyes showed white all around.
“Madam, sir, I assure you, I neither want to rob you, nor do I want to sell you into slavery.” Marcus adjusted his clothing and slid back on the seat, trying to project respectability. He took deep breaths, slowing his speech to master his fear. “I merely need to get to the London dockyard quickly.” It was his turn to dig into his pocket. “This will cover the rental of your vehicle and a bit extra for your coachman. I do apologize for the inconvenience.”
He surprised himself at the coolness of his tone and ability to form coherent sentences. He must shut the door on his fears for Charlotte. The paralyzing panic of a husband wouldn’t help her now. Right now she needed him to be Hawk. The hunter in search of his prey, the experienced agent, the man who never let his emotions override his good sense.
Inside his mind and heart, he leaned hard on that door holding back his emotions, struggling to get the key into the lock.
You can fall apart later. Focus, man.
And pray.
All his carefully constructed boxes were collapsing. He had tried so hard to keep his private, his family, his professional life all separate. And he’d done the same with his religious life. That was for Sunday, for saying grace before meals, for the occasional bedtime prayer.
But he knew he needed God here and now. In his personal and his professional life. Aunt Dolly was right. Just as Charlotte demanded and deserved more, so did God. Perhaps Charlotte could help him with that when he found her. Because here he was acting as both spy and husband, and he needed God as never before.
God, You know where she is. Protect her. Help me to find her before it’s too late. Help me keep my wits about me. I need a clear head to save her.
He mentally scanned the papers from Coyne, reviewing Ratcliffe’s shipping properties. Ledgers of cotton shipments and tobacco from America. Ivory and tea and spices from Africa and India. Ratcliffe had a vast network of investments and partnerships and holdings. Mixed in with those were the profit statements from his shares in Omnium, the government stock he had so skillfully manipulated by attempting to assassinate the Prince Regent.
Within those papers was the real reason Viscount Fitzroy had agreed to kill the prince. It had hit Marcus like a cannonade. Ratcliffe had somehow learned that Arthur Bracken, Viscount Fitzroy, was not the son of Sir Nathaniel Bracken, and as such not the true heir to his uncle’s earldom. Arthur Bracken was the son of a French peasant father and social-climbing mother who, when she found she was carrying a child, hastened the marriage to the British diplomat Bracken.
Ratcliffe had blackmailed the viscount, threatening to make his true parentage known, thus cutting him out of society and the fortune and the title that would be his when his childless uncle died.
Marcus’s friend Whitelock had stumbled onto the assassination plot while serving in the army in Spain, been injured in battle before he could tell anyone, and recovered his memory of the event at what must have seemed the worst possible moment for the perpetrators. Fitzroy had panicked, attacking the prince and then attempting to flee, being cut down and dying before he could implicat
e Ratcliffe in the scheme.
The pieces of the mosaic he’d been struggling with for so long were finally falling into place.
When apprehended, Ratcliffe would face charges of treason, and when found guilty, be executed. But first Marcus had to find him and rescue Charlotte and Pippa.
“Please help me to find them before it’s too late,” he whispered. What good would it do him to bring Ratcliffe to justice if it cost him Charlotte’s life?
Partridge urged the team, shouting and popping his whip overhead. The elderly couple held on to each other as the carriage rocked and swayed. The coins Marcus had given the old man now rolled on the floor.
“Nearly there, sir!” Partridge shouted, and Marcus noted the tang of the river on the air. Within a few hundred yards, the carriage piled to a stop, lurching violently before coming to a halt.
Marcus was outside quickly, touching the brim of his hat … before realizing he wasn’t wearing one. “My thanks.”
He joined Partridge as they looked down the long row of warehouses, derricks, docks, and ships. There were so many vessels that he thought he could walk across the basin from deck to deck without getting his feet wet.
Was Charlotte here? Or were they on a hiding to nothing while Ratcliffe spirited her and Pippa away in an entirely different direction?
No, he couldn’t think that way. He must attend what was in front of him and not worry about anything else. Sir Noel had men scouring Ratcliffe’s offices, his rooms, his other holdings for any scrap of information to be gleaned.
He might even have spoken with the Prince Regent himself, who could be persuaded to release the Horse Guards for the manhunt for the traitor who had tried to have him killed.
“Where should we look first, sir?” Partridge asked, his chest heaving from the exertions of racing a carriage through London.
Marcus surveyed the area. The task was daunting, to say the least. Though it was Sunday, the dockyards still teemed with activity. Time was money, after all. Wagons, carts, bales, crates, and men. Men everywhere. The smell of the brackish water, smoke, hemp, cargo, and sailor created a miasma that existed nowhere else in the world.
Stevedores and clerks and ship hands toiled away, but not a single woman appeared anywhere. If Charlotte and Pippa were here, they would stand out for sure. “Start asking around. We’re looking for the Carnaby Shipping Company warehouses and any ship owned by the Warwick Company. Those are the two shipping businesses of Ratcliffe’s listed in Coyne’s papers. Charlotte was wearing a blue velvet cloak. I don’t know what Pippa was wearing, but it would be certain to be noticed. She favors bright colors. I’ll go east. You go west.” Marcus was already striding away as he issued his orders.
He worked his way down the row of warehouses, asking at each, “Have you seen a man with two women? One blonde, one brunette? Green eyes, very pretty?”
Odd looks, headshakes, a few “clear offs.”
No one had seen them.
“Carnaby Shipping? Or the Warwick Company?”
“Down there.” They waved vaguely at the east end of the docks. But no sign of his wife, his sister-in-law, or Ratcliffe.
The more he searched, the harder it was to keep his despair locked away.
Then he saw it. Dangling from a stevedore’s hand, winking goldenly in the light.
CHAPTER 16
“THAT SHOULD HOLD you.” Ratcliffe tugged on the ropes binding her wrists, checking they were secure, before he bent, put his shoulder into her middle, and hefted her up to toss her into the swinging bunk.
Her stomach lurched as the bunk, suspended from the ceiling by stout ropes, swayed and rocked. The cottony taste of the gag choked her, wicking away all the moisture in her mouth.
Pippa lay in the corner on a pile of canvas sails, bound hand and foot and gagged.
Ratcliffe left, locking the thick door to the captain’s cabin on his way out. A heavy thunk of wood told Charlotte he’d put a bar across the outside of the door as well.
Why would the captain’s cabin have a door that locked and barred from the outside? A chill rippled through her. She used both her bound wrists to shove her hair out of her face. Strands clung to her cheeks, damp with frustrated tears. Though she tried to claw at the gag, it was so tight, she couldn’t budge it with her tied hands.
Pippa writhed and struggled, worming her way to the edge of the canvas pile, trying to gain her feet. At least Ratcliffe hadn’t separated them.
From outside the door, they heard voices.
“You never brought two women before. I’ll give you a hundred pounds for the yellow-haired one.” It must have been the captain of this tub. “Can’t say fairer than that. You’ve got the one you were after, that brown-haired looker. Give me this one.”
Charlotte locked eyes with Pippa, her chest tightening. Was she to be turned over to that awful, smelly, hairy man?
Not without a fight, that was certain.
Charlotte heaved her body over to the side of the bed, gripping the wood with her fingertips and wriggling over the edge. She landed with a thud, barking her already-sore hip on the floor and sitting up too quickly. The hanging bed thumped her in the head, bringing stars to her vision. Pippa sent her an imploring glare, silently yelling at her to be quiet.
Charlotte nodded, shrugging her apology as she waited for the pain in her head to subside. As softly as she could, she struggled upright, shuffling her feet toward the door. Any information she could glean might prove helpful.
“You can’t have her just yet. She’s my insurance policy. A bargaining chip if I need one, should the authorities catch up to me. Now, get this ship underway.” Ratcliffe sounded as if he were brushing the captain away like a bothersome fly. “You can have her once we’re safely in the Channel. Until then no one goes in that cabin but me.”
“We can’t get underway. We’re only half loaded with cargo. The rest is still in the warehouse.” The captain cleared his throat and made a spitting noise.
Charlotte grimaced, her throat closing in.
“Leave the cargo. We must be away. There’s no time to dawdle, man. The minute someone realizes the duchess is missing, Haverly, the entire War Department, the Bow Street Runners, and the Horse Guards will be chasing me. I suspect that Coyne has flipped on me. I should have killed him when I had the chance.”
“You could’ve escaped a week ago. But no, you had to find that prostitute first. I told you then it was folly, letting your obsession with that dolly-mop make you crazed. You aren’t in your right mind when it comes to that woman.”
“What did you say?” If a snake could talk, Ratcliffe’s voice was how Charlotte imagined it would sound. A shiver went through her.
The captain was quick to try to placate, backtracking. “I didn’t mean nothing by it, but your orders to up anchor right now are impossible. Look outside. We’re hemmed in by dozens of ships, and the tide’s out. We aren’t on the harbormaster’s list to leave for two more days, so he’s let other ships waiting for berths anchor around us. It’ll be a huge snarl up to try to get out now, even if the tide was in. The Minerva ain’t budging, and you can threaten all you want, but them’s the facts.”
Charlotte pressed her ear to the crack in the door. There was a long pause before Ratcliffe spoke again.
“Then find me a ship that can leave the moment the tide turns.” Something hit the wall—his fist perhaps? “One would think I wasn’t the owner of this company and your employer. Fix the problem, Harris, or I shall find someone who will. Now, post those men on deck, and if anyone shows up looking for those women, I want to know immediately.”
Their footsteps rang in the corridor and faded.
Charlotte grabbed the doorknob, rattling it with futile hope. It refused to budge. The metal strapping on the solid door, the hefty lock, and the hinges on the outside all prevented any thoughts of escape that way. Whirling, she collapsed against the door, panic clawing up her windpipe, making it even more difficult to breathe.
She forc
ed herself to calm down, to take slow breaths through her nose, to try to swallow against the constricting gag. Focus. If she lost her wits and became hysterical, she would do herself no good, and she would be no help to Pippa either.
Think, girl. What would Marcus do?
Thoughts of her husband and his expectations of her gave her courage. He was looking for Ratcliffe, and he was a good hunter. Eventually, if she could stay alive, he would find her. Her job was to use her intelligence to ensure she was around for the rescue.
First thing was to get these ropes off. She shuffled toward Pippa, who lay half on, half off the pile of sails. She knelt and picked at the knots at Pippa’s wrists, but Ratcliffe had been diabolical in tying them. Too complex and too tight to be untied with fingers. They would have to be cut off.
Take stock. What can you find in this wretched cabin that might help you?
She surveyed the room. The captain was a slob. Clothing, equipment, and used dishes lay everywhere. The room smelled of tar, smoke, and unwashed male. Did he not even have a steward or valet, or whatever the nautical version of a maid was?
The larger furniture was bolted to the floor, so she couldn’t barricade herself in the room. There were two cannons, one in either corner, aimed at locked gunports aft, and chocked to prevent them from moving.
A bank of filthy windows covered the back of the ship. She knelt atop a sea chest, lurching awkwardly with her wrists still bound tight, to try to open one of the windows. Perhaps she could signal one of the tenders that passed below.
Every window had been nailed shut! Her gag prevented her from grinding her teeth. The door that locked on the outside, the nailed windows. Everything pointed to this not being the first time a prisoner had been kept here.
She lowered herself until she sat upon the sea chest, looking about the room. Pippa had fought her way upright and was shuffling to the lockers beside the door. She jerked her head toward the desk, her eyes expressive. Charlotte took heart. If Ratcliffe thought they were going to wait meekly here for him to return, never daring to fight back or attempting an escape, he had another long think coming.