Once Upon a Midnight Sea

by Ava Bradley

Christian shrugged the feeling away. Edmund Montague was still the monster who had turned on his partner and abandoned him as though he were vermin. That proved he fit in perfectly with the rich.

  But Adriana continued to be a confusing story. She was engaged to the heir to the biggest steel empire in New York, destined for a life of opulence, yet she claimed to not want any of it.

  Was it just because she was so used to having money she had no idea what it was like to live without it? Was her aversion to homely Preston Weiss merely spoiled vanity? Christian doubted it. In the brief encounter at the pub in Baltimore he'd detected something decidedly unsavory about the man.

  Just as in his brief encounter with Adriana, he'd perceived something unquestionably upright about her.

  Her small dog meandered over, sniffing dark corners for some hidden treat. The fuzzy little thing really was cute, when it wasn't snarling at him as though it wanted to tear strips out of his flesh. That she would own this scruffy terrier mutt instead of a prized purebred was just another delightful surprise in the unfolding mystery that was Adriana Montague.

  "Hello, boy," he said kindly. "Chauncy is your name, is it? I am Christian. I'm told we have a rather long voyage ahead of us. I see no reason we can't be friends."

  The dog looked up at him and chuffed, then trotted away. No, friends–perhaps not. The dog was loyal to its mistress. As her enemy, there was no room in that for him. But was it loyalty, or did the dog merely depend upon Adriana for its food, as so many people had to grovel at the feet of the rich?

  He glanced skyward, listening to fading snippets of Adriana's lovely voice and wondering what kind of silly act she was putting on for her chaperone. Perhaps she was truly averse to Preston

  Weiss, but Adriana was a pampered flower and refined society was her hothouse. She would wither and die outside its protective embrace. He wagered that in a week, possibly as little as a few days, he would even see her grow bored of sailing.

  "No, she's not some innocent angel. This is merely some game of hers."

  To Christian, a game meant a challenge.

  He glanced through the hatch again. "Rest assured, heiress, this is a challenge I intend to win."

  Chapter Six

  Edmund Montague missed food almost as much as he missed his daughter.

  What he wouldn't give for a single bite of creamy Pasta Alfredo with mushrooms. One sugary sliver of fruit from an apple pie. A single tender chunk from a medium-rare filet mignon in shallot jous. Even a mouthful of Mrs. Ling's unusual specialty: spicy red pepper chicken and sautéed vegetables over rice.

  "Come now, Mr. Montague, one more time." Miss Reynolds leaned back, causally sliding the goblet of gelato out of reach. Skillful she-devil, she was. "Repeat after me. Lady Luck lists leisurely on her leeward side."

  What a ridiculous phrase. If the Lady Luck were listing, it certainly wouldn't be leisurely, it would be a damn problem.

  Edmund blasted an angry sigh. "'ady 'uck 'ists 'eesure-y ah 'er 'ee-erd side."

  The nursemaid smiled and offered him another tiny bite of gelato. "Better," she lied. "One more time."

  "I can fee' 'yshelf." He took the spoon, and before she could stop him, carved a bigger spoonful out of the gelato. The loose flesh he saw dangling from his thin arm angered and disgusted him. Five months of sipping puree-of-glop had taken its toll. He could hardly stand to see his own gaunt reflection, and not just because of the horrible scars maiming the left side of his face.

  The mouthful of gelato was cold, but bland. If I am ever to eat real food again, will I even be able to taste it?

  The bullet that had torn his cheek nearly to shreds and destroyed six of his teeth had taken half his tongue with it.

  He smacked the spoon down. "Whee' me over 'o the win-ow."

  "Why don't you get up and walk there? There isn't anything wrong with your legs, Mr. Montague." The stodgy old dowager scowled. "You should not sit around in this chair all day."

  "B-oo-y herr! This ins-i-u-on wi' be uh 'eaff of me!" He grabbed the wheels and turned his infirmary chair.

  Miss Reynolds grabbed the gelato goblet off his tray before it toppled over. "And we so enjoy having you as a guest." She set it down on the table beside the bed and helped him roll the rest of the way to the window. "Don't get comfortable. There will be dancing later in the main hall, and I fully expect you will be there."

  The old bat pursed her lips together and gave him a convincing "hmmm?" before starting off.

  Edmund hated missing Adriana, hated being away from the shipyard. Mostly, he hated being here. His famously dependable luck had abandoned him when he'd been assigned the crossest marm in the sanitarium as his private nurse.

  He stared out the window at a heavenly masterpiece of lavender brushstrokes in the sky. If he squinted his eyes enough, the window frame and the steeple across the garden disappeared from his vision, and he could imagine himself out on the Lady Luck on a calm, New England summer evening.

  He missed Adriana terribly. He knew it was for the best that she stay far away from him until his assailant was either caught, or finished the job, but a secret part of him was glad he would see her again soon.

  She would surely return to Baltimore when she found Lady Luck missing. Edmund thought of what he would tell her when she came to him. Adriana would be horrified at the loss of her ship, but by the time she arrived he would have thought up a convincing story to appease her. The idea of lying to his daughter, again, sat sourly in his stomach, but he had to say whatever was necessary to keep her from learning about Christian De la Croix.

  Edmund sighed as he gazed out the window. Such a long string of lies, he thought. Lies that had not gotten any easier as he'd piled one on top of another.

  A shadow passed over him as someone moved into the doorway, blocking the light from the hall outside his room. Edmund glanced at the mysterious silhouette and his heart skipped a beat.

  In an instant, the dread and fear he'd felt the night his attacker stood over him returned, brighter and sharper than it had been even as he'd seen the arm lift, even as he'd seen the outline of the pistol aimed on him.

  Edmund tried to call out. His ruined tongue flopped uselessly in his mouth. The figure stepped through the door and started nearer. Edmund gripped the arms of his chair to push himself out. He would throw himself on his attacker and grab for something, anything, if only to secure a death-grip the man who was to kill him.

  "Easy there, old man." John Locke rushed over, catching Edmund as he toppled forward. "Sit down, 'eh?"

  Even as he recognized his hired man, the fear refused to wane. John Locke's rough grip showed no kindness as he squeezed Edmund's emaciated arms.

  "What are you 'oing here? Where is A-riana?"

  "I thought she was here. She gave us the slip in Norfolk."

  "What 'o you mean?" Edmund tried to shout. His pulse throbbed in his ears. "I 'old you 'o s-ay with her." He motioned furiously for something to write with.

  Locke turned to gather paper and pencil from the bedside table. As he moved, Edmund eyed his hulking frame carefully. Why, in all these months, had he never noticed the resemblance between Locke and his mysterious attacker?

  In the back of his mind Edmund knew it wasn't possible, yet in the forefront, while hot fear still coursed through his veins, he couldn't deny the startling terror that had overtaken him at the sight of the man's shadowed silhouette in the doorway.

  "She sent me to Chinatown after a duck. I left her with Biddle and Newbury. When I got to the dock, the ship was gone."

  "'uck?"

  "She said Mrs. Ling was going to cook up duck for supper. I knew they planned to sail across the bay to a party, but when I saw Biddle and Newbury coming out of the pub I knew she'd left us behind."

  Why would she have left you? Edmund scribbled out. He glared at Locke. For the first time, he saw the mistake in hiring the vicious henchman. Only now, after too many years of uncompromising management, did he realize his workers didn't need to be bul
lied into keeping schedules.

  "She wanted to come home. But I said no, because you said no. Those were your orders." The man scowled. There was more to it, Edmund knew well enough. Adriana despised John Locke and everything he stood for.

  But Edmund had bigger things to worry about. If Adriana wasn't on the same train that brought John Locke here, she was on the Lady Luck, the captive of one very angry young man.

  On a dangerous voyage to French Guiana.

  * * *

  When Christian heard Mrs. Bailey complain of sea-sickness and start below deck, he hurried back through the ship to the hatch opening at the front.

  Adriana's eyes flicked over him briefly before she turned her gaze out to sea.

  "You've decided to stay aboard," he said as he slowly crossed the deck, careful not to get too close to her. He didn't trust himself, nor did he trust her not to try and finish that punch Henri interrupted last night. "I take it you believe my tale."

  "Bah!" She glared at him. "On the contrary, I believe you even less than I did before, if that is at all possible."

  "Then why did you not go ashore when Henri offered it?"

  She bit her lower lip and glanced away again, watching the rolling waves as if she might find her answer there. A loose strand of hair curled by her cheek, caught in the gentle breeze of what was a beautiful spring morning. Somewhere, someone was enjoying it, he thought. But not aboard Lady Luck.

  "As I said before, I'll not be put off my own ship."

  He started over.

  "Stealing the Lady Luck does not make her yours in the eyes of the law," she said quickly. "So it does not in mine, either."

  He sighed and turned away. It was useless to argue, and pointless. Christian was allowing himself to be distracted from the true goal.

  "Why are we moving so slowly?" he asked with more irritation than he'd intended. The heiress riled him, to be sure. "I thought the Baltimore Clippers were the fastest ships ever made."

  "She is only as fast as the wind that fills her sails," Adriana snapped. "If you have a timetable, perhaps you should have stolen a steamer."

  "Had your father built one, perhaps I would have."

  She glanced at him fleetingly, as though she found looking at him unpleasant.

  He glanced up to see Ollie scrambling through the rigging, adjusting something here and another thing there in the incomprehensible tangle that made up the ship's mechanics.

  "Henri said you are to explain the rigging." Christian waited. When she ignored him, he stepped closer. He took a deep breath, searching for the right words. Adriana glanced at him fleetingly with raised eyebrows, as if she expected he would attack her. Her hands tightened on the spoke handles of the enormous wheel she used to steer the ship.

  "Perhaps Henri was right," he started. The words lodged in his throat, thick and bitter. "I have placed you in a difficult situation. I do not mean to make you uncomfortable. It is your father with whom I am at odds."

  She lifted her chin. "I embody everything he stands for. You said so yourself."

  Christian ground his teeth. "I was hasty." He grumbled a sigh. "I'll not deny that I despise your lifestyle. That you flourish while most around you suffer. You truly have no idea how hard life is for those who do not exist in your silver and fine china world, do you?"

  He didn't give her a chance to argue. "But my dispute is not with you. I would like to arrange a truce."

  "I shall enter no truce with the likes of you."

  "I guarantee, heiress, it shall be a miserable journey if we do not."

  She pursed her lips again, staring daggers at him. Her hands clenched the spoke handles until her knuckles turned white.

  "For the benefit of the others around us, if nothing else." He forced a charming smile, which went ignored. Seducing her would be harder than he'd anticipated, but the challenge only electrified him.

  Adriana turned her gaze out to sea and sighed. "Very well. I do not wish to upset the others any more than they have been already."

  He offered his hand. Adriana's eyes grew wide. She stared at him as if he possessed the devil's clawed paw. Resignedly she accepted. Her hand was soft and small in his grip, warm and gentle, yet capable of commanding this immense ship. As if she were a bolt of lightning, her touch made his entire body jolt.

  She jerked her hand away. "You must answer me one question. Why we make this journey? What awaits you in South America?"

  Christian crossed his arms over his chest. "Why, my father, of course."

  "I do not understand." Her brow furrowed. "Do you expect the French government will simply release him to you because you ask it?"

  "Of course not." The heiress was truly naive. "I intend to take him by force."

  She gasped and took a step back. "You are mad! No one has ever escaped from Devil's Island."

  "That is what the French authorities want you to believe," he growled. "Even if it were true, should I let that stop me from attempting to rescue my father? Tell me this–what would you do, heiress, if it were your father unjustly imprisoned?"

  Her mouth snapped shut and the cold anger returned to her expression. "First of all, my father would truly have to be the jewel thief you claim him to be, which he is not. That is why it is not he that is behind bars. Secondly, you have as much as admitted your father is the thief who stole India's Midnight. It sounds to me as though he deserves to be where he is."

  She stared at him as though he were a cockroach scurrying across her polished deck. He fought the urge to slap that haughty look right off her face. She kept her back straight and her chin high. Those ice-blue eyes held fierce purpose.

  His patience had reached its end. "You look so foolish grasping at whatever excuses you can find. Your father isn't the saint he's convinced you he is."

  "If you truly wanted justice, you would have revealed him to the authorities, instead of robbing him."

  "Justice?" He took a step nearer, making her shrink away. The wheel spun as the waves took the ship. "My father was denied justice when he refused to name his accomplice. What should have been a ten-year punishment for robbery turned into a life sentence. The French government made an example of my father, because he refused to name yours!"

  Adriana sucked in her breath. That condemning expression changed to one of panic. Christian turned away and drove his fingers through his hair. This was futile. He would do best to stay as far away from her as the confines of the ship would allow.

  "How do you know this?" she asked in a soft voice. "If your father has been in jail all this time, how could you know any of this?"

  Her question should have angered him, but in her voice he now heard what might be pity. Maybe even compassion. He knew she didn't believe him and he wanted to hate her for it, but some deep-buried part of him was diffused by the tenderness in her voice.

  He strode to the railing and spoke with his back to her. "All these years I believed my father dead. Then a letter arrived, and I learned the truth." He turned back to face her. "The truth that you will soon believe, as well."

  * * *

  John Locke glanced at his new gold pocket watch for the third time as he saw his contact saunter through the pub's swinging doors. He was always late for their meetings. John knew the man didn't believe social consideration was required when dealing with someone of the lowest part of society, like him. Keeping him waiting was just another way to remind John who was in charge.

  The man glanced around as though offended by the establishment.

  John motioned to the bartender for another pint of ale as he mentally raised his price for this inconvenience. Soon, he wouldn't be so much lower at all.

  "I thought I told you to be discreet." In his voice was that snobbish lilt that set John's teeth on edge. The man stared down at the stool with distaste before finally deciding it was clean enough for his velvet clad derriere.

  "I'm just having a pint. Nothing unusual about that."

  "What was that shiny bauble you tucked back into your po
cket when I walked in?"

  "Nothing that calls nearly as much attention as a bloke like you walking in to a pit like this."

  The man scowled. "Let us conduct our business and be done."

  John had intentionally seated himself at the end of the bar, as far from the door as possible. A few other patrons sat here and there in the pub, but no one would hear their conversation.

  "You've made a fine muck of things again."

  John tightened his grip on the glass. "'ere now, why say a thing like that?"

  "Because it is true," the man spat. He glanced around and lowered his voice. "First you shoot the old man before Adriana had married Preston–"

  "We been through all that," John growled. He was nearly at his wit's end. "What's done is done."

  "It isn't! If Edmund Montague dies, there is no one to ensure this marriage takes place."

  "He ain't going to die."

  He rudely flipped up a hand, continuing as if John hadn't even spoken. "She'll inherit everything and Preston will be left out in the cold."

  And you dandies wouldn't be so full of yourselves anymore, would you now? John thought. More than once he'd considered offering what he knew to Edmund Montague for a price, but the righteous old man would never pay, and John had already received a right plum amount from this donkey's arse. Edmund didn't invest himself in criminal dealings. No, he knew he'd find himself with accommodations in the state penitentiary if he ever went to Edmund. And with the sum he'd been promised to finish the job, he'd be comfortably set for as long as he lived. John wisely held his tongue. Soon he wouldn't have to put up with this blather anymore.

  "If this marriage fails, R.L.W. Steel is finished. I didn't take care of Roland and Lennox just to watch some spoiled debutante foil my plans because she's too prissy to marry Preston."

  "Right, well, just remember it was you who took care of Roland and Lennox. And let's not forget R.L.W. was just fine until your debts chiseled away at it."

  "And neither will we forget who shot Edmund."

  The man never left without a threat. Their impact had begun to wane, and John merely took it to mean their meeting was nearly at an end.