“I’m going to lose her, dammit,” he growled. “I’m going to lose her because I haven’t done enough. I haven’t searched hard enough. I’m out of time, and she’s gone and I’ll never know…”
Never know if something terrible has happened. Never know if she finds the Heart of Ra. Never know if she really loves me.
“Daddy, be careful!” Lola snatched Lucas up off the ground, cradling him protectively. “You almost stepped on him.”
“Sorry, Lo. I’m making this worse for you, aren’t I? God, I’m such a wreck. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to find someone without being obvious that you’re looking for them. Especially if they don’t want to be found.” His head snapped up. “She was wanted here. A known criminal.”
Cliff paced back to the window and parted the curtains just enough to peer out. “She must have worked in the area. Probably smuggling. Taxes on spirits are high and Savannah is a thirsty town. Plus, with the temperance movement flourishing, the number of customers wanting to buy their drink in secret will be on the rise.” He drummed his fingers on the window pane. “And if she smuggled, she needed contacts. Safe havens. A way to move the merchandise undetected. Where would a pirate hide in this city?”
“Captain Flint died in Savannah,” Lola said. “He lived at a pirate inn where he died of rum, remember? Maybe Sabine went there.”
“Treasure Island is fiction, babe, but yeah… that’s exactly the sort of place.” He jerked the curtains closed and spun around. “I have an idea. Let’s go shopping.”
“Avast!” Lola cried, though with somewhat less gusto than when they had begun two hours ago. She stabbed the air with her wooden sword.
“You like pirates, boy?” the white-haired woman asked, leaning on her cane as she peered at Lola.
“Girl,” Lola corrected. She flipped her pigtails. Only her long hair indicated “girl” to most observers. Her new outfit consisted of a tricorn hat, tall black boots, a pale blue military-style jacket, and a pair of gray trousers. She looked adorable.
Unfortunately, everyone they’d met had called her a boy. Cliff was one raised eyebrow away from a, “Most of the pirates I know are women and they’re damned good at it,” rant.
“A girl pirate,” the woman replied in a slow drawl. “We had one of those, a few years ago. Nearly burnt down the entire airfield, then killed a woman in broad daylight.”
“Will you tell me pirate stories?” Lola asked, following the script as she had done four times previously. Cliff leaned against a tree, feigning disinterest. “Do pirates still live here?”
“Your sort of pirates came here long ago,” the woman replied. “Horrible villains, they were, murdering and kidnapping. Not what any young lady should speak of.”
“I like speaking of it. Do they have secret hideouts in caves? Or hidden treasures in the cellar?”
“Word is, they would sneak through tunnels with their rum and stolen loot. But those pirates died out long ago. These days it’s the dirigibles that bring trouble. Smugglers and thieves zipping in and out in their wicked flying machines. They’re a plague, child, and you’d best stop believing those fool stories that glamorize them.”
Cliff gritted his teeth in frustration. He’d cooked up this ridiculous scheme for nothing. Five pirate conversations and not a single clue.
Lola sighed her own frustration. “But I like those stories. They have secret hideouts and treasures and ghosts.”
The woman shook her head. “Those ghosts are the only real truth, girl. The old inn on Broad Street is full of them. Angry men done in by other angry men. You stay away from the ghosts, child.” She looked directly at Cliff. “Tell your daddy to take you home to your dolls.”
Cliff held out a hand to Lola, his heart thumping in his chest. A lead, at last. “Come on, Lo, we should be going.”
It only took one brief question to get directions to the inn. As Cliff expected, the directions came along with, “But you don’t want to take a child there. Full of whores and thieves.” Since he was looking for a thief, that suited him just fine.
The pirates’ inn was a ramshackle wooden structure occupying a corner lot. Years of wind and rain had cracked and warped the wooden siding, and several shutters hung loose or were missing altogether. Heavy drapes covered windows, blocking prying eyes from the goings on inside. Above the entrance a sign swayed in the wind, its painted depictions of food and drink faded to ghostly outlines.
“Wow,” Lola gasped. Her fingers tightened on Cliff’s hand. “There prob’ly are ghost pirates here.”
“I’m only interested in one pirate, and I hope someone here can help us find her. Let’s go.”
Cliff strode into the building, pausing a moment just inside the door while his eyes adjusted. The room ahead of him was wide and crammed with tables. Men of all races and ages packed the seats, accompanied here and there by women in revealing clothing. More women moved between tables, serving food and drinks.
The lights overhead were electric, but dim and recently fitted to the building. Bare wires crisscrossed the ceiling and ran down the walls. A rumble of sound filled the room, but quieter than he would have expected for such an establishment. The men were talking, but many were keeping their voices down. Exchanging secrets and passing information.
Cliff spied an unoccupied table near the right hand wall. He would need to walk halfway across the room to reach it. His stomach tightened at the thought of wandering into this nest of possibly armed criminals. But someone here would know Sabine. He felt the certainty in his gut. He squared his shoulders, drew Lola close to his side, and strode toward the empty table, wielding the only weapon he possessed.
“Well, aren’t you Mr. High-and-Mighty?” a gray-bearded patron remarked as Cliff passed by. “With your fancy suit and your shiny shoes.”
Cliff had owned nicer suits. He’d had to buy this one off the rack and it didn’t fit quite as well as he liked, but it served his purposes. It showed him to be a man of wealth and power, one who wasn’t afraid to march into a room of pirates, head held high.
Hopefully no one could tell he really was afraid.
He took a seat at the open table, positioning Lola between himself and the wall, where she was safest. Cliff didn’t truly expect that anyone here would harm a child, or do more than rough him up a bit. The men here liked to keep a low profile, and that meant not attracting unnecessary attention.
A waitress wandered over, leaning one hand on the table. “You lose your way or something, Yankee?”
Cliff gave her a winning smile. “How did you peg me for a northerner before I even opened my mouth?”
She laughed. “Only a Yank would be fool enough to wander into this place wearing a suit like that. You might want to check your pockets and see how much money you’ve lost.”
“I don’t have any money,” Cliff replied. “Spent it all on the suit.”
A man at the next table over laughed. Cliff glanced his direction and almost jumped. The man looked like Ben Palmer. This man had a moustache, and his face was a bit thinner than Ben’s, but the resemblance was unmistakable. Cliff looked quickly back to the waitress, not wanting to stare.
“Well, how are you gonna pay for your drinks, then?” the waitress asked. She turned her gaze to Lola. “Or is the little pirate boy paying?”
Lola slammed her hat to the table. “I. Am. A. Girl!”
The waitress flinched. More men laughed.
“Girls can be pirates, too,” Lola insisted. “I have a friend who is a real girl pirate. So there.”
“A cola for my fierce girl pirate, please, and bourbon for myself. On the rocks.” Cliff dug a coin out of his pocket and spun it across the table.
The waitress picked up the gold coin and frowned at it. “What’s this? English money?”
“It’s a half sovereign. It should more than pay for anything we order today. A cola and a bourbon, if you please.”
She shrugged and left, leaving Cliff and Lola alone at the table, hal
f the eyes in the room staring at them.
“Problem, gentlemen?” he asked. “Haven’t you heard of the Mad Duke of Hartleigh?”
He met the eyes of the men around the room, refusing to flinch, conjuring up every bit of ducal pride Amy had tried to hammer into him. Most of the men glared in return, but a few shrugged and glanced away. Cliff let his gaze return to the man who resembled Ben.
“Mad Duke?” the man chuckled. His voice was similar to Ben’s, as well, his accent Jamaican. It couldn’t be a coincidence. They had to be related. Brothers—or cousins—perhaps?
“Indeed.” Cliff gave him a nod before looking away. That man could be his key to finding Sabine. “So, Lo, what do you think? Piratey enough for you?”
“Not enough girls,” she complained.
As if in answer, the front door opened and a pair of women entered. They wore boots, snug trousers, and loose tops. Identical pouches at their hips could have held anything: weapons, money, the bones of their enemies.
Cliff pushed his chair closer to Lola. All day he’d been watching the women around him, certain Redbeard’s minions were prowling the streets of Savannah for him. He’d spotted nothing unusual, but he was no spy and the Daughters were trained for stealth and deception. A pair of female pirates appearing so soon after his own arrival was entirely too coincidental.
A knot twisted in his gut. He should never have come here. He was completely out of his element. Maybe Sabine had been right after all. Maybe he should have stayed where he was and let her handle it all on her own. Because if he’d led Redbeard to her, he’d never forgive himself.
45
“Damn you, Hartleigh,” Sabine muttered under her breath. The irritated words did nothing to squelch the joy that had radiated throughout her body at the sight of him. He’d come looking for her. He wouldn’t give up on her. On them. So endearing. So foolish.
She edged closer to the transparent mirror. He was magnificent, sitting there meeting the glares of smugglers and thieves, refusing to cower or flinch. Every inch the duke. Sabine knew him well enough, though, to see the tension in his posture.
An old smuggler took a seat at Cliff’s table and they began to chat. Sabine couldn’t hear what they were saying, but the way Lola leaned in, her eyes wide, suggested ghost stories. This old place was full of them. Stories, that was. Not ghosts. The strange noises, mysterious sightings, and sudden disappearances had nothing to do with pirate hauntings and everything to do with the secret tunnels leading out to the river.
Sabine turned her gaze from Cliff to the two Sisters who had followed him here. She recognized them from previous encounters, but didn’t know their names. Part of Redbeard’s trusted personal crew, hired after she’d struck out on her own.
They sat calmly with their drinks, their heads close together as they talked privately, no different than most of the men in the room. Not preparing for an attack, as far as Sabine could tell, but watching. Hoping Cliff would lead them to her, probably. Which meant the sensible thing to do was to leave before anyone knew where she was going.
Love and sensible did not go well together.
“Damn you, Hartleigh,” she muttered again.
“Anything else I can get for you?” the bubbly young waitress asked, whisking Sabine’s empty plate from the table.
Sabine smiled at her. “No, thank you, Betsy. But I do have a favor to ask of you.”
“Of course.” Betsy Hale knew of this small, secret back room because she was the owner’s daughter. But she served the few patrons allowed here because she was smart and dependable. She’d grown from a gangly teen to a woman in the years since Sabine had last seen her.
“I need you to carry a note to Mr. Palmer in the main room.”
Betsy’s light brown cheeks reddened to a shiny copper. Apparently she’d also developed a crush during those years. “Of course, miss.”
Betsy fetched pen and paper and Sabine scribbled a short note.
When hell breaks loose, get Hartleigh and the girl out.
Good enough. He’d know who had sent the note and which tunnel she meant him to take.
Next step: a distraction. Sabine leaned back in her chair and stared out through the mirror. Cliff had three hardened criminals sitting at his table now. His rash bravado and implication of wealth had earned him respect. The smugglers and pirates assumed he was looking to buy, and they wanted him for a customer.
The moment Betsy appeared in the main room, Sabine hopped up from her chair. She slipped out through the hidden door and wove her way through the back rooms to the kitchen, where she donned a cap and apron like the serving girls all wore. The kitchen staff raised eyebrows at her, but no one said a word.
“You’ll be paying for anything you destroy,” Mr. Hale commented as she passed by.
“Naturally,” Sabine replied. They weren’t friends, but they shared a certain mutual trust. She’d kept him flush with tax-free liquor for a number of years, during the heyday of her piracy.
She found a tray and piled it high with mugs of pale ale and bowls of piping hot stew. Her target—a regular patron she remembered only for his bad temper—was seated between Cliff and the pirate women. She considered the angles and her paths in and out of the room, then hefted the tray and backed through the door, pushing it open with her backside as she’d seen many of the girls do.
The Sisters weren’t looking. Serving girls were part of the backdrop here, and Cliff was their focus. He noticed, though. He glanced up as she entered the room and his body went completely rigid. Their eyes locked. The tray in Sabine’s hands trembled. So many questions lurked in those eyes of his. Questions she had no time for. She gave a tiny shake of her head.
Too late. People had noticed his sudden agitation. She had no time to walk closer to her target or prepare her offensive.
She balanced the tray on one hand, scooped up a bowl of stew, and hurled it across the room. It landed square in the center of the hot-tempered pirate’s table, splattering him and all his companions with the scalding broth.
He sprang to his feet with a roar and Sabine flung a mug at him. The man at the near side of the table also rose, just in time for the mug to strike him on the back of the head. The men the next table over burst out laughing.
That was all it took. The room erupted into noise and fisticuffs. Mug-head lunged at one of the laughers, and they went down in a heap, knocking into several other tables and sending drinks flying. The angry pirate stalked toward Sabine, punching and pushing anyone who got in his way. A flurry of retaliatory fists slowed his speed to that of a three-legged tortoise.
Sabine continued throwing food and drink around the room, aiming for anyone who looked angry. The Sisters had figured out who she was, but struggled to make their way to her through the melee. Sabine hit one of them in the face with her last bowl of stew. The woman howled in pain, striking a bystander as she flailed. He tackled her.
That’s my cue to leave.
Before Sabine could turn toward the door, the table in front of her overturned, and she skittered back to avoid being hit. The angry pirate shoved the table aside. Blood trickled from his nose and he bared his chipped and yellowed teeth.
“You! You’d better run, bitch,” he snarled.
A chair crashed down on his head, and he crumpled. “No one touches her,” Cliff vowed.
Sabine locked eyes with him again for only an instant before James Palmer ushered him and Lola out the door.
The bolt slammed into place, locking the hatch closed above them.
“Hey, wait!”
The man who looked like Ben gestured down the long, low corridor. Sparse electric lights hanging from a single wire lit the brick tunnel. “This way.”
Cliff tried to reach for the hatch, but the man blocked him. “Sabine’s still up there.”
“She will take her own way out. Do not worry. She knows this building almost as well as the Hales do.”
Cliff didn’t move.
“Yes, you are stubborn.
I can see why you give her trouble.” He gave Cliff a push. “We must go. This tunnel is known, and the lock will not take long to pick.”
“What? Then why…” The man pushed Cliff down the tunnel ahead of him, and Cliff sighed and went, keeping Lola close.
“I am James Palmer,” the man said. “La Capitaine’s favorite person in Savannah.” He flashed a mischievous smile.
“Palmer. Then you are related to Ben?”
“Brothers. We pirated together for many years. But he likes the air, and I like the land. I found a home in Savannah, and he found a place with La Capitaine. We made a fine team, with her ships and my friends on land. We had many successful years before the attack.”
The attack. The event that had left Sabine scarred and in need of biomechanics? Did Palmer know the details? Cliff had to bite his lower lip to keep from asking. This was not the way to find out. He needed Sabine to confide in him, and going behind her back would not earn her trust.
“Um, Daddy?” Lola tugged on his sleeve and pointed.
Cliff’s slick new shoes skidded on the bricks as he pulled to a sudden halt. Up ahead, the tunnel ended abruptly in a jumble of broken bricks and dirt. Wherever it had gone in the past, it certainly didn’t reach there anymore.
“Don’t panic,” Palmer said, motioning toward the ceiling. Tiny wisps of sunlight filtered through what looked to be a metal grating covered with vines. “For me.” He paused and bent down, running his fingers along the brick floor. “And for you.”
The floor vibrated. Cliff jumped back as a section lifted from the ground, then flipped open to reveal what looked like a small elevator at the top of a deep hole.
“Down you go,” Palmer said. “The lower tunnel will take you beneath the river and then up to the airfield on Hutchinson’s Island. It is close to half a mile. Your lady will await you there, I imagine.”
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