by Julia Quinn
“Stop! Fine. I’ll say that I long for blue skies.”
He nodded, slowly, and with something that almost looked like relief.
“But what does it mean?” she asked.
He didn’t say anything.
“Andrew, you can’t expect me to deliver a message when I don’t know what it means.”
He started tucking his shirt into his breeches. “I do it all the time.”
“What?”
He shot her a glance over his shoulder. “Do you think I know what was in the packet of papers I gave to the British envoy yesterday?”
Her mouth fell open. “That’s what you—”
“Do you think I ever know?” He started pulling on his boots, and Poppy could only stare. How could he act as if all of this was normal?
“How often do you do this?” she asked.
“Often enough.”
“And you’re not curious?”
He’d been tying his cravat, his fingers expertly looping and tucking the fabric. But at this he went still. “My job—no, my duty—is to transport documents and carry messages. Why do you think I could not delay our departure for Portugal? It wasn’t about me. It was never about me.”
He had to deliver a message. He was working for the government. Poppy’s brain was spinning. Everything was starting to make sense.
“This is how I serve my country,” he said. “It is what you must do, as well.”
“You’re telling me that I am somehow doing a service to the crown by telling a man I’ve never met that I long for blue skies?”
He looked her straight in the eye. “Yes.”
“I . . .” She looked down. She was wringing her hands. She hadn’t realized it.
“Poppy?”
She let out a long breath. “I will do as you ask. But I must warn you. I don’t think I will be able to lead him back. I’m sure I will be blindfolded again when they take me back to the ship.”
“You won’t need to. When you are released you’ll be given some sort of message from the men holding us. Give it to Mr. Walpole. He will know what to do from there.”
“And then what will I do?”
“Keep yourself safe.”
Poppy felt her jaw clamp into a rigid vise. It was not in her nature to sit idly by when she could be helpful, but in such a situation, she had to wonder—could she be helpful? Or would she just get in the way?
“Do not do something stupid, Poppy,” he warned. “As God is my witness—”
“I can barely fire a rifle,” she said testily. “I’m not going to come swishing back with delusions of saving you myself.”
He smiled a bit at that.
“What?”
“I’m just imagining you swishing. I’m not sure what it is.”
She glared at him.
“Listen to me.” He took her hand. “I appreciate your concern more than I could ever say. And without you—without your going to see the envoy—my situation would be very bleak. But you must not do more than that.”
“I know,” she mumbled. “I would be in the way.”
He did not contradict her. She had kind of hoped he would.
“Poppy,” he said, his voice urgent, “I—”
They both froze at the sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs. Their captors were coming back, earlier than they’d expected.
Andrew dropped her hand and took a step back. His demeanor changed, as if his every muscle had been put on alert. His eyes darted to the door, and then to Poppy, then did a quick sweep of the room before landing on her little half boots, on their sides by the table where she’d kicked them off hours before. He scooped them up and handed them to her. “Put them on.”
She did. Quickly.
The footsteps drew close, followed by the sound of a key being inserted into the lock.
Poppy turned to Andrew. She was terrified. More than she’d been throughout the entire ordeal.
“I will get out of here,” he vowed, even as the doorknob made an ominous turn. “And I will find you.”
And then all Poppy could do was pray.
In the end, it was simple. Terrifying, but simple. Minutes after the bandits came back, Poppy was blindfolded and returned to the Infinity. The journey took no more than a quarter of an hour; it seemed Andrew had been right about their circuitous route the day before.
It was still dark when she reached the ship, but the deck was already teeming with sailors, more than Poppy would have expected so early in the morning. But this was no ordinary morning. Their captain had been taken prisoner, and they had to be ready for anything.
The first person she saw was Green, which was fortunate, since he was one of only three people on board she actually knew. He and Brown insisted upon escorting her to the address Andrew had provided, and after a quick check on Billy, who was still groggy but otherwise recuperating, Poppy headed back out into the city.
“D’you think they’re watching us?” Brown asked, his bushy brows drawing down as he flicked his eyes from one side of the street to the other. The sun had only just come up, the pinkish light casting a mysterious air over the city.
“Probably,” Poppy said. “Captain James told them that I would need to meet with someone to secure the funds. So they’re not expecting me to remain on board.”
“I don’t like it,” Brown muttered.
Neither did Poppy, but she didn’t see how she had a choice.
“This is what the captain told her to do,” Green said. “If he told her to do this, then he must’ve had a reason.”
“He indicated that the gentleman I’m going to see would be able to help,” Poppy said.
Green looked at Brown with one eyebrow raised and an expression on his face that clearly said, See?
“I don’t like it,” Brown said again.
“I didn’t say I did,” Green returned.
“Well, you sounded like—”
“None of us like it,” Poppy snapped.
They both looked at her.
She planted her hands on her hips. “Am I wrong?”
“Er, no,” one of them mumbled, while the other said, “No, no, not wrong at all.”
“Should we take a funny route?” Green asked. “Take ’em round in circles and whatnot?”
“Maybe,” Poppy said. “I don’t know. It’s probably just as important that we deliver the message quickly.” She thought of Andrew, of the men still holding him, all of them with guns, knives, and unpleasant dispositions. “Straight there,” she decided. “As quickly as we can.”
A quarter of an hour later, Poppy was standing in front of a gray stone building in a quietly elegant section of the city. “This is it,” she said. She had already made it clear to Brown and Green that they could not accompany her inside.
“Good-bye, then,” she said after thanking them once again for their assistance. She took a breath. She could do this.
“Er, Miss Poppy!” Brown called out.
She paused halfway up the steps, and turned.
“Good luck,” he said. “If anyone can save him, it’s you.”
She blinked, startled by the unexpected compliment.
“You’re tough,” he said. “Er, in a good way.”
“Mr. Farias told us what you did for Billy,” Green said. “It’s . . . ehrm . . . You . . .”
Brown let out an exasperated snort. “He means thank you.”
Green nodded. “God will surely look kindly on you. It was a proper good thing you did.”
“And we’re sorry about the sack,” Brown added. “And the, er . . .” He motioned toward his mouth. “The stuff. You know, that we used to . . .”
She gave him a wry smile. “Render me unconscious?”
His already ruddy cheeks turned a bright red as he mumbled, “Yes, that.”
“It is already forgotten,” she said. Which wasn’t exactly the truth, but considering everything that had happened after, it hardly seemed of consequence. “Now, go.” She shooed them away. “You ca
n’t be seen loitering on the streets when I knock.”
They stepped reluctantly away, and then Poppy was truly on her own. The door was opened mere seconds after she brought the knocker down on its brass plate, and she was immediately taken to wait in a small but comfortable drawing room. After a few minutes, a gentleman entered.
She stood at once. “Mr. Walpole?”
He regarded her with some aloofness. “I am he.”
“My name is Poppy Bridgerton. I was told to come see you by Captain Andrew James.”
He did not react at her mention of either name—hers or Andrew’s—and in fact seemed almost bored as he walked over to the sideboard to pour a glass of brandy.
Poppy did not remark upon the earliness of the hour. If he thought he needed brandy before breakfast, who was she to argue?
He held out an empty glass, tipping it in her direction.
“No, thank you,” she said impatiently. “It’s really most important that—”
“So you spoke with Captain James,” he said, his voice pleasantly bland.
“Yes,” she said. “He needs your help.”
She told him everything. There was nothing in his demeanor that encouraged such frankness, but Andrew had told her to trust him.
And she trusted Andrew.
At the end of the tale, she handed Mr. Walpole the note she’d been given by the bandits. “It’s written in Portuguese,” she said.
His brows rose. “You opened it?”
“No one told me not to.” At Mr. Walpole’s censorious look, she muttered, “It’s not as if it was sealed.”
Mr. Walpole’s mouth tightened, but he said no more on the subject. Poppy watched as he read the missive, his eyes moving from left to right six times before reaching the end.
“Will you be able to help him?” she asked.
He refolded the note, creasing it much more sharply than before.
“Mr. Walpole?” She wasn’t sure how much more of this she could tolerate. The man was all but ignoring her. Then she remembered Andrew’s most urgent directive.
She cleared her throat. “I was told to tell you that I long for blue skies.”
The envoy’s head snapped up. “That’s what he said?”
Poppy nodded.
“That’s what he said exactly?”
“Yes. He made me repeat it.”
Mr. Walpole swore under his breath. Poppy blinked with surprise. He had not seemed the type. Then he looked up as if a thought had just occurred to him. “And you said your name is Bridgerton?”
“Have you even been listening to me?”
“You are related to the viscount?”
“He is my uncle.”
Mr. Walpole swore again, this time not even trying to muffle it. Poppy watched him warily as he muttered to himself, seemingly trying to work out a problem in his head.
Finally, just when she was about to say something, he strode to the door, wrenched it open, and yelled, “Martin!”
The butler appeared immediately.
“Escort Miss Bridgerton to the yellow bedroom. Lock the door. Under no circumstances is she to leave.”
“What?” Poppy wasn’t sure what she’d expected the British envoy to do, but it wasn’t this.
Mr. Walpole gave her a quick glance before heading out the door. “It’s for your own good, Miss Bridgerton.”
“No! You can’t— Stop that!” she snarled when the butler took hold of her arm.
He sighed. “I really don’t want to hurt you, miss.”
She shot him a belligerent look. “But you will?”
“If I have to.”
Poppy closed her eyes in defeat. She was exhausted. She hadn’t the energy to fight him, and even if she had, he outweighed her by at least six stone.
“It’s a nice room, miss,” the butler said. “You’ll be comfortable there.”
“All my prisons are comfortable,” Poppy muttered.
But they were prisons, nonetheless.
Chapter 22
A few weeks later
It was strange, Poppy thought, how so much could change in a month.
And yet nothing changed at all.
She was changed. She was not the same person who had attended soirees in London and explored caves on the Dorset coast. She would never be that girl again.
But to the rest of the world, she was the same as she ever was. She was Miss Poppy Bridgerton, niece to the influential viscount and viscountess. She was a well-bred young lady, not the biggest matrimonial catch (it was her uncle with the title, after all, not her father, plus she’d never had a massive dowry), but still, a good prospect for any young man looking to make his mark.
No one knew that she’d gone off to Portugal.
No one knew she’d been kidnapped by pirates.
Or by a gang of Portuguese bandits.
Or, for that matter, by the British envoy to Portugal.
No one knew that she’d met a dashing sea captain who should have been an architect, or that he’d probably saved her life, and she might have sacrificed his.
Bloody British government. Mr. Walpole had made it clear that she was to keep her mouth shut when she returned to England. Indiscreet questions could hamper his efforts to rescue Captain James, he’d told her. Poppy had asked how that was possible, given that Captain James was in Portugal and she would be in England.
Mr. Walpole found nothing to celebrate in her curiosity. In fact he had said to her, “I find nothing to celebrate in your curiosity.”
To which Poppy had replied, “What does that even mean?”
“Just keep your mouth shut,” he had ordered her. “Hundreds of lives depend upon it.”
Poppy rather suspected this was an exaggeration, possibly even an outright lie. But she could not take that chance.
Because Andrew’s life might depend upon it.
When Poppy had knocked on Mr. Walpole’s door, she had never dreamed that she would be shuttled out of Portugal before learning of Andrew’s fate. But the envoy had wasted no time returning her to England. He’d got her onto a ship the very next day, and five days after that she was deposited at the Royal Dockyards in Chatham with a purse holding enough money to hire a carriage to take her to Lord and Lady Bridgerton’s home in Kent. She supposed she could have gone all the way home, but it was only a two-hour journey to Aubrey Hall, and Poppy was certainly not equipped to make an unchaperoned overnight stop at an inn on the road to Somerset.
It should have been amusing that she was worried about that when she had spent six days as the only female on a ship to Lisbon.
And then a night alone with Captain James.
Andrew. Surely he was now Andrew to her.
If he was even still alive.
It had taken a few days and more than a few lies for Poppy to sort out all of the details—or rather, the lack of details—regarding her two-week absence, but her cousins now thought she’d been with Elizabeth, Elizabeth thought she’d been with her cousins, and to her parents she’d sent a breezily ambiguous letter informing them that she’d accepted Aunt Alexandra’s invitation after all and would be in Kent for an unspecified amount of time.
And if anyone doubted any of that, they weren’t asking. At least not yet.
Her cousins were blessedly tactful, but eventually their curiosity would win out. After all, Poppy had arrived—
Unexpectedly.
With no luggage.
And wearing a wrinkled, ill-fitting frock.
All things considered, Poppy supposed she should be grateful it had fit as well as it had. Her blue dress had been beyond repair by the time she reached Mr. Walpole; a housemaid had to be sent out to purchase something ready-made to replace it. It was nothing Poppy would have picked out for herself, but it was clean, which was a whole lot more than Poppy could have said for herself at that moment.
“Oh, there you are!”
Poppy looked up to see her cousin Georgiana on the far side of the garden. Georgie was only one year younge
r than Poppy, but she had somehow managed to avoid a Season in London. Aunt Alexandra had said it was due to Georgie’s delicate health, but aside from a pale complexion, Poppy had never seen anything particularly sickly about her.
Case in point: Georgie was presently striding across the lawn at a fierce clip, beaming as she approached. Poppy sighed. The last thing she wanted just then was to sit and have a conversation with someone so obviously cheerful.
Or any conversation, really.
“How long have you been out here?” Georgie asked once she’d sat down at Poppy’s side.
Poppy shrugged. “Not long. Twenty minutes, perhaps. Maybe a little more.”
“We have been invited to Crake for dinner this evening.”
Poppy nodded absently. Crake House was the home of the Earl of Manston. It was just a mile or so away. Her cousin—Georgie’s older sister Billie—lived there. She had married the earl’s heir.
“Lady Manston has returned from her trip to London,” Georgie explained. “And she’s brought Nicholas.”
Poppy nodded some more, just to show she was listening. Nicholas was the youngest Rokesby son. Poppy didn’t think she’d ever met him. She hadn’t met any of the Rokesby sons, actually, except for Billie’s husband, George. She thought there were four of them. Or maybe five.
She didn’t really wish to go out to dinner, even if it would be nice to see Billie. Supper on a tray in her room sounded so much easier. And besides—
“I haven’t anything to wear,” she told Georgie.
Georgie’s blue eyes narrowed. Poppy had woven a compelling tale (if she did say so herself) to explain her lack of luggage upon her arrival, but she had a feeling Georgie found the whole story most suspicious.
Georgiana Bridgerton was a lot shrewder than her family seemed to give her credit for. Poppy could easily imagine her sitting in her room, throwing mental darts at Poppy’s story, just to find the holes.
It wasn’t that Georgie was malicious. She was just curious.
A malady with which Poppy was well-acquainted.
“Don’t you think your trunk should have arrived by now?” Georgie asked.