Their questions seemed logical. They asked the age and nationality of each student, the number of years they had been in attendance at Bridgerton, their curriculum and the current location of the student’s family.
An icy cold settled in the pit of Daphne’s stomach and her hand began to shake.
Remembering your instructions at enrollment of young William, I thought I had successfully evaded the pertinent questions. William, however, must have given other answers during his interview.
Two days ago, our visitors were back, bringing with them a man claiming to be Lord Barrett, who swore that Master William is his son.
Daphne covered her mouth to muffle her outcry. Barrett? But he was dead! She closed her eyes and could still see him, lifeless and bleeding, on the floor of her bedchamber. It couldn’t be! There had to be some mistake. Alfred! Could it be Barrett’s brother?
Lord Barrett presented papers signed by the British Consul authorizing him to remove Master William to England forthwith. I denied that the child was any but William Hobbs. However, William had given answers in the previous interviews that identified him as the Barrett heir.
You will understand that I had no choice but to comply with their demands. I regret, Mrs. Hobbs, that you did not fully inform me of the facts pertinent to Master William’s birth. Had I been warned, perhaps I…
She crumpled the letter in her fist, fighting tears and encroaching panic. William! He must be terrified! And if Alfred had him, he was in danger of his life. Alfred would like nothing better than to present William dead, and then claim the title for himself and his sons.
“Perdition! What has you in such a state? Is little William ill?”
Daphne looked up to find Olivia in the doorway. “He…he is gone. Taken back to England.”
Olivia’s eyes narrowed. “No. It is not possible. Who would do such a thing?”
“I think it was his uncle.”
“The wicked uncle, eh?” Her housekeeper sighed and shook her head. “Do not look surprised, querida. I have known for years. How could I clean your house, cook and care for little William before he was sent to school, and not know these things? I am sorry for you, but it was bound to happen. Yes?”
Daphne shook her head. “No! I planned so carefully. I guarded against…”
“But you had five years, eh? Long enough for William to grow stronger. You must have known you would have to stop running someday.”
“I thought William would be safer away from me. I never thought they’d find him. I feared they would find me. I cannot think how—” The necklace! The one she’d sold in Boston for the money to take them even farther away, and to fund their new life. Once Alfred found that, he must have spent the last years looking for her in America before he finally thought to look for William instead. Oh, she should have kept him with her! Stupid! She had been so stupid! She pounded the little desk with her fists and wept with rage.
“Querida,” Olivia soothed, “collect yourself. You must trust now that William will be well. That your fears have been for naught. Eh? You cannot help him now.”
She could. She would. With her last breath, she would find William and keep him safe. She stood and straightened her dressing gown, collecting her thoughts and beginning to make plans.
First, she would send a message to Captain Gilbert.
Daphne wrote notes to Olivia, giving her Sea Whisper, and to Hannah, signing over the deed to Pâtisserie. She’d sent a letter to the headmaster of William’s school, then cleaned the house and finished the wash. And she’d taken her valise—the same one she’d used to flee England so long ago—down from the attic. She would pack her things in the morning, just before she left for San Marco. Once there, she would prevail upon Governor Bascombe one last time.
And the last chore, the one that would end her idyllic life at Sea Whisper, lay ahead. She walked out the kitchen door and took long strides toward the stable. Oh, she must remember to send a note to Timmy and ask him to pick up her horse and gig at the docks. She had a sinking feeling she was forgetting at least a dozen things, but her thoughts had been so scattered since reading the headmaster’s note that she couldn’t concentrate on anything for long.
She’d had a burn in her stomach all day. All her years on St. Claire, she had feared that someone would recognize her or that she’d be traced. But they’d found William, and that was worse. She took a deep breath and calmed her jangling nerves. She mustn’t panic. Now, more than ever, she needed to keep her wits about her.
She took the shovel from the empty stall and went back to her garden. The sky had grown dark, and she hurried back into the house to fetch a lantern.
Exactly five paces from the trunk of the rain tree, she plunged the scoop into the ground. Although the earth was damp from the rain last night, she had to slice through grass and hard-packed sand. The task was not as easy as it should have been, and an hour later, the hem of her gown heavy with mud, she wiped her forehead on her sleeve. How deep had she buried it?
Another shovelful, and another. And, at last, a hollow sound and a solid thunk. She dug around the edges and then used the shovel to wedge the small chest away from the roots entwining it. She dropped the shovel and scooped the chest out of the ground.
For five years this proof of her crime had lain inert beneath the rain tree. Five years in which she’d learned to be strong and independent, learned to take care of herself and her son. Learned to trust no one but herself. And now it was over. She was back where she’d begun.
Tears blurred her vision as she carried the chest to the house and placed it on the worktable in the kitchen. The latch was rusted and the tiny key she’d kept in a stocking did not work. A knife from a drawer did.
Mud and rain had seeped through the cracks and warped wood, leaving the oilskin pouch in a bed of muck. She took the pouch to a pan and pumped water over it until she could untie the leather thong that held it closed. And there, on the dough board, she emptied the pouch.
The only jewelry she’d worn since that long-ago night was her wedding band, as an odd sort of penance. Now diamonds, pearls, sapphires and rubies flashed at her, dazzling in their brilliance. Necklaces, rings, bracelets, earrings and hairpins scattered across the table. The Barrett jewels. William’s inheritance.
A sharp intake of breath spun her around. Lockwood stood there, his attention riveted on the small scattering of gems. She’d been so intent on her task that she hadn’t heard him come in. Dear Lord! How could she ever explain this?
“Daphne,” he murmured. “Where…how did you come by this?”
Tears sprang to her eyes. She could not bear to see his anger and disappointment when he learned of her perfidy. Oh, but did he have to know her whole sordid past now? She was almost certainly going to her disgrace and death. She couldn’t take Lockwood’s scorn with her. He would know soon enough but, please, God, not tonight.
He blinked and turned his attention to her, then closed the distance between them and gathered her into his arms. “Daphne, is this your secret?”
She managed a nod.
“Did you steal them?”
She nodded, then shook her head. Perhaps it was stealing, but she was holding them for her son’s future. He was, after all, the rightful owner of the Barrett jewels. Or would be, if his uncle let him live that long.
“You are overwrought. Come.” He led her to the pump and held her hands under a stream of water.
She felt the heat of his chest against her back, the strength of his arms around her and the tickle of his breath in her ear as he whispered, “Easy, Daphne. I will make it right. We will get through this. Just trust me. Tell me what’s wrong. What has upset you.”
She turned in his arms and looked into his eyes. But she couldn’t trust him. She couldn’t trust anyone. William’s life was hanging in the balance. “I…cannot.”
She thought he would curse her or demand to know, but he merely smiled as if he understood her fears.
He brushed the hair back f
rom her forehead and ran his finger along her old scar. “What happened here, Daphne? Who did this to you?”
“No one. I…fell.”
“You are a poor liar. Do you think there is anything I cannot keep you safe from? Anything I would not do for you?”
Her heart twisted. “You barely know me, Lockwood. Perhaps you do not know me at all.”
“I know enough. Trust me. Tell me why you are hiding on St. Claire. It has something to do with this scar, does it not, and the jewels?”
Everything to do with them. “I… I need time to think.” She sighed. “This is all so confusing. Happening so fast.”
“Time? I can give you that, my dear. I will be gone tomorrow, and perhaps the next day, but when I return, we will talk. There are things we need to settle.”
Ah, he, like she, would be gone in the morning. By the time he came back, there would be nothing left to settle. She laid her cheek against his chest and nodded.
“I love you, Daphne.”
Her heart stopped beating. He loved her? How cruel! How utterly absurd! And how bittersweet to realize that she loved him, had for days now, but had never expected that love to be returned. And now she wished it wasn’t. Everything would be so much easier if only she could make a clean break.
“Did you hear me, Daphne? Do you understand what I’m telling you? I want you to marry me.”
“I love you, Lockwood, and I will give you all I have to give. All that is in my power.” Tonight. And pray it would be enough to last a lifetime.
His eyes softened. He kissed her cheek and the scar on her forehead. She knew he was telling her that he’d take care of her. But it was too late for that.
She slipped her arms around his neck and came up on her toes to reach his lips. He was exquisitely gentle, but she did not want his gentleness. She wanted his passion, fierce and hot, as it had been last night. She moaned and trembled with the memory of what he could do to her.
When he felt her hunger, he lifted her and carried her to her bedroom. Tonight there was no room for hesitance or uncertainty. Tonight they tore at each other’s clothing until they were at last flesh to flesh with nothing to separate them. When he nipped at her breasts, she grew damp with longing. She pulled him to her and wrapped her legs around him, wanton and greedy.
He met her urgency with an almost violent passion, driving into her in one long thrust, filling her with himself. He was claiming her, making her unfit for any other.
She arched and moaned. “Yes, Lockwood…please. Again.”
And he did. Again. And again.
Chapter Eleven
The trek over the mountains had taken longer than Hunt had anticipated, and their arrival in the small town had been delayed until late afternoon. They had left their horses in a clearing off the track a mile or two down the mountain. The dark suspicious faces of the villagers gave no opening for conversation or questions, and narrowed eyes followed them as they wove down the steep narrow lanes in search of a tavern or inn. Everything about Blackpool was unwelcoming.
A cluster of small stone huts perched precariously over the deep cove, at least one hundred feet below. The only way up the sheer cliffs was a square platform operated by a windlass. One small schooner, dark sails lashed to the masts, was anchored in the cove and tossed like a cork on the rough currents. No wonder ships did not routinely anchor here—they’d be dashed against the sheer rock walls and sink.
“That’s her,” Layton whispered. “That’s the schooner we loaded three nights ago.”
Hunt committed the schooner to memory. If he saw her again, he’d remember her. She was sleek, low and dark—more of a smuggler’s vessel than a pirate ship.
“Jaysus,” Layton whispered. “You’d think we were lepers.”
Hunt gave him a grim smile. “Not far from the truth when you consider why we’ve come.”
“Let’s have done with it, then, and not linger. I’ve no wish to have my throat slit in my sleep.”
“I am as anxious as you to be back in San Marco, but we cannot rush this, Layton. Subtlety is what we need at the moment, and a touch of patience. It should not take too long to get what we want.”
They found a small tavern and sat at a table in one corner. Again, Hunt kept his back to the wall.
A short, stout man came toward them, wiping his hands on a dirty apron. “Whadya want?”
“Chowder?” Hunt ventured. “And ale?”
Layton nodded his agreement.
The man did not move. Did not even blink. “You stupid?” he asked. “Strangers don’ come ’ere for the chowder. Whadya want?”
Layton half rose from his chair with an angry expression and Hunt waved him back. “Food. And the answer to a question.”
“What that be, stranger?”
“Food first.”
The proprietor looked at him with grudging respect before he shuffled back to the bar.
The distant clang of a ship’s bell carried from outside. Was there a new ship in the cove announcing her presence?
The proprietor yanked a chain hanging from a beam and, somewhere outside, an answering bell sounded. Damn clever. Now everyone in Blackpool and the cove below had been warned that there were strangers in the village.
“That was a challenge, Lockwood. Was it to warn the villagers or the ship?”
“Shh. Challenge or not, we do not rise to it.”
“I’ve barely seen a dozen people. They likely chop strangers up and put them in the chowder.”
Hunt gave Layton a quelling glance. He inclined his head to the back door. “Do you have to visit the privy?”
Layton grinned. He stood, ambled out the door and returned a few moments later. He sat back in his chair, crossed his arms over his chest, donned an expression every bit as sullen as any they’d seen and gave Hunt a faint nod.
So he’d been right. There was a new ship in the cove.
A man dressed in work garb with a red kerchief around his neck opened the door and peered into the gloom. He studied them for a long moment, then shut the door.
“Taking a report to his friends, no doubt.”
Hunt agreed with a nod. “It shouldn’t be long, now.”
“I was more at ease at that French tavern in Marseille near the middle of the campaign,” Layton admitted. “That, at least, was war and we all knew the rules. This is…different.”
Hunt sensed it, too. The danger was nearly a physical presence. He gave the tavern keeper a hard look. The man pulled a tap and poured two tankards of ale. He brought them to the table and slammed them down, sloshing foam on the sticky surface.
Layton spun a coin on the tabletop and grinned when the man snatched it up.
What was wrong with Layton? It was almost as if he were trying to start a fight. “Contain your antagonism, Layton, or wait outside.”
Layton gave a long-suffering sigh and then took a drink from the tankard. He made a face and an obvious effort to keep from spraying the ale onto the table.
“Come, can it be that bad?”
He nodded and Hunt took a cautious sip from his own tankard, expecting the ale to be watered down or stale. But it was bitter with an odd bite. Gunpowder? Was the contamination deliberate, or a faint reminder of the original use of the cask? He met the tavern keeper’s gaze.
Deliberate. And, if Hunt was any judge of character, a warning. It was becoming increasingly clear why the civilized side of the island never ventured here. These people gave new meaning to the word inhospitable.
Daphne stood in front of Governor Bascombe’s desk, feeling rather like a naughty child called to account for her behavior. “A family emergency,” she explained. “Completely unexpected. The point, sir, is that it changes my circumstances and I am not likely to return to St. Claire. I have deeded my estate to Mrs. Herrera, and my business to Mrs. Breton. I believe all my accounts are paid and I should have no outstanding debts.”
The governor nodded and tented his fingers as he studied her. “Then why have you come?”
“I wanted to ask you, sir, for a personal favor.”
“Have another friend who needs a patent, madam?”
The slight edge to his voice made Daphne uncomfortable. She wondered if he regretted having granted Captain Gilbert the patent. But she had no time for hesitation now. “No, sir. I simply wanted to ensure the smooth transfer of my property. Mrs. Herrera and Mrs. Breton are unaccustomed to the intricacies of title transfers, taxes and such.”
She removed a list from her reticule and slid it across the desk to the governor. He opened it and scanned the lines. “As you can see, it is a list of property and how I have disposed of it. There will, of course, be sufficient funds in my accounts to cover the costs of transfer. I do not know anyone else I trust who can oversee this task.”
He looked up at her and nodded. “I shall oversee the transfers, if that is what you are asking, Mrs. Hobbs. Most generous of you. I see here that you are giving your horse and gig to Timmy Adams. Very compassionate. The lad has a mother and brother to support. With his own horse, he can hire out.”
She closed her reticule, relieved that he had consented.
“But would you not rather sell your property? Surely you will need money upon your return to England? I am bound to say that this looks almost like a last will and testament.”
That was closer to the truth than he could possibly know. She forced a smile and said, “I suppose it is a sort of ending to my life here on St. Claire. But is it not said that all good things must end sometime?”
In the harbor, the Gulf Stream’s bell rang the call for passengers to board. The governor nodded again and she stepped back from his desk. “Thank you, Governor Bascombe. I knew I could count on you.”
Her hand was on the knob of his door when the governor called her back. “Mrs. Hobbs, I wonder if you might do me a favor.”
She was hardly in a position to refuse. She returned to his desk and inclined her head. “My pleasure, sir. Name it.”
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