by C. J. Chase
“The word of an officer’s captain carries exceptional weight at the Admiralty. And with the war now over, Lieutenant Fitzgerald can consider all opportunity for advancement as defunct as Boney’s empire.”
“I wish I could find out what happened on that ship.” Kit shook his head. “But come. We’ll start by finding out who was on that ship.”
“Where are we going?”
“To search the muster books. The answer has to lie within them. I’ve never been so grateful for navy bureaucracy.”
“Good morning, Miss Fraser.” Lady Chambelston glanced up from the breakfast table and greeted Mattie with a smile. “That green looks lovely on you. Did you rest comfortably?”
“Very well, ma’am.” Mattie surveyed the array of choices and scooped eggs, toast and trout onto her plate. She carried the food to the table and sat across from the two ladies. “Good morning to you, Caro.”
“Mat-tie.”
Outside the tall windows, the fog created a feeling of isolation that shut out the rest of the city. “Will we be going out today, my lady?” Mattie pushed out the aristocratic address with difficulty.
“I fear you will find our London welcome even wetter than yesterday, what with this unrelenting rain.” The countess helped her daughter get a particularly stubborn piece of ham on her fork. “I thought we would stay home—unless you have pressing business again?”
“Er, no, not today.” Heat crawled up Mattie’s neck as she pondered a day of freedom, without a concern for her search or safety. How delightful. And disconcerting. And a tad dishonorable. “Where is Mr. DeChambelle?”
“Oh, he departed early this morning.”
Mattie’s suspicions, so recently mitigated, roused again. Did the matter that called him away on such a dismal morning have anything to do with her? With her search? “Do you know when he’ll return?”
“Higgins did not say.”
“Mr. DeChambelle told me you also have an older son. A navy captain, I believe.” Mattie bit into her toast with carefully feigned nonchalance.
A shadow darkened Lady Chambelston’s blue eyes. “That would be Julian. I had three sons, but we lost both Gregory and his son to diphtheria a year ago.”
The toast turned to dry wood shavings in Mattie’s mouth and caught in her throat when she tried to swallow. She glanced at Caro, now struggling to hold her spoon with fingers that would never grip a utensil in the conventional manner. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Life oft does not transpire the way we plan, no?”
Mattie considered the troubles that had plagued the Frasers since her mother’s early death. Her father’s drinking. Her brother’s increasing defiance. The final confrontation that shattered an already fractured family and provoked her brother’s desertion and … disappearance.
The countess assisted Caro with a glass of milk. Loneliness crushed against Mattie, stealing her appetite for her remaining breakfast. At least Lady Chambelston still had her other children. And her husband. And her elegant homes—all of them—and fine clothes.
Mattie folded her napkin and placed it on the pristine tablecloth. “I think I should like to investigate your library further, if you don’t mind, my lady.”
“I recommend a new novel called Waverly. I think you will enjoy it.”
“I tell you, DeChambelle, the Impatience’s muster books are not here.” Harrison returned another volume to its shelf. A plume of dust shot into the already thick air.
A hundred years of neglect tickled Kit’s nose and provoked a sneeze. “They have to be here. Perhaps they are the victim of a clerk with an inadequate understanding of the alphabet.”
“We’ve already searched every document from the past century. If the books were here, we’d have located them by now.”
Kit ran his finger along the spines of volumes he’d already checked. Several times. He tugged a random tome from the collection and flipped it open. Spidery handwriting recorded the names and dates of men who’d reported for muster every two weeks.
Harrison stopped him with a touch to his arm. “You do realize what this means?”
Kit snapped the book shut and shoved it back into place. “Someone has deliberately removed them.” Someone who didn’t want them found. Someone with something to hide.
“Not just any someone. An ordinary seaman wouldn’t have access to these files. In truth, many of them can’t even read.”
Which left the officers, Julian or Fitzgerald chief among them, as the primary suspects. Kit leaned back on his heels and tried to brush the grime from his coat, pondering the ramifications.
“DeChambelle, have you considered that your brother may be in serious trouble?”
“I know he is.”
“I don’t mean his naval career or his finances or whatever secret he’s involved himself in.” Harrison’s native Yorkshire thickened on his tongue. “I mean his life.”
Kit gagged on the dust that gathered in the back of his throat. Julian, who’d once been his best friend, now the brother he scarcely knew. “Are you suggesting Julian has been murdered?”
“He’s been missing for several days.”
“I feared him the perpetrator of several recent crimes.”
“Including my home’s destruction?”
“He may have cause.”
“And the potential vandal might otherwise be …?”
“I don’t know. Fitzgerald, for instance. Or perhaps even Alderston.”
“Alderston?” Harrison whistled through his teeth. “The old man’s ruthless enough.”
But did he have reason enough? After all, Alderston wished for Mattie’s success—so long as Kit was there to share in her discovery. Yes, he might wish to make Mattie dependent on Kit, but he’d hardly set disgruntled sailors to attacking her.
“You can continue looking if you wish, DeChambelle, but I need sustenance before I engage in further toil.”
“Yes, I can see Alice starves you.”
“I’m making the most of the peace.” Harrison chuckled and patted the beginning of a paunch, then his expression sobered once again. “Come, my friend. I know you are troubled but the answers you seek are not here.”
Did Harrison speak of this situation … or his life? “Where do I find the answers?”
“In a book far older than these.”
Kit resisted his customary urge to reject Harrison’s preaching. After all, his own attempts at finding meaning had disappointed. But … God? “The accounting of my transgressions would fill all these pages.”
“And God will forgive every one of them if you but ask.”
Expectant silence lingered like the dust as Kit contemplated the rows of ancient books. “It sounds so simple. Too simple.”
“Yes, it does sound simple. And yet, you still haven’t succeeded in surrendering your pride.”
Pride? How could Harrison accuse him of such when the guilt of his past weighed on his every waking moment? “Come, we must find you that meal lest you starve.”
Harrison stared at him—into him—for several uncomfortable moments. Then he gathered the candle and gestured Kit out.
Moments later they bid each other farewell and traveled their separate directions. The rain mingled with the dirt on Kit’s hands and turned it to mud. He raised his face to the dreary clouds that reflected his mood. He wanted nothing more than to wash the dust from his throat and the memories from his mind. Drink. He needed a drink—several, in fact.
He needed to become rip-roaring, falling-down drunk.
“I apologize for interrupting your reading, Mattie, but your other gowns have arrived.”
Mattie ripped her concentration from a tale of Scottish rebellion to find herself once again in an English library. “The seamstresses must have worked through the night.”
Lady Chambelston folded her hands across the front of a burgundy skirt. “I thought you might want to change into something more appropriate in the event we receive callers.”
“Callers?
” Mattie glanced at the world outside the tall windows. Wet leaves shivered forlornly under the rain’s assault.
The countess smiled. “Americans pride themselves on their hardiness, no?”
“And our intelligence. We know the difference between hardy and foolhardy.” And introducing Mattie as an honored guest would be the most foolhardy action of all. “I really don’t think—”
“I understand.” The countess raised a distancing hand, her smile wilting with disappointment. “If you change your mind, you are welcome to join me. Betsy will help you prepare.”
Lady Chambelston’s slippers swished across the rug as she swept out. Mattie stared at her unfinished paragraph for another quarter of an hour, reading the same words over and over, until remorse for her churlish behavior—especially in light of the countess’s thoughtfulness—propelled her to her feet.
She hiked through the maze of halls, stopping once to ask a maid for directions, and reached the yellow chamber some not-so-few minutes later. The gloomy darkness depressed even the room’s exuberance. She reached for the bellpull to summon Betsy, then stopped.
If her adversary had left another message the maid might find it when she selected Mattie’s clothes. She crossed the soft carpet. The wardrobe drawer scraped as she slid it open and peered—
“Mattie.” The harsh whisper sliced through the quiet. “I feared ye weren’t ‘ere after all.”
Heart pounding, she whirled to confront the threat behind her. All three-and-a-half feet of him. Rain sparkled on Nicky’s hair, a testament to his recent arrival.
“How did you get in here?”
“Toffs never lock their upper windows. Guess they think we can’t climb.”
“But how did you know which room I’m using?” She could barely find it herself.
“I opened doors until I saw that.” He pointed to her coat, freshly cleaned and brushed and looking as respectable as such a garment could. “They sure ‘ave a lot of rooms.”
“And most of them empty a good deal of the time. But why did you come?”
“To bring ye a message. Ye must come with me, Mattie.”
“Now?”
“That bloke I told ye about?”
“The one who knew my brother on the ship?”
“I promised ‘im a crown to meet ye now in ‘yde Park.”
Hyde Park. Where Lady Chambelston had offered to escort Mattie yesterday. The irony almost provoked a smile.
“We ‘ave to go immediately afore ‘e leaves.”
“I’ll get my coat.” She yanked it from the peg and thrust her arms through the sleeves. Without a pistol in the pocket the coat felt surprisingly light on her shoulders. Too light, given the weighty events of the past few days. She’d left the weapon behind yesterday, much to her later distress.
A mistake she did not intend to make again.
“Mattie?” Nicky loitered by the door.
“Wait.” She clambered under the bed, retrieved the pistol and shoved it into her coat pocket, then collected Mr. De-Chambelle’s coins from the armoire. As she crossed the room, she glimpsed her reflection in the mirror. Her coat hid the elegant green dress, leaving her looking like the Mattie of old.
“This way to the tree.” Nicky gestured from the door.
“Tree? Why can’t we use the stairs?”
“One of them fine folks might see us.”
Yes, that could be a problem, not to mention the questions that they would incur should Lady Chambelston or a member of her staff observe their departure.
“’Urry, Mattie.’? ain’t going to wait for us long.”
She followed Nicky through the hallway. Several rooms later, he pushed open a door and slipped across the threshold. A beautiful blue coverlet adorned the bed in the otherwise empty chamber. Curtains of a matching hue billowed on the breeze to reveal the open window behind.
Nicky scrambled over the ledge and disappeared. Mattie peered out to where he clung to an oak. A very wet oak. “Come on, Mattie.’? seemed real scared.”
Scared? She was the guest sneaking out of a mansion via a wet tree. She drew in a deep breath and crawled onto the sill. Far below—far, far, below—a garden bench waited for a sunny day.
“Don’t look down.”
“Right.” She stared at the oak for several more seconds while she gathered her courage. If she’d believed in prayer, this would have been a perfect moment to entreat a favor from the Almighty. But God had never granted her past petitions, and she didn’t expect him to begin today. She closed her eyes and jumped, arms outstretched to embrace the trunk. A twig scratched her cheek as she passed. She clutched a branch, ignoring the smarting scrapes on her palms.
“Knew ye could do it, Mattie.”
Except she hadn’t reached the ground yet. She clamped her arms around the branch and swung her leg over. Nicky grabbed her ankle and guided it to the foothold below.
They repeated the process several more times until she heard the soft thud of Nicky’s feet hitting the ground.
“Jump, Mattie.”
Still afraid to look down, she peeled her fingers off the branch and let herself fall.
“This way.” He clasped her wrist and hauled her behind him—through the garden, along an alley and down the street. Without a bonnet to protect her head, the rain pelted her face and drenched her hair.
And then the city ended in a rush of fog-cloaked countryside. Hyde Park. Large trees rose up out of the mist like menacing giants. A stick snapped under her foot, startling her like the crack of a pistol.
The tree canopy, the mist, the inclement weather muffled the sounds and shrouded the sights, creating an uneasy sense of isolation. Eerie, how one could be so alone in a city as crowded as London.
And yet, the prickling at the nape of her neck—
“That’s ‘im.” Nicky pointed to a hulking man propped against a tree trunk. Water dripped from the floppy brim of his hat as he shifted his head from one side to the other. “’Is name is Soggy.”
Anticipation and trepidation warred in her. “Soggy? Strange name for a sailor.”
“Remember, ‘e’s expecting a crown.”
She’d surrendered all her possessions, forsaken her homeland and traveled an ocean for this moment. What was mere money? “If he tells me what I came to learn, he’s welcome to it, and more. You, too, for that matter.” She slipped her hand into the pocket, her fingers sorting through the coins.
Soggy’s shoulders tensed as he caught sight of them.
Mattie fixed a nonthreatening expression on her face. “Wait here, Nicky.”
“I’m going with ye.”
The dread clenching around her stomach intensified. “No.”
“I don’t trust ‘im, Mattie.” She ripped her stare from the giant to Nicky, whose jaw locked with belligerence.
“Which is precisely why I need you to watch my back.”
Nicky hesitated.
“I need you, Nicky. Go!”
With one last sigh, the boy loped off.
Peering through the gloom, she eased closer to the man. “Soggy?”
“Ye the leddy what’s wanted to meet me?” He sidled nearer and held out a hand.
Mattie planted a half crown in his palm. “This for agreeing to meet me. The rest after you tell me what I came to learn.”
“Yer the Yank’s sister. Talk like ‘e did.” He eyed her shrewdly as he secreted the coin inside a navy blue jacket. The remnants of a uniform?
“Nicky says you served aboard the Impatience. I’m seeking information about my brother, an American named George Fraser.”
“I knew ‘im.” Soggy spat on the ground, his gaze darting from tree to tree as if searching for a threat.
“Knew?”
“Aye, ‘e’s dead.”
Mattie braced a hand against the rough, wet bark of a tree trunk as the last hope seeped out of her. Dead. The word plummeted through her mind like a cannonball falling to earth, dropping down until its heavy weight lodged in her heart.
And yet, deep inside she’d known she’d never see George again. Known her brother’s reckless ways would be his undoing. Known she’d failed in the most important duty of her life. “Tell me.”
Those restless eyes gentled. “Are ye sure ye want to know, lass? It weren’t pretty.”
What had George done that people would lie, cheat and kill to prevent her from discovering? “I have to know.”
The tar hesitated several more seconds, then nodded. “Fraser, ‘e stole something from the captain.”
More thievery, of course. “The captain?” Mattie could only wonder at George’s audacity.
“Something real important, miss.”
“And the captain had him executed?”
“Not immediatelike. The officers, they wanted that paper back bad, but Fraser wouldn’t tell them what ‘e did with it.”
“Paper? What paper?”
Soggy glanced in either direction before he answered. “Don’t know, and not sure I want to find out. I never ‘ad much learning. But Fraser, ‘e was mightily amused. Bragged ‘e would be rich.”
And instead he was dead. “So the officers determined to make him talk?”
“Used them very words.”
Soft drops of rain bounced steadily against the leaves like the even ticking of a clock. Mattie gathered her courage and composure. The next minutes would determine the course of the rest of her life. “How did they ‘make him talk’?”
“Beat ‘im.”
“The officers?”
“No, no. They ‘ad others do it. Under their orders. They whacked ‘im with clubs until there weren’t nothing left. And then they tossed ‘im into the sea.”
Mattie staggered as if the blows reached to the present. Her eyes fell shut over her grief, yet her sorrow throbbed in her head like a living being, sucking her strength. Fresh pain contracted around her heart with ferocity enough to crack that lonely, empty organ. Or perhaps the unhealed fissures—left over from childhood—splintered further. Her shoulders drooped with the weight of London’s gray skies, and the ever-present smoke burned her eyes. “When?”
“February, right afore we got to America.”