by C. J. Chase
“Is he at the Admiralty?”
“I don’t know, Mr. DeChambelle. He left last night.”
Last night? Frustration throbbed along Kit’s jaw. “When he returns, would you tell I must speak to him as soon as possible? I’ll be either at the Admiralty or at my brother’s—Viscount Somershurst. I’m certain he can find the house.”
The butler almost let a smile slip. “Indeed, sir.”
Kit pointed his steps to the Admiralty, but found neither Alderston nor Baxter in residence. He prowled around Baxter’s desk, searching for clues as to the man’s last appearance. Kit hadn’t seen him since the day Stumpy—and someone else—had shot at Mattie.
“There you are.” Harrison rushed into the room, Julian following behind. “I’ve been searching half of London for you.”
Foreboding tightened Kit’s gut. Mattie? He gestured both men away from Baxter’s desk and into his office, closing the door firmly behind them. “What’s happened?”
Harrison folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the door. “The Impatience docked in London last night.”
Julian strode to the window and stared out at the street. “That explains why I couldn’t find her in Portsmouth.”
Alderston. Had he guessed the orders might yet be on the ship? Kit looked at Harrison. A silent message, developed over years and years of working together, passed between them. “Thank you.”
Harrison slipped out the door and pulled it shut.
“Now then—” Kit began, then stopped, arrested by Julian’s expression. “What?”
“I like your friend, but …” A wry twist pulled Julian’s mouth to one side. “It occurs to me this Harrison knows my brother better than I do.”
“Perhaps after this is over and Maman is on the mend, we can try again. It’s not too late.” He stopped, realizing he’d unconsciously quoted Mattie.
“No, not too late.”
Did the same sentiment apply to Kit’s life? To his relationship with Mattie even? He shifted his weight onto his other foot as if to escape the implications of his simple statement.
“Kit? What did you need to know?”
He tugged his attention back to the Impatience. “What is in those orders that they are so important?”
“Not so much the what, but the who.”
“A signature?”
“International treachery, approved by the most powerful man in the kingdom.”
“The Regent.”
“Who else would be daft enough to direct such a mad plan?”
“What kind of international treachery?”
“A scheme to seize control of North America west of the Mississippi River. Think of it, Kit, all of Louisiana and the continent’s most important waterway controlled by fair England instead of the Americans.”
“And the Regent agreed to such machinations …” Heat flooded Kit’s limbs, as if the tiny room suddenly became hot and oppressive. Until that document was found, Mattie’s life would forever be endangered. Guilt clawed at his mind, his emotions, but he shoved it away. For the time being. He must find that paper while she was safe with his parents. He snared Julian by the arm. “Come, we are going to examine the Impatience from mast to hold. No doubt that was Alderston’s intention if we didn’t find the orders in London.”
“You think he ordered the ship to London?”
“Who else?”
Seconds later, they hastened out of the Admiralty. As they sped toward the docks, the tranquil avenues of the West Side transmuted into streets teeming with drays, wagons and all manner of pedestrians. They raced through the crowded thoroughfares until they spotted the sleek lines of the ship.
Her masts disappeared into the foggy London sky, and she creaked as she rocked to the water’s gentle lapping. Her eerily quiet deck showed no sign of life. Alderston’s doing, no doubt. He’d want no witnesses to their search. Kit slowed, stopped, sucking deep breaths into his aching chest. The waste that polluted the Thames tainted the smoky air with scents of putrefying flesh and excrement. He stared at the huge vessel, overwhelmed by the enormity of searching her tons of wood for a single sheet of paper—assuming it was even yet on the ship. Those orders had probably been swallowed by a shark—along with Fraser.
But for Julian’s sake—for Mattie’s sake—they had to try.
Kit turned to his brother as Julian puffed beside him. “I defer to your knowledge of the ship. Where would you like to begin?”
Mattie ambled into Somershurst’s dining room to find it already occupied. She suppressed a chuckle at the sight of the earl and the urchin eating together. Nicky’s chatter echoed through the room, scarcely inhibited by the meal.
The earl rose from his chair on her arrival. “Good morning, Miss Fraser. Did you rest well?”
“Much better.” She chose a slice of ham and toast to begin. “How is Lady Chambelston?”
“Still improving. We hope to move her to our house later today. You, ah, are welcome to join us at our home.”
Mattie stared at the food on her plate, her appetite suddenly diminished. The DeChambelles had showered her with every kindness—food, lodging, the very clothes on her back—and she had repaid them with lies, evasions and danger. “Ah, I don’t know.”
“Oh, but Mattie, ye must.” Nicky’s eyes glowed with excitement. His elbows rested on the table next to a series of utensils he mostly ignored in favor of his fingers. He shoved a spoonful of egg into his mouth. “I’ll be there, too.”
“I, ah, promised young Master Nicky a position in my household.” The earl’s face pinkened under its tan.
Except Mattie didn’t have a position. She wasn’t family and her actions had been anything but friendly. She was neither guest nor servant, neither nobility nor peasant—only the penniless daughter of a perpetually drunk American shopkeeper with the most tenuous of ties to the DeChambelles. She lowered herself onto a chair and gave Nicky the eternal platitude. “We’ll see.”
The earl, too, resumed his seat. “You can’t continue here after we leave, Miss Fraser, Julian not being married and all. Simply not done.”
And not needed if Kit and his brother discovered the secret of that paper. Once they accomplished that, Mattie would be safe. And irrelevant. “By the by, sir, K—Mr. DeChambelle said last night that the maid Betsy would be coming with clothes and such, but I haven’t seen her.”
“Strange, Miss Fraser.” Lord Chambelston frowned above his tea cup. “The other things arrived quite early this morning. Perhaps my man might know what happened.”
Nicky bounced from his chair. “I’ll go ask.”
Kit’s accusations from the previous night popped into Mat-tie’s head. “Oh, but …” Truly, how much danger would the boy encounter between the dining room and a bedroom?
The earl smiled as Nicky danced from the room. “Been a long while since we had one with that kind of verve underfoot. Caro’s condition makes such activity difficult for her.
Our oldest daughter has a son about that age, but …” Sorrow cut the lines around the earl’s eyes deeper.
The daughter who was estranged from the family. Mattie well understood his pain.
“Master Nicky needs clean air, good food and space to explore. I was thinking that our family seat in Somerset might be a better home for an energetic lad than London.”
A safer one, for certain. Bittersweet pain wrapped around her heart as she realized soon she would see the imp no more. And yet, a spark of joy lightened her sorrow. George was lost forever to her, but Nicky had a future. Opportunity. Hope.
Nicky raced back into the dining room. “I asked, but ‘e says ‘e ain’t seen Betsy all morning.”
Mattie’s fingers clenched around her knife handle. “Betsy’s missing?” First Nicky. Then the housekeeper. Now the maid—the same maid who had delivered the purported message from Nicky to Mrs. Parker.
“Don’t fret, Miss Fraser. She probably ran off with a young man. Young women frequently have their heads turned by pretty c
ompliments and promises. Happens all the time—just pray she was clever enough to make certain his intentions were honorable before she left.”
“Ah, yes, I suppose.” The vaguely familiar man from their trip to the modiste? Or something more sinister? If only Mattie could recall where she’d seen the man before.
“You and Master Nicky will come with us this afternoon when we take Agnes home.”
Kit climbed to the quarterdeck and sucked deep breaths of London’s foul air into his lungs. The feeling of hopelessness had magnified tenfold as he and Julian searched the stifling bowels of the ship where sunlight never penetrated. Now the twilight sky revealed he had spent an entire day—a fruitless day—crawling the Impatience’s dark, fetid hold and creeping through her shadowy, cramped carpenter’s walk.
“It could be anywhere,” Julian echoed Kit’s thoughts as he stepped next to him.
“Someone knows where it is.” Foul-smelling bilge water from the hold sloshed in Kit’s boots as he followed Julian to the side of the ship. Kit eyed his brother with new respect. Julian had spent the better part of his life aboard such ships since he was scarce past his boyhood. They leaned against the rail, staring over the side at the rooftops of London. “A pity Fraser—or his accomplice, assuming there is one—didn’t think to leave a clue.”
Julian stilled, his grip tightening on the rail. “Kit, didn’t you say that Miss Fraser has a letter her brother purportedly wrote while aboard the Impatience?”
“A rather innocuous note. And he included no date as to when he might have written the thing—just requested her to remember him fondly and …” Kit paused. Such sentiments did not harmonize with Mattie’s description of her brother’s character. A change of heart because of his travails?
Not likely. Not given that he’d continued his thieving ways right up until his death. Not when he’d written only once in all those years.
Julian braced his elbow on the rail and rested his chin on his fist. “Do you think Miss Fraser would mind if I read her letter?”
The knowledge that he would once again use Mattie to save his family churned in Kit’s belly like a bad meal. That first day, she had pulled the note out of her reticule. But he’d found it—along with Julian’s threat—under the bed at his parents’ house when he’d searched her room. Was that before or after Stumpy stole her reticule?
Her reticule. Stumpy hadn’t been after her money. He’d wanted the letter. For whom?
Chapter Sixteen
“No, Mat-tie. This.” Caro rearranged the doll in its crib. She sat on her bedchamber rug in Lord Chambelston’s house, her brow furrowed in concentration as if precise placement of her toys was the most important event in the world.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Mattie smiled. What did she know about dolls? Her childhood had ended sixteen years ago on the night her mother died. She stroked the doll’s satin and lace gown. Fortunately her new playmate was quite forgiving of her incompetence. Mattie picked up a blue-eyed baby with brown tresses that looked remarkably like her playmate. “What about this one?”
“This way.” Caro, who had definite ideas about the proper way to conduct such matters, placed the doll in Mattie’s arms. “Rock.”
Mattie commenced to hold the doll according to Caro’s specifications. Caro, with her limited understanding of the malevolence and machinations of others. Was she, perhaps, the one to be envied—the one closest to God’s heart of them all? Mattie’s problems shrank in proportion to the time she spent with this sister of Kit’s.
She would miss Caro—and all the DeChambelles. But it was time for her to leave, to protect them from the threats that dogged her every step. Besides, she must go, if only to preserve her sanity, her future. Kit’s hard heart would only break hers. His continuous rejection of God was taking him down the same ruinous path as her father—to a place where she refused to go ever again.
A commotion reverberated from the foyer. Mattie set down the doll.
“No, no, Mat-tie. Not sleeping.”
Duly chastised, Mattie retrieved the doll and rose from the floor. Wrinkles pleated the skirt of her last new gown, the pale green muslin. A pity she hadn’t followed Lady Chambelston’s fashion advice—after the past two days, Mattie could happily never wear brown again. “Shall we see who arrived?”
“Kit?” Caro echoed Mattie’s thoughts. Hopes.
Together they hastened to the stairs and peered over the banister. Below, two gentlemen conferred with Higgins in the foyer, heads nodding at the butler’s comment. Kit glanced up at their approach and his gaze met Mattie’s. The appreciation smoldering in his eyes—discernable despite the spectacles—brought a glow of warmth to her heart. And a whisper of warning to her head.
And then the look was gone, replaced once again with empty nothingness. If only … But no, nothing had changed. Kit hadn’t changed.
“Kit!” Caro’s smile danced in her eyes.
He mounted the stairs two at a time, his greatcoat swirling with his movements, and stopped one step from the top. Even one riser lower, he towered over his sister as he embraced her. “I missed you, Caro.” He tweaked a lock of her hair.
“Missed you, Kit.”
“And I missed you, too, Mattie.” His brows arched as his stare took in the doll she yet carried in her arms.
“Caro and I were playing.”
His face softened with … longing? Loneliness? Then the line of his jaw grew taut. “I’m sorry to interrupt. Julian and I were hoping you still have that letter from your brother.”
“The letter?”
His shoulders rose with his deeply drawn breath. “The Impatience is in London.”
“Now? But when?” And why?
“She arrived last night. We searched her today, but a ship that large … We thought perhaps your brother might have provided you a clue as to where he hid the stolen paper.”
“I don’t know. I never read the note with such thoughts in mind. I’ll get it for you.” She thrust the doll into his hands. “Here. You’ll have to rock the baby to sleep. Caro insists.”
Tenderness muted the bleakness in his gaze. At Caro, or at … her? Mattie’s traitorous pulse began to accelerate despite her recent resolutions. She fled his perceptive eyes and her hopeless wishes.
The yellow bedchamber’s warmth exacerbated Mattie’s agitation. She wriggled under the bed and located the letter still in its niche between the mattress and frame, along with the other notes, including Somershurst’s warnings. She crawled out, scrambled to her feet and tossed the two threats onto the room’s low-burning fire. The flames flared as they consumed the paper, then retreated, leaving only ashes.
Like her enmity against their author, Captain Julian DeChambelle, late of HMS Impatience.
Two pages left—George’s letter and the DeChambelle address in Kit’s bold hand. She traced a finger along this reminder of their first meeting, then tucked his directions into a drawer. She’d take the paper with her when she returned to America, a reminder of all that had happened, all that had changed.
When she returned to the staircase landing, she found Somershurst had joined Kit. “Where’s Caro?”
“She left to put her baby to bed.” Kit brushed a hand over her shoulder. “Thank you, Mattie.”
The light caress pressed a heavy weight against her heart. She drew in a steadying breath. Still, her hands trembled as she unfolded her last remaining link to her brother and passed the note to Somershurst. “I don’t know that this will be of much help.”
“Nevertheless, I, ah, appreciate your showing it to me, Miss Fraser.”
She swallowed. George was gone, like her bitterness. It mattered no more.
“‘My dearest sister,’” Somershurst read aloud in that voice so like his brother’s.
“I pray this note finds you in good health. My life at sea has taken a peculiar turn, and I now find myself aboard an English vessel, the Impatience. The food is as bad as I’d feared, but I have made a few friends and collected a few trinkets
I hope to someday share with you. I miss you and Papa and even my cramped quarters above the store, which I have come to realize were actually quite spacious compared to a ship. If I do not return, I pray you will forgive me the troubles I caused you and look back on the good times with fondness. Affectionately, your brother, George.”
“He complained about the food.” Kit tapped his templed fingers against his lips. “Perhaps he hid the orders in the galley?”
“But he also mentioned his quarters—which could mean his berth.” Somershurst returned the note to Mattie. “Or his reference to the store could mean the hold. I don’t see how this helps. For all we know, he wrote this three years ago when first pressed.”
“But he mentions collecting trinkets to share. How many such items could he collect on a ship? He might have meant the orders.”
Mattie shook her head, sorrow still weighing heavy on her heart. “Given George’s propensity for thievery, he probably, ah, collected valuables from half the men on the ship.” Thievery. A memory niggled in the back of her mind.
“I’m not so certain of that.” Somershurst’s blue gaze narrowed. “You see, when a man dies at sea, his belongings are auctioned to the crew with the proceeds going to any surviving kin. I don’t recall Fraser having an excessive number of possessions.”
Because he hid them! On the ship—like he had at home. The thoughts whizzed through Mattie’s mind; the random phrases at last forming a complete thought. “Take me to the ship. Let me look.”
Kit edged closer. “Mattie, you’ve never even seen the Impatience.”
“No, but I know how George hid stolen money and other valuables when he still lived at home.”
Blue eyes met blue as the brothers shared a look. “We should let her try, Kit. None of us will be safe until we recover that paper.”
Kit sighed, but nodded his acquiescence. “Get your coat, Mattie. I’ll see to the carriage.”
Moments later Kit tucked her into the corner of the private family carriage and settled onto the seat beside her while his brother took the opposing bench. Despite the conveyance’s richness, the small confines brought her into agonizingly frequent contact with his cloak-covered shoulder. The silence exacerbated the tension in her belly and accentuated every sound. The squeak of the springs. The rustle of Kit’s coat. The scrape of his shoe.