Marcus, covered in a fair amount of sawdust, glared at his ostentatious friend. “I need five weeks.”
“Privateering waits for no man.” Turk tossed the wood block between his hands, a spare part from his ship’s rigging they needed to build the pulley system. Or rather, have them build it in front of him. He wasn’t terribly useful if he wasn’t on his ship.
“This ain’t going to work,” Augie growled.
“It’ll work fine.” Turk joined them in the stairwell where Marcus sat on a step peering up at Augie and Sissy, rock wedged in her jaw. Drool puddled on the stairs beneath her. “Marcus weighs little more than a full keg. It can handle the load and then some.”
“A keg doesn’t have to pull its own weight.”
Turk tossed the block high and caught it single-handedly with a smack against his palm. “The advantages of being human are innumerable.”
Marcus felt a flash of irritation. Since Turk and Augie showed up, they’d ignored his suggestions, and his ankle was throbbing again. Henrietta would be mad if she were here. At all of them.
“Let’s test this, shall we?” Turk tossed the pulley block up to Augie.
“This is either going to work, or her roof’ll cave. You prepared to dirty your pretty hands, should that happen?” Augie teased.
“For God’s sake, thread the line already,” Marcus shouted.
Augie wove the rope through the block and hooked a swinging seat to it.
“M’lord, your lift is ready.” Augie lowered it with Sissy looking on.
“Too chicken to try it first, Aug?”
“Bruh, I’m bigger than you by at least two stone.”
The seat arrived at the landing. It was a wood plank with ropes at each corner connected to the main line. Marcus eased himself on like he’d done many times before, though never on dry land. He tugged the hanging line. The seat lifted an inch. He tugged harder. It lifted more.
“By the time I get up there, I’ll be eighty.” His shoulders and arms burned with exertion, his restless energy frittering away.
“Then you’ll crawl your own scrawny arse into bed,” Augie yelled.
Marcus tugged harder and rose higher. “Maybe, maybe not.” He tugged again with a grin on his face. He couldn’t believe it was working.
The front door opened.
“Hullo? Who are you?” Henrietta’s voice pitched with politeness, yet clipped with alarm.
A pause, and then, “Captain Turk, madam. Friend to both Marcus Hardwicke and Augustus Middleton.” By the prolonged silence, the jackanapes must have bowed to her. Dramatic lout.
Marcus spun to untwist the ropes above him and let the line slip from his hands. He landed with an unceremonious thump on the bottom step, yanking on the rope at the last second to spare his ankle.
“What’s going on?” Slippered feet rushed toward him. He couldn’t help but smile when her florid face beamed down on him, throbbing ankle forgotten.
“Hullo, darling,” Marcus drawled.
Her breasts threatened to burst from their stays. “Don’t ‘darling’ me.” She stood and put her hands on her hips, looking like fire come alive.
“You agreed to this. Why are you mad?” Marcus worked to detangle himself.
“I’m not mad. I have things to do.” She walked away without a further word. He’d have rushed after her if it were an option.
Mad wasn’t the right word, but something was bothering her. She didn’t have to tell him, but he wished she would. He wished she felt she could.
“Clean up. Broom’s in the kitchen by the hearth.” Marcus climbed into his wheeled chair. As helpless as he felt these past three days, he was thankful for the chair and the lift. And his friends too, he supposed. Pains that they were, they were loyal. More family than family.
Marcus followed Henrietta. A muffled noise came from her study. Not a good sound. More like a gasp strangled to death. He found her frantically rifling through piles of papers.
“No! No!” Another sheet flew from her hands. Henrietta reached inside a drawer with a key protruding from its lock and withdrew more papers. One by one, she tossed them on the messy surface in front of her. There were papers everywhere. “No!” Her eyes were wild and dark. Her breaths came in great, drowning gulps.
“What’s wrong?”
She was shaking with unspent emotion. “I can’t find an important piece of paper. It was here. I know I put it here.” She tossed all the papers back into the drawer and slammed it shut, turning the key. Her foot upended a stack of plates with a clatter.
She whirled to face him. “Have you been using my study?”
Her accusation hit its target at the center of his chest.
“No. Why would I?” One read or wrote in a study. He had no reason to sit in a study.
“One of them? Have any of them used my study today?”
Marcus gave an aggrieved sigh. “No, Henrietta. We’ve been busy, as you may have noticed.”
She fanned the corners of a stack of papers with her thumb, visibly trying to control her emotions. “Sorry. Was Shrupp here today?”
“Haven’t seen him.”
The muscle in her jaw jumped, and her lips pressed a thin line.
Marcus rolled forward. Papers crunched beneath his wheels. “What are you looking for?”
For a whole minute, she refused to answer. Then finally, “A draft of a letter.”
Her face was a taut mask before shattering into sadness. “It’s been a long day.” She moved around him into the hallway. A moment later, her bedroom door closed with a snick of the lock.
“We’re leaving,” Augie shouted, as if he were communicating with the other end of a wharf. Might as well have been, for all that they would leave him behind when the Valiant sailed with a letter of marque. “We left you a pot of stew.”
Marcus rolled himself into the hallway, cursing his chair’s jerky wheels. “Thanks, bruh.” Whatever was bothering Henrietta, tools and determination wouldn’t fix. But food always made things better for Marcus. He’d make her a tray and bring it to her door. He could at least do that.
~ ~ ~
Henrietta thought through her morning before leaving for Frances’s house. She had set aside her quill, gathered the letter she was coding with the Bible, put it all in the drawer with her uncle’s original and locked it. It wasn’t the finest lock. Anyone with knowledge of pins and tumblers could get through it in a matter of seconds. Augie might have detected guilt on her face when he’d interrupted her. Would he care what she was doing? If he did, would he go through her things? Her own guilt was getting the best of her.
There was Captain Turk, whom she knew nothing about. Dressed too fine to be acquainted with those two, and yet he fit in their odd brotherhood. Henrietta firmly believed one could tell a lot about a person by the company they kept and whom they trusted. Therefore, she had to trust him too.
At least she had the original letter. If she left that lying around, she’d find herself in serious trouble, should the wrong person read it. It was a small mercy that it was the coded letter she’d misplaced. No one with half a brain could read the bloody thing without going half mad. She certainly felt that way after working on it.
A light tap sounded on her bedroom door.
“Hetty Betty,” Marcus called softly, as if not wanting to wake her. “I’ve brought supper.”
Outside had become dark without her realizing it. Her empty stomach growled, matching the emptiness of her mood. She unlocked and opened her door.
The smell of roasted meat in a savory sauce wafted from the tray on Marcus’s lap. Her mouth watered. There was a bowl of stew and an empty glass for wine. Henrietta’s hand flew to her lips. Tears threatened. Her resolve toward this man, who was never supposed to be more than a friend, was beginnin
g to dissolve.
“Thank you.”
“I figured you might be hungry and committing oneself to the prison of one’s room usually means missing a meal. Believe me, I know. I wouldn’t want to come out either if I were facing three strange men with sharp tools.” His eyes roved over her like he were capable of sifting through her private thoughts. He lifted the tray from his lap. “If you’d rather join me in the kitchen?”
At this, her cheeks formed a wary smile. He’d brought her supper. She must be more exhausted than she realized because an unfamiliar glow radiated from her chest, as if her heart were thawing.
“Yes. I’ll eat supper with you in the kitchen.”
Marcus eased back into the hallway with little squeaks of the wheels and pivoted the chair. Henrietta pushed him to the kitchen while he balanced the tray on his lap. Behind them, Shrupp stormed into the house and tramped his way to the attic. She’d have to learn to ignore him if she wanted any peace of mind.
She pushed Marcus’s chair to the table. He set out the bowl and glass, then reached for the stack of napkins at the end of the table. She brought out a loaf of bread and another glass. For reasons she didn’t want to examine, this amused her. “Isn’t this domestic?”
“You didn’t think I lived in a barn, did you?”
“You might. Speaking of, where’s Sissy?” She’d gotten used to Sissy’s presence. She made her feel protected, as if there were one more barrier between Henrietta and the rest of the world. After Marcus left, she might want a dog of her own.
“It’s whist night in the barn. She’s relieving Slow Dick of his plundered apples.”
Henrietta laughed. “How long have you been living in Turtle Bay?” They’d grown up on Long Island.
“About four years. We prefer being near the shipyard, but not at the shipyard. We’re not disreputable enough for that.”
Henrietta laughed again despite her mood. “Oh, certainly not Captain Turk.”
“Noticed him, did you?”
She broke off a piece of bread and dipped it into her stew. “He is dashing.”
“He’d agree with you there.”
The stew wasn’t remarkable, except she hadn’t had to make it herself. Carrot coins and potato cubes floated in a brown sauce alongside meat that wasn’t too stringy or fatty. It was perfect. He poured her a glass of wine and one for himself.
“So, you share a house by the shipyard, but not at the shipyard?”
“The loft above the shop. We stay there most nights.”
Which left other nights for them to stay elsewhere. A lover’s? She wouldn’t ask. It wasn’t her business.
“When we don’t need to be in town, we have our own places. Mine is in Harlem.”
“Oh.” Harlem was far enough north that if he had business to attend in town, it made sense for him to have a place closer by.
The two glasses of wine sat together at the center of the table. She reached for hers as he reached for his, and their fingers brushed. The shock of touch sent a rush of energy through her, unsteadying her hand. Quick as lightning, he caught her glass before it spilled.
With a cheeky grin, he held both glasses and clinked them together. “Cheers.”
Henrietta took one and sipped, glad to have something to focus on beside her embarrassment. Inside, her emotions formed a tight knot: a thread of annoyance for the intrusions in her home, a string of heartache for the baby she couldn’t hold, and a cord of contempt for the work her uncle made her do. At the least, she hoped the wine might help to untangle the knot.
“I miss my daughter.” The words were a surprise, a small valve opening and relieving some of the pressure accumulated over the years from holding it in.
Marcus reached for her hand and squeezed, not letting go when the moment passed. No one had offered so simple a gesture of kindness before. Her grief had been solitary. When Sam was alive, there had been no kindness. Only silence or accusation.
His fingers stroked across the small bones of her hand. “It must have been hard to see your friend’s baby today.”
She turned her hand around in his and wove their fingers. “Yes.” Her shoulders lowered. “I’m sorry I blamed you for losing my papers.”
“Hetty Betty, you don’t owe me anything.” The warmth of his gaze lit the side of her face, the line of her neck. She studied the folds of her crushed napkin, mulling over his words. They were even, squared up, but she still had debts to pay.
“I owe my uncle.” She let that sit between them. How much did he know? How much could she share?
Marcus’s patience didn’t waver, his hand remained in hers. It gave her the strength to continue.
“This house is all I have left of my daughter, and if I don’t do as he asks, I’ll lose that too.” She let out a deep sigh that welled up from her bones. “My heart is shattered, and it shall never mend. I am a woman who wants no true husband and no more children. I know I am a monster.”
“God, no.” He squeezed her hand until she looked at him. There was no judgment on his face, only understanding. “Even with a shattered heart, you can be loved.”
“I can’t get a second chance with my daughter.”
“No, you won’t. But love is infinite. Your love for her won’t go away, should you choose to love another. Don’t you think you deserve to be loved?”
No, she didn’t. Her faults were too many to overcome. The one thing she thought she did well, being a mother to Willow, she had failed.
“I didn’t think you believed in love.”
Marcus huffed a laugh. “Sure I do. Love might be infinite, but it doesn’t have to last forever. It can last for a night, a week, a month. There are no rules. That’s why it’s both exhilarating and terrifying.”
She’d never heard love described so starkly. Love was forever, or it wasn’t at all. That was how infinite worked, right? It wasn’t about infinite possibilities, but the infinite ability to love a person forever. She withdrew her hand from his. “I’d hardly wish to equate the love I have for my daughter with whatever it is you do for one night.”
“Harsh. But true.” Marcus nodded, the side of his mouth twisting up. “’Tis different.”
Henrietta didn’t want to know more. After a moment, she said, “I asked Dr. Nealy to be my guest at the baby’s bris.”
“Ah, the circumcision.” He lifted his wine in a toast. “To loveless courtship and snipped foreskins.” He drained his glass.
Henrietta sipped at hers, not sharing Marcus’s enthusiasm.
Sergeant Shrupp barreled down the stairs and stormed into the kitchen, ensnaring them both with a glower. “What the devil is that contraption doing in the stairwell? It’s a nuisance.” A bump was forming over his right eye. He looked around the room and spotted the pan of stew and helped himself.
Henrietta was in no mood to do battle with Shrupp.
“It’s none of your concern,” Marcus said.
“Balls!” Shrupp roared. “’Tis when it hits me in the head.”
“It helps me go up and down the stairs. Next time, watch where you’re going.”
Shrupp’s mouth twisted. “I could say the same to you.” He turned his attention to Henrietta. “I need your assignment from Caldwell tomorrow. If I don’t get it, the blame shall be squarely on your neck.”
She lifted a hand to her throat, understanding his implication. “I-I know.”
Shrupp wolfed down his stew. In a magnanimous display of manners, he grabbed an ale jar from the shelf and guzzled more than his fair share directly into his mouth. In a final affront on her nerves, he wiped his mouth across the forearm of his coat, leaving behind a wet, greasy smear.
“First thing tomorrow.” Shrupp jabbed his finger at her. “Or I take my midday meal in town where the patrons of the Three Squirrels m
ay wish to hear the tale of the Widow Caldwell and the men she entertains in her home.”
“What a horrendously brilliant idea,” Marcus said. “While you’re there, you might find a room to rent.”
“Why pay for what I receive for free?” He leered at Henrietta like a villain in a gothic novel, his meaning obvious. He would ruin her, without ever touching her, because he could.
She shouldn’t care what lies came out of his mouth, but she did. She had to. A woman’s reputation was all the currency she had in this world. If she wanted to remain in this home, live in this town, or marry again for whatever her reasons, no matter the truth, slander would burn the last remaining fibers of her worth.
Shrupp left his plate on the table at Henrietta’s elbow and walked out.
Once the back door slammed and Shrupp’s footsteps died away, Marcus said, “Is the letter from Caldwell what you couldn’t find?”
She was ashamed to admit it, knowing his thoughts on the American cause, and that what kept her safe came at the cost of others. She nodded instead of speaking.
“Are you an agent for the British?”
She looked up, pulse-pounding with half a mind to run from the room. How was she to respond? It wasn’t like she’d asked to be put in this position. He would judge her for it anyway. Well, if he was going to judge, he might as well judge the truth. Her uncle cared more about his rank than he did her own safety. And she had gambled all on her safety.
“I have no choice. My uncle.” She drained the contents of her glass and stood, bracing for his temper.
“Troop movements, supplies, requests… that sort of information?” he asked evenly.
She nodded, not trusting his mood. She stepped away from the table, testing the strength of her legs to hold her upright. “Are you going to hate me now? Have me arrested?”
A Widow's Guide to Scandal (The Sons of Neptune Book 1) Page 11