by Anne Stuart
CHAPTER SEVEN
LUCA HADN’T BEEN PLANNING to leave for London the next morning. He usually slept well, deep and undisturbed by dreams or any of the things that should plague his nonexistent conscience unless there was some emergency on board ship.
Last night had been different. Last night he’d woken over and over again, the taste of the girl on his tongue. She’d looked so delicious, sitting there in bed, pulling the covers up to her chin like a terrified virgin. Terrified by the bats, not by him.
Hell, he was a lot more terrifying than a few harmless bats, and he was offended that she considered him the least of her worries, particularly since she remembered the one time she’d seen him before. She knew as well as he did that he was twice as strong as she was, and she didn’t know that he wouldn’t use that superior strength to hurt her.
It was the unsolved mystery that was plaguing him, he told himself, not the girl herself. That elusive, hidden memory that was driving him mad and yet no matter how hard he tried to remember, the answer remained out of reach.
He hadn’t spoken to her that long ago time—he knew that much. They’d been separated and he’d seen her from a distance. But where and when? In which lifetime? His time on the streets of London had been so long ago that it could scarcely be then. She was young; she probably hadn’t even been born by the time he went to sea.
Russell’s ships had never carried many passengers, though there’d always been a few, and Luca had made it his practice to keep the hell away from them. His job was running the boat, not flattering the upper crust. Besides, they were much happier with Lindholm, his bland and charming first officer, than a raffish former pirate who didn’t have time for polite chitchat.
But still, nothing came to mind. He couldn’t picture her anywhere near the ocean, and his life was the water.
He had no intention of spending another sleepless night. There was one person he could count on for information, even the most impossible to find, and once he got to London he would be easy enough to locate. Even the endless train ride would be worth it, much as he hated the things. Travel should be on the ocean, not trapped in a steel cage with smoke and soot belching all around him.
It was late when he reached London, but he didn’t hesitate. The warrens of the West End were well-known to him—it didn’t take him long to track down the Wart in their old hunting grounds. He leaned against a lamppost, surveying the world he had once known so well, and waited.
“Well, look at the toff, wandering down in the gutter with us lowlifes.” The rough voice came from just behind him, but Luca didn’t jump. He and the Wart had perfected the art of silent movement, and he would have expected nothing less. “Why no, I think it’s nothing but a gyppo, come amongst us city dwellers.” Wart moved around to the front, and Luca didn’t give a damn, he pulled the man into his arms for a heartfelt embrace. It had been too long since he’d seen him, but Wart liked to keep his distance. Luca had grown up with him, picked pockets, and serviced gentlemen with him, but Wart had been faster than he was when the press gangs had come, and Luca had found the sea.
“Lemme alone,” Wart said, shoving him back a moment after returning the embrace. “I’ve got me reputation to consider. They’ll think I’m a nancy boy, and I’m done with that lay.” He spat into the filthy street. The sky over London was thick with greasy smoke from the manufactories, and the soot had covered everything in the Seven Dials area, including Wart, who was half Luca’s size nowadays. “So how does it feel to be a contributing member of society?”
He grinned, giving Wart a punch to his thick shoulder. “Smothering.”
Wart laughed. “I should think so. Too bad the gangs caught you and made an upstanding citizen of you.”
“Not quite. I was a pirate before I turned honest.”
Wart rolled his eyes. “Never say it, mate! The very word honest makes me shudder.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t torment you with it.”
Wart settled one haunch on the remains of a broken wagon. They were deep in the back alleys near the notorious Dials, where filth and despair were taken for granted and the police never showed their faces, and the air smelled of refuse and human waste and the stench of life rotting. At one time it had smelled like home, and Luca could still feel a faint tugging.
“So what are you wanting from me, Luca, me boy? It won’t come cheap, not when you have the blunt to spare,” Wart said amiably. “And don’t be expecting me to change me ways—I ain’t leaving the Dials to be your bloody pensioner. I like me life here.”
“I’ve given up offering,” Luca said. “But I’ve got a job for you.”
“That’s different then,” Wart said. They both knew that Wart would do anything he could for his old pal, free of charge, and Luca would give him the shirt off his back, but it was a game they played.
“It’s about a woman,” Luca said.
Wart shook his head. “It always is. Though not so much with you. Women have always been besotted by that pretty face of yours; I can’t believe you’ve finally found one who’s immune to it. More power to her.”
“What makes you think it’s a woman I want?”
“What else could it be? You wouldn’t be looking for your mother—that gypsy trull was long gone after her old man sold you to Morris the Sweep. No, you’re wanting to get between someone’s legs, and I can’t imagine anyone saying no to you.”
“Ah, Wart, I didn’t know you felt that way about me,” he shot back, unruffled by the slight against his mother. It was a fair enough description.
“I don’t care how pretty you are, you’re not my type,” Wart shot back. “Only if you paid me.”
“I thought you said you’d given that up. How about I pay you not to?”
Wart laughed. “I miss the old days, I do. We were a devilish pair around here, weren’t we? No pocket was safe. Too bad you couldn’t run as fast you could talk.”
Luca shrugged. “It all worked out for the best. We both know it’s a waste of time to think about ‘what ifs.’ Do you want to hear about this woman or are we going to keep talking about the good old days of sodomy for hire?”
Wart grinned at him. He still looked like a boy in the dim light of the Dials, a very bad boy. “You think I’m going to weep over it? We did what we had to do to survive, neither of us are squeamish, and we don’t complain. Unless you developed a taste for it?”
“Sod off,” Luca said amiably.
“Tell me about the woman then. What do you need from me? I can always kidnap and tie her down for you, but if I remember rightly you were never much for rape.”
“No,” he said shortly. Not when he’d had to endure it himself. He’d take no one by force. Of course, despite Wart’s jibes he had little doubt he could talk anyone he wanted into his bed, including his lying maidservant.
And that was definitely where he wanted her. Soft and naked beneath him. Though she wouldn’t be a sweet, gentle fuck. There was something about her, something beneath her meek exterior that was so fiery that he expected she’d almost be able to keep up with his unexpectedly fierce hunger for her.
“There’s a young woman who’s just come to work for me down in Devonport,” he said, leaning against the broken wagon with a complete disregard for the state of his clothes. “She calls herself Mary Greaves, and she’s been hired as a maidservant. Recommended by one of my solicitors, Matthew Fulton. But she’s not who she says she is. She tries for a Northern accent but half the time she sounds like Mayfair.”
“That’s what comes from soft living, me boy,” Wart said with a contemptuous sniff that was only half playful. “Maidservants and solicitors! Next thing we know you’ll be getting leg shackled to some virgin and making up to the bloody queen.”
“Victoria’s not my type,” he said, deliberately not mentioning Gwendolyn. Indeed, he was beginning to wonder why’d he’d thought respectability had been such a good idea.
“Maybe the girl saw you on the street and followed you home for y
our beautiful eyes?”
“And who could blame her?” Luca retorted. “But no, it’s something else. I need to find out who she is and what she’s doing in my house. She’s not trying to seduce me, more’s the pity, so we can rule that out.”
“Might be part of a gang of thieves. We’ve done that in our time—gone in as climbing boys, checked out the lay of the land, so to speak, and passed along the information for a cut of the proceeds. She might be running the same game.”
“It’s possible. But then, why would she have a more cultured voice than she’s showing? And it would take an educated eye to find the things of value in my house. They’re not your ordinary booty—not much silver or fancy china. It’s in books and artifacts from distant countries that most people wouldn’t even recognize.”
“But you said she sounds like she’s from the upper classes. She’s the type most likely to recognize rare things.”
“Maybe,” he said doubtfully. “But I don’t think that’s it. I’ve seen her before, I know it. I just can’t place her.”
“Never tell me you’ve been pining after some unattainable goddess all these years!” Wart begged.
“Hardly. She’s not a goddess, though I admit she’s beautiful. But then, beauty’s an easy commodity. And no one is unattainable.”
Wart laughed. “Tell me what she looks like. Mebbe that will jog your memory.”
“Brown hair. Very dark, long and curling.”
“Every woman has long hair,” Wart scoffed. “Tell me something I wouldn’t know. And when did you see her with her hair down? I thought you said she’d just started to work there?”
“None of your business.”
“It’s my business if you want me to find out who she is. If she’s an easy piece that makes a difference.”
“She’s not. She’s either a virgin or close to it.”
“Hmmm. Not too many of them in my line of work.”
“And what exactly is your line of work?”
Wart grinned at him. “Purveyor of information. But a pretty dark-haired semi-virgin isn’t giving me enough to go on. You got anything else?”
“She’s got interesting eyes,” he said slowly, suddenly remembering them. “A very dark blue. I think I’ve seen those eyes before, in another… hell and damnation!” Memory flooded back, and with it a powerful fury that swept over him, rendering him almost speechless.
“You’ve remembered?”
“I’m going to kill her,” Luca said grimly. How had she managed to trick him? How had she thought she could get away with it? They knew enough people in common that she would have been recognized sooner or later. And why the hell was she doing it?
“Not your lay, laddie.” Wart shook his head. “You’ve never been one for murder unless it was necessary, and I don’t see you killing a woman. You don’t even hit ’em when they deserve it. Who is she?”
“Eustace Russell’s daughter,” he said bitterly. “I saw her a few years ago at the christening of one of his ships. I don’t know which one she was—he had several of them.”
“Ships? Or daughters?”
“Both,” Luca said in a dark voice. “But what the hell would she be doing pretending to be a maid? And in my household?”
“Leave that part up to me. It’ll be dead easy to get the rest now that you’ve remembered. I’m guessing she didn’t see you at the time?”
He shook his head. “I was too far away, and she was too busy being Russell’s little princess.” He made an effort to tamp down the anger that suffused him. “I remember that he used to bring one of his daughters with him on occasion, though he never brought her around me.”
Wart snorted with laughter. “That surprises you? He wouldn’t want his precious cargo in the hands of a bad ’un like you. She’d take one look and fall madly in love.”
“Not that I noticed,” he said drily. “She wasn’t cut out for docility or domestic work. No wonder I had the feeling she’d just as soon stick a knife in my back as look at me. Though she did kiss me back,” he added, more to himself than to Wart.
“Kissed you back? You told me the girl had just arrived. You work fast, laddie.”
He wished he could find the humor in it. “I always have. Faster ’n you, in the old days.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t let the press gangs get me,” Wart shot back. “So what are you going to do about this?”
“Kick her out on her arse,” he said darkly.
“Before you know why she’s there?”
“I know why she’s there. His daughters insisted their sainted father could never have done such a terrible thing.”
“Remind me—what terrible thing did he do?”
“Embezzled all the cash from the company he started and ran off. Died in a carriage accident a little too close to Plymouth and Devonport for my piece of mind. They must think I had something to do with the old man’s death.”
“Did you?”
He gave Wart a look. “You just said it—I’ve never been much for unnecessary killing.” He frowned, thinking back to that night.
“So are the daughters right? Not about you, but their father? You think the man was set up?”
He was remembering it far too well, now. Russell’s appearance at his door, the flood of crazy accusations. He’d thought it was a brain fever, particularly when he’d heard the old man had driven his coach off a cliff. And then he’d forgotten about it, putting all his focus on getting his hands on the ships. “I have no idea.”
Wart shrugged his narrow shoulders. “I’ll see what else I can find out for you. Seems to me there was some scandal about one of his daughters running off with some lord who murdered his wife. Can’t be that one, I wouldn’t think. If I were you I wouldn’t say anything for the time being. Wait and see what I can find out before you go turfing her out. Might be interesting.”
Luca thought back to her, sitting in the bed, her eyes wide and her soft mouth trembling. Damn her. Kicking her out immediately would be the smartest thing he could do, before she fouled up his life completely.
But he knew he wasn’t going to do it, and Wart had given him the perfect excuse. “I don’t know,” he said grudgingly. “She’s already proved to be a thorn in my side and I don’t think she’s going to make things any easier.”
“Since when have you cared about easy? Not the Luca I’ve always known. You sure you didn’t have anything to do with her father’s death and the disappearance of all that lovely money? I’m thinking it would have been easy pickings.”
“No,” Luca replied flatly.
“Too bad. I’d think better of you if you had,” Wart said cheerfully. “So what’s it going to be? Give her a kick in the bum and send her on her way, or pretend to believe her?”
“I can think of much better uses for her bum.”
“Must be nice to have servants,” Wart mused, counting the fat stack of paper money Luca had handed him.
“You aren’t the kind of man to pay for something when you can do it yourself or steal it.”
“True enough. And for servants you need a home, and I prefer to move around.” He peered up at Luca. “You want to tell me what you’re going to do with the lass?”
“I think you’re better off not knowing.”
Wart snorted. “How’s that going to go down with that fancy lady you got yourself engaged to?”
He didn’t bother to ask how Wart knew about Gwendolyn. Wart could find out anything he wanted to know, the main reason Luca had come to him. “I think the fancy lady is going to be a thing of the past once I figure out how to get rid of her. I’m better off with my own kind.”
“And what about the Russell chit?”
“She’s a liar and a cheat. I think that qualifies her as my kind, don’t you?” he said calmly.
Wart grinned. “That’s the bad man I’ve known and loved. Let me know how things work out.”
“What do you mean by that? She’s pretty enough—I’ll shag her a few times and then get rid of
her. I don’t need a female hanging around.”
“You’ve never gone to this much trouble for a female before. I don’t think you’re going to be getting rid of her that quickly.”
“Ten quid she’s gone in a week.”
“A hundred quid she never leaves,” Wart countered.
Luca stared at him in shock. “Are you out of your mind? She’s Russell’s daughter, and a liar to boot. I don’t need that kind of trouble.”
“A hundred quid,” Wart repeated. “Unless you know you’re going to lose the bet.”
“Make it a thousand,” Luca said grimly. “Except you won’t be able to pay up.”
“I can pay my debts of honor,” Wart said with comic dignity, “just like any toff. But you’re the one who’ll be paying up, me lad. And I haven’t even seen the girl. You say she’s pretty?”
“No.”
“No?” Wart repeated.
“Beautiful,” he said reluctantly.
Wart hooted with laughter. “The money’s already in my hands.”
A weaker soul might regret her determination to follow the life of a housemaid, Maddy thought three days later as she swayed slightly on the last rung of circular stairs. She sat down and leaned her head against the wall, waiting for the dizziness to pass. It wasn’t simply the few hours of sleep she managed to claim in her attic bedroom. Mrs. Crozier didn’t allow her upstairs until she’d washed all the dishes and put them away, cleaned the downstairs fireplaces, and laid the morning fires. It didn’t matter if the previous day had been warm and no fire had been needed—she was still required to empty the grates, sweep them out, and relay the fires.
Every morning she was yanked from sleep by Mrs. Crozier’s nasal voice from the bottom of the stairs before it grew light, giving Maddy about five hours in her bedroom, she figured. Five hours she spent clutching the tennis racket, determined to stay awake to guard against the bats, not sleeping until her poor weary body took over and insisted. The only bright spot in all this was that the captain had disappeared.
Every muscle, every inch of her skin felt flayed. She was too tired to do anything but put one foot ahead of the next, fulfilling Mrs. Crozier’s unending demands. It made her furious to have to sweep already clean floors, polish already bright silver, but she hadn’t dared complain. The captain’s study remained off-limits, but he, fortunately, was nowhere to be seen. When she’d been bold enough to ask Mrs. Crozier, she’d been told he’d gone to sea, and you never knew when he might return.