In the Arms of a Marquess(99)

But oh, God, it mustn’t come to that.

She bussed Constance on the cheek and cast the dowager a bright look. “I must be off now.”

“Octavia Pierce, before you take another step explain yourself.”

“I will just make a quick call upon an acquaintance, Aunt Mellicent,” she said airily, moving toward the door. “Then I will return here directly and fill you in on all the details.” She flashed a quick smile and sailed out of the room.

Roiling stomach in her throat, she flew down the steps toward the carriage, gesturing for Abha to join her inside. The door closed behind them and she gasped in air. Her trembling fingers thrust the letter at him. Atop his shoulder, Lal clicked his tongue in agitation.

“Where would he go to confront Lord Styles? His house?” She stretched to wrap on the top panel. Abha stayed her hand, lifting his heavy gaze from the crumpled pages.

“To the ship. The noise. The privacy. He will lure him there.” Abha leaned out the door and gave the coachman directions. Tavy could not breathe.

Privacy to do what? Noise to disguise what sounds?

Carts and horsemen clogged the streets through the City toward the East India Docks. The carriage crept along. Tavy’s hands twisted in her skirts.

“Can we not go faster? This is unbearable. Quite as unbearable as anything I have experienced in seven years, only rather worse, actually. Why didn’t he tell me?”

“It is not the first time he has wished to protect you, memsahib.”

Her gaze snapped up. “Protect me?”

Abha’s hooded eyes looked intent. “He did so for seven years.”

She blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“Upon your eighteenth birthday he hired me to watch guard over you.”

“Upon my . . . ?” Her tongue failed, and her heartbeat, her brain’s very functioning.

“Your uncle knew that he must take me in. He understood who Benjirou Doreé was, even if your aunt did not. Later, your brother-in-law suspected, but he asked nothing, although I never took payment from him. My service ended when we arrived in England.”

Tavy could not move.

“That lad you asked me about earlier,” he said when she remained silent. “All day he followed you. He works for him.”

Tavy’s lungs tightened. She turned her face away, but sobs formed in her throat, tears thick in her eyes. After an endless minute of strained silence, she pressed her fingers to the window and peered out.

“Is he in danger now?” She barely whispered the words. Her heart beat fiercely but she mustn’t cry.

“Yes.”

The sky was dark with sea-coal and cluttered with the masts and rigging of tall ships, the water of the Thames inky between vessels lined bow-to-stern in berths along the export basin. Tavy knew the place well. When her sister first married St. John, she had spent hours studying the sparkling new docks, warehouses, and offices, dreaming of one day traveling upon a great ship to distant, exotic lands.

Nine years later it looked different. The gatehouse and the wall surrounding the quays was the same, but the planks of the docks and quayside buildings were worn from constant use and soot, and even busier than when they had first opened. Sailors worked at lines and scrubbed decks, making ready to sail, while watermen rowed a galley alongside, patrolling for thieves. Dockworkers hauled cargo from laden carts aboard the closest ship, ropes squealing and three dozen men circling capstans like mules tied to a millstone, swinging the heaviest crates aboard over the rail.

With Lal clinging to her neck, Tavy dashed from the carriage and along the quay, Abha following in loping strides.

“How will we find him? How will we know which ship?” She fought back the fear.

“You already know which ship.”

Of course. Priscilla Nathans.

“You are his equal, memsahib,” Abha rumbled at her side, “as I have long known.”

Chapter 25

CANNONADING. Used in a vessel of war to take, sink, or burn the ship of an enemy, or to drive it from its defenses ashore.—Falconer’s Dictionary of the Marine

The top deck of the Sea Bird stretched long and empty below skeletal masts and yardarms and the loosening clouds overhead. No barrels or crates stood about waiting to be hauled below. No sailors labored at pitch and planking, line or canvas. No dockworkers tread the gangplank, loaded down with cargo. Not even a guard stood at the rail, surety against thieves still common enough on the docks despite Company proprietors’ efforts to halt such incursions into their profits.

Ben strode aboard and to the steps belowdecks. As a child in India he had learned the habits of snakes. They hid, waiting in the dark until their prey came to them.

Not bothering to quiet the clunk of his boots on the boards, he descended. The gun deck was low-ceilinged and dim, all but two gunwales at the far end closed to the daylight without. The air was close, warmer than above and stale, typical for a ship at dock.

A footstep sounded behind him. Ben turned. Styles stood in the doorway to the master’s quarters.

“Ah,” he drawled. “Come to finally speak to me directly, Ben? I wondered how long it would take you to muster the nerve.”

No nerve. Rather, desperate fear. He forced his voice to remain even. “As long as it will take you to begin to feel guilt over what you have done to Constance.”

Styles released a dramatic breath, audible across the deck empty of everything but three dozen cannon lined back-to-back along its length and still coils of rope.