The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings #2)(19)
I expect the club will be crowded, loud, and reeking of booze, but it feels more like a coffeehouse, dark and warm, with oyster shells littering the floor so that the boards sparkle and crack under our boots. A thin veneer of smoke hangs in the air, but it’s a sweet tobacco, and welcome relief from the sludgy evening outside. The noise is mostly conversation at a level volume, combined with the soft clatter of cutlery on plates. There’s a man with a theorbo sitting on the bar, his feet up as he tunes the strings.
“You chose this place?” I ask Monty as I look around. “Your taste has gotten far more civil since I last saw you. No one’s got their top off.”
“Please don’t compliment me on my morals; it makes me feel very obsolete.” He’s put on his best coat for the occasion—a coat he apparently could not spare for accompanying me to the hospital—and his face is washed. It’s an approximation of looking presentable, though he still looks less like a gentleman and more like the raw ore mined to create one. “It’s just that I can’t hear a bloody thing if it’s noisier than this.”
“There’s Scipio.” Percy waves, and I follow his gaze to the familiar crowd in one corner. Monty fumbles for Percy’s hand, and I follow them across the room.
Privateering suits the crew of the Eleftheria. They are all better dressed and less gaunt than the last time I saw them. Most of them still sport sailor’s beards, but their cheeks don’t valley beneath them anymore. The ranks have shifted—I know Scipio, Ebrahim, and King George, now a whole foot taller (but just as enamored with Percy, as proved by his sprint across the room and tackle-hug). But with them are two other dark-skinned men I don’t recognize, one with a curled mustache and golden earring, the other with three fingers missing on his left hand. There’s a third, much smaller and smooth-faced person, in a shapeless tunic and a headscarf, so hunched over a mug that I can’t immediately tell if it’s a man or a woman.
Scipio claps Monty and Percy warmly on their backs and gives Monty’s newly shorn hair an affectionate ruffle before he takes my hand in both of his and kisses it. “Felicity Montague, what are you doing here? Did you come all the way from Scotland just to see us?” Before I have a chance to answer, he asks, “And have you grown taller, or am I shorter than when we last met?”
“She’s not; it’s those damned boots of hers.” Monty slings himself into the booth beside Ebrahim. “They’ve got the thickest soles I’ve ever seen.”
“He’s sore I’m taller than him,” I say.
Scipio laughs through his nose. “He lost several inches in cutting that hair.”
“Don’t.” Monty claps a hand to his heart in reverence. “I’m still in mourning.”
“You’ve got a new crew.” Percy reaches down to shake hands with the two men I don’t recognize, then slides into the booth beside Monty, unfolding his long legs under the table while I take the chair across from them.
“We needed more hands sooner than expected,” Scipio says. “This is Zaire and Tumelo, picked up from the tobacco trade in Portugal. And that”—he points down to the slouching youth at the end of the table—“is Sim, from Algiers, who adopted a legitimate life to join us.”
Sim looks up from her beer. Her face is heart-shaped and small, made even more pointed by the frame of her headscarf. Her features seem almost too large for such a small canvas. The two men stand to shake hands around, but she doesn’t move.
“How have you found sailing as merchants under the British crown?” Percy asks as we all settle into the booth.
Scipio laughs. “I am of a far calmer temperament than I was when we sailed without patronage. We’re still questioned more than most British crews when we’re on European soil, but at least we have letters now.”
“Where have you been traveling?” I ask.
“Still in the Mediterranean, mostly,” he replies. “Portugal and Algiers and Tunis and Alexandria. It’s all dead cargo—your uncle’s kept us away from the Royal African Company,” he says to Percy. “We saw him in Liverpool last month and he seemed very well.”
Percy smiles. Percy’s aunt and uncle, though ready to see him committed to an asylum, were far from tyrants. His uncle had been gracious in using his position to aid the crew of the Eleftheria as thanks for the role they’d played in our safety while abroad. In contrast, Monty and I had each written one letter to our father, letting him know only that we were not deceased but also not coming home, and received nothing in return. While my father had been hostile to Monty and indifferent to me, he was the sort of man who would have cut off his own hand if it meant avoiding scandal. And two children mysteriously disappearing on the same trip to the Continent would have all the bees buzzing back in Cheshire.
“Oh, tell Felicity the story about the goats in Tunis,” Monty demands, though I’m spared by the distraction of Georgie returning with the beer.
“Have you been corresponding?” I ask Scipio. I know Percy organized this reunion but not that there has been much more communication between them.
“On occasion,” Scipio replies.
“Here, Miss Montague, you and Sim may have something in common,” Ebrahim interrupts, and calls down the table. “Sim, what do you think of London?”