Brentwood's Ward (36 page)

The instant the gag was cut from behind and pulled off, Emily whirled. Frightening as it was, facing danger head-on was better than a stab in the back. And with the captain’s knuckles still wrapped around a knife hilt, that was a distinct possibility. Though doubtful, the way his eyes undressed her.

She retreated until her shoulder blades smacked against the farthest wall—not far, in this tiny cabin. Fear wrapped tight around her chest. Nonetheless, a crazy peace steadied her fingers as she ran them across her lips. God was here. She knew that now, not just in her head but in her heart. Slowly, she worked her jaw, surprised that it still moved at all.

Captain Daggett slipped the blade into a sheath at his waist and advanced. His body blocked the single escape route out the door. The only way around him was to hurdle the table laden with maps and measuring tools—or scramble across the bed.

His bed.

“You cur!” The words rubbed raw in her throat, sounding more like an animal’s growl than a lady’s. What he’d done to Wren, what Wren had done to her, the lick of his gaze fondling places that ought not be touched—all of it boiled up and spewed out. “You filthy cur!”

“Ugly words from such a pretty mouth.” His words slurred together, and she felt a tremble to his touch as he ran his knuckle along her cheek. He stank of rum and salt and treachery.

She jerked her face aside. “Don’t touch me.”

“Ahh, but I’ve waited nearly a year for this.”

His breath drifted over her skin, and she shivered. “Beast!”

“You have no idea.”

“I have every idea!” She wrenched her gaze back to his. “You ruined my maid then turn your back on your child. You trade for me as if I’m nothing but a—”

“Child?” He staggered then braced a hand against the wall. “What are ye talking about? What child?”

“Your child!” She studied the tic at the corner of one eye. Was he daft as well as drunk and dangerous? “Wren carries your babe, Captain. She’s an outcast because of it.”

Her words whipped up a tempest. For one sober moment, emotions rippled across his face like waves on a storm-swept sea, too fast for her to navigate the thoughts running through his mind.

“A…a babe?” He staggered again, though he still held the wall.

Emily tensed. Was this some kind of ploy?

He lurched from the wall and shored himself against the table, his eyes searching her face. “Are ye certain?”

A fierce frown pulled at her sore mouth, completely unstoppable. The man was either a consummate actor—to what end she couldn’t imagine—or he truly was clueless. “How can you be so surprised?”

“Impossible!” The denial draped years onto his frame. Deep lines creased his brow. He stomped to a cabinet door and retrieved an amber bottle.

As he pulled out the cork and tossed back his head for a drink, Emily edged sideways toward the door, careful with her light movement. Too fast and her chance for freedom might shatter, the opportunity thin as glass.

Five steps from freedom, his voice stopped her. “Where is she?”

Slowly, Emily rubbed the chafed skin at her wrists. Though Daggett hadn’t been the one to tie her up, that didn’t make him a saint. “Have you not done her enough harm?”

“Please.” His voice bled like a bruise. By faith, he sounded as if he’d been the one wronged.

She kept her gaze locked on his while daring another step. “Perhaps you ought to explain yourself, Captain.”

He lowered the bottle to his side, a long slow breath escaping his lips. His mouth barely moved when he spoke. “I was married once. ’Twas an abysmal match. I was young. Foolish. She was a real beauty, though. A widow…” His face hardened. “And a shrew.”

He wrenched up his arm and threw the bottle. Glass exploded.

Emily flinched.

“The woman was a harpy! A hag!” Daggett’s shout filled the small room. “She came with four extra mouths to feed. Four! Should that not have been enough? Should
I
not have been enough? Yet she wanted one more, one I couldn’t afford. One I couldn’t produce.” His voice lowered until his last word was nothing but a whisper.

Emily watched transfixed as a shiny film covered his eyes. Did he even know she was still there? Maybe not, between his memories and the amount he’d drunk. She dared another step.

“She said the fault was in me. Me! That I wasn’t man enough to sire…” He shook his head, and for a moment, his shoulders sagged.

When his face lifted to hers, she gasped. A shadow moved across his face. This was no charade. The captain’s soul sailed in a sea of darkness. He knew what lay on the other side of pain so deep, so black that no amount of time could separate him from the hurt.

Her breathing hitched. Compassion was a strange friend, calling at the most inopportune time. But now was definitely not the moment to take tea with empathy. “I am sorry for what happened to you, Captain.” She snuck another step closer to the open door, speaking as her skirt swished to cover the movement. “But that doesn’t justify what you did to my maid.”

His sigh could’ve filled the ocean. “I suppose it does not. But believe me when I say I had no idea there’d be lasting implications. I merely thought the one time, the one night—”

Emily’s jaw dropped. “How can you think so lowly of a woman, to use her like that?”

“How can a woman think so lowly of a man, to scorn him in public, make him a laughingstock? Flaunt his impotence to the world!” He barreled toward her faster than she could flee. His fingers dug into her arms, pinning her in place. Anger sharpened the bones of his face. Grief mingled with the rum on his breath. “I never wanted to go a’sea, Miss Payne, but I didn’t have a choice! Life on land was hell itself.”

Her heart beat loud in her ears. His heavy breaths, all the louder. Everything hinged on this moment. Her future. Her freedom.

His salvation.

“You were wronged, sir,” she began slowly, casting the words like a life preserver. “Wronged and damaged, through no fault of your own. So was Wren. And so am I. A wise man once told me no one escapes this life without scars. Not even God.”

She paused, waiting for the slightest hint of a break in his stormy gaze. “Let me go, Captain. I am not the woman who hurt you.”

His jaw tightened. Nothing more. His fingers still bit into her arms. Overhead, the thumping of sailors’ feet readied to sail. She measured time by the vein pulsing on the captain’s temple.

After an eternity, she tried again. “Don’t add wrong to wrong. I’ll see that you’re paid back every penny you spent for me if you simply let me go.”

A low laugh rumbled in his chest. Then he shoved her, wheeled about, and retrieved another bottle. While he uncorked it with his teeth, she resumed her slow trek to the door.

Daggett swilled half the contents on his way to the porthole, where he stooped and looked out at the inky darkness before dawn. The way the lamplight fell, he couldn’t have seen anything other than his own reflection. Emily shuddered. Truly, was there anything more horrific than peering at one’s own self?

The image of the broken Captain Daggett branded onto her heart. Even so, she took the opportunity to fly the remaining steps to the door. Would he notice if she slipped out?

Before she crossed the threshold, she turned back. An insane move, as were the words burning on her tongue, but altogether necessary. “I don’t know if Wren will have you, Captain, but there’s one thing I am certain of.”

He didn’t look at her. He didn’t need to. She spoke as much to herself as to him. “A child needs a father’s love. As long as you draw breath, it’s not too late to make things right. Think on that.”

He grunted then tipped the bottle one more time. Rum dripped down his chin, dampening his collar. Tilting back to drain it dry, he lost his balance and crashed backward. The captain sprawled out flat, his eyes rolled up.

Emily turned and ran into the narrow corridor then paused. Where exactly should she go? Portman Square? Nicholas’s room? Neither was safe.

Undecided, she scurried ahead. First she’d have to clear the deck and the docks.

Chapter 32

U
ncertainty—the only thing Nicholas despised more than waiting.

He circled the doctor’s small receiving chamber for the twentieth time in as many minutes, turning his back to the jeering clock on the wall. Why must life—and death—hang on the spindly arm of a timepiece? And honestly, how much death could one handle in the space of a day?

As soon as the door to the infirmary swung open, releasing the stinging odor of ammonia and vinegar, he pivoted. The fast action pumped a fresh flow of blood beneath the binding on his arm. The warmth, and pain, reminded him he ought be thankful his own body was not yet counted among the corpses of the past twenty-four hours.

He pinned his gaze and his hope on Dr. Kirby. “How’s Flannery?”

Without his hat, tufts of white hair stood at attention above each of the doctor’s ears, giving him a perpetually surprised look—and making it impossible to read the truth in the lines of his face. “Did I not tell you to remain seated, Mr. Brentwood?” His chin lifted, and he eyed the growing stain on Nicholas’s sleeve. “Even from this distance I can see you disregarded that order the second I left the room. At least your man is a more compliant patient.”

Nicholas sucked in a sharp breath. “So he lives?”

“Thus far.” Kirby stepped aside, sweeping one arm toward the open door. “Which is more than I can say for you if you continue to stand there and bleed all over my floor. Let’s get you patched up, shall we?”

He didn’t need to be told twice. Nicholas strode past him, entered a familiar corridor, then turned right, crossing the threshold into a small surgery. Before Kirby’s footsteps caught up to him, he tugged off what remained of his shirt and hopped up on the table at center, ignoring the discolored sawdust coating the floor. Practiced from warming this bench a time or two, he focused instead on a bottle-lined shelf.

Kirby snorted. “Someone’s in a hurry.”

He would have shrugged—but it would hurt. “Have at it.”

Instruments rattled. A cork loosened. The fresh waft of alcohol competed with the mix of pungent odors permanently embedded in the pores of the walls.

Kirby’s grip held Nicholas’s injured arm aloft as he unwrapped the temporary bandage. Nicholas set his jaw against the fiery pain. The doctor’s cold fingers did little to offset it.

“I assume you’ve made arrangements for your sister,” Kirby mumbled as he worked.

Nicholas gasped, as much from the fresh reminder of Jenny’s passing as from the insertion of a probe. The metal end dug around for a bullet, no less excruciating than the grief boring into his heart. He winced so hard, his eyes cinched tight, making it tough to form words. “Mistress Dawkins…is overseeing…the details.”

“You have my condolences, Mr. Brentwood. Your sister was a rare one.”

So was the new agony Kirby inflicted. The white-hot thrust and pull of the extractor blurred the individual bottles on the shelf into a smeared streak. This time, the bottles disappeared. Completely. A primeval growl roared out his mouth, and Nicholas gripped the table’s edge with his free hand to keep from falling over. The doctor shored him up further with a steadying hand at his back.

“There now.” Metal pinged against metal. “Care to see the beast that bit?”

“Just. Sew. Me up.” Wheezes punctuated each word, but at least the glassware on the shelf reappeared.

“Your rough-and-tumble ways are going to catch up to you one day, Brentwood. Soon you’ll be more scar than man.” Kirby left his side to retrieve a silver tray from a counter.

Nicholas wobbled, missing the doctor’s support—then recanted when Kirby returned. A needle dug into his arm. “Ahh!”

“Sorry. As I said, there’s not much pristine skin here to work with, and tugging the suture through—”

“Don’t explain. Just—” The needle stabbed again. Nicholas grunted. “Finish.” His request traveled on a groan.

“Oh? Pressing engagement, have you?” The needle bit thrice more before Kirby’s sigh and the snip of a scissor cut through the air.

After the doctor wrapped a fresh bandage over the site, Nicholas slid off the table. Two shelves materialized where the one had been, with double the amount of bottles. He threw a hand out for balance. Kirby was right. His lifestyle was catching up to him more quickly than he’d care to admit. Allowing the doctor to play valet, he eased his wounded arm into his ruined shirt and greatcoat.

Kirby did not miss his grimace. “I suggest you lay low for the day, Brentwood.”

The doctor’s counsel followed him into the corridor. He didn’t have time to answer, let alone lay low.

Not until he upturned every dock from here to the North Sea.

Stepping out into the black before dawn, he set his feet toward the Wapping Dockyards. By the time he turned the corner of Newman Street, a faint sliver of gray lightened the eastern sky. When his boot heels left behind cobbles for wooden walkways, the promise of morning spread across the horizon.

He scowled, the stench of emptied bilge matching his foul mood. Already the vessel farthest down the line slipped its moorings and floated toward the sea—and this was only one of many wharves lining the busy riverway, representing a smattering of the ships already lost to him. If Emily were aboard one of those…no. Better to not even brook the thought.

Squaring his shoulders, he approached the first ship, noting any twitchy reactions from those aboard. He gauged the captain’s responses to his questions through a filter of presumed guilt, all the while inhaling deeply. The slightest whiff of lily of the valley and he’d tear the vessel apart one-handed. He’d have to. The fire burning in his wounded arm rendered that limb useless.

But nothing seemed out of the ordinary, except for him. His battered appearance drew open stares. Undaunted, he moved on to the next ship—and the next—until he investigated each floating hulk, eyed every passing man, and stalked the length of the quay from one end to the other. Now fully unclothed in the sky, the sun taunted him. In a defiant move to prove it wrong, he fished around in his pocket and pulled out his pocket watch. Ten o’clock. Ten!