Midnight Mistress (10 page)

“I was not aware that you knew Juliana’s cousin, Lord Renquist. I believe he has been abroad for years. When did you make his acquaintance?”

Renquist’s carefully desolate expression shifted to annoyance. Then, as if remembering where he was, his sympathetic smile returned. “I met Gwenville when we were in school together. Though now I suppose I must begin to call him the mawqwess.”

Juliana barely masked a wince. Grenville was her father’s closest male relative. As such, he would inherit the title, and likely the marquessate and various other estates that made up her father’s holdings. Juliana did not fear for the lands and properties—they were well established enough to run themselves regardless of whether Grenville sold them or no. But he would also inherit the Marquis Line. The thought of Grenville having charge of her father’s beloved fleet made her blood run cold.
He will sell every one of my father’s ships for the coin they’ll bring, I know he will
.

The man behind the desk pounded his gavel for silence. Juliana quickly surmised that this was “the disagreeable Mr. McGregor” Mrs. Jolly had spoken of. He was a thin, unremarkable man with stooped shoulders, and his clothes were as rumpled as an unmade bed. His thatch of white hair was as unkempt as his coat. Juliana frowned, wondering why her father, who could have had his pick of all the solicitors in
Chancery, would have chosen this disheveled person to entrust with his final bequests.

Her thoughts were cut short as the solicitor reached into his wrinkled coat and produced a quill pen, an inkwell, and a roll of papers from what appeared to be a profusion of pockets. He cleared his throat and began reading the will in an emotionless but surprisingly rich, deep brogue.

The first stipends were to the minor servants, page upon page of small bequests. Juliana tried to remain attentive, for these were her father’s last wishes, but try as she might, her attention wandered. She glanced to her left, and caught sight of the Han dynasty vase her father had bought for her in a market in Shanghai. She turned to the right, and saw the Indian tapestry he’d given her in Madras.

She twisted her black lace handkerchief into a tortured knot, fighting the overwhelming loneliness inside her. Her father was dead. She would never again hear his booming laugh, never feel his tremendous hug. Never hear him say that he loved her. His property and title would go to an inferior man. It was monstrously unfair, but there was nothing she could do. She’d had the ill luck to be born a woman. As Mrs. Jolly had pointed out, her one purpose in life was to make an “advantageous match.” Under the law, she was considered little more than another piece of her father’s property. And in the end she would go to the highest bidder, just like his beautiful ships.

A commotion in the back of the room caught her attention. She turned in her chair and saw at least two dozen tars push their way into the room, led by a short, stocky man with button bright eyes and an enormous cauliflower nose.

“Tommy Blue!” Before anyone could stop her Juliana jumped out of her seat and wrapped the man in a huge embrace. “I thought you were bound for Gibraltar.”

“I was, but when I put into Plymouth for the last of my cargo I heard about your da. I turned the
Valiant
right around and headed for home.”

Mr. McGregor rose from his chair. “Ye must see that this is
most
irregular. Kindly take yourself and your hooligan friends outside at once.”

Captain Thomas Aloysius Blue strode up to the solicitor as if he were heading for a fight. “These
hooligans
is some of the finest men what ever sailed the seven seas, and every man jack of ’em sails for the Marquis Line. We got a right to know what ’appens to our ships. And iffen you want us out you’ll have to carry us, one by one.”

A cheer from the back of the room showed that his mates felt the same.

“Most irregular,” Mr. McGregor muttered as he made a note on a scrap of paper and deposited it in one of his many pockets. Then he took his seat and resumed his reading of the will. Juliana also returned to her seat, but she glanced at the sailors who’d mixed in with the rest of the crowd. Tommy Blue stood out in front like a field marshall and gave her a jaunty wink.

For the first time since her father’s death, Juliana grinned.

At the very back of the room, one of the sailors pulled his stocking cap down over his blond hair and lifted his pea coat collar to hide his scarred cheek. He pressed against the wall and craned his neck to get a better view of the rest of the room. But while the crowd around him stared at the lawyer, his gaze never strayed from the black-garbed woman seated near the front table.

Zut, you are the biggest fool in England!

Connor winced. Maybe Raoul was right. God knows the room was stuffed with enough people who could recognize the notorious Captain Gabriel—from swells he’d met at Morrow’s ball, to Commodore Jolly, to the news reporter who’d interviewed him for the
Times
only three days before. And Tommy Blue, if he got a good look at him, might recognize him as the beggar boy who’d been taken in by the marquis. He’d risked his entire mission to come here, yet he’d
come all the same when he’d heard that Tommy was looking for men to come with him to the reading of Albany’s will. He had to see her, to know how she was faring. And from what he could see, she wasn’t faring well.

She was pale as a sheet. And too thin by half. Pushing his cap up a notch, Connor turned an angry eye at the commodore, who was currently polishing a brass button on his sleeve. God’s teeth, what was wrong with the man? Couldn’t he see the girl was wasting away—

A quick movement near the door caught his eye. If Connor’s cap hadn’t been pushed up, he might have missed it, but as it was he saw all he needed. He moved stealthily through the crowd to the door, careful not to attract attention. Then he snatched his prey by the collar, whisked him into the hallway, and landed him in a dark alcove before he could make a sound.

Hunkering down, Connor brought his eyes level with his catch as he whispered, “Jamie, what in blazes are you doing here?”

The boy’s eyes were white with fear, but his voice shook only a little as he answered. “Came for her. The lady. Heard she lost her da.”

“You know her?”

Jamie nodded and gave him a brief summary of their meeting on the docks. Connor grimaced, knowing now how she’d tracked him to the Bell even though Barnacle had sworn on “Satan’s hairy arse” that he’d told her nothing. “You still shouldn’t be here,” Connor said as he dug a shilling out of his pocket. “This will pay for a cab to the docks. Go back to the ship.”

Jamie stared at the coin but he didn’t take it. Instead he stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Ain’t goin’.”

Connor was in no mood to argue. He’d have enough trouble explaining his own presence here, let alone Jamie’s. Whether the boy knew it or not, he was putting them both at risk. “You’ll go where I tell you,” he snapped, his anger more
from fear than fury. “That’s an order, mister. You know the penalty for disobeying your captain.”

Jamie knew, all right. Every sailor did. Disobeying the captain put the whole crew in danger. At sea, it meant irons, flogging, or even keelhauling. In port, it meant immediate dismissal. Jamie risked being turned out from the only family he’d ever known. Yet he stood his ground. “She called me a gentleman. No one’s ever done that, not once. Now she’s an orphan, like me. She might want a friend. And a gentleman don’t … doesn’t turn his back on a friend.”

Connor knew better. Gentlemen turned their back on friends all the time. But in the months since he’d rescued Jamie from the hellhole wharf, the child had barely strung three words together. Now he was chatting like a magpie. An unfamiliar tightness rose in Connor’s throat. He’d saved the boy on a whim, because he couldn’t have stood seeing a dog treated so cruelly, much less a starving child. But as he knelt in front of the boy and saw the first hints of pride and self-respect stir in his long-empty eyes, he realized Jamie had become much more to him than a charity case. All at once he felt richer than all the grand nobs in Mayfair put together.
I owe you for this at least, Juliana
.

He got to his feet and glanced around, making sure they’d aroused no suspicions. Everyone still hovered around the dining room door, listening as the solicitor read the marquis’s will. “All right, boy. We’ll both stay. But we’ll listen from here. If we have to make a dash for it, we can—”

“Connor Reed,” the lawyer read.

Suddenly it seemed to Jamie as if Captain Gabriel had forgotten all his instructions. The captain raced to the doorway, and even partially elbowed his way inside the room. Jamie followed, taking up a position behind a bowlegged footman, where he could see both the lady and his unusually forgetful Captain.

“ ‘… dunna know if he is alive or dead,” the solicitor continued. “If he is alive, I dunna know if he even thinks of me or
my daughter. I know that the circumstances of our last meeting gave him little reason to, and that is a situation I profoundly regret.’ ”

Above him, the captain mouthed something, but he made no sound, so Jamie couldn’t figure it. He looked like a man who’d just swallowed a cupful of jiggered gin. Jamie’s gaze shifted to the lady, whose head was turned just enough for him to glimpse her profile. Queerly enough, she looked as if she also had tumbled to some bad liquor.

“ ‘I had an opportunity to show mercy, but I did not. Instead, I listened to my pride and arrogance, and—though it shames me to admit it—concern for my daughter’s future position. My actions were justified, but they were not just. My hasty judgment of Reed is the one moment of my life I wish I could five over.’ ”

All around Jamie, people were buzzing like bees.

“Oo’s this Reed?” a young scullery maid hissed.

“Never ’eard a the bloke,” the bowlegged footman answered back. “I weren’t with his lordship all that long. But if you ask me, the lord was a bit nodcocked to ’ave wasted ink on a man what might a snuffed it long past.”

“Reed,” an old cook mused. “My memory’s not what it used to be. Still, it seems I recall a boy by that name, who—”

Jamie lost the rest as a bigger boy jostled him aside and took his prime spot. Jamie balled his fist to pummel the bully, then stopped when he remembered he’d promised his captain not to draw notice. Reluctantly giving up a prime fight, he worked his way through the close packed crowd until he reached Captain Gabriel’s side.

“ ‘… and in closing, I leave him the sum of five hundred pounds, the exact amount of the regrettable circumstances between us, in hopes that he will accept it, along with my heartfelt forgiveness,’ ” the solicitor read.

Jamie’s eyes widened. Five hundred pounds! He couldn’t imagine one man having such an amount, much less giving it away. He looked up at the captain, expecting to see the same
surprise on his face. But the captain’s gaze was fixed on the lady, who looked to be crying. The captain was about to step forward when another man showed up at the lady’s side, a lord in a bottle green coat and a powdered wig, who all but enveloped Lady Juliana in an embrace. Frowning, Jamie studied the man, not liking the way he made so free with the lady’s shoulders.
She don’t like it. I can tell by the way she
—

Captain Gabriel grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the room, down the hallway toward the back door.

Jamie dragged his feet. “You said we could stay.”

“I was wrong.” He lifted the boy and tucked him under his arm without breaking stride. “There’s nothing for us here. There never was. We were only fooling ourselves. And the sooner we get out of this world and back to our own lives, the better.”

He opened the door, then paused and looked down the hall toward the dining room, as if he were taking a last look at a port he might never see again. Jamie thought it was mighty queer behavior, and was about to say so when a distant shriek cut him off. The next moment a dozen people poured down the narrow hallway, nearly running the two of them over in their haste to be out the door.

The captain grabbed a hawker by his coat lapel. “What’s happened?”

“Leave off. If I can get to Fleet Street before that palsy reporter I can sell the news for a crown easy.”

Connor yanked him up to his tiptoes. “You’ll be in no shape to sell anything if you don’t tell me what’s going on.”

“Didn’t you hear? He left it to the girl. The houses, the lands, the ships, everything. Except for the few hundred pounds he gave to the others, the marquis of Albany left every bleedin’ farthing of his fortune to his daughter.”

Hortensia Jolly sat bolt upright in bed, scattering her carefully arranged pillows everywhere. “He did
what
?”

The bewildered commodore patted his mother’s hand. “Now, mother, you mustn’t become agitated. The doctor—”

“The doctor can go hang. And the marquis along with him,” she cried, her lusty voice booming through the room. She turned her withering gaze on the solicitor. “I blame you, Mr. McGregor. You Scots are supposed to be so practical. How could you allow the marquis to enact such an ill-conceived notion?”