Moon Dreams (52 page)

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Rebel Dreams

Sample

Patricia Rice

Alex examined the motley throng below. Well-dressed
gentlemen in dark broadcloth and tricornes, who were quite likely merchants, mixed
with tradesmen in long jerkins and leather breeches, right alongside of a gang
of ruffians in tattered shirts and worn sailor’s garb. Despite their
differences in station, the entire mob seemed to be in general agreement on the
topic of the gaudily dressed gentleman’s ancestry. Interesting, but not worth
more of his time.

He went in search of Jack and found him staring down at the
crowd with a frown of concern. “What’s the racket about down there? Are the
natives always this restless?” Alex demanded.

“See that gent in the bright coat?” Jack pointed out the
well-fed, elegantly-clad fellow. “That’s the customs officer. It looks like he’ll
be tied up for a while. We can’t unload until he approves our papers.”

Hampton grimaced. “In that case, lower the plank. I’m going
ashore. I’ll leave the unloading in your expert hands.”

Several of the mob turned to stare as Alex descended from
the Cranville Enterprises frigate. Apparently deciding he was no danger, they
returned to their shouting. Alex elbowed his way through the crowd without
interference.

He eyed the row of tidy brick structures along the wharf
with irritation. Somewhere amid those unimposing structures worked an expert
troublemaker. He would locate the crotchety old gentleman, demand an
explanation, maybe even have him sign an affidavit to the effect that it was
all a mistake, and then he would find the nearest promising tavern and a good
whore.

He trudged along the wharf searching for a name to match the
letter in his pocket. He cursed the heat, the noisy mob, and the wretch who had
forced him to leave his creature comforts to make the interminable journey to
this forsaken hole.

His partners had insisted the man was a trusted merchant and
that any complaint must be taken seriously. But Alex had personally overseen
the loading of the ships in question. He would have bloody well known if there
were any illegal goods in that hold before they sailed. Someone was trying to
stir trouble, and he damned well intended to know why.

The warehouse with “Wellington Storage” emblazoned in bold
letters above the office door was not difficult to locate. From the size of the
structure, this was no small operation. No wonder his partners had insisted on
investigating. Still, men were known to get senile.

Alex stepped into the dusky interior without hesitation. A
long counter separated the office from the lobby. He admired the neatness of
the small room in comparison to his dust-and-cobweb-infested offices back in
England.

A clerk appeared from a hidden doorway. With only one small
window over the high account desk, the room relied on a single lamp for
illumination. Alex could discern little of the clerk but slim height and an
unusual smock. Peremptorily removing the letter from his pocket, he consulted
the signature to verify his memory.

“I have come to see E. A. Wellington. Is he here?”

“I am E. A. Wellington. May I help you?”

He started at the husky, sensual timbre of that voice. As
the clerk strode forward, the sun caught a copper glint in long, glossy,
chestnut hair pulled back in a single black ribbon.

Alex skeptically raked his gaze over E. A. Wellington’s odd
garb. Breeches and stockings appeared beneath the smock, but the shoes were
much too small to be a man’s. His gaze probed the contours of the flowing blue
muslin without success.

He finally settled on the unmistakably feminine features
above the uncollared cloth. Large, haughty eyes regarded him with dislike from
beneath arched brows.

He met the dislike with coldness. “I’m not inclined to deal
with females or underlings. I wish to speak with the E. A. Wellington who wrote
this letter, and I wish to do it immediately. I haven’t journeyed here from
London to be fobbed off by charades.”

The clerk stepped to the counter and removed the letter from
his hand. She was above middle height, but not so tall that he couldn’t look
down on her lustrous hair. A woman with hair that thick could drive a man to
distraction wondering what it would look like if the ribbon came untied. Alex
held his lust rigidly reined as she regarded the letter.

She returned it to the counter and met his furious eyes. “I
am Evelyn Amanda Wellington, and I wrote that letter. I will assume you are not
Lord Cranville. Does this mean I am dealing with an underling?”

Alex’s temperature shot up another few degrees. He had known
men to quake in their shoes when he regarded them with less fury than he did
this female now. His own cousin used to run at the sight of him, and even now
regarded him with caution when he went into a temper. How dared this
impertinent female keep up this game and make veiled insults?

“I am Alexander Hampton, Miss Wellington, if Wellington you
truly are. Lord Cranville is a silent partner in Cranville Enterprises. He has
no interest in the shipping line. That is my territory. Perhaps I would do
better to ask to see your father.”

Spots of red colored her high cheeks. Generous lips
compressed above an obstinate chin. “You may ask as you wish. He died last
autumn, well before this letter was written. In any case, I always handled his
correspondence when he was alive. If you have come to answer the charges in
that letter, you will have to deal with me.”

***

Evelyn met the stranger’s thick-lashed eyes with as much
ferocity as she could summon. She was accustomed to dealing with blustering
ships’ captains, irate merchants, and lecherous delivery boys. She was not
accustomed to the impact of furious square-jawed giants with eyes she would
give gold for. Lud, but a person would have to be a saint to look into those
eyes without quivering. She had to remember her anger before she could catch
what he was saying.

“. . . answer the charges! I came here to
demand you retract them before my partners believe I have taken up a life of
crime. Cranville Enterprises does not and never will engage in the practice of
smuggling. I, personally, have no desire to hang for French brandy. I trust you
are prepared to give evidence of your charges.”

“The best evidence will be the contents of your current
shipment.” Evelyn kept her simmering temper in check. That he had actually come
in person to answer her letter threw doubt on the charges, but his scornful
attitude rubbed salt in open sores. She was tired of being treated as less than
a person because she was female. She could run this warehouse as competently as
her father had, as she had in fact helped him to do these last years. This man
had no right to look at her as if she were lower than a snail.

“Then find someone to send with me, and he’s free to inspect
every damned crate and keg addressed to Wellington Storage. Then I expect a
written letter of apology to pacify my partners in this matter.”

“It would be very surprising if the smuggling continued
after that letter was received, but on the possibility that you kept the letter
quiet and are not involved, I will accompany you. Give me a minute to find
someone to mind the desk.”

Striding toward the back room and untying her smock, Evelyn
was startled into halting by her visitor’s irate reply.

“I refuse to take a fool female into the hold of a ship to
faint at the first rat she encounters! Give me someone with a little experience
and a stout stomach.”

Evelyn glared at the arrogant London gentleman with his
clipped, haughty accents and narrow mind. “I have been visiting the holds of
ships since I was ten. How many years have you spent in them, Mr. Hampton?”

She could tell she’d hit her target. Hampton gave her a curt
nod. “Very well, if that’s your wish.”

Satisfied she had pierced his thick hide, Evelyn hurried to
the back room, where she removed her smock and pinned her hair up in a thick
swirl. Generally she wore breeches only when she was working with the stock in
back, but she saw no reason to change to go into a ship’s hold. The men who
worked on the wharf were accustomed to her unusual garb.

She called to Jacob to mind the front, and he popped from
behind the stacks. “You’re leaving me here alone?” her brother asked in
incredulity.

Evelyn grinned and tugged at a long curly lock escaping from
his queue. “You keep telling me you’re eleven going on twelve. That should be
old enough to stand out there and tell anyone who asks that I’ll be right back.”

Jacob jerked his head away from his sister’s undignified
caress. “I can do that, easy,” he said scornfully, following her to the front.

He studied their fashionably dressed visitor with evident
interest. Like Jacob, Evelyn couldn’t help but notice that Hampton’s expensive
attire clung naturally to wide shoulders and flared neatly at the waist. The
immaculate lace at his wrist and throat bespoke wealth, the black satin bow at
his nape reflected simplicity, but the short vest revealing the Englishman’s
trouser buttons held both of them fascinated, for different reasons. Jacob
always complained about the long vest hitting him above the knees. Evelyn
thought long vests far more decent than short, especially if all men were built
as… formidably… as Mr. Hampton.

“Mr. Hampton, this is my brother, Jacob. Jacob, mind your
manners!” Evelyn scolded as she turned to find him standing on his toes in an
attempt to see over the counter.

The man’s coldly chiseled features exhibited no amusement at
her brother’s obvious fascination. Irritated at her own interest, she hurried
out of the dim office into the bright light of day.

Hampton seemed uncertain whether to offer a lady in breeches
his arm. Scorning any hint that she might not be able to walk the wharf
unaided, Evelyn solved his dilemma by striding toward the crowded ramp ahead of
him.

She frowned at the mob screaming curses, but it wasn’t an
unusual sight anymore. Everyone’s temper had mounted since the rumors of
Parliament’s newest attempt to draw blood from a turnip. Things would go back
to normal once sensible heads in his majesty’s cabinet listened to reason. She
couldn’t believe an entire government could be so dunderheaded as not to
realize that there weren’t enough coins in all the colonies to pay what the
Stamp Act required if it were put into law.

As they reached the nearly impassable region between the
ships, Hampton grabbed her arm and blocked her from the overheated, unwashed
bodies closing around them. Unconcerned by the half-dressed state of the
sailors and deaf to their familiar obscenities, she shook free of his hold and walked
up the loading plank with the same ease as if it were a grassy hillside.

On deck, he caught her arm again. His grim expression as he
glanced down at her breeches brought heat to her cheeks.

She’d learned to ignore the looks of the men with whom she
worked, but she was suddenly too aware of how her men’s clothing must have
revealed more than it should as he’d followed behind her up the ramp.

He tugged her toward the hold without speaking, and she
wisely held her tongue. The captain hurried toward them, but Hampton waved him
away. Fear tickled her stomach as she recognized the power this man wielded. He
owned this ship and dozens more like it. All these men were at his command. If
he truly were a smuggler, he need only lock her in the hold and set sail. No
one on board would dare question him.

Sending Hampton’s tight-lipped visage a furtive look, she
decided he looked quite ruthless enough to do that or worse. Lud, why hadn’t
she seen that before? Was she so enamored of those dark eyes that she had taken
leave of her senses?

At her resistance to his hold, Alex sneered impatiently. “What’s
wrong? Having second thoughts about wetting your elegant slippers?”

Pride tilted her chin higher at his reference to the sturdy
leather brogans she wore to protect her toes from dropped crates. “I should
think that you would be more concerned with your pretty gold buckles and silk
stockings, Mr. Hampton. I’m dressed more sensibly for this expedition than you.”

Muffling a curse, he handed his hat to a seaman and clattered
down the steps into the dark hold. The lantern scarcely illuminated the steps.
He lit a second lantern and held out his hand to help her down.

Despite her bold words to the contrary, Evelyn despised
these excursions into the moldy confines of a ship’s interior. She didn’t like
the stench, the creaking darkness, or the ever-present threat of rats. Even
though she wore none, she had the urge to lift her skirts from the water and
debris of the lower depths. Without conscious thought, she accepted Hampton’s
offered hand.

The contact almost shocked her into flight. Large, strong
fingers wrapped around her smaller ones, making her insides do a strange little
dance. Surely she had held a man’s bare hand before. Was she coming down with a
sickness? When she would tug away, Hampton’s fingers closed tighter.

Frightened, she studied him in the uncertain light. An oddly
mocking look creased his face, but it did not seem directed at her. He scanned
the rows of barrels and crates until he found what he was looking for.

“Your shipment is over there, Miss Wellington. Shall I call
someone to pry them open?”

She could read the familiar brand burned into the wood, but
she shook her head. “Only the crates of porcelain, Mr. Hampton. And it might
not be wise to open them under any eyes but ours. I, too, am averse to having
my neck stretched.”

He turned his gaze on the mentioned part of her anatomy, and
she blushed again. She shook her hand free and strode determinedly to the
cargo, searching for the symbol that would indicate a shipment from
Staffordshire.