Chapter 6

“Miss Fontenot went to David Parker’s office immediately after receiving your letter,” Gregg said, examining his neatly trimmed fingernails as he sprawled in the oversized wingchair in front of Fast’s desk.

Fast smirked at that news. “I hope she went there to give the bastard a proper raking.”

Gregg laughed. “I would not be surprised; she looked as angry as a hornet.” Mr. Pouncefoot-Jones leapt onto his lap, and he absently scratched the big black tomcat behind the ears, his gaze suddenly growing distant. “I don’t think Lady Sedgewick was in the house when the Runners called.”

Fast frowned. “What has that to do with anything?”

Gregg shrugged. “Just an observation.”

“You’re not…er, interested in her, are you?”

Gregg’s eyes narrowed. “What if I were?”

“You needn’t snap my nose off!” he said, amused by the other man’s baleful glare. Rather than be repulsed by Gregg’s obvious displeasure, Fast said, “You may fancy whomever you please—it’s certainly makes no odds to me—but you should know the countess earns her crust by grinding the spontaneity out of young women and training them to be demure, obedient wives who would never embarrass their aristocrat husbands.”

“I am perfectly aware of what she does to earn her crust,” Gregg said, his eyes harder than granite. “What, pray, is your point, Severn?”

“What I am trying to say, very clumsily, is that Lady Sedgewick is a stickler for propriety and would never spare a glance for a former privateer. No matter how handsome or wealthy the man might be.”

“I am exceedingly flattered by your concern for me, Severn,” Gregg said acidly.

Fast barked a laugh. “That’s me put in my place.” He had not wanted to speak of such matters to begin with but felt that Piers Gregg—a man unaccustomed to the ways of the haute ton —deserved to know the lay of the land.

And now that Fast had discharged that duty he could dismiss it from his mind and return to a subject that truly interested him: Miss Fontenot.

“How long was she at Parker’s office?” he asked.

“If you’re asking whether she stayed long enough for a fuck and cuddle, the answer is yes. ”

“That was not what I was asking,” Fast snapped, unaccountably irritated by the other man’s observation.

Rather than appear abashed, Gregg grinned, his icy anger of less than a minute before—when Fast had meddled in his business—nowhere to be seen. “To answer your question, Miss Fontenot was at Parker’s office for perhaps a quarter of an hour. From there, she toddled down the street to The Times .”

Fast sat up straighter. “Did she, by God? Do you think Parker gave her the sack and she is looking for work elsewhere?”

His henchman laughed—either at the question or Fast’s hopeful tone—and said, “No.”

“How can you be so certain?”

“Because I waited for her—for over three bloody hours—and then ventured inside to find out what our little spy had been getting up to.” Gregg clucked his tongue. “You are not going to like this Severn.”

“What?”

“She visited the archives and asked the clerk for all the issues that contained stories relating in any way to the Sea Ranger mutiny. She was especially interested in the names of the mutineers who were still at liberty.”

“Fuck! Bastard! Shit!” Fast grabbed the first thing to hand—an ugly bronze paperweight—and hurled it across the room. It struck a shelf of books and made a distinctly unsatisfying thunk ing sound before falling to the floor with a clatter . “That fucking Parker knows about Joe Jensen! How the devil did he find out, Gregg? How ?”

“I wish I knew, my lord,” Gregg said, looking as grim as Fast felt.

Fast slumped back in his chair, too stunned to speak.

For more than sixteen years Fast believed that he was the reason his brother Percy had committed suicide. But a year ago Fast had discovered, to his utter shock that he had been wrong all that time. Percy hadn’t killed himself; he had been murdered.

The truth had come to Fast through a man named Joe Jensen.

Jensen had grown up on a tenant farm not far from Fast’s grandfather’s country estate. They’d been close in age and had knocked around a bit when they were young boys, before Fast and Percy had been shipped off to Eton.

It had been at least twenty years since Fast had seen Jensen and he would have forgotten all about the man if not for the fact that he’d seen Jensen’s name on the navy’s list of men involved in the Sea Ranger mutiny.

Jensen was one of the fifty or so crew members who had evaded capture. Fast encountered him in a small port town in Venezuela where Jensen was eking out an existence tending bar at a wharf side tavern. It was doubtful that Fast would have noticed Jensen if the man hadn’t dropped two pints of ale and sprinted from the pub the moment he’d seen Fast’s face.

Naturally, Fast had been too curious not to follow him.

When he had read about the mutiny in the newspapers he’d greatly sympathized with the crew. He had met the captain of the Sea Ranger , Hugh Pigot, on several occasions and there was no denying he’d been a savage, cruel man who’d abused his crew abominably.

However, mutiny was mutiny, so upon discovering Jensen’s identity Fast had been determined to bring him back to England to face justice.

Just as he’d been about to hand Jensen over to a local smith to be fitted for leg irons for his journey home, the man had blurted out that Percy had not committed suicide.

Flabbergasted and infuriated, Fast had grabbed Jensen by the throat and demanded to know what the hell he was talking about. Jensen had proceeded to spill one startling detail after another. On their own, none of the things he’d shared about Percy’s death would have convinced him. But then Joe had admitted that it had been his very own brother—Albert Jensen—who had been hired to fire the pistol that killed Percy.

No amount of threatening or beating had been enough to convince Joe to divulge the name of the person who’d paid Albert. Nor was it possible for Fast to track down Albert and get the truth out of him as the man had died years before.

Joe had said that if Fast brought him directly back for trial, he would never tell him the killer’s name.

In the end, Joe had offered Fast a deal. He was an extremely sick man and dying of consumption—visibly ill at the time—and agreed to accompany Fast as far as Gran Canaria, which was the Vixen’s last stop before home. He promised to wait there while Fast discovered the whereabouts of Joe’s mother and two sisters. When he found the women, Fast would also help them with money and shelter if they needed it.

Once Fast had taken care of his part of the bargain, Joe would return to England, hand over Albert’s signed deathbed confession, and give himself up to the authorities and testify to the veracity of the confession.

With no other alternative, Fast had accepted Joe’s offer. They had agreed that Fast had six months to produce Joe’s family after he’d returned to England. That had been five months ago, and time was quickly running out.

“My lord?”

Fast looked up at the sound of Gregg’s hesitant voice.

“I’m over my snit,” Fast said, not entirely telling the truth but ready to get on with matters. “Who is feeding Parker all this information?”

Gregg inhaled deeply and then exhaled after a long moment. “Well, only nine of us were in the room with Jensen when we discovered his identity. You, me, Barker, White, Shaver, Norris, Chenier, Keating, and Joe Jensen, himself.” Gregg snorted. “I think we can strike you and me off the list of suspects.”

“Surely Jensen would never tell anyone?”

“Maybe he is hoping to extort money from the man behind your brother’s murder?”

After a long moment Fast grudgingly said, “That is an excellent point. However—and perhaps this makes me a fool—I believe Jensen’s dealings with me have been both honest and honorable.”

Gregg nodded. “My gut tells me the same.”

“I am relieved we concur. As to the other names on your list; I don’t believe any of them would have betrayed me. They have all of them have been with me since my first voyage on the Vixen . I cannot accept that I have been so wrong in judging their characters after all these years.”

“I happen to agree.”

“So that means somebody else on the ship overheard my conversation with Jensen.” Fast scowled. “Lord knows it would have been easy enough for anyone to press an ear to the wall of the wardroom and eavesdrop. The crew of The Vixen is between sixty and seventy men at any given time.”

“Of that number between forty and fifty have been with you for at least five years. I feel certain your traitor is not among their number. Not just because they are loyal, but because they’d need to have rats in their garrets to jeopardize their jobs. Those men are well aware that you butter their bread, my lord, and they are extremely fond of how thick the butter is.”

Fast snorted at the other man’s terminology, but Gregg was right: he was generous with the prize money the Vixen took in and gave bigger shares than any other captain he knew. His actions weren’t entirely altruistic, he also paid well because it helped him retain his employees.

“Assuming your reasoning is sound, that still leaves at least fifteen or twenty men who—”

“Remember those men we hired in Gran Canaria?” Gregg interrupted, his gaze intense.

Fast squinted as he trolled his memory. “I vaguely remember. Three men, wasn’t it? But they were only with us for that leg of the journey.”

“ Two of them returned home but one came back with us—Emilio Garcia.”

“Your memory is terrifying,” Fast said.

“It is,” Gregg admitted with a faint smile. “But in Garcia’s case it isn’t so surprising as he rather stands out. He wears two earrings in his right ear, gold rings joined by a short chain. It’s distinctive.”

“I recall him, now,” Fast said. “I don’t suppose you know whether Garcia signed on with James and left with the Vixen ?” James White was Fast’s erstwhile second mate and the current captain of The Vixen now that Fast and Gregg had left the privateering life behind them.

“I don’t know, but I’ll make it my business to find out right away. I’ll draw up a list of the others who might be probable suspects as well.”

“Then I shall leave the matter in your hands.”

Gregg opened his mouth, but then closed it and began to stand.

“What is it?” Fast demanded.

“It’s just—well, I’m losing hope that we will ever find Ellie Jensen. I’m not sure we’ll even learn what happened to her.”

They had discovered early in their search that Jensen’s mother and older sister had both perished in a workhouse more than a decade ago. But the youngest girl seemed to have disappeared into thin air.

“Keep looking,” Fast said grimly.

“What are you going to do if Jensen refuses to keep his part of the bargain, my lord? Will you just let him go as you agreed to do?”

“I don’t know how far I’m willing to go,” Fast admitted. “That thought keeps me awake at night. I just hope that Jensen wants to see the killer punished badly enough that he’ll tell me regardless.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

He smiled grimly. “Then I suppose I will discover to what lengths I’m prepared to go to find my brother’s killer.”