Chapter 15

15

“Come with me to Tilbury,”Spencer said and winced as the words left his mouth.

With the sky clear and blue, the morning sun shone brightly through the droplet-covered window onto Joanna’s full thigh just before it disappeared under her chemise as she stepped into it and pulled it up. She stood in the middle of the room, her long hair shining like gold spilled on her shoulders, her green eyes bright, her skin glowing and translucent as the sun beaming through the first leaves in spring.

Joanna froze with her corset in her hands and looked at him. He still lay in his bed, his hand tucked behind his head, luxuriating in the view of his Persephone getting herself ready. He took in her body visible through her chemise: full, round breasts, a narrow waist curving into delicious hips, and generous thighs, between which he had loved burying his face the night before. He wanted to lick every inch of her, taste every little crease in her skin.

But seeing her getting ready to depart made a sharp protest rise up his chest. And it had little to do with the fact that he actually hadn’t taken her virginity and everything to do with the feel of her, warm, soft, and smelling like pomegranates in his arms as she had slept. It had everything to do with the taste of her lips and the little lightning strikes of energy that cascaded through him whenever he touched her, looked at her, or heard her voice.

And it also had something to do with the heavy feeling of guilt that had settled in the pit of his stomach after what she’d told him about her sister and her brother’s inheritance, and how she had to earn her own wages to help out…

So, what was he doing asking her to come with him when he had resolved to not feel anything for anyone? To simply indulge in physical pleasure with Miss Digby—and he hadn’t even done that… Not in the way he had imagined, anyway, or at least not all of the ways.

That was exactly why he wanted her to come, he told himself. She still owed him her virginity.

“What is in Tilbury?” she asked.

He rose from the bed and walked to her. After he’d given her her first orgasm last night, he’d had her come twice before she couldn’t keep her eyes open and had fallen asleep in his arms. He had lain aching and burning for her, but not in a hurry to take what he’d craved since the first moment he saw her. He’d slept in his pantaloons and his shirt, while she’d slept naked.

He hadn’t thought of Penelope once. He hadn’t felt a shadow of his previous depression.

Last night had changed everything. He didn’t feel like she was his adversary anymore, like a competitor. And it was dangerous because she would distract him from his mission and he would fail.

He’d also discovered a newfound shyness centered on the unsightly wound on his thigh—the raw, swollen, still-reddened flesh where his skin had been torn away, revealing the underlayer of muscle moving unnaturally beneath the scar tissue. The old Spencer would have never been embarrassed about his body…worried about the reaction of a new lover.

He stood behind her and pulled the edges of her corset together, and began lacing it, regretting that he was covering her when he would like nothing more than to watch her naked for hours. “Tilbury is our next destination, Joanna.”

She turned her head, and he could see her profile, her wide, surprised eyes. “Our destination?”

He chuckled. Sharing this with her, knowing it might help her, actually warmed his insides more than the thrill of the chase to win against her. “Joseph, the man from Petticoat Street, picks up some letters and brings them to Pottinger Shipping Company.” Her back stopped moving under the tightening corset. He pulled a little more. He was about halfway done. “That’s where I am going today, and I wondered if you perhaps wanted to come, too.”

“Lord Seaton.” She chuckled and grinned, shaking her head. “What happened to the scoundrel you promised you were?”

He frowned and pulled harder. What, indeed? “Nothing,” he blurted out. “You still owe me your virginity.”

“Oh. Right. And yet I thought your stone-cold heart had suddenly melted. You didn’t take your prize and yet I’m still your rival, but you’re helping me?”

He gave a final pull of the strings and tied them. “Like I said, you still owe me.”

And the thought of not seeing her in the next few days while he was in Tilbury made a dark feeling of desperation open within him like chasm.

“What do I say to Charlotte and Gideon? I can’t just run away. I must return home this minute before they awaken.”

“Can you tell them you went to visit family in the country?”

Joanna bit her lower lip, her Cupid’s bow so lush Spencer had a craving to kiss it. “I suppose I can send a note and apologize, saying I had to go to see the Hodgeses. I could say I had to leave early because of an emergency. Priscilla Hodges is my mother’s cousin twice removed. She’s married to a clergyman, and they have nine children. There’s always an emergency—someone’s sick, or has broken an arm, or suffered some other accident—especially during harvest time like now, when they’ll be cooking a lot of preserves for the winter. They always need help. I do go there almost every year.”

“Very well. Write in a note that you were in such a hurry that you forgot to leave a message and only thought of it when you were near the stagecoach you were about to board. I can have a footman deliver the note.”

“Good idea,” she said. “Though a footman delivering the note would be suspicious. Can you ask him to pay a boy to deliver it?”

He chuckled. “Of course. You devious strategist.”

Joanna shook her head. “I feel terrible lying to my siblings. I don’t lie.”

“It’s for Charlotte, darling. You’re doing it for the both of them.”

“That’s true.” She turned to him, delighted and hiding her smile, her apple-green eyes sparkling. “All right. I’ll come with you. Not because of what I do or do not owe you. But because I do still need to protect my sister and my brother.”

“Of course,” he said, joy spilling through him. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her to his chest. “Your sister and your brother.”

Then he kissed her.

Three hours later, after she had fallen apart in his arms again and they had eaten their breakfast in his bedroom and Mrs. Girdwood had done Joanna’s hair and packed a few old clothes from his mama—which, she assured Joanna, would fit well—the two of them sat in Spencer’s carriage, rattling over the still damp, but already passable route to Tilbury. Their destination was twenty-six miles away from Mayfair. If the road wasn’t too washed out from the rain, they’d reach it in four hours. And if he was lucky, they’d find an inn and stay there overnight so he could spend more time with his little Persephone.

On the way to Tilbury, there was a lot of kissing and flirting and teasing. And talking. They never stopped talking…well, only when they were kissing. They talked about their childhoods, likes and dislikes, poetry, literature, opera, and art… The whole way, he had this feeling of lightness and warmth in his stomach, like he could open up his arms and take in the entire world. Not for a minute did he feel the darkness that had been his companion for months on the ship. They stopped in the middle of their journey to let the horses rest and to have lunch. The rest of the way flew by so fast he didn’t realize the sky was going dark again when the carriage stopped, and Carl opened the door.

“We’re here, my lord,” he said. “Pottinger Shipping Company in Tilbury.”

Spencer hemmed, feeling as if he’d been abruptly pulled out from a sweet dream he never wanted to end.

He climbed down into the warm evening air with the sun beginning to set behind the warehouse buildings and the tall masts of the ships that swayed in the water.

Directly across the street, a stout two-story building of weathered brick and timber bore a wooden plaque with faded lettering that read, Pottinger Shipping Company. The sash windows were dark, as no doubt the offices were now closed. There was a gate in the brick wall that was attached to the building on the right side of the facade, and Spencer guessed that must be a storage area.

The delicious scent of baked bread and stew wafted from a tavern down the street, as well as a roar of laughter. A lamplighter moved along the street lighting the rare streetlamps. A mix of earth and fine gravel crunched slightly underfoot. Spencer could hear voices, the roll of heavy wheels against flagstones, and the rhythmic stomping of horses’ hooves two streets down, closer to the ships.

Seeing that there was no danger and only a few sailors and dockworkers passing by the street or rolling carts with goods in the distance, he decided it was safe enough for Joanna to climb down as well and helped her descend.

“Shall I inquire in that tavern for a room, my lord?” asked Carl, looking around. “Or for directions to an inn where we can change the horses so we can head back tonight?”

Spencer looked around, undecided. He didn’t exactly have a plan of what he wanted to do, whether to confront the owner directly or to watch and observe the building first for any clues of how Ashton could be using this business in his criminal activities.

What they needed was evidence. Joanna would need it to confront Ashton. Spencer would use it to start a criminal case.

But evidence—whether letters, notes, or witnesses—was key for both of them.

He didn’t need to wait for the owner to try to find the letters. And since there was no one in the offices of Pottinger Shipping Company, there would never be a better time to sneak in.

“No, Carl,” he said. “Do not do either of these things. Keep an eye on Miss Joanna while I try and get in.”

Joanna gasped. “You’re trying to get in? What about me?”

“It’s too dangerous for you. You should stay in the carriage.”

She gave an exasperated sigh. “I will not,” she said and marched across the road towards the building.

Spencer cursed and followed her. He looked around and pulled at the door, knowing quite well it would be locked. Which it was. He tried the windows, but they were locked, too.

“You have to break the window,” Joanna said, then leaned down and picked up a rock the size of her fist.

Spencer nodded. “Thankfully, there are not many people around.”

He took the stone from her hand, wrapped it in his coat to muffle the sound, and hit the window with it. As the pane shattered with a crack and a tinkle of falling glass, he froze, looking around. However, the street was empty and quiet, save the dockworkers and sailors two hundred feet down, their guffaws by the tavern loud.

He exchanged a look with Joanna, pushed the remnants of the glass into the offices with his elbow, and, careful not to cut himself, reached through the pane and opened the lock. He lifted the bottom sash up, lifted himself up, and climbed into the window, before falling to the floor like a sack of meat and bones.

He grunted as his thigh complained, but quickly scrambled to his feet and opened the door for Joanna from inside.

She slid through and closed the door behind her.

“I can’t see a thing. We must light a candle.”

“Yes,” he said, glancing at the stark silhouettes of desks, chairs, and bookshelves. “I don’t see a way around that.”

He found a candle lamp and a tinderbox. Striking the steel against the flint, he ignited the tinder and lit the candle. The misted glass globe of the lamp glowed comfortingly in the darkness and illuminated a reception area with a large wooden desk with ledger books, inkstands, and quills behind it on a bookshelf. To the left and to the right, two simple wooden benches ran along the walls where visitors could sit and wait. Maritime maps with shipping routes and paintings and gravures of different ships hung on the walls. A few candles in sconces hung between them. A large chalkboard with a schedule for a single ship with its cargo and dates hung next to a door behind which Spencer saw stairs leading up. It smelled like dust and mold, and faintly of sea brine. Everything seemed to be quite old and uncared for. The benches were clearly covered with dust, and the paintings of the ships as well as the wall on which they hung had the yellow and gray stains of water damage with patches of black mold.

“You look through the desk,” Joanna said. “I’ll look through the bookshelf.”

“Right,” said Spencer, and putting the lamp on the edge of the desk so that both he and Joanna could see, he began going through the three drawers. “Nothing here,” he said after a while. “I didn’t think there would be in the reception area.”

She nodded and turned to him. “Nothing here, either.”

“There must be more offices upstairs,” said Spencer. “Come on, my little thief.”

They climbed the stairs, and there were two more offices and a dining room with a round table in the middle and a worn sofa with holes. This place had the air of a struggle for survival and not a thriving business.

“Here, this may be the office of the owner,” said Joanna as she opened the door to a larger room where, indeed, several bookshelves with ledgers and books stood along one of the walls, and a desk was littered with heaps of papers, rolls, and books.

“Good,” said Spencer.

They kept working.

“The name of the owner is here,” said Joanna with her head lowered over a piece of paper. “It’s Mr. Owen Lucas Bailey Pottinger.”

“It may be helpful to have his full name,” Spencer said.

While Joanna looked through the bookshelves, Spencer first studied every paper he found on the surface of the desk, then opened every drawer. But he could see nothing except for orders, inventory lists, invoices, and captain’s logs and reports.

They must have worked for half an hour when Spencer’s shoulders sagged; he was sure he had studied every sheet of paper.

“Nothing here,” he said.

“Nothing yet,” corrected Joanna.

But just as she said that, heavy footsteps sounded from the stairs, and Spencer and Joanna looked up.

A man in his fifties stood in the doorway, with bushy white sideburns and a wooden right eye.

His eye bulged as he stared at both of them with fear and indignation. Turning around, he thumped down the stairs.

Spencer dashed down the stairs after him, his injured thigh sending sharp jolts of pain with each hurried step, but the urgency of the moment overrode his discomfort. Joanna followed closely, her light footsteps a rapid echo in the otherwise silent stairwell.

As they reached the bottom of the stairs, the man pushed open the front door and burst out into the cool night street. Spencer followed closely behind, with Joanna on his heels.

“Carl, follow him!” he cried to his coachman, who was already alert at the sound.

Carl sprinted after the man. “Yes, my lord!”

Spencer could see the man’s stooped silhouette hurrying ahead, his bushy white hair visible even in the dim light. With both of his legs healthy, Carl was gaining on him, but the older man showed surprising speed for his age.

The man turned a corner, and Spencer increased his speed, trying to catch up. But when he turned the corner, there was no sign of him, and Carl was looking around as if the man might materialize from one of the many shadows.

“Where did he go?” Joanna asked breathlessly as she caught up to him.

“I don’t know, miss,” replied Carl.

The streets of Tilbury were eerily quiet. The man could be anywhere. Pain shot through Spencer’s thigh, and he leaned against a nearby wall to catch his breath.

“We have to find him,” he said, gritting his teeth and standing up straight.

Joanna nodded. “He must have something to do with the letters.”

They searched the surrounding streets and alleys, which had also been plunged into almost complete darkness. When Spencer noticed a man leaving a house, he scared him half to death by asking if he’d seen a man with white sideburns and a wooden eye, but the man just shook his head.

It was as if he had vanished into thin air.

“Damned darkness,” Spencer muttered, running his hand through his hair. “He must know these streets like the back of his hand.”

“My lord,” said Carl, “I don’t see a thing.”

“This is pointless,” Joanna said.

“It is,” replied Spencer. “Let us go back before we get lost in this dark labyrinth. And the carriage is unprotected. Follow me.”

As they made their way through the inky streets, Carl asked, “Shall I look for an inn, after all, my lord?”

“Please do,” said Spencer. “We will not ride all the way back to London at night. And tomorrow I would like to have a word with Mr. Owen Lucas Bailey Pottinger, whom, I suspect, we were just chasing.”

Yes, Spencer did want to talk to the man, to learn whatever he could about Ashton’s dealings. But more than that, he welcomed the excuse to spend another night with his sweet Persephone.