Chapter 30

30

“Is the man here?”Nathaniel asked Harvey.

Portside was, once again, lively and bustling around him, thick with the pungent scents of sweat, ale, and the rush of anticipation. As usual for a Wednesday night, two women boxers were the main event.

The first, a fiery redhead with her hair tied back in a rough bun, bore a look of fierce determination. Her opponent, a beautiful dark-haired woman with piercing green eyes, was slightly taller and had a reach that seemed to give her an advantage. They danced around the boxing ring, their bare feet kicking up clouds of dust from the well-trodden wooden floor. Every jab, hook, and uppercut was met with roars, jeers, or gasps from the audience.

Nathaniel’s chest ached. He missed Calliope like he missed a limb. Every minute of the day he’d thought of her, wondering if she could eat, if she had nausea, if she was tired, if her nipples still hurt like she had told him they did. Her absence in the house was felt everywhere: in the empty space on the new settee in the sitting room, in the dining chair she usually used, in his bed, and even in the silence that hung over him and his sisters when they sat together as a family last night.

His sisters looked sadder. The servants walked around with seemingly no direction. The goddamn cat came into his bed and he cuddled against it, its presence like a small mercy.

The man watching his house was still there, returning every time they shooed him away, like an annoying fly.

Not for long. Hopefully.

Harvey nodded and pointed behind Nathaniel with a cup he’d been cleaning.

“He is. Only, your wife is already talkin’ to ’im.”

Nathaniel’s stomach sank. With a horrible sense of dread, he turned to where the owner pointed. Sitting at one of the round tables was Calliope, dressed in a spencer she used for road trips and in her green bonnet that made her hair such a striking red hue his heart ached. She leaned over a mug of beer, speaking with a man who looked like a proper thug.

Nathaniel didn’t think he could ever feel so furious and yet completely terrified at the same time. He had been feeling this way to varying degrees practically every day since he’d met her, and he didn’t like it, not one bit.

He marched through the room to the table, and she looked up at him, cool and collected. And so beautiful he couldn’t breathe.

He looked her up and down. The sleeves of her spencer looked a bit dusty, her curls slightly fuzzy. She was a little pale, her eyes somewhat puffy. Had she been crying?

You made her cry, you oaf.

Goddamn it!

“Are you well?” he asked.

“I am,” she said, the chill in her voice sending a shiver through him. “How’s Violet?”

“She’s fine.”

Calliope didn’t ask about him.

He could feel the thug’s frowning gaze upon him. He didn’t care.

“How did you get here?” he demanded. “When?”

“I bought a gig and a horse and hired two men who guarded me, and I drove myself here. Abigail is already on her way to Roxburgh Place.”

“Drove yourself?” His chest was so tight it felt about to burst. He pulled over a third chair and dropped himself onto it. Around them, a wall of onlookers bellowed at the boxers, shook their fists in the air, drank, and chatted. The noise was overwhelming. “Are you out of your mind?”

Calliope gave the thug a smile so charming, she could be speaking to the prince regent himself at a ball. “Forgive my husband, Mr. Rawkins. Please continue. You were saying?”

“Um…” The man looked unconvinced. “Mayhap it’s better to meet another time.”

“No,” she said and put a purse full of money on the table. “Please. It’s a matter of life and death.”

Nathaniel’s stomach was churning. His gaze darted around the crowd, looking for someone who may be watching her, someone with a knife, someone who might fall upon them and take his wife away. Hell, Mr. Rawkins could be the biggest danger.

“Calliope—” said Nathaniel and stood up. “Come. I’ll drive you home.”

“In a minute,” said Calliope without looking up at him. “We need to finish our conversation with Mr. Rawkins. He only just got to the good parts. So, you were paid by a man with a walking stick that had a handle made of walrus ivory, and it had an emblem. But you can’t remember what emblem.”

“Yea. He was one o’ them fancy blokes. Some baron or duke or summat.”

Nathaniel sat back on the chair, listening, but his eyes continued to scan the people nearby, his senses so alert he could feel every thread in the fabric of his shirt against his skin.

“But you don’t know the name?” Calliope asked.

“No.”

“And what were you asked to do, exactly?” she asked.

“Give the duke a good thump. Paid us to deck ’im and stash ’im on that ship. Thought we’d nick ’is posh rags, too. Worth a few bob, those. But one o’ the lads got big ideas, put ’em on when the rest of us was chinwaggin’. So we gave ’im what for. By the time we was tryin’ to get them clothes off ’im, we ’ad to leg it.”

So that was why a different man was buried instead of Spencer.

Nathaniel watched his wife now. He could see how nervous and excited she was underneath her perfectly collected mask of a well-bred lady. This was the most information they’d gotten in weeks. He admired how she could get Rawkins to talk, her calm demeanor not making the man nervous, even though he had harmed her brother and she could want retribution.

She was neutral. She was polite. She was attentive. She made him feel at ease and provided the right motivation—plenty of coin.

Calliope nodded. “And you’re sure the duke was still alive?”

Rawkins nodded. “Me mate checked ’im out. Bloke was still takin’ breaths. Chucked ’im in the ship’s ’old with the other lads.”

Calliope’s face went very, very pale, her lower lip trembling for a mere moment. Her eyes watered slightly, destroying Nathaniel’s reserve. He found her hand under the table and squeezed it—so cold and small. He thought she’d retrieved it from his grasp, but she squeezed back.

This information was important. Vital.

This was the first time they had heard good news.

She nodded to Rawkins and swallowed hard. “What was the name of the ship, Mr. Rawkins?”

The man took the purse from the table and tucked it into his jacket, throwing her an estimating look. The hair on the back of Nathaniel’s neck stood. He straightened his back, gently releasing Calliope’s hand, his other palm going to the dagger hidden in his right boot.

Maybe the thug had sensed her desperation. Rawkins reclined slightly, a smug expression painting his features. “Seems me memory’s a wee bit foggy. Per’aps ye can jog it, Your Grace.”

A fiery rage blazed within Nathaniel. Swiftly drawing his dagger, he slammed it into the table’s wooden surface, just inches from Rawkins’s hand. “I’ll jog that memory for you,” he snapped.

“Nathaniel, calm down,” said Calliope with a soft chuckle. She dropped a second money purse full of coin onto the table. “How’s this, Mr. Rawkins, does it scratch the itch?”

Rawkins glared at Nathaniel while his hands slowly moved to the purse to grasp it grudgingly. “Your wife is smarter than ye,” he said without taking his eyes off him, and put the purse into his coat.

“Don’t I know it,” said Nathaniel.

Rawkins looked at Calliope. “It were Concord.”

He didn’t think Calliope’s face could get any paler, but it did. She looked positively ashen. “Concord.” Her wide eyes met Nathaniel’s.

Nathaniel’s own body chilled. “Captain Dean. Bound for America.”

“This is the worst outcome,” Calliope whispered. “The French war is coming to an end, but the American is only beginning! And he’s an ocean away, Nathaniel!”