Midnight Mistress Page 15

  Mrs. Jolly’s expression softened. She reached out and took Connor’s hand as a sad, delicate sorrow shadowed her eyes. “No doubt you consider me a deplorable termagant. No, do not argue. I am. But there was a time—long ago to be sure—but there was still a time when I was just as determined and headstrong as Lady Juliana. And because of my foolishness, I lost—” She glanced at her legs and closed her eyes, as if reliving a painful memory. But when she opened them again, her resolute expression was back in place.

  “If it is any consolation, I believe you are a finer man than most of the preening popinjays who call themselves gentlemen. But we live in a world of rules, boy. Not fair rules, but rules nonetheless. Juliana’s best chance of happiness lies in making an acceptable marriage. You must see that a man of your notorious reputation and uncertain future can never offer her that chance.”

  But Mrs. Jolly was wrong. There was a chance—one slim, hazard chance that he might see daylight at the end of this nightmare. But the reality was that he’d probably be dead before the year was out. He couldn’t offer Juliana a future. Hell, he could barely offer her tomorrow.

  He left the room and headed down the stairs into the night. For the second time in his life, he was leaving Juliana behind without an explanation, but he had no choice. Even if he could have extricated himself from the Admiral’s plots, even if he wasn’t killed in this endless war, even if by some miracle he could again win Juliana’s love, he could never give her any kind of happiness.

  The captain of the Absalom had indeed perished on the night his ship sank, but not from drowning. He’d died with Connor’s hands wrapped around his throat.

  “… along with seventy barrels of prime indigo. Now, as to the tea shipments—” Mr. McGregor glanced up from his ream of papers. “My lady, have ya heard a single word that I’ve said?”

  Juliana looked up from the carpet pattern she had been studying with such diligence. “Of course I have. You were speaking of the penny increase in sugar taxes.”

  “I was—five minutes ago.”

  “Oh. Yes, I remember now. You had gone on to the reports on the weather conditions in Pangopango—”

  “Ten minutes ago.” He sighed, and got up from his chair. “We can speak of this later, my lady. I can see that you have other things on your mind.”

  He lifted his gaze past Juliana’s shoulder, to the window and its view of the river, where the bannerless masts of Connor’s ship were still visible in the dying light. “I hear that Captain Gabriel sails for Lisbon with the morning tide.”

  Juliana shuffled through the papers on her desk. “I wouldn’t know. And if I did, I wouldn’t care, except that our ship the Pelican sails with him. Besides, he made no secret of the fact that he would leave someday. All he was truly interested in was making a profit.”

  “Hmm, I suppose that is why he stayed on for close to two months with no pay,” the solicitor mused. He stroked his chin and gave Juliana a canny look. “Well, I suppose we shoulda kenned it long ago. After all, he’s only a blue-water privateer, a henhearted rascal who makes easy money on convoy duty while other brave men face their deaths.”

  “That’s not true! The captain has proved his bravery a hundred times over. He ran the blockade near Malaga and delivered badly needed supplies to our Peninsula forces. He faced the French guns at Toulon and rescued two dozen wounded officers who would have surely died if he had not—” Juliana bit her lip and resumed shuffling her papers. “I am a bit fatigued, Mr. McGregor. We can resume our business in the morning.”

  Sighing, the solicitor deposited his pen into one of his many pockets. “If that is your wish, my lady. But … well, you and the captain—ya make a bonny team. It couldna hurt to speak with him before he leaves. We could go together and—”

  Juliana waved her hand indifferently. “La, sir, even with your company ’twould be unthinkable for a woman of my position to approach a man of his in anything but a business arena.”

  McGregor frowned in puzzlement. “Even though he is your employee?”

  Juliana sighed, realizing it would take time and patience to explain the complex intricacies of the social order to the solicitor. Currently she was in short supply of both.

  “The voyage to Lisbon and back will take Captain Gabriel a little over a month. By the time he returns, I intend to make the Marquis Line so successful there will be no doubt that his services are no longer needed.” She also intended to make sure she was being courted by at least three beaux by the time Connor returned. “In any event, we have a great deal of work to do in little time, and I believe the sooner we start, the better. Good afternoon, Mr. McGregor.”

  At the threshold, Mr. McGregor paused, and looked back. “You’ve a rare head for business, and no mistake. I just hope you’ve the sense to use it outside of this office as well.”

  Juliana watched him go and again reminded herself that she was doing the right thing. She would never shame herself by running after a man who had turned his back on her.

  Even if his leaving left a hole in her heart that even the wide salt sea couldn’t fill.

  “Shatterbrained,” she muttered as she turned once more to her desk. Heavens, if this kept up she’d be as useless as Meg. Her once-sensible friend couldn’t hold a rational thought in her head since she’d met her mysterious Frenchman. Grimacing, Juliana thought back to their morning conversation.

  “Honestly, Julie, you cannot imagine how brave he was. He risked his very life to save my honor. Did I tell you how fearless he was?”

  “Three times, dearest. But I’m not entirely certain his life was in danger. After all, he had a knife, while the other man—”

  “And so gallant. He walked me home, even though he might have been discovered. He must have been in disguise at the Morrow’s ball. Oh, it is too thrilling—a gentleman posing as a servant. ’Tis just like a play. Perhaps he is a nobleman running from an evil relative who seeks to kill him for his inheritance. Oh, I could not bear it if he were in such constant danger …”

  Halfway through her kipper, Juliana had suggested that Meg spend her day riding in Hyde Park with the commodore, where she might catch a glimpse of her servant/nobleman/Frenchman. The thought of enduring another day of Meg’s starry-eyed prattling over her mustachioed savior was too frightful to contemplate. After all, Juliana had a business to run, a business that required all her attention and acumen. Her annoyance had nothing to do with the fact that Meg’s lovelorn sighs grated on her nerves like a badly played violin. Nothing at all.

  Liar, her mind whispered.

  A commotion in the hallway outside brought her thoughts abruptly back on course. One of the junior clerks stuck his head around the edge of the door. Juliana picked up a quill and strove to look busy. “What is it, Mr. O’Brian?”

  “Beggin’ your pardon, miss, but it’s that merchant, Mr. Lovejoy, and he’s mad as blazes. Wants his goods off the Pelican this minute and no mistake.”

  Slowly Juliana put down her pen. Lovejoy was one of the most powerful and influential merchants in the city. He had shipped almost exclusively with her father, but since she had taken over the line she’d had the devil’s own time persuading him to continue his contract. Just two weeks ago he’d agreed to give the Marquis Line another chance, and the Lisbon-bound Pelican was his first new cargo. Or at least, it was supposed to be. “Did he give a reason?”

  “No reason. Just sputtering like a steam kettle left too long on the boil. Wants to talk to Mr. McGregor double-sharp.”

  “Mr. McGregor is not here. I will speak with him.”

  Mr. O’Brian looked sheepishly at his instep. “Well, you see—he said he don’t want to talk to you. ‘Won’t talk to any bleedin’ woman,’ if you’ll excuse the language. But I don’t think he’ll wait for Mr. McGregor. Wants his cargo off the Pelican this minute. Says he’ll call the authorities on us if we don’t do it proper quick.”

  McGregor had said she had a rare head for business. It was time she put it to use. She took a de
ep breath. “Show him in, Mr. O’Brian.”

  “Didn’t ya hear me? He won’t talk with no woman—”

  “He will—if you tell him that this woman thinks he is the lowest kind of coward for not speaking to her face to face.”

  A few minutes later, Atticus Lovejoy barreled into her office. “I ain’t no coward.”

  “Apparently I was mistaken. I apologize,” Juliana said with unruffled calm as she pointed to the chair across from her. “Please sit down.”

  Mr. Lovejoy looked skeptical, but he settled into the chair. “You might as well know right off, miss, that my mind’s made up. I want my goods off the Pelican this instant.”

  “Of course you do, and I would not dream of stopping you,” Juliana said graciously. “I only ask to know the reason. Surely that is a reasonable request?”

  Lovejoy was built like a brick house. He’d come up from nothing on the docks, and was used to dealing with men as tough as he was. This supremely unflustered woman flustered him mightily. “Well, it’s the Admiral, ain’t it?”

  “Admiral who?”

  “The spy in the admiralty. It’s all over the docks that he’s stolen a satchel of papers from the War Office. Ain’t you heard?”

  No, she hadn’t. Being a woman, she was excluded from much of the gossip that circulated on the docks. And being currently out of favor with the ton, she received no news from that quarter. For a moment she felt the lonely weight of her position—a loneliness she had never felt when Connor had been by her side. “I had heard of the spy, but not of his recent theft. I hope it is nothing too valuable.”

  “Nothing—save the whole bleedin’ plan for the Valencia campaign.”

  The region of Valencia and its well-protected harbor was one of the bloodiest battlefields in the whole Peninsula. If England’s plans fell into Napoleon’s hands, it would mean the death of countless men. Years ago on her father’s ship, they had come upon the remains of a sea battle where the French had sent a trio of fire-ships into a supposedly secret and poorly armed resupply mission. She could still remember the putrid smell of the men and animals dying from their wounds. She could still remember their screams.

  “This foul traitor must be apprehended before he delivers the papers to Napoleon. They cannot be allowed to fall into enemy hands.”

  Lovejoy rubbed his chin. “Well, ya got spirit, I’ll say that much for you. Odds are I’d still be shipping my goods with you—if Captain Gabriel hadn’t cut and run like he did.”

  Juliana’s temper flared. “He did not cut and run! The captain left my employ because he took a more profitable offer.”

  “I thought the same—until I found out he’s sailing with the convoy for nothing.”

  Juliana felt as if she’d been punched by a prizefighter. “N-nothing?”

  “Not a brass farthing. And if it weren’t for profit he left for, it had to be another reason. And what reason could there be excepting that he thinks you ain’t got the ball—well, um, that you ain’t got the ballast to run this company?”

  Juliana gripped the edge of her desk, momentarily too stunned for words. She had thought Connor had meant it when he praised her work, and said that she would have made her father proud. Now she saw that he had never thought she had a chance of managing the line. Just like everyone else.

  “… can see why I have no choice but to weigh anchor and ship my cargo with another company. I ain’t saying you’re not a good lass, or that your heart’s not in the right place. But I can’t afford to risk my cargo to a girl who don’t know the difference between a shroud and a ratline.”

  “The shrouds run vertical, the ratlines horizontal,” she muttered automatically.

  Lovejoy rubbed his chin, clearly impressed. “Well, you know your rigging. And you’ve a bold spirit. You’d have made a fine ship’s captain if you’d been born a man. My course is still set on takin’ my cargo elsewhere, but there’s still a chance we could strike a deal—specially if you were to see your way clear to reducing my costs by half.…”

  “We sail within the hour. You can’t come aboard.”

  Juliana paused on the swaying gangway of Connor’s ship. Glancing up at the top of the plank, she recognized the same tobacco-chawing brute who’d turned her away the night she’d come to the docks to apologize to Connor. In the evening twilight, the hulking tar looked even larger than she remembered. Nevertheless, she took another step up the gangway.

  “Are ya deaf? Didn’t ya hear me—”

  “I heard,” Juliana said. “And if you try to stop me I shall scream so shrilly that every constable in the city will come running. They’ll swarm this ship like wasps, and keep it in dock for hours while they sort it out. You’ll miss the tide. You’ll fall behind in your schedule. There will be dock fees, tardiness taxes, extra wages for the sailors, and overdue payments to the merchants. Is that really what you want?”

  The tar looked as if he’d swallowed his tobacco. “Blimey, the captain don’t want … now see here, you can’t do all that.”

  “Try me,” she promised. “Where is the captain?”

  “He’s in the wardroom with the mates. And he don’t want to be disturbed. I gots my orders. I gots my—”

  “Oh, to hell with this,” Juliana said, elbowing the man aside. She stormed down the deck, ignoring the stunned looks of the hard-bitten sailors as she made her way to the lower deck. Pausing for just a moment, she caught the sounds of voices coming from the wardroom. Connor. And the bastard was laughing! Her anger renewed, she thrust open the door and barreled in. “How dare you? How dare—”

  Her words died as she caught sight of him. Since he’d come to London he’d dressed like proper gentlemen, but on his ship Connor clearly tossed those conventions aside. Bent intently over his charts, his ragged hair untamed by a queue and falling loose across his forehead, he wore a pair of worn leather breeches, plain high boots that had not seen polish in a year—and nothing else.

  He straightened slowly, his intense gaze pinning her like a butterfly on a child’s display board. “Gentlemen … it appears we must continue this discussion later.”

  Juliana was only vaguely aware of the men who slipped out the door behind her. She drank in the sight of Connor’s chiseled face, his bright hair, the poorly healed scar that had wounded so much more than his cheek. She swallowed, realizing too late just how desperately she’d missed seeing him this past week. Of course, she hadn’t counted on seeing quite this much of him.…

  With an almost deliberate slowness, he turned his back to her and pulled down a linen shirt hung on a nearby peg. “What are you doing here?”

  For a several seconds she couldn’t remember. The sight of his muscles rippling across his broad, tanned back drove the thoughts from her head and the air from her lungs. He’s beautiful, she thought with an astonished wonder. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen him without a shirt. But the powerful, hard-muscled man who casually tucked his shirt into his belt was very different from the boy she remembered … just as the innocent adoration she’d felt for him as a child was far different from the not-so-innocent heat that thrummed in her center.

  With his back still to her he demanded, “Well, have you lost your tongue along with all regard for your reputation?”

  “Reputation?” Juliana’s temper flared. “You are a fine one to talk about my reputation. I just spent the better part of an hour talking that miser Lovejoy into leaving his cargo on the Pelican—for three-quarters the normal rate. And I was lucky to get that. He said that you left my employ because you had lost faith in me—that you were so desperate to leave that you took this job of convoy guard duty for nothing. Is it true?”

  Connor’s hand stilled. “I never lost faith in you. That’s not … why I was desperate to leave.”

  “Then why?” she cried. “For once in your life deal honestly with me. I believed in you. I thought you believed in me. You made me see that there might be a future for me beyond the social whirl and a carefully arranged mar—” She
bit her lip, and tried valiantly to retain her composure. “But it was all a lie, wasn’t it? Your praises, your encouragement—all cruel, heartless lies.”

  “That’s not true!” He strode across the room and took her shoulders in an almost punishing grip. “No owner could have done better for the line—not even your father. I never lied to you about that.”

  “Then why did you leave me?”

  His eyes pierced her with hypnotic intensity, like a hawk searching for prey. His gaze absorbed her, driving the thoughts from her mind and the air from her lungs. His hastily tucked-in shirt gaped open, revealing far more of his powerful chest and its dusting of tight blond curls than decency prescribed. The narrow room made her overwhelmingly aware of his size, of his strength, of the way his sun-colored hair fell rakishly across his brow. But most of all she felt his power—the raw, barely restrained energy that seethed beneath his stone-hard expression.

  Childhood memories and his gentleman’s veneer had given her a false sense of security and made her forget his notorious reputation as a privateer. But she remembered the time in the hallway in the Morrow house when she’d realized that his big hands could have easily broken her ankle in two. She recalled the time in Jolly’s office when his ruthlessly carnal caress had threatened to break much more than her ankle. Connor Reed was a dangerous man. And yet she still saw the shadow of the boy she’d loved … would always love—

  He released her with a suddenness that made her stagger. ’Tis the tide, she thought as she steadied herself against the captain’s table. It must be the tide.

  “Do not trouble yourself about Lovejoy,” Connor said as he moved to the cabinet and poured himself a glass of whiskey. “I will write him from Lisbon, and assure him that I have the utmost faith in you and the Marquis Line.”

  “A … letter?” Juliana breathed, still feeling unaccountably weak. “Why a letter? Why not see him when you return?”

  Connor rolled the glass in his hand, then he threw back his head and downed it in a single swallow. “I am not coming back. After Lisbon I make for Gibraltar. By this time next month I shall be with the fleet in the Mediterranean.”