Midnight Mistress Read online

  “Reed,” an old cook mused. “My memory’s not what it used to be. Still, it seems I recall a boy by that name, who—”

  Jamie lost the rest as a bigger boy jostled him aside and took his prime spot. Jamie balled his fist to pummel the bully, then stopped when he remembered he’d promised his captain not to draw notice. Reluctantly giving up a prime fight, he worked his way through the close packed crowd until he reached Captain Gabriel’s side.

  “ ‘… and in closing, I leave him the sum of five hundred pounds, the exact amount of the regrettable circumstances between us, in hopes that he will accept it, along with my heartfelt forgiveness,’ ” the solicitor read.

  Jamie’s eyes widened. Five hundred pounds! He couldn’t imagine one man having such an amount, much less giving it away. He looked up at the captain, expecting to see the same surprise on his face. But the captain’s gaze was fixed on the lady, who looked to be crying. The captain was about to step forward when another man showed up at the lady’s side, a lord in a bottle green coat and a powdered wig, who all but enveloped Lady Juliana in an embrace. Frowning, Jamie studied the man, not liking the way he made so free with the lady’s shoulders. She don’t like it. I can tell by the way she—

  Captain Gabriel grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the room, down the hallway toward the back door.

  Jamie dragged his feet. “You said we could stay.”

  “I was wrong.” He lifted the boy and tucked him under his arm without breaking stride. “There’s nothing for us here. There never was. We were only fooling ourselves. And the sooner we get out of this world and back to our own lives, the better.”

  He opened the door, then paused and looked down the hall toward the dining room, as if he were taking a last look at a port he might never see again. Jamie thought it was mighty queer behavior, and was about to say so when a distant shriek cut him off. The next moment a dozen people poured down the narrow hallway, nearly running the two of them over in their haste to be out the door.

  The captain grabbed a hawker by his coat lapel. “What’s happened?”

  “Leave off. If I can get to Fleet Street before that palsy reporter I can sell the news for a crown easy.”

  Connor yanked him up to his tiptoes. “You’ll be in no shape to sell anything if you don’t tell me what’s going on.”

  “Didn’t you hear? He left it to the girl. The houses, the lands, the ships, everything. Except for the few hundred pounds he gave to the others, the marquis of Albany left every bleedin’ farthing of his fortune to his daughter.”

  Hortensia Jolly sat bolt upright in bed, scattering her carefully arranged pillows everywhere. “He did what?”

  The bewildered commodore patted his mother’s hand. “Now, mother, you mustn’t become agitated. The doctor—”

  “The doctor can go hang. And the marquis along with him,” she cried, her lusty voice booming through the room. She turned her withering gaze on the solicitor. “I blame you, Mr. McGregor. You Scots are supposed to be so practical. How could you allow the marquis to enact such an ill-conceived notion?”

  The solicitor appeared not at all intimidated. He retrieved a quizzing glass from one of his many pockets and met her accusing stare head on. “M’ dear lady, in this country, ’tis a body’s sovereign right to dispose of his property as he chooses.”

  “I am most certainly not your dear lady,” Mrs. Jolly fired back. “I am excessively put out with you. And with Frederick. It is so like a man. Better to leave the poor girl a pauper than to saddle her with the responsibility of managing his entire shipping empire!”

  “ ’Twas his final wish.”

  “ ’Twas his final folly! Juliana knows nothing of business, or politics, or anything to do with the world of commerce. Her father never trained her in his company—no gentleman of sense and character would, not unless he wanted his daughter to be gawked at like one of the mangy lions caged at Tower Gate. I’ll own that Frederick did not expect to pass on until long after the girl was safely wed to a suitable husband who could run the line for her, but that does not speak to the point. The fact is that he did pass on—in a most untimely and ungallant manner—leaving the poor lamb behind to deal with his thoughtlessness. She will be ridiculed by friend and foe alike. I will not stand by and see the child put through that, whatever her father’s wishes.”

  “Am I to have no say in this?” a soft voice queried. Juliana stood on the threshold of the bedchamber, like a leaf paused at the edge of a hurricane. Her eyes were dry, and remarkably clear for a girl who had been through as much turmoil as she had in the last few hours. “If you are discussing my future, I think I should be involved in the decisions.”

  “There is nothing to decide,” Mrs. Jolly stated. “Your father’s bequests, however well-meaning, are quite preposterous. They must be rectified. The estates and lands might conceivably be managed without your intervention, but the shipping fine is quite another matter. We must dissolve the company and sell off the ships at the earliest opportunity.”

  Juliana took a step across the threshold. “If father had wanted his ships sold, he would have left them to my cousin Grenville. The Marquis Line was his dream. It will not be sold to the highest bidder.”

  Mrs. Jolly was rarely surprised, but Juliana’s answer struck her momentarily speechless. “Child, think what you are saying. You know nothing of trade, much less the shipping business. Think of what happened to Lady Pease last Season, when she contemplated buying a racehorse. Only her mother’s connection to the duke of Edinburgh saved her from becoming the laughingstock of the ton.”

  “Lady Pease was a silly woman who cared nothing for horses, and would have surely made a fool of herself in some other way if not that. You told me so yourself.”

  “Yes, well, perhaps I said something to that effect, but it don’t signify. The shipping business is a good sight more complicated than a racetrack. You will have to deal with”—the matron placed her hand on her heart and gave a deep shudder—“with men of low character.”

  Juliana crossed her arms. “No lower than that of several members of the gentry I know.”

  The commodore was suddenly seized by a fit of coughing, and something suspiciously like a smile tugged at Mr. McGregor’s austere lips. Mrs. Jolly quelled both with a look. “Honestly, Juliana, you are the most headstrong of children. Is there no turning you from this course?”

  “None whatsoever.”

  Hortensia Jolly was ill used to changing direction once her course was set. She had plans for Juliana, and those plans definitely did not include her making a cake of herself in front of the entire ton. But she knew enough of Juliana’s stubborn character to realize there was little chance of dissuading the girl once her mind was made up.

  “Well, as a young woman under my protection, I insist that you take along a chaperone whenever you visit your father’s offices. Someone of stature. Someone of impeccable character. Someone like—” Her brow arched in devilish delight. “Someone like Mr. McGregor.”

  The Scotsman’s confident expression crumbled. “Me? Madam, you canna be serious. I have other clients to attend to … other responsibilities …”

  Mrs. Jolly smoothed the lines of her satin bed jacket. “Now you have one client, and one responsibility. I am sure your partners will not object—if they wish to continue representing the late marquis’s estate.”

  “But I have no experience dealing with”—McGregor bent toward Mrs. Jolly and confessed in a clandestine whisper—“with young persons of the female persuasion.”

  “Then it is high time you acquired some. You and your associates helped get Juliana into this predicament, and you can jolly well get her out of it. Besides, she will have need of your business acumen—you do have experience with that, do you not?”

  “A great deal, madam,” Mr. McGregor replied as he regained what he could of his composure. He turned stiffly to Juliana. “I’ll require a few days to set my schedule to rights. I shall call for you on—well, let’s say, Friday
next.”

  “Let’s say Wednesday next,” Mrs. Jolly interjected. “There is nothing more to say on the matter.”

  “Yes, there is,” Juliana said as she stepped forward. “I am not a child, and I do not need a nursemaid. With all due respect, Mr. McGregor, I do not need your assistance.”

  “Don’t you, lass? Are you familiar with the maritime laws, or the customs requirements in Bombay and the Burmese territory, or the tax on spirit vending, or the salt monopoly, or the—”

  “Enough!” Mrs. Jolly cried. “You can explain all that to Lady Juliana on Wednesday. I am sure it will meet with her pleasure.”

  Juliana looked as if very little about the situation met with her pleasure, but she said nothing. Instead she bowed stiffly, and with a final glance at Mr. McGregor, she left the room.

  Hortensia watched her go, noting the defiance in the girl’s eyes. Stubborn. Willful. And, though Hortensia would admit it to no one but herself, a great deal like herself at Juliana’s age. “Mr. McGregor, in addition to your chaperone duties, I wish you to write me daily to apprise me of how Lady Juliana comports herself. Take special care to note her actions and the people she associates with. Can you accomplish that?”

  The solicitor’s expression was curiously unreadable. “Your wish is my command, my dear woman.”

  “I am not—oh, blast,” Hortensia said, for McGregor had exited the room. “That rumpled Scotsman is excessively annoying.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” the commodore commented as he sat beside his mother. “I am sure Mr. McGregor will be quite helpful to Juliana.”

  “Humph. ’Tis more my hope that he shall bore her to death, and that she will tire of the whole affair before she is eaten alive by rascal sea captains and scoundrel merchants. Or before she irrevocably damages her chances at a suitable marriage.”

  Jolly scratched his chin in thought. “But Mama, don’t you think a man would value her pluck in taking on her father’s company?”

  “Only if that pluck brings with it a substantial dowry and a spotless reputation. Juliana risks both by mixing with business concerns. Let us hope that another scandal of greater proportions rises to eclipse her folly,” she added as she picked up the latest copy of the Tattler. “Let us see. Whatever is Princess Caroline up to now …?”

  Wednesday next dawned unusually bright and cheerful for a midwinter day. The weather matched Juliana’s mood as she looked out the coach window at the busy London docks. To the left were the great warehouses, the immense, splendid structures of brick and stone that had been engineered by John Rennie at the beginning of the century. Four stories tall, they towered over the narrow streets like giants, and were packed to the rafters with rice, tea, tobacco, and every other commodity that came from Britain’s far-flung kingdom. Almost everything imported into England came through this noisy, bustling city within a city. Carters and laborers swarmed like bees, moving the heavy crates and barrels that held the bounty of the world’s greatest empire.

  Juliana gripped the edge of the coach window and felt excitement bubble up in her veins. As a child, she’d spent hours gazing out the second-story window of her father’s office and made a wonderful game of guessing what mysterious treasures lay hidden inside the mountains of cargo. “Look, Meg, that’s a crate of tea from China. And that barrel is from India—do you think it holds silk and spices?”

  “Or rubies,” Meg said, catching the excitement. “Oh, Julie, the only rubies I ever saw were the paste copies in my mother’s old acting trunk. What if that barrel is stuffed with rubies?”

  “I ken more likely ’tis stuffed with rubber,” an unenthusiastic voice from the other side of the coach commented.

  Juliana turned to Mr. McGregor, whose glum expression was the only dark spot in an otherwise bright day. “It could be rubies.”

  “I dunna think so. Rubber is an easily transportable good, like sugar and salt. Rubies and other gemstones require costly protection during transport and, as they are not a necessity, they are difficult to sell. But every man in this city requires a bit of sugar and salt to season his meal. Little risk, dependable return. You’d do well to remember that, Lady Juliana.”

  “Thank you for the advice,” Juliana replied, though her voice lacked the ring of veracity. She had not been pleased when Mrs. Jolly had assigned the glum-faced solicitor as her mentor, and she liked him less with each passing moment. The man had a genius for leaching the excitement out of every circumstance. But even the dour Mr. McGregor could not entirely quench her anticipation for the adventure that lay ahead. For the first time in years she had more to look forward to than attending balls and parties and gossiping about the latest scandal. She was about to take the helm of the mighty Marquis Line, her father’s dream. And maybe, by making his dream her own, the terrible ache in her heart would begin to fade. An ache for her father, and for—

  “Connor Reed.”

  Juliana sat bolt upright. “W-what?”

  Mr. McGregor produced a handkerchief from one of his numerous pockets and gave his nose a swipe. “Connor Reed was a beneficiary who was left a considerable inheritance by your father, but who has not yet come forward. I dunno why. I put advertisements in all the newspapers, and dropped hints in the local watering holes. But not a blessed soul has come forward to claim the money. It’s a poser, and that’s the truth.”

  Not to Juliana. The Admiralty had no wish to associate their heroic privateer with his less-than-honorable former life. Even though the marquis’s will absolved Connor of any legal punishment for his larceny, the moral stain would remain. And while the peers, politicians, and power brokers who had invited Connor into their homes might sanction all manner of murder and mayhem in the kings name, they would be sorely unforgiving of a crime perpetrated against one of their own.

  In any event, it was none of her affair. “Perhaps this Reed person is out of the country. Or dead,” she added with a relishing smile. “In any event, a missing beneficiary is no concern of mine.”

  “Funny, I thought you might ken something of the fellow’s whereabouts.”

  Juliana’s smile died. She turned to the window and affected disinterest. “La, sir, what a curious thought. I never heard of the man before that afternoon.”

  McGregor produced a tin of snuff from a pocket and took a pinch. “You don’t say? Well, that’s another poser, considering your da spoke of this man thinking of him and of you. Are you certain you’ve never heard of this man?”

  Mr. McGregor’s unwavering stare threatened to drain the truth right out of her. “Perhaps I heard my father speak of this gentleman, but if I did it was long ago.”

  “Well, I couldna help seeing that you were that torn up when you heard the man’s name. Are you absolutely sure you know nothing of this man?”

  Juliana read the accusation in Mr. McGregor’s gaze. She opened her mouth, half-afraid that the whole sordid truth would come tumbling out of her, but Meg spoke first. “For shame, Mr. McGregor. Juliana had only recently learned of the death of her father. Is it not natural that she would break into tears occasionally, for no reason at all? If she says she has never heard of this Connor Reed, then I am quite certain she hasn’t.”

  Mr. McGregor settled back in his seat. “Forgive me, Lady Juliana. As I told Mrs. Jolly, I am unused to the company of young female persons. I had no wish to offend. I only wanted to ken the whereabouts of the inheritor of a sizable legacy. In any event, I shouldna have troubled ye. In a few minutes you’ll have your hands full of more problems than kenning the whereabouts of some old acquaintance of your da’s.”

  Juliana looked out at the towers of crates and boxes that covered the wharf like a movable city. Once she’d imagined them full of fabulous treasures, but McGregor had pointed out that the “treasures” were likely only ordinary and mundane commodities. She should be used to such disappointments by now. Years ago she’d discovered her “one true love” in the arms of another woman. Recently that same man had turned out to be a self-serving privateer
who did not even have enough respect for her father’s memory to acknowledge his final forgiveness.

  The joy she’d felt earlier was gone. She turned from the window and sighed. “I suppose there might be problems, Mr. McGregor. But as you said—this shipping business is really only a matter of moving crates of salt and sugar from one port to another. Truly, how difficult can that be?”

  A great deal more difficult than Juliana could have possibly imagined. When she entered her father’s offices, she stepped straight into the heart of a hurricane. Merchants and bosuns stuffed the waiting room, all demanding immediate payment of bills and wages. Frantic clerks ran from desk to desk like frightened chickens. Two of the apprentices were having a fistfight in the accounting office. Papers flew, inkwells crashed to the floor, and pandemonium reigned.

  It was all Juliana could do to calm the employees and try to solve the worst of the unpaid bills and problems. McGregor handled the legal issues, and Meg proved a gem at soothing the customers’ ruffled feathers. Still, no matter how many questions Juliana answered, bills she paid, or decisions she made, the stacks of papers on her father’s enormous mahogany desk never seemed to diminish.

  “You need this.”

  Juliana barely glanced at the cup of tea Meg offered as she continued to study the Admiralty report of reefs and shoals in the China Sea. “Not now. I must determine if I should send a shallow or deep-hulled ship on the China run this year. I’ll take some tea with my lunch.”

  “Lunch? ’Tis almost time for dinner!”

  This time Juliana did look up. The big bay window behind her father’s desk showed a sky laced with the red and orange clouds of the sinking sun. Juliana pressed her hand to her forehead and blinked in surprise. “But it cannot be so late. I have so much left to do. There are the charts to study. And the harbor taxes to assess and pay. And the cargo manifests to read and—”