Midnight Mistress Read online

  “Well, you shall have to read them over tomorrow. You look exhausted, my dear.”

  Juliana rose from the desk and stood by the second-story window, staring at the play of copper light on the gently moving Thames. “ ’Tis odd, but I do not feel at all the same girl that I was when I walked in here this morning.”

  “Nor do I,” Meg admitted as she took a gulp of the unclaimed tea. “In truth, I have not worked so hard since I handled the props in a production of The Duke’s Revenge, which had seven scene changes in four acts. I must admit that I shall be glad to see the back of this place. It has been a tumultuous day.”

  It had indeed been a tumultuous day—far more hectic than Juliana had expected. And yet, she felt exhilarated. As if she had just taken a bracing tonic. Or walked a country mile. Or—

  Or been kissed by Connor Reed in the moonlight.

  “Julie, you should sit down. You are growing pale.”

  “ ’Tis nothing,” she replied hastily. It was true enough. Connor Reed was nothing to her now. “In any event, we have done well for our first day, and I think we deserve a celebration. Mrs. Jolly and the commodore will no doubt agree. And”—she paused as Mr. McGregor entered the office, his nose buried in a stack of papers—“I say, Mr. McGregor. Meg and I would be pleased if you could join us for dinner tonight. We are going to celebrate the success of my first day at the helm of the Marquis Line.”

  The Scotsman glanced at the pages he held and lifted an eyebrow. “Well, there’s some who might consider it a success. You lost only a thousand pounds.”

  Juliana’s smile crumbled. “A th-thousand? But how is that possible? We worked so hard.”

  “Hard work isn’t enough, lass. We lost the contracts for Lovejoy and Sons and half a dozen other merchants. They are—well, beggin’ your pardon, my lady, but they’re not falling over themselves to trust their cargo to a green girl.”

  “But they have not given me a chance. ’Tis not fair!”

  “They aren’t interested in fairness, just profits.” McGregor stuffed the papers into one of his pockets. “Your da had a history of success in the shipping business, but not you. They’re skittish as new colts. In time they might grow to trust you, but till they do, I recommend that you hire a manager. Someone experienced—and male—who could persuade the merchants that the Marquis Line is still sound as a pound.”

  Juliana lifted her chin. “My father entrusted his company to me, not some unknown manager. He had faith in me.”

  “He did. But the merchants do not. You need a manager, lass. And, if you don’t take offense to the suggestion, you should find someone proper quick. You’ve a large fortune, but even the regent himself couldna afford to lose money at this clip.”

  After the solicitor left, Juliana sank into her father’s chair and put her head in her hands. “A thousand pounds lost! After we worked so hard. And now McGregor tells me I have to hire some glorified nursemaid to run the company—my company—or risk losing it.”

  Meg patted her shoulder. “ ’Tis only for a little while, until the merchants learn to trust you. Why not ask the commodore to step in?”

  “Meg, Jolly is a dear man, but he knows nothing of business, and only slightly more of the sea. No, it must be someone of true authority, not just a token appointment. And I haven’t the first idea of who.” She looked up and gave her friend a courageous smile. “Well, there is one good thing. At least we know that nothing else can go wrong.”

  The words had not sooner left her mouth than the door to her office flew open and Captain Blue barreled in. “You got to talk to ’em, Miss Juliana. The other captains. They’re refusing to sail for a woman!”

  The dozen or so captains of the Marquis Line who were in port had assembled in a semicircle on the steps of the Marquis building. Some of them held torches to fend off the deepening twilight. Beyond the captains stood a growing crowd of midshipmen, masters, bosuns, laborers, fishmongers, and nearly every curiosity seeker in the vicinity. Enterprising hawkers were selling buns and hot chestnuts to the crowd. Blacklegs were taking bets on the outcome of the confrontation. And in the back of the crowd, concealed by the shadows of one of the brick warehouses, stood a man in an expensive coat who watched the proceedings with glee.

  The boisterous rabble fell to a hush as Juliana stepped onto the stairs. Half the crowd had not expected her to appear at all. Most of the others thought she would dissolve into womanly vapors. Instead, she stood with her head held high, and calmly surveyed the brawny men in front of her. Outwardly she looked like a queen perusing her court.

  Inwardly she was frightened to the edge of her wits.

  Of all the things that had gone wrong during the day, this was by far the worst. Only a handful of the assembled captains knew her from the old days. The rest were new blood hired as the Marquis Line expanded. But except for Tommy, that handful could not be counted on for support. They remembered her as a gangly girl—certainly not someone fit to run a worldwide business concern.

  If these captains refused to sail for a woman, she could try to recruit others. But sailors worth their salt were hard to come by, and it was likely that she’d face the same prejudice from any other men that she tried to hire. The Marquis ships would lie useless in the harbor with rotting cargoes and missed deliveries. Her father’s company would die a slow and ignoble death. Juliana’s only chance lay in convincing the captains that she could run the shipping empire as well as any man.

  After losing a thousand pounds in one day, Juliana found it difficult to believe in herself, much less convince others to believe in her.

  Counterfeiting confidence, she laced her hands together smartly and lifted her chin an inch higher. “Who speaks for you?”

  The captains looked among themselves, clearly unprepared for her tone of command. They respected power, Juliana noted silently That might be her one true weapon. Showing no quarter, she took another step forward. “Come, I do not have all night. Who speaks for you?”

  At the urging of the others, a tall man with a thick neck and a thicker frown stepped forward. “I’m Howick, Miss. Of the Alexander.”

  Juliana recognized the name of her father’s fastest schooner, one which she’d heard him talk of many times. “Does she still list to starboard in a brisk headwind?”

  Howick blinked in surprise. “That she do, miss. In fact, it weren’t just last week that she—” He stopped as another man behind him jostled his elbow. “Uh, that ain’t the point. Me and the others—we come to say that we won’t be sailing for no woman. Meaning no disrespect, but—”

  “No disrespect?” Tommy Blue cried as he stormed past Juliana. “You lily-livered son of a barnacled boil, how can you say you mean her no disrespect? Ya mean her every disrespect, and if her da were here he’d—”

  “But he ain’t here!” Howick fired back. “ ’Tis all right for you, Tommy. You’ve been with the line longer than any of us, and ya got no family to worry over. But I got a wife and two bairns, and I’ll not have them widowed and orphaned before their time. I signed up to sail for a man, not a maid.”

  Juliana drew herself to her full height. “It makes no difference that I am a woman.”

  Coarse laughter sounded from the crowd gathered to the right of the steps. “Lift up your skirts, darlin’, and we’ll show ye the diff—”

  The heckler’s insult ended abruptly. Juliana peered into the crowd, wondering what had suddenly silenced him, but the gloom of twilight and the evening fog rolling in from the Thames made it impossible to see. In any case, she could ill afford to squander attention on anything but the matter at hand. She turned her attention back to the captains and opened her mouth to speak, but stopped as Mr. McGregor stepped unexpectedly to her side.

  “I know that you men are suspicious of having a woman in control of your destinies. I had my doubts too. But after working with Lady Juliana, I can tell you for a fact that she’s got what it takes to make this line a success. She’s got a remarkably unfeminine head on her shoulders,
and she can make a decision as good as any man. Now, I know that lass doesn’t know the business, but she knows the difference between a ratline and a gridline—and there’s few owners that can say the same. Young as she is, I believe she will make a proper adequate owner for the Marquis Line.”

  “Proper adequate” may not have been the most flowery compliment Juliana had ever received, but from the circumspect solicitor it was high praise indeed. She reached out and gave the man’s hand an appreciative squeeze, then glanced back at the assembled captains. McGregor and the others were whispering among themselves, clearly unsure of their course. Juliana sensed the tide was beginning to turn her way.

  “You’ll all be wrecked by summer.”

  The oily words oozed from the darkness beyond the left side of the steps, in the shadows of the warehouses where few people had gathered. Juliana bristled. She’d heard the voice before, though she could not precisely remember where. “Nonsense. I would never jeopardize the lives of these men. I am perfectly capable—”

  “Capable of going to balls and nobby parties. Capable of wearing fancy gowns, eatin’ fine food, and diddlin’ with a randy lord or two. But d’ya think she’ll give a damn that you’re overloaded with cargo on the Lisbon run with Boney’s ships shootin’ down your arse?”

  “You have no right to accuse me of such immodest and reckless behavior. And you are a coward for making such spurious claims while hiding in the shadows.”

  “Seems as I remember you hiding in the shadows not long past.” A man stepped out of the fog with a smile that chilled her blood. “Know your dreams, don’t I, dearie?”

  “Sikes,” Juliana muttered weakly. All too clearly she recalled the scandalous things the man had whispered into her ear at the Bell. All too clearly she recalled how avidly she’d listened. “You have … no business with me.”

  His oily smile deepened. “Don’t I now? Made you a promise, I did.”

  He’d promised revenge for Connor’s throttling. Now she realized how wrong she’d been to disregard the threat. She would lay odds that Sikes was behind the captains’ dissatisfaction, a belief strengthened by the lack of surprise on Captain Howich’s countenance. Like the serpent in the Garden of Eden, Sikes had whispered into the captain’s ear—just as he had whispered in hers.

  She turned back to Captain Howick. “I am the daughter of the marquis of Albany. I have wealth, position, and an irreproachable character. Whatever insinuations this … person has made, I assure you my reputation is spotless.”

  Sikes smirked. “Spotless, is it? Then how do you explain your visit to the Bell not three weeks past, to make a secret assignation with your lover?”

  The crowd gasped as one. Mr. McGregor barely restrained Tommy from charging Sikes. Juliana paled. “That is not true. He isn’t—”

  Her words died. If she denied going to the Bell, Sikes could produce witnesses to say that she had. If she tried to explain that she was meeting an old friend, not a lover, she would betray Connor’s past. Whatever she said, she’d appear to be the loose-moraled lady Sikes made her out to be.

  Whatever she said, Sikes won.

  She faced Captain Howick. “I will not lie to you. I have met this man, and under circumstances that might appear less than favorable to my character. To say more would be to betray the confidence of a … a friend. But it was not as this man makes it out to be.” She looked out over the crowd, searching for a friendly face. But all she saw were the curious and the disbelieving. “Whatever you believe of me, know this. The Marquis Line is the last thing I have of my father, I watched it grow from a handful of ships to a mighty fleet.

  “I know the treacheries of the low waters of the Giant’s Causeway off the north Irish coast. I’ve weathered squalls off the Cape St. Roque in Brazil, and welcomed the site of the green jalousies of Bridgetown, Barbados, after long months at sea. I know the wheel of stars, the fickle moon-tides, and the way the sun turns the water to living diamonds in the South Seas. I love the sea, and I love the Marquis Line. I ask only for a chance to prove it.”

  No one said a word. Even the hecklers in the crowd had fallen silent. Howick and the other captains shifted on their feet, not meeting her gaze. I’ve lost, Juliana thought. The Marquis Line would die, along with her one chance to make something of her life. Her father’s beautiful ships would be sold to the highest bidder. And eventually, so would she …

  “God’s teeth, you are the sorriest bunch of jack tars I’ve ever seen!”

  A man vaulted onto the steps. He stood away from the torches, his identity concealed by a heavy black cape and slouch hat. But Juliana would have known his voice among a thousand men.

  Connor!

  Juliana’s head spun. Her first thought was that Connor risked too much—his popularity with the ton would be ruined if one of the captains who had been with the line from the beginning recognized him as the man who’d stolen from her father. The next was a giddy, heart-stopping thrill that he’d risked so much to save her.

  He strode across the steps, keeping just on the edge of the torchlight. “You call yourselves captains, yet you listen to a sharp who wouldn’t fool a child. ’Tis a wonder you all haven’t sold your ships for glass beads and trinkets!”

  “Watch yourself, boyo,” Howick cautioned. “This is none of your affair.”

  “Justice is every man’s affair. You believe the worst of this lady without a shred of real evidence. And you believe she cannot run a business simply because she is a woman.”

  “Well, she is a woman,” one of the captains pointed out.

  “That’s hardly a crime. I have it on good authority that some of your mothers were women.”

  Laughter rippled through the crowd, but it quickly died as Sikes moved forward. For the briefest instant, his glance darted to the steps behind Juliana, then his gaze focused once more on Connor. “Clever words can’t change the truth, and the truth is that this lady had a lover’s rendezvous with a man at the Bell.”

  “I know she met a man at the Bell, but it was not a lover’s rendezvous. I know … because I was that man.”

  He pulled off his hat. Juliana gave a strangled cry. He’d publicly revealed his identity to save her. Oh, Connor, you brave, wonderful fool—

  Her thoughts died as she realized her fears were unfounded.

  “Mon Dieu, it is Captain Gabriel!”

  “Archangel!”

  The isolated shouts gathered momentum until the whole crowd cheered in one voice for their hero. Juliana stared at the scene, stunned at once by “Captain Gabriel’s” mastery in gaining the support of the entire assembly and by the fact that no one seemed to recognize him as the former Connor Reed. True, most of the captains had been hired on after he’d left for the Navy, but surely Tommy Blue would know him. But the face of the Marquis Line’s longest serving captain held the same blank astonishment as everyone else’s. Puzzled, Juliana turned toward Connor. And in that instant she saw him as the others did.

  Standing above the crowd and silhouetted by the torches, his shadowed figure seemed larger than life. The flickering light turned his hair to a fiery halo, while his black cloak and the silver fog swirled around him like a sorcerer’s spell. He stood with his legs apart and his fists on his hips, radiating power and ruthless strength. Juliana stared, mesmerized along with the rest of the crowd. His cold, hooded eyes surveyed the crowd with the indifference of an all-powerful god. It was small wonder that no one recognized him. He was not the Connor she had once known.

  He hardly seemed human at all.

  She was so stunned that at first she didn’t realize he was speaking.

  “… find out about her father. She thought I might know how his ship had fared in the Caribbean storms. I had no news to give her at the time. Though, sadly, a few hours later I learned his fate.”

  It was a lie, told with impressive ease. The crowd quieted. The captains bowed their heads in respect. Connor waited a calculated heartbeat before continuing.

  “This lady’s on
ly crime was loving her father. She deserves your support, not your censure. Most of you here knew the marquis, and you knew he was a brave and fair man. If he chose his daughter to run his company, does she not deserve a chance to prove her worth? We are Englishmen, privileged to live in the greatest country in the entire world. Does not every person in this great empire deserve a chance to prove their worth?”

  “Aye!” the crowd cried with patriotic zeal.

  A few minutes ago Juliana had been on the verge of losing everything. Now, she watched Howick and the captains huddle again, but the grins they sent her way told her what their decision would be. The Marquis Line was saved. And the man she had to thank for it was heading toward the base of the steps, leaving without so much as a glance in her direction.

  “Con—um, Captain!” Juliana hitched up her skirt and ran with unladylike alacrity to his side. “I just wanted—” she began breathlessly. “I mean, I do not know why you … that is, you were wonderfully gallant, and I wanted you to know how much I appreciate your regard.”

  Connor lifted his gaze and gave her a burning look. “I did it for your father, not for you. Never you.” And without another word he slipped into the fog and was swallowed up by the night.

  The crowd surged around Juliana. Howick doffed his hat and promised the captains’ support. An unknown woman who was built like a barge gave her a thump on the shoulders and said, “That’s tellin’ ’em, dearie.” Tommy Blue pumped her hand. Meg’s smile blazed brighter than the torches. Sikes had slunk off into the darkness like the rat he was. Everywhere she turned Juliana met with smiles of congratulations from the gently bred and the lowborn alike. It was a victory on all fronts, but inside she felt hollow, with the same words echoing over and over inside her. Not for you. Never you.

  “Lady Juliana, you comported yourself like a … well, like a Scotsman,” Mr. McGregor commented with his usual lack of aplomb. “And I thought that captain lad did a right fine job, too.” He produced a charcoal and scrap of paper out of his rumpled coat. “What was his name again?”