“You presume I have a choice,” he said. “Good night, Miss Spencer. Rest well.”
With that he disappeared into his cabin, shutting the door firmly behind him.
SOMEWHERE AT THE END OF A long line of hazy gray days, Nicholas woke at the first touch of shell-pink morning light, the devil’s own hammers at work inside his skull. Bloody rum. Bloody dead captain hiding the bloody bottle in a place Nicholas could bloody well find in a moment he needed to numb his nerves. Good ideas had in the dark, he thought with a groan, were generally best left there.
The call of sighted land was repeated as he rubbed his face. His legs were the last part of him to realize that sleep was over, prickling painfully as he shifted. He swore as his knees connected with solid wood—his berth.
He slid along the berth’s padding until he was sitting with his back against solid wood, his legs mostly stretched out in front of him. Above him, the ship’s replacement bell sounded, signaling the morning watch. Nicholas swallowed to ease the dryness of his mouth and stared up at the low ceiling overhead, listening to the footsteps and calls above him on the deck.
Land meant their ten-day voyage back to the colonies was over. In a matter of hours, he would come face-to-face with the man who’d attempted to destroy him.
He unfolded his long legs, stretching, and clenched his teeth against the cold air swirling around him. He dressed quickly, and had nearly finished shaving when Jack brought in his coffee and porridge. Chase appeared just as the boy was on his way out, filling the doorway with his broad shoulders and a storm cloud of anxiety.
“It’s an hour to Oyster Bay,” he said, shutting the door behind him. “Tell me once and for all that you’re certain about this madness.”
Rather than risk bringing the young ladies into New York Harbor on a captured British merchantman, Nicholas had made preparations with Ironwood to bring them ashore near Oyster Bay, off of Long Island Sound, where they would be met by a carriage. Nicholas remembered enough of this conflict’s future to know that, by this day, the twenty-first of September, the British would already be in control of the city and its harbor. Wren had been right about this: if caught with a captured British ship, he and his prize crew would be tried as pirates, and—worse yet—traitors.
“I’m certain,” Nicholas said, straightening his jacket. “Do you foresee any problems bringing the Ardent into New London without me?”
“I think we’ll manage the feat, but however will I keep a dry eye knowing you’re gone?” Chase said dryly.
It had been his sole condition—that the Ardent, its captured cargo, and his crew be kept well out of the way of trouble, and brought directly to the Lowes in Connecticut. Cyrus Ironwood, however, had demanded that Nicholas escort the girls into Manhattan, where he had taken up temporary residence. He had refused to meet them out on Long Island, or even in Connecticut, where they might have avoided the British altogether. As always, the sun rose and set on Ironwood’s expectations, and any complications in bringing Sophia and Etta to him would be up to Nicholas to solve.
They had less than a day now to meet Cyrus Ironwood’s firm arrival deadline; there simply wasn’t time for complications, not with so much pay at stake.
“Will you see to it that our two passengers are ready to depart?” Nicholas asked. “I’d like to make one last inspection of the ship and crew.”
“Miss Etta Spencer has been up for nearly two hours,” Chase said with a chuckle. “Said she sensed we were close and was too eager to sleep. Sensed it! Personally, I think she saw one last opportunity for some freedom from her sister.”
As Nicholas suspected, Sophia had taken a turn for the better and was alert enough to terrorize her “sister” with her constant, domineering presence for the rest of the voyage. Nicholas had given up counting the number of times he had come across Etta hiding somewhere in the galley or forecastle, playing a game of cards with Jack and the other boys, only to have Sophia swoop down in a swirl of silk and linen and snatch her away. In all of ten days, he’d managed to steal only four words. It left his stomach sour and his mind ill at ease.
He glanced back at the table, and at the violin and bow resting atop the pile of charts. He’d found it the night after the fateful dinner, stowed inside a cabinet, and had left it out in the hope…on the off chance she might change her mind and seek it out.
Chase cleared his throat. “Before you make for shore, if I may be so bold, my dear friend—”
“You may not, but you will,” Nicholas replied.
“I know you’ve struggled to find a moment alone, and perhaps I should not have interrupted that first night, but I should hope it’s as obvious to you that the girl has paid special mind to you—”
“She’s a charming creature, and she’s interested in the business of sailing,” Nicholas said quickly. “She has paid special mind to everyone present, yourself included—”
“I’m not finished,” Chase cut him off. “I was not implying anything improper. I wanted to ask if you remembered Hall’s wife, Anne—what he said of her?”
“I only remember what happened when she passed,” he lied. A long year, in which they had chased Hall from tavern to tavern and hadn’t spent a single day on a ship. He’d had no idea a man so large and powerful, who’d fought and survived a thousand battles, could be broken into so many pieces when his lady took ill.
“Liar,” Chase said, not unkindly. “He said he’d never remarry, because he’d never find another lady that fit so neatly at his side. He called her his equal in spirit.”
Nicholas’s hands smoothed over his sleeves, trying to formulate his argument. Anne had been one of the sweetest ladies the world was ever likely to see. She’d cared for both of the boys as if they were her own, and had never questioned the way Hall had brought them home, one at a time, like the strays they were. She was the pearl to the captain’s rough, wild reef.
He couldn’t let his friend finish. Put the hopeful thought into the world. It would grow into something that would only crush him in the end. “She’s not for me.”
“I think she is,” Chase insisted. “Yet you can’t see it.”
“What I see is that there’s no future there, even if the lady were amenable.” The words were sour in his mouth. “What do you expect, for me to marry her? The match is forbidden by law.”
“You’ve never let expectations rule your life before. Why start with something as important as this?”
Nicholas didn’t want to puzzle it out and arrive at the conclusion he’d feared all along. It was better to stand aside from it, not to invest any more precious thought in the matter. Besides, it assumed too much…like the feelings of the lady in question.
“Fine,” Chase said gruffly. “I’ll tell the others that you’ve laid no claim.”
Nicholas’s eyes narrowed. “What the devil do you mean?”
“Half the men worship at her feet; the other half have already proposed marriage, including young Jack, who has sworn to his dear ‘miss’ that he’ll be true if she’ll only wait a few more years for him.”
“Unrepentant rascal.” A rumbling irritation rolled through him as he reached down, running a finger along the violin’s curved body. “Have they been untoward?”
“Not in the least,” Chase laughed. “They like her fine, though—enough to want her to stay.”
And for that reason alone, Nicholas was grateful that this short voyage was at an end.
HIS REMAINING TIME ON THE ARDENT ESCAPED HIM LIKE WIND passing through his fingers. Much sooner than he might have liked, Nicholas found himself surveying the emerald tufts of distant trees along the shoreline. They faded in and out of his sight with the slow rolling fog, giving him the uneasy sense that the pale, misty air was breathing around his shoulders. The scent of damp earth wove itself through the smell of the sea, settling heavy in his lungs.
Etta wore a gown of deep blue, and the color reminded him of midnight, the winter seas, as if it had been meant specifically to draw his eye,
to speak to the devil in him. He stood beside Chase on the deck, watching as the crew passed her around to say their farewells. It was near impossible to fight against the pull of her tide, but he forced himself to, turning to face his friend more fully.
“I’ll meet you in port in a week’s time,” he said. “Make sure the agent is fully apprised of the fact that Wren is hostile. Likely he won’t cooperate in dealings with the prize court.”
“Understood,” Chase said, clasping his shoulder. “Send word if you’re delayed.”
“I won’t be,” Nicholas said. His friend’s look told him Chase wasn’t nearly as confident.
The jolly boat, one of the ship’s small rowboats, was lowered; Nicholas would have preferred the stability of a longboat, as well as the help of the additional hands required to man it, but this would suit them fine—it wasn’t so long of a distance for him to row alone, and both had transferred their few possessions to bags he’d sewn from excess sail, rather than haul their trunks.
Once Nicholas was situated, the girls began their careful descent into the jolly boat. Sophia looked ready to spit on him should he try to help, but he did reach up and grip Etta by the waist as she stepped down, bracing his legs against the pitch and bob of the boat. He felt where she had held on to his shoulders long after he sat down and picked up the oars.
Nicholas looked back up to wave a farewell to the crew just as Chase leaned down and whispered something in Jack’s ear.
The boy brightened, whispered something back, and jumped up onto the rail.
“How ’bout a kiss, hey?” Jack shouted down.
Etta laughed and obliged, blowing a kiss. With one last dry look up to a guffawing Chase, Nicholas drew the oars back and began the first long stroke. A good burn coursed through his stiff muscles as he eased into the steady motion. He kept his mouth shut as he rowed, even as Sophia grumbled, “Can’t you go any faster?”
The mist began to burn away as the sun rose higher. Birds called from where they hovered above the water, and he didn’t mind in the slightest when the sweat soaked through his shirt, not when there was fresh, cool air in his lungs. Sophia closed her eyes, drumming her fingers against the sack in her lap impatiently. Etta fixed on a point past Nicholas’s shoulder. He craned his neck and followed her gaze toward the dark outline of the trees lining this deserted stretch of beach.
Nicholas had read Cyrus Ironwood’s description of the meeting spot to Flitch, and they’d worked to match it to the coastal charts and maps. But he didn’t feel confident they’d done a good job until Etta said, “I think I see a light.”
Nicholas saw it now, too. A lantern cast a faint glow into the gloom that clung to the rocky beach, and as they grew closer, the dark form behind it took shape. Nicholas drew the oars in, letting the tide do the bulk of the work, until the bottom of the jolly boat struck sand. He jumped out, splashed into the cold water, and dragged the boat ashore.
Before he could reach in to steady her as she stepped out, to warn her about the strange hollow feeling that crawled up your legs as they settled themselves to the stillness of land, Sophia had jumped out and crumpled on the loose sand.
It was manners, the legacy of the saintly Anne Hall, that made Nicholas reach down and offer her a hand. The expression on Sophia’s face, the flush of embarrassment, made her look like the young woman she was, not the wasp she insisted on being. For a moment, he might have even detected what Julian had once found appealing.
But then he saw her remember who he was.
What he had done.
Her face went as hard as flint, and her fingers curled in the sand as if she might throw a handful of it into his eyes. When she stood again, it was by her own strength.
Etta placed a hand on his shoulder to steady herself as she stepped out of the belly of the boat. Together they watched Sophia stagger toward the waiting coach and driver.
He ought to tell her that there were yet more rules about touching, about the propriety this century demanded.
But…perhaps not yet.
“If you can believe it, that’s actually an improvement in her mood,” Etta whispered. “This morning she threw half of her trunk at me when I came in to wake her up.”
“Ah, the Ironwood charm,” Nicholas said. “I suppose she then made you pick it all up for her as well?”
“Actually, I threw the water from the basin on her to cool her off.” A dark look passed over Etta’s face as they watched the carriage rock with the force of Sophia’s entry. “Should have grabbed the chamber pot instead.”
He barked out a sharp, surprised laugh.
“Thank you for showing that measure of restraint,” he said, still struggling with his smile. “I wish I could say that you’ll have a more welcome reception when you meet Cyrus Ironwood. But be warned—if he scents fear in you, he’ll take particular delight in tearing you to pieces.”
Etta set her shoulders back, starting ahead of him up the hill.
“Well, you’ll have nothing to be afraid of,” she told him, a little smile on her face. “Because I’ll be with you.”
Nicholas shut his eyes, and took in one last breath of the sea-kissed air.
If only that would be enough.
THE SMOKE ROSE TO GREET them miles before they reached the Brooklyn Ferry.
“What is that?” Etta asked Nicholas. “Some kind of battle?”
He seemed just as perplexed as she was, following her gaze out of the window to where black plumes were streaming into the darkening sky.
“That’s your cue,” Etta told Sophia. “Any time you want to elaborate on what that terrifying thing in the distance is, that would be great.”
Sophia studied her fingernails.
“Withholding information endangers all of us,” Nicholas reminded her. “I can’t protect you if I don’t know what’s ahead.”
She dropped her hands back into her lap with a look of exasperation. “Fine. It’s the fire—it’s been burning since this morning. The ‘Great Fire of New York.’ You would know that, if you’d actually paid attention to any of your training.”
“If I’d received any training aside from how not to be killed, how to avoid sharing our secret, and how Julian wanted his cravat tied, I might have been able to retain it,” he fired back.
In the midst of the thunderous charge sparking between them, Etta blinked, trying to remember if she’d ever read or learned about this.
“What caught fire?” she asked. To kick up that much smoke, it would have to be enormous.
“The entire west side of the city,” Sophia said, after another dragging silence. “From what I remember, it broke out this morning—the twenty-first of September. It’s probably burned through the quarter by now.”
Not for the first time, Etta thought about how strange it must be for the Ironwoods to live outside of the normal flow of time, to know everything that came before them and nearly everything that would happen, up to a certain point, after. It must have made it much easier to invest their money, choose their homes, and pick their battles for the benefit of the family. “What started it?”
“It depends on who you ask—the British seem to think it was one of Washington’s spies. That some mongrel set it when the army was forced to flee the city.”
Nearly everything seemed to be made of wood in this time period—all it would take was a single spark. Etta rubbed at her forehead, glancing at Nicholas. He’d untied his neck cloth and let it hang over his shoulders, his shirt parted at the front to reveal a span of warm skin. His clothes were well-worn, rumpled from days of work and travel, and he seemed unbothered by it even as Sophia fussed with her gown and beat the road dust from the skirt. She had patted on more perfume of some kind, but Etta focused on the scent of him—it was cool breezes and sunshine and rum.
While Sophia’s anxiety was manifesting in the way she kept folding and unfolding her hands in her lap, and in the impatient jumping of her legs under her skirt, Nicholas seemed to be retreating inside himself. The w
orry she’d seen on his face when they’d come ashore felt very different from this; there had been some anger knotted into his exasperation for Ironwood, when he’d warned her. His finger was currently worrying his upper lip; his gaze was cast out over the landscape rolling by, but he didn’t seem to be focusing on any one thing.
Etta thought that Nicholas could likely count the things that unnerved him on one hand, maybe even one finger. He could manage Sophia, and he seemed prepared for Ironwood; so, then, what was left to put such ice in his expression?
Rather than sit in the unbearable silence of not knowing, she asked, “Did you get to see New York before the fire?”
Idiot question. She knew he’d been to New York; that he’d even lived there for a time. Jack had told her as much during her fact-finding mission.
It was amazing how small you could feel when someone wouldn’t so much as look at you. For a second, Etta was sure he wasn’t going to answer at all, just keep his gaze fixed out of the window. Then, she got a single word: “Once.”
“What did you think of it?” Etta pressed, focusing on her irritation, so she wouldn’t have to acknowledge the creeping feeling of being hurt.
“Filthy.”
To her surprise, Sophia said, “The only point on which we agree. They throw the slop and garbage out into the streets hoping the animals and vermin will eat it, and whatever’s left washes out to the rivers with the rain. You can smell the city for miles before it comes into view. Fire smoke will only improve it.”
Here was the truth about the past, as Etta was coming to realize: it was startlingly quiet at times, the pace of life moved slower than a crawl, and the smell of the people and places was actually unbelievable. Her nose still hadn’t adjusted to it.
By the time they rolled to a stop, and the carriage rocked as the driver stepped off his perch to open their door, Etta would have tried splitting her skull open against the ground to relieve the pressure of her headache. Sophia stumbled out on unsteady legs behind her, using her shoulders for support. Nicholas brought up the rear, handing over a small bag of what looked like money to the driver, who went to tend to his horses.