Chapter Four
Damian glanced up when the door to the office opened and his brother, Sterling, entered with his wife, Caroline.
“Who is this?” His older brother’s tone was more of a curious nature than concerned.
“Her name is Georgie,” Livia answered before anybody else could speak. “She was a stowaway on the Charlotte Rose. I am the one who saw her walking away. Uncle Damian thought it was just a sailor, but I knew it was a girl because I could tell by her bum.”
Damian pinched the bridge of his nose as Georgie’s face brightened to a rose hue.
“I was going to tell you to be more careful in conversations with your wife and to make certain this child is not present,” Damian warned.
Sterling narrowed his eyes and studied Georgie. “You look familiar. Where do I know you from?”
“Accetta Panetteria.”
Sterling’s facial features relaxed into a smile. “I remember now. Carrera, Italy?”
She nodded.
“Why did you stow away on one of my ships?” Except he asked with more concern than Damian had shown with his demanding questions.
“I shall explain later,” Damian answered. “Right now, I need to go speak to the captain of the Despoina to determine the whereabouts of a Mr. Harold Fisher.”
“I will go with you,” Georgie announced.
She most certainly would not. There was nothing but men and sailors on that ship and it was no place for a miss. “That is not necessary. I will find him and return to you shortly,” Damian answered.
She narrowed her eyes on Damian. “I am going with you. If you will not take me, I will follow. You cannot keep me here.”
Damian looked at Sterling. “You will keep her here.”
His brother held up his hands in defense and took a step back. “As I do not know what is going on, I am not going to interfere.”
“She was a stowaway on one of your ships. That is a criminal offense,” Damian nearly yelled.
“I also know her family. Miss Wylde is not of the criminal element and clearly there must be a matter of grave importance. Therefore, I will not hold her here.”
Georgie grinned. “Where can we find the Despoina?”
*
Had she demanded to see Wyndham as soon as she was taken to the Trade Wynd office, she might already have found her sister or be on her way to discover her instead of being interrogated by Damian.
They walked along the docks, passing ships and sailors, and cargo being unloaded.
Damian was determined to reach the Despoina and his stride made it difficult for her to keep up.
It was rude and intentional but she did not care.
He may reach the destination before her, but she was not so far behind.
Damian eventually stopped at a basin sealed off from the sea where the ship had been moored and deliberately beached so that men could make repairs to the hull while others worked high above on the masts.
She found it all quite interesting and was about to ask how they got it out of the water when Damian called out.
“Captain Carruthers!”
An older man with white hair and a weathered faced turned and waved at Damian before he disembarked the ship and made his way to where they were standing.
“Is Harold Fisher one of your crew?” Damian demanded.
“He was,” Carruthers answered.
“What do you mean by was?” Georgie asked in alarm.
Carruthers’s barely spared her a glanced before he spoke directly to Damian.
“He has not shown up for nearly a sennight. I have marked it on the ledger so that he doesn’t receive his wages with a recommendation that he be terminated.”
Some of Georgie’s anxiety returned. If Fisher was gone, where was he and did it have anything to do with Grace?
“Do your sailors make it a habit of seducing local innocents when they visit other ports?” Damian demanded.
Captain Carruthers looked at Georgie and frowned.
“You?” he asked as his eyes grew hard.
“No,” Georgie answered and would refuse to tell him anything further because she did not want her sister shamed any more than she was, especially since Carruthers might again sail to Carrara.
“It must have been the other one,” the captain grumbled.
“What other one?” Georgie asked anxiously.
“A miss came round here right before Fisher disappeared,” the captain said. “He had already left for the day, but another one of the sailors gave her direction to the lodging house where Fisher has a room. I have not seen Fisher since.”
“What was her name?” Georgie demanded.
The captain’s gray eyes filled with irritation as he sneered. “I do not know nor did I ask.”
“What did she look like?” she asked.
“Dark hair, brown eyes, slight frame.”
Grace fit that description, which gave Georgie hope.
“You did not answer my question,” Damian reminded him.
“They are under strict orders not to engage misses. Yet, when they are away from the ship, there is little I can do, nor can I punish them for their actions unless I am informed.”
She supposed that it was no different from any other group of bachelors being allowed to visit local towns unsupervised. If nobody was there to keep a watchful eye on them, and if their friends did not report improper behavior, there was little that could be done.
“I will leave you to your duties.” Damian turned and marched away with Georgie hurrying after him to catch up.
“That is all? You are not going to demand where Fisher may be or question the other sailors?”
“I have no intention of disrupting the sailors or pulling them from their duties,” he answered.
“We need to find him!”
Damian stopped and fisted his hands on his hips, blue eyes filled with irritation and he glared at her. “I have a listing of where each employee lives when not on a ship back at the office. I intend to consult it then pay a call on Mr. Fisher.” He then once again marched away.
Yes, well, she supposed that would be more expedient, not that she wanted to admit so, especially since she was certain that Damian was trying to leave her behind, or ignore her, given that his strides were even more purposeful retreating from the ship then they had been on their arrival and she could barely keep up.
Yet, Georgie offered no complaint because she did not want to slow down the progress that would help them locate Grace, even if she was left running behind.
Once they reached the building that housed the Trade Wynd offices, Damian took the stairs two steps at a time while she fell further behind. Most men would wait for a woman, but Georgie also believed Damian’s rudeness was deliberate because she had defied his order to remain behind.
However, she would not, under any circumstances, allow him to find Fisher, and hopefully Grace, without her.
By the time Georgie entered the office, Damian was already behind the desk and opening a ledger of sorts and turning the pages.
She hurried to the desk and noted that many of the pages within were marked with a different letter of the alphabet.
He stopped at F then ran his finger down the list of names.
Behind each was an address, then the name of the ship they were assigned.
He then flipped the page and finally found Harold Fisher halfway down the page.
Damian appeared to study it, then closed the book, and marched from behind the desk and toward the door.
He said nothing to her, the Earl of Wyndham, the child, or the woman.
She assumed it was the countess since she was the one who had called out to Damian asking about the earl when he was taking her back to Trade Wynd.
However, Georgie did not take time to greet anyone because she needed to follow Damian who halted as soon as he reached the door and turned so abruptly that Georgie nearly ran into his chest.
“You are not going with me,” he told her.
“I most certainly am.”
“Have you no concern for your reputation?” he asked. “You cannot call on a bachelor in his set of rooms while accompanied by another bachelor.”
She supposed he was correct, but finding Grace was far more important. “Nobody knows me here and it is unlikely anyone in Carrara will ever learn and I must find my sister.”
He fisted his hands on his hips, a habit of his that only served to irritate her further, and stared at her for the longest time.
“I forbid it.”
She took up a similar stance. “You cannot forbid or allow me to do anything,” she reminded him. He was not her father, brother, or husband.
“Then I will remain here until you see reason. The longer it takes, the more time there is for your sister to disappear, or Fisher, for that matter.”
Yes, well, she did not need him to take her anywhere and with that thought, Georgie returned to the desk and opened the address ledger, found Fisher’s name, then memorized where he lived. “I will go on my own.”
“You most certainly will not,” Damian nearly yelled. “Fisher keeps a set of rooms in an area known as Sailortown. It is no place for a female. In fact, it would be downright dangerous for an innocent miss, such as yourself.”
“Which makes it just as dangerous for my sister,” Georgie yelled back. “I go with you or I go alone!”
Damian planted his feet and blocked the only exit from the office.
“The area is filled with boarding and lodging houses near the docks for sailors who live more on a ship than land to sometimes keep a room,” he explained. “Most for temporary accommodations between sailing. The area also attracts those who lean toward the criminal and women who…”
Likely lightskirts, Georgie surmised. They were hardly a danger to her. “If they are temporary accommodations, how do you know that Fisher is not somewhere else and never informed you?”
“It is a possibility,” Damian acknowledged. “But, even if he lives somewhere else, there will be someone who knows him and where he can be found.”
As Damian would not move and she could not get past him, she mimicked his stance, lifted her chin, crossed her arms over her breast, and stared him in the eye. If anything, she was stubborn, and Georgie would outlast Damian in the battle of wills.