Chapter 1
Against the Tide
Angel tugged her black shawl tighter around her as she hurried to the fishing huts along the beach. She didn’t have long before she was missed and there was so much to do, but she felt sure the boy would be here.
Scanning the beach as the waves crashed furiously along the shoreline, throwing up an icy mist that prickled over her face, she saw a dark shape scurry between the boats.
“Toby!” she called, her voice snatched away by the wind and the boiling hiss of the savage tide.
Muttering with impatience, she picked up her skirts and ran after the lad.
His father, a humourless devil, had drowned a few weeks back.
Toby seemed unperturbed by the loss, but he didn’t want to be a fisherman and had been to every shop and tradesman hereabouts looking for work.
The reverend had promised to find him an apprenticeship somewhere, but he’d have his work cut out for him even with the amount of building going on in the town.
There were too many skilled men with no work since the war ended as it was.
“Toby!” Cursing when he still failed to heed her, Angel looked about, stuck two fingers in her mouth, and whistled. The piercing sound brought the lad to a dead stop, and he turned, gazing at her in awe.
Angel hastened towards him before he could think to run off.
“Did you do that? Whistle, I mean?” he asked with an expression of appalled fascination.
“Don’t be silly. Ladies don’t whistle,” she said curtly. “Now, listen. You want work, is that right?”
He blinked at her and then straightened, narrowing his eyes. “If it weren’t you, who were it?”
“Who was it,” she corrected.
“That’s what I asked.” He looked at her in consternation and she sighed.
“Very well. Yes, it was me. Yes, I will teach you how, but only if you listen to me and do as I ask.”
The lad folded his skinny arms. He was perhaps ten years old, grubby beyond belief, but otherwise healthy and relatively well nourished. His father had been neglectful, but not cruel.
“All right,” he said, a suspicious glint in his eyes. “I’m listening.”
“Before I tell you, I need to know if you’re trustworthy. I need to know you are the sort of boy I can depend on, who won’t run away crying if we get into a fix, but who will stand beside me and help us out of that fix.”
His eyes widened. “Bleedin’ hell, lady, what is it you want me for? I ain’t a coward, but I ain’t no fingersmith neither.”
Angel rolled her eyes. “Do I look like I’m in need of a thief?”
The boy made a great show of standing back and looking her up and down. “I can’t rightly say what you look like, miss, but I reckon it’s trouble.”
Angel smiled. “Well, there, my young fellow, you would be right.”
Having sorted Toby out and given him coin enough to accomplish the tasks she’d set him, Angel hurried back through the village.
Taking the alley that led to the back of the baker’s shop, she waited by the wall of an untidy yard until she saw a young woman come out.
She was older than Angel, though not by as much as she looked, for her features were tired and careworn. Pity stabbed at Angel’s heart.
“Milly,” she called in a low whisper.
The woman looked around, her eyes widening as she saw Angel.
“Miss Angelica?” Glancing over her shoulder, Milly set down the pail of dirty water she carried and hurried over.
Angel marked the bruise on the girl’s cheek and scowled. “Mr Twort?” she guessed, fury burning in her blood.
Milly shook her head. “No, Mrs Twort,” she said with a wry smile. “I wouldn’t put it past Miss Sarah neither, though she’s too lazy to make the effort.”
“I’m so sorry,” Angel said, guilt twisting in her gut.
She leaned against the brick wall, cursing her feckless father for spending money like water with no thought for the future.
Milly had been her and her mother’s lady’s maid, but they’d been forced to let her go.
Not that Papa had turned off his valet. It was down to her and Mama to economise.
Little Valentine was Milly’s home, though, and she didn’t want to leave so she’d taken the only work she could find, hoping something better would come along. It hadn’t.
“Ain’t your fault, miss,” Milly said with a shrug. “’Tis fate, that’s all.”
“Well, your luck is about to change, Milly, and mine too. How do you fancy giving all this up and working for me?”
Milly brightened at once, her eyes alight with relief. “Oh, Miss Angelica, have you got yourself a beau?”
Angel snorted. “No, not that, but I have something a good deal better. A fortune, only… I need a bit of help in getting my hands on it. Will you help me, Milly?”
Milly paled, her work-roughened hand going to her throat. “Dreams won’t pay our bills, miss, pretty as they might be.”
Angel shook her head, stepping closer and grasping Milly’s arm. “It’s not a dream, Milly. My Pops left me something of great value, but I must find it first. When I do, I’ll make sure you are the finest lady’s maid in all of England.”
Milly’s lips twitched. “Ah, grand as a duchess, eh?”
Angel caught her breath, hope lifting her spirits. “As near as makes no difference, or you could do something else if you wanted. Open a shop—whatever you want.”
Looking around, Milly glanced at the back of the bakery, where Mrs Twort’s strident voice escaped the open door.
The young woman sighed. “She’s looking for me.
Found sommat new to bother about, I dare say.
” Turning back to Angel, Milly met her gaze, her expression sombre.
“I’ll come,” she said, and hurried back inside.
Little Valentine, East Sussex, 3rd April 1816
Mercy Pike kept to the shadows as she watched the girl hurry back down the alley. A fine lady, Miss Everdene—leastways, that was how she acted. Mercy knew better. Angelica Everdene was no better than she was.
Mercy had heard all the stories about the notorious pirate Black Jack Baxter.
Her father had loved telling the stories he’d heard, not that he’d ever got off his arse long enough to do anything so daring.
But he and his cronies loved tales of infamous men, pirates and highwaymen, and villains of all sorts.
He’d once spent a night carousing with a comrade of Black Jack’s, a fellow called Deadlight.
Deadlight had seemed to hold a grudge and had told her Pa tales about how Black Jack had disappeared and taken his vast fortune with him.
He’d also talked about a special treasure Black Jack had kept, one he meant to give to his lady love only to find his lady was dead. That had made her Pa laugh.
Mercy wasn’t laughing.
If he’d not given it to the woman he’d loved, where had it gone?
When she’d seen the little notice in the paper of Jack Baxter’s passing, she doubted anyone else had remarked it, but Mercy had.
To think Black Jack had been living so close to her all these years and she’d never known.
Since then, she’d made it her business to discover all she could about the family who lived at the big, fancy house named the Crow’s Nest. No one knew much about the old man, the servants barely saw him, yet they all knew how they doted on his little granddaughter.
Mercy had held a glimmer of doubt, for of course Jack Baxter wasn’t such an unusual name, perhaps this was another man, until she’d seen her. In all the stories, Jack Baxter had hair black as a crow’s wing and eyes to match, just like Angelica Everdene.
Somehow, Black Jack had contrived to marry his only daughter to a fine gentleman. Now his granddaughter walked about like she owned the place. Mercy had another way of living, lifting her skirts or her fists to keep herself fed.
Her Pa had been certain Black Jack would take his sweetheart’s treasure to his grave. Mercy reckoned a clever fellow knew better. No use for coin in the hereafter, was there?
No. More likely he’d leave it to the pretty little chit he doted on and spoiled.
Her Pa had never doted on anything, save a full bottle of rum, and the only spoiling he’d done was with his fists.
Mercy had learned from him how to be quick and vicious.
No one crossed Mercy Pike and lived to tell the tale. Not even her Pa in the end.
The chit would not be a problem. Mercy only needed patience.
She had been watching Miss Everdene ever since the death notice appeared and it seemed to her the girl was up to something.
At first, she’d just thought to kidnap her and hold her for ransom, but now she suspected something far more interesting was afoot.
To most, Jack Baxter’s passing would mean nothing.
But to Mercy, it was a call to arms.
The Crow’s Nest, Little Valentine, East Sussex, 4th April 1816
On Tuesday morning, as the church bells rang five, Angel quietly closed the door to her parents’ house and hurried down the cobbled street to the waiting gig.
Toby had done well. The gig was old, the black paint worn and chipped, but in good order.
The hood was weatherproof and would keep off the worst of the rain and wind.
A stout cob stood patiently, his ears pricking up as Angel hurried towards the little group who stood shivering in the dark.
“All set?” Angel said, trying to sound excited and full of confidence, when her stomach was a knot of anxiety and indecision.
Milly eyed the gig sceptically. “You’re sure you can handle this, Miss Angelica?”
“Oh, yes.”
Of this, at least, Angel had no qualms. She could not ride, her father never being generous enough to buy her a pony of her own.
Her constant harping at him had worn his nerves down far enough to allow her to learn to drive his gig, however.
She did not dare take that smart equipage—he’d mourn the loss of it more than his daughter, she was certain—but this would do very well.