Chapter 30 #2
“No. I wouldn’t squeak beef without letting you know first, but y’know, sweetheart, I’m giving you notice now that I’m going to Devon with the whole of it.
For one thing, I put some enquires to Morgan last night about Granville, and the fellow’s a dangerous agent.
Granville makes it his business to own a fleet of merchant ships that he sets to sail heavily insured; then he turns over their course to pirate raiders who steal the cargo, and Granville collects twice, from the insurance and from the contraband.
Some of the fleet captains are in Granville’s pay and play willingly, but when they have an honest crew, if there’s a chance they’re suspicious, Granville has the lot of them put to death.
Sails says Devon’s little sister was killed in a munitions blast whilst she was traveling aboard a frigate that tried to fight back, poor lass, so don’t you see, Merry, Granville’s just the sort of cur that would make an end to you if he had the least reason.
And besides that, since I traced that jackal to his lair last night, I’ve been followed myself, though I don’t know who the devil by.
Some curst rum touch, by the looks of him and—Oh, damn. ”
Following the direction of his eyes with some surprise, Merry saw that the shawled woman was making her way down the aisle, swiping her dustrag at the pews and giving Raven a baleful stare. Promptly Raven shed his intensity and beheld Merry with limpid eyes.
“You have the right of it, ma’am. Abchurch is a corrupt of the word upchurch, being that this church is set upon high ground, you know,” he said in a gently instructive tone.
“As for your idea that the steeple is of an inferior quality, I can only say that, for myself, I find it very pretty. And I can’t imagine what makes you doubt the authenticity of the altarpiece.
I, myself, don’t think Grinling Gibbons has ever done finer work. ”
In an immediate change of front, the beshawled woman gave Raven a glance of warm approval and, frowning at Merry, shuffled off muttering under her breath about impertinent hussies who were no better than they should be.
Her lips quivering with nervous laughter, Merry turned back toward Raven. “Oh, you—you devil. How dare you make that horrid woman think I don’t like her church!”
He grinned. “It was a little in Morgan’s style, wasn’t it?
I do it a bit from time to time to amuse Will, though I suppose I’ll get the captain’s boot in my seat if he catches me at it.
The nonsense I talked about the church comes out of a pocket guide, which was the worst two shillings I ever spent in my life, because all it does is to describe a lot of places that no one in his right mind would want to see, like museums and government offices and lunatic asylums.”
Observing that the woman was making her way up the opposite aisle, he broke off to say, in the voice of an earnest student of architecture, “You’ve noted, perhaps, that the cupola is supported by groined pendentives?
” but rather spoiled this impressive utterance as soon as the shawls had passed out of earshot by adding, “Whatever the devil that means. Come on, then, I’m taking you home. ”
“In a pig’s ear!” she returned inelegantly. “Either you tell me where you found Michael Granville, or I’ve a coach to catch at five o’clock on Finsbury Square.”
“Now, see here—”
“I won’t see here! All Devon needs to hear is that Granville made a threat to me to drive him to do—some desperate thing.
He’s not himself on the subject of Michael Granville.
For all I know, if Devon discovered Granville had made threats on my life, Devon would gun him down like a dog.
I won’t let that happen, Raven. Do you think I’ll stand by and see my husband hanged for killing a man like Granville?
And I don’t intend to let my brother die! ”
“Damnation!” he said in a low tone. “Do you have to be so hot in the spur?”
“When it comes to protecting the people I love,” she said fiercely, “yes.”
The determined set of her small chin was beginning to give Raven a sinking feeling.
“What you’ve got no business doing, lovey, is protecting two grown men.
” Then, on a sudden note of inspiration: “I’ll tell you what.
What d’you say we take things to Morgan?
You can depend on him for a cool-headed judgment. ”
“When pear trees bear peaches, I’ll go to Morgan!
” she said bitterly. “If he found my brother, Morgan would probably turn him over to the Army and, if they hanged him, say that it was character-building. And don’t suggest we tell Will or Cat either.
Telling them would be the same as telling Morgan because that’s just what they’d do. ”
From that position she was not to be moved.
She was plainly terrified, but she was no less stubborn for all that.
When Raven threatened to carry her by force to Morgan, all she would do was give an angry laugh and invite him to try it.
And while he was admitting to himself that the citizens of this civilized metropolis were hardly likely to allow him to waltz through the streets bearing off a struggling woman of her obvious beauty and youth, Merry told him that if he didn’t take her to the place he had followed Granville to, she would approach a constable and tell him Raven had tried to steal her purse, which would keep him in gaol until she arrived for her five o’clock appointment at Finsbury Square.
Raven could see she meant it. Which was why half an hour later he found himself in a hackney carriage with Merry on the way to the dockside address where he had seen Granville disappear.
Raven was furiously angry with her—an emotion rare for him—and scared half-witless that she was going to get hurt and it would be his fault.
It seemed that with all that emotion on his side he ought to have won the battle of wills.
After he’d given the driver the correct address, he realized what he should have done was deliver her to a disreputable inn (how would she have known Granville wasn’t there?), locked her in a room, and gone to fetch Morgan.
He knew Morgan, or even Cat, would have said even now it was his duty to knock her unconscious and carry her to one of them.
But looking down at the proud blue eyes and harmless little nose, he couldn’t find in himself the resolution to harm her.
Once, when she turned her head to catch her first glimpse of the Thames, he did raise his hand, but it faltered.
In his mind he felt the impact of the blow and heard her soft cry of pain and saw her body crumple; and he knew no fist of his could cause that to happen.
Raven lowered his hand and with a heavy sigh began to load his pistol.
Merry’s face and figure would have made her conspicuous even if she hadn’t been dressed at the height of fashion.
When an attempt to talk her into stopping at the inn where he was lodged to change into men’s clothing failed, he had to direct the hack to a corner he considered to be dangerously close to their destination to avoid too long a tramp with her along the waterfront.
The door where he had seen Granville disappear and then, much later, reappear was located in a courtyard of muddy pink brick inside a quadrant of tall warehouses with granite portals.
Yawning black entrances emitted the scent of molasses in quantity enough to grab Merry’s throat as she slid stealthily behind a row of cerecloth bales beside Raven.
A handful of burly watermen were rattling barrels aboard a tilted carrier’s dray under the shouted direction of a warehouseman in a bent top hat.
She didn’t need Raven’s whispered admonition, “Have a care! They might be in Granville’s hire,” to make her dive obediently to his side and sit quietly trembling.
Spilled sugar carpeted the yard so thickly in places that she saw men sink to the ankle in it, and the wind pranced off the river in damp gusts to throw the dirty grit in glittering patterns against the buildings.
Beyond, the Thames was green, smelly, and busily absorbing greasy reflections.
A mass of sails in different sizes made the river as crowded as the streets.
She felt Raven’s tension beside her and was sorry for it, though there wasn’t anything she could do about it.
Her entreaties in the hackney carriage that he leave her (with the pistol) to take care of matters on her own had made up in nobility what they lacked in sincerity, and she was ashamed of the ignoble relief she had experienced at his shocked refusal.
The remainder of the trip he had spent alternately glancing out the window trying without success to decide whether they were being followed and endeavoring with austere gentleness to convince her that the only existence her brother had in England was in Granville’s evil mind, and if Granville in fact did have her brother, and if he did know anything to Granville’s detriment, the lad would be long dead.
It never occurred to her to guess that Raven was doing his best to talk himself into hitting her over the head, but if anyone had told her this, she wouldn’t have been surprised.
She could see he was mad as fire. All she could say in her own defense was that she had a feeling, as real and keen as any truth, that her brother was alive and hidden nearby, and she was the best person to preserve his life, and not any of the men who cared much for her and nothing for him.