A Buccaneer at Heart

  She hadn’t exactly felt threatened, but tonight, she’d directed Dave to pull up in the alley directly opposite Undoto’s house again—out of sight of the officer and his men as they came and went from their house.

  Minutes ticked past.

  Her nerves flickered; they were tense and tight, anticipation plucking at them as if they were harp strings.

  She shifted on the seat, then drew patience about her, refocused on Undoto’s house—

  The carriage door on her left was wrenched open.

  She jerked. Her heart leapt to her throat.

  The horse shifted, startled; the carriage rocked, then settled.

  Before she’d even thought, she’d leveled her pistol at the chest outlined in the doorway.

  Outside the carriage, the moon cast a faint glow, enough to see...

  What a chest.

  She had no idea where such an inappropriate and unhelpful observation sprang from, but...oh, my.

  As if from a distance, she heard Dave protest. “’Ere—this carriage’s taken.”

  “I know.” The voice was deep, laced with tones of overt command. “I want a word with your fare.”

  Why? And who the devil is he?

  Aileen knew such questions deserved immediate attention, but she was still caught by the image before her. Her would-be accoster was wearing a light jacket over a loose ivory shirt; the jacket was open, and his stance displayed the full width of his chest barely screened by fine linen to her now wide-eyed gaze. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness within the carriage; the light outside was more than enough for her to see, to trace, to drink in...what she had to admit was a very impressive chest.

  A distracting, mesmerizing one.

  Her heart was thudding in a distracting manner, too.

  She blinked free of the spell and realized that he—whoever he was—had glanced in and seen the pistol, and had wisely frozen.

  It was tempting to use his fixation to stare some more, but prudence raised its head.

  Before she could lay her tongue to any words, the man slowly lowered his head. With one hand braced on the door frame and the other locked about the door’s handle, he looked deeper into the carriage. He raised his gaze from the pistol to her face. He studied her for a second; his gaze rose briefly to her hair, then returned to her eyes. His jaw set. “Miss Hopkins, I assume?”

  His tone set her hackles rising. “You presume, sir.” Her voice dripped icy disdain. “I suggest you shut my carriage door and go away.”

  The moonlight fell across his features, leaving the austere planes shadowed, yet she could have sworn an expression of frustrated exasperation fleetingly washed over his face. She’d seen a similar expression on her brothers’ faces often enough to recognize the emotion from the veriest glimpse.

  He shifted his gaze to the pistol; she’d continued to hold it steadily aimed at the center of that quite impressive expanse. “Is that loaded?”

  “It wouldn’t be much use if it wasn’t.”

  His lips compressed into a thin line. After several seconds of what she sensed was inner debate, he crisply stated, “Captain Robert Frobisher. I’m acquainted with your older brothers—David and Henry.” His gaze rose to her face. “And I believe, Miss Hopkins, that we need to talk.”

  Her heart was still beating far too rapidly. She focused on his face and opened her mouth to inform him just how mistaken he was...

  The words died in her throat.

  He was the officer she’d seen with Sampson, the one she’d glimpsed off and on in Undoto’s street over recent evenings.

  He was Frobisher. Sampson had told her a Captain Frobisher had been searching for answers as to where people, including Will, had disappeared.

  Sampson had said Frobisher had gone, sailed away, presumably back to London.

  Obviously, he’d returned.

  Hope made her heart skip a beat.

  All manner of questions tumbled through her brain. Rendered giddy by the sudden breadth of possibilities, she drew in a breath—

  A flash of movement snapped her attention back to the forward-facing window. It took her a split second to pinpoint what had caught her eye—a reflection in a half-open window of Undoto’s house, a window with its glass angled up the street.

  The armed men were approaching.

  Then she heard the tramp of their feet.

  They hadn’t yet reached the intersection where the alley met the street—they couldn’t yet see the carriage or the large man standing alongside it, plainly conversing with someone inside.

  She swung her gaze back to Frobisher—just in time to realize he was leaning into the carriage and reaching for her pistol.

  She jerked the pistol up and away from him, simultaneously sank the fingers of her other hand into his sleeve, and yanked as she whispered in a furious tone, “Get in, damn you! They’re coming!”

  Robert had heard the tramp of feet, but focused on her, he hadn’t registered what it might mean. Even as he responded to her hissed command and scrambled into the carriage, pulling the door shut, but then easing the latch silently home, his brain was catching up with events—with her. She’d been able to see farther up the street than he; she’d seen and had reacted. Incredibly quickly and decisively.

  He fell back on the seat facing her. The carriage was small and narrow; they couldn’t easily sit side by side.

  Immediately, she pushed at him to shift to his right—out of her way as she peered through a window in the carriage’s front wall. He obliged. He would have liked to seize the moment to study her while she was distracted, but he didn’t like having his back to the action; he twisted around until he could see through the small rectangular window, too.

  Four well-armed men were swaggering up Undoto’s front path to his door.

  Slavers. Had there been any question of their occupation, the cutlasses and bandoliers hung with knives—and in one case, a long-barreled pistol—that the four were sporting obliterated all doubt. Only outlaws of one stripe or another would walk about a settlement armed like that.

  The man in the lead, a heavyset brute, from his skin tone and glimpsed features more English than not, raised a fist and thumped once on Undoto’s door.

  Seconds later, the door was opened by Undoto himself. Although he didn’t smile, the priest welcomed the four men warmly, shaking hands and clapping them on the back as he ushered them into the house, then closed the door.

  Miss Hopkins sat back.

  Shifting on the seat, Robert looked at her. He and his men had seen the small black carriage arrive every evening and depart close to dawn over the past three nights, all without letting anyone out or taking anyone up. When they hadn’t seen the carriage this evening, he’d come out to reconnoiter and check, and had spotted it drawn up in the alley.

  Resisting temptation really wasn’t his forte. He’d approached from the rear, confirmed there was someone—a female—inside...

  Even then, some part of him had guessed.

  Any surprise he’d felt at discovering that the occupant was the elusive Miss Hopkins had been submerged by a sense of inevitability.

  Despite the dimness inside the carriage, he could see the grim determination in her face—in the set of her lips and her resolute chin.

  In the way her gaze remained locked on Undoto’s front door.

  That she was Miss Hopkins...even in the carriage’s dark interior, one glance at her hair was enough to detect the telltale brassy sheen. She was, however, rather older than he’d expected. Her oldest brother, David, was of an age with Royd, and Henry was near Robert’s age. He’d assumed Miss Hopkins was the youngest of the brood, but from what he could see—and all he could sense of the considerable feminine strength occupying the seat opposite—she fell somewhere between Henry and William. As a lieutenant,
William was most likely in his mid-twenties, so Miss Hopkins must be in her late twenties.

  His eyes had adjusted; he could see reasonably well. Well enough to take in her full figure along with her rigidly upright posture, the competent and confident way she held the pistol in her lap, and the naturally commanding set of her head—all hints anyone with skill at reading others would interpret as suggesting an unbending will.

  Just what he needed—a determined and strong-willed female complication.

  His notion of turning on his diplomatic charm and persuading her to pack her bags and head home dispersed like mist before a gale.

  As he watched, her eyes, still staring out of the window at Undoto’s house, slowly narrowed in thought. Her expression screamed that she was making plans...

  The implications of all he’d learned coalesced in his mind. While he’d been hunting high and low, skulking about streets on Tower Hill, hiding in the shadows watching ladies arrive at their evening’s events or lurking in alleys to watch them during the day, she’d been under his nose all along.

  Sitting in this carriage, watching Undoto’s house.

  How much did she know?

  How much had she guessed?

  “They’re slave traders,” he murmured and was rewarded with her immediate attention and a thoroughly shocked look.

  “What?” For a second, her consternation shone clearly, then it was wiped away, hidden beneath a nearly blank, slightly suspicious expression. “How do you know?” She looked back at Undoto’s door. “Not all armed men are slave traders—they can’t be. How can you be sure? How—”

  She broke off; her knuckles showed white as she gripped the small pistol, then with quite awful deliberation, she dragged in a breath and refocused on him.

  He could all but feel her regroup, feel her reharness the wits he’d scattered and redirect them at him.

  “Sampson told me you’d been here, in the settlement, some weeks ago, asking questions about people who’ve gone missing. He said you’d returned to London.” She tipped up her head, lips firm as she fixed her gaze squarely on his eyes. “Why have you returned? To follow the armed men? Is that who you think have taken those missing—including my brother?”

  Robert regarded her evenly, then sat back and folded his arms across his chest. When she opened her mouth—no doubt to ask more questions—he silenced her with a raised finger. “The Captain Frobisher that Sampson mentioned being here earlier wasn’t me. That was my brother Declan Frobisher. He was sent to gain insight into a spate of officers mysteriously going missing. As per his orders, when he encountered active opposition, he returned to London to report what he’d learned to that point.”

  Her gaze hadn’t wavered. “And you’re the one London has sent to follow the trail?”

  He glanced over his shoulder, confirming that Undoto’s door was still shut. He looked back at her. “Where are you staying?”

  She’d followed his gaze to Undoto’s door. She glanced at him and frowned. “I asked if you’ve been sent by the Admiralty or one of the offices in London...how does that connect to where I’m staying?”

  “It’s called reciprocation—tit for tat. I gave you a certain amount of information. Now it’s your turn to answer some of my questions.”

  He saw her jaw firm, sensed her mutinous look. When she showed no sign of obliging, he stated, “Miss Hopkins, instead of being able to concentrate on the purpose for which I was sent here, I’ve been forced to spend the last three days trawling through this settlement hunting for you.”

  Her frown deepened. “Why?”

  “Where. Are. You. Staying?” He’d reined in his temper, but it edged his tone.

  She considered him for a long, rather fraught moment. “You truly do know my brothers?”

  “Yes.”

  She met his gaze evenly, giving not an inch, but finally consented to open her lips and say, “I have a room at Mrs. Hoyt’s Boarding House for Genteel Ladies. It’s not far from the rectory.”

  He’d seen it. It just hadn’t occurred to him that she—who he knew was well connected and not in straitened circumstances—would be staying there.

  As if sensing his surprise, she tipped her chin upward. “I deliberately chose to stay there to ensure no one—no well-meaning friend of the family—would attempt to stop me doing what I need to do to locate William—my younger brother, Lieutenant William Hopkins—and, if possible, rescue him.”

  Well, that answered his questions about her intentions. He frowned. “How did you know about your brother going missing?”

  Briefly, she told him about the letter her parents had received.

  He mentally cursed the Admiralty’s clerks. The letter must have slipped past Melville’s office. He understood all too well how distressed her parents must have been by the supposed news. And he could comprehend why she—a female of the type he was starting to realize she was—had set out to clear her brother’s name. “Do your parents know you’re here, searching for William?”

  She countered with, “Am I to interpret your presence here as a sign that the authorities are finally taking action?”

  He debated insisting she answer his question first, but... “Yes, and no. I’ll explain in a moment, but first—”

  “Oh, my God.” Her expression blanked, then her eyes snapped to his face. “Slave traders. You said those men who went into Undoto’s house are slave traders. So that’s where Will’s gone. Slave traders have taken him.”

  For an instant, he feared that his reading of her character had been in error and she was about to succumb to hysterics; like any man, he felt a panicky sense of incipient helplessness.

  But then her jaw firmed and her eyes blazed as she shifted her gaze to Undoto’s door. “That’s why Will went to Undoto’s services—for some reason, he was looking for the slave traders. And that’s why they—the slave traders—only turn up on the evenings after Undoto holds a service.”

  He felt his brows rise. He and his men hadn’t realized that.

  Without him having to prompt, she went on, “I saw those men—the same four—call on Undoto four nights ago, on the evening following his previous service. The men stayed for nearly an hour, then left—less happy than when they’d arrived, but not angry, as far as I could tell. The men haven’t been back for the past three nights—I’ve been watching every night. But Undoto held a service today, and tonight the men are back.”

  Her gaze swung his way and fixed on his face with an intensity he could feel. “What does that mean? That Undoto...what? Points the slave traders at people they’re supposed to seize?”

  Robert debated his response; on the basis of everything he knew, that seemed a sound supposition. “Very likely it’s something along those lines.”

  A second of silence ensued, then he opened his mouth on his next question just as she did the same—but then her gaze whipped to the small window over his left shoulder. Unfolding his arms, he swung around on the seat and looked out.

  Undoto’s door had opened. The four slavers emerged and trudged straight down the steps. None of them looked happy.

  The leader—Robert wondered if he was Kale—turned back and, in a belligerent tone, barked at Undoto, “He wants more men. Find us the right men. That’s all you have to do.”

  Undoto stood framed in his doorway; he gave no reply. For once, his expression was impassive and sober, with not even a hint of a smile.

  The leader turned and stalked after his men. Undoto watched him go, then stepped back and quietly shut his door.

  Within a few strides, the slave traders passed out of their sight, moving swiftly up the street.

  Robert turned back to Miss Hopkins—to discover the lady on her feet, using the end of her pistol’s barrel to lift the trapdoor in the carriage’s ceiling.

  “Whenever you judge it’s ti
me, Dave.” She whispered the strange order, then let the trapdoor fall.

  Before she could resume her seat, the carriage rocked. She swayed, feet shifting as she fought for balance—

  Robert seized her about her waist.

  A frisson of sensation speared through his hands, up his arms, and across his shoulders, the effect more potent and powerful in the dark.

  His hands locked about her, holding her, steadying her.

  He heard her breath catch. Felt the lithe shift of her body beneath the fine layers separating his hands from her skin.

  His palms, his fingers, burned.

  His jaw tensing, he forced himself to ease his hold until he was barely touching her.

  She hauled in a strangled breath, pulled out of his grasp, and sat down heavily. Through the darkness, she stared at him; her expression suggested she saw him as some strange species, one she hadn’t encountered before.

  He returned her regard. For several seconds, it was all he could do to haul back on the reins of impulses that hadn’t slipped their leash in years.

  In decades.

  Why now?

  Why with her?

  He squelched the urge to shake his head as if he could shake the fact aside—slough reality away.

  Then the carriage rocked again and started slowly rolling forward.

  He glanced out of the window and realized the driver was turning the corner in the direction the slavers had gone. He looked at the redoubtable Miss Hopkins. “While I appreciate your intentions, you don’t need to follow the slave traders.”

  The narrow-eyed look she bent on him suggested he save his breath, then she redirected her gaze through the window beside his head.

  A familiar owl hoot floated through the open window; his men were already on the slavers’ trail.

  The carriage cleared the corner and continued rolling very slowly up the sloping street in the slavers’ wake. Suppressing his natural inclination to reveal nothing of his mission—much less to her—he said, “My men are following the slavers on foot. They’re experienced and know what they’re doing. They’ll follow the slavers all the way to their lair somewhere in the depths of the slums.”