skin the color of oakwood and quick eyes-English, African, East Indian, Spanish-he appeared an unremarkable specimen of humanity. A mestizo. Not a man of distinction. No one of note. Which made him particularly good at the living he pursued. And particularly useful to Jin since they’d first met years ago.
Joshua Bose extended his hand, a charade they enacted on each encounter in the event that any interested party might be watching.
“I am Gisel Gupta,” Joshua said, East Indian this time, apparently. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, sir.”
Jin gestured him to the chair across the table.
“You will have a glass with me, Gupta?”
“Thank you, sir.” Joshua sat almost daintily, straight-backed on the edge of his seat. He placed a thin leather satchel on the table, then his palms flat on the satchel. “I hope your journey to Tobago was a smooth one.”
“It was fine.” Brief, the sloop he had hired at Port of Spain a fair enough vessel.
“Mr. Smythe, at the time of our previous meeting I had been misinformed as to the whereabouts of the object which you seek.”
Jin revealed none of his surprise, or disappointment. He had hoped that this time Joshua would bring him the box. He had, in fact, prayed. But prayer from a man like him did not take God’s attention, only right actions. Of late, Jin’s actions had nothing of rightness about them. But perhaps God simply did not exist, which would explain a great deal.
“Ah,” he only said.
“The information I received from my contact in Rio did not satisfy me, you see. He indicated that the object had changed hands in Caracas in October of 1812, when in fact from the itinerary with which I supplied you last August, it seemed impossible that its courier
“Bombay, hm?” Jin nodded thoughtfully. He cared nothing for this minutia. But Joshua would insist on relating it; he relished the details of his work, and he could not share it with any other. Jin only wanted the contents of that box, if after sixteen years its contents yet remained within. He was fairly certain of that impossibility. Nevertheless, he played this game. He had become quite adept at playing such games, like the game he had played with Viola Carlyle three days earlier on the deck of the
The barkeep dropped a smudged tumbler on the table and glanced at Jin’s full measure of rum. He wrinkled his nose, then thumped the bottle down and moved off.
Joshua reached into the pocket of his paisley waistcoat and withdrew a kerchief. With precise care he wiped the glass clean, refolded the linen and returned it to his pocket, and set his glass forward for Jin to fill. He took one sip, then placed the glass on the table.
“As I said, I was unsatisfied with this information. So I went to Rio to pursue that avenue personally.” His smile flashed. “I am happy to report that in Rio I discovered that which we have all along sought.”
Jin’s heart tripped. His fingers slipped across the glass in his palm ever so slightly.
“Did you?”
Joshua’s narrow nostrils flared, his mouth curving into a smile now.
“I did. And may I say, sir, how happy I am to now offer you the information which you hired me to find three years ago?”
“You may.”
A wave hurled itself against shore, sending white vapor into the pristine blue sky. Wind whipped at the heavy palm fronds about the pub’s roof, the heat of the sun bearing down all around the shaded canopy. Because of this moment, whatever the outcome of his quest, he would remember this place clearly. His curse was remembering that which would be best forgotten-like the woman he had called mother, and the last thing she said to him before she allowed her husband to take him to be sold at the slave market.
“Where is it, Gupta?”
“It is in the possession of His Excellency Bishop Frederick Baldwin of the Church of England.” He fairly wiggled on the chair, growing taller as his spine stretched in pride. “In his house in London, sir. It has been there for several years as part of a collection of treasures from the East.”
London. Not in a distant land. Not gone forever, destroyed as it should have been with the rest of his mother’s belongings when she died five years after her husband sent her bastard son away.
In London. And so Jin would be in London by late summer, after he returned Viola to her family in Devonshire.
“Thank you for this, Gupta.” He stood. “Where would you like your fee delivered?”
Joshua blinked, his eyes widening. Jin supposed he ought to reward the man with more, with some display of satisfaction or anticipation. But at present he hadn’t the will for it.
Shaking his head once, Joshua stood and tucked his satchel beneath his arm neatly. “To the usual place, Mr. Smythe.”
Jin held out his hand. “It has been a pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Gupta.”
“Likewise, sir. I hope you will not forget Gisel Gupta the next time you have need.”
“I will contact you.”
Joshua stepped away from the table.
“Gupta. Wait. I do have need of you at this time. In Boston.”
“Yes, sir. Boston is a fine city.”
“I need you to find a sailor and interview him for me. The sailor’s name is Crazy.”
Two minutes later, he watched Joshua weave through the tables and chairs and walk across the pebbly yard to his horse, then mount and ride away.
He glanced down at his untouched glass of rum. He might indulge in a moment of celebration. For three years he had paid Joshua Bose to search out the box. For twenty he had thought about it, imagining that box held his salvation-the key to his identity. Now, finally, he knew it to be within his reach. But he had no taste for rum, or any of the other spirits he’d had before him over the past three days.
Three days, and the sweet, rich flavor of her still lingered on his tongue. Three days and he could not yet erase her scent from his senses. Three days that already felt like a millennium.
He still wanted her. He wanted her hands on him and her soft lips caressing his skin and her dark eyes hot with desire and pleasure as he had her. He wanted her again. Goddamn it, he wanted her every day for a month. A year. He told himself to cease thinking of her. He failed at it.
Castle would follow her home; he was certain of it. He had passed the planter heading toward the
He had engineered it, but he did not like it. Castle might be an unexceptionable sort, but he didn’t like the opportunist bastard.
But, no. That was unjust. Castle was not a bastard. Jin had spent the evening with the harbormaster and naval officers and their wives learning about Aidan Castle, and he was unsurprised. Castle was the favored son of a modestly situated family in Dorset, a solid member of the respectable English gentry, a man who might as well try his hand at marrying into a noble family through an illegitimate daughter.
Jin was the bastard. The man without family or home. The mercenary. The thief. The murderer who would never fully atone for the evils he had done. Not when he was still committing deeds that went against his conscience.
She did not wish to return to England, to leave her life on the sea, and yet he was forcing her to do so. Perhaps his guilt was mitigated by what he was giving her in return. She deserved better than Aidan Castle, but she loved him. Jin might take comfort in his good deed if he weren’t so damned distracted by his own desire.
The journey would take a month or six weeks if the wind stayed with them. The neat little thirty-gun brig he’d purchased the previous day would make it a comfortable trip. But it was going to be a hellishly long month trying to remain aloof from her. If he touched her again, he would be playing them both false. He was not the man for Miss Viola Carlyle.
When she had come into his room at the hotel seeking to seduce, he told himself it would not harm either of them to enjoy another night together. But when she asked if he wished her to leave, he’d had the insane urge to grasp her hand again and insist that she never leave. The panic that had sloshed through him then lingered even now.
