yesterday. ”
She didn’t understand at once. The long, straight brows drew together.
“We went through every drawer, every book, paper, every box. Everything you own.” How did a man apologize for that? Especially since he’d do it again, if he had to. “I’m honestly sorry. I had to know if you were part of your father’s treason. I needed proof you were clean.”
“Then I hope you got it.” The letter she’d picked up crackled in her fist. “Good-bye, Captain Kennett. You can find the way out, I imagine.” When she looked up, he saw the fear underneath the anger. It was a deep, well- practiced fear that looked like she’d been working on it for a while.
He’d earned that anger. But he wouldn’t let her be scared of him. “I’m not your enemy.”
“Of course not. We’re cordial as a pair of nesting doves, you and me. My father’s an honored guest down at Meeks Street. Those are purely decorative iron bars all around him.” She got up slowly and leaned over her desk, her fists knuckle-down on the wood. “What do you want?”
“I want you to step back from what you’re doing. Your father’s guilty. You can’t help him. You’re risking your—”
“My father is innocent. I’d stake my life on it.”
With her, it was literally true. “You’re careless with your life, Jess.”
She didn’t meet his eyes. “Sometimes, everything’s dangerous. ”
He was going to put an end to this, to Jess playing ducks and drakes with her life. Last night, he’d gone through every paper on her worktable, getting angrier and angrier.
He picked up the nearest stack and pulled out a file. “Do you want me to tell you what you’re doing here? You’re following . . . who?” He read the name. “Right. He’s a rare son of a bitch.” He dropped that and took the next file down. “And this ugly bastard—I’m pretty sure he scuttled one of his own ships. Who else?” He flipped his way through. “A simple embezzler. He’s wandered into bad company, hasn’t he? Here’s a sterling citizen who started out as a wrecker down in Cornwall.”
“They’re not the choir at St. Paul’s.”
“They’re the scum of the docks. Including,” he slid the last file across the table, “this one. Sebastian Kennett. You must like him particularly. He’s the one you followed down to the docks.” He was furious all over again. She’d set her office clerks to trailing him. Asking questions. Poking into his business. They’d followed his family.
She looked back at him, stern as a carved statue. “One of those men is Cinq. I’m going to find him.”
“What you’re going to do is walk out of your warehouse and disappear without a splash. Shall I tell you what’s in all these files? Insurance fraud, shipping shortages, a taste for catamites, one act of piracy, and multiple cases of outright theft. Have I missed any little vices in that list? You have copies of their bank accounts. How the damn hell did you get hold of that?”
“Bribery, mostly. It’s a business expense, and we budget for it. Look, I don’t know about you, Captain, but I have work to do this morn—”
“No wonder you were attacked on Katherine Lane.” He dropped the papers back on the long table. “They must be standing in line to knock you over the head.”
“I’m not—”
“You’ve been risking your neck for weeks.”
A deadly ripple of fur shot out from under a bookcase.
“Hellfire! What?” He jerked back. Reflexes, honed by years of dodging exotic threats, kicked in. He went for the knife.
It was the ferret, out of its cage. Snarling jaws clamped to his boot, tearing into the leather. “Watch it, Jess! Get back. They bite.”
Before he could stop her, she was on the floor, pulling the claws and snarls loose from his boot, clutching the animal against her. “Bad ferret! No!”
Twenty inches of malevolent fur wriggled and cheeped and stretched to lick at her face. She choked out a laugh and settled, tailor-fashion, onto the floor, unselfconscious as a child. “Bad Kedger.”
He let his breath out. “Bloody piping peace.” He’d seen the thing in its cage last night, hissing and snarling. He’d wondered what a vicious beast like that was doing in her office. “It’s a pet. Your pet.”
She gave him a sideways glance and the edge of a grin. “This is me mate. Been with me a while, the Kedger. Kedger, meet the Captain.”
He tried not to be obvious, slipping his knife back into the sheath in his jacket. His heart was still banging in his ribs. He’d thought the beast was going to take her eye out. “Some women keep spaniels.”
“So I hear.” She pressed her face into the length of hostile, undulating animal and blew gently into its fur. “Quiet now. That’s the beautiful Kedger. Fine boy.”
That husky voice insinuated itself into his imagination. The silk of it twined through his body, pulling and stroking. He could almost feel Jess with her face pressed to him, blowing against his skin, murmuring.
He was going to bewitch this woman and intrigue her till she was sleepy-eyed and willing and their mouths got up to all kinds of mischief on each other’s bodies.
But not now.
He hardened up instantly, imagining that. This wasn’t the time or the place.
It was impossible to think of anything but Jess. Out in the clerks’ room, the whole length of the room, the blinds were up, letting the morning light in. Sun glared off every desk and cabinet and streamed through to light Jess up from behind. Wisps of hair escaped around her head and glowed like Venetian glass. A gilded girl, in a halo of dazzle.
From under her coiled braid, a black button of a nose emerged, then a gray, pointed snout, then sneaky black eyes. Lips drew back, showing fangs, upper and lower. If it bit her, he’d strangle it. “It’s tearing holes in your dress, hanging on that way.”
“He’s excited. His life’s been replete with incident lately.” She spread her fingers and let the beady black nose explore between them. “It’s kind of unusual, the way he went for you. He doesn’t bite just anybody.”
“He doesn’t bite me either, if he knows what’s good for him. Why don’t you put that son of a . . . ferret where it won’t do any damage.”
Her smile widened. She’d enjoyed seeing him dance around, avoiding teeth. He didn’t begrudge her a little vengeance. The vermin sneered over the crook of her arm, clicking like a demented clock. She said, “He doesn’t fancy you, does he? They say animals always know.”
“That’s what they say.”
“Sees unplumbed depths of infamy in you, I expect.” One-handed, cuddling the ferret, she fumbled with the latch of the cage. The ferret ran down her arm, upended, and took a stand on a bit of rolled-up carpet, cursing, tail puffed out like an angry cat’s. “He seems nervous today. You would not believe how sensitive ferrets are.”
The door of the cage closed. Steel grated between ferret jaws as Jess’s sweet, sensitive pet tried to gnaw its way out. Death threats whirled behind its beady eyes.
He thinned his own lips back.
The black paws scrubbed together in quick, tiny jerks. Then the vermin turned its back and began grooming itself. He and the ferret understood each other precisely.
“I let him loose down on the main floor after business hours.” Jess fiddled with the water dish, poking her finger through the bars. “He spends the night running through the freight stacks, terrorizing the cats. Kedger’s always in a good mood after a night rollicking around the warehouse.”
She pushed a strand of hair back from her face with a quick circling of her forefinger. It flowed down the shy crevice behind the shell of her ear, unwinding like dribbled honey.
She knew he’d come up close behind her. She was buzzing with annoyance inside, but he felt—he could almost smell—her awareness of him. She wanted him. Jess was a woman, with a woman’s knowledge. The heat in her wove through the air between them, to him, and back to her, tying them together.
