“Haven’t you got that fire lit yet?” Peg asked, not looking up as she pulled a pot from the cupboard.
“Um. . . . no. I am not certain . . .”
“I’ll do it,” Joan said in a long-suffering manner, placing the child in Margaret’s arms.
At least this was something Margaret could do. Having two siblings many years younger than herself, she knew how to hold a child.
Margaret settled the child against her and soon felt dampness seep into her gown. Ugh. She wondered if she could manage to change him. At Lime Tree Lodge, they had employed a nursery maid to deal with soiled nappies.
“What’s your name?” the older boy asked her.
“My name?” Margaret echoed stupidly. “Ah . . .” Her mind whirled. “Elinor,” she said, choosing her middle name.
“But she goes by Nora,” Joan added, perhaps finding the name too grand—or too close to her real name.
“Make the porridge, will you, Nora?” Peg said. “I’ve got six orders of piecework to finish today.” Peg glanced up. “You do know how to make porridge, I trust?”
“’Course she does,” Joan said. “You go about your work, Peg, and we’ll manage breakfast.”
Peg nodded and crossed the room to the waiting baskets.
When her back was turned, Joan whispered, “Peg makes thin gruel for the children. It’s better for their little stomachs.”
And cheaper, Margaret thought, but did not say so.
“Six parts water to one part groats. Can you manage that? Unless you’d rather change Henry?”
“No thank you. I shall give gruel a go.”
Later, after they had eaten thin, lumpy, mildly scorched gruel with neither milk nor sugar, Margaret fumbled her way through drying the pot, spoons, and basins as Joan washed. As she did so, she thought about something Joan had said—that Peg’s name and address were recorded in Benton’s staff records as Joan’s next of kin. Sterling might very well put two and two together and knock on Peg’s door any moment looking for her. Margaret shuddered. She could not stay there long.
After the dishes were put away, Joan sat down with a wrinkled copy of a newspaper a few days old, reading through the advertisements. Not knowing what else to do, Margaret pulled her comb from her bag and went to work on the little girl’s hair, untangling then plaiting the ginger strands.
Peg glanced from her sewing to Joan, still bent over the newspaper. “Any luck, Joan?”
Joan shook her head. “It seems everyone wants maids-of-all-work here in town. That’s one fate I should like to avoid.”
Reaching the end of the girl’s hair, Margaret looked around for a ribbon or something else to secure it.
Peg tossed her a thin scrap of muslin. “Here.”
Margaret tied the end of the plait, and the girl stroked her coppery braid, smiling coyly up at Joan. “Am I pretty, Aunt Joan?”
Joan looked from her niece to Margaret, then back again. “Pretty is as pretty does, little miss. You remember that.”
The jab was intended for her, Margaret realized. At the moment, being pretty seemed of little use. What should she do?
The “Gentleman Pirate” . . . a retired British
army major with a large sugar plantation in Barbados,
abandoned his wife, children, land and fortune; bought
a ship; and turned to piracy on the high seas.
—Amy Crawford, Smithsonian magazine
Chapter 4
Nathaniel Aaron Upchurch spent two restless nights in his family’s London residence after his appearance at the ball. He did not see his brother at all the first day. Lewis slept in very late and then had left for his club while Nathaniel met with the family’s London banker. He supposed his brother was avoiding him after their fight.
In Lewis’s absence, Nathaniel began taking stock of the situation—gathering unpaid bills and paying the permanent staff as well as the valet and coachman who had come up from Maidstone to help run the place. All the while his sister remained in Fairbourne Hall, necessitating the upkeep of both houses simultaneously, further compounding their expenses.
Lewis sauntered down for breakfast late the second morning, sporting a black eye and bruised cheek. “I say, Nate ol’ boy, you made quite an entrance the other night.”
Nathaniel regarded his brother warily, but Lewis’s tone held no rancor. Nathaniel regretted losing his temper, overtired from the journey as he was. He was determined not to do so again.
Lewis sized him up, surveying him from head to toe. Nathaniel became conscious of the fact that he had yet to shave his beard or cut his hair.
“My, my,” Lewis drawled. “Who, I wonder, is this rogue before me and what has happened to my young pup of a brother?”
“Two years in Barbados happened.”
“The island did not have such an effect on me.”
Unfortunately, Nathaniel thought. But he said, “I am sorry we came to blows at the ball.”
“I am not.” Lewis smirked. “We shall be the talk of town for a week.”
Nathaniel said dryly, “Or until the next scandal erupts.”
Lewis helped himself to coffee with several lumps of sugar—sugar grown in Barbados, though refined there in England. Nathaniel took his coffee—without sugar—and settled himself at the small desk in the breakfast room. He placed his spectacles on his nose and continued inscribing the outstanding debts into a ledger. He ought to have brought Hudson to do this, but the man had insisted on staying aboard the Ecclesia to keep watch, since Nathaniel had given the crew three-days leave.
Lewis turned from the sideboard and laughed. “Now there is the brother I remember. Nose in a book and wearing unfashionable spectacles.”
Nathaniel ignored the jab. “Were you ever going to pay these bills?”
“Me? Is that not why we have staff?”
Nathaniel clenched his jaw. “You tell me. I see that you have hired another French chef but no clerk or secretary.”
Lewis popped a hunk of sausage into his mouth and spoke around the bite. “Monsieur Fournier preferred to stay at Fairbourne Hall, and I could not leave Helen in the lurch, could I?”
“That is exactly what you have done.”
“The season is almost over, ol’ boy,” Lewis soothed. “Then I shall tuck tail and go home like a dutiful spaniel, ey? But to insist I leave London now? Especially now that you are returned? You cannot be so cruel.” Lewis rubbed his bruised jaw. “Though after meeting with your fists, I am not so certain.”
Nathaniel noticed that Lewis did not bring up the reasons for his return. He knew their father had written to Lewis about it, but he was relieved not to have to rehash it all again.
After breakfast Nathaniel spent several more hours meeting with tradesmen and bringing accounts up to snuff. Then he allowed Lewis’s valet to cut his hair and give him a better shave than he’d had in months. Finally, Nathaniel felt ready to return to his ship, collect Hudson and the rest of his belongings, and set off for Maidstone.
Nathaniel left the coachman and fashionable barouche with Lewis and insisted on driving the old traveling chariot himself—to the coachman’s horror. Nathaniel would have settled for horseback or a small curricle, but he had quite a bit of cargo to unload and transport to Fairbourne Hall before the captain and crew departed for Barbados without him.
He enjoyed handling the reins, though the boxy enclosed carriage and team did not handle as well as the small trap and spirited mare he had driven around the island.
He pulled up the collar of his greatcoat and pulled down his hat, ignoring the disapproving look of an old dowager-neighbor, stunned to see him playing coachman. No doubt he had just given the gossips more reason to denounce him as uncivilized.
He drove his customary route to the Port of London and, when he arrived, hopped down and tied the horses near the Legal Quays. He turned toward the river and stopped, staring in disbelief. Flames shot up from the Ecclesia and smoke billowed. God have mercy. What next?
He began running while these thoughts still echoed in his mind, his boots thumping against the wooden planking in time with his heart. Beside the three-masted merchantman, a dinghy floated. Several men waited at the oars, ready to make their escape. This was no accident, then, but an intentional attack. Where was Hudson? Almighty God, please spare Hudson.
Nathaniel ran up the gangplank, heedless of the flames and smoke. If only he had retained a skeleton crew. Where were the river police? They were supposed to patrol against cargo theft and vandalism. Had a port worker—or even a member of the river police—been bribed to look the other way?
Fire licked up the mizzenmast. Nathaniel ran to the larboard rail and looked down at the dinghy. Still there. Nate was torn between the desire for revenge and the desire to try to save his ship. The ragged crew smirked up at him. What were they waiting for?
He had his answer soon enough, for a man leapt down from the quarter deck and sprinted across the main. He wore the clothes of a gentleman. His face was tanned, distinguished, and . . . familiar. Nathaniel’s gut clenched. Thunder and turf. Not him. Not here.
Nathaniel drew his pistol.
Abel Preston skidded to a halt, an infuriating grin on his handsome face. “A pistol? Not very sportsmanlike.” He glanced down at the fine sword sheathed at his side.
“But effective,” Nathaniel said. “Where is Hudson?”