Stephanie Laurens – A Buccaneer At Heart (страница 7)

The seated clerk shot Aileen a quick glance, then nodded. “Aye. It’d be about three months ago now.”

“I am aware that my brother has disappeared.” She failed to keep her accents from growing more clipped as her tone grew more severely interrogatory. “What I wish to know is why he was ashore, rather than aboard H.M.S. Winchester.”

“As to that, miss”—the first clerk’s tone grew decidedly prim—“we’re not at liberty to say.”

She paused, parsing the comment, then countered, “Am I to take it from that that you do, in fact, know of some reason William—Lieutenant Hopkins—was ashore? Ashore when he was supposed to be at sea?”

The clerk straightened, stiffened. “I’m afraid, miss, that this office is not permitted to divulge details of the whereabouts of officers of the service.”

She let her incredulity show. “Even when they’ve disappeared?”

Without looking around, one of the clerks seated at the desks declared, “All inquiries into operational matters should be addressed to the Admiralty.”

Her eyes narrowing, she stared at the back of the head of the clerk who had spoken. When he refused to look around, she stated in stringently uninflected tones, “The last time I visited, the Admiralty was in London.”

“Indeed, miss.” When she transferred her gaze to him, the clerk at the counter met her eyes with a wooden expression. “You’ll need to ask there.”

She refused to be defeated. “I would like to speak with your superior.”

The man answered without a blink. “Sorry, miss. He’s not here.”

“When will he return?”

“I’m afraid I can’t say, miss.”

“Not at liberty to divulge his movements, either?”

“No, miss. We just don’t know.” After a second of regarding her—possibly noting her increasing choler—the clerk suggested, “He’s around the settlement somewhere, miss. If you keep your eyes open, perhaps you might run into him.”

For several seconds, her tongue burned with the words with which she would like to flay him—him and his friends, and the naval attaché, too. Ask at the Admiralty? It was half a world away!

Thanking them for their help, even if sarcastically, occurred only to be dismissed. She couldn’t force the words past her lips.

Feeling anger—the worst sort, laced with real fear—geysering inside her, she cast the clerk still facing her a stony glare, then she picked up her reticule, spun on her heel, and marched out of the office.

Her half boots rang on the thick, weathered planks of the wharf. Her intemperate strides carried her off the wharf and up the steps to the dusty street. Skirts swishing, she paced rapidly on, climbing the rise to the bustle of Water Street.

Just before she reached it, she halted and forced herself to lift her head and draw in a decent breath.

The heat closed around her, muffling in its cloying sultriness.

The beginnings of a headache pulsed in her temples.

Now what?

She’d come all the way from London determined to learn where Will had gone. Clearly, she’d get no help from the navy itself...but there’d been something about the way the clerk had reacted when she’d suggested that there was a specific reason Will had been ashore.

Her older brothers were in the navy, too. And both, she knew, had served ashore at various times—dispatched by their superiors on what amounted to secret missions.

Not that she or their parents—or even their other siblings in the navy—had known that at the time.

Had Will been dispatched on some secret mission, too? Was that the reason he’d been ashore?

“Ashore long enough to have been captured and taken by the enemy?” Aileen frowned. After a moment, she gathered her skirts and resumed her trek up to and around the corner into Water Street, the settlement’s main thoroughfare. She needed to make several purchases in the shops lining the street before hiring a carriage to take her back up Tower Hill to her lodgings.

While she shopped, the obvious questions revolved in her brain.

Who on earth was the enemy here?

And how could she find out?

* * *

“Good morning, Miss Hopkins—you’ve been out early!”

Aileen turned from closing the front door of Mrs. Hoyt’s Boarding House for Genteel Ladies to face its owner.

Mrs. Hoyt was a round, genial widow and a redoubtable gossip who lived vicariously through the lives of her boarders. Her arms wrapped around a pile of freshly laundered sheets, Mrs. Hoyt beamed at Aileen; with frizzy red hair and a round face, she filled the doorway to her rooms to the left of the front hall, opposite the communal parlor.

Having already taken Mrs. Hoyt’s measure, Aileen held up a small bundle of brown-paper-wrapped packages. “I needed to buy some stationery. I must write home.”

Mrs. Hoyt nodded approvingly. “Indeed, dear. If you want a lad to run your letters to the post office, you just let me know.”

“Thank you.” With a noncommittal dip of her head, Aileen walked on and up the stairs.

Her room was on the first floor. A pleasant corner chamber, it faced the street. Lace curtains screened the window, lending an aura of privacy. Before the window sat a plain ladies’ desk with a stool pushed beneath it. Aileen laid her packages and reticule on the desk, then stripped off her gloves before unbuttoning her lightweight jacket and shrugging it off. Even with the window open, there was little by way of a breeze to stir the air.

She pulled out the stool and sat at the desk. She opened her packages, set out the paper and ink, and fixed a new nib to the pen, then without allowing herself any further opportunity to procrastinate, she got down to the business of informing her parents where she was and explaining why she was there.

She’d been in London staying with an old friend, with no care beyond enjoying the delights of the Season before returning to her parents’ house in Bedfordshire, when she’d received a letter from her parents. They’d enclosed an official notification they’d received from Admiralty House, stating that their son Lieutenant William Hopkins had gone missing from Freetown, and that he was presumed to have gone absent without leave, possibly venturing into the jungle to seek his fortune.

Her parents had, unsurprisingly, been deeply distressed by that news. For her part, Aileen had considered it ludicrous. To suggest that any Hopkins would go absent without leave was ridiculous! For four generations, all the men in her family had been navy through and through. They were officers and gentlemen, and they viewed the responsibility of their rank as a sacred calling.

As the only girl in a family of four children, Aileen knew exactly how her three brothers viewed their service. To suggest that Will had thrown over his position to hie off on some giddy venture was pure nonsense.

But with both her older brothers at sea with their respective fleets—one in the South Atlantic, the other in the Mediterranean—as Aileen had been in London, her parents had asked if she could make inquiries with a view to discovering what was going on.

She’d duly presented herself at Admiralty House. Despite the family’s long connection with the navy, she’d got even less satisfaction there than she had at the naval office here.

Goaded and angry, and by then seriously worried about Will—he was younger than she, and she’d always felt protective of him and still did—she’d gone straight to the offices of the shipping companies and booked the first available passage to Freetown; as she’d brought ample funds with her to London, cost had not been a concern.

She’d arrived two days ago. She’d had plenty of time on the voyage to plan. Although her station and family connections meant that there was almost certain to be some family from whom she could claim support and a roof over her head while she searched for Will, she’d decided on a more circumspect approach. Hence, Mrs. Hoyt’s Boarding House, which was located on Tower Hill, the province of local British society, but below the rectory rather than above it. The houses of those moving in what passed for local society were located on the terraces higher up the hill.

Aileen had no time for social visits. Her sole purpose in being in the settlement was to find out what had happened to Will—and, if at all possible, rescue him.

At twenty-seven years of age and as naturally inclined to command as her brothers, she’d seen no reason not to come to Freetown and see what she could do. She was as capable as her brothers, and the other two were not in any position to help Will at that time.

There was also the underlying niggle of knowing that if she hadn’t been the only one of their brood available and, moreover, already in London, her parents would never have turned to her for help.

She was the girl in the family. No one expected her to contribute to anything in any way. She was supposed to be decorative rather than effective, and the only expectation anyone seemed able to credit her with was to make a comfortable marriage and keep house for some husband—most likely another naval officer.

In her heart, she knew that such a future was unlikely to ever come to pass. Aside from all else, her temperament and the odd itch beneath her skin—the same impulsive longing for adventure that had compelled her to set sail for Freetown—made her unsuitable for the position of meek and mild wife.