Passenger (Passenger #1) - Alexandra Bracken Page 0,54

British would already be in control of the city and its harbor. Wren had been right about this: if caught with a captured British ship, he and his prize crew would be tried as pirates, and—worse yet—traitors.

“I’m certain,” Nicholas said, straightening his jacket. “Do you foresee any problems bringing the Ardent into New London without me?”

“I think we’ll manage the feat, but however will I keep a dry eye knowing you’re gone?” Chase said dryly.

It had been his sole condition—that the Ardent, its captured cargo, and his crew be kept well out of the way of trouble, and brought directly to the Lowes in Connecticut. Cyrus Ironwood, however, had demanded that Nicholas escort the girls into Manhattan, where he had taken up temporary residence. He had refused to meet them out on Long Island, or even in Connecticut, where they might have avoided the British altogether. As always, the sun rose and set on Ironwood’s expectations, and any complications in bringing Sophia and Etta to him would be up to Nicholas to solve.

They had less than a day now to meet Cyrus Ironwood’s firm arrival deadline; there simply wasn’t time for complications, not with so much pay at stake.

“Will you see to it that our two passengers are ready to depart?” Nicholas asked. “I’d like to make one last inspection of the ship and crew.”

“Miss Etta Spencer has been up for nearly two hours,” Chase said with a chuckle. “Said she sensed we were close and was too eager to sleep. Sensed it! Personally, I think she saw one last opportunity for some freedom from her sister.”

As Nicholas suspected, Sophia had taken a turn for the better and was alert enough to terrorize her “sister” with her constant, domineering presence for the rest of the voyage. Nicholas had given up counting the number of times he had come across Etta hiding somewhere in the galley or forecastle, playing a game of cards with Jack and the other boys, only to have Sophia swoop down in a swirl of silk and linen and snatch her away. In all of ten days, he’d managed to steal only four words. It left his stomach sour and his mind ill at ease.

He glanced back at the table, and at the violin and bow resting atop the pile of charts. He’d found it the night after the fateful dinner, stowed inside a cabinet, and had left it out in the hope…on the off chance she might change her mind and seek it out.

Chase cleared his throat. “Before you make for shore, if I may be so bold, my dear friend—”

“You may not, but you will,” Nicholas replied.

“I know you’ve struggled to find a moment alone, and perhaps I should not have interrupted that first night, but I should hope it’s as obvious to you that the girl has paid special mind to you—”

“She’s a charming creature, and she’s interested in the business of sailing,” Nicholas said quickly. “She has paid special mind to everyone present, yourself included—”

“I’m not finished,” Chase cut him off. “I was not implying anything improper. I wanted to ask if you remembered Hall’s wife, Anne—what he said of her?”

“I only remember what happened when she passed,” he lied. A long year, in which they had chased Hall from tavern to tavern and hadn’t spent a single day on a ship. He’d had no idea a man so large and powerful, who’d fought and survived a thousand battles, could be broken into so many pieces when his lady took ill.

“Liar,” Chase said, not unkindly. “He said he’d never remarry, because he’d never find another lady that fit so neatly at his side. He called her his equal in spirit.”

Nicholas’s hands smoothed over his sleeves, trying to formulate his argument. Anne had been one of the sweetest ladies the world was ever likely to see. She’d cared for both of the boys as if they were her own, and had never questioned the way Hall had brought them home, one at a time, like the strays they were. She was the pearl to the captain’s rough, wild reef.

He couldn’t let his friend finish. Put the hopeful thought into the world. It would grow into something that would only crush him in the end. “She’s not for me.”

“I think she is,” Chase insisted. “Yet you can’t see it.”

“What I see is that there’s no future there, even if the lady were amenable.” The words were sour in his mouth. “What do you expect, for