42
"Marianne, I understand and respect your concerns," Marquess Rathbone said the next morning as he paced in front of Celia and her mother, seated comfortably in the library Celia had not touched since Rathbone's return. "But I am also in complete sympathy to your husband's position."
"But my lord," Mary murmured. "Surely it cannot have escaped your notice that he did not attempt any rescue at all, much less go to the lengths you have gone. What honorable man would not pursue his family's captors if he has the means to do so? You cannot imagine our suffering, and now to know he did not even bother ... "
Lord Rathbone took a deep breath and turned away from them, his hands behind his back, his head bowed.
"I don't ken that, either, Marianne," he said low. "I cannot explain it and I cannot demand an answer because he is my commanding officer. I do believe he regrets it."
Regret?
Lord Rathbone began to pace and Celia kept her face carefully down while following his every move from under her eyelashes and in her periphery, as she would not be put off her guard. Being this close to him, this involved in conversation, in truth terrified her.
But Celia was not expected to speak. She might not be capable of speech even if she were, as her heart drummed so hard and so loudly she feared Rathbone could hear it.
He went to his window and looked out upon the darkened glass that had raindrops running down it, sparkling in the candlelight. He had one hand on his hip and the other was massaging the bridge of his nose.
"I will not have her taken away from me," Mary pronounced. "Not after she has been lost to me for so long."
He sighed. "The court has decided, Marianne, and I'll not finance an appeal. She will have to—"
"My lord," came the grave voice of the butler at the door of the library. The marquess waved a hand. "You have a caller. He claims to have personal knowledge of the Lady Captain Fury."
Celia's heart nigh leapt out of her chest, but Rathbone only harrumphed. "Another one. Send him in. One of these days, someone will appear with real information. Not even my house guests who spent weeks aboard her bloody ship can give me anything useful," he grumbled.
As if the day had dawned with the express intent of making Celia's life a living hell, in was shown Marcus Zimmerman, who had endured his flogging and recuperation, but not well or with any dignity.
He approached with the affect of a penitent, his clothes ratty, his face filthy, and his cap in hand. "My lord," he said, and bowed.
"Yes, yes, yes. Who are you and how do you come to know Fury?" Zimmerman glanced at Celia and her mother, but Rathbone said, "Get on with it, man. I have more important business with these two than with you."
"I was on the Thunderstorm when she blew the blockade."
That got her uncle's attention. "Really," he drawled. "What is your name and how came you to seek a berth with her? What were your duties?"
"Marcus Zimmerman, my lord. I needed passage and funds, and was set to various chores needing great strength to accomplish."
Rathbone's mouth pursed and he studied Zimmerman for a moment until the man became more twitchy than Celia had ever seen him. "You've the look of trouble about you, Zimmerman, and whatever else she is, Fury is not careless. I can't imagine she approved of you."
"She didn't. Her bo'sun hired me."
"Aye then. Why are you here, and make it concise."
"I know where her ship is."
Celia's growing tension waned a bit. He couldn't know, as she had set him ashore in Ireland. It was not such a habit for the privateer vessels to lay at anchor deep in Dutch waters. Calais, Oostende, even Dover, for those who were more willing to take the risk, were far more convenient for necessary covert ventures into England.
But Rathbone was no fool. "Aye, well, I doubt that." He waved a hand. "Begone, Zimmerman, and take your tales with you."
"She and Captain Judas are lovers," he blurted.
Rathbone stiffened and he stared at Zimmerman, his head cocked to one side. "And how do you know this?"
"We were becalmed for a time, grappled to two ships. I believe they were the Silver Shilling and the Mad Hangman. 'Twas a near sennight of merrymaking."
"You believe?" he asked calmly. "Where were you during this ... party ... in the middle of the ocean?"
"In the infirmary."
"Why?"
He paused. "I ... was flogged, Sir."
"Why?"
"I ... did not obey an order quickly enough to suit her, Sir."
Rathbone cackled and slapped his palm down on his desk. "God, I love that woman as much as I hate her. If I ever get my hands on her, I'll fu—" Celia barely choked back a startled—nay, delighted—laugh. He cleared his throat. "Then what?"
Zimmerman's Adam's apple bobbed. "I was in the hold for the duration."
"Ah, she threw you in the brig, did she? Why should I trust you any more than she did?" The great weasely fellow opened his mouth, but was cut off. "Can you identify Judas by sight?"
"Captain Fury only, Sir."
Rathbone's eyebrow rose. "I can identify Fury by sight. I need Judas, whom you cannot give me." He paused, tapping one long finger on his desk. "Zimmerman, I will offer you this: Write a full report of your experience. You can write, can you not?"
"Yes, my lord."
"Give me your direction and I will send a lad to collect it tomorrow. If 'tis helpful to me, I'll see that you are compensated for your time."
Zimmerman rattled off an address that Celia was not familiar with, but would remember on pain of her life, then took his leave.
"Nasty business, that Fury," Rathbone muttered as he wrote it out for himself before ordering one of the kitchen lads—whom Celia had every reason to doubt were, in fact, simple kitchen lads—to follow Zimmerman and report back. "Truth be told," he mused, "I could use a few more captains like her. Her and that goddamn Hollander she sails with." He shook himself. "Marianne, I'm terribly sorry, but Celia must attend Lord Hylton tomorrow."
"I understand," she whispered. "But ... I fear he will take the opportunity to snatch her and lock her away, that perhaps this marriage business is a ruse."
Rathbone speared her with a glance. "You do not know your husband very well, then, Lady Hylton," he said stiffly. "Though I suppose that is to be expected after so many years apart. Dismissed."
The simpleton and the invalid shuffled to their chambers together slowly. Oh, so slowly. But once they had entered and the door locked, Mary hissed a stream of curses that had even Celia raising her eyebrows.
"Man and Woman here! Then Zimmerman! And you summoned to Nathan's home!"
Zimmerman was one problem Celia could solve—and quickly.
"One thing at a time, Mama. One thing at a time."
• • •
"MURDERED?!"
Lord Rathbone's enraged bellow fair shook the house the following day at precisely one o'clock.
Mary and Celia looked up from their stitchery in vague curiosity, but Aunt Harriet was looking at the door of the room where she was receiving afternoon callers.
"Get the Mockslings in here this instant!"
Woman cast a panicked glance at Aunt, who was not disposed well enough toward her to give her any encouragement. One eyebrow rose. "You heard him."
"Why does that bitch not work for me?!"
Celia quelled a smirk and bent back to her stitchery, of which she was making an absolute botch, awaiting this moment when Rathbone would learn the fate of yesterday's unexpected informant.
Cap'n!
Ah, now you are more willing to pay proper respect.
The only respect I'll pay you is between your thighs, bi—
After she had gathered every piece of parchment in Zimmerman's rooms and retrieved her dagger from his forehead, she had left him there, bleeding on the floor, and slipped out, heading for a busy tavern on the wharf. With great care, she had fed each sheet into the hearth fire.
"GODDAMMIT!" Everyone flinched when the sound of shattering glass sliced through the house. "No report? Did you search everywhere?"
The lad's voice was low.
"That bitch is here in London, and she wants me to know it else she'd have disposed of his body. Interview every last creature in this house right down to the mice and then comb the wharf. FIND HER! MOCKSLING!"
"What have you done?" Mary hissed once Aunt Harriet left the room in a huff to shush her husband's bellows and to inform him that Man had taken himself off to find—to Woman's horror—gainful employment.
Celia never raised her head from her work and continued to struggle with the one piece of floss that refused to lie smooth. Zimmerman was of no import, and murdering him had been a relatively simple task.
But in little more than an hour, she would have her audience with Admiral Lord Hylton, Nathaniel John Bancroft, the man whose name she bore.
And as soon as she had a plan, he would be as dead as Zimmerman.