Indiscretions. Gail Ranstrom

a deep breath and entered.

      Like taverns everywhere, the Blue Fin was dimly lit and smelled of stale ale. The square barroom had a long counter at one side and two dozen tables scattered throughout. Hunt sat in one corner facing the door with his back to the wall, a habit he’d acquired after being knifed in the back by a French agent in a Marseille public house. He ordered a tankard of ale and placed it on the small wooden table in front of him. Half past eleven. Right on time.

      A man of average height entered and glanced around. He was dressed in rough brown trousers and a stained blue work shirt. His long sandy hair was pulled back and tied with a black string at his nape. He was the very picture of a longshoreman. When his gaze met Hunt’s, he nodded. Hunt nodded back.

      The man went to the bar and bought a tankard of ale. After exchanging pleasantries with the barkeeper, the man slammed his tankard down on the counter and headed for the back door with an excuse that he had to use the privy.

      Hunt did a slow count to ten, finished his ale and stood. He dropped a small coin on the table, exited to the street and then rounded the building to the rear courtyard of the tavern. And there, waiting for him in the shadow of an ancient oak, stood Oliver Layton, clandestine operations, Foreign Office.

      Layton glanced at the rear door to the tavern. “We’ve got about five minutes, Lockwood.”

      “Good to see you, too, Layton. Have you found a more private meeting place for us?”

      The man nodded. “West of town, just before your plantation, there’s a brick mile-marker. Off the road about one hundred yards you’ll find an abandoned hut. The track is overgrown, but there’s still a trace of it. Behind the center stone above the lintel is a pocket. Leave messages there. I will check for them and leave my own every midnight. If you need to talk to me, meet me there.”

      Hunt nodded. “Bring me up-to-date.”

      “Not much to tell. I’ve been in place a month. The locals are just beginning to trust me. I’ve hinted that I’d like to make more money and don’t care how. We’ll see if someone takes the bait. Do you have a plan?”

      “Nothing firm beyond a reception to be given tomorrow night by Governor Bascombe and his chargé d’affaires, Gavin Doyle. I met with them this evening. They don’t know why I’m here. I gather Eastman fears the problem may have reached the highest levels. In the morning I’ll go to New Albion. I haven’t been to my plantation for ten years.” Hunt closed his eyes to remember. “Then…if I recall correctly, there is a mountain range that runs down the south end of the island. The mountains come down to the sea, and since it is the windward side of the island, the currents are fairly treacherous. Not much land over there.”

      “What has that to do with us?”

      “There’s a small town built on the cliffs. Blackpool. I hear they don’t like strangers. Something is wrong there. The captain of the ship I sailed on pretended ignorance of the town. I find that interesting,” Hunt told him. “Most shippers want to make the most of a port. If Blackpool has any goods to trade or any need of supplies, it would be a logical stop. That it isn’t on anyone’s itinerary is suspicious. I intend to pay them a little visit. Have you heard any gossip regarding the village?”

      “The townspeople are strangely silent about the other side. It’s almost as if it doesn’t exist. I asked the harbormaster about ships from Blackpool, and he told me they don’t come here, and that our ships don’t go there. Then he made a cryptic remark about ill fortune to those who tried.”

      Hunt laughed. “Good God, what an opening! And you haven’t gone to the other side after that tempting remark?”

      Layton rubbed the stubble on his chin and shook his head. “The pack of sea rats we’re looking for are bloodthirsty barbarians. I’m just a poor longshoreman. I don’t go looking for trouble and I don’t make any.”

      “Or so they believe.”

      Layton gave him a lopsided grin. “So far, at least on St. Claire, that’s the truth. My orders are to collect intelligence and stay out of trouble.”

      Hunt nodded. Those were Layton’s orders, not his. The Foreign Office expected him to “handle” any problem on St. Claire. “Any word, any mention at all, of Captains Sieyes or Rodrigo?”

      “None. It is as if no one in San Marco has ever heard of pirates.”

      “They cannot be blind, deaf and dumb.”

       Chapter Three

       T he next morning, Hunt threw his coat across his saddle and left for New Albion, his plantation just west. Lush growth crowded the sides of the road while overhanging trees canopied the track, blocking the sun but not the early morning heat. The road ran parallel to the ocean and he could hear the soft hiss of waves through the heavy growth of mangrove and cypress. Distant screeches reminded him of the brightly colored birds in cages on the wharves destined for London drawing rooms.

      That thought brought him back to the most exotic creature he’d seen yet: the tempting Widow Hobbs. Widow. Not married. Fair game. She’d have no illusions of a future together. She was self-sufficient and did not need him—a good thing, since he had nothing to give. They’d be free to enjoy whatever comfort the other could offer without impossible expectations.

      When Governor Bascombe had insisted upon holding a reception for Lockwood, Hunt had requested that an invitation be sent to Mrs. Daphne Hobbs. The governor had merely smiled and warned that she never attended public affairs.

      Too bad. She had made her own way in the world instead of catching another husband—which would have been an easy task for a woman of her looks and manner. She had a backbone. He liked that in a woman. But if she could not be enticed to attend soirées, he would just have to become Pâtisserie’s best customer.

      A pair of wrought-iron gates, open to the road, bore the words New Albion. He turned his recently acquired gelding through the gate and proceeded down the track a quarter of a mile.

      His first sight of the house surprised him anew. He hadn’t remembered it looking so typically like a British manor. Two stories, with tall windows open to the breeze, it was constructed of stone and covered with a verdant growth of flowering tropical vines. A row of small well-kept cottages formed a semicircle behind the house, and off to one side across a clearing were the barn and stables. The drive made a loop in front and he dismounted at the wide steps.

      A short man with dark, slicked-back hair and a luxuriant mustache came down the steps to greet him. “Lord Lockwood? Good to meet you. I’m Jack Prichard, your factor. You had a pleasant voyage, I hope?”

      He nodded and shook the man’s hand. “Uneventful, which I hear is a good thing.”

      Prichard laughed. “Never know when you’ll encounter a hurricane this time of year.”

      Hunt looked toward the cottages. “The staff?”

      “And the workers. They are out on the plantation this time of day. Your trunks arrived and I’ve left them in the foyer until you decide where you want to stay. There is a room upstairs with a crossbreeze or, if you prefer privacy, the guesthouse.”

      He would prefer privacy. In fact, he would require it. “Where is the guesthouse?”

      Prichard pointed to a trail through the garden toward the sound of waves breaking on a beach. “Not far down the path.”

      The factor signaled a waiting servant who entered the front hall, hoisted Hunt’s trunk to his shoulder and followed them. The path took them several hundred yards toward the ocean, but the destination was well worth the walk. Single story, long and low, the guesthouse was built on stilts with a porch surrounding the entire structure. When he opened the door, he was enchanted. Though the house was beneath the tree canopy, the ocean was visible through a wall of windows lining the front.

      Prichard slid one window to the side, and then another, and fresh sea air swept through the house, making it feel almost a part of the outdoors.