“I han’t fished before, but I think I’ve got the knack,” Sir Mark said after he landed a particularly large, ugly cod, to his immense satisfaction, “I’ve never fished like this, at any rate!”
“This is a good school, too,” the captain said. “When you’re in the deep—far out at sea—there’s less fish to be had. We’re approaching the continent again after swinging out wide to avoid Boney’s forces. We shall have to eat these fast; they won’t last long.”
The fishers as a group decided that once over thirty fish had been caught that they had better stop. “It’s a shame for we could get more!” sighed the second mate. “But there’s no point pulling up fish to rot.”
Dinner was quite delicious, the cook having set the boy to cutting filets, and himself to searing them for the passengersand officers alike. Even the sailors were getting good fat steaks tonight.
The meal, however, while it was deliciously fresh, was rather subdued. The two empty chairs, one for Mr. Belvedere who was confined to his cabin, and the other for Mrs. Scott, who was voluntarily keeping to her room today, were a visible check on their spirits. Whether Mrs. Scott kept to her room from shame, weakness, or a combination, no one was quite sure, but it did leave them rather depleted. Nor did the others know exactly how Sir Mark and Lady Marston had taken the news or what they had said to her. Everyone was thinking of the situation, but no one was bold enough to broach it.
Richard, however, was used to being tactful among difficult people. His aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, was a tartar, and even his cousin Darcy could be difficult. He came around to it so nimbly, no one quite realized when they began discussing the advertisement that had pointed them toward Mr. Belvedere.
“I wonder if they put a notice ineveryLondon paper that day, or did we get lucky in the one we ended up with?” Caroline said. “It could have gone quite differently if Richard had grabbed a different paper as the bundle fell. Or if they all had been lost to us!”
“I suspect they did put it in every paper,” Wentworth put in. “Most likely they will do so intermittently for several weeks, or even months.”
“Wouldn’t that get expensive?” Anne asked. “I understand they are committed to punishing fraud, but really?”
“I’m not sure how much an advertisement is, although I did hear the tax on it was raised.”
Lady Marston sipped her wine, halfway through her fish steak. “The tax is now three shilling six pence for a London paper, in addition to whatever the paper charges for theirown sake. It depends on the length, of course. For that advertisement, I would guess about six or seven shillings.”
“I suppose that is not so much for the East India Company,” Anne admitted. “But that would be a week’s earning for a working man.”
“That is the point of the tax,” Richard put in. “It keeps troublemakers with radical ideas from using the papers to disseminate their ideas. But even if the EIC put the notice ineverymajor London paper, say ten of them—that would be oh, seventy shillings? Which would only be three and half pounds. They would have to do that for a very long time to equal a thousand pounds, and the notice says they suspect counterfeit bonds equalingthree to fivethousand pounds.”
“It is definitely worth it to them,” Captain Smythe agreed. “Although one thing has me puzzled. Where’s he put it? If he still has the forged bonds or bills of exchange, we certainly haven’t seen any of it here despite our looking. And if he has the money in notes, or even a bank draft—same problem.”
“True,” Richard said. “But perhaps he grew afraid when he was nearly apprehended and left it behind. Or left it to someone to keep in trust for him. They will certainly investigate and prosecute once he is extradited back to England.”
“I knew it from the beginning,” Captain Smythe said, smacking his lips no less than Sir Mark over the tasty dinner. “I knew he would bring trouble down on us. Now if we could get one more breeze, we will be in Lisbon in no time at all. I’d even take a gale!”
“No more gales, please,” Caroline protested.
“I’m sure I don’t want you to feel poorly, ma’am, but unless it was dead straight against us, I’d take any wind the good Lord does send.”
In the event, they were both granted their wish, for Caroline woke in the night and realized the wind had picked up. The shipmoved differently under a light, steady wind. The rise and fall grew swifter, but also more rhythmic—a little more linear and less random.
She felt Richard move in the blackness and their stiff mattress moved under her as he shifted. His voice was nearer when he spoke. “Awake, my dear?”
“Yes, the movement woke me, I think.”
“Yes, I felt it, too.” They lay there in the silence, absorbing the steady dip and sway of their bed. Richard searched for her hand under the covers. “We did well. We uncovered the plot—you were right to push me to do something.”
“Thank you.”
But then Richard rolled a little closer to her. His other hand skimmed across her stomach and lightly up her arm to her neck. His thumb stroked her jaw. “Caroline…”
Caroline loved her husband, she truly did, but she was inexplicably annoyed by this. With time she could have parsed out the reasons. Perhaps she was less satisfied with the resolution to their small mystery than she had expected, and the disappointment made her irritable. Or perhaps it was that she usuallyfeltwhen she and Richard were together, and the more she closed herself off, the less she wanted to feel.
But she only turned her head away. His hand stilled, then slid away. “That’s fine, but—is something wrong?”
“No—yes. I don’t know.” Unable to explain her frustration, she fell back on an oft-repeated excuse. “I suppose I still find it so unutterably plebian to share a bed! To begin such a thing in the middle of the night—it wouldn’t happen this way in a proper household.”
There was a brief silence, and Caroline already regretted the harshness of what she’d said.
Richard shifted onto his back. “I know it’s bad form—er—de tropfor a married lady to admit to love or affection for herhusband. But those are mostly London manners, you know.” She heard the attempt at a smile in his voice. “I’d hoped you and I could ignore such foolishness. We started off differently.”
“It’s not that, Richard.”
