“With Baron?”
Ash nodded.
“Something to do with scarlet fever you mentioned at Raven Castle?”
“Max—”
“Just tell me, Ash.”
“I have no wish to continue with my story.” His tone could have frozen a lake.
Max looked at him with that half smile on his face. Mr. Spriggot was still scratching away making notes.
“Mr. Spriggot is the soul of discretion. Not only that, he knows so many of our family’s secrets, he could have ruined us by now. He has chosen not to.”
“It is not Mr. Spriggot I am concerned with,” Ash said.
“I too can keep a secret,” Max said.
“I would never break client-investigator privileges. As I have often told Mr. Warwickshire Sinclair, Mrs. Charlton, and Miss Sinclair,” Mr. Spriggot said.
He had no wish to think about Dorrie in her role as an investigator, so he dismissed it from his mind.
“Speak, Ash. Your insides will feel less of a cauldron with the sharing, trust me,” Max said.
He sighed again, because really, what else was there to do.
“Baron and I contracted scarlet fever, along with a few of the crew. He was not as sick as I. Radcliff refused to unchain me while the fever took hold. We were in Calcutta, and the crew went ashore without those of us that were ill.”
“To spread the fever around,” Max muttered.
“Radcliff cares about no one but himself,” Ash said. “I’m not sure why Baron decided then that it was time for us to leave the ship, but his belief was I would die if we did not.”
“But you didn’t care if you died.”
He met Max’s eyes but did not react.
“He told me to pretend I was dead, which was not hard. He then got the keys to my cuffs by convincing a crew member that my body needed to be taken off the ship.”
“How long were you chained on Radcliff’s ship?”
“Too long,” Ash replied. “He took me ashore and paid a woman to watch over me in her room. He then went back until Radcliff returned and told him that I’d died. Baron then pretended he was sicker than he was.”
“He’s a very clever man.”
Ash nodded.
“Luck was on his side, and Radcliff declared he wanted all the sick off the ship and left at the port. Baron was one of those.”
“The man clearly cares little about anyone or anything.”
“He’s a cold-blooded, money-hungry killer,” Ash said. “Baron cared for me, and I got better. We worked as hard as we could to build up our finances. We had a few things go our way and purchased theFreedom. It wasn’t in good shape; in fact the man we got it from thought we were fools to even attempt to make it seaworthy. But we did.”
“I’m sure there is a great deal more to that story, but continue,” Max said.
“I captained the ship at Baron’s insistence. We then hunted Radcliff. Taking cargo from one port to another, trying to find him, but I never did.”
“And he thought you were dead and had no idea you were after him?”
