***
Brent Caulder, the Earl of Cassin, wound his way through the slouching sailors of the Gull and Trident, searching for his partners in the smoky gloom.
“Evenin’, your lordship,” slurred a grime-streaked sailor, swaying in the seat. “Lookin’ for the captain, are ye?”
The earl nodded, trying to place the man among their last crew. While his partner Joseph Chance knew each man by name, and his other partner, Jon Stoker, knew them by trade, they all looked the same to Cassin. His mind was already filled to overflowing with the names and faces of men who considered him their leader and employer, but these men lived two hundred miles away, in Yorkshire, and they waited for him to lead them or employee them. It was a struggle to add twenty more.
The sailor at the door didn’t seem to mind, and he grinned, happy in his drink. He jerked his chin to a rear table, half obscured by the belching hearth. “Not drunk enough yet, I reckon. They’ve only just come in.” He brought the tankard to his mouth, sloshing his beard with foam.
Cassin nodded again and started for the table, stepping over boots and sleeping dogs. Joseph, he now saw, was blocked from view by a trio of barmaids, while Stoker sprawled across two chairs and a trunk, his hat covering his eyes.
“A word, if you please,” Cassin said when he reached them. He scooped up four empty tankards and handed them to the maids. “Ladies, may I trouble you?”
“Bloody hell, Cassin,” said Joseph, scooting back his chair, “I was in the midst of a conversation.”
“No, you were not.”
“The bleeding hell I wasn’t.”
“Flirtation is not a conversation. It’s a transaction.”
“Speak for yourself, Cassin. I don’t rely on negotiation to get a woman into bed.”
“Nor do you rely onspeech,” said Jon Stoker from beneath the brim of his hat. Joseph’s blue eyes had always done the talking for him.
The women accepted the empty tankards and sauntered away while Cassin wiped the wet table with his sleeve.
“Read,” he said, spreading a rolling expanse of parchment next to the dim candle. He took coins from his pockets to weight the corners.
“What’s this?” asked Joseph. “An apothecary cure for your eternal bad mood?”
“Read,” repeated Cassin, thumping the parchment with his finger.
Something about his tone pricked their attention, and Joseph leaned in. Stoker slid his boots from the trunk one by one, taking his time, slouching forward.
“Where did you find this?” asked Joseph.
“Posted above the trough in Redmond Street.”
“Redmond?” mused Joseph. “I know the spot. Wall is littered with bills and notices.”
Stoker shook his head and returned his boots to the trunk. “It’s a fabrication.”
“We’ve no idea what it is,” said Cassin.
“I’d like to know the motive, if it’s a fabrication,” said Joseph. “What value would this”—he leaned in and read the name from the bottom line—“W. J. Hunnicut glean by offering money if he doesn’t have it? Why bother?”
“To steal ideas,” said Stoker, resettling his hat. “Trade secrets.”
“Why does any investor contribute to an endeavor?” said Cassin. “To multiply his money when the investment pays off.”
“Do you know him, Cassin?” asked Joseph. “W. J. Hunnicut?”
Cassin shook his head. He’d assured his friends when he joined the partnership that, despite being an earl, he knew few men among society’s elite. They’d brought him into the business anyway, the poor sods.
Their loose collaboration amounted to Stoker’s ownership of a fast ship and his proficiency as captain, Joseph’s brains and business acumen, and Cassin’s legitimacy as an earl. Albeit an impoverished one. Who hadn’t passed time in London in years. But they had been friends since university, and their newly minted partnership, not even a year old, was built on loyalty and shared history.
Their most bankable asset was a shared commodity they’d won in a card game and split three ways. Joseph had played the winning hand, Stoker had loaned him the money, and Cassin had relentlessly pursued the loser, a small-time smuggler and sometime pirate known for shirking his debts. Cassin had hounded him until he’d provided the actual printed deed to the spoils—a small island in the Caribbean Sea, off the coast of Barbadoes.
