“What manner of guests?” Sabine had asked.
Another shrug. “Older gentlemen. No one I’d seen before. No one from the world of cartography or engraving, I’ll tell you that.”
Sabine had left the encounter reeling. She’d raged at the sky and complained to her friends and walked the streets of London for half a day. Ultimately, she’d written to her lone, reliable source at Park Lodge, the longtime lady’s maid of her mother, a woman called May. Sabine asked specifically about new guests to Park Lodge and the eviction of her father’s students. May had dashed off a quick and detailed reply—names, dates, snatches of conversation overheard from the dining room—and Sabine’s search for evidence against her uncle had begun.
Why were her father’s students dismissed? What would become of their work? Who were these men, visiting Sir Dryden? How often did they turn up? What endeavor had Sir Dryden embarked upon using her father’s unpublished maps?
Beginning with names provided by her mother’s maid, Sabine began to nose around London for details. She hadn’t known precisely how she would exact revenge against Sir Dryden, but a clearer picture fell into place, clue by clue, every day. One man worked in shipping. Another, munitions. A third man was a chemist. Sabine vowed not to rest until she could determine Dryden’s business and return to Surrey to stop him.
Now she tossed a piece of bacon to Bridget and stared up at theDreadnought.Somewhere inside were a dozen scurvy-ridden sailors who could fill in the gaps of her latest discovery. One of Dryden’s known associates was, she had discovered, a London-based shipper. The man himself had proven impossible to interview and his sailors were, unfortunately, almost always at sea. But Sabine had learned that this particular crew had contracted scurvy and were, at the moment, laid up on the hospital ship. Pity about their health, Sabine had thought, but also perfectly situated to answer some pointed questions about their employer and his expeditions.
“We must be very charming and lovely, Bridget,” Sabine reminded her dog, dropping another piece of bacon.
Bridget regarded every morsel of food as if it were her last, and she attacked the treat.
“You are not even trying, I see.” She shaded her eyes, staring at the ship.
Sabine’s capacity to beguile was nearly as limited as her dog’s, but unlike Bridget, her face and body tended to take over where flirtation failed. Green eyes and sable hair had that effect on men, whether she wanted it or not.
But who would they beguile if no one was on deck? TheDreadnought, which she knew to be packed with ailing sailors, looked abandoned in the bright afternoon heat. Sabine’s overt sweetness, already in short supply, was rapidly draining away. She ruffled her dog’s ears and scanned the area again. In the distance she spied a lone uniformed crewman slouched against the trunk of a tree. His rank was undistinguishable, but he was young. He was savoring a smoke with an expression that Sabine would best describe as blankness.Perfect.
“Hello?” Sabine called, approaching the man with a shy wave.
He looked up, sliding his gaze from the top of her hat, down her face and body, and up again. “Hello yourself,” he said hopefully.
Bridget growled deep in her throat. Sabine slapped a handful of skirt over the dog’s snout.
“Are you,” she asked, “a member of staff on the hospital ship?”
“Not for five minutes, I’m not,” the man said. “Break.”
“Oh, a break, of course. Good for you. But are you... a doctor?”
“Right, that’s me. Doctor.” He laughed. “Deck steward, more like. Who wants to know?”
“Steward? Oh, lovely, perhaps you can help me. Can you tell me how the patients are housed on the ship? That is, are they arranged by condition, or name, or perhaps the severity of their ailment?”
“Searching for a sweetheart, are you?”
Sabine shook her head vigorously. “Oh no, I’m a married woman.” About this detail, Sabine never pretended.
Her wedding ring was concealed by her glove, but she raised her left hand by force of habit.
After the obvious escape from her uncle, the two most useful things about Sabine’s hasty marriage to Jon Stoker were the wedding ring and the wordsI’m a married woman.
“My husband is a sea captain, in fact, but he is out of the country at the moment.”
The third most useful thing about her hasty marriage to Jon Stoker was that he was always,always,out of the country. In fact, the last time she’d seen him had been more than a year ago, and even then, their exchange had been limited to a few pleasantries in the street. They did trade letters on occasion. Their correspondence had not been planned, but Stoker had business with an impoverished aristocrat trying to claim a familial relation. It was an old duke trying to finagle a piece of Stoker’s growing fortune. At Stoker’s request, Sabine sent clippings about the old man from London papers and had even done some snooping around town. She described what she learned in letters and posted them to whatever foreign port Stoker was due to drop anchor.
“Married?” the steward repeated resentfully.
“Quite, but I’m seeking several members of a ship’s crew. They’re meant to be patients on theDreadnought. They... they’d all succumbed to scurvy when they were admitted, I believe.”
“Which crew? You’ll have a list of their names, I hope?”
Sabine was a miserable liar, but she could hardly reveal that she had no such list. She knew only the name of the last ship on which they sailed.
“Actually, the crew is attached to this dog...” she said gainfully, gesturing to Bridget. “She was their unofficial mascot on a particularly harrowing voyage. She has been left in my care while they recover. Scurvy, as I’ve said. It would bolster them to see her.”
