Jason shot the man a warning look and stepped into the passageway. Isobel scuttled back. He’d stripped from his coat and waistcoat and wore only his shirt, open at the throat, sleeves pushed to his forearms, and buckskins. She openly eyed his bare arms and chest; she’d have to be blind not to notice.
He raised a muscled arm over his head and propped it on the doorjamb. “It is, in fact, a pirate,” he said.
“But I cannot believe you actually managed to locatea pirate,” she whispered, craning around him to study Mr. Beddloe.
“Wasn’t that the plan?” he asked. “Pirate interrogation?”
“Well, yes—I never dreamed you’d run one to ground so quickly. It was meant to take days. I thought you might—”
She paused and craned around him, trying to see through the crack in the door.
Jason reached behind him and closed the door.
She exhaled in frustration and shot him an exasperated look. He cocked a brow. The stale air of the passageway stirred. A bright energy sparked whenever they were alone. It hummed between them.
“I would like to observe the interrogation,” she said.
“Isobel,” he began.
“It’s so terrible, is it?”
“I can certainly think of better ways to pass an afternoon. Roughing up unsuspecting criminals to pick through his profanity for truth is not my favorite activity.”
“Is it working?” she asked.
“I would not trust him to lead me to a chest of buried treasure, but he has revealed one or two truths, given sufficient motivation.”
“Good Lord, you’re not beating him, I hope?”
Jason bit back a smile. His reputation at the Foreign Office had been built on strategy and intrigue, not brawn. He lowered his arm and leaned against the door with his arms over his chest. Perhaps he wouldn’t correct her.
“Would you like to know what I’ve learned?” he asked.
“Yes. If I cannot observe.”
Jason swallowed another smile. It felt so very good to collaborate with her. Her mind was quick and inventive and she showed uncommon courage. He’d loved almost every second of his career, but he was discovering how much more fun it was to play out the last act with a skilled accomplice.
He told her Beddloe confirmed what they’d suspected. An international band of pirates had abducted seven Englishmen here in the port village of Stokkseyri. They now held the Englishmen as captives.
Pirate captain Phillipe Doucette had sent the ransom letter to Jason’s uncle. Doucette would hold the captives until he had some answer to that letter—or until he grew weary of keeping the captives alive. His spies were awaiting some answer in Reykjavík.
“At least that is what I think he’s told me,” Jason added. “Our chat has been complicated by his outrage and my inability to speak Welsh or Italian, his two languages of choice. He speaks a small amount of English and I speak a bit of Italian. Our relationship is... evolving.”
“A Welsh-Italian pirate,” she marveled.
Jason nodded. “But what of your reunion with this family, the Vagns?”
A success, she told him. She’d been warmly welcomed and learned that her friendshadencountered the Lincolnshire merchants before they disappeared. The Vagns even considered joining their offer of smuggled goods—but then, with no warning, the Englishmen had disappeared.
“One day they were in Stokkseyri,” she told him, “and the next they were gone.”
“Taken by the pirates,” provided Jason.
“The Vagns had the same suspicion.”
“But did they venture a guess as towhythey absconded with the hapless Englishmen?” Jason asked.
Isobel nodded. “The Vagns believe another family, the Skallagrímurs, were angry because the Englishmen had not approached them, and them alone, about the smuggling. The Skallagrímurs are allied to the pirates. They used that alliance to have the Englishmen removed from the island.”
