Chapter Five
The holding cell, one of many, was the only one currently in use. The cell wasn’t in a jail or a prison, although it certainly felt as if it were to the men detained there. Underground, no windows, the prisoners would have no light at all if a single lantern weren’t kept burning day and night. That light was for the guard, not the prisoners.
The revenue base had been built toward the end of the last century when the Crown got more aggressive in patrolling her southern waters, mainly along the Cornish coast. The base had started out as no more than a dock and a barracks halfway between Dorset and Devon. As it had expanded over the years, a community had grown up around it. Shops, a stable, taverns, but the main business was still the apprehension of smugglers, and they were dealt with severely. Sent to the colonies in Australia or hanged. One or the other with trials that were a mockery.
Nathan Tremayne had wished more than once that he’d been born in the last century, before the revenue men got organized. Then, smuggled cargoes could be unloaded right on the docks of a village with everyone helping. Even the local nabobs would turn a blind eye on the illegal activities as long as they got their case of brandy or tea. It had been a simple way to get around exorbitant taxes, and the long expanse of rocky Cornish coastline made that section of England ideal for bringing in rum, brandy, tea, and even tobacco to otherwise law-abiding citizens at reasonable prices. With so few revenue men patrolling back then, the smugglers faced little risk. Not so anymore.
These days the few smugglers still operating were running out of places to hide their cargoes. Even the tunnels built into the cliffs were slowly being discovered and watched by the revenuers. Smugglers had resorted to storing their cargoes farther inland, away from the revenuers, before their cargoes could be distributed. But the goods still had to be unloaded onto shore for transport—or loaded back onto a ship if a smuggler suspected his hiding place had been discovered by a meddlesome wench who would likely inform the authorities. That’s how Nathan had been caught last week. His crew had gotten away, scattering like rats in a sewer. He and his ship hadn’t.
It had been a setup. The revenuers had been lying in wait. He just couldn’t prove it unless he could escape. But that wasn’t happening from a cellblock such as this. Chained hand and foot with the chains spiked to the wall behind him, he could barely stand or reach the man chained next to him. Four in the cell were in a similar position. He didn’t know them, didn’t bother to talk to them. An old man had been left unbound. His task was to pass out the tin bowls of gruel to the rest of them. If he was awake. If waking him didn’t get him angry. Nathan had already missed a few meals because of that old man’s temper.
Nathan was asleep when they came for him, unchaining him from the wall, dragging him out of there. The last man to be removed from the cell had gone out screaming about his innocence and hadn’t returned. Nathan didn’t say a word, but a slow-burning anger was inside him. He’d had other choices, other kinds of work, other goals, too. He might have stuck to that path if his father, Jory, hadn’t died. But one thing had led to another, a long chain of events, and now here he was about to be hung or sent off to prison for life.
The two guards dragging him didn’t even give him an opportunity to walk. That would have been too slow for them, with the chains still on his ankles, and they weren’t removing those. He couldn’t even shield his eyes from the daylight that blinded him when they got aboveground.
He was taken into a large office and shoved directly into a hardback chair in front of a desk. The fancy room had more the look of a parlor with expensive furnishings, indicating that the man behind the desk was important. The man who, Nathan guessed, was maybe five years older than he was, which would put him around thirty, wore a spotless uniform with gleaming buttons, and had curious blue eyes. He had the look of an aristocrat. A common practice was for second sons to work for the government in some capacity.
The guards were dismissed before the man said, “I’m Arnold Burdis, Commander Burdis to be exact.”
Nathan was surprised he’d been left completely alone with the officer. Did they think a week of nothing but gruel in a bricked and barred hole had made him weak? The office might be in the middle of a base crawling with revenuers, but still, it wouldn’t take too much effort for Nathan to overpower this man.
He’d immediately spotted the old dueling pistol on the desk, which was there for obvious reasons. Nathan eyed it for a few moments, debating his chances of getting to it before the commander did. The likelihood that it had only one bullet in it decided the matter because he would need at least two, one for the commander and one for the chain between his feet in order to escape. Unless he wanted to take the commander hostage . . .
“Would you like a brandy?”
The man was pouring one for himself, and two glasses were actually on the desk in front of him. “One of my own bottles?” Nathan asked.
Burdis’s mouth quirked up slightly. “A sense of humor despite your dire straits, how novel.”
The commander poured the brandy for him anyway and slid the glass across the desk. The rattle of his chains as he raised it to his lips screamed of those dire straits, but sarcasm wasn’t humor. And he only took a sip to wet his dry mouth. If the man intended to get him drunk to loosen his tongue, he would be disappointed.
“You are quite the catch, Tremayne. But it was just a matter of time. You were getting sloppy, or was it too bold for your own good?”
“Try desperate?”
“Were you really? Dare I take credit?”
“For dogged persistence, if you like. I prefer to blame a wench.”
Burdis actually chuckled. “Don’t we all from time to time. But my informant wasn’t wearing skirts.”
“Care to share his name?” Nathan tossed out the question, then held his breath.
But the man wasn’t simply conversing with him or distracted enough to reflexively reply to a quick question. He was cordial for a reason; Nathan just couldn’t imagine what it was. But he was beginning to think he was being toyed with. A nabob’s perverse pleasure, for whatever reason, and he wanted no more of it.
“Do I even get a trial?” he demanded.
The commander swirled his brandy and sniffed it before he looked up curiously and asked, “Do you have a defense?”
“I’ll think of something.”
A tsk. “You’re far too glib for your situation. Admirable, I suppose, but unnecessary. Has it not occurred to you that I hold your life in my hands? I would think you would want to rein in that sarcasm, at least until you find out why I’ve summoned you.”
A carrot? It almost sounded as if he wasn’t going to be hanged today. But it raised his suspicion again. If this wasn’t his trial, the commander his judge and jury, then what the hell was it? And he’d been caught red-handed. He had no defense and they both knew it.
He sat back. “By all means, continue.”
“I am successful in this job because I make a point of finding out all there is to know about my quarries, and you are something of an anomaly.”
“There’s nothing peculiar about me, Commander.”
“On the contrary. I know you’ve been involved in other lines of work. Lawful ones. Quite a few actually, and you mastered each one, which is an amazing feat for someone your age. Couldn’t make up your mind what to do with your life?”
Nathan shrugged. “My father died and left me his ship and crew. That made up my mind for me.”
Burdis smiled. “So you think smuggling is in your blood? I beg to differ. I already know about you, Tremayne, more than I expected to learn. Privilege of rank, access to old records.”
“Then you probably know more’n I do.”
“Possibly, but I doubt it. Moved quite far down the proverbial social ladder, haven’t you? Did all the women in your family marry badly, or just your mother?”
Every chain rattled as Nathan stood up and leaned across the desk to snarl, “Do you have a death wish?”
The commander immediately reached for his pistol, cocked it, and pointed it at Nathan’s chest. “Sit down, before I call the guards.”
“Do you really think one bullet would stop me before I break your neck?”
Burdis let out a nervous chuckle. “Yes, you’re a strapping behemoth, I get the point. But you have an earl in your bloodline, so it was a logical question.”
“But none of your bleedin’ business.”
“Quite right. And I meant no offense. I just found it a fascinating tidbit, who your ancestors are, a bit far back in the tree, but still . . . D’you even realize that you could be sitting in a chair like mine, instead of the one you’re in? It boggled my mind when I realized it. Why did you never take advantage of who you are?”
“Because that isn’t who I am. And you ask too many questions of a man you’ve already caught.”
“Curiosity is my bane, I readily admit it. Now do sit down, before I change my mind about you and send you back to your cell.”
There was that carrot again, alluding to a different outcome to his capture than the obvious one. Nathan drained the brandy in front of him before he dropped back in his chair. He could handle at least one glass without losing his wits. Bleedin’ nabob. Nathan still suspected he was being toyed with, and now he guessed why. His lordly ancestor probably ranked higher than the commander’s did. Why else would the man want to sit there and gloat?
“Are you going to tell me who your informant was?” Nathan asked once more.
“He was just a lackey, but can’t you guess who he works for? I have it on good authority that you’ve been searching for the man yourself. He must have thought you were getting too close to finding him.”
Nathan stiffened. “Hammett Grigg?”
“Yes, I thought that might be clue enough for you. The same man suspected of killing your father.”
“Not just suspected. There was a witness.”
“An old grudge finally settled between the two men, was the way I heard it.”
“My father was unarmed. It was murder.”
“And is that what you had in mind for Grigg?”
“I want to kill him, yes, but in a fair fight—with my bare hands.”
Burdis actually laughed. “Look at yourself, man. D’you really think that would be a fair fight? I’ve nothing against revenge. I feel the need for it m’self occasionally. But I’ll have Mr. Grigg caught and hung long before you can get your hands on him. He is my next quarry, after all.”
“And I’ll be dead before you catch him.”
Burdis refilled Nathan’s glass before he replied, “You misunderstand why I’ve brought you before me. I’m going to give you the opportunity to thank me one day.”
“For what?”
The commander opened a drawer to retrieve a clean, unfolded piece of paper that he set in front of him. He tapped it. “This is a full pardon already signed, an opportunity for you to start over with a clean slate. But it’s conditional, of course.”
Nathan’s eyes narrowed. “Is this some joke?”
“Not a’tall. This document will remain with me until you fulfill the terms, but it’s a legitimate offer.”
“You want me to catch Grigg for you without killing him? You really think I could resist the temptation if I get my hands on him?”
“Forget about Grigg! I told you, assure you, I’ll see him hanged for you.”
For the first time, Arnold Burdis didn’t look or sound so cordial. Nathan was done with second-guessing him, other than to say, “You sound angry.”
“I am. My man guarding your ship was killed, left floating in the water where your Pearl should have been.”
“You’ve lost my ship!?”
“I didn’t lose it,” Burdis growled. “It was stolen, and, no, not by Hammett Grigg. We caught one of the thieves. Nicked as they were sailing away, he fell into the water and was recovered. We gave chase, of course, probably would have caught them, too, if we’d known their direction. We searched up and down the coast, while they did the unthinkable, sailing straight out to sea and beyond.”
“Who were they?”
“They’re not Englishmen, but they’ve been stealing English ships for some ten years now, just so sporadically, and never from the same harbors, that no one linked the thefts. At first they were just taking the vessels offshore and sinking them, but then they decided to have their revenge and make a profit at it.”
“Revenge?”
“It’s a couple of Americans who bear a grudge against us for the last war we had with their country, which orphaned them. They were just children at the time, which is why they only got around to getting some payback a decade ago.” A folded note was tossed at Nathan. “Those are the particulars I got out of their man. My superiors don’t give a rat’s ass about this crime ring targeting our harbors. They only want you and your ilk. But I don’t like having my toes stepped on, and these thieves did that when they killed one of my men and stole my prize right off my docks.”
Nathan raised a brow. His prize? “Tell me you’re not asking me to bring my ship back to you.”
“No, if you can recover The Pearl, she’s yours again, but good luck with that. They refit them with new paint, new names, then auction them off to their unsuspecting countrymen, who actually think they are legitimate shipbuilders. And they’ve gotten away with this for years. But you’re going to end it. It won’t be easy getting the Yanks to do you any favors, but you’ll need to figure out a way to get the authorities over there to work with you in closing down that operation. That’s my condition. I want a letter from an American official stating that the thieves have been arrested and put out of business.”
“That’s all?” Nathan rejoined drily.
The commander’s eyes narrowed with the warning. “Don’t even think of running away once I give you your freedom for this task. As I mentioned, I found out more’n I expected to about you, including that you have guardianship of your two remaining relatives. I would hate to see your nieces end up paying for their uncle’s crimes. So do you agree to my terms?”
“For my freedom, did you even need to ask?”