“Ten seconds is quite enough,” she responded crisply, and plunged into the purpose of her clandestine visit. “I know that you plan to run cargo up the China coast in violation of both the East India Company’s restrictions and the Emperor’s edicts. I wish to go with you.”
He stared at her as though she’d suddenly sprouted horns.
“It’s a matter of some urgency, Lord Straithe. My father made a secret visit to the mandarin who governs Fukien. We must find him and bring him home immediately.”
His answer, short and succinct, brought Sarah’s chin up.
“Don’t be vulgar,” she admonished tartly.
“I’m going to be more than vulgar, Miss Abernathy,” he responded, rising slowly. “I’m going to—”
“In exchange for your assistance,” she interrupted, “I’ll secure you the services of a pilot.”
That caught his attention, she saw with grim satisfaction. He froze just a few paces from her, his blue eyes narrowing. For the first time since she’d entered this chamber, Sarah felt a measure of her customary confidence return.
“How the devil did you know I needed a pilot?”
“I do wish you would refrain from using such language in my presence.”
A low, strangled sound rose in his throat.
“Really, Lord Straithe, you needn’t growl at me like that. I’d like to conduct our business with some semblance of dignity.”
“We have no business.”
“Of course we do. My sources tell me that you’ve not been able to hire the services of a pilot to land your goods.” Her sources being Cook’s redoubtable and quite extensive network of blood relatives, in-laws and compatriots, of course. “Nor will you be able to do so.”
“It that so?”
“Yes, that’s so. You should know, sir, that word of your past smuggling activities has reached even the Celestial City. The Emperor sent a message sealed with his own personal chop to His Excellency, Lord Wu Ping-chien. He wants a halt to all illegal trading in general, and yours in particular. The decree has circulated throughout Mong Ha that anyone who guides the Phoenix to any port other than Canton will lose his head.”
Jamie stared down at her, his mind working furiously. So that was why he’d been kept dangling for the past three days. Why the mandarin in charge of ports had smiled and nodded and accepted the customary bribes with a gracious wave of his hand, promising all but providing nothing except plum wine. The wily old bastard!
Well, despite the Emperor’s edict, Jamie had no intention of sailing upriver to Canton. Other ship captains may dutifully load and unload their cargoes there, under the watchful eye of the East India Company, but not Jamie. He’d been his own man too long to bow to the authority of a bunch of damned clerks.
As if beating up the South China seas just ahead of the monsoons and battling off hordes of pirates in the arduous journey out from England weren’t enough, ship captains flying flags other than that belonging to the East India House were expected to hand over a hefty portion of their anticipated profits to the Company for usage fees, then still more in bribes to Chinese officials.
A growing number of enterprising captains avoided this polite form of piracy by slipping up the China coast to unload their cargoes at ports other than Canton. Jamie was one of them. On his last two runs he’d spread enough “squeegee,” as the bribes were called, to ensure a blind eye at every illegal port he sailed into. The results had been spectacular. So spectacular, in fact, that he and the motley collection of former pirates and cashiered navy men he called a crew had sunk much of their profits from the previous voyages into the cargo now crammed into the hold of the Phoenix—a cargo that would soon rot in the steaming summer heat if Jamie didn’t get rid of it, fast. To do so, he needed a navigator who knew China’s coastal waters.
“How is it that you know of a pilot who’s willing to risk his head?” he asked suspiciously.
“Our cook has promised the services of his brother’s son-in-law’s cousin. But only if you agree to aid me in my search for my father.”
Disgusted, Jamie shook his head. “I should have known! Your cook’s brother’s whatever-he-is. I’ll wager he can barely scull a sampan around Macao’s harbor, much less find his way up a thousand miles of coastline.”
“I assure you, he’s quite competent! He served in the fleet of the Governor of Fuchow for many years and knows the coast like the back of his hand.”
“If he’s so competent, why did he leave the governor’s fleet?”
She hesitated, a small frown playing about her mouth. “I’m not sure, exactly. Cook mentioned some controversy having to do with chickens, but I didn’t quite understand that part.”
“No, I expect you didn’t.”
Dismissing her ridiculous offer with the contempt it deserved, Jamie thought furiously. Now that he knew the terms of the Emperor’s edict, he had to find a way around it. The time for negotiations was past. He needed to get down to some serious bribery. And if that didn’t work, well, ship captains had been known to shanghai crew members before.
He had much to do between now and tomorrow evening’s tide, Jamie realized. And the first order of business was to rid himself of a certain aggravating female.
“Your ten seconds are quite up, Miss Abernathy.”
With no further warning, he closed the distance between them, swung her into his arms, and dumped her onto the bed. Smiling grimly at her startled squawk of surprise, Jamie pulled his shirt over his head.
“Are you mad?” she gasped, pushing herself up on her elbows.
He tossed the shirt to the floor and reached for the buttons of his pants. “No, only ready to put this chamber to the use it was intended for.”
Her jaw dropped. “But…but my father.”
“If you think I’m going to risk my ship and my cargo in a search for a missionary with more zeal than wit, you’re more addlepated than he is, Miss Abernathy.”
His fingers loosened the buttons on one side of his trousers flap. He watched with wicked enjoyment as her eyes rounded to huge, golden-brown circles.
“But…the pilot…” she said faintly.
“I’ll find my own pilot, one whose qualifications can be verified by someone other than a cook.”
His hand went to the row of buttons on the other side of the flap. She gasped again, then scrambled to the far side of the bed. Her face flaming, she pushed herself off the platform. Her magnificent bosom heaved.
“You are every bit as despicable as the gossips have described,” she announced, grabbing up the straw hat.
“That’s the first sensible statement you’ve made since I entered this room.” He pushed at the waistband of his trousers warningly.
She jammed the straw hat on her head and marched to the door, shoulders stiff, spine straight. With a force entirely inappropriate to a supposedly genteel spinster, she slammed the bamboo panel behind her.
Grinning, Jamie threw himself down on the bed so recently vacated. Forcing from his mind the vision of Miss Abernathy’s generously rounded bottom, visible even through the loose folds of the blue cotton trousers, he applied himself to the problem at hand.
He would see the port mandarin tomorrow, he decided, and make one last attempt to buy the pilot he needed. At the same time he’d send his first mate out to scour the waterfront for a likely candidate. He’d secure his pilot by noon, one