Page 10 of Any Duke in a Storm

Lisbeth shook her head hard. “Not that kind.”

They reached the crowded wharf, secured the boat while Estelle distributed orders and funds, and quickly went their separate ways. The boatswains that had accompanied them had their own jobs to do. Eyes in the market drifted over her and quickly flitted away as she sauntered through the throng of fishermen, sailors, dockworkers, peddlers, and thieves. But that was also due to Smalls who stuck close like the colossal, looming, lethal shadow he was.

The smell of the briny seashore, the day’s catch of the market, and dozens of spices filled the air. Lisbeth’s stare coasted over the diverse group of locals, much the same as it had been in Tobago with only the occasional light-complexioned face peeking out from the sea of brown hues, from golden to russet to deepest mahogany. Most of the people here were not wealthy, trying to forge lives for themselves in the wake of enslavement and indentured labor, but as she’d learned from men likeRawley, the Duke of Ashvale’s Antiguan cousin, it took a lot to defeat the tenacious spirits of Caribbean people.

“Cap’n Bess!” a lilting voice cried, and Lisbeth almost didn’t recognize the girl who had called out. Her eyes widened with joy.

She hadn’t seen Narina in over a year and a half—not since the start of her mission with the American Treasury. Cute as a child, she was even prettier now with a gorgeous tawny complexion and a cautious smile splitting her young face.

The then ten-year-old Narina had been running errands in her mama’s tavern, and Lisbeth had always felt a kinship with the child. She had reminded her of herself when she was little. Bright, intelligent, and full of fire to learn. Though now, Lisbeth frowned, noting the worn clothing, her skinny frame, and the look of dull exhaustion in Narina’s eyes.

Surely business hadn’t been that bad?

“Nari,” Lisbeth said, gathering the girl in her arms. “You’ve grown up!”

Narina smiled, though it did not meet her eyes, her young face looking much older for a second. “I’m twelve now,” she said, puffing out her chest.

“How’s your mama?”

Sadness made the girl’s eyelids droop. “She died from yellow fever a year ago. It was quick, unlike others here. She didn’t suffer, the doctor said.”

“I am so sorry,” Lisbeth said, her heart filling with sympathy. “She was a good woman.”

“Aye.”

“Who are you living with?” Lisbeth asked as she cast a look over the child’s worn clothing. “Who took over the tavern?”

“My auntie but she’s not really my auntie.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

Narina shrugged. “She was Mama’s tenant.”

Lisbeth was so focused on the troubling conversation that she hadn’t immediately noticed that the crowd had thickened and also grown closer. Normally, Smalls was an efficient deterrent, if her own reputation didn’t work, but more people had crowded around them while she’d been speaking with Narina. She put her hand on the pommel of her cutlass and reached for her pistol right as Smalls let out a roar. “Bess, to me!”

The sea of people shifted and a thin man with a sneering mouth and showy clothes got much too close for comfort. Lisbeth hadn’t noticed him before, nor had she seen the handful of ruffians at his back. They did not seem to mean well. But Lisbeth wasn’t the target—Narina was. A muscled arm slid around the child’s shoulders, a knife held in idle fingers.

“What have we here?” he drawled. “Going to introduce us to your new friend, Daughter?”

Raphael watched from his vantage point in a nearby alleyway, one shoulder propped on the stone, a sliver of sweetsugarcane clamped between his teeth, although he made no move to interfere. Not yet.

One, the captain had expressly forbidden him to leave her ship. And two, knowing what Bonnie Bess was capable of from the sheer rage flattening her mouth to translucency, he wanted to see what she would do. She fascinated him to no end. In truth, he was a bit besotted by the Viking who even wore an ax on her back like the warriors of old.

Raphael canvassed the crowd. Smalls had been surrounded a few feet away by men with guns. They weren’t locals as far as he could tell. Criminals of some sort, but maybe some who had gotten too comfortable with the easy life of preying on hardworking men and women. He knew the type. They claimed to charge a “fee for protection” when all they were doing was protecting the business owners from the lawlessness of their own men.

Call him a smuggler, but at least Raphael had a code: only steal from those who could afford the harm, because the cargo was insured by financial backers and they would not feel the loss, or lighten the pockets of worse criminals who operated by no code at all. Like Dubois.

In fact, Raphael had a sneaking suspicion that these might be Dubois’s own men. He’d heard rumors that the ambitious arse was trying to establish strongholds in various islands by stationing his own thugs in place and collecting a tithe from those who could barely feed themselves.

“Come now. Don’t you know who I am?” Bess said in a jovial voice that made the hairs rise on Raphael’s arms. One of her hands remained on her cutlass while the otherwas propped loosely upon her hip, just above a gun and a narrow brace of daggers. In addition to the ax, she was armed to the teeth, and he had no doubt she knew how to use each and every weapon strapped to her form. He had the sudden urge to see her in action.

The man sneered. “I see a woman playing at a man’s game.”

Raphael blinked. Wrong answer, obviously. Bess’s expression did not change though her lip twitched as violent storms brewed in her eyes. Even from where he stood hidden in the cramped alleyway, Raphael could see the muscles bunching in her slender body, readying for war. “Not a game, but you’ll learn. Unhand the child.”

“My daughter?” the man said with a leer that was decidedlyun-fatherly. Raphael’s eyes narrowed in disgust.

“I am not your bloody daughter, you ham-faced lout!” the girl growled and attempted, futilely, to escape his grasp.

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