Page 87 of A Wicked Game

“Harriet?” Father wavered uncertainly. “What’s going on?”

Harriet laid her gloves on the sideboard, keeping her eyes fixed on De Caen. She wasn’t sure if her father knew there was a gun pointing at his head or not.

“We have an unexpected visitor,” she said levelly, trying to keep the rising panic out of her voice. “I believe General De Caen wishes to speak to us.”

De Caen gave a sarcastic congratulatory nod. The sheen of madness glittered in his eyes.

“So you know who I am. I’m honored, mademoiselle. Did your friend Captain Davies tell you about me?”

The venomous way he spat Morgan’s name shot a chill of foreboding up Harriet’s spine and she fought to divert his mind from the memory.

“How may we help you, sir?”

“You know how you can help me,” De Caen sneered. “Your father is the mapmaker known as Crusoe. Is he not?”

Father’s head jerked round and Harriet’s stomach somersaulted at how vulnerable he appeared. With the two circular cotton bandages covering his eyes and his hair standing up in all directions, he looked like a tiny fledgling bird whose eyes had yet to open.

“How did you know that?” Father rasped.

De Caen’s smile was not reassuring. “One of the junior officers at the Admiralty waspersuadedto tell me.”

Harriet’s blood ran cold. The emphasis he put on the wordpersuadedmade her certain the poor young man, whoever he was, was either dead or severely injured. She suddenly recalled Morgan’s conviction that De Caen had killed his deputy: He would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. Her throat began to constrict with fear.

His gaze narrowed on her. “But now I see that your father is blind, mademoiselle, and I wonder whetheryouare not the cause of all my problems, hmm?”

There was little point in evading the truth now, so Harriet drew herself up tall. “You’re quite right. I drew the Crusoe maps. And if I inconvenienced you in any way, then I’m glad.”

De Caen’s eyes glittered malevolently at her bravado. “Oho. Now I see why Captain Davies is so enamored.” His lips stretched into a sickly smile. “Even in Martinique we heard tales of that sharp tongue of yours, mademoiselle. He cried your name after I had him whipped for his insolence.”

His satisfied sneer turned her stomach, even as her heart clenched at the depth of Morgan’s feelings for her. God, she’d been such an idiot. And now she might not even get to tell him how much she loved him.

“You know what I want,” De Caen said softly. “A Crusoe map of the Caribbean. Martinique, to be precise. The last time I was here you swore you didn’t have one.” He used his thumb to cock the pistol, and her father’s shoulders stiffened as he registered the implicit threat of the sound.

De Caen raised his brows. “Perhaps you’d like to reconsider?”

“Very well.” There was only the tiniest tremor in her voice. “We do have a copy.” She tilted her head toward the front room. “Through there. In the shop.”

De Caen waved the pistol to indicate that she should move. “Get it for me.”

She’d hoped he might come with her and put some distance between Father and the gun, but he stayed where he was.

Damn.

A glimpse through the bay window revealed that it was nearly dark: No potential ally—or witness—lingered outside on the street. Her own pistol, primed and loaded, sat on a shelf beneath the main counter. She hadn’t been lying to Morgan when she’d told him about it. But De Caen had a direct view of that part of the shop and she didn’t dare try to get it, not with Father so exposed.

Since there was nothing for it, she dragged the set of library steps across the room and unhooked the map of Martinique from the wall.

“Hurry!” De Caen ordered impatiently.

There was no large table in the back room, so she brought the frame to the counter, making sure she stoodon the side usually reserved for the customers. As she’d hoped, the move drew De Caen away from her father’s side. He brought the lamp from the back room and placed it on the counter, then leaned over the opposite side as she turned the accurate chart over to reveal the second map pinned to the reverse.

De Caen hissed out a breath of satisfaction. “Is that it? The map I need?”

“Yes.”

He uncocked the pistol and placed it flat on the counter with a warning glance at her not to try anything stupid, then pulled a paper from his coat. He unfolded it and flattened it next to the Crusoe map. Harriet glanced at the engraver’s cartouche: It was a map drawn by a French contemporary, Lionel Pascale. Ironically, famed for his accuracy.

De Caen slid his hand to a group of islands circled in pencil on his map, then glanced across to find the same islands on the Crusoe version. Harriet tried not to gag at the dirt embedded beneath his fingernails.

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