The door opened slowly, and Nan, the Duchess's maid, stepped into the areaway. A blowzy caricature of her mistress, she was thin but gave the appearance of being tubby, for her bare arms were heavy, her face was fleshy, and her deep-set eyes were small and round. Too many applications of lemon and alum powder had broken off the ends of her overly blond hair, and lines appeared in profusion at the corners of her eyes and on her forehead. Notwithstanding these handicaps, she believed implicitly in the power of her fading charms, and she smiled broadly at Jeremy, her eyes shining with synthetic brightness.
His instinct told him to have as little as possible to do with the hag, and he bowed to her abruptly. "I shall be obliged to you, Nan," he said, "if you will tell Her Grace I seek an audience with her. You might tell her I'd like to discuss some things out of the past with her."
Still smiling, the maid slid back into the room, wriggling her rump in what she considered a provocative fashion. In a few seconds she was back. " 'Er Gryce," she said carefully, "don't want to talk wif yer abaht what yer worship wants to talk wif her abaht. But don't yer be put off none," she added hastily, seeing Jeremy's face fall. She grinned slyly, and her fingertips caressed his sleeve. "Mayhap I might persuade 'Er Gryce to change 'er mind, if yer worship is nice and acts kindly-like."
"Thanks, Nan. I'll see her another time, perhaps, when she isn't busy." Breaking free of the harridan's clutch, he hurried back out to the sunlight and the clean smell of salt air. His disappointment was bitter, for it was all too plain that Caroline intended to tell him no more about Bartlett's past. He would succeed or flounder with the scraps of information he had previously gleaned.
As he reached the deck, a seaman bounded up to him and stopped short. "Cap'n would like a word with you, sir," the man said, touching his forelock. "An' if it please you, Master Bartlett, could you come with me now? Cap'n, he's in a rage, an' if I was to say you'd be along later or such, he'd give me the cat."
Jeremy nodded and asked the sailor to lead the way. Climbing a short ladder to the quarter-deck, they- made their way through the wheelhouse to a small cabin from which the master of the Bonnie Maid had dispossessed his mates when he had been forced to give up his own stateroom to the Duchess of Glasgow.
A little window provided the only light, and the sunshine emphasized the drabness of the small room. A cutlass and a brace of pistols hung from the bulkhead opposite the window, and there were two small bunks in the room. On one sheets and a blanket were drawn taut, and on the other stood a carved teakwood sea chest, which obviously contained the captain's private effects. There was a table with a straight-backed chair on either side, and nothing else—save the overwhelming presence of Philippe Groliere.
Tall and brawny, he was a powerful man and showed it in every line of his body, every movement of his head and shoulders as he looked up from a ledger in which he was scribbling laboriously with a blunt-edged quill. His reddish-brown hair was flecked with gray, and there were streaks of white in his short, spiked beard and bushy brows. His penetrating green eyes were a masculine version of his daughter's, but there the resemblance ceased. His skin was hard, leathery, and weather-beaten, his nose was broad and was twisted slightly to the right, showing the effects of a fight long ago forgotten, and his lips were thin and cruel.
Not even the presence of royalty aboard his brig could make him change the habits of a lifetime, and he was dressed in a pair of faded trousers stuffed into soft boots, and a plain cotton shirt, short-sleeved and open at the throat. Dangling from his broad belt was a sheathed poniard, and beside him on the table was his sole badge of authority, a stiff-brimmed hat around which was looped a coil of salt-stained gold braid.
He blinked, recognized his visitor, and waved the seaman out of the cabin with an angry, short wave of a hairy hand. "Bartlett," he barked. "Been waiting for you. Sit down."
Jeremy sat. Looking at the captain, he marveled at the complete lack of similarity between Janine's voice and that of her father. Groliere had spent his life at sea, and he spoke in a deep bellow whose every intonation reverberated against the thick oak panels of the bulkhead. Even his accent was different, for although the captain spoke English with ease, his cadence was redolent of Brest and Le Havre, Cherbourg and the Channel Isles.
Snapping the ledger shut, Groliere lifted a hand and brought it crashing down so hard the little table shuddered. "Impertinent whelp!" he boomed. "Insolent puppy! Damned gentlemen! All of you are the same. Think you own the world!"
Jeremy felt his skin tingling, but he kept his voice calm. "You seem to be accusing me of something, Captain," he said mildly. "May I know the nature of your charges?"
"May I know the nature of your charges? Hell and sin! Had my way, I'd keelhaul you! Try to seduce my daughter, will you?"
So that was it. Janine had told her father about yesterday's incident and had built it up out of all proportion to the truth. At best the situation was ticklish, for he could hardly admit to the girl's outraged parent that he had fondled her and had tried to kiss her. He racked his mind for something to say, but Philippe Groliere saved him the trouble.
"Any man seduces my daughter, I'll kill him. Well? Tell me the truth, damn you. Did you or didn't you?"
"Surely Mademoiselle Groliere has given you a detailed account of what transpired. Captain. But I can assure you, it was a most innocent meeting." Jeremy was perspiring heavily beneath his lightweight suit.
The captain spat accurately into a comer. "Damn wench. Never tells me anything. Wouldn't have known you'd been in her cabin if it hadn't been for this." He rummaged beneath some papers beside his ledger, found a small object, and half threw, half handed it to Jeremy. "Here. Found it in her cabin myself. What do you say to this?"
Jeremy looked at the cool, round piece of metal in his hand; it was Terence Bartlett's snuffbox, and Bartlett's initials were clearly marked on the back. He had missed it, but only now did the realization flood over him that he had undoubtedly dropped it during the scuffle with Janine.
"What did she say about it. Captain?"
"Not a word. Not a goddamn word. Said to ask you. Well?" The green eyes bored into Jeremy.
The young gunsmith met the other's gaze unflinchingly. "There are certain matters of business that concern Her Grace of Glasgow, Captain, which are confidential. Your daughter is now lady in waiting to Her Grace, and I am a member of the Duchess's staff. I do not feel at liberty to reveal the topic under discussion. It is true that I spent a few moments in Mademoiselle Groliere's cabin. But I was there for those few moments only, and at her express invitation, I might add. I seem to have lost my snuffbox, and I am grateful to you for its return."
Philippe Groliere's face darkened with anger; he jerked the dagger from his belt and plunged it into the table. It quivered there, the point buried an inch deep in the wood. "Maybe you're telling the truth, Bartlett. Maybe not. But I'll find out. And by God, if you're tampering with my girl, I'll cut your heart out."
"You'll lay your hands on me at your peril." The words were out before Jeremy could stop them.
"So? We'll see about that. My girl's going up in the world. All I've ever wanted for her, she'll have. And nobody will interfere. Nobody. Maybe I'm just an old sea dog. But I'll help her. Understand me clear, Bartlett. Any gentleman with honorable intent toward my Jan will have my blessings. But anyone who just wants to bed her will find this steel in his heart." He stood up so suddenly that his chair shot back and crashed into the bulkhead behind him.
In an instant Jeremy was on his feet too, and it was all he could do to restrain himself. "A most interesting lecture, sir," he said, his voice taut with emotion. "If you have nothing further to say to me, I'll take leave of you now."