Jo Goodman (15 page)

"I suppose you should."

He didn't let her go, and she made no move to leave.

Jonna's gaze dropped away from his mouth and fell on the hand that lay over her wrist. "I had planned to tell you I don't want you working for me any longer."

Decker nodded. It was what he had expected to hear when Jonna arrived at the harbor.

"It wasn't because of the fight," she said. "Or even the arrest. Those things happen from time to time, and though Jack thinks I don't understand how or why, I do."

She could feel him watching her. Even without looking at him she sensed his quiet amusement. "I know the men work hard on board ship. The sea may be open, but the quarters are confined. Disagreements that aren't settled on board sometimes get settled in port, usually after a few drinks and some intemperate words."

"And you thought that's what happened tonight."

Still looking at his hand, Jonna nodded. "I didn't like it," she said. "It sets a bad example for the men under you and I expect... no, I
demand
better."

Decker knew that she did, and no one who worked for her minded, least of all him. It was the gravity of her expression that made him want to needle her. "But you were prepared to forgive me."

She gave him a sharp glance. "I was prepared to flay you."

His eyes dropped to her mouth this time. "With your tongue?" he asked. "Or were you thinking of using the cat on my back?" He watched in fascination as her face flamed and her lips parted on a breathless little sound of surprise. It was only then that he took pity on her. His gaze lifted to her eyes again. "You were about to take me to task for disappearing at the jail," he said. "That was why you were going to relieve me of my employment, wasn't it? Because I embarrassed you?"

Jonna's wrist came away easily from his grasp, and she knew it was because he had let her go. The distance she was able to put between them now was there as much by his permission as by her desire. "You did embarrass me," she said quietly. "To leave the way you did, instead of coming forward to talk to the magistrate, or thank me, it showed neither regard nor respect. That was cause enough to end your employment."

Decker didn't disagree. "Yes," he said. "It was."

Jonna sighed. She stared at the flames in the fireplace.

Her voice was hardly more than a whisper. "And it would have been impulsive and petty for me to have done so."

This admission was not what Decker had expected. Jonna Remington's pained honesty had taken an inward turn. He supposed it was that kind of thinking that had kept her up and eventually had brought her to his room. When she showed no inclination to go, but continued to stare steadily at the fire, he asked, "What makes you happy, Jonna?"

She didn't answer. He studied her profile, the pure, clear lines that were almost without expression. He knew she had heard him and knew now that she wouldn't answer him, that possibly she couldn't answer him. Nothing about her profile changed as tears welled in her eyes. They clung to the edge of her lower lashes for the longest moment before one, only one, escaped. The lone tear, sparkling like a liquid diamond, slipped down her cheek. She made no move to brush it away or blink back the others. They hovered, then fell in quick succession, and finally disappeared.

Jonna stood. "I think it would be better if you wouldn't ask any more questions," she said.

"Of you?"

"Of anyone." Then she closed the discussion by crossing the room and closing the door.

* * *

The rocker made an alarming creaky protest under Jack Quincy's weight. He paused, waited to see if it would support him, then finished tipping it back while he placed his boots flat on the bed frame. He picked up his end of the conversation with Decker as if there had been no interruption. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" he demanded. "Damn, if you're making any sense."

"I'm making sense," Decker said. "You just don't want to believe it." He sat up, pushed the pillows more firmly behind his back, and leveled Jack with a hard look. It was difficult to be taken seriously when his right eye was almost swollen shut and he grimaced with pain every time he moved. "Listen to me, Jack, because Jonna won't. If she believes that business on the wharf wasn't an accident, then she's not admitting it, at least not to me. But she might talk to you. You've had her ear almost all of her life, and she trusts you. I think she has suspicions about what happened but doesn't know what to do about it." Decker paused, judging Jack's interest.

"Go on," Jack said. "You've got my attention."

"Three men, all separately, were willing to tell me that the driver who lost control of his horse and wagon ran the animal directly at Jonna."

"Either he had control or he didn't," Jack said.

"They say he grabbed the bridle but didn't pull the mare in."

"Maybe he couldn't."

"Maybe he didn't want to."

Jack's feet dropped back to the floor. "There were more than three witnesses. You must have talked to others."

"I did."

"Well? What did they say?"

"The ones I talked to before I left for Charleston told mostly the same story."

"The same one Jonna's telling," Jack said.

Decker nodded. "But even some of them wondered why the driver didn't come back to ask after Jonna's well-being. When I probed a little more, no one could identify the driver." Decker saw this information finally yielded a reaction from Jack. "I know," he said. "That struck me as odd, too. You know someone always knows somebody else on the wharf. I don't think I worked more than a half day before people I'd never seen before were calling me by my name."

"Ponty." Jack couldn't resist reminding him. "They were calling you Ponty. And it wasn't your name." He held up his hands, surrendering when Decker gave a hard, very nearly angry look. "All right. So no one knew this man. I'll grant that's unusual, but it makes him a stranger, not a killer."

"I don't know that he meant to kill her," Decker said. "But I believe he meant to frighten her."

"Frighten Jonna? Why?"

"I don't know."

The rocker began to creak with the precision of a metronome as Jack moved fore and aft. He considered what he'd been told. "Tell me about the fight," he said after a few moments.

Decker's jaw was stiff. He worked it back and forth until it gave a satisfying pop. "Jonna's right about one thing," he said. "It wasn't much of a fight. There was a message waiting for me when
Huntress
docked. It said if I had more questions I should inquire at Brown and Birney's."

"You read this note yourself?" Jack asked. "Are you sure you got it right?"

A faint flush crept under Decker's skin. "I read it good enough, Jack. I've been practicing. It wasn't as complicated as logging my journey."

"All right," Jack said. "I didn't mean anything by it. It's just that—"

Decker brushed the explanation aside. "I went to B and B's."

"You left the ship?" asked Jack. "Before you had the cargo unloaded?"

"I know. It's against regulations, but I had to go." Decker's frank look was unapologetic. He would do it again. "I waited in the tavern only a few minutes before someone approached me. I didn't recognize him. I suppose that should have raised an alarm; if it did, I was deaf to it. He wanted to talk to me behind the tavern, and I followed him out."

Jack winced, knowing what was coming now. "He had friends, I take it."

Decker held up three fingers. "They blindsided me immediately. I went down, and I don't think I ever came up."

"Did you tell Jonna you started the fight?" asked Jack.

Decker tried to remember the carriage ride back to Beacon Hill. "I probably did," he said. "Is that what she told you?"

"She said the magistrate told her that and you confirmed it. You have a talent for making her think the worst of you."

"That doesn't matter." Decker knew it was more than a mere talent. He practiced it like a craft. "What do you think, Jack? Is there substance to what I've told you?"

There was a pause in the creaking again, while Jack regarded Decker with a keen and knowing eye. "I don't think you gave yourself that shiner and two broken ribs," he said finally. "It's a mercy you weren't killed."

Last night, when he had been taking the blows to his chest and head and groin, Decker would have considered a quick end very merciful. "Mr. Brown walked out back... or maybe it was Mr. Birney... whoever it was frightened them off. Mr. B. sent for the authorities, and somehow I ended up being the one carted off to jail."

"I think their purpose was to ask you some questions. Apparently you weren't very cooperative. You struck some of them."

"I did?"

Jack nodded. "Best I can put it together, Jeremy Dodd came looking for you from the ship and arrived in time to see you being taken away. You must have sent him after Jonna."

"I remember doing that."

"You could have asked for me."

Decker had wondered how he would explain that. The answer presented itself simply enough. "Bloody hell, Jack, I don't recall hitting anyone. Who knows why I sent Jeremy after Miss Remington instead of you."

"What about at the jail?" Jack asked. "Why did you leave like that?"

"I wanted to get back to the ship. I knew that if the two of you saw me, you wouldn't let me go to the harbor—which is what happened when you did catch up with me. I had duties to finish. With everything else that had already occurred, I didn't want to neglect them." Decker watched Jack take it in, consider it, and finally accept it. "Will you talk to her?" asked Decker.

Jack sighed. "Aye," he said heavily. He had no liking for the task that Decker had set for him. "I'll talk to her."

* * *

Decker slept off and on throughout the day. Maids came and went, changing the bindings on his ribs when he soaked them through in his sleep, bringing trays of tea and toast, tending the fire, and placing fresh compresses on his eye. By nightfall Decker had had as many intrusions on his privacy as he could tolerate. He was considering locking the door when a trio of servants trooped in again, this time with a hip bath and buckets of hot water.

They helped him out of bed, even when he insisted he could manage the thing himself, and didn't leave him to his own devices until he was stripped to his drawers. When they were gone Decker finished undressing and eased himself into the hot water. Ribbons of steam rose from the surface as it rippled around him. Decker's contented sigh was audible in the quiet room.

At first he didn't want to move. The water was like a liquid bandage, supporting and caressing every part of his sore body. Gradually he unfolded himself as much as the copper tub allowed; then he reached for a towel one of the maids had left at hand. Folding it in quarters, he placed it behind his head. Decker's eyes closed almost immediately, and he was asleep soon after that.

* * *

Jonna had no intention of staying long when she went to check on her house guest. She had been up early that morning, at the harbor office before eight, and after a near sleepless night it had been a difficult day. There were the usual annoyances: untimely delays, spoiled cargoes, complaints about the costs. A bit more rare, but not without precedent, was the problem with
Huntress'
s manifest and her bills of lading. Too much time was spent, first by her secretary, then by her, on a matter she thought shouldn't have been a problem at all. What was so difficult about matching the cargo list with the cargo? She had seen the crates in question being hauled away from the harbor herself, so she knew they existed. She had a bill of lading to state that they had been paid for by the shipper, yet she had no record of them on the manifest the cargo master kept. If Jeremy Dodd had been doing his job in Charleston, the crates could hardly have come aboard without his noticing.

Jonna pushed the problem to the back of her mind. It wasn't important enough to have consumed so much of her time, and that in itself made it more frustrating.

The door to Decker's room was not completely closed. Jonna entered soundlessly then came up short as she registered the sight of Decker in the hip bath. Expecting to be ordered out, and quite willing to comply this time, she let her hand rest on the doorknob. It was only when he said nothing that she concluded he was taunting her, and Jonna's nature was to accept a challenge rather than shy away from one. Good sense told her to back out of the room. Defiance moved her to close the door.

He was facing her, watching her... or so she thought. Jonna didn't realize he was sleeping until she was standing beside the tub. Defiance disappeared and left a wave of foolishness in its wake. What did it say about her, she wondered, that she could allow herself to be goaded by Decker Thorne even when he was sleeping?

Shaking her head, her slight smile more wry than regretful, Jonna bent and picked up the bandages that had been around his ribs. She laid them over the back of the rocker with his nightshirt and dressing gown. She should go, she told herself, but her feet only moved in the direction of the large wing chair by the fireplace. She sat down, curled her feet beneath her, and waited.

* * *

The water cooled to the point that the chill of it woke Decker. He groped for a towel and raised himself up, drying off his shoulders and damp hair as he stood. He was on the point of stepping out of the bath when he saw Jonna.