LITMIR.BIZ

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      He set down his pen and read over what he’d written. By then, the ink had dried. Idly, he flicked back through the closely written pages, stopping to read entries here and there.

      Eventually, he stopped reading and stared unseeing as what lay before him fully registered. Unbidden, his gaze rose to the glass-fronted cabinet built into the stern wall; it contained the rest of his journals, all neatly lined up on one shelf.

      The record of his life.

      It didn’t amount to much.

      Not in the greater scheme of things—on the wider plane of life.

      Yes, he’d assisted in any number of missions, ones that had actively supported his country. Most had been diplomatic forays of one sort or another. Since his earliest years captaining his own ship, he’d claimed the diplomatic missions as his own—his way of differentiating himself from Royd and Declan. Royd was older than him by two years, while Declan was a year younger, but they were both adventurers to the core, buccaneers at heart. Neither would deny that description; if anything, they reveled in being widely recognized as such.

      But as the second brother, he’d decided to tread a different path—one just as fraught with danger, but of a different sort.

      He would be more likely to be clapped into a foreign jail because of an unintended insult exchanged over a dinner table, while his brothers would be more likely to be caught brawling in some alley.

      He was quick with his tongue, while they were quick with their swords and fists.

      Not that he couldn’t match them with either blades or fists; growing up as they had, being able to hold his own against them had been essential—a matter of sibling survival.

      Thoughts of the past had him smiling, then he drew his mind forward, through the past to the present—then he looked ahead.

      After a moment, he shut the journal and stowed it back in the drawer. Then he rose and headed for the deck.

      Given how boring his recent life had been—more like existing than actively living—perhaps it was a good thing that this mission was not his usual diplomatic task. Something a little different to jar him out of his rut, before he turned his mind to defining and deciding the details of the rest of his life.

      A fresh and different challenge, before he faced a larger one.

      Climbing back onto the deck, he felt the wind rush at him and lifted his face to the bracing breeze.

      He breathed in and looked around at the waves—at the sea stretching forever on, as always, his path to the future.

      And this time, his way was crystal clear.

      He’d go to Freetown, learn what was needed, return to London and report—and then he would set about finding a wife.

      CHAPTER 2

      “Good morning.” Miss Aileen Hopkins fixed a polite but determined gaze on the face of the bored-looking clerk who had come forward to attend her across the wooden counter separating the public from the inner workings of the Office of the Naval Attaché. Located off Government Wharf in the harbor of Freetown, the office was the principal on-land contact for the men aboard the ships of the West Africa Squadron. The squadron sailed the seas west of Freetown, tasked with enforcing the British government’s ban on slavery.

      “Yes, miss?” Despite the question, not a single spark of interest lit the man’s eyes, much less his expression, which remained impersonal and just a bit dour.

      Aileen was too experienced in dealing with bureaucratic flunkies to allow his attitude to deter her. “I would like to inquire as to my brother Lieutenant William Hopkins.” She set her black traveling reticule on the counter, folded her hands over the gathered top, and did her best to project the image of someone who was not about to be fobbed off.

      The clerk stared at her, a frown slowly overtaking his face. “Hopkins?” He glanced at the other two clerks, both of whom had remained seated at desks facing the wall and were making a grand show of deafness, although in the small office, they had to have heard her query. The clerk at the counter wasn’t deterred, either. “Here—Joe!” When one of the seated clerks reluctantly raised his head and glanced their way, the clerk assisting her prompted, “Hopkins. Isn’t he the young one that went off God knows where?”

      The seated clerk shot Aileen a quick glance, then nodded. “Aye. It’d be about three months ago now.”

      “I am aware that my brother has disappeared.” She failed to keep her accents from growing more clipped as her tone grew more severely interrogatory. “What I wish to know is why he was ashore, rather than aboard H.M.S. Winchester.”

      “As to that, miss”—the first clerk’s tone grew decidedly prim—“we’re not at liberty to say.”

      She paused, parsing the comment, then countered, “Am I to take it from that that you do, in fact, know of some reason William—Lieutenant Hopkins—was ashore? Ashore when he was supposed to be at sea?”

      The clerk straightened, stiffened. “I’m afraid, miss, that this office is not permitted to divulge details of the whereabouts of officers of the service.”

      She let her incredulity show. “Even when they’ve disappeared?”

      Without looking around, one of the clerks seated at the desks declared, “All inquiries into operational matters should be addressed to the Admiralty.”

      Her eyes narrowing, she stared at the back of the head of the clerk who had spoken. When he refused to look around, she stated in stringently uninflected tones, “The last time I visited, the Admiralty was in London.”

      “Indeed, miss.” When she transferred her gaze to him, the clerk at the counter met her eyes with a wooden expression. “You’ll need to ask there.”

      She refused to be defeated. “I would like to speak with your superior.”

      The man answered without a blink. “Sorry, miss. He’s not here.”

      “When will he return?”

      “I’m afraid I can’t say, miss.”

      “Not at liberty to divulge his movements, either?”

      “No, miss. We just don’t know.” After a second of regarding her—possibly noting her increasing choler—the clerk suggested, “He’s around the settlement somewhere, miss. If you keep your eyes open, perhaps you might run into him.”

      For several seconds, her tongue burned with the words with which she would like to flay him—him and his friends, and the naval attaché, too. Ask at the Admiralty? It was half a world away!

      Thanking them for their help, even if sarcastically, occurred only to be dismissed. She couldn’t force the words past her lips.

      Feeling anger—the worst sort, laced with real fear—geysering inside her, she cast the clerk still facing her a stony glare, then she picked up her reticule, spun on her heel, and marched out of the office.

      Her half boots rang on the thick, weathered planks of the wharf. Her intemperate strides carried her off the wharf and up the steps to the dusty street. Skirts swishing, she paced rapidly on, climbing the rise to the bustle of Water Street.

      Just before she reached it, she halted and forced herself to lift her head and draw in a decent breath.

      The heat closed around her, muffling in its cloying sultriness.

      The beginnings of a headache pulsed in her temples.

      Now what?

      She’d come all the way from London determined to learn where Will had gone. Clearly, she’d get no help from the navy itself...but there’d been something about the way the clerk had reacted when she’d suggested that there was a specific reason Will had been ashore.

      Her older brothers were in the navy, too. And both, she knew, had served

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