Free Duke by Day, Rogue by Night by Katherine Bone

him with invitation. Sating his thirst proved quite appealing since he couldn’t act upon his hunger for the lady herself. Percy opened the cut-glass doors and stared at two bottles of port, a bottle of brandy and a jug of rum, each tethered against the wall to keep them from breaking in choppy seas. An additional pair of low bottomed glasses stowed nearby proved Frink unbelievably civilized.
    The bed shifted. Percy glanced over his shoulder, half-afraid he’d have to deal with a startled woman before getting the stiff drink he needed to warm his bones. What he saw made him even more adamant to get that drink. Constance lay on her side, the coverlet gathered over her breasts. The sight of her dipping waist and mounding hips stirred his soul. He licked his dry lips, closed the liquor door, and frowned. Liquor would not ease what ailed him.
    He strode over to the built-in bookcase and stopped to scan literary works neatly stacked inside. Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare, Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France , and The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake lined the shelves. Percy frowned. Who would’ve guessed Frink had any sort of taste in literature? A deep-rooted suspicion began to take root within him. He had not been toying with a simpleton, but a man of complexities.
    Percy settled his gaze upon the large mahogany desk jutting out of the inlaid floor like coral on a reef. Built with a tall wooden lip around the edges to prevent content spillage and complete with garish designs carved upon the legs, the monstrosity owned the room. The surface, unbeknownst to him until now, displayed rolled parchments and maps, which had been tossed across the top of the desk as if they’d been discarded in a hurry. Percy eyed the papers curiously, scanning the myriad paperwork until he spied a map weighted down by a quadrant and compass. Leaning closer, he examined the nautical measurements, and then used them to calculate the distance off of England’s coastline, a directional chart flow that led to an unnamed port off the coast. The location had been circled, however, and dated three months prior. Intrigued, he traced back over the route with his fingertip. His brow arched when his fingertip came to rest at Talland Bay just beyond the tiny town of Polperro along the Cornish coast.
    His hopes immediately lifted as he recollected that he’d returned home briefly to tend to his ailing father during that time, making him suspiciously absent at the recorded meeting place. Determined to find out what had transpired there, Percy flipped through the hastily assorted piles, eager for another clue. Two names appeared — Zephaniah Job and Josiah Cane — beside which the word fox had been scrawled.
    Josiah Cane. Fox. Percy lifted his hand and nearly slammed it hard upon the desk, but stopped mid-air as a movement out of the corner of his eye reminded him he was not alone. He held his breath and waited to see if his actions had awakened the lady. When she failed to move, he redirected his attention to the maps.
    Simon had once informed him that Zephaniah Job commanded a smuggling ring near Polperro. But who was Josiah Cane? Who was this fox? Frink had never mentioned anyone other than someone known as Whistler, the one who’d keyed them in to the Octavia ’s whereabouts. Until now, Simon hadn’t believed Whistler existed. Recently intercepted messages proved Whistler did, however, mastermind the Octavia ’s defeat. But who was Whistler? And how was he going to get a message to Simon to prove the informant’s existence?
    Sifting through papers at his fingertips, enthralled by information he’d been fortunate to gather, Percy collapsed into the desk chair. Mind racing, his heart thrummed with hope. For the first time since the Octavia sank to the bottom of the Channel, barriers to Frink’s network of power were beginning to thin. He leaned back and closed his