Free A Most Unladylike Adventure by Elizabeth Beacon Page A

she scrambled to follow along the more generous roofs and was only just in time tosee him disappear through French windows giving on to a town garden, as if he knew the house very well and could stroll in and out as he pleased. She pondered the man’s position in such a household and wondered what to do next. No scruffy idler would gain access to such a house and how would she find out anything about the owner and his connections from such a humble position even if she did?
    Marking the house on her internal map for future reference, she waited until a genteel bustle of activity made her realise it was the fashionable hour for visiting and any trail the man had left was about to be wiped out. He could have left in any of those coaches in whatever guise he usually wore, he might be someone she’d met at a ball or some soirée he couldn’t manage to escape, she could even have danced with him in her other life. Horrified by the idea of being so close to a man who clearly wished Hugh Darke no good, she finally left very cautiously indeed and travelled a few streets at her lofty level before descending. She could find out nothing more just now, so she headed for a dealer in second-hand clothing that she knew from experience was the least likely to leave her scratchingand cursing at someone else’s parasites when she wore their wares.
    *
    By mid-afternoon Hugh had ploughed through his mathematical duties and was secretly relieved to get an urgent summons to the enclosed dock his youthful employers were having built to cut down on the organised pilfering of their cargoes. Hugh frowned as he pondered that pilfering and told himself it was normal, all owners suffered from the problem, which was why the East India Company had already built a closed dock and were probably planning more. Like Kit, he thought there was something more than chance behind their own heavy losses. It was all of a piece with the loss of one of his ships and the murder of its crew not already corrupted by whoever organised the infamous scheme a couple of years ago.
    It had taken a deal of hard work and scrupulously fair accounting to repair the damage to their reputation and persuade Lloyds that Stone & Shaw were not behind the fraud. Rumours that the
Mirabelle
had not gone down after all, but was sailing under another name with an entirely different crew, had horrified her young owners and sent Kit on a quest to discover the truth and Hughknew his friend wouldn’t give up until he had every detail of the infamous scheme at his fingertips. Having an implacable yet invisible enemy of his own, Hugh knew how that constant but intangible malice ate away at a man’s soul. At least he knew his foe was probably one of his late wife’s legion of lovers, determined to make him pay for the unresolved crime that ended her life, but Hugh couldn’t solve it and prove he wasn’t a wife killer, so it had seemed better to take a captaincy from Stone & Shaw and stay out of the idiot’s way rather than fight for his good name—a lost cause if ever there was one.

Chapter Five
    H ugh frowned blackly out of the window of the hackney he’d summoned to get to Stone & Shaw’s dock as fast as he could and wondered at the elaborate route the jarvey was taking. About to tap on the roof and inform the driver he wasn’t the flat he probably looked today, he jolted in his seat as the hackney veered abruptly and threw him forwards with a jarring thud. Hugh was still rubbing his bruised temple and trying to reassemble his dignity when the door was thrust open and a familiar voice demanded he get down immediately and follow her.
    ‘Why the devil should I?’ he snapped back crossly.
    ‘Because it’s all a sham and you’re beingkidnapped,’ Eloise informed him shortly, tugging ineffectually at his sleeve. ‘Please, believe me. I’m not sure how much longer my diversion will hold up,’ she added desperately and he believed her, despite all her secrets and lies.
    ‘I’ll