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‘Unlikely,’ Hollinsworth said, but he seemed to have inexplicably regained his good humour. ‘I should warn you that he bears no love for the Royal Navy that burned his plantation on Tybee Island, among others, during our late unpleasantness.’
Jem took a good, long look at Mr Osgood N. Hollinsworth. ‘Why do I have the nagging suspicion that you are enjoying this whole business?’
Trust the old rip to drag out a flippant response. ‘Captain, at times it seems as though centuries pass in my life where nothing much happens. Oh, there is always the usual, but you and Miss Theodora Winnings have piqued my interest.’
‘I am not reassured,’ Jem said dryly. ‘Ah, well. I’m in too deep to back out.’
‘I hoped you would say that.’
Jem gave him a withering look and walked up the steps to the imposing front doors. He noticed the pineapple carved into the woodwork over the door.
‘I remember this from Massachusetts,’ he told the fat man puffing along behind him. ‘Hospitality’s symbol?’
‘I wouldn’t hold my breath, Captain,’ Hollinsworth said, as Jem knocked on the door.
A butler ushered them in and suggested they wait in the hall, once Jem stated he was Captain James Grey, Royal Navy.
‘If what you say is true, that should at least get the man’s attention,’ Jem said. ‘My mere mention of the Royal Navy kept us out of the sitting room, eh?’
It did. Jem stood in a foyer of stunning beauty, with a parquet floor of some intricacy and what looked like leather wall coverings with an embossed design. Built on the backs of slaves, eh? Jem thought, as he admired and deplored at the same time.
‘Here he is,’ Hollinsworth said under his breath, as a man older than Jem came down the central staircase, looking not a bit pleased.
‘What business can I possibly have with the Royal Navy?’ he asked with no preamble, no bow and certainly no hand extended, either.
‘Theodora Winnings,’ Jem said, determined to be as brief as the man with rancour in his eyes who stood before him. ‘Mr Tullidge, I am Captain Grey, and I wish to acquaint you with my interest in that lady.’
‘Lady? You’ve been misinformed.’
‘Lady,’ Jem repeated firmly. ‘I met her years ago in Charleston and proposed matrimony by way of a letter. Her reply in the affirmative went astray for eleven years. I am here now, and I intend to claim her.’
‘You intend to claim her?’ Tullidge asked. He laughed. ‘You intend to claim her? I won her in a game of piquet. Mrs Winnings belies her name. She never wins, and we all know it.’
How distasteful, Jem thought. ‘Apparently you and friends of yours play cards with her, knowing you will win.’
‘We do. Should be ashamed of ourselves, shouldn’t we?’ he asked, unrepentant.
James saw no point in dignifying such meanness with a comment. He remained silent.
‘Poor, poor Mrs Winnings never could figure out what to discard.’ Tullidge shrugged. ‘A little loss here, a little loss there. She finally gambled away her house, and then she gambled away her last slave.’ He made a sad face at Jem that was utterly overruled by the triumph in his eyes. ‘Poor, poor you.’
‘I love her,’ Jem said. It was the first time he had said the words out loud, and they felt so good. ‘Do you?’
‘Love? She’s a slave and I fancy her.’ Tullidge laughed again. ‘Too bad your letter went astray, Captain. It fairly breaks my heart.’
‘Miss Winnings told me you have guaranteed her mistress her house again, plus two thousand dollars,’ Jem said. He felt like the last cricket of summer, chirping on a hearth, with winter coming. ‘I will offer you five hundred dollars now against another two thousand, once my letter of credit and remittance is approved in a Savannah counting house of your choice.’
‘How long will that take?’ Tullidge asked. ‘Three months? Four months? Longer?’
‘It will come,’ Jem said.
He knew disappointment was the only outcome of this conversation. He knew that before he knocked on the door, but a man has to try. ‘Does she mean anything to you?’
‘Certainly not,’ Tullidge said, ‘but Lord, she is a beauty, even if she is too old for my tastes, really. A year or two and I will sell her.’
Jem heard a great roaring in his ears and felt an ache in his jaw unlike anything he had experienced before. This was worse than combat, worse than bringing his frigate alongside the enemy and pounding away at close range. The tender woman he loved was at stake. He felt a great helplessness, he who was renowned in both fleets for his capability under fire and his innate sense of what to do when there was nothing to do.
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