Nick still hadn’t moved.
She exhaled and studied the stranger. Silver highlighted the fashionably short black hair at his temples, and deep lines around his eyes and mouth indicated he’d smiled often over the decades. His eyes were the same blue as Nick’s as he flicked his gaze from her to Jonesy and back to Nick.
“Brought part of your crew this far inland, did you?”
Nick let out a deep breath. Really, he shouldn’t have been surprised. He’d begun to suspect his relative might be in the area when the housekeeper at the second igreja had mentioned his older look-alike. “Hello, Uncle Zach.” Nick pulled out a chair at the table and sat down. “Penrith was wondering why you hadn’t been around London for him to win his money back from you.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder toward the door, where the other players had recently left. “You needed to travel all the way to Portugal to find more gulls to fleece?”
Zach set his cards on the table and studiously neatened the deck’s edges. “I am here because of a card game, actually. It’s a lengthy tale. Best told over a bottle of vino.”
A serving wench arrived bearing a tray. She set down three bowls of stew, a basket of maize bread, and three tankards of cider. In Portuguese, she inquired if Zach desired anything.
He winked at her. In Spanish, he replied he’d have the same, gesturing at Nick’s bowl and mug. There was already a mostly-empty wine bottle and a glass with an inch of red wine in it on the table beside Zach.
Harry sat down to Nick’s left, Jonesy to his right, and they both dug into the food.
Nick knew they had to be dying of curiosity. He was brimming with questions himself but knew Zach would only talk when he was ready. And well lubricated with alcohol. Nick began to eat.
The server came back with Zach’s food and cider, and for several minutes they were all busy eating. Nick noted Zach watching Jonesy and Harry, undoubtedly sizing them up as potential marks. Nick’s first mate rarely indulged in games of chance, but he didn’t know if Harry played. Silver loo and piquet, probably. Did she know how to play whist? Unlikely, though it was entirely possible his rascally crew had taught her card and dice games just as they’d taught her to fire a cannon, splice rope, and sing bawdy chants.
Zach seemed fascinated by Harry, specifically her hands. She was buttering a hunk of the cornbread. Nick knew she was developing calluses on her palms and fingers from hauling on lines and other work on the ship, but the backs of her hands were still smooth and mostly pale, marred only by a couple scratches and a ragged nail or two.
The hands of a lady.
One side of Zach’s mouth quirked up in a grin. Nick met Zach’s knowing stare and uplifted brow with the same blank expression he wore when holding four aces. Or a junk hand.
“Jonesy and Harry know why we’re here,” Nick said. “Why are you here? And why were you expecting me?”
Zach gestured to get the serving woman’s attention. He started to order another bottle of vintage port, but then with a smile at Harry asked for a bottle of vinho verde instead. She was, hopefully, too busy eating to notice the switch from a stout alcohol to a bubbly light white wine that Zach could drink like water and probably wouldn’t get even a young lady tipsy.
“A few weeks ago in London the cards were against me,” Zach began after a glass had been poured for everyone and the wine bubbles fizzed to the surface. “I was certain I could turn things around even though I had already lost all the blunt I had on me. You know I don’t believe in vowels. I did have a piece of paper with me, however, one I’ve carried for five years. A map.”
Nick was close enough to hear Harry’s slight gasp. She quickly took a sip of wine and said nothing. “A treasure map?” Nick prompted.
“That’s what Adam called it in his letter when he sent the drawing.” Zach tossed back his glassful and refilled it. “I didn’t put much store in it. Certainly didn’t think it would be worth the bother to go looking for it on the Continent. The next morning I reconsidered. Thought perhaps I should buy it back and give it to you instead of letting Hornsby have it.”
“And Hornsby is…” Nick prompted when Zach became absorbed in his meal.
Zach pushed aside his now-empty bowl. “The cove who was having a much better night with the cards than I was. By the time I was feeling up to snuff to pay him a call, he’d decamped. Soon learned he’d hired a ship and gone. If he put enough stock in it to set sail with a smuggler captain, I figured I ought to go after it, too. I’d looked at the map enough over the years to remember what was on it.”
“Would the smuggler happen to be named Ruford?”
Zach didn’t look the least surprised. “You know him.”
“We’ve … met.”
Zach grinned and shook a finger at Nick. “Oh, there’s a tale to that, isn’t there?”
“Some other time.”
“You’re no fun, Nicky.” Zach heaved a great sigh and emptied his glass in one long swallow. “I caught a packet in Dover, bought a horse in Calais, and rode to Corunna. But the treasure wasn’t there anymore. It had been moved to Oporto.”
The innkeeper approached their table then. With apologies, he explained they were unexpectedly busy, especially for this time of year, and had only one room left for the night. Did they mind sharing?
Jonesy understood enough Portuguese to follow the conversation, though Harry did not. Jonesy had finished his food while Zach talked. He swallowed the last of his drink and set the tankard on the table. “Stables it is. See you in the morning, Cap’n.” He grabbed his coat and went out the door.
Harry looked torn between wanting to hear the rest of Zach’s story and going out to the stables. Nick rested his hand on her knee to keep her from rising. If there was a room available indoors, she wasn’t sleeping with the horses.
“Got yourself a new cabin boy, Nicky?”
