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He turned away and pushed his way out of the crowded bar.
He half-stumbled to some boxes near the docks and sat down. His stomach churned with emotion. He suddenly vomited the wine he had just had. When he wiped his face, he found there were tears of anger and sorrow coursing down his cheeks.
Scrubbing his eyes dry with the back of his sleeve, like a child, he turned to find his boat. What did Lord Ashton and the past matter to him? He had Josie and his brother, he reminded himself. He needed no one else.
* * *
Once he landed in England, Ace traveled immediately to London. He checked for Charley and Paddy at the Pugilist Society, and then in their rented rooms. That was where he found them.
“Ace!” Charley yelled when he walked in. “We thought you were kidnapped by the Navy! We thought you were on your way to the West Indies!”
“I was,” Ace said calmly. “But I escaped. I’ll tell you more about that later, when we have time. But first, where’s Lady Josephine?”
They told him all they knew—how the Earl had imprisoned her and mistreated her, and how she was working as a scullery maid in Worthington Town when they happened upon her.
“That was how we knew you had gone to sea, Ace. The Earl mocked her and told her he had you seized on purpose by the Navy,” Paddy said.
“So where is she now?”
“That’s the problem, Ace. We don’t know. I stayed in Worthington Town to keep an eye on her, while Paddy went to London—”
“—To get money from Lady Hermione so Lady Josephine could travel to Cornwall to the milliner’s cottage.” Paddy interjected.
They explained, each ready to take the blame, how Paddy had stayed too long in London, and meanwhile Lady Josephine disappeared from under Charley’s nose.
“If I hadn’t stayed in London to ask Mary to marry me, we wouldn’t be in this situation now,” Paddy said shamefacedly.
Ace was dejected. But he said, “Don’t blame yourselves. It might just as easily have happened when you were both there.” With a thought for his friend, he added, “What did Mary say to you, Paddy?”
“She said yes, she’ll marry me.”
“I’m glad for you, lad,” Ace made himself say, although all he could think about was Josie. Did the Earl have her back in his clutches again? Or had she found a way to get to Cornwall, without Lady Hermione’s money?
“We leave at once for Worthington Town, boys,” Ace said in what he hoped was a brave, resolute voice. “We’ll start the search for her where she was seen last.”
