But, she noticed, he was already flipping pages, scanning the text.
“I can be a bit impetuous,” she admitted.
“You don’t say. Here, this looks like what we want.”
It was a detailed account of how they spotted the Spanish ship, chased her down, and boarded her. They’d lost Scaggs and several other men in the battle, but they’d left the Spanish ship to limp along, its burden far lighter.
Though the account shied away from mentioning too many of the gruesome particulars of the battle, Josie could imagine the crew’s state: men with cuts on their heads, blood streaming into their eyes; men with stumps instead of arms; men whose wheezes for breath punctuated the silent night, but who were themselves silent in the morning.
Suddenly she understood why her grandfather had always said, “There is no glory in battle, only relief that it is over.”
Sickened at the thought of the carnage and senseless loss of life, Josie reached over and turned the page. Westman, who had been reading, looked up at her.
“We have to know where they hid the treasure,” she said and kept turning page after page of descriptions of the voyage home. Finally, on the next to last page, there was mention of their pursuit and the hiding of the treasure, but the man who had painted a detailed map of the islands and the voyage was woefully scant in his details of the hiding place.
“He doesn’t even mention the map!” Josie said, thrusting the offensive book at Westman. “All he says is ‘Hale and I made note of where we left the doubloons.’ That must be the map, right?”
Westman nodded, reading the page again for himself.
“Wonderful! But we don’t have the other half of the map—your grandfather’s half. What did he do with it?”
Westman was still reading, turning the last page to be certain no other text remained. As Josie watched, a small envelope floated out from the back cover and landed on the floor.
She looked at Westman and they both reached, their heads banging together in the process. Rubbing her ringing head, Josie let Westman take the envelope. He held it up, studied it, then said, “I think I know where we’ll find the map.”
STEPHEN STOOD AT THE entrance of Thomas Coutts & Company at Number 59, The Strand, and restrained the urge to check his pocket watch. Again.
Josephine Hale was supposed to meet him here at eleven sharp, and it was half past. Thus far, he’d seen no sign of her. The slip of paper with the bank’s name was burning a hole in his pocket. Stephen closed his eyes and saw the paper in his mind.
Safekeeping
Coutts
The numbers and letters scrawled in an unfamiliar hand had to refer to the private banker to the ton. Stephen was wagering everything that the key from the warehouse in Seven Dials would open whatever his grandfather had left in the bank’s vault.
He looked down The Strand again, toward Whitehall and then Fleet Street. But how the hell long was he going to have to wait? If Josephine didn’t arrive soon . . .
He peered toward Whitehall, where at the corner of one of the smaller lanes he saw a flicker of a parasol. A moment later he saw the parasol again, followed by a small face, and then both were gone again.
Stephen sighed. Did the woman really think she was being inconspicuous? He began marching toward the corner, reaching it just as she poked her head out again.
“Eek!” she said, when she saw him on the other side.
Stephen reached out and grasped her arm, pulling her and the white parasol into the open. The pretty parasol matched her dress. It too was white with small pink flowers and a light dusting of ruffles and flounces.
God, she looked pretty.
“What are you doing?” he said, ignoring her ripe lips and her pink cheeks, and urging her toward the bank.
“I’m trying to keep out of sight,” she hissed, angling the parasol so that it hid her face from passersby. It also knocked him in the forehead. He swatted it away.
“You’re going to take an eye out with that.”
“It’s just until we’re inside. If my mother hears—”
“Yes, I know. The world will end.”
She glared at him, closing the parasol as the bank’s doorman did his duty. “One day you will meet my mother, Lord Westman, and then you shall see that I do not embellish.”
