The American privateer schooner wasn’t the biggest or most luxurious vessel she’d ever been on, but it was, the inspector assured, safe, well-armed, and more importantly fast. Despite that, however, Angelique found herself doubting its suitability as transport from the British isles all the way to Japan. She voiced this opinion as Kaylock gathered her and Beechworth in the captain’s cabin.

“Oh, heavens no. It’s not at all made for such a journey, and I’d wager the captain would have a thing or two to say about that also.”

“Then—”

“You’re not taking this vessel,” he said, cutting her off. “You’ll be disembarking on the eastern American shore and conveyed to the western coast by an altogether more, shall we say, experimental conveyance.”

“Experimental?” she said with the raise of an eyebrow. “That fills me with the utmost confidence.”

“You and me both,” the constable said. Body and face turned from them, he crossed his arms, hugging himself tight.

Beechworth was clearly not the least bit happy about being strong-armed into playing escort for her, a criminal that he had caught and then been informed to release. Angelique was sure the fact she had let herself be caught in the first place would not brighten his mood. As her adoptive brother had rightly accused her, she had engineered the whole thing. The bobbies had been tipped off by an informant, who had in turn been handed anonymous information. The man, a known criminal and tipster, would have been paid twice — once by herself to employ him, and then the police for the information — but it was a small price to pay. And the way the man drank, he would not be kept in ale for long, nor would he be readily able to recall enough information to pin her as the source of his information.

“My poor, little constable,” she said with a frown. “I really do not mind if you are sent back to your beloved.” In fact, she much preferred it. She had not counted on Kaylock anchoring her with such a weight.

The inspector smiled. “I rather think not. And need I reiterate the terms of your release and payment?”

Angelique rolled her eyes. “Mais oui. Mon ami, Constable Beechworth, must accompany me at all times or you will not relinquish the sapphire into my possession.”

Beechworth sat tall, head snapping to each of them in turn, resting on his superior. “Sir, surely you can not be serious? You’re giving this… this… reprobate, a precious artefact from the British Museum as payment?”

“Reprobate?” Angelique gasped. “I much prefer the term libertine.”

The constable scowled, a red flush rising up his unshaven face as she blew him a kiss.

“Beechworth,” the inspector lit his pipe, and took a moment. “You were chosen for this task for just the very traits you now exhibit. Your unwavering loyalty and moral code.”

“Thank you, sir,” Beechworth said gruffly, still rankled but accepting of the complement.

“In this instance, though, do be a sport and shut it.” The constable’s jaw lowered before he firmly clamped it closed. “There’s a chap. Now, what I’m about to disclose is of the utmost secrecy.” He looked to the other man, again turned from the table. “Beechworth?” The constable looked over his shoulder. “This comes from the very top.” The constable frowned and made to ask a question that Kaylock anticipated. “The very top.”

Beechworth sat tall and turned himself, chair and all, to pay attention.

“God save the King, eh, constable?” Angelique quipped as she brought out her silver cigarette case and lighting one from the lantern on the table. She saw Beechworth’s look and held the case out to him.

“I tend to side with King James.” Beechworth gave the cigarette case — or her, she hadn’t quite decided — a disdainful look.

The case snapped closed and she gave him a quizzical look.

“King James the first,” Kaylock interjected, “imposed a heavy tax on tobacco in 1604, finding it a noxious assault to both his eyes and nose. He went so far as to compare it to the fumes of hell itself.”

Angelique gave a gay laugh. “Here’s to the devil then, Inspector.” She held her cigarette aloft.

As Kaylock inclined his head, the constable’s prior discomfort seemed to return.

“I’m sure you’re on friendly terms with Old Nick, but if you could refrain from inviting him aboard, I and most likely the whole crew would be most grateful.” Beechworth’s smile was anything but friendly.

The inspector cleared his throat. “Yes, quite. Though it’s quite apt, really, that you should say that, Beechworth. Given the nature of your expedition, I think it highly advantageous that you get used to striking deals with devils. The more allies you have the better, wouldn’t you agree, Mademoiselle?”

Angelique’s lips parted, ready to disavow the suggestion of any subterfuge on her part. Kaylock tipped his pipe to the window of the captain’s cabin and Angelique exhaled a stream of smoke with a long sigh. “Hideyoshi.”

Beechworth scowled, gazing between the two, then jumped up with a start that knocked his chair back as a shadowy figure crawled in through the cabin window. “What the devil?” he shouted, and he drew his pistol.

Hideyoshi pulled the dark cloth of a sailors scarf from his face one handed, eyes locked on Beechworth’s, the other tensed about his own pistol, barrel pointed at Beechworth’s heart.

“Please sit with us, Mister Hideyoshi,” Kaylock said, not having moved an inch during the course of the activity, puffing his pipe calmly.

“Sit, otōto,” Angelique commanded sternly, using the Japanese for little brother to enforce her words.

Hideyoshi moved slowly around the table toward the spare seat between his sister and the constable at the small table. Neither main took their weapon from the other.

“Inspector,” Beechworth said in a low tone. “That is the Oriental that incapacitated Miller and—”

“I’m well aware, Constable. Now for Heaven’s sake,” the inspector barked, finally breaking from his calm facade, “would the both of you put your bloody weapons away and sit the hell down! We have much to discuss.”

The two men turned to stare at Kaylock.

#

The captain of The Fortuitous Maid gave over his cabin to Angelique and she made the best of it. Hideyoshi, who had been hiding aboard successfully without detection, was now made known to the crew, who gave both him and the other strangers a wide berth — the latter because of their captain’s orders, and Hideyoshi as they likened him to something supernatural.

“You do a good job of perpetuating the clan mythology, little brother,” Angelique said softly, her eyes closed beneath her arm in feigned sleep.

“Whereas you seem intent on exposing me at every turn,” he complained. His feet kicked through the very same window he had used earlier that day and he landed almost silent on the creaky floor.

“You could use the door, you know.”

Hideyoshi perched with legs crossed on the table and fidgeted with the lantern. “The crew do not like to see me, even though they know of my existence. So I do not let them see me.”

“Perhaps I should have not told them you could run on water and turn into a demon that would steal their souls in their sleep?” Her voice held none of the mirth in her jest as she sat up.

“You seem troubled.”

“I am,” she said, rubbing her temples.

“Good!” Despite his frustration with her, he went to Angelique and rubbed at her shoulders. “You deserve these knots in your muscles, and I should leave them there for putting me in such a position.” He kept rubbing.

She didn’t say anything for some time, the feeling of his strong hands alleviating her of her tension at the forefront of her mind. “Thank you, Hideyoshi. I know I’ve put you in a difficult position in this, with the clan, but it means so very much to me that you are here.”

He snorted. “I am always glad to help you,” his hands held still. “You did not have to lure me to England under false pretences to gain it, onee-chan,” he said, using the affectionate but respectful term for older sister.

She put her hand on his. “It won’t get you in too much trouble with the clan, I hope.”

He thought on that as he resumed the massage. “That is something that we will broach when we speak with the elders. For now, we must rest, as this will not be an easy journey.”

She knew he was right, but she could not sleep. As he said, they had a difficult path and an almost impossible task which she knew for a certainty would be so if she did not have his assistance. “I really can not do this without you, brother.”

He squeezed her shoulders reassuringly before slipping something into her hand and disappearing with the breeze that brought sea spray and air through the open window. She closed the portal on the chill she felt and looked at the small pouch on her palm. The black bag contained a powder to induce sleep. A small amount would put her out. The whole thing would kill her. Usually it was used on others, targets, but it was certainly not uncommon for the administered to benefit from the drug.

She unwrapped it to stare at the powder. It looked as innocuous as common soil. Taking a small pinch, she gripped it tight between finger and thumb. She was loathe to take it. Taken directly in such a manner, she would be prone to hallucinatory dreams, but she knew from experience that it would serve to refocus her memory, perhaps uncovering something of what she could not when conscious.

Perhaps it would show her victory.

The mattress felt as if it were filled with rocks as she rested her head upon it, but it may as well have been the softest cotton, as soon she was blissfully unaware of anything and drifting into the familiar territory of what their grandfather had called spirit sleep.

#

The journey passed much the same for the next eight weeks. On this particular morning, on what was expected to be their last on The Fortuitous Maid, she felt no more clarity than she had the first night of their journey. She could recall nothing of use. Memories of the village in which she’d spent time as a young child, but nothing of her mother. She wasn’t even sure what she had hoped to achieve.

At least, she conceded, she had slept and was reasonably refreshed. Though waking to the small ship in a storm that day hardly seemed conducive to staying that way.

She met the two policemen in their much smaller quarters, which normally housed the first mate and quartermaster, and ushered them into the captains cabin with the food they had appropriated from the galley. Upon re-entering, they found Hideyoshi sitting on the bed.

“Your friend is looking a bit wan,” the constable said with smile. “I thought your lot had the best ships since throwing in with the Turks?” he shot across the room to the ill looking young man.

Angelique tried hard to remember if she had ever seen Hideyoshi that colour.

“We do. And if you are very lucky, Mister Beechworth,” Hideyoshi said from his meditative pose, his face saying he was trying to focus his mind elsewhere from the nausea, “we may actually live long enough to see one, if the isonade do not claim us and drag us to the bottom of the ocean.”

Beechworth soured as he usually did when their mortality was brought up, his mind no doubt on his fiancé, and looked to Angelique.

“Sea monsters, covered with hooks and spikes.”

“Lovely,” Beechworth said. “Best I write to my betrothed and bid her farewell now, then?”

It was not something Angelique could see for herself, marriage. Not that she was against the affections of a man or romance, but she could not imagine being tethered to one place, one person. She had lived her life, travelling. Depended on it, in fact. Not that she minded. Though she had to wonder, what a stable life would be like? Not to have to fend for herself all the time, to have a constant companion and love.

Perhaps, she thought with a smile, she should stop throwing herself into buildings in the dead of night in her undergarments.

“Eggs and pork?” Beechworth asked of the man on the bed, holding the plate close to the young man’s face.

Hideyoshi’s eyes screwed tighter before they flew open, and he leapt away from the food to void his stomach in the captains chamber pot.

“Best tread lightly, mon ami” Angelique said as she cut her food. “He is not his usual amicable self when he is not well.” She smiled, pausing with her fork laden with a dainty mouthful. “Though, what man ever is?”

Half way through the meal, Inspector Kaylock grunted. “I almost forgot.” He drew a bag from within his jacket and dropped it with a familiar jangle on the table. Two more landed beside it.

Angelique hefted one in her hands. “Quite a tidy sum,” she assessed without looking within. She could tell from the sound and weight, the coins were gold.

“Yes, and of dubious origins, so it can’t be traced back to you-know-who,” Kaylock said as he prepared his pipe. “Remember, once you leave American soil, you’re on your own.”

“Sir, I thought you said the Yanks would be assisting us?” Beechworth said.

“They will only be transporting you from one side of the country to the other, Beechworth. Outside of that, you are all personae non gratae.” The Inspector tapped his pipe out the window and turned with a grave look. “At any point should you be discovered, the British empire will deny any and all knowledge of you.”

“Perhaps you could steal into the galley to procure some of the crews salted beef rations for us, constable,” Angelique joked. “It sounds like we may be in need of it travelling across a continent.”

“I do believe that is rather your racket,” Beechworth shot back. “Although I do think I might be utilising some of your less heinous tools and adopt a pseudonym.”

“Very good thinking,” Kaylock congratulated the constable, waving his pipe at the man for emphasis.

Beechworth practically brimmed. “I shall be using—”

“For heaven’s sake, man!” Kaylock now chided him. “Don’t divulge any of your plans to me. Especially not in such close quarters.” The Inspector shook his head, taking several puffs in deep thought.

“You keep saying this, but then how are we to know what we are to do, exactly?” Angelique asked, annoyed. “You’ve still not disclosed what it is you want from us.”

“I can’t say, it’s too risky. But I make no small claim when I say that your mission may well impact the course of history itself.” Kaylock waggled the stem of the pipe at them for emphasis, eyes wide.

“Then how will we receive our mission?” Angelique asked.

“The Americans will hand you a package and one of their lot will debrief you.”

“The Americans?” Beechworth said in indignation.

“They’re in this just as much as we are, believe me. You’ll soon see that for yourself. But for now—” He indicated the bags of gold. “Those will only get you so far, depending on what means of ingress you choose.”

“Are we to take it,” Hideyoshi spoke now, having regained some of his colour and composure, “that we are to devise the method ourselves?”

“Indeed,” Kaylock answered. “And by any means necessary.”

#

With what scant belongings they had, the trio separated to meet again at different intervals at a carriage stop. To any bystander, they were three disparate travellers waiting to ease their weary bones and move on to whatever their next ports of call may be. They certainly avoided the dishevelled and stained sailor asleep against a wall in a corner smelling of fish guts.

Once in the carriage, Angelique stared Hideyoshi down until he relieved them all of its stench, sending the tatty old coat out the door..

They were surprised when the carriage drew to a stop some miles from the port in a shadowy alley between tenements and a lanky gentlemen with a big hat, unkempt hair and matching moustache eased his way inside and beside constable Beechworth with surprising speed. Once settled, he sent the driver on with several heavy thumps of his boot on the floor.

“Afternoon, gents, ma’am,” he doffed his hat as he addressed each with a nod of his head, drawing out his vowels in an American twang.

Angelique’s wide eyes took in the man with unwavering, unblinking animosity as she felt her brother’s flowing movement.

“I reckon I wouldn’t do that,” the American said, returning her steely stare with a smile that didn’t extend to the upper portions of his face.

Hideyoshi’s hand stopped as he heard two telltale clicks of flintlocks in quick succession and saw a barrel each pointed at his sister and the constable in front of him.

“Just in case you’re havin’ any funny ideas,” the man said before shifting his pupils from the young woman, “These here are flintlock revolvers, each capable of multiple shots without reloading.”

Her two companions slowly lifted their hands from their jackets as Angelique sat up taller.

“You may as well put those away,” she said softly.

“And why might that be?” the man with the pistols drawled, smiling at her in earnest as she drew her own small weapon from beneath her skirts. “I like you,” he said with a chuckle, lowering the hammers of his revolvers with his gloved thumbs. “Lady of my own heart. Either of you two…” he waved his pistols at Beechworth and Hideyoshi before jerking his head at her.

“I speak for myself,” her accent thickened in anger, taking on a strange lilt that was decidedly not French. The barrel still trained on the man didn’t waver though. “And no.”

“Interestin’.” The man smirked as he eased the pistols into their holsters and pulled off his gloves. He offered his hand to Angelique. “Jonathan Wake, at your service, Mademoiselle Morreaux.”

After a moments contemplation, Angelique uncocked her weapon, which she transferred to her left hand, and let the man take and lay a gentle kiss on her still gloved hand. He gazed up at her as he did so, all the while with that mischievous smirk in evidence.

“If you’ve both quite finished with your dawdling,” Beechworth interjected, “I’d rather like to know just what in the blazes is going on!”

“He,” Hideyoshi ventured with some venom, “is obviously our American contact.”

“Any fool can see that,” the constable barked.

From there, the two descended into gruff argument.

“These two peaches must have been a joy to sail with,” Wake chuckled.

“Oh, mon diue, you have no idea!”

She gripped the bridge of her nose before pulling off her glove. Placing her thumb and mid-finger to her lips, Angelique letout a loud whistle that stopped them in place. She snapped at her brother in Japanese, who angrily let himself out of the carriage to ascend to its top, slamming the door behind him.

She opened her eyes after letting out a long sigh and saw Jonathan Wake smiling widely at her. “What?” she asked of the man in anger.

“I think I just fell in love.” Wake put his hand to his chest and let out his own sigh.

“Good grief,” Beechworth muttered, averting his gaze out the window. “I may just join Mister Hideyoshi outside.”

“I doubt you’re quite as limber as our friend up there,” Wake laughed heartily. “No offence. Besides, if you fell and broke your neck, you’d miss out on ridin’ the Pony Express.”

The constable snapped his head back in shock. “You can’t mean to transport us across the damned continent by horse and carriage!”

“If he does,” Angelique added, “his ponies better be very big and strong.”

“Angie, darlin’,” Wake’s smirk grew, “you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!”

Next Chapter: Chapter Three