Chapter One

At the sound of breaking glass, Elliot Bishop closed the book he was reading. He hadn’t put the latch on the front door for the night because he often received late messengers from one of his warehouses. Besides, burglary was uncommon in uptown Port Townsend, unlike the petty thievery and debauchery that occurred every day and all night downtown.1 He listened hard. It had been blustery all day; if someone had left a window open somewhere, perhaps the wind had simply blown something over. 

The floorboards outside his study creaked, and Elliot set his book aside and got up. Grabbing a poker from the fireplace, he crept to the half-closed door to the study. He pressed against the wall behind the door and waited. The door slowly opened further, and Elliot tightened his grip on the iron shaft. 

The shadowy figure moved into the room and Elliot rushed from behind the door, poker lifted in both hands to smash down on the intruder’s head. A gloved hand stretched up and caught it before it made impact. Elliot kept hold of the poker in his left hand and drove his right fist into the intruder’s side. The man twisted under Elliot’s arm, tearing the poker from him and tossing it onto the carpet behind him. 

The only sources of light in the room were the fire and the small oil lamp Elliot had been reading by, so it was too dark to see the intruder clearly. Elliot blocked the man’s left hook but flinched at a right jab into his ribs. They fought for a few furious minutes until the man hooked his leg behind Elliot’s and jerked his feet out from under him. He fell on top of Elliot and drove the breath from Elliot’s chest.

Elliot scrabbled a hand on the floor, feeling for the poker, a chair leg, anything to smash into the man’s head. And then the man chuckled next to his ear, a sound he’d know anywhere. He froze so that he didn’t arc up against the now-familiar weight pressing down on him.

“Declan? What the hell are you doing here?”

Declan chuckled again, his breath raising the fine hairs on Elliot’s neck. “You’re a little rusty, aren’t you? Gotten a little soft with all your fine living?”

Enough of this. Elliot hooked his leg around Declan’s, pushed his left hand into Declan’s shoulder, and leveraged his right elbow to flip them over, pinning Declan beneath him. 

Declan grunted. “Not that rusty after all, eh?” His breath smelled like whiskey, and Elliot couldn’t stop a shiver of pleasure at being this close to Declan after all these years. 

Declan tapped him on the shoulder twice. “Let me up, you big oaf.” 

Elliot got up before he could do anything he’d regret, like crush his lips to Declan’s or bury his face in the man’s neck. He reached a hand down to pull Declan up, then took a few steps back toward the fire and the armchair he’d been sitting in. 

“What the hell are you doing here?” he repeated. 

Declan’s eyes roamed around the room and caught sight of the half-empty tumbler on the table near Elliot’s chair. 

“Well, I was looking for a glass of quality whiskey.” He headed straight for the sideboard, pulled his gloves off, and poured himself three fingers from the decanter. He saluted Elliot with the glass and took a long swallow.

“Ah,” Declan sighed. Elliot shivered again, remembering the last time he’d heard Declan make sounds of pleasure like that. Declan winked at Elliot. “Much better than the swill they serve at the Delmonico.”2 A soft smile lifted his full lips and crinkled his green eyes. “It’s good to see you again, man,” he said. The firelight gleamed on his disheveled hair, turning it chestnut and gold.

Before Elliot could respond, he heard another noise outside the study and tensed. It was only Celeste, hovering tentatively in the doorway, clutching a pale blue dressing gown around her.

“Elliot?”

Declan’s head turned at the sound of her voice, tracking her movements as Elliot held his arm out and drew her into the room. Celeste tucked her hand under his elbow and looked curiously from Elliot to Declan. 

Elliot sighed internally. It would have been easier if she’d stayed upstairs in the guest wing while he dealt with Declan, but he couldn’t very well refuse to introduce her now. 

“Celeste, allow me to introduce Mr. Declan Fitzgerald. Declan, this is Celeste Brady, my fiancée.”

Declan glanced at Elliot, a startled look on his face. “Your fiancée?” Then Declan stepped forward and bent over Celeste’s outstretched hand.

“Captain Fitzgerald,” he corrected. “But please call me Declan. After all, we’re about to be family. I’m Elliot’s brother.”

“Stepbrother.” Elliot’s turn to correct Declan. “Declan’s father married my mother when I was an infant.” He flushed at Declan’s knowing glance. Why did he feel the need to clarify that they weren’t blood relations?

“Wait…Captain?” he asked, turning to Declan. “Your father let you get your master’s certificate?”3

Declan still held Celeste’s hand and bent over it, brushing his lips across her fingers. Ignoring Elliot, he said, “It’s an honor to meet you—Celeste, was it? I can’t imagine what my stepbrother did to convince any woman to marry him, much less a woman as beautiful as you.”

Celeste blushed prettily and pulled her hand from Declan’s—reluctantly, it seemed to Elliot—and dropped a small curtsy. “The honor is mine, Captain. It’s a shame you missed our dinner party this evening.”

Declan picked up his glass and leaned against the sideboard as Elliot tugged Celeste an appropriate distance from him. “And when is the happy event to take place?” he asked, eyes flicking between Elliot and Celeste over the rim of his glass as he sipped from it.

“Tuesday,” Celeste answered, before Elliot could. “I do hope you’re staying for a few days, Captain, and will stand up for Elliot at the wedding. I hope we get to know each other, as well. Elliot hardly talks about his family.” 

Declan gave Celeste the full, slightly crooked smile that Elliot had seen charm every woman he came across, ladies and parlormaids alike. He lifted his half-empty whiskey glass to them and drained it.

“It would be my pleasure to get to know you, my dear. You must tell me how you managed to entice my brother into matrimony.” He glanced sideways at Elliot. “Not a state I’d ever expected him to embrace.” 

Elliot squelched a flash of irritation. Of all the times for Declan to stroll back into his life. Elliot had spent the last five years building a safe, comfortable life and in only a few days, he’d be married. Why now, after all these years? 

As if on cue, Declan bowed slightly to Celeste and said, “My apologies for getting you out of bed at such a late hour, my dear. Your intended and I have some family business to discuss. You surely have a hundred things to do before your big day. Please don’t let us keep you up any longer.”

Celeste looked at Elliot as if deciding whether she wanted to insist on staying. He smiled and gently steered her toward the door. “It’s nothing you need to concern yourself with, darling. I’ll see you in the morning.”

He kissed her on the cheek, and she smiled back at him. “I was just checking to see if I left my reading glasses down here.” Elliot found them on the corner of his desk and handed them over. Celeste drifted out of the room with a last curious glance at Declan. 

Declan sat down in Elliot’s chair near the fireplace and stretched his long legs out with a sigh. When he closed his eyes and turned his face to the fire, Elliot gave in and let his eyes travel the length of Declan’s body. His black coat was tailored to fit his broad shoulders, and his white lawn shirt gleamed crisply in the firelight. His vest was black too, or maybe dark blue. Silk, Elliot thought, with leaves and vines embroidered in silver thread. Black trousers hugged his hips and strong thighs, ending over a pair of short black boots, recently shined. 

“Captain, eh?” Elliot asked. “Looks like you’ve done well for yourself.”

Declan shrugged. “Thought it was time to start dressing the part.” He winked at Elliot. “Couldn’t very well show up at my brother’s wedding dressed like a common seaman, now could I?”

Elliot didn’t point out that Elliot hadn’t known where to send news of his engagement to Declan. Then Declan ran his fingers through his hair, brushing it out of his face and tugging it free of the leather thong that held the unfashionably long strands at the nape of his neck. His thick, glossy hair fell nearly to his shoulders, and Elliot snorted. It was reassuring that Declan seemed to be the same near-pirate as ever underneath his fine clothes.4 

He crossed to sit in the other chair in front of the fire. “Why are you here, Declan?” he asked quietly. 

Declan sighed and looked directly at Elliot, his green eyes boring into him. “Father’s missing. I need your help to find him.”5

“I’m sure he’s fine. You know half the time his voyages take longer than he expects.”

Declan shook his head. “This is different. We were supposed to meet at the usual place in Friday Harbor. I waited there for a week, but he never made it. The lighthouse keeper at Cape Flattery hasn’t gotten any messages from him, and neither have any of the usual message drops. I’ve spent the last several months sailing up and down from San Francisco to Nootka Sound, and no one’s seen or heard from him.”6

“That doesn’t mean he’s missing. Maybe he’s just laying low, or looking for other buyers to avoid paying duties on his most recent cargo.”7 

“If that were it, he’d have found some way to leave a message for me.”

Elliot shrugged. “Well, what do you want from me?”

Declan looked at him like he’d suddenly sprouted tentacles. “I want you to help me find him. He’s the closest thing you have to a father, and he’s missing. Not to mention he’s your primary source of those fancy goods you sell in your fancy uptown shops.” Declan paused and took another sip of whiskey. 

“I think he was close to finding out what happened to your mother when she disappeared. If only for that reason, I thought you’d want to come with me.”

Elliot ignored the cold shiver that came over him every time he thought about his mother and her disappearance. “He always thinks he’s close to finding out what happened to her. And yet he’s never found any real answers. What makes this time any different?”

Declan pulled a folded square of paper from his inside coat pocket. He opened it and spread it across his knees, angling it toward the lamplight. The paper was soft and grubby from passing through who knows how many hands. The top right corner had been torn away, leaving a jagged, curved edge.

“Father left this for me in Friday Harbor.”

Elliot leaned forward and examined the faint drawings and intersecting lines scattered over the paper. “It’s a chart.”8

“Of course it’s a chart. Look, here’s Vancouver Island.” Declan pointed to an elongated shape on the map. “And these are meant to be the Queen Charlotte Islands, I suppose,” he jabbed his finger at a smaller triangular shape above Vancouver Island. “But this spot here,” he traced lightly around a small dot marked farther west of the other islands on the chart, in what looked to Elliot like the middle of the Pacific Ocean, “is on none of the charts I’m familiar with.”

Declan sat back in his chair and looked expectantly at Elliot like all this was supposed to mean something to him. Elliot scrubbed his hands over his face. The adrenaline from Declan’s unexpected arrival was wearing off, and he’d already had a long day. He was tired, and thinking about the night his mother disappeared always made him feel ill. “So, the Captain sent you an old, inaccurate chart. I still don’t see what this has to do with me.”

Now Declan sighed, like Elliot’s tutor used to when he caught Elliot daydreaming instead of conjugating Latin verbs. “Elliot, this is a chart showing an island more or less due west of here that no one’s ever charted before. And it came from Father. He left it for me for a reason. I think it’s the best clue he’s found about where she went.” 

Elliot launched himself from his chair to stand before the fire, holding his hands out to it against the sudden chill in the room. He’d been a boy of eight when his mother had drowned in Port Townsend Bay. At least, that’s what his stepfather had told everyone in town. Except Declan.

Declan spoke softly from his chair behind Elliot. “Don’t you want to know? Find out for sure what happened to your mother?”

Elliot turned back to Declan, the fire barely warming him. “My mother drowned, Declan. In a storm that flooded half of downtown.9 I miss her every day, but drownings aren’t that unusual here. I know the Captain thinks she was spirited away against her will or something, but there’s no reason to think she’s still alive.” 

Or that she wants to come back if she was, Elliot thought but didn’t say out loud. The Captain had married his mother when Elliot was six months old, and since she had never given Elliot his name, most of the town gossips assumed she’d finally run off with whoever Elliot’s real father was. And yet, the Captain had convinced himself the truth was far more complicated than simple infidelity.10

Before Declan could say anything more, Elliot dropped back into his chair and held up a hand. “I’m tired, Declan. Can we talk about this in the morning, please?” 

Declan drained the last of his whiskey and stood up. “Fine.” Two long steps forward and he was crowding against Elliot, hands braced on the chair arms. He bent his head, and Elliot was suddenly sure Declan was going to kiss him. He couldn’t decide whether to push him away or grab the back of his head and pull him the rest of the way down.

Declan’s eyes narrowed as he looked Elliot over. “Tired, eh? Already experiencing wedded bliss with your fiancée? Does she like it when you—” 

Elliot shoved Declan backwards, cutting off the rest of his sentence. “No! Damn it, Declan, shut your filthy mouth. I won’t have you talking about her like that. She’s properly chaperoned by her maid and staying in the guest wing.11 And she’s about to be my wife. If you can’t show her some respect, you can get the hell out of my house.”

Declan shrugged and held his arms out in surrender. “Sorry, little brother. I’ll be on my best behavior, I promise. I’m just a little surprised to find you engaged, that’s all. Especially after…” He looked Elliot up and down with a lewd expression, and Elliot blushed.

“That was a long time ago, Declan, and we were just boys. It’s time for me to grow up and settle down. Past time for you to consider the same.”

Declan winked at him as he took a few steps back. “Never, Ellie, my lad. You know I’m not cut out for that. Too many places to see and people to do.”12 Smiling in spite of himself, Elliot stood up and let Declan clap him on the shoulder and steer him toward the study door. 

Declan slid a hand down Elliot’s hip. “Once more before your wedding, for old time’s sake?”

Elliot shoved him again, but playfully this time. “Not a chance, Declan. Your old room is still at the end of the hall. And don’t make me lock my door against you.” 

Declan looked wounded. “I never go where I’m not wanted.”13 Elliot snorted but wrapped an arm around Declan’s shoulders as they went up the stairs together. God, it was good to have him back, whatever his reason for coming home. At the top of the stairs, Declan turned right willingly enough and Elliot called softly after him. “Good night, Declan. I’m glad you’re home.” 

Declan threw a blinding smile over his shoulder. “Me too, man. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Elliot reached his bedroom and closed the door, hand hovering over the lock. He doubted that Declan would sneak into his room, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to resist him if he did. Locking his door would send the right message: that he was serious about putting their past behind him and committing to his marriage to Celeste. Which he was, of course. He’d introduce Celeste properly to Declan tomorrow. Once Declan saw how happy she made Elliot, they could settle back into a normal, brotherly relationship.14 With a firm twist, he locked the door and got ready for bed.