Dance of Seduction by Sabrina Jeffries

“Thank my sister-in-law instead. It was actually her wager. Poor woman has some notion that I’ll get into trouble without her interference.”
    A smile crossed Ravenswood’s face. “Can’t imagine where she got such an idea.” He rose from the stool. “Well, I’d best be going.”
    “Don’t forget what I want out of this—captaincy of a first-rater. Nothing less.” This nightmare would be worth it if he could sail off on his own ship and leave this godforsaken city behind.
    “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather accept the position in the Home Office I offered you?”
    “And stay in London? Not a chance. I want my ship, and if you can’t give me that—”
    “You’ll get what you want.”
    “So you say. But I’m not entirely sure you can meet my terms, when the navy doesn’t even know what we’re up to.”
    “Don’t worry, they’ll honor my agreement with you once this is done. They always love a hero, and you’ll certainly be a hero if you catch the Specter.”
    “And if I don’t?”
    He shrugged. “You’ll be dead. Dead men don’t captain ships.”
    Morgan frowned. “Stop talking as if I have one foot in the grave. I don’t intend to die, and certainly not in this wretched place.”
    “I’ll do what I can to make sure you don’t. Speaking of that, the next time I need to reach you I’ll send Bill with a message. You know him, I believe.”
    “Worried about having your pocket picked again?”
    Ravenswood didn’t rise to the taunt this time. “Bill will also come around once a week to fetch your written report. Iwant to hear about every suspicious fellow who approaches you, every rumor you get wind of—”
    “I know how this works,” Morgan said dryly. “I have done it before.”
    “True. You’ve survived disasters that would destroy a lesser man. But one day your luck will run out.”
    “If it were luck, I’d worry.” Morgan grinned. “Since it’s skill, I see no cause for concern.”
    Ravenswood gave a rare laugh. “I’ll give you this—if sheer cockiness will keep a man alive, you’ll live to be a hundred.” He sobered. “Watch your back, my friend.” He turned to leave.
    “Ravenswood!” Morgan called out to stay him.
    “Yes?”
    “A figger is a boy put in at a window to gather up goods and pass them out to an accomplice. The accomplice, the real thief, is called a dive.”
    Surprise passed over Ravenswood’s face. “How do you know all that?”
    “I picked up some thieves’ cant during those months I spied on smugglers and lived with pirates.” He held the other man’s gaze. “I also learned a few tricks about staying alive.”
    “You’ll need them, I fear.” And with that dire pronouncement, Ravenswood was gone.
    Morgan shrugged off the warning. Ravenswood might have delved into the circumstances of Morgan’s childhood, but there were whole sections of his life no one, not even his brother, knew about. Fighting for survival was second nature to Morgan.
    It wasn’t the danger of this endeavor that kept him awake at night. No, it was the damned memories. He’d kept them at bay for so long that he’d thought they would no longer trouble him.
    Until he’d landed in Spitalfields. God, how he despised it. But he’d see his task through, as he always had. And once hehad his ship and the wager was over, he’d sail as far from London as he could.
    He flipped the “Open” sign back around, then spent the next few hours managing the thieves and customers who trickled in through the doors of his shop. Late in the afternoon, his stomach rumbled. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast, but he couldn’t close until six, when he would go to Tufton’s Tavern for dinner.
    Remembering the apples he’d stashed in the back room when he’d come in this morning, he scanned the street through the front window. No one seemed to be around, so he didn’t bother to flip the sign back to “Closed,” but merely hurried to the back. Fruit would have to satisfy him until