Jennifer Horseman Read Online Free PDF

any cost."
    Stoddard looked up from his papers to gaze at Wilson, sitting across from him on the maroon velvet seats of the carriage, before replying to his concern. "There won't be any labor problems in Bristol anymore."
    Mr. Wilson stared with marked disbelief. "You ... my gracious lord, you've decided to meet the demands?"
    Amusement tinged the large man's response. "I do not concede to the 'demands,' as you call this pitiful attempt to blackmail me, of common laborers. No, I taxed the last of my reserves and purchased the two foodstuff and dry goods shops in Bristol. The owners were finally persuaded to accept my offer last night." He did not bother saying how it was done, past, "Suffice to say they were given no choice. I should have done it years ago. The stores have been stripped and left bare, a situation that shall remain until the workers concede and those five ships are finished."
    Mr. Wilson took in these changed conditions with a startled gasp. "But 'twill take months and—"
    "People will starve. Indeed, no one in Bristol will challenge my authority again and those rumors that I can't pay my debts will finally cease — " Stoddard stopped upon hearing horse's hooves coming alongside the carriage. He slid back the window siding to see a riderless horse galloping alongside the carriage. "What the devil!"
    Gayie agilely clung to the carriage footstool as Heart knocked out the driver, bringing the carriage to a slow halt. Gayle poked his pistol through the window as a greeting. Stoddard gasped, stopping just short of a scream as he stared at the barrel of a long ivory-handled pistol. He flew to the drawer across from him, but as his hand grasped the pistol there, the carriage stopped and Gayle leaned full inside. Stoddard felt the cold sting of the barrel of his pistol hard against his cheek. "There'll be no more killing for you now," Gayle said easily. "Take care man, I've a terrible twitch in my hand. Step out easy and meet your sorry fate."
    Stoddard emerged from the carriage to find himself looking at the barrels of eight pistols. Fear mixed evenly with rage, a potent mix vented at last in a demand, the last he would ever make: "What in God's name is the meaning of this?"
    The silence stretched endlessly as Garrett studied the man haunting his nightmares of these last two long weeks. He now understood Leif s quiet insistence that he disarm himself, for had he a pistol in his hands at this moment he would have fired point blank to his head, an action far too merciful for the evil he saw. Not a small evil either, but one far larger than he had anticipated. Arrogance, pride, and cruelty were written on the large man's features, shown in the harsh, deeply curved lines of his face, even in the light of his gaze; all of it validated the many tales of terror he had gathered since he learned of Edric's pitiful death.
    The name Stoddard had not been unfamiliar to him or to any other man remotely connected to shipbuilding, shipping, and the seas. For a hundred and fifty years the Stoddard family owned one of England's greatest shipbuilding enterprises, a declining enterprise owing to the unlimited timber reserves of the Americas and the industriousness of her people. This decline Stoddard, and men like him, attempted to slow by lowering wages and increasing production, so that among far more damning things associated with Stoddard's name, everyone in shipping talked about the miserable working conditions among the laborers of Bristol.
    Stoddard's gaze narrowed as incredulity overrode his fear, and while he was not fool enough to go against pistols unarmed, his unquestioned authority remained fixed in his squared shoulders and firm stand. He looked at each man briefly, holding first Leif and then Garrett in his gaze. Garrett looked like a madman as he removed a cask and took a long draught before meeting this gaze with the frightening look of a rabid dog: there was rage, extreme agitation, and yet unmistakable pleasure.