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It was the nextand his mouth tasted as if he’d just licked the bottom of a ship clean, that the letter arrived Nick was topside, taking his bellyache out on his cringing servants, when Elias Downey asked permission to come aboard and talk to Alexander Nick was diverted froh to escort theof curiosity to hear what this reat importance was

Alex lasses of vodka and set them on the table

Alex ignored the roaring in his head as he listened to the tales Elias had to tell about as happening in Warbrooke He scanned the letter from his sister, but there was much that she’d not told him

“That man she“He took Josiah’s ship froht there was contraband on it He done it all legal and proper like, weren’t nothin’ any of us could do to stop him If Josiah could coet his ship back That ship was all that Josiah had in the world and now he ain’t even got that”

“What did ine hi his son-in-law take a man’s ship”

Elias’s eyelids were beginning to droop with the effects of Nick’s vodka “Sayer ain’t got no legs They ht as well have been cut off He just stays in bed Nobody expected him to live but he did—if you can call that livin’ He lays in bed, won’t even hardly eat nothin’ Eleanor Taggert runs the place”

“Taggert!” Alex scoffed “They still live in that backwater shack, still trying to control those damned kids of theirs?”

“Jao and Nancy died havin’ the last young one A few of the boys shipp

ed out, but there’s enough of ’em left behind Eleanor works for your father and Jess runs a boat around the harbor They keep the faerts, they won’t take charity from nobody That Jess, she’s somethin’ She’s the only one that’ll stand up to your brother-in-law ’Course it ain’t as if the Taggerts have anything to lose by standin’ up to him They don’t own nothin’ that anybody’d want”

Alex exchanged serts were the town joke They were used as contrast to everyone’s bad luck No erts and see somebody worse off than you were They were poorer than anyone else, and dirtier—and they covered their misery with pride

“Is Jessica still as hot te at the memory of a scrawny, dirty-faced brat who, for soled him out to ht?”

“There abouts” Elias’s eyes were beginning to close

“And still not married?”

“Nobody wants the to slur “You ain’t seen Jess in a long tied”

“Somehow I doubt that,” Alex said just as Elias’s head slumped forward onto his chest and he fell asleep Alex looked up at Nick “I’ll have to go back and see what this is about Marianna asks me to come home and help them I doubt if it’s as bad as they make it seem My father has always believed the town of Warbrooke to be his personal little fiefdo to share the authority with soerts is sticking his nose in it and stirring up trouble, it’s no wonder there’s a coo back and see what it is I heard of a ship leaving for America in about six weeks’ time Maybe the captain doesn’t have his crew yet”

Nick tossed back the last of the vodka “I’ll take you My parents wanted me to see America and I have cousins there I’ll take you to this town of yours and you can see what is going on A son should obey his father”

Alex smiled at Nick and didn’t sho concerned he was about his father’s injury He couldn’t i an invalid confined to bed “All right,” Alex said “I’ll be happy to go with you”