Bertha’s button-bright black eyes moved over Bliss once more, and then she said practically, “I’ll just go over across the way and ring him up on the telephone.” She shook one skinny finger at Calandra. “That’s not to say he’ll be pleased, mind you. Mr. Wilson is a busy man.”

Bliss stared openmouthed as the intrepid Bertha ended her discourse and marched toward the front entrance.

“Mr. Wilson will see to everything, dear,” Calandra assured her niece blithely, now engaged in the process of pouring herself another cup of tea. “Don’t you fret one little bit.”

“What—what will he do?” Bliss dared to ask. “Mr. Wilson, I mean?”

“Why, I would imagine he’ll see that scalawag you married arrested,” came the cheerful response. “More tea, dear? Your precious mother always liked lemon and sugar in hers, you know. It does seem that you share some of Lilian’s—inclinations.”

Bliss sank back into her chair. Her coat had long since fallen to the floor, but she made no effort to pick it up. Getting Jamie arrested was not at all the kind of solution she’d had in mind, but she hesitated to say so now, in the face of Calandra’s enthusiasm.

“Can they do that? A-arrest a man for—for consummating his own marriage?”

Calandra smiled broadly. “I have no idea, dear,” she replied.

Jamie hated the harbor, with its unremitting stench, its fishmongers and whores. It reminded him too well of Dublin and the privations he’d suffered there. . . .

“Lookin’ for somebody, lad?” a male voice asked.

Jamie’s revulsion deepened as he looked upon the twisted little man who’d spoken. It wasn’t the blighter’s disability that turned his stomach, but the yellow film that covered his half-rotted teeth and the filth that encrusted his skin. The smell fair made a man’s eyes water.

“Maybe I am,” Jamie answered after unbuttoning his coat, taking a cheroot and a match from the inside pocket, and lighting up. His blade, sheathed in its supple scabbard on his hip, was within easy reach again. He’d gotten careless of late; time was, he’d never have made a stupid mistake like that.

“Might be I could help.” The sailor was sizing Jamie up, no doubt trying to decide if a warm coat and a few coins of the realm would be worth the scuffle.

Something in Jamie’s bearing must have made him think twice. He smiled in an ingratiating way and said, “You be lookin’ for a woman, mate?”

Jamie felt a shiver move up and down his spine at the thought of Bliss having to deal with this stinking bastard or one of the many like him. He made himself smile. “Not in the way you think,” he said. “It’s my wife I’m looking for. We had a little—run-in, you might say, and she’s got it in her head to go running off to America.”

The scrounger tried to look properly disapproving. “A bad business, mate. What’s she look like?”

Jamie was reluctant to describe Bliss, but he didn’t see where he really had a choice. If he wanted to find her, he was going to need help; driven as he was, he wouldn’t be able to keep on searching day and night forever.