Burning Up

business,” Jack said in his command voice.
    Hobson, apparently the designated leader, tugged on his waistcoat. “Young Colin here found something on the beach and he thought, we all thought . . .” Looks and nods were exchanged. “You should know about it.”
    “It’s your boat, sir,” Colin said.
    “The boat sank,” Sloat said.
    Jeb, the older fisherman, nodded. “Aye, we heard. But there it was on the beach when we come in at the end of the day, whole and dry.”
    “Not whole,” the baker said.
    “Of course not,” Sloat interjected. “It capsized.”
    “Sprang a leak on the way back from the island,” Jack explained.
    “This weren’t like any leak I ever saw,” Jeb said. “This was a big hole cut in the bottom of the boat, all nice and round and even.”
    The shopkeeper nodded. “I saw it myself. New hole. You could tell by the edges.”
    Jack narrowed his eyes, his soldier’s instinct returning, sharper than before. “We had no problems rowing out.”
    “You wouldn’t,” Jeb said. “There was pitch on the edges of the hole with threads in it. Like somebody patched it soft, see, to hide it, maybe to hold it until you got out in deep water.”
    “A repair,” Sloat suggested.
    The young fisherman, Colin, snorted. “Nobody would be daft enough to repair a boat with a plug like that.”
    Jack didn’t know anything about boats. But he understood barrels. “Wouldn’t a plug swell in the water? Like a cork.”
    “A wood plug, aye,” Jeb agreed. “But those threads . . . This weren’t a proper plug at all. Just rag and pitch.”
    “And sugar, maybe. Or salt,” the baker said. “Something that would dissolve in the water.”
    “You’re suggesting someone deliberately sabotaged the boat.”
    “Someone with a grudge,” Hobson said.
    “Someone from the village,” Sloat said.
    The baker shook his head. “Major’s liked in the village.”
    There were more shuffles, more nods.
    “That’s why we came,” Hobson said.
    Jack looked at Sloat, anger cold as a blade inside him. “You knew where I was going. I told you to ready the boat.”
    Sloat bridled. “After which it sat unattended for hours on that beach. Anyone could have tampered with it.”
    “Only one man did.”
    Sloat showed his teeth in a ghastly smile. “You can’t do anything. You can’t prove anything.”
    “I don’t require proof to do this,” Jack said and threw a hard right hook that knocked him to the ground.
    The large, soft man sprawled on the carpet, his lip bleeding.
    Jack stood over him, knuckles throbbing and face set. “Get up.”
    Sloat touched a hand to his bleeding mouth and shook his head.
    “You deserved to be thrashed,” Jack said. “For what you tried to do to me and for what you have done to others. But until this moment you were technically in my employ. Get up. Watts will stay with you while you pack a change of clothes. One of the grooms can drive you to the stage in Kinlochbervie.”
    “But my things—”
    “Will be packed up and sent after you. Get out of my sight,” Jack said in an even voice that had made hardened soldiers flinch. “If you are wise, you will stay out of my sight and off my land for the rest of your life.”
    The steward turned white and red and white again. Without a word he scrambled to his feet and lurched from the room.
    “Nice hook,” said the baker.
    “And good riddance,” Hobson added.
    Jeb spat in the grate and then looked sheepishly at Jack. “Beg pardon, Major.”
    Jack was surprised to find himself smiling. “Not at all. I share your sentiments.”
    “He could have murdered you in your bed,” Hobson said with more relish than the prospect warranted.
    “I doubt he would go that far,” Jack said dryly. “He obviously has little stomach for outright violence. He is a villain, but an opportunistic one.”
    “Cowardly weasel,” the baker said.
    “Still, I am grateful to you.” Jack extended his smile to them all. “I am lucky the boat washed ashore as it did and even more fortunate in my neighbors.”
    Grins and nods answered him.
    Colin stuck his hands in his belt. “It didn’t wash up. The lady brought it.”
    Hobson looked embarrassed. “Now, lad . . .”
    Jeb elbowed the young man in the side.
    Jack’s heart banged in his chest in sudden, wild hope. The lady. Morwenna. “Did you see her?”
    “Nay,” the young fisherman admitted reluctantly.
    No, of course not. She had left him.
    “But it stands to reason it was her.” Jeb