Read Online The French Prize by James L. Nelson - Free Book Online

Bolingbroke’s eyes, which reminded him again of how big the fellow was, a bit over six feet and with a physique earned by spending ten of the twenty years he had been alive at hard labor, mostly, but not entirely, on shipboard. Being a seaman and having the name Jonah was an awkward combination, and Biddlecomb wondered if that was in part why Bolingbroke’s attitude and general demeanor developed as it had.
    The man in homespun stepped up and opened the wooden box as if offering Jack a cigar. “Pistols, sir; a matched set, but you may take your choice.”
    â€œPistols?” Jack said. “Now, do you see, Jonah, this is exactly why people dislike you so.”
    â€œWhat?” Bolingbroke protested. “It’s a perfectly honorable weapon.”
    â€œBut why do you get to pick, is my question. First you dictate where we’re to meet and now you presume to choose the weapons as well? What if I want to fight with swords, what then?”
    Bolingbroke looked confused. “Someone has to choose,” he offered.
    â€œWell certainly, it’s just that you assume the choice is yours. Isn’t there some protocol for this? Stiles, how is this sort of thing supposed to work?”
    â€œWell, I’m sure I don’t know,” Gilbert protested, “but I had thought it was the aggrieved party who gets to choose.”
    â€œWell, there, you see,” Jack said. “And I am the aggrieved party.”
    â€œYou?” Bolingbroke said. “Of course, you would think you are the aggrieved party, you arrogant son of a bitch. Always think everyone should be tugging their bloody forelocks to you, Your Highness Biddlecomb.”
    Jack shook his head, a gesture more of pity than disagreement. “Jonah, Jonah,” he began, but the rumble of a coach and the clap of four sets of hooves in the quiet morning interrupted the thought. The sound of a wagon, heavy laden with barrels, drawn by some unhappy draft animal, was common enough in Southwark, but the sharper, sophisticated clatter of a coach-and-four, especially at that hour, made all heads turn.
    Horses and carriage came into sight as they passed the battered clapboard house on the corner and emerged into the open space created by the vacant lot; a fine matched team pulling a black-lacquered coach with a coat of arms on the door. “Oh, damn,” Stiles said out loud.
    The driver reined the horses to a stop and the door flew open and Robert Oxnard leapt out, a large and frenetic man, more energetic than his frame would suggest. He walked quickly across the lot, tall polished black boots parting the high weeds like a ship buffeting its way through brash ice. “What, ho?” he called when he was still some yards away from the duelists. “What’s all this? Come, come, we have no time for such nonsense.”
    He stepped up to the group of them like a father who has caught his boys in some mischief of no great consequence. “Stiles? Do you not have a place of employment?”
    â€œYes sir, Mr. Oxnard. As of yesterday, I did.”
    â€œWell, I suggest you get yourself off to it, if you wish for that advantageous arrangement to continue. Mr. Bolingbroke, I have no doubt you have more pressing matters to attend to.”
    â€œYes, sir,” Bolingbroke said. Bolingbroke was filling a second mate’s berth aboard a merchantman of 350 tons, and though the ship was owned by one of Oxnard’s rivals, Oxnard was still a man to be obeyed, because Oxnard could easily end the career of any man in the carrying trade if he so chose.
    Having given his suggestions for how the others might more profitably spend their morning, Oxnard put a big arm around Jack’s shoulders and half guided, half pulled him across the lot toward the carriage. There was never a question of whether Jack wished to go with him, because it never occurred to Oxnard that anyone might have designs that were in conflict with his, and if