Jim Morgan and the King of Thieves (4 page)

“How - how dare you strike me!” James’s voice was not quite as defiant as his words. His lips and his chin quivered. “Dame Margarita never–”

“Dame Margarita no longer presides over this house! I do. She will be gone by morning. I never should have left you in her care. I have much to undo and little time in which to undo it. Now, get up to your room. And do it without the cheek this time, if you please.”

James was too stunned to argue. He turned back to the house in a daze, trudging back up the beach, only looking back once, when he reached the hill and was nearly to the door. His father still stood like a statue, facing the darkening horizon toward the edge of world, where the ocean met the sky.

FOUR

ames stormed into his room, slamming his door behind him. He’d whined and whimpered to himself for most of the way up the stairs and down the hall, but becoming less shocked and more enraged the farther he had gone. Who did this man think he was, James fumed to himself. No father should treat a son that way. James was, after all, the future Lord Morgan. To be treated in this manner was an outrage!

James made sure to stomp as loud as he could as he paced his room in anger. He kicked every piece of furniture (except his mirror, of course; he was certainly upset, but there were limits to a gentleman’s wrath, after all) and threw all of his clothes (sparing the good ones) all about the floor.

But after some time, for no one came to rescue him from his rage, as they always used to do when Aunt Margarita was running the show, James realized that all of his fuming had made him hungry, and he further realized that his father had made no provision for his supper. The inhumanity of it all! There should be an inquisition, James raged inside his head. This was downright abusive! But there was no hope of any of that at this hour, and so James decided to take matters into his own hands, as any clear-thinking, future Lord Morgan would. No one would tell James Francis Morgan how to live his life.

Mustering up a snide grin, Jim snuck out of his room and down to the kitchen, where he quietly tiptoed into the pantry and began helping himself to Aunt Margarita’s chocolates. She always shared them with him anyway, he told himself, so it wasn’t like he was stealing. James was a noble for heaven’s sake, and he would never, ever, ever sink so low as to become a thief. He would rather starve!

James was deep into his second handful of chocolate-covered cherry candies when a door slammed nearby. Raised voices barged into the kitchen accompanied by heavy footsteps. James nearly choked on cordial syrup at the sound, freezing like a statue in the pantry. Luckily for him, though, the door to the pantry remained closed and no one caught him red (or sticky) handed.

“This, this is an outrage!” The unmistakably manly voice of Dame Margarita shook shrilly with anger just beyond the pantry door. James inched closer to get a better listen.

“Your journeys across the sea have turned you into a paranoid mess, Lindsay! Who has fabricated these lies about me?”

“They aren’t lies, Rita.”

“DON’T CALL ME RITA!”

James imagined Aunt Margarita’s bulging eyes and reddening face as she screamed and raged.

“It’s DAME Margarita, now.”

Now James smiled a chocolaty and syrupy smile, imagining with glee his Aunt Margarita setting his bully father straight. But his smile lasted only as long as that one sentence.

“Oh, shut up, Rita,” James’s father said, dismissing her as though she were a common maid. “You’re no more a dame than that old weasel you’ve been meeting in secret is a count.”

“Lies, Lindsay, all lies!” Margarita insisted, but she suddenly sounded quite a bit less authoritative than usual.

“They aren’t lies. You’ve been meeting with Cromier every morning for months now. He’s a scoundrel and a bully, as dirty and slimy as a worm in the mud.”

“
Count
Cromier is an old friend of this family, Lindsay! He was your friend once, if you don’t recall. He is a great man with great ideas, and his son Bartholomew is now a captain in his majesty’s navy. You may not think it, but the Count will be a man of great power one day, Lindsay. It is not wise to stand in the way of such men.”

“I have stood in the way of such men before, and he has not been my friend ever, Rita. And neither, it seems, have you.”

“Well,” Aunt Margarita sucked up the word as though she were about to huff and puff and blow Lord Lindsay’s house down. “If it is rumors that we shall believe, perhaps I’ll fancy a few of the darker about you, Lindsay Morgan!” James could practically see his Aunt’s plump finger pointing into his father’s face and his ears perked up a bit. Dame Margarita had mentioned several juicy bits of gossip concerning his father’s mysterious journey – but none of them had been called dark.

“Most of the nobles believe you sailed once more for the crown, Lindsay,” Margarita continued. “As I’m sure you would have them believe. But one evening, after a bit much champagne, Lord Carlisle let slip that you resigned your commission to the king five years ago. Some say that you went in search of your old enemy, the pirate king, Dread Steele. Some say that you even became a pirate yourself! But the most wild rumor, the most vile of them all, Lindsay, was that you were hording a secret treasure, one more valuable than all your others - a treasure to rival that of the King’s entire kingdom!”

If James’s ears perked up before, they now trembled on the sides of his head for more. A treasure to rival the very crown of England? James
pictured mounds and piles of gold and silver, his mouth watering at the thought. He could buy anything in the world with a treasure like that.

“But the real question, Lindsay,” Aunt Margarita raged on, “is not why you would hide such a treasure from the rest of the world, but why you would hide such a treasure from your own son? From your own flesh and blood!”

That was a good question, thought James, anger toward his father flaring up in his chest once more.

“As if you care for James at all,” said Lord Morgan. “Your real question is why I would keep such a treasure from you, you and
my old friend
, Count Cromier. Had you ever asked me Margarita, you could have had all the gold I own. But that was never your way, was it? Your way is to sneak and to scheme, as it has always been. And as that is the case, I will not have plotters under my roof. Take your things and leave my home immediately.”

Now James almost spat out the same cordial upon which he nearly choked a moment ago. Who did his father think he was? Lord of the manor? That was family he was tossing out like a common servant!

James heard Margarita’s ominous silence from the dark of the pantry, until she finally spoke. It wasn’t the same angry tone she’d used with the servants. It trembled and boiled, a bitter cruelty lurking beneath the words.

“You’ll regret this, Lindsay. Mark my words. You’ve been an arrogant rebel your whole life, and the time has come for your comeuppance. Count Cromier has told me many things you have tried to keep hidden - dark secrets. I’ll find out the truth of this treasure, I swear I will! And mark my words, you’ll wish you’d never crossed me!”

“I already do, Rita,” Lord Lindsay said, and if James hadn’t been so furious with his father, he would have heard the sadness in his voice.

After the two adults had left the kitchen, James snuck back up to his room to wait until the dreaded strike of eight. The conversation in the kitchen had rattled Jim’s mind to say the least. A great treasure? The Morgans were one of the richest families in England. What could
this great treasure be? Where had his father hidden it? And why? And who was this Count Cromier? Aunt Margarita had never mentioned him in her gossip, though if she said he was a great man that was word enough for James. But now his father had gone and kicked Aunt Margarita out of the house. Everything in James’s world had been perfect until this day, and in merely one afternoon, his long-gone father had smashed it all beneath his foot.

Well, James though to himself, this just couldn’t stand. At eight o’clock he was going to march down to his father’s study and sort this entire mess out.

FIVE

peal of thunder rumbled in the distance as the clock on James’s wall finally chimed eight times. James burst from his room, boldly strutting through the manor’s long hallways to his father’s study, his chin and shoulders set like a fearless soldier’s. He had decided he wasn’t going to apologize for his earlier behavior. In fact, he had thought to himself during his afternoon-long imprisonment to his room (an unjust act that he meant to remind himself about which to pen a letter to the local magistrate for an investigation) it was his father, not he, who owed the apology. James was almost glad the weather outside was turning ugly. It would match the storm that was about to rage within the house.

Oh, James had practiced his proud little speech in his room until it was perfect. In his mind, he imagined delivering it so loudly that
nobles from all around heard his cry for justice, arriving to the manor to applaud his good sense and impeccable logic. But the closer and closer James drew to the large oak doors at the end of the hall, those leading to where his father waited, his strut became less bold, and his set chin and sure shoulders drooped ever lower. James suddenly wondered how good his sense was, and how impeccable his logic. He could no longer see the lords and ladies clapping for him in his mind. His stomach churned and did a somersault. Now when he blinked his eyes, all James could see in his thoughts were his father’s deep and penetrating eyes, staring straight into his own.

The hardwood floor creaked beneath James’s feet. He shivered with a sudden chill. The house was so quiet tonight, and dark - darker and quieter than usual. James realized for the first time that besides the groaning of the floor as he walked and the gathering storm outside, no other sounds echoed through the manor, and besides the light peeking out from the cracks around the study door, no other light brightened the hall. This was very odd indeed. Where were all of the servants?

When James reached the door, however, all other thoughts but the image of his father’s stern eyes fled his mind.

“Just rush in and say it,” he told himself, taking a deep breath as he grasped the door handle. “You’re not sorry, you’re not. Just say it. He’s the one who should be sorry.” James was sweating now from nerves, but he could wait no longer. With gritted teeth he flung open the door and rushed inside.