She halted, gazing up at Nicholas pleadingly. "But I want to come with you."
"No, sweetheart. I don't want to have to worry about your safety as well as Harry's."
Aurora clenched her hands into fists, obviously torn. Taking her lightly by the shoulders, Nicholas touched his lips briefly to her forehead in a gentle kiss meant to reassure her. "Go home, Aurora. I will find him, I promise you."
When still she hesitated, he reached up to stroke her cheek. "I am good at rescues, remember? Trust me a little."
She gave him a tremulous smile. "I do trust you, Nicholas," she whispered.
That brave smile tore at his heart.
As he turned her toward the stairs, Nicholas prayed silently that he would be able to keep his promise. For if real harm came to the boy, Nick knew instinctively he would forfeit any hope of prying Aurora from her fear of losing everyone she cared for.
Nicholas went first to the ship he had docked at the wharves. He kept a skeleton crew
there on the schooner in the event he needed to make a swift getaway.
With a few of his roughest seamen, Nick combed the waterfront, looking for the runaway boy.
The night was teeming with humanity, sailors and bawds and cutpurses, while a din of drunken revelry issued from the taprooms and public houses. Nearest the docks, swirls of fog rose from the River Thames, bringing the damp odors of tar and rotting fish and half concealing the hundreds of bare-masted ships lying at anchor along the wharves.
The fog made the search more difficult, misting the cobblestones and making ghostly images of the crates and barrels and drays that occupied nearly every square inch of waterfront.
Yet the fog was the least of Nick's concerns. He was acquainted enough with London's underworld to have developed a healthy respect for it. The thieves' kitchens, the brothels, the opium dens here were some of the most dangerous in the world. Accordingly Nicholas adopted the low language of the waterfront, pretending to be a sailor in search of a runaway cabin boy for his master and even offering a small reward. But no one had seen a fugitive golden-haired boy.
The constricted feeling in his chest grew as the night wore on. Harry could be anywhere – abducted and forced into labor onboard a ship, or apprenticed as a pickpocket or a ragged chimney sweep, or taken into one of the sporting houses whose clientele craved the tender flesh of young boys, or lying in a dark alley, carved up for fishbait.
Or he might be miles away, having set out in a different direction entirely, Nicholas reminded himself. He'd only been relying on gut instinct when he began the search here. Although his gut was rarely wrong, he could have been mistaken. If so, then Harry could pay a costly price…
He set his jaw and continued the search. There was no way in hell he would return to face Aurora without finding the boy.
It was nearing the darkest hours of night when he met up with two of his men as they exited a tavern.
"No luck, guv'nor," one of them confided. "There's nary a sign of the young toff."
"Keep looking," Nick commanded. "When you reach the end of the quay, start boarding vessels and questioning the crews. We won't stop until we find him."
He had started to turn away when he heard a sound that raised the hairs on the back of his neck.
"Devil…"
The raw whisper came from behind a stack of crates, but it wasn't an oath or an invocation of Satan, Nicholas realized. It was a plea for "Deverill," his assumed name.
Giving a low shout to alert his men, he threaded his way through the maze of crates. His heart went cold when he saw the pale shape huddled on the ground.
"Harry?" Nicholas said urgently, kneeling beside him.
The boy groaned and lifted his head. In the darkness, Nicholas could just make out his gold hair.
Nearly naked, he was clutching his stomach and shivering in the damp night air. Stripped of his clothing, he wore only his underdrawers, which stank of urine, no doubt because he had wet himself out of fear.
"Where are you hurt?" Nicholas asked, gently probing the boy's face and limbs.
"My… belly. They hit me…"
Nicholas could feel no blood, but Harry's ribs were tender, as evidenced by his sharp winces. Nick suspected, however, that they were only bruised, not broken.
"You'll live," he said tersely, hiding his sympathy. "Tell me what happened."