The young woman's heart beat fiercely as she approached the wharf, but as the tangy smell of the sea reached her she smiled. In her mind, it meant one thing. Freedom. Pulling the hood of her dark blue woolen cloak around her head, she scanned the line of ships bobbing in the choppy grey water. It was growing dark, and she had to squint to make out their names.

A scream caught in her throat as a rat ran across her path and stopped to look at her, its beady eyes glinting in the pale moonlight. She itched to throw her carpet bag at it, but hesitated. The last thing she wanted to do was attract attention.

"Shoo!" she hissed. "Scat!"

The grungy rodent gave her one final stare for good measure before it skittered off, and the woman laughed softly to herself. After all she had been through this evening, a rat was the least of her worries. Again she turned her attention to the ships and smiled as her gaze lit upon the one she sought. Her contact had been well worth the money she had paid him. He had described the Shamus O'Flynn perfectly, right down to its ungainly, barnacled hull.

My white horse, she thought. Now let's see what my knight in shining armor looks like.

* * *

"What the divil do ye want, lad? Haven't I told ye time and time again that I don't want to be disturbed when I'm going over the manifest?"

The cabin boy, wise to the ways of his captain after three voyages, grinned cheekily as he spied the half-empty bottle of whiskey on the table next to the manifest. "Aye, sir. But the lady—she's real determined to meet you."

Captain Roland Francis Clancey snorted. There was only one type of "lady" who would be wandering the docks alone at this type of night. Sensing his thoughts, the wise-beyond-his-years ten year old hastened to correct him.

"Oh no, Cap'n! She be a real lady. Quality. She talks nice and soft-like, her clothes are fancy, and—and—she smells real nice, like—like summer!"

Hiding a smile, Clancey asked, "And did this lovely lady say what she wanted?"

"No, sir. Only that she wanted to talk to you and no one else. Asked for you by name, she did. 'I wish to see Captain Roland Francis Clancey,' she says. 'Him and no other. Tell him it's a matter of the utmost importance.' "

Clancey sighed loudly. "All right, lad. Bring her here. Can't hurt none to talk to her, I suppose."

Once the boy scampered off, Clancey took another swig of whiskey to fortify himself. Women on a ship always meant trouble. He of all people should know. Hadn't he had transported a hundred of them around the Horn not so very long ago?

A few minutes later the cabin boy returned with his visitor in tow. "Here he be, ma'am," he announced importantly. "Cap'n Clancy hisself."

"Thank you, Timmy," the young woman said, and gave him a smile that made him blush even redder than his hair. Reaching into her carpet bag, she pulled out a silver dollar. "This is for you. You've been a great help to me."

"Thank ye kindly, ma'am!" he said, and tugged at his cap, eager to run off and tell his mates of his good fortune.

As the door closed behind the departing cabin boy, Clancey turned up the light on the kerosene lamp and peered at the woman who was regarding him just as appraisingly.

"You don't look like much of a knight," she said, "but you'll do."

"I beg yer pardon, madam?" he said. He didn't take any offense at the words, delivered as they were with gentle good humor.

"I need your help, Captain Clancey, and I'm willing to pay generously for it." With that, she threw back the hood of her cloak and bestowed upon him the same smile she had on the cabin boy, making Clancey wish he had taken the time to at least run a comb through his hair and put on a clean pair of pants and shirt over his red long johns.

She was younger than he had initially thought, probably no more than eighteen. Long, wavy chestnut hair framed the face of an angel—an angel with rosy pink skin, sculpted cheekbones, a heart-shaped face, and eyes the color of a Caribbean sea. Getting up from the chair hastily, he pushed it toward her. "Please sit, Miss, uh—"

There was a slight hesitation before she replied, "Johnson. Joanne Johnson."

Too plain a name for such a woman, Clancey thought, but refrained from saying anything as she sat in the proffered chair. "Would you like something to drink? Tea, I mean!" he clarified as she glanced at the whiskey bottle and grinned wryly. "I can send word to the galley—"

"Thank you for offering, but not right now. Maybe later, after we've finished our talk."

Clancey hoisted himself into his bunk, legs dangling off the side. "You're in some kind of trouble, I take it."

"That's putting it mildly. But I don't want to tell you any more than I have to. To do so might put you in danger as well. All I want to know is, are you leaving for Seattle in the morning? I've heard you make the run between there and San Francisco quite frequently."

"Aye. I guess you could it call it my home port these days." He eyed her suspiciously. "But my business is shipping goods. Not too much of a call for passengers to Seattle. Why there?"

"Because it's the last place they'll think to look for me."

"And who would 'they' be, Miss Johnson, if I might be so bold as to ask."

"Please, call me Joanne," she said, and treated him to another dazzling smile. "After all, we're going to be shipmates for a while."

"I never agreed—"

Digging into her bag, she pulled out a wad of bills. "I'll pay you one hundred dollars for passage! But no more questions."

Clancey nearly choked at the sight of all those greenbacks. "It's not the money, lass. If ye need help, it's the law ye should be seekin', not me." He paused. "Unless it's the law yer runnin' from?"

"No, it's not, I swear it! But I can't go to the law, either. I have my reasons." Putting the money on top of the manifest, she looked at him beseechingly. "Please, Captain Clancey, I beg of you. I risked my very life to come here. There's no one else to whom I can turn."

Something in her eyes—the look of a hunted animal, run to ground—unraveled his last skein of common sense. "I know I'm going to regret this, but all right, lass. Consider yeself a first-class passenger on the Shamus O'Flynn."

Impulsively, she leaped up and hugged him. "Thank you, Captain Clancey!"

Gently he disengaged her arms from around his neck. "Don't be thankin' me until we've made port safely. If ye think someone's goin' to come lookin' for yer, ye'd best stay in the hold tonight. 'Tis a warm night, but I'll give ye a blanket to ward off the damp."

"A most wise decision," she agreed.

"We'll leave for Seattle at first light. Dependin' on the weather, we should make landfall in three days or so. And once we get there, what will ye do?"

She smiled enigmatically. "That's a very good question."

* * *

Clancey cursed out loud at the banging on the door. Turning up the lamp, he cast a bleary eye at the mantel clock which read 1:15. "Hold yer blasted horses!" he yelled. "I'm comin'." Slipping on his trousers, he stalked over to the door and yanked it open to reveal his first mate, Sven Nordstrom, and a tall, nattily dressed man.

"Get that damn light out of me eyes, man!" Clancey ordered.

"Sorry, Captain," Nordstrom apologized, and lowered the lamp. "Mr. Clark here was quite insistent that he see you." Clancey followed his pointed gaze to a bulge in the man's coat and repressed a sigh. This seemed to be his night for surprise guests.

"That's all right, Sven. Go back to the bridge." Reluctantly the first mate left and Clancey gestured the man inside his cabin. As he stepped into the light, Clancey took an instant dislike to him. Though his clothes were fine, they were a bit too flashy for his taste; more like those of a river boat gambler. And that slickly macassared hair and pencil-thin mustache he sported didn't impress Clancey either. "Now what can I do for you at this ungodly hour, Mr.—Clark, was it?"

"Josiah Clark, Captain. Of Pinkerton's." Withdrawing a small gold case from his vest pocket, he snapped it open and produced a business card with a flourish. "You can read, can't you?"

Mindful of the man's concealed weapon, Clancey stifled the rather rude response that came to mind. "Indeed I can sir, and even if I couldn't, I'd have recognized the name of Pinkerton's. The premiere private detective agency in the country, 'tisn't it?"

Clark puffed up with pride. "It is indeed."

"Pity about that slip-up with President Lincoln a few years back, though," he said casually, and grinned to himself as the barb found its mark. Clark reddened and his eyes bulged slightly as he tried to mask his anger. "Now what business might ye possibly have with me, sir? I run a clean ship."

The other man cast a dubious glance around the disheveled cabin. "You mean that in the figurative sense, of course."

He ignored the insult. "I mean there's no funny business. No smuggling or Chinese slave trading or anyting of that sort."

"Have no fear, Captain. I'm sure your reputation is sterling. I'm simply making the rounds of the docks to track down a young girl—a runaway."

"Well, there's no runaway aboard my ship."

"I'm sure there's not. But I'd like you to take a look at this picture nonetheless in the event that she does show up." He pulled out a daguerreotype from his pocket and Clancey made a pretense of studying it carefully. It was the woman who called herself Joanne Johnson, but there was nothing in the picture to evidence the spark and spirit she had displayed earlier that night. She looked quite miserable and forlorn in the stiffly posed picture.

"A lovely lass. I'd remember her if I saw her. If ye don't mind me askin', why do ye think she ran away? She could have been abducted."

"Unfortunately, Miss Spencer—Joan Spencer is her name—is a very disturbed young woman. This isn't the first time she's tried this. Her grandmother is frantic with worry. The poor girl suffers from the delusion that she's in constant danger and every so often flees from her home."

Crazy like a fox is more like it, Clancey thought, and affected a sly look. "Her grandmother must be a woman of means to be able to employ Pinkerton's."

"Abigail Spencer is one of the wealthiest women in San Francisco. Her late husband was the owner of the Miners Bank." Clark's voice dropped conspiratorially. "There's quite a handsome reward for information leading to her granddaughter's return."

"And how handsome is handsome?"

"Five hundred dollars."

Clancey whistled appreciatively. "Handsome indeed."

"You have my card, Captain Clancey. I'll trust you to contact me if you come across any leads?"

"Most definitely, Mr. Clark."

* * *

Clancey arose just before they were due to cast off the next morning and told Timmy to bring their guest to his cabin, along with breakfast for two. She appeared a short time later, looking none too rested, with circles under her sky-blue eyes and wavy chestnut hair in disarray.

"Had a sleepless night, did ye?" he asked as she took the seat he offered.

"I was a bit too nervous to sleep," she admitted.

"And I'm sure the accommodations weren't up to the standard of what the granddaughter of Abigail Spencer is used to." She went so pale that for a moment Clancey feared she would faint. "Here, now! I'll have no swoonin' on me ship!"

"I've never swooned a day in my life!" she shot back, and despite his anger at being deceived, he had to admire her spirit. "How did you expect me to react? Who did she hire, Pinkerton's? They're usually her thugs of choice."

"Aye, 'twas a Pinkerton. Went by the name of Josiah Clark. Said ye were a runaway, a very troubled young woman who believed she was in constant danger, and that this wasn't the first time you'd caused your grandmother such grief."

Joan laughed bitterly. "Believe me, Captain Clancey, it's the other way around. My grandmother is the personification of the word 'grief.' "

"I'd appreciate a wee bit more information, lass. Ye're exposing me to some very powerful people."

"I know. That's why I told you last night, the less you know, the better."

Clancey paused for a moment and then said quietly, "There's a five hundred dollar reward for information leading to your safe return."

"Well I certainly can't match that." The only sound in the room for the next minute was the gentle lapping of the waves against the boat and the steady ticking of the mantel clock as she waited for Clancey's response. She had always considered herself a good judge of character. Could she really have been so wrong?

A slow smile lit his grizzled face. "Men who make their livin' from the sea learn to trust their instincts. Oft times 'tis the only thing between stayin' alive and death from an angry sea. And do ye know what me instinct is tellin' me now, lass?"

"What?" she whispered.

"That five hundred dollars would be blood money. Tainted. I want no part of it."

Her eyes welled with tears. "Thank you, Captain Clancey. I wish I could say you won't regret this, but can't. I've got to be as honest as I can with you. My grandmother is a formidable woman, and a vengeful one. If she finds out you've helped me to escape her clutches—"

He waved away her explanation. "We're on me ship, lass, and the law of the sea applies here. And one of those laws is that you don't turn yer back on anyone in trouble. I'll take me chances; I've a feeling ye're a good gamble."

Joan swallowed unshed tears. It had been so long since anyone had been this kind to her, and longer that she had someone she could trust. "I'll do my best to live up to your expectations, Captain."

Feeling dangerously sentimental, Clancey arose abruptly. "Let's weigh anchor then, and set sail for Seattle."