Against the Tide by Elizabeth Camden Page B

clam chowder was delicious. “Your trip went well?” she asked. It would be bad-mannered to demand translation work right away.
    “More or less,” he said. “Go ahead and ask me if I have any translation work for you.”
    Lydia grinned as she spooned another mouthful of chowder down. “And spoil your fun of making me wait for the answer? I’m too considerate for that.”
    He flashed her his scoundrel’s smile. “Fine, I’ll make you wait, then.” He leaned back in his seat and contemplated her, his calculating blue eyes assessing her for some unknown reason. “Do you know where most of the poppies in the world are grown?” he finally asked.
    Lydia had spent her entire life on either a boat or living along a busy city’s harbor, so she knew virtually nothing about plants. “I have no idea.”
    “Turkey. India. North Africa. The opium’s sent to Turkey for processing, then shipped throughout the rest of the world for consumption.”
    Lydia broke off a piece of her bread and used it to scrape the remaining bit of soup in her bowl. “Oh,” she said, since Bane seemed to be waiting for some sort of response. “Do you suppose there is any more chowder?” she asked. Normally she would never want to appear so vulgar by shoveling down a second bowl of soup, but she felt perfectly at ease with Bane. Besides, he could practically read her mind anyway, so there was no point in feigning ladylike refinement.
    Bane snagged the barkeep’s attention and signaled for another bowl of chowder. “I disapprove of the opium trade,” he said casually. “Every city in this country has disgusting illegal opium dens where people smoke themselves into a mindless stupor. They become useless to their families or themselves. What is even worse is the legal trade, where pharmacies sell syrups that have opium blended into them to unsuspecting customers who spoon it down their children’s throats, even their pets’.”
    Lydia was only half listening as she watched the barkeep slide a second delicious bowl of steaming chowder in front of her. The fragrance of freshly ground pepper and smoked bacon rose from the bowl, and she closed her eyes in delight as she savored a spoonful.
    “Mm-hum . . .” she said, wondering precisely when he was going to bring the subject around to translating work.
    “I want a certain set of laws enacted, and the best way to do that is to put people in office who are friendly to my cause.” Bane turned, and the cold, ruthless expression on his face almost stopped her heart. “I will work toward that goal for the rest of my life, but I’m not willing to wait for the laws to be changed. That could take decades. I know who controls the illegal opium routes in this country, but I need to find out who his suppliers are. I want to choke the problem off at its source.”
    Bane went on to explain that opium was cheap to produce, but the American government stamped a ten-dollar tax on every pound shipped into the country, almost quadrupling the price. That meant greedy men were eager to smuggle the drug to avoid those taxes. Smugglers sold the cheap opium to be blended into medicines sold in pharmacies all across the nation. It was because of the illegal opium trade that the medicines sold in pharmacists’ shops were so inexpensive.
    She wrapped her suddenly cold fingers around her bowl of soup, seeking the warmth of the hot pottery, unaccustomed to seeing this earnest, serious side of Bane. “And where does my translating fit into this?”
    “For over a year, I’ve known that Boston is now the major port on the East Coast through which opium is being smuggled, and I want it stopped. The ships carrying the smuggled opium use code words in their shipping records. Those shipping records would point me to the American smugglers who are transporting theopium. I need someone who can read those documents. Someone who reads Greek, Turkish, and Albanian. I have a contact inside the Custom House who has been