A Sunny Afternoon in August, Hatherton, 1711
In the meantime, Edward's thoughts returned to Caroline. It was beginning to be a problem; he had not written Cosette in some time now, because whenever he did, the words turned to her - Caroline Scott of Hawkins Lane.
That was not a thing one wrote one's lady about - one's former lady, perhaps. The chances of returning to Fandom seemed vastly distant.
In the end, he gave in. He did some detective work: he learned that her father, Emmett Scott, was a wealthy merchant dealing in tea, who would no doubt have been seen as new money by most of his customers but nevertheless seemed to have inveigled himself high up in society.
Now, a man less headstrong than Edward, less cocksure, might well have chosen a different path to Caroline’s heart than the one he opted for. After all, her father was a supplier of fine teas to the well-to-do households in the West Country; he had money, enough to employ servants at a good-sized house on Hawkins Lane. He was no small-holder - there was no getting up at 5:00 A.M. to feed the livestock for him. He was a man of means and influence. What Edward should have done - even knowing it would be futile -w as try to make his acquaintance. Much of what subsequently happened - so much - could have been avoided if he had at least tried.
But Edward didn’t.
He would tell anyone later that he'd been young. That it was no wonder the likes of Tom Cobleigh hated him, he was so arrogant. Despite his social status Edward had thought currying favour with a tea merchant was below him.
The next thing he discovered about Caroline was that she had caught the eye of Matthew Hague, son of Sir Aubrey Hague, Bristol’s biggest landowner, and an executive in the East India Company.
Young Matthew was their age, and as self-important and jumped-up as they come, thinking himself much more than he was. He liked to wear the air of a shrewd man of business, like his father, though it was clear he possessed none of his father’s aptitude in that area. What’s more, he liked to think himself something of a philosopher and often dictated his thoughts to a draughtsman who accompanied him wherever he went, quill and ink at the ready whatever the circumstances to write down Hague’s thoughts, such as, “A joke is a stone tossed into water, laughter the ripples it makes.”
None of this, Edward would have minded, were it not for two things: Firstly, that Caroline’s father, Emmett Scott, had apparently betrothed Caroline to the Hague boy, and also the fact that the Hague boy, possibly on account of his condescending manner, his tendency to make vital mistakes in even the most simple business dealings and his ability to wind people up, had a minder, a man named Wilson, who was an uncultured brute of a man but very big, with one slightly closed-up eye, who was said to be tough.
Edward had made it his business to find out where Caroline would be one sunny afternoon. How? Well, from Rose he'd learned that Caroline enjoyed taking the air at the Bristol docks on a Tuesday afternoon.
So it was that the following morning Edward made sure he took a trip into town, moved his goods as quickly as possible, then made his way down to the harbour. There the air was thick with the scent of sea-salt, manure and boiling pitch, and rang to the cries of sea-gulls and the endless shouts of those who made the docks their place of work: crews calling to one another as they loaded and unloaded ships whose masts rocked slightly in a gentle breeze.
He could see why Caroline might like it here. All life was on the harbour. From the men with baskets of freshly picked apples or pheasants hanging on twine around their necks, to the tradesmen who merely deposited baskets on the quayside and hollered at visiting deck-hands, to the women with fabric, persuading jack-tars they were getting a bargain. There were children who had flowers or tinder to sell, or who ran through the legs of sailors and dodged the traders, almost as anonymous as the dogs that slunk around the harbour walls and snuffled at the piles of rubbish and rotting food swept there from the day before.
Among them all was Caroline, who, with a bow in her bonnet, a parasol over one shoulder, and Rose a respectful few feet behind her, looked every inch the lady. And yet, Edward noticed - he kept his own distance for the time being, needing to choose his moment -s he didn’t look down her nose at the activity around her, as she so easily could have done. Her attraction to the place was not one of prurient interest. From her demeanour he could tell that she, like him, enjoyed seeing life in all its forms. Edward wondered, did she also, like him, ever look out to a sea that glittered with treasure, masts of ships tilting gently, gulls flying towards where the world began, and wonder what stories the horizons had to tell?
Edward was a romantic man, it was true, but not a romantic fool, and there had been moments since that day outside the tavern when he’d wondered if his growing affections for Caroline were not partly an invention of his mind. She had been his saviour, after all. But then, as he walked along the harbour, he fell for her anew.
Had he expected to speak to Caroline in his sheep-farmer’s clothes? Of course not. He'd taken the precaution of changing and traded his dirty boots for a pair of silver-buckled shoes, neat white stockings and dark breeches, a freshly laundered waistcoat over his shirt, and a matching three-cornered hat instead of his trusty brown hat. Edward looked quite the gentleman, if he didsay so himself: he was young, good-looking and full of confidence, the son of a well-respected tradesman in the area. A Kenway. The name had something, at least (despite his attempts otherwise), and he also had with him a young rogue by the name of Albert, who he had bribed to do a job for him. One transaction with a flower girl later and he had the means to do it too.
“Right, you remember the plan,” Edward told Albert, who looked up at him from beneath the brim of his hat with eyes that were so much older than his years and a bored heard-it-all-before look on his face.
“Right, mate, you’re to give this spray of flowers to that fine-looking lady over there. She will stop. She will say to you, ‘Ah, young fellow, for what reason are you presenting me with these flowers?’ And you will point over here.” Edward indicated where he would be standing, proud as a peacock. Caroline would either recognize him from the other day, or at the very least wish to thank her mysterious benefactor, and instruct Albert to invite him over, at which point the charm offensive would begin.
“What’s in it for me?” asked Albert.
“What’s in it for you? How about counting yourself lucky I don’t give you a thick ear?”
He curled a lip. “How about you taking a running jump off the side of the harbour?”
“All right,” Edward said, knowing when he was beaten, “there’s half a penny in it for you.”
“Half a penny? Is that the best you can do?”
“As a matter of fact, Sonny Jim, it is the best I can bloody do, and for walking across the harbour and presenting a flower to a beautiful woman, it’s also the easiest halfpenny’s work there ever was.”
“Ain’t she got a suitor with her?” Albert craned his neck to look.
Of course, it would soon become apparent exactly why Albert wanted to know whether Caroline had an escort. But at that particular moment in time Edward took his interest for nothing more than curiosity. Some idle conversation. So he told Albert that, no, she had no suitor, and he gave Albert the spray of flowers and his halfpenny and sent him on his way.
It was as he sauntered over that something he was hold-ing in his other hand caught his eye, and Edward realized what a mistake he’d made.
It was a tiny blade and his eyes were fixed on her arm, where her purse hung on a ribbon.
Oh God, Edward realized. A cut-purse. Young Albert was a cut-purse.
“You little bastard,” he said under his breath, and immediately set off across the harbour after him.
By then Albert was halfway between them, but being small was able to slip between the seething crowds more quickly. Edward saw Caroline, oblivious to the approaching danger - danger that he had inadvertently sent into her path.
The next thing Edward saw were three men, who were also making their way towards Caroline. Three men he recognized: Matthew Hague, his skinny writing companion, and his minder, Wilson. Inwardly he cringed. Even more so when he saw Wilson’s eyes flick from Caroline to Albert and back again. He was good, you could tell. In a heartbeat he had seen what was about to happen.
Edward stopped. For a second he was totally flummoxed and didn’t know what to do next.
“Oi,” shouted Wilson, his gruff tones cutting across the endless squawking, chatting, hawking of the day.
“Oi, you!” He surged forward but Albert had reached Caroline and in one almost impossibly fast and fluid gesture his hand snaked out, the ribbon of Caroline’s purse was cut and the tiny silk bag dropped neatly into Albert’s other hand.
Caroline didn’t notice the theft but she couldn’t fail to see the huge figure of Wilson bearing down upon her and she cried out in surprise, even as he lunged past her and grabbed Albert by the shoulders.
“This young rapscallion has something that belongs to you, miss,” roared Wilson, shaking Albert so hard that the silk purse dropped to the floor.
Her eyes went to the purse, then to Albert.
“Is this true?” she said, though the evidence was in front of her eyes, and in fact, currently sat in a small pile of horse manure by their feet.
“Pick it up, pick it up,” Hague was saying to his skinny companion, having just arrived and already beginning to behave as though it was he who had apprehended the knife-wielding youth and not his six-and-a-half-foot minder.
“Teach the young ruffian a lesson, Wilson.” Hague waved his hand as though attempting to ward off some especially noxious flatulence.
“With pleasure, sir.”
There were still several feet between Edward and them. Albert was held fast but his eyes swivelled from looking terrified at Wilson to where Edward stood in the crowd and as their eyes met, he stared at Edward beseechingly.
Edward clenched his teeth. That little bastard, Albert had been about to ruin all of his plans and there he was, looking to him for help. The cheek of him.
But then Wilson, holding him by the scruff of the neck with one hand, drove his fist into Albert’s stomach and that was it for Edward. That same sense of injustice he felt at the tavern was reignited and in a second he was shoving through the crowd to Albert’s aid.
“Hey,” Edward shouted. Wilson swung to see him, and though he was bigger than Edward, and far uglier than Edward, Edward'd just seen him hit a child and his blood was up. It’s not an especially gentlemanly way to conduct a fight, but he knew from experience both as giver and receiver that there was no quicker and cleaner way to put a man down, so he did it. Edward led with the knee. His knee into Wilson's bollocks, to be precise, so quick and so hard that where one second Wilson was a snarling huge bully about to meet his attack, the next he was a snivelling mewling heap of a man, his hands grasping at his groin as he arrived on the floor.
Heedless of Matthew Hague’s outraged screaming, Edward grabbed Albert. “Say sorry to the lady,” Edward ordered him, with finger in his face.
“Sorry, miss,” said Albert obediently.
“Now hop it,” Edward said, and pointed him off down the harbour. He needed no second invitation and in a trice was gone, prompting even more protestations from Matthew Hague, and Edward thanked God that at least Albert was out of the picture and unable to do him in.
Edward had saved Albert from getting a worse beating but his victory was short-lived. Wilson was already on his feet and though his bollocks must have been throbbing something rotten, he wasn’t feeling anything at that moment except rage. He was quick too and before Edward had time to react had grabbed him and was holding him firm. Edward tried to pull away, dipping one shoulder and driving his fist up towards his solar plexus, but Edward didn’t have the momentum and Wilson used his body to block him, grunting as much with satisfaction as with effort as he dragged Edward bodily across the harbour, people scattering before him. In a fair fight Edward would have had a chance, but Wilson used his superior strength and his sudden rage-fuelled spurt of speed to his advantage, and in the next moment Edward's feet were kicking in thin air as he flung me off the side of the harbour.
Well, Edward had always dreamed of taking to the high seas, and with the sound of laughter ringing in his ears he pulled himself to the nearest rope ladder and began to climb out. Caroline, Rose, Hague and his two men had already gone; Edward saw a hand reach to help him up.
“Here, mate, let me help you with that,” said a voice. Edward looked up gratefully, about to clasp the hand of his Samaritan, only to see the leering face of Tom Cobleigh peering over the harbour’s edge at him.
“Well, the things you see when you’re out without your musket,” he said and there was nothing Edward could do to prevent his fist smashing into his face, sending him off the rope ladder and back into the water.
Ah, well.
For a few precious moments, all was blackness. Then there was water, pouring all over him, and a fair bit of spluttering to boot.
By the time Edward had hauled himself out of the water, dripping and miserable, Tom Cobleigh had made himself scarce. Wilson, though, had doubled back. Chances are, he saw to it that Hague and Caroline were okay then made haste back to the harbour and found Edward sitting on a set of steps licking his wounds. Wilson passed across Edward's light and he looked up to see him, heart sinking.
“If you’ve come back to try that again,” Edward said, “I won’t make it quite so easy for you this time.”
“I have no doubt,” he replied without so much as flinching, “but I’m not here to pitch you back in the sea, Kenway.”
At that Edward looked sharply at him.
“That’s right, boy, I have my spies, and my spies tell me that a young gentleman by the name of Edward Kenway has been asking questions about Caroline Scott. This same young gentleman by the name of Edward Kenway was involved in a fight outside the Auld Shillelagh on the road to Hatherton last week. That same day Miss Scott was also on the road to Hatherton because her maidservant had absconded and that you and Miss Scott had cause to speak following your altercation.”
He came so close Edward could smell the stale coffee on his breath. Proof, if proof were needed, that he wasn’t in the slightest bit intimidated - not by Edward nor by Edward's fearsome reputation.
“Am I on the right lines so far, Master Kenway?”
“You might be.”
He nodded. “I thought so. How old are you, boy? What? Seventeen? About the same age as Miss Scott. Me thinks you’re nurturing a bit of a passion for her, am I right?”
“You might be.”
“I think I am. Now, I’m going to say this once and once only, but Miss Scott is promised to Mr. Hague. This union has the blessing of the parents . . .” He hauled Edward to his feet, pinning his arms to his sides. Too wet, too bedraggled, too exhausted to resist, Edward knew what was coming anyway.
“Now, if I see you hanging around her again, or trying any more stupid stunts to try and get her attention, then it’ll be more than a dip in the sea you get, do I make myself clear?”
Edward nodded. “And what about the knee in the goolies you’re about to give me?”
He smiled grimly.
“Oh, that? That’s personal.”
He came good on his word, and it was some time before Edward was able to get to his feet and make his way back to his cart. It wasn’t just his tackle that was injured - his pride had taken a beating too.
That Father gave him a fair scolding for going to the taverns again - which Edward hadn't, to put insult to injury - only made it worse.
[[ adapted from the Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag novelization. edward continues to be a dingbat. ]]
That was not a thing one wrote one's lady about - one's former lady, perhaps. The chances of returning to Fandom seemed vastly distant.
In the end, he gave in. He did some detective work: he learned that her father, Emmett Scott, was a wealthy merchant dealing in tea, who would no doubt have been seen as new money by most of his customers but nevertheless seemed to have inveigled himself high up in society.
Now, a man less headstrong than Edward, less cocksure, might well have chosen a different path to Caroline’s heart than the one he opted for. After all, her father was a supplier of fine teas to the well-to-do households in the West Country; he had money, enough to employ servants at a good-sized house on Hawkins Lane. He was no small-holder - there was no getting up at 5:00 A.M. to feed the livestock for him. He was a man of means and influence. What Edward should have done - even knowing it would be futile -w as try to make his acquaintance. Much of what subsequently happened - so much - could have been avoided if he had at least tried.
But Edward didn’t.
He would tell anyone later that he'd been young. That it was no wonder the likes of Tom Cobleigh hated him, he was so arrogant. Despite his social status Edward had thought currying favour with a tea merchant was below him.
The next thing he discovered about Caroline was that she had caught the eye of Matthew Hague, son of Sir Aubrey Hague, Bristol’s biggest landowner, and an executive in the East India Company.
Young Matthew was their age, and as self-important and jumped-up as they come, thinking himself much more than he was. He liked to wear the air of a shrewd man of business, like his father, though it was clear he possessed none of his father’s aptitude in that area. What’s more, he liked to think himself something of a philosopher and often dictated his thoughts to a draughtsman who accompanied him wherever he went, quill and ink at the ready whatever the circumstances to write down Hague’s thoughts, such as, “A joke is a stone tossed into water, laughter the ripples it makes.”
None of this, Edward would have minded, were it not for two things: Firstly, that Caroline’s father, Emmett Scott, had apparently betrothed Caroline to the Hague boy, and also the fact that the Hague boy, possibly on account of his condescending manner, his tendency to make vital mistakes in even the most simple business dealings and his ability to wind people up, had a minder, a man named Wilson, who was an uncultured brute of a man but very big, with one slightly closed-up eye, who was said to be tough.
Edward had made it his business to find out where Caroline would be one sunny afternoon. How? Well, from Rose he'd learned that Caroline enjoyed taking the air at the Bristol docks on a Tuesday afternoon.
So it was that the following morning Edward made sure he took a trip into town, moved his goods as quickly as possible, then made his way down to the harbour. There the air was thick with the scent of sea-salt, manure and boiling pitch, and rang to the cries of sea-gulls and the endless shouts of those who made the docks their place of work: crews calling to one another as they loaded and unloaded ships whose masts rocked slightly in a gentle breeze.
He could see why Caroline might like it here. All life was on the harbour. From the men with baskets of freshly picked apples or pheasants hanging on twine around their necks, to the tradesmen who merely deposited baskets on the quayside and hollered at visiting deck-hands, to the women with fabric, persuading jack-tars they were getting a bargain. There were children who had flowers or tinder to sell, or who ran through the legs of sailors and dodged the traders, almost as anonymous as the dogs that slunk around the harbour walls and snuffled at the piles of rubbish and rotting food swept there from the day before.
Among them all was Caroline, who, with a bow in her bonnet, a parasol over one shoulder, and Rose a respectful few feet behind her, looked every inch the lady. And yet, Edward noticed - he kept his own distance for the time being, needing to choose his moment -s he didn’t look down her nose at the activity around her, as she so easily could have done. Her attraction to the place was not one of prurient interest. From her demeanour he could tell that she, like him, enjoyed seeing life in all its forms. Edward wondered, did she also, like him, ever look out to a sea that glittered with treasure, masts of ships tilting gently, gulls flying towards where the world began, and wonder what stories the horizons had to tell?
Edward was a romantic man, it was true, but not a romantic fool, and there had been moments since that day outside the tavern when he’d wondered if his growing affections for Caroline were not partly an invention of his mind. She had been his saviour, after all. But then, as he walked along the harbour, he fell for her anew.
Had he expected to speak to Caroline in his sheep-farmer’s clothes? Of course not. He'd taken the precaution of changing and traded his dirty boots for a pair of silver-buckled shoes, neat white stockings and dark breeches, a freshly laundered waistcoat over his shirt, and a matching three-cornered hat instead of his trusty brown hat. Edward looked quite the gentleman, if he didsay so himself: he was young, good-looking and full of confidence, the son of a well-respected tradesman in the area. A Kenway. The name had something, at least (despite his attempts otherwise), and he also had with him a young rogue by the name of Albert, who he had bribed to do a job for him. One transaction with a flower girl later and he had the means to do it too.
“Right, you remember the plan,” Edward told Albert, who looked up at him from beneath the brim of his hat with eyes that were so much older than his years and a bored heard-it-all-before look on his face.
“Right, mate, you’re to give this spray of flowers to that fine-looking lady over there. She will stop. She will say to you, ‘Ah, young fellow, for what reason are you presenting me with these flowers?’ And you will point over here.” Edward indicated where he would be standing, proud as a peacock. Caroline would either recognize him from the other day, or at the very least wish to thank her mysterious benefactor, and instruct Albert to invite him over, at which point the charm offensive would begin.
“What’s in it for me?” asked Albert.
“What’s in it for you? How about counting yourself lucky I don’t give you a thick ear?”
He curled a lip. “How about you taking a running jump off the side of the harbour?”
“All right,” Edward said, knowing when he was beaten, “there’s half a penny in it for you.”
“Half a penny? Is that the best you can do?”
“As a matter of fact, Sonny Jim, it is the best I can bloody do, and for walking across the harbour and presenting a flower to a beautiful woman, it’s also the easiest halfpenny’s work there ever was.”
“Ain’t she got a suitor with her?” Albert craned his neck to look.
Of course, it would soon become apparent exactly why Albert wanted to know whether Caroline had an escort. But at that particular moment in time Edward took his interest for nothing more than curiosity. Some idle conversation. So he told Albert that, no, she had no suitor, and he gave Albert the spray of flowers and his halfpenny and sent him on his way.
It was as he sauntered over that something he was hold-ing in his other hand caught his eye, and Edward realized what a mistake he’d made.
It was a tiny blade and his eyes were fixed on her arm, where her purse hung on a ribbon.
Oh God, Edward realized. A cut-purse. Young Albert was a cut-purse.
“You little bastard,” he said under his breath, and immediately set off across the harbour after him.
By then Albert was halfway between them, but being small was able to slip between the seething crowds more quickly. Edward saw Caroline, oblivious to the approaching danger - danger that he had inadvertently sent into her path.
The next thing Edward saw were three men, who were also making their way towards Caroline. Three men he recognized: Matthew Hague, his skinny writing companion, and his minder, Wilson. Inwardly he cringed. Even more so when he saw Wilson’s eyes flick from Caroline to Albert and back again. He was good, you could tell. In a heartbeat he had seen what was about to happen.
Edward stopped. For a second he was totally flummoxed and didn’t know what to do next.
“Oi,” shouted Wilson, his gruff tones cutting across the endless squawking, chatting, hawking of the day.
“Oi, you!” He surged forward but Albert had reached Caroline and in one almost impossibly fast and fluid gesture his hand snaked out, the ribbon of Caroline’s purse was cut and the tiny silk bag dropped neatly into Albert’s other hand.
Caroline didn’t notice the theft but she couldn’t fail to see the huge figure of Wilson bearing down upon her and she cried out in surprise, even as he lunged past her and grabbed Albert by the shoulders.
“This young rapscallion has something that belongs to you, miss,” roared Wilson, shaking Albert so hard that the silk purse dropped to the floor.
Her eyes went to the purse, then to Albert.
“Is this true?” she said, though the evidence was in front of her eyes, and in fact, currently sat in a small pile of horse manure by their feet.
“Pick it up, pick it up,” Hague was saying to his skinny companion, having just arrived and already beginning to behave as though it was he who had apprehended the knife-wielding youth and not his six-and-a-half-foot minder.
“Teach the young ruffian a lesson, Wilson.” Hague waved his hand as though attempting to ward off some especially noxious flatulence.
“With pleasure, sir.”
There were still several feet between Edward and them. Albert was held fast but his eyes swivelled from looking terrified at Wilson to where Edward stood in the crowd and as their eyes met, he stared at Edward beseechingly.
Edward clenched his teeth. That little bastard, Albert had been about to ruin all of his plans and there he was, looking to him for help. The cheek of him.
But then Wilson, holding him by the scruff of the neck with one hand, drove his fist into Albert’s stomach and that was it for Edward. That same sense of injustice he felt at the tavern was reignited and in a second he was shoving through the crowd to Albert’s aid.
“Hey,” Edward shouted. Wilson swung to see him, and though he was bigger than Edward, and far uglier than Edward, Edward'd just seen him hit a child and his blood was up. It’s not an especially gentlemanly way to conduct a fight, but he knew from experience both as giver and receiver that there was no quicker and cleaner way to put a man down, so he did it. Edward led with the knee. His knee into Wilson's bollocks, to be precise, so quick and so hard that where one second Wilson was a snarling huge bully about to meet his attack, the next he was a snivelling mewling heap of a man, his hands grasping at his groin as he arrived on the floor.
Heedless of Matthew Hague’s outraged screaming, Edward grabbed Albert. “Say sorry to the lady,” Edward ordered him, with finger in his face.
“Sorry, miss,” said Albert obediently.
“Now hop it,” Edward said, and pointed him off down the harbour. He needed no second invitation and in a trice was gone, prompting even more protestations from Matthew Hague, and Edward thanked God that at least Albert was out of the picture and unable to do him in.
Edward had saved Albert from getting a worse beating but his victory was short-lived. Wilson was already on his feet and though his bollocks must have been throbbing something rotten, he wasn’t feeling anything at that moment except rage. He was quick too and before Edward had time to react had grabbed him and was holding him firm. Edward tried to pull away, dipping one shoulder and driving his fist up towards his solar plexus, but Edward didn’t have the momentum and Wilson used his body to block him, grunting as much with satisfaction as with effort as he dragged Edward bodily across the harbour, people scattering before him. In a fair fight Edward would have had a chance, but Wilson used his superior strength and his sudden rage-fuelled spurt of speed to his advantage, and in the next moment Edward's feet were kicking in thin air as he flung me off the side of the harbour.
Well, Edward had always dreamed of taking to the high seas, and with the sound of laughter ringing in his ears he pulled himself to the nearest rope ladder and began to climb out. Caroline, Rose, Hague and his two men had already gone; Edward saw a hand reach to help him up.
“Here, mate, let me help you with that,” said a voice. Edward looked up gratefully, about to clasp the hand of his Samaritan, only to see the leering face of Tom Cobleigh peering over the harbour’s edge at him.
“Well, the things you see when you’re out without your musket,” he said and there was nothing Edward could do to prevent his fist smashing into his face, sending him off the rope ladder and back into the water.
Ah, well.
For a few precious moments, all was blackness. Then there was water, pouring all over him, and a fair bit of spluttering to boot.
By the time Edward had hauled himself out of the water, dripping and miserable, Tom Cobleigh had made himself scarce. Wilson, though, had doubled back. Chances are, he saw to it that Hague and Caroline were okay then made haste back to the harbour and found Edward sitting on a set of steps licking his wounds. Wilson passed across Edward's light and he looked up to see him, heart sinking.
“If you’ve come back to try that again,” Edward said, “I won’t make it quite so easy for you this time.”
“I have no doubt,” he replied without so much as flinching, “but I’m not here to pitch you back in the sea, Kenway.”
At that Edward looked sharply at him.
“That’s right, boy, I have my spies, and my spies tell me that a young gentleman by the name of Edward Kenway has been asking questions about Caroline Scott. This same young gentleman by the name of Edward Kenway was involved in a fight outside the Auld Shillelagh on the road to Hatherton last week. That same day Miss Scott was also on the road to Hatherton because her maidservant had absconded and that you and Miss Scott had cause to speak following your altercation.”
He came so close Edward could smell the stale coffee on his breath. Proof, if proof were needed, that he wasn’t in the slightest bit intimidated - not by Edward nor by Edward's fearsome reputation.
“Am I on the right lines so far, Master Kenway?”
“You might be.”
He nodded. “I thought so. How old are you, boy? What? Seventeen? About the same age as Miss Scott. Me thinks you’re nurturing a bit of a passion for her, am I right?”
“You might be.”
“I think I am. Now, I’m going to say this once and once only, but Miss Scott is promised to Mr. Hague. This union has the blessing of the parents . . .” He hauled Edward to his feet, pinning his arms to his sides. Too wet, too bedraggled, too exhausted to resist, Edward knew what was coming anyway.
“Now, if I see you hanging around her again, or trying any more stupid stunts to try and get her attention, then it’ll be more than a dip in the sea you get, do I make myself clear?”
Edward nodded. “And what about the knee in the goolies you’re about to give me?”
He smiled grimly.
“Oh, that? That’s personal.”
He came good on his word, and it was some time before Edward was able to get to his feet and make his way back to his cart. It wasn’t just his tackle that was injured - his pride had taken a beating too.
That Father gave him a fair scolding for going to the taverns again - which Edward hadn't, to put insult to injury - only made it worse.
[[ adapted from the Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag novelization. edward continues to be a dingbat. ]]