“Oh, no!” she moaned. “I won’t go back there!”
She turned to run, but the men seized her, and she realized they must have been expecting her to bolt. With both arms held firmly by the governor’s lackeys. Charity waited as they knocked on Captain Court’s nail-studded door. It opened and she was thrust forward at Ravenal.
“A gift from the governor,” one said laconically.
“Mistress,” John Ravenal, looking reproachful, scolded her, “ye could have been assaulted there on the street. Or snatched into one of the houses. Ye should not have run from me.”
“Where is Court?” she asked tonelessly.
“He’s in the chart room with Kirby and Timothy Hobbs.”
She flounced past Ravenal and threw open the door to the chart room. Three pairs of eyes swung toward her, startled, as the heavy door banged against the wall. Directly in front of her stood Court, looking even more formidable than usual, his long body bent over a large map which he had been studying intently. On either side of him stood Timothy Hobbs and Leeds Kirby. She stopped and glared at them all impartially.
Court considered her, eyes narrowed. “Ah, I see you are back,” he said lightly.
“You filthy pirate,” she choked. “You have bought the governor!”
Timothy Hobbs looked amazed at this outburst and Leeds Kirby hid a grin.
“Filthy pirate I may be,” said Court, “but there is certainly no need to buy the governor of Tortuga. He had already been paid for many times. In gold.”
She was panting. “I will not stay here! Do you hear me? I will not!”
For a moment he regarded her. “Then shut the door quietly as you leave,” he said, a warning note invading his silky tone.
For answer she flung out of the room, slamming the door with all her force.
She had not reached the stairs before he overtook her, gripped her shoulders and swung her around to face him. “Faith, your behavior needs a deal of mending,” he said grimly. “Do not force me to mend it for you.”
She was acutely aware of his strong hands gripping her shoulders. Of his nearness. Of the dark visage that bent over her own.
“You will not bend me to your will!” she shouted.
“You will bend or you will break,” he retorted savagely. “I have no time for women’s moods and tempests!”
He let her go so suddenly that she fell against the newel post for support. “Now hear me well,” he said slowly, “for I will say this but once. You will keep a civil tongue in your head, Charity, or you will regret it.” He turned to go and then paused. “In truth I have not used you so badly,” he murmured.
Clutching the newel post in fury, Charity watched his long legs stride back to the chart room, his boots ringing on the tiles. Anger and disappointment so overwhelmed her that she felt she could not make the stairs. She went into the courtyard and sank into a chair. After a while she heard the chart room door open, heard the men saying their goodbyes. Timothy went on out, but Leeds saw her in the courtyard and came to speak to her.
“So you ran away?” he said.
“Yes. To that filthy governor!”
“D’Ogeron’s not so bad,” said Kirby. “Remember, the buccaneers are the owners in fact of this island. The governor’s here on our sufferance. He gives us letters of marque—privateering commissions—to go against the Spanish, and it gives a color of legality to our doings which helps us in non-Spanish ports. The Spanish of course don’t give a damn for his letters of marque—they hang us with the letters of marque around our necks.”
“Then there’s no government here at all?”
“Well,” he mused, “I guess Jeremy’s as near lord mayor of our city as any. He’s well liked, he’s dangerous—the best man with rapier or cutlass I’ve ever seen, and a dead shot. Few would cross him.”
“I see,” she said bitterly. “My cause is hopeless.”
His green eyes regarded her, smiling. “I wouldn’t say that,” he murmured. “There are divertissements to be had, even in Tortuga.”
“Divertissements!” She almost spat the word. “I’ve seen none. Court comes in with loot and goes out with it again, God knows where. He keeps me penned up here—for what purpose? I don’t understand him.”
“You mean he doesn’t—”
“No!” said Charity, turning red.
“Faith,” said Kirby in astonishment, “I’d never thought him a fool. Still . . .” he mused, “I suppose in Jeremy’s case it’s understandable.”
“And what is that supposed to mean?” she flashed at him.
“Oh, he has his moods, has our Jeremy,” said Kirby.
She shot him a questioning glance.
“Bide your time and maybe you’ll meet the cause of them,” he said and bowed. And with that puzzling remark he left her, unsatisfied and staring after him.
CHAPTER 37
After her forcible return from the governor's house, Charity had kept a wary eye on Court, but he seemed to bear her no ill will for her attempt to escape. If anything, he ignored her. His days were spent either on business in the town or at his ship, which was being careened and refitted. His evenings were spent studying maps and charts with his shipmaster, Timothy Hobbs. She saw him only at meals, and not always then.
The weather continued to be pleasant: glorious days, and soft tropical nights in which the moon rode gleaming in the black skies and palm trees swayed on scented winds. Beguiling nights when Charity tossed and turned in her bed, wondering what would become of her. It seemed that Court did not desire her body. Perhaps, he kept her because of some whim—the desire to have an Englishwoman to breakfast with, to hear an accent whose sounds he remembered from his boyhood. Occasionally, her thoughts grew darker and she wondered if he might not be saving her for some worse fate. After all, he had reminded her that he had “paid a packet” for her. Perhaps he intended to turn a profit. . . .
To take her mind off such things, Charity spent her afternoons improving her Spanish with Dona Isabel, who seemed completely happy in her new house and new life. When Isabel confided that she was expecting a baby. Charity envied her.
For a while, Kirby’s visits, which had made life more bearable, stopped. There was an epidemic of fever in the town and he was kept busy day and night.
Finally, the epidemic abated and Kirby did come by to tell her that old Dr. Cavendish, whose ransom had been paid, had departed in his outmoded rhinegrave trousers for his Carolina plantation. Charity smiled at that, and breathed a sigh of genuine relief when Kirby told her that St. Clair’s men had scattered, signed on with other captains. St. Clair himself was making a slow recovery, and was a warning to others who might try to sail under Jeremy Court’s colors. For the white oar on a black ground had a special meaning to Court: Spain had bent his proud back to the oar and now that oar was flung at them in challenge as the former galley slave brought their proudest ships to heel.
Lonely, Charity pressed Kirby to stay and talk to her. He was considered the island’s best doctor and was much sought after. So, she asked him about his cases. Today—two stab wounds, a severed ear, one gunshot wound in the shoulder and a case of manzanilla poisoning, he told her.
“Manzanilla?” she asked.
“Swift and deadly,” he elaborated. “Tis made from the fruit of the manchineel tree—the apples of death. Tis native to these islands. One of the Spaniards poisoned the food of the Dutch buccaneer captain who bought him. Twas a horrible death. The captain went raving mad and was threshing about on the floor.”
“And the Spanish prisoner?”
He looked away. “Ye’ll not like to be hearing what happened to him,” he said grimly. “Let’s just say he’s no longer with us.”
Charity shivered. Outside the thick walls of this house vile deeds were being committed every day in the dens and byways of Tortuga. She supposed she should be grateful for these thick walls, but she was not. Her anger at Court for keeping her here with an uncertain future increased daily and caused her to n
eedle him.
“Were I old and ugly,” she asked one day as they sat eating ripe golden oranges after dinner, “would you keep me here?”
His eyes narrowed. “I think you put too much value on your desirable flesh. There are many women in the world who tempt men. You are but one of them.”
Charity continued to regard him rebelliously.
“Their market price is really quite low,” he added brutally.
White-faced, Charity jumped up and ran from the room. She kept to her room the next day until he had breakfasted and left the house. From the kitchen she filched some meat and cheese and bread and wine and carried them up to her room. That damned pirate with his insulting ways could dine without her tonight!
She flung back the fine linen sheets, plumped the soft down pillows, attired herself attractively in a sheer nightdress of lawn and lace—cool and comfortable in the warm evening—and settled back in her bed with a book she had borrowed from the chart room.
Before she had read a chapter, the sound of footsteps climbing the stairs three at a time reached her. Heart pounding, she put down the book, then picked it up again as the door flew open.
Court stood there, eyes blazing. “Tis time to sup,” he declared.
With studied insolence, Charity put down the book. “I’m not hungry,” she said.
His eyes fell on the trencher with its remnants of broken meat and bread. “Tis easy to see why,” he said sternly. “Still, hungry or no, you will sup this night. And with me. Unless you prefer the consequences.”
She settled herself more comfortably against the pillows, aware she made a fetching sight in the revealing gown. “And I suppose the consequences are that you will seize me as you did at Daarkenwyck and half tear my clothes off?” She made to get up. “Faith, I’d rise willingly rather than endure that again!”
His wintry eyes played over her. “I have willing mistresses,” he said coldly. “I have no need of trumped-up affection. Up.” And turned on his heel.
With a scream of fury, Charity threw her book at him. It missed his head. Its heavy leather binding crashed against the door, and it fell open, its pages crumpled.
Jeremy Court turned. His face had a dangerous look, the face of a man who had lost patience. With two swift strides he had reached her side. Shaking with wrath. Charity regarded him balefully, her eyes wide and angry.
He stood looking down at her. Then very deliberately his hand shot out and he yanked her from the bed. She cried out and kicked at him, but found herself turned over his lap, her head down, arms and legs flailing. She gasped as his large hand landed a stinging blow on her buttocks, almost bare in the thin lacy gown. Screeching with fury, she redoubled her efforts to free herself. He held her like a vise and rained several more blows upon her already smarting bottom.
Finally, he stood up, spilling her to the floor, where she lay, watching him venomously.
“If you behave like a child, I will treat you like one,” he said. “If tomorrow your temper has not improved you will feel my palm again.”
Almost stifled by rage, Charity lay on the floor and watched him sweep out the door, heard the clatter of his departing boots on the stairs. She brought her fists down on the floor and would have wailed—but stopped herself in time. Downstairs Court might very well hear her outraged cries and mistake them for despair.
She would not give him that satisfaction.
To her fury, after his having insisted she be present, Court did not come down for breakfast the next morning.
After a while she went up to his room and flung wide the door, determined to say a few words of her own. He stood with his back to her and at the sound of the door flying open he swung about, hand on sword-hilt.
Charity stopped in astonishment to gaze at him. Dressed as he was in snowy white linen shirt, lace cuffed, in dove gray satin knee breeches, a silver brocade waistcoat and wide-cuffed charcoal velvet coat trimmed in gold, he might have been an English gentleman standing on the steps of Whitehall.
“Where is your Spanish wardrobe that gives you such glee?” she asked.
His dark brows drew together. “I have put it aside for the while. Do you make it your practice to enter rooms without knocking?”
Her lip curled. “Since you were so hot to breakfast with me, I came up to see why you had not joined me.”
“Your wish to dine alone is now granted for a time,” he said. “You will keep to your room for the next few days.”
She felt dashed. “Is—is even the courtyard denied me?”
“Yes,” he said. ‘“Even that. Ravenal will take you for a stroll through the town once daily so that you may exercise. Do not attempt to escape him again. My temper has grown shorter and I will not brook it.”
To be exercised! Like a dog on a leash! She was so upset she could not speak.
“Close the door as you leave,” he said. “Unless you prefer to watch me change these trousers to a pair less tight. I am going to the quay to meet a guest and I have no intent to split them as I make a leg.”
A guest! So that was it! She glowered at Court as he tossed his coat and waistcoat to a chair. He was about to strip off his breeches, when she turned and left the room.
Curiosity piqued her and she stayed close to her upstairs window watching for this guest whose visit meant confinement for her. Her patience was soon rewarded for shortly afterward a little procession approached the courtyard. First came a litter carried by two husky men still in the uniform of Spain. And on that litter a lady, richly gowned in black. The folds of a heavy black lace mantilla concealed her face and head. She might have been in mourning. The wind blew the mantilla back a little, and Charity saw for a moment the gleam of white skin.
Beside the litter walked Court, meticulously groomed as any court dandy, his black periwig catching the sun, a jeweled ring flashing red on his sun-bronzed hand. That hand rested on a tall beribboned ebony cane. Under his arm, most correctly, he carried a wide-brimmed charcoal-gray hat with dove-gray plumes, and from time to time he bent down courteously to say something to the lady.
Behind them toiled two men with trunks and after that a small crowd of the curious, whispering and giggling. One could plainly see that Tortuga found the arrival of Court’s mistress titillating.
As Charity heard them coming into the house, she ran and shut her door—hard. And then sat down on her bed to think. She was very curious about this “lady in the black mantilla.” Was she the Spanish mistress Court had kept for a while and then returned—now choosing to live a double life with her buccaneer sweetheart as well as her new husband in Havana? If she were close enough to visit she must have forgotten the man waiting in Spain and remarried in Havana. Charity was eaten up with desire to see her. Would she be a blinding beauty? Or merely some woman on whom his affection had fastened for curious reasons of his own?
It seemed she would have no chance to find out. Her food was brought to her in her room and although no attempt was made to guard her closely, Ravenal being presumably still on guard at the front door, dour cook at the back, she felt hemmed in. That evening, she watched from behind a pillar of the gallery and when she saw that Ella had served the couple in the dining room, she tiptoed downstairs and sped on bare feet across the courtyard to the closed door.
Inside she could hear the clink of glasses, the mutter of voices. She pressed an ear against the door but could not make out any words. Suddenly, aware that someone was standing behind her, she whirled. Ella stood there with a bottle of wine. Putting a warning finger to her lips, Charity glided just out of sight along the wall as Ella took in the wine. When she came out, Charity reached out an arm and gently prevented the door from closing. With it open a crack she could hear what was said inside.
A woman’s low laugh floated out to her. Silvery, musical—a light, seductive, almost malicious laugh.
Charity clung to the doorjamb for support. Surely there could be only one laugh like that in all the world. The “lady in the black mantilla” was Mar
ie Bellingham!
CHAPTER 38
Heart thudding, she forced herself to listen.
“Is there still a price on my head in Charles Towne?” Court was asking.
“Yes, Jeremy.” Marie’s voice beyond a doubt!
“I’ve learned who put it there—Captain St. Clair, flying under my colors. I ran him through for it, that I did.”
Charity could hear Marie gasp. “You . . . killed him?” she asked in a faint voice.
“Nay, though I should have! My intent was to kill him, but my foot slipped and my blade pierced a hand’s breadth from where I had aimed it.”
Marie gave a little sob. “Oh, Jeremy, Jeremy, I cannot bear to think of you taking these wild chances. Must you live this desperate life?”
Court’s response was moody. Charity could imagine him in the candlelight, dressed in his English grays, watching Marie across the table with his light wintry eyes. “I think that together we have made an unendurable situation for ourselves. You write me, you arrive, you are here for a few days, and then you go back to your unsuspecting planter in Charles Towne.”
“But—it is the only way,” she cried softly.
“At first I thought so. It seemed to me that a kindly fate had restored you to me—if only on occasion. Then it came to me that I was placing you in great danger. Not only do you constantly chance the seas to reach me—certainly there is danger there, from the Spanish and from pirates who do not observe the rules that govern the Brethren of the Coast—but at any moment you may be recognized and your whole life blasted.”
Charity’s hands clenched in fury as she heard Marie’s eager, “Ah, Jeremy, tis a chance I take gladly!”
“Nay, but consider. You have told me this Carolina planter has built his life around you. What if he learns of me? What happens to you then?”
“My sister suspects,” Marie admitted tremulously. “She considers it strange that I come to her so often and stay so briefly. She has threatened to write to Alan and ask him if he mistreats me that I am always running off to Barbadoes.”
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