“Guardian?” The Frenchman blinked. “This is the first I have heard of any guardian, mademoiselle.”
“Oh, did I not mention him?” Lorraine feigned surprise. “Raile is taking me to him in Barbados—I thought you knew. My guardian would be very hurt if he were not to be present at my wedding.”
“I can well imagine,” murmured her companion, but one of his eyebrows was cocked at her sardonically. “So we are not to have a wedding in Bermuda after all? I am disappointed, mademoiselle!”
“That is unfortunate,” said Lorraine with asperity. “But I think you will have to let me be the judge of where and when I am to be married, André!”
He held up his hands, laughing, as if to ward her off.
“Ah, less heat, mademoiselle! Anyone would think you were in no hurry to be married at all!”
Fortunately Lorraine did not have to answer that, for she was just then hurried away to the longboat, where she sat beside her silent captain. The impudent ship’s doctor had managed to secure the seat behind her, and now, as they were being rowed ashore, he leaned forward to keep up his banter.
“Do you know Bermuda well, Raile?” Lorraine hoped by ignoring him to quench the exuberant Frenchman, who was breathing almost in her ear.
“Not so well as Heist does,” was the reply. “He was shipwrecked here once and stayed for several months, I believe.”
“He insists there are no rivers or streams here and that the wells all yield salt water,” put in the ship’s doctor.
“Really, André?” Lorraine wished he would not lean over her. “What do they drink then?”
She had half-expected him to say “Wine,” but he surprised her.
“Rainwater, according to Heist. All caught in catchments and stored in great cisterns. The cisterns are kept clean by putting a busy goldfish inside,” he added with distaste.
“Poor little thing!” Lorraine’s heart went out to that small trapped creature; she was thinking how truly dreadful it would be to spend one’s life in a dark cistern. “They should at least put two goldfish inside to keep each other company!”
L’Estraille was laughing now. “Mademoiselle Lorraine, you are French at heart. Indeed it is true—the world should travel in pairs!”
Lorraine turned her head to study a square-rigged two-masted merchantman which the big warship had heretofore hidden from her view. Lorraine gazed upon it in dismay. She had no need to read the name Mayapple painted on that sturdy hull—she had seen that ship too many times before in Providence harbor!
She clutched Raile’s arm. “That ship—she’s the Mayapple. Her captain’s name is Bridey—he’s a friend of Oddsbud’s, he was at the White Horse Tavern the night before you came!”
A pair of cool gray eyes swung toward her. “Indeed?” said Raile softly. “Perhaps I will run across Captain Bridey in the town.”
“Oh, don’t—” she began, but her words ended in a gasp as a longboat shot out from between the Mayapple and the warship, heading for shore. “That’s Captain Bridey—the gray-haired man in the bow.” She was staring at a heavyset fellow with a shock of unkempt gray hair above a weathered face and square-cut grizzled beard. “And”—her voice sank to a whisper—“he knows me by sight!”
The pressure of Raile’s hand on her arm silenced her but she noted that he swung his broad shoulders about to shield her from the grizzled captain’s view. In panic, Lorraine pretended to find something wrong with her shoe and bent double, adjusting it as the Mayapple's longboat paced them over the blue water to shore.
No one else had noticed this exchange between the captain and his lady, for there was a raucous conversation going on around them among men eager to set foot on land, but behind them, silenced at last and with eyes sparkling with curiosity, André L’Estraille was taking it all in.
When they landed in St. George’s Town, Lorraine found a wall of not one but two solid masculine bodies between herself and the just-landing crew of the Mayapple, some of whom were craning their necks for a better view of the blonde in the blue dress.
Raile shot a glance at them, saw that they were headed down Water Street toward the taverns.
“Lorraine,” he said abruptly, offering her his arm, “I’m going to show you the sights of St. George!”
Lorraine’s look of wild protest went unheeded.
The Frenchman chuckled and promptly attached himself to them, swinging along on Lorraine’s other side. Raile did not seem to mind. Lorraine had the sinking feeling that he welcomed having L’Estraille along, should a fight develop.
For Lorraine knew that she had been living in a fool’s paradise. Somehow the unfamiliar carefree life on shipboard, sailing over endless smooth waters in the company of adventurous men, had given her a sense of security, of breaking her ties with the past. She had managed to forget that she was a runaway bondservant and had thought of herself as just another girl with her future in doubt.
Now, as they turned toward King’s Square, with its stocks and pillory, it was all brought sharply back to her and the real world came into focus once again.
From the stocks a woebegone drunken face stared up at her. Nearby, bent over with her head and hands sticking out of the wooden pillory, a thin middle-aged woman with wispy hair glared at them as they passed.
Lorraine was relieved when they left the stocks and pillory behind and paused to look at the handsome State House built more than half a century before with turtle-oil-and-lime mortar.
“Heist tells me the Bermudians have borrowed a marriage custom from the Dutch of New York,” remarked L’Estraille as they turned down York Street toward the massive pile of St. Peter’s Church. “The bridegroom has a gold-leaf wedding cake, but in the top of the bride’s cake is stuck a cedar sapling which she must then plant. How it grows will determine the future of the marriage.” He grinned at Lorraine. “Have you selected a suitable sapling, mademoiselle?”
Lorraine gave him a tormented look. At the moment, marriage was the farthest thing from her mind!
“André is teasing me,” she told Raile with a sigh. “Because I have told him how we must wait until we reach Barbados for our wedding, so my guardian can attend.”
“A pity to wait,” murmured the Frenchman, gazing up at the square tower of St. Peter’s. “Such a romantic setting. . . .” He gave them both an innocent look. “I have spent some time on Barbados. What did you say your guardian’s name was, mademoiselle?"
Lorraine’s heart thumped. She felt for a moment ringed by enemies—first that ship from Rhode Island and now André.
“I didn’t say,” she choked, but Raile cut in swiftly.
“His name is Ambrose Lyle, L’Estraille.” He gave the Frenchman a steady look over Lorraine’s head. “Is he perchance of your acquaintance?”
“No, somehow I seem to have missed him,” said the Frenchman airily.
“I wonder how you managed that.” There was a steely note in Raile’s voice. “He is sixty years old, a bachelor, a saddler by trade—all in Bridgetown know him.”
Lorraine’s blue eyes shone with beleaguered gratitude as she looked up at her tall captain. “I will make it a point to introduce you, André,” she flung over her shoulder.
“Perhaps we should go inside the church and pray for our sins,” murmured the Frenchman half-humorously. He was peering inside at St. Peter’s three-decked pulpit. She ignored the comment.
Under blue skies, quaint St. George’s Town with its twisting alleys and colorfully named streets—One Gun Alley, King’s Parade, Featherbed Lane—went by Lorraine in an unhappy blur as she waited tensely for Captain Bridey or one of his crew who might know her by sight to loom up suddenly from around the next corner and confront her.
After a time Raile said, “Now we’ll find us an inn,” and they made their way back to the jostling crowds that roamed up and down Water Street, for two more ships had come into harbor and the street was teeming with action. Lorraine, swishing along in her elegant blue gown and trying to hold her blond
e head high, was made aware that she was now in a fisherman’s world, a land of deep-water sailors, of browned muscular men who stared at her admiringly as she passed—and sometimes winked at her despite the sobering clank of swords and clomp of boots of the two tall men who flanked her.
Just ahead a large woman in faded homespun was coming toward them carrying a brace of squawking chickens upside down. The crowd eddied to let her through and Raile quickly pulled Lorraine aside to avoid bumping into her.
As she did so, they both looked up and saw a thick plume of smoke rising from the green hills above the houses. The wind was carrying it toward the town.
“What is all that smoke up there?” Lorraine asked uneasily.
“Alas, mistress, those are fires deliberately set in the cedar forests above us,” said a voice behind her.
Lorraine turned to see a soberly clad wisp of a fellow, bespectacled and as thin as any skeleton, both skinny arms grasping a muslin sack from which peeked out two leather-bound volumes. “ ’Tis thought by burning the forests to destroy the plague of rats that has come upon us,” he explained. “But in my view it is a shocking waste to see great cedars—some of them fifteen feet around the trunk—consumed by the blaze!”
“I should think so,” agreed Raile, his gaze straying to the stacks of squared cedar logs, some of them enormous, piled up for shipment on the nearby beach. “Many a stout ship could be made of them.”
They had paused momentarily for this conversation and would have moved on but for a sudden shout. Lorraine stiffened as a whip cracked and an audible groan reached them.
A moment later they saw the cause. A cart was being driven by, parting the crowd, and tied behind that cart, bent over and stripped to the waist, a sandy-haired young fellow was struggling to keep his footing as a heavy whip descended with agonizing regularity upon his naked back. A small crowd surged behind, some laughing in derision, others crying out encouragement to the beat of the whip.
“So they’ve caught Jeb,” the wispy fellow muttered on a drawn-out sigh.
“Caught him?” Lorraine swung about indignantly. “What on earth has he done to deserve such cruel treatment?”
The wispy fellow regarded her owlishly. “Cruel it may be, mistress—and Jeb Smith would agree with you—but yon groaning lad is a runaway bondservant. He’ll be whipped out of town as a reminder not to wander away again.”
A runaway bondservant! And this was his punishment. ... A shiver went through her and both Raile and André were quick to note it.
The cart and its followers had gone by, heading toward King’s Square, and now a carriage dashed past them, almost overturning as it reeled onto Queen Street. It was driven by a black driver whose eyes were so wide that the whites of them seemed to be his most prominent feature. He was beating a pair of lathered horses and in the back an angry-looking older man in burgundy velvet was holding on to a screaming young girl to keep her from leaping out of the carriage. But in the moment that the carriage came abreast of them, the girl spotted the wispy fellow.
“Charles!” she called in a voice of wild appeal. “Don’t let him do this!”
Beside Lorraine, Charles seemed to shrink still further. He watched the carriage disappear with hunted eyes.
“Who is she?” gasped Lorraine.
“She is Trinity Pomeroy,” she was told bitterly. “I am her tutor at Cedarwood. Though what she thinks I can do—”
“But that man clutching her?” interrupted Lorraine.
“Her father, John Pomeroy of Cedarwood Plantation, and he cares naught for—” He seemed to collect himself. “He is also my employer. Young Trinity had the bad taste to run away with her father’s clerk—Jeb Smith, the lad you just saw being whipped at the tail of the cart—who is bound by his articles for three more years. After her lover recovers from his beating he’ll no doubt find another year or two added to his period of indenture, while Mistress Trinity will be sent overseas to England to get her married—and quickly—to someone her father can approve of.” His Adam’s apple worked and there was the glitter of tears in his eyes.
Lorraine’s gaze followed the disappearing cart where the beautiful red-haired girl with the tearstained face had been struggling with her father.
“It should not be allowed!” she cried, quivering. “All this interference with lovers—it is not right!”
“I’m sure Trinity would agree with you but it’s John Pomeroy who will have the ordering of the matter,” was the bitter rejoinder.
The crowd had been eddying about them, passing on both sides, and of a sudden someone jostled against the wispy fellow’s birdlike chest. The slight impact caused him to lose his hold on the linen bag he carried. It fell to the street and out of it spilled not just the two books at the top but silk stockings, a woman’s green satin slipper, and a froth of lace on what looked to be feminine underthings.
He fell to his knees, clawing them back into the bag. “I’m not a thief,” he panted, red-faced and defiant. “These things are—”
Lorraine had bent swiftly down to help him collect the items. “You were helping Trinity escape, weren’t you?”
His face, which had been suffused with color, lost it instantly and turned a dirty gray. “Mistress,” he whispered hoarsely, “if you spread that word about, I’ll be dismissed—and where will she be then?"
“No one will hear of it from me,” Lorraine promised him warmly. They both scrambled up. “We’re in need of an inn, sir. Can you recommend one?”
“You’re standing before one of the best.” He waved his arm toward an open door over which hung a painted wooden sign announcing this to be the “Gull and Tortoise.”
Raile peered casually inside. “No, I think not.” He shook his head regretfully. “Too noisy for my lass here.”
His lass stole an involuntary glance through the doorway. There in profile was Captain Bridey’s familiar weathered face. She jumped back with alacrity.
“Aye, ’tis noisy,” agreed their mentor. Charles thought a moment. “There’s a place around the corner on Duke of York Street. They’ve applied for a license as an ordinary, and when it comes through they’ll be called the Crown and Garter, but until then, there’s no sign and they take guests on the quiet to avoid the tax collector.” He winked at them. “I warn you, though— they lock up early.”
“We’d be obliged if you’d take us there.” Raile smiled enigmatically. Lorraine wondered if he had heard their low-voiced conversation when the bag fell to the street, decided he hadn’t.
The man led them down Old Maid’s Lane. On the way introductions were made. They learned that he was Charles Hubbard, impecunious son of an English country vicar. He had been lured to the Bermudas by a shining offer to tutor a young genius in a stately home. “Poor Trinity’s no good at sums,” he sighed. “And she gets her geography all backwards!”
There was a catch in his voice when he said that, and Lorraine thought stabbingly: He’s in love with her. Poor Charles Hubbard cares for Trinity so much he was even willing to help her run away with another man—and now he’s got to take her things back to Cedarwood and watch her weep for him. . . .
“And the stately home?” she asked quickly.
Hubbard grimaced. “A plain enough house—far up.” He jerked his head toward the hills behind the town, where heavy smoke was rising.
They had reached the Crown and Garter, a name Lorraine thought mightily overblown for such a humble low wooden building with its palmetto thatched roof. The landlord offered Hubbard a bottle of wine “for bringing me custom” and Hubbard offered to share it with them. Raile excused himself on the grounds he had much to do and must be about it, but L’Estraille said, “I’ll share a glass with you, Hubbard.” His glance strayed to Lorraine, hoping she’d join them.
But the landlord was already bustling Lorraine upstairs. She found herself on the second floor in a front room whose wooden shutters stood open. One window looked down upon the street below; the other had a view of the next building, w
here two workmen were busy lime-washing the walls. The only furnishings of the low-ceilinged room were a small wooden table, a couple of straight-backed chairs, and a large double bed—all rudely crafted from the island cedar.
It had been an exhausting morning. Once the landlord had gone, Lorraine threw herself facedown upon the bed. Safe at last!
The thought relaxed her. Without meaning to, she drifted off to sleep while downstairs André L’Estraille and Charles Hubbard tossed off a second glass of wine.
When Hubbard took his leave, the Frenchman decided to go looking for Heist. But first ... He cast a thoughtful look at the stairway. It was very silent upstairs on this sleepy afternoon.
The landlord was not about. L’Estraille tiptoed up the stairs, stood outside the door. Her door. It must be her door, it was the only door that was closed and he could see that the other rooms were unoccupied. He lifted his knuckles to knock, changed his mind, and tried the door. It opened silently, for the landlord had oiled it only yesterday and its iron hinges made no sound.
Before L’Estraille was a pretty picture. A girl in a blue dress with her blonde hair cascading over an unbleached muslin coverlet. Her skirts had ridden up as she moved restlessly, so that one silken leg lay exposed in a billow of chemise ruffles and shimmering blue-gray satin petticoat.
He caught his breath at the sight.
It would have been second nature for L’Estraille to close the door softly behind him and tiptoe to the bed, to make his presence known by pressing his lips firmly upon the curving half-parted lips of the sleeping girl, to begin his wooing where he hoped it would eventually lead—her bed.
He stood there for a long time and a look of enormous longing spread over his jaded countenance. She was so lovely—and so trusting. She had not even locked her door. Anything could happen to her!
“Mademoiselle Lorraine!” He heard himself bark the words, to his own astonishment. “I find your door unlatched!”
Lorraine started up, confused.
“Oh . . . André,” she said. “I ... I must have forgotten to latch it. Thank you for reminding me.” She was moving toward him with that walk of hers, so feminine, so enticing. His hard face softened. When she reached him, he leaned over and spoke in a roguish whisper. “You should ask me to remain here to guard your virtue,” he declared. “For I’m a man of many talents. Did I ever tell you that I could remove your chemise—entire—in the night without ever waking you?”
To Love a Rogue Page 17