Lorraine laughed. “Then I shall assuredly latch my door, André,” she told him composedly. “And I need no one to guard my virtue!” Her voice held a tinge of haughtiness and she held the door a bit wider that he might depart.
The Frenchman drew back, bowing, and allowed her to close the door to his face, heard her latch it.
In the hallway he stood irresolute, his face a mirror of amazement as he stared at the closed door. Why, his behavior was ... it was maudlin! Here they had been alone at last—really alone—and he made no effort to touch her! He could not understand himself.
As he went down the stairs he heard a roll of distant thunder—even the gods were growling at such mortifying behavior.
“Heist, I am twice a fool, but I must have her,” he confided moodily to his friend an hour later in a waterfront tavern. “The demoiselle has taken a hold on me here”—he made a dramatic gesture toward his heart—“such a hold that even I do not understand.”
Heist favored him with a jaundiced look. “Find another woman,” was his advice. “That’s the way to erase another man’s wife from your mind!”
“She is not his wife yet, Heist!”
“No, but she soon will be.”
“Perhaps not.” In the last glow of the setting sun
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the Frenchman’s amber eyes had turned metallic; they seemed to reflect the golden light like a cat’s. “Perhaps not. If only I could find a way to shine in her eyes. . . .” He drummed his fingers on the table and his expression was dangerous. “I mean to have her, Heist.”
Heist lifted his tankard in derision.
“I will say a few words over you after the captain kills you,” he promised cheerfully.
CHAPTER 15
RAILE WAS LATE to supper, which was served in their candlelit bedchamber by Mistress Pym, the landlord’s plump middle-aged wife. The meal consisted of fish chowder and shark pie, washed down by the local cedarberry wine. The evening’s calm was disrupted by vivid lightning flashes, every one of which brought forth muffled shrieks from across the hall, where two maiden ladies were staying.
“You’d think they’d never seen a storm!” muttered Mistress Pym as she nearly dropped a platter at their cries.
“You should have gotten us two rooms,” Lorraine sighed after the woman had left. “Mistress Pym knows we’re not married and she disapproves. Did you notice how careful she was to ask us no questions?”
“The Crown and Garter has no license yet,” Raile told her cynically. “Mistress Pym will look the other way until it does.”
Lorraine flushed. “You still should have taken two rooms, Raile!”
“Impossible. We got the last one. Those two ships that arrived just after us have overcrowded the town’s accommodations. Of course I could have let you share a bed across the hall with those two maiden ladies.”
Lorraine gave him a haunted look. The two ladies would have asked endless questions, she had no doubt.
And she was a girl whose past did not bear prying into.
“All in all,” he added sardonically, “I felt you would prefer the same arrangement we had on shipboard— you in the bed, me by the door. I am sorry you have had a dull afternoon, locked away in your room.”
“André came by to remind me to latch my door,” she blurted out before she thought.
“So you whiled away the time with him?” Raile’s voice was casual but his throat felt tight.
“No, he just told me to latch my door and left.”
“He did not mention it when I ran across him.”
“No, he wouldn’t.” She laughed. “I suppose he thought you would be angry with me. He must be curious about the odd way we behaved this morning! Didn’t he ask you why?”
Raile gave her a thoughtful look. “No he did not.” He fished in his pocket. “Here. I have brought you something.” He produced a small packet which he tossed upon the bed. “Hairpins.”
Lorraine pounced upon the hairpins with joy. Tomorrow she would rid herself of that tiresome scarf and arrange her hair fashionably. She looked up at him with shining eyes. “Oh, Raile, I do thank you!” She leapt up and began to comb her long fair hair vigorously, preparatory to plaiting it for bed.
Raile gazed upon her for a moment in a kind of masculine wonder. Lorraine had been very near discovery today. And he might not have been able to prevent her being taken if Captain Bridey had seen her and raised a hue and cry, yet she had asked him nothing about Bridey—she was entirely absorbed by hairpins! Shaking his head, he arranged his long body on the floor by the door.
Lorraine blew out the candle and threw the shutters wide before she got into bed. The night air rushing in was cool and damp and had the feeling of rain in it, though not a drop had fallen. A cold white moon shone down upon this island that the Spaniards called the “Isle of Devils,” for many a proud galleon had been wrecked upon its jagged reefs. St. George’s Town seemed very peaceful tonight, though there was still a racket coming from the waterfront.
In a tavern on that waterfront André L’Estraille was pounding the table in a passion. “Mon Dieu, I tell you I must know, Heist!”
“You’ll wish you hadn’t inquired,” Heist warned owlishly.
A brilliant flash of lightning lit up the tavern windows and threw the Frenchman’s intent face into hard relief. The words seemed wrung from him. “Dammit, Heist, I will know if he sleeps with her!”
His last words were drowned in a crash of thunder, and with that crash a man in a torn shirt sprang through the open door of the tavern. From his soot-blackened face his eyes looked wild. “The lightning has set new fires in the cedars,” he panted. “They’re burning out of control and threatening Cedarwood Plantation. If Cedarwood goes, the other outlying plantations will go too. There’s a call out for men to help fight the blaze.” He collapsed onto a long bench amid the sudden clamor of voices and drained the contents of a pewter tankard an excited tavern wench had thrust into his hands. “There’s more,” he cried hoarsely. “That pair of lovers from Cedarwood are off again and John Pomeroy is offering a reward for anyone who can find his daughter. It’s thought they’re hiding in the cedars and don’t know yet that they’re trapped. Men are needed for the search.”
There was a general surge toward the door. L’Estraille and Heist—neither of them particularly civic-minded, but never lacking in gallantry—had sat unmoved during the first part, but at the suggestion of a female in distress, and better yet, a reward, they came to their feet as one. Heist seized the bottle from their table and they joined in the general exodus.
Once outside on Water Street, L’Estraille came to a halt. Suddenly he laughed and clapped Heist on the back.
“Heist, we’ve a duty to inform our captain of this crisis—and I’ll have the answer to my riddle at the same time!”
Down Old Maid’s Lane and around the corner onto Duke of York Street they went. There L’Estraille gingerly tried the door of the future Crown and Garter—and found it locked. In the fitful flashes of lightning that lit the empty street he spotted and pounced upon the wooden ladder workmen had left standing against a nearby wall. Over Heist’s muffled protests, he set it with stealth beneath Lorraine’s window.
“Set that bottle down, Heist. Are you going to steady this ladder or not?” he hissed.
“I will—but it may be my last act on earth,” was Heist’s gloomy response.
Slightly wavering—for indeed he would not have attempted anything so rash had he been entirely sober—André L’Estraille softly ascended the ladder until he reached the open window, then waited, leaning upon the sill.
He had not long to wait. Another jagged bolt of lightning struck the hills and illuminated the room almost as bright as day. Before him beneath the unbleached coverlet lay Lorraine, asleep. And Raile’s long body, trouser-clad, lay across the door.
The Frenchman drew a deep triumphant breath. She did not sleep with him. Ah, his demoiselle was a virgin!
He would have gone back d
own the ladder but that the horizontal figure by the door had suddenly become vertical and had leapt forward to grab him by the throat. L’Estraille could feel the ladder shake as Heist groaned.
“Captain . . . Captain!” gasped L’Estraille. He was clawing desperately to get strong choking fingers from his throat and still keep his footing on the ladder. “I came ... to tell you . . . that the fire . . . has spread!”
The big hands relaxed. “So it’s you, L’Estraille,” Raile growled. “Why didn’t you come knocking on the door like a civilized man instead of creeping up to the window like a thief? I might have killed you!”
“There’s a call out for men.” L’Estraille was stroking his throat. He sounded aggrieved. “They’ve locked up for the night here. I couldn’t rouse the inn!”
As if in corroboration, the church bells began clanging.
“They’re aroused now,” said Raile grimly. “Fire’s spread, you say?”
Lorraine had just waked up to the sound of the bells. Her bewildered “What’s André doing here?” was cut into by the Frenchman’s reply to Raile.
“. . . out of control and menacing the plantations. Also they’re searching for that runaway pair we saw today. They’re thought to be hiding out in the cedars and don’t know their danger.” He made an expansive if ironic gesture. “Will you not take this way down, Captain Cameron? It’s faster.”
“Yes, but you two go on. Do what you can. I’ll round up some of the lads and join you later.” Raile was pulling on his shirt as he spoke.
“Take me with you,” cried Lorraine. She sprang from her bed and began to scramble frantically into her petticoat.
“No. Too dangerous.” Her captain was already out the window as he spoke.
“But you’ll need help!”
Raile paused in his descent down the ladder. “Stay here,” he commanded sternly. “I’ll not risk your being recognized.”
He would not risk it! Half-dressed and indignant at being left behind, Lorraine ran to the window. Above the clanging of the church bells she heard a voice calling urgently, “Captain Cameron!” She peered into the darkness and a lightning flash illuminated the scarecrowlike figure of Charles Hubbard, his long arms flapping as he ran.
She called out to him to ask if Trinity had been found, but her voice was lost in the clangor of the bells. Another lightning flash showed Raile and Charles Hubbard marching away together.
Lorraine came away from the window with a sigh. She had a good reason for going downstairs; she must remove that ladder from her window.
She finished dressing—in her blue gown, for she had not brought her other from the ship—and went downstairs to find the wood-paneled common room in an uproar. The two maiden ladies from across the hall, both clad in dressing gowns, were wringing their hands and crying out that if the wind changed, the town would go. The other guests—male passengers who had come in on the ships—clapped their hats on their heads and stalked out through the front door.
Lorraine went out and moved the ladder away from her window. When she returned, she found the landlady locked in dispute with her husband.
“I tell you, Pym, I must go!” she was crying out distractedly. “She’s my little sister and she’s up there at Cedarwood about to have a baby!”
“When your father drove her out of the house, he meant her to stay out!” snarled Pym. “And now you want to bring her into ours! He’ll cut you off without a farthing if you interfere. Let John Pomeroy look after her—she’s his housekeeper. Aye, and the baby will be his too!”
“How dare you say it?” Mistress Pym drew back her arm and slapped his face. “ ’Tis her dead husband’s—just a trifle overdue, that’s all!”
“Vixen!” Pym looked ready to explode. “I’ll not stay here and listen to you!”
“You will!” she shouted. “It’s my house!”
“Then rot in it!” he bellowed, and charged through the door into the street.
Nearby the two maiden ladies continued to moan. “I’ve a cart,” stated Mistress Pym, looking around her defiantly. “But I’ll need help hitching it up and, later, getting my sister into it, for I’m bringing her back here to have her baby, no matter what anyone says about it!”
And she was right! Lorraine’s blue eyes flashed.
“I know how to hitch up a cart. And I’ll go with you too!” she offered recklessly. For who would recognize her in the darkness and confusion out there?
“God be praised!” Mistress Pym seized Lorraine’s arm. “Come, the cart’s this way.”
Moments later an excited Lorraine, her blue scarf wrapped turbanlike around her head, found herself driving a strange cart through the night down Duke of York Street. Around her now the town had waked up. Candles were being hastily lit in the town houses whose gable ends faced the street medieval style. Lanterns flitted past. Shouting, calling out to each other over the incessant pealing of the bells, the citizenry of St. George’s Town was pouring out, on horseback and on foot, toward the low forested hills from which dense columns of smoke rose in ominous silhouette against each lightning flash.
Finally, despite the darkness and confusion they reached the outskirts of the town. The sky, between lightning flashes, was heavily overcast and obscured the stars. With the town behind them, the lanterns of the searchers looked like giant golden fireflies dotting the dark upward slopes.
“Which way now?” cried Lorraine.
“Straight ahead.” Mistress Pym waved her own lantern. “I’ll tell you when to turn.” And although she clutched the side of the cart every time the cart lurched, she gave good directions.
“I don’t want you to think bad things of my sister. Pym had no call to say what he did. ’Twas my father forced Hattie to marry Warren—frail lad that he was. Papa said she smiled too often at the widower John Pomeroy and he’d have no harlot living under his roof—watch out there, the road narrows around that big stump! So he forced poor Hattie to marry Warren. I’m not saying Hattie should’ve done it . . .”
“Perhaps she wanted to break free of her infatuation,” suggested Lorraine softly.
“That was it,” agreed Mistress Pym with satisfaction. “To break free. . . . Only Warren took sick and died and Hattie was a widow then and not even Papa could keep her from smiling at John Pomeroy. One thing led to another—watch out for that rock there!” Lorraine managed to miss the rock. “So she became his . . . housekeeper.”
In the lurching darkness Mistress Pym gave her driver a grateful look. “Hattie loves him too much,” she said darkly. “She was always telling me she was sorry for him—sorry!" She sniffed. “Tied to the memory of a dead woman and trying to bring up his daughter in her image!”
“You mean Trinity?”
“Look out for those ruts!”
Lorraine managed to hang on to the reins and right the cart. Mistress Pym was talking again.
“She told me his first wife was an aristocrat—which he wasn’t. He was forever trying to live up to her high-and-mighty ways when she was alive, and after she died it was even worse. He insisted Trinity had to be as elegant as her mother!”
“It must have been a strain,” commented Lorraine dryly. “No wonder Trinity ran away!” She winced at the thought of Trinity and her lover hiding in some secluded copse, thinking they were safe, while the fire ringed them.
The air was filled now with the tang of acrid smoke that made Lorraine’s eyes smart, and the distant cries of the searchers seemed to have moved closer.
“Oh, God, the wind has changed!” moaned Mistress Pym as a swirl of smoke obscured their vision. “Poor Hattie—Cedarwood could be cut off!”
Although they could not yet see the actual flames, the sky ahead was lit by a dull red glow and the unpleasant thought came to Lorraine that not only Cedarwood but also she and Mistress Pym could be cut off by the fire.
In the lantern light two figures had appeared, leaping out in front of the cart.
“Who’s there?” called out Mistress Pym sharply.
“Why, it’s André!” cried Lorraine in relief, reining up. “And Heist! What’s happening?”
“The wind has changed and it’s sweeping the fire this way,” André told her. “They’re abandoning the search, letting the outlying plantations go—they mean to save the town instead. Turn back!”
“Oh, poor Harriet!” screamed Mistress Pym, collapsing into a moaning heap in the cart.
“Her sister’s trapped at Cedarwood,” explained Lorraine, distressed.
The road was suddenly filled with men—L’Estraille and Heist had been just the vanguard. Behind the retreating searchers came the ominous hissing roar of the fire. And over the brow of the hill rose licking tongues of orange flames advancing across a long front.
In the confusion as Lorraine tried to get the cart turned around in close quarters, lanterns were lifted about her so that for a few moments she was bathed in gold. The faces of the men encircling Lorraine were illuminated too, and suddenly one of those faces seemed to spring out at her. Her hands froze on the reins as she saw startled recognition leap into his eyes.
Lorraine’s breath seemed to leave her body. Her worst fears had come to pass. The man who stood spraddle-legged in the road was Captain Bridey.
CHAPTER 16
“MISTRESS LONDON!” rumbled that familiar voice. “What are you doing here?” He looked about him in bewilderment.
Lorraine got control of herself. “I’m with another master, Captian Bridey.”
Beneath bushy gray brows, Bridey’s hard eyes were focused intently on her flushed face. “I can’t believe it—Oddsbud swore he’d never sell your articles of indenture to anyone.” His voice was heavy with accusation.
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