“I am a farmer—not a sailor. I lived inland near a river.”
“But what was the urgency? Why wave this lantern?” The governor lifted a jeweled snuffbox, delicately took a pinch of snuff.
Philip leaned forward. He had the governor’s ear at last! “Because I have been held a prisoner here against my will by that . . . that she devil at Venture!”
“Ah, yes, the she devil of Venture—we will get to her. But meantime there is a serious charge against you.” There was no charge at all, but Philip did not know that. “You are charged with wrecking a ship, and by way of that, attempted murder.”
Philip’s face paled beneath its dark newfound tan. “What am I to do?” he cried.
“You might begin by telling me about the she devil. I think you may be right about her. ...” He paused as hope lit up Philip’s worried countenance. “Suppose you tell me how you came to know her, your various dealings. Since I find you in poor case, one would hope that at times you had bested her. Am I right?”
Philip felt that beneath that black silk coat with its gleaming array of silver buttons beat a kindred heart. “Indeed I did,” he boasted—and told the governor about the wager.
The governor was considering his snuffbox in a rather fixed manner. “Go on,” he said softly. “Surely that was not your only dealing with this wench?”
Philip went on. The entire story surged out of him. It was a relief to tell it. He felt very aggrieved—look what Lorraine had done to him! And with so little provocation!
When he had finished, the governor sat silent. There was an expression of sadness on his face but his sadness was for the desperate little bound girl with nowhere to turn.
Philip waited hopefully for the governor to look up. But when he did, those cold sapphire eyes held a leaping fury that caused him to take a step backward and look about him for escape.
“You lured a ship to its doom—the evidence against you is plain. Men are hanged on this island for less.”
Philip trembled.
“But I am inclined to be merciful since it seems you did not understand. If you do not care to swing from a gibbet, you will write what I now dictate—you can write, can’t you?”
“Yes, passably,” Philip mumbled. He moved toward the inkwell and parchment on another slanted little writing desk, sat down on a small ornate wooden chair, and picked up the goose-quill pen.
“I, Philip Dedwinton, ” dictated the governor as he strode back and forth across the room, his hands clasped behind him and studying the floor, “Do make and depose the following which I swear before God and the Governor of Barbados to be the whole truth: I alone and without the aid or knowledge of any other person did light and swing the lantern that brought the Flying Fish to her doom but I did it without malice and I do heartily regret my action.”
Laboriously, for he was no hand at penmanship, Philip completed the document.
“Now sign it,” said the governor kindly.
Philip affixed his signature. Delicately the governor took the parchment from him, read it, and tossed it upon his desk.
“You have just signed your life away, Dedwinton,” he said with a mirthless laugh.
Philip staggered to his feet. He had been tricked into signing a confession. He lunged toward the desk but the governor’s silver-buckled black leather shoe tripped him up and sent him sprawling upon the hard stone floor. As the governor stood over him, Philip quailed. Yet when he spoke, that formidable figure’s tone was almost placating.
“I would like to own this she devil of Venture,” he murmured. “You tell me you hold her articles of indenture?”
“They are back in Rhode Island,” said Philip eagerly, for he could see a way out of his difficulties.
A faint smile crossed the governor’s chiseled features. “I will not trouble you to go and get them,” he murmured. “But would you sell them to me?”
Philip hesitated, cupidity creeping into his manner. “She is very valuable,” he said tentatively. “If you would let me go—”
“Ah, yes.” The governor’s wolfish smile flashed. “But remember there is also the matter of reparations for the Flying Fish. There was no loss of life, but the ship is a complete loss and you alone are responsible.”
Philip swallowed. “Could you give me enough for Lorraine’s articles to pay for that loss?”
“I might,” sighed the governor. “Write as I direct you:
Philip Dedwinton, late of Rhode Island Colony, do hereby swear before God and in the presence of the Governor of Barbados that I have lost the articles of indenture that I hold on the person of one Lorraine London, late of the same colony, and that I hereby sell all of my right and interest in those articles to Lord Rawlings, Governor of Barbados, in recompense for which the governor promises to indemnify the owner of the Flying Fish, the loss of which I caused by illegally lighting a lantern and swinging it upon the clifftop by night.
“I further swear that my employment at Venture was also of my own free will, for which I was well paid, and was meant to be an object lesson to the staff of said Venture.”
Philip looked up openmouthed. “But that would absolve Lorraine!” he cried, outraged.
“Just so,” said the governor roughly. “Do you think a man in my position can afford to have charges brought against my female bondservant? Or perhaps you have the gold in your pocket to pay for the Flying Fish?”
Visions of debtors’ prison loomed before Philip. Sitting irresolute at the inkwell, he crumpled. Obediently he wrote the statement and signed it. The governor took charge of the paper.
“I take it,” he said thoughtfully, “that you are eager to leave Barbados and return to Rhode Island?”
Philip nodded vigorously.
“I also take it that you have no funds for passage there?”
Philip made a strangled sound in his throat.
“Then write as follows: I, Philip Dedwinton, late of Rhode Island and now of the island of Barbados, do, in consideration of receiving ship’s passage from Barbados to Rhode Island, hereby indenture myself to Lord Rawlings, presently Governor of Barbados, for a period of seven years.”
Philip’s shoulders jerked. He looked up nervously.
“Never mind, I shall not hold you to it,” sighed the governor. “Your ship awaits you in the harbor. Just sign it.”
Philip hesitated for an agonized moment—then he signed.
“And now you will acknowledge your signature and that this is your writing.” The governor struck his hands together and the door opened to let in two sober-looking gentleman in dark clothing, who bowed gravely to the governor. “This gentleman is Philip Dedwinton. He wishes to acknowledge that these are his statements and that they are the truth—and that this is his signature on each. Is that not so, Dedwinton?”
“Yes,” said Philip wearily. “They are written in my own hand and they are the truth and that is my signature on each of them.”
“You are both witnesses to that,” said the governor. It was quickly accomplished. The two men signed, bowed, and left them.
“There is a ship in the harbor that will take you back to Providence,” the governor told Philip. “She is called the Bonaventure and she sails this afternoon. But I warn you that if you ever trouble Mistress Lorraine again or make trouble for any who may have helped her, I will pluck you from Rhode Island or wherever you may be and force you to serve seven years in hell.” The chill of his voice was unmistakable—he meant what he said. “You will forget you ever met my daughter!”
Philip looked up at the man who loomed above him. His daughter? That was the source of Lorraine’s newfound wealth—not some trumped-up story about ginseng! Lorraine was this man’s illegitimate child! “You have tricked me!” he gasped.
The governor’s wintry smile flashed. “Yes, I have, haven’t I?” he said softly. “And now you had best be gone—before I change my mind and decide to hang you instead.”
Overcome by the way he had been trapped and was now being disp
osed of, Philip forgot the consequences. With a sob of rage, he lunged toward the governor.
The governor’s eyes gleamed. He caught Philip such a blow with his hard fist that it sent him spinning across the room to crack against the wall and slither down it unconscious upon the floor.
“Poetic justice,” murmured the governor, looking down at him. “I would it could have been with this.” He caressed the chased-silver hilt of the dress sword he wore. “But that would have made these parchments suspect.” He gathered up the parchments Philip had signed and strode to the door.
“This young man could not seem to find his way out,” he said pleasantly. “He has fallen and struck his head. Send for a barrow and wheel him to the Bonaventure. She sails within the hour.”
Well pleased with himself, Rawlings watched Philip being hauled away.
He had not been able to marry her mother, but at least he had struck a blow for his daughter!
CHAPTER 33
IT WAS LATE afternoon, approaching dark. In Government House the governor had gone up to his bedchamber to change his shirt for dinner, for he was by nature fastidious and he had managed to rip it in striking Philip. The room seemed oppressive, and impatiently he went to open the window some fool had closed.
As he reached the window, there was a ripple in the heavy draperies beside him and an arm shot out, grasping him roughly by the throat. Next, he felt a pistol thrust against his neck. The governor had lived a turbulent youth—he knew what a pistol jabbed between the ribs felt like.
“Cry out and I’ll blow you to hell,” said a soft deadly voice in his ear.
The governor’s neck prickled. That soft voice carried conviction.
“If I might be allowed to turn?” he murmured. “We are conspicuous here in the window.” He hoped that his assailant would find that argument persuasive—he was right.
The governor turned to find himself confronting a dark-haired man of about his own height, a man whose lean countenance bore as grim an expression as it had ever been his privilege to meet. The gray eyes that bored into his had, it seemed to him, a peculiarly hellish light.
“To what do I owe this intrusion?” Rawlings asked, wondering if he could reach that pistol on the table nearby before he was sent to his Maker.
His uninvited guest guessed his intention. “This way.” He waved the governor away from the table toward the door.
“I see. You prefer to murder me in the hallway. May I ask why?”
“I am come to rescue my lass,” that hard voice told him. “And you are my hostage to that rescue.”
“And your lass is . . . ?”
“Mistress Lorraine London, late of Rhode Island.”
The governor’s eyes were suddenly alight. “Mistress Lorraine—of Venture,” he murmured.“I know the lady. May I ask what you are rescuing her from?”
“From a sea captain who, I’m told, has let it slip in the town that he will seize her tonight for wrecking a ship on the reefs.”
“The Flying Fish was wrecked by her captain’s mistaking a swinging lantern on the cliffs for the lights of Bridgetown. The lantern, you see, swung on the clifftop of Mistress Lorraine’s outlying plantation.”
“Well, she will not swing there,” said that hard voice. “For unless you wish to reach hell this night, you will walk into that hallway and order your guards down below to go out and detain Captain Mannering and instruct him that he is on no account to disturb Mistress London tonight, but that he is to repair here in the morning to be instructed by you at your pleasure.”
“Certainly.” The governor moved forward with alacrity and carried out his bidding. He turned to Raile. “You must be the Scot!”
Raile looked astonished.
“Oh, put away the gun,” said the governor cordially. “I will take you to Venture. Lorraine told me about you.”
The gun did not waver. “That was a nice try,” approved Raile in a slightly altered tone. “But I am used to trickery and it will not serve. You will indeed take me to Venture. Call for your horse—and a horse for me as well.”
To the surprise of his servants, the governor and a stranger—how had he gotten into Government House, they wondered, without anyone seeing him?—rode away down the coast toward Venture.
“The question she will ask you is, why did you desert her?” said the governor as they rode along through dusk. Around them sea grapes grew right down to the water’s edge and an enormous turtle was lumbering across the sand.
Raile gave his companion a strange look. “Desert Lorraine? I did not desert her! She came into a fortune and deserted me for a lad from Rhode Island—or so I thought till I learned he’d abducted her.”
“She’s had her revenge,” said the governor, smiling. “When that lad followed her here, she forced him to labor in her canefields—and sleep at night locked in the old slave quarters!”
“My God!” Raile’s brow elevated. “Is Dedwinton still here?” he asked. “For I’d like a word with him if he is.”
There was such a leaping light in those gray eyes as he spoke that the governor chuckled.
“I’ll warrant you would,” he said appreciatively. “But I’ve already had a word with him myself—and had him carried away and shipped back to Rhode Island, a bit the worse for wear.”
Raile’s narrow gaze considered the older man. “What is Lorraine to you?” he asked bluntly.
“Until last night the town considered me her suitor,” was the negligent response. “Now they have been disabused.”
“Then you are—”
“Her friend.”
The horses were climbing as Raile thought that over. “How good a friend?”
“The best.” The governor shrugged, and with that bland assertion, left Raile to wonder.
They were now riding up the long driveway.
“This is Venture,” murmured the governor.
Raile looked around him at the white hibiscus that lined the drive, at the imposing house looming up ahead. “She will miss this place,” he muttered.
“Possibly—but that is better than being hanged as a wrecker!”
Raile gave him a black look. “None will hang my lass!”
“No, I believe none will,” said the governor, amused. They had reached the verandah and they swung down, tossing their reins over the hitching post.
“Walk before me,” instructed Raile. “You are still my hostage to her safe removal!”
“By all means,” agreed the governor. “Keep the pistol out of sight—no need to frighten the servants!” They were ushered into the handsome drawing room, dim at that time of day, and Lorraine hurried in. She was wearing a light blue silk gown that outlined her perfect torso and floated out behind her in a billow of filmy skirts.
“They told me you—” She stopped at the sight of Raile. Her face had gone a shade paler. Then she observed the pistol he carried, which had gone unnoticed by the servants. “What are you doing with that?” she asked on a rising note.
“The governor here is my hostage,” Raile said briefly. “There is no time. You are coming with me.”
“Listen to him,” advised the governor energetically. “He is here to save you!”
“Save me from what?” cried Lorraine.
“Your alleged offenses,” said the governor with becoming gravity. “It is true, Lorraine, that I have a liking for you, but you must remember that I am the law here as well.” He wagged a finger at her. “I cannot condone wrecking.”
Lorraine fetched him an indignant look.
“There is word in the town that you are being blamed for the wrecking of the Flying Fish upon the reef,” Raile explained. “Captain Mannering is said to be headed in this direction with a troop of mounted men to take you to jail for it. I took the governor prisoner in the hope I might head him off.”
“Indeed?” She laughed. “Then I will stand off Captain Mannering. I have men of my own!”
Admiration flashed for a moment in Raile’s eyes and was instantly extingui
shed in the need of the moment.
“You will stand no one off,” he said flatly. “You are coming with me. I will not risk having you taken. My ship is waiting in a cove near here.”
“Oh, and am I to share your cabin with Laurie Ann MacLaud?” she asked sarcastically. “And do not protest your innocence for I saw you in your buckskins embracing her on the riverbank the night of the Jamestown fire—the very night that you had left to go upriver to meet some mythical ‘gentleman’!”
Raile’s eyes widened. “That would have been my brother, Rory, you saw. We are very like—especially in profile. He is married to Laurie Ann. He advised me about the gun sale, but they have fled Virginia and are somewhere in the wilderness. Anyway, I returned and tracked you to Yorktown, but I was told you had come into money and had run away to Rhode Island with Philip Dedwinton!”
A great happiness spread over Lorraine’s face.
“Oh, Raile, I would never have gone with him willingly—he abducted me.”
“I know that now,” he said huskily. “But I had to go all the way to Rhode Island to find it out. We’ll sort all this out later. There is little time. I forced the governor to give orders to the contrary, but who knows. Captain Mannering and his men may be here at any time to take you.”
“You forced . . . ?” Mirth suddenly filled her voice. “Oh, I wish I had been there to see it!” She got control of herself. “Raile, I see that you have not met”—she indicated the smiling governor with a sweep of her arm—“my father. I am Lady Lorraine Rawlings now.”
Raile stuck the pistol back in his belt. “I think you have made a fool of me, sir,” he said grimly.
“Rather say that I have just tested out a new son-in-law,” drawled the governor. “And found him to measure up in every way. Lorraine”—he turned to his daughter—“if you do not marry this man, you are more of a fool than I think you are.”
“Oh, do not worry, Father.” Lorraine’s rapt gaze on Raile’s face was so warm it brought a hot light leaping to his eyes. “I will marry him in a trice—if he will have me after I doubted him so! And if he will not have me in marriage, I will go with him anyway! For coming to save me even though there was no need! And for loving me!” She threw her arms around Raile and he pulled her close. “And because I want no life without him!”
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