The Diamond King

by Patricia Potter

  Meg downed it as well as any sailor.

  Jenna got a needle and thread from a chest she’d seen Hamish use, and started sewing.

  “Land ho!”

  Alex looked west, where the island of Martinique should be, then relinquished the wheel to Claude, who had returned looking far better than when he’d left the quarterdeck. He’d even shaved.

  Alex had made no comment. Instead, he peered through the spyglass, looking for both land and enemy ships. Or, for that matter, friendly ones. He wanted to hear the latest news on the possible treaty between England and France.

  Blazes. He should never have let that British merchantman tempt him. He would be halfway to Brazil. That damned flag always had a way of making him do foolish things.

  Now he not only had passengers he did not want, but he had a wounded child.

  He dared not linger in Martinique. The moment a peace treaty was signed, British ships would be hunting any privateers, and the Ami would not have the protection of letters of marque.

  The lone bird had been joined by others circling overhead. Alex squinted against the sun and saw the land in the distance, a dark green jewel resting on a background of sapphire and emerald. Nothing, he thought, was as beautiful as these waters and these islands.

  But they would be as dangerous for him as Scotland once a peace treaty was signed. They were small, and word traveled among them. He would be a marked man.

  His only hope for a future lay in the interior of America, a vast land where a man could lose himself and his past.

  He searched the seas around the Ami, and wondered about the Charlotte and those aboard her. Had they made it through the storm? Had the British seen her? Hopefully, they were already in Fort Royal.

  He put down the spyglass. He would tell the Campbell woman she would soon be safe. It was the least he could do. He frowned, startled by the jump in his heart at the thought, and the sense of loss where relief should be.

  Alex stopped at the door of the sick bay. He heard female voices singing.

  Two female voices.

  He pushed the door open. Meg’s gaze was on the face of the woman above her. He saw that much. Her voice followed the Campbell’s melody. One mature and strong and lovely, the other weak and sweet.

  Meg was singing! Hell, he hadn’t known she could sing.

  That realization hurt, though he couldn’t quite understand why. He hadn’t wanted to get close to the children. He’d known he could not keep them, not with the future he’d planned, nor the price on his head if anyone discovered Alex Leslie was still alive. His bad leg and the scar on his face marked him forever. His options were limited. There was no place for children with him. No safe place.

  He swallowed hard as he listened to the two voices. The one sounded so weak. Should Meg be expending her energy that way?

  And the other voice lowered her own as not to over-shadow it. Or so it sounded.

  Although he was already half inside the door, he knocked, and the singing stopped. He felt an inexplicable sense of loss. He stepped inside. There was no time for personal indulgences.

  Meg and the Campbell lass turned to face him.

  “We’ve reached Martinique,” he said. “I’ll talk to the royal governor and make arrangements for your passage to Barbados.”

  “What about Meg?” the Campbell asked.

  “I’ll find a doctor for her. She is no longer your concern.”

  “Will you leave her there?”

  He truly did not know what he was going to do. He went over to the bed. “How are you, Meggy?”

  “She throwed my arm,” she said, slurring her words. As he leaned down, a decided odor of rum met him.

  “Rum?” he asked.

  Robin had been sitting, watching. “Meg did not want laudanum,” he said. “She asked for some rum.” He hesitated, looked at the Campbell lass. “I fetched it. She didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  Now Rob was defending the damn woman. It did not make him feel better that he too had had raised his opinion of the lass. Reluctantly. “It’s all right,” he finally said. “Go get some rest. It will be several hours before we anchor.”

  Rob still hesitated.

  Alex glanced from Lady Jeanette to each of his two charges. He felt oddly betrayed.

  “Rob,” he said in a tone that he hoped would spur the lad’s departure.

  The lad cast an apologetic look at Lady Jeanette, then plodded to the door and left.

  “Do you have packing to do, Lady Jeanette?” he asked. At least he could put some distance between them with her title. Since his own had been taken by King George, that put her a step above him. In that aspect, anyway.

  “Nay,” she said equably, though her back stiffened.

  He saw the gleam of battle in her eyes, and perhaps something else.

  “How is your companion?” he asked.

  Her gaze faltered at the courtesy. “Better,” she said, then nodded toward Meg. “I want to know what you plan for the children,” she said steadily.

  “I will do what is best for them,” he replied curtly.

  “Like go to war with the English navy?”

  “What would you suggest?”

  “I could take them with me. At least Meg,” she pleaded.

  “Nay,” Meg said. “I want to stay with Will and Robin.”

  Alex glared at the Campbell. He was back to thinking of her as that now. “We will talk outside,” he said. Then he leaned down and touched Meg’s cheek. Still too warm. “Get some sleep if you can,” he said.

  Then he went to the door and held it open. The Campbell did not move. He moved back into the room rather than stand in the doorway like a helpless fool.

  “My lady,” he said in the same tone he used to issue orders to his men. It didn’t seem to faze Jeanette Campbell. “I don’t want to have to carry you out,” he said after another moment passed.

  She hesitated, then took a rigid stance. “You cannot think of keeping that child with you,” she said.

  “I cannot think of abandoning her, either,” he said.

  “You are a pirate. They will hang you and probably these two children, too.”

  “Then you admit your English friends are barbarians.”

  “No more than the person I am looking at now.”

  “What would you do with a Jacobite child?” he asked sarcastically. “Would your betrothed approve?”

  “I do not care what he thinks,” she said after the briefest of pauses.

  “You think I would let her be raised by an English sympathizer?”

  “I do not know that he is,” she said.

  “Oh, you do not?” he said.

  Her chin came up. “His … politics have never come up.”

  “You do not aim to be a dutiful wife, do you?” he observed with cynicism. “I doubt he will appreciate being presented with orphaned fugitives.”

  “They are children.”

  “That has never mattered to the English—or Campbells—before,” he said.

  “They … we … are not all villains.”

  He did not deign to answer that. “Get yourself and your companion ready,” he said, dismissing her. But despite the impossibility of her suggestion, he admired her for making the offer. Even if her interest lasted only as long as most English promises.

  He would not put Meg back in English hands. He would never forget, nor forgive, the systematic slaughter of Jacobite women and children following the battle at Culloden Moor. He would never trust the rulers who condoned such actions.

  He looked at Meg’s wound. The new stitches. He knew Hamish had been on deck all night and day, supervising the repair of sail. It could mean their lives. So the Campbell had sewed Meg’s wound.

  The stitches were well done. Even he could see that. Unlike many highborn ladies he knew, this one had skills other than singing and comforting.

  Again, a reluctant admiration tugged at him. For a fleeting moment, he considered the possibility of keeping her aboa
rd the Ami for Meg’s sake. But then he would be no better than the English he hated. It was one thing when she was a passenger in a ship he’d taken; it was far different to detain her after arriving at a safe port.

  But Meg needed a woman’s presence. She was turning into a hoyden, or perhaps she had always been one. It would not be long before she reached marriageable age, and he wanted her to have a happy and contented life. She needed to learn manners and womanly skills.

  And she had unexpectedly responded to Jeanette Campbell.

  Nay, he warned himself. You cannot even consider such a thing. She’s a Campbell. Have you lost what wits you have?

  Even worse, he wondered whether there was a part of him that wanted her to stay for reasons other than Meg’s well-being. It was that accursed honest streak that he’d never quite been able to quiet.

  She was the first woman who didn’t appear to notice his scar or his limp. She detested him for other reasons, mainly for the lack of character she attributed to him.

  He couldn’t dispute that assessment. In the last two years, he’d forgone every bit of honor he’d ever possessed. He doubted whether he could get it back. Or even wanted it back, if it meant giving up his hatred of his enemies. It had been the only thing that kept him alive in the months after Culloden. It was who and what he was.

  Ignoring the Campbell lass, he sat with Meg until her eyes closed. Part exhaustion, part rum, he thought. In this matter, at least, he could not disagree with the use of rum as a sedative. He knew how addictive laudanum could become.

  Now what? The woman had asked a very good question. What would he do with Meg and Rob?

  What you’ve always intended. Find them homes in France. You just have to try a little harder to find the right people. After this trip, there will be enough money to provide the very best.

  After Brazil.

  Then he would no longer have the responsibility.

  He stood. Jeanette Campbell would leave with the other passengers. He would have peace again. At least as much peace as his memories would allow.

  Blazes, why did that thought disturb him so?

  Chapter Twelve

  Ever since the capture of the Charlotte, Jenna had wanted her freedom back. She hadn’t liked being told what to do by a pirate.

  When had she realized she’d had no freedom even before her ship was captured? She had been caged by people who judged her by her mark, and by her own self-doubts.

  And now …

  There was something seductive about the Ami, and its occupants. Even its captain.

  There was also something very seductive about the freedom she’d felt today.

  It was strange to lose freedom to gain some.

  But as contradictory as that fact was, it was true. Hamish, Meg, and even Robin had accepted her to some extent. She had been useful. She had even been wanted. Her mark had been accepted also as a part of her, neither good nor bad. It just was. And that was the greatest gift she’d ever had.

  She had come alive in the past several days. Perhaps the past several weeks. She loved the sea and the wind and the sun. She loved being free of the darting looks and the unguarded shame in her parents’ eyes.

  She only knew that she felt strangely at home on this ship, even more so than on the Charlotte, where she’d been loath to let the other passengers know about the mark. She knew her excess of clothes had made her appear eccentric. She had tried not to care, just as she had tried all her life not to care.

  In truth, she’d come to care very deeply about Meg. Perhaps because of Meg’s vulnerability, one that Jenna knew only too well. How could she leave Meg, or Robin with his too-old bravado and cynicism? Whether the captain or Robin or even Meg knew it, the children needed her as much as she needed them.

  How could she leave them in the company of pirates? On a ship that could be taken at any time by the English? If the captain was correct, the children would be at risk, both because they were Jacobites and because they were aboard a privateer that could—at the stroke of a pen—be labeled a pirate ship.

  And as unwise as it was, as completely foolish that she knew she was, she did not want to go ashore. She did not want to go to an uncertain future with a man she had never met.

  Her stomach tied into knots at the very thought. Far more now than it had in Scotland. Then marriage had seemed her only escape. Now she wondered if she were going to an even worse situation where she’d have no protection, no alternatives, no escape.

  The simple—and devastating—fact was that she did not want to leave any of them. Meg. Robin. And worse, she did not want to leave the captain.

  He cared nothing for her. She cared nothing for him. But he … intrigued her as no other man ever had. Not, she admitted, that she had known many men well, or even slightly. She had always been hidden away.

  And now she wanted—nay, needed—to explore all the contradictions of this particular man: the roughness and tenderness that seemed to be a part of him, the cynicism in his eyes and the loyalty he inspired in his crew. Her father had never had that kind of loyalty from his soldiers. They obeyed out of fear or for monetary rewards. Not out of affection. And affection was what this crew gave their captain. She saw it in the way they responded to him.

  She could not stop thinking about the man who was her captor, and how different he was from her first impression. Or was he?

  Had he just known how to use her?

  But even more important, she did not want to leave the ship without Meg. She wanted Robin, too, but Meg was in more jeopardy. She was a lass who did not belong with a crew of men, while Robin was twelve, old enough to be a cabin lad.

  In the past few minutes, though, the idea had taken root in her heart.

  Something in the child had struck a chord in her. She recognized the loneliness, the quiet desperation, the fear. They had different causes. Hers came from nature, and a family who never accepted imperfection. Meg’s came from cruelty and fear.

  But how to keep her when the captain was so adamantly opposed?

  She doubted she could smuggle the child off the ship, even if Meg would go willingly, which she doubted. And if she did, what then would happen to Robin? She wanted to keep them together, to keep them both safe.

  She reached the captain’s cabin and opened the door. Celia was inside, moving around, which was progress. A tray of food was on the table.

  Her maid looked up and smiled. “I heard them saying we will reach land soon.”

  “Aye, today, it seems,” Jenna said.

  “Bless the angels,” Celia said thankfully. “I will no’ be sad to see the last of this ship. I’ve been living in mortal fear.”

  “No one … has harmed you?” She had thought Celia safe, under the protection of the captain, and had certainly checked on her.

  “Oh, nay, my lady, but that is not to say they would not. Black-hearted villains they be.” She looked at Jenna for approval of her assessment. When one was not immediately forthcoming, she added, “It was a gentlemanly thing he did, giving ye his cabin. That Mrs. Carrefour …”

  “He may be many things, but I would not include gentleman among them,” Jenna said dryly.

  “Without that terrible scar, he would be fair handsome,” Celia ventured.

  “I have not noticed,” Jenna said. It was a lie but a small one. Attractiveness came from the inside, not the outside.

  “How is the lass?”

  “Still very ill,” Jenna said. She went over to the windows and looked out. She could see land now. A great dark green mound seemed to rise straight out of the sea, contrasting with the emerald sea.

  “Well, I for one will be pleased to be on dry land,” Celia said as she stood beside her. “My, but it does look fine.” Then she turned to Jenna. “We will stay awhile?”

  “I am not sure,” Jenna said.

  “I do not like the sea, my lady.”

  “I am expected in Barbados.” Her voice held no conviction and she knew it.

  From the expression o
n Celia’s face, she had realized it, too. “Ye are going to Barbados?” Celia asked.

  “I am not sure Mr. Murray will still want me.” Or the children, she added silently.

  “But of course he would. ’Tis not your fault that the ship was seized.”

  “He has never seen me. My father says he knows about the birthmark, but what if my father lied?”

  Celia did not say anything. It was obvious that she would not put that beyond her father.

  “The child is very ill,” Jenna repeated.

  Celia’s lips turned downward and panic widened her eyes. “My lady …”

  “I will take care of you,” she assured Celia.

  Celia did not look reassured.

  “I do not know exactly what I will do,” Jenna added. “I wanted to keep the child with me, but the captain—”

  “Would never give her care to a Campbell,” Celia said with the familiarity of years of serving Jenna. “I have heard the insults. They are not fit to wipe your shoes.”

  “They have reason, Celia.”

  “You did nothing to them,” Celia said.

  “They believe my family did, and I fear they may be right.”

  “Ye are not responsible for that,” Celia said indignantly.

  “I canna blame them, though. Meg’s father was killed at Culloden Moor; her mother was abused and later died. Robin’s father was also killed, and—”

  “Nay, ye cannot blame yourself,” Celia said, her voice softened with sympathy.

  “I have to find a way to help Meg. And Robin if possible. If they are taken by the English …”

  “What can ye do?”

  “I do not know yet, but there must be something.”

  “I cannot go back to sea,” Celia said, her hands twisting together. “I would do anything for ye, but—”

  “I know,” Jenna said. Celia had lost much weight and her face was pale. She had been better this past day, but she would never be a sailor.

  “What are you planning?”

  “I am going to try again to have her stay with me.”

  “And Mr. Murray? Would he accept the bairn?”

  “If he does not, I will not stay.”

  “Then …”

  “I could become a governess. I have some jewels that I could sell.”