The Diamond King

by Patricia Potter

  “I know,” Burke said. “They have been here and at the tavern.” He spat. “Someone told them they had seen a gringo in this area. I do not believe whoever said the words will live long.”

  That sounded reasonable to Mickey. He did not like anyone who interfered in someone else’s business, particularly for profit. Greed made a man untrustworthy. “What do you plan to do?”

  “The captain should have returned today. Something has delayed him. Tomas has gone off to look for them.”

  “Tomas?”

  “The man who guided the captain to the meeting place with the bandeirantes. He returned early. His wife had a child two days ago. It cries all the time, and he was ready to leave again.”

  “I don’t like this,” Mickey said. “The British do not look like they are leaving soon and some toff has moved into the inn. I heard one of the Brits saying he is Lady Jenna’s … intended.”

  Burke grimaced. “An English toff. She deserves better than that.”

  They exchanged glances. Neither of them had thought much about the Campbell lass other than with the hatred they’d directed toward a Scottish clan that had sided with the bloody British. Not at least until she had helped the captain in Martinique and nursed young Meg back to health. Disdain had slowly turned into guarded respect.

  They had also both seen the way the captain’s eyes had returned to her every time he thought no one was looking. It had become a matter of speculation among the crew.

  “We cannot let that happen,” Burke said to the man he disliked.

  “Nay,” said Mickey, who returned the feeling.

  “If she disappears now, the British will turn Vitória inside out.”

  “Aye. We have to wait until we know where the captain is.”

  “Keep an eye on her,” Burke ordered.

  Mickey bristled. “I do not take orders from you.” Then he smiled. “But I planned to do it anyway.”

  Burke’s expression was grim. “I hate waiting. If only …”

  “We do not know where he is. All we can do is wait. I suppose this bandit, or whatever he is, knows what will happen if he betrays us.”

  “I ha’ made that clear,” Burke assured him.

  “I can find you here?”

  “Aye. I will let you know if there is any word.”

  Mickey hesitated. He wasn’t sure how much he could trust Burke. But then the captain trusted him completely. He nodded. “I will be around the hotel, looking drunk.” He paused. “Our lady will not be getting on that ship.”

  Whenever Alex thought he might survive the shaking, the fierce fever, then the racking cold, the attacks started again.

  He was barely conscious of Marco and the priest. The priest, whose name Alex still did not know, used his robes to help dry the sweat, and his own blanket to cover him when the chills replaced the burning heat. He urged on Alex spoonfuls of water mixed with some kind of bark and made him drink it. Cinchona, the priest had called it. It was so vile it was all he could do to swallow it.

  The priest even prayed over Alex.

  That, Alex thought, was an exercise in futility. Alex no longer believed in God. If He was a benevolent being, He had forsaken certain of His children long ago. If He wasn’t, then Alex saw no reason for entreaties.

  He wanted only a woman with hair streaked with gold and eyes the color of the sea. He wanted to hear her voice singing a sweet song, and he wanted to see a smile on her face.

  He should not want that at all. A groan ripped from his throat, and he tried to contain it. He’d learned about the importance of silence. Even in this lonely place, and despite the weakness that claimed his body, part of him clung to caution.

  It rained, the water filtering through the heavy growth and soaking all their supplies. When the sun emerged, the forest literally steamed. Yet still he shivered so hard he could not talk. He knew he mumbled something, but he couldn’t understand it. After what seemed like hours, the shaking subsided, but he knew it was only a matter of time before the fever returned. Perhaps he could take advantage of that small window of time.

  “I can walk,” he told the priest. He was grateful to the man even though he no longer believed in a kind God. Perhaps he liked the priest because he was unlike any Alex had met. He was a thief, too, but a thief on behalf of his people. Alex had half expected him to disappear along with the other bandeirante. They could have taken his gold and the diamonds he’d purchased. They would not have the lasting relationship they wanted, but it would be more than they had had.

  The priest looked at him doubtfully. He had already carved a walking stick for him, but now he offered a hand burned brown and calloused. Marco and the other, silent bandeirante had gone ahead, chopping out a path. Taking the priest’s hand, Alex rose unsteadily, then leaned against a tree, trying to get his balance. Bloody hell, but he was weak.

  He had to get back. The Ami should be there, and it could not wait for him indefinitely.

  He took a step, then another. If only he could travel a fair distance before the chills and fever returned.

  He would reach Vitória or die trying.

  But the journey seemed endless. The land did not change in his eyes. The rich green that had fascinated him on the trip into the interior now seemed to reach out and clutch him, holding him back. The vividly colored flowers seemed too brilliant, even deadly.

  It started to grow dark and the priest stopped. Alex felt the onslaught of fever again. He knew now it would be followed by the chills and the shaking. He hadn’t been able to eat anything, not with the bark mixture he’d forced down his throat. His stomach felt sick and his vision was blurred.

  “I am not going to die,” he mumbled, more to himself than to the priest. “The bloody English couldn’t do it. Not … ready.”

  The priest leaned over him. “Senhor?”

  Alex could not answer.

  Jenna dressed carefully in her good dress, wishing that she had Celia to help her. Instead, she twisted and turned to button the back of her dress, then brushed her hair until it shone.

  She had not Celia’s skill with her hair. Celia with one twist could pile her hair into a knot at the back and allow a curl to drop alongside her face. Jenna could most certainly put her hair in a knot but it always looked messy and unkempt. Instead she put on a cap over her hair, allowing it to fall free. She bit her lips and pinched her cheeks.

  She was ready for David Murray when he appeared. She had hoped, nay, prayed, she would hear something from Mickey or Burke or, even better, from Alex. But there had been nothing. But then the inn had been filled with British soldiers. She had strained to hear something, anything, but there had been no news.

  Perhaps Mr. Murray would have news. But she would have to be careful to hide her interest, and the reason for it. If anyone believed she had been a willing accomplice, she too would be subject to penalties.

  David Murray arrived, looking very much the prosperous gentleman. He wore tan breeches with a shirt trimmed with lace, a sky blue waistcoat, and a white cravat. His hair was powdered and pulled back in a queue.

  He smiled as he studied her as much as she had studied him. “You look lovely,” he said.

  She curtsied. “Thank you.”

  He offered her his arm. “I have arranged for a corner table.”

  Jenna wished she did not feel so guilty, that she could enjoy a normal supper with an obvious gentleman. She couldn’t. She wanted supper with an outlaw.

  “The weather is very warm,” she said once she was seated.

  “It is in Barbados, too,” her companion commented.

  “Tell me of your home.”

  “It is dryer than Vitória,” he said. “But beautiful. I think you will like it.”

  He was assuming—quite naturally—that she would marry him as planned.

  “And your plantation?”

  “I grow sugar. It’s made mostly into rum. South Run overlooks the Caribbean and we get the sea breeze most of the time.”

  Sugar. Th
at meant slaves. But then she’d always known he must have some.

  She shivered.

  “Are you cold?”

  “No. I was just thinking of …”

  “I am sorry. I feel responsible. If you had not been coming to meet me, nothing would have happened. You would be safe back in Scotland.”

  And hiding in her room. A virgin. Unloved, unwanted.

  She tried to smile. “I do not regret anything,” she said. She started to say she had learned to love the sea, but she had already said that the sea made her sick. Those lies, again. They always came back to haunt her.

  “You are a brave woman,” he said.

  She shook her head. “Nay. I had little choice.”

  But she had. She could have escaped in Martinique. She had made a decision then.

  “I did not intend to keep reminding you of what happened,” he said apologetically. “And I was able to keep the lieutenant from questioning you. I told him you knew nothing, that you had been locked in a cabin the entire time. The other passengers were able to give descriptions.”

  “Thank you,” she said again. How many times had she said that?

  He was silent for a few moments. “If it is not … too soon, I thought we could wed here.”

  Jenna stilled. “You do not know me,” she said feebly.

  “I admit I was not totally enthusiastic about wedding someone I had never met,” he said slowly. “But my grandfather, who arranged the marriage with your father, assured me you were kind and intelligent, that you would make a good wife and mother. You are more than that.”

  She was very conscious of the lump in her throat growing larger. “There are no marriageable women in Barbados?” she asked finally.

  “They marry young,” he said. “I had no desire for a girl of fourteen or fifteen. I wanted someone educated to teach the children, and I suppose I wanted someone who had lived in England.”

  “I am Scottish,” she reminded him.

  “Aye, but your family is Campbell.”

  There it was again. Her name. A curse to some.

  But not to David Murray. His very kindness convinced her of that. How could she cheat him? Lie to him? She was sure he believed she was a virgin. A decent woman. An honorable woman.

  The silence stretched between them.

  “Will you consent to a marriage here?” he asked.

  “No,” she said sadly. “I had planned to try to get to know you in Barbados, to see whether we suit before a wedding. It is too soon.” She started to say, particularly now, implying that the last weeks had been too terror-filled for her to make decisions. But she could not lie to him. If he had been demanding of every detail of the past weeks, she could have lied. But his very patience made it impossible.

  He looked disappointed, but he nodded.

  “How long have you been in Barbados?” she asked.

  “Fifteen years,” he said.

  “How did you happen to go there?”

  He shrugged. “You would hear, sooner or later. I was involved in a duel. I killed a man. I was a third son, and an embarrassment. My father gave me a sum of money and said he never wanted to see me again. He put me on the first ship out of London. It happened to be bound for Barbados.”

  “And you turned it into a plantation.”

  “Not without a lot of work,” he said.

  “And your wife? Was she from Barbados?”

  He hesitated, and she felt unease in him. Discomfort. As if he, too, was withholding information.

  She was learning about secrets and lies. She wondered if she too avoided a glance, or hesitated a moment too long.

  He flushed under her scrutiny.

  Why did he want to marry her so suddenly?

  She studied him. She had seen venality in faces. Greed. Ruthlessness. She did not see it in him. But then did he see a pirate’s light-of-love in her? Obviously not.

  “No,” he finally said. “She was from Martinique.”

  She knew her eyes must have widened. “French?”

  “Yes.”

  Her eyes lowered to the food that had just been delivered to the table. None of it looked familiar. But she was hungry. She had not realized how much until this very moment. Her mind had been occupied by other matters. And now it was an excuse as well. She did not want to like this man.

  She did. He was hiding something. She recognized that. But she was hiding something too, and she did not think that made her a particularly evil person.

  She tasted some meat that had been spiced far beyond anything she had tasted in Scotland or on the Ami or in Martinique. The fire roared down her throat and she grabbed the goblet of wine that had been put in front of her.

  He picked up his knife and started to eat.

  Oddly enough, the silence between them was not awkward. He was an easy man to be with; easier, in fact, than the captain.

  Unfortunately, she had found she no longer valued easy or comfortable. She wanted the electricity that flashed between a man and woman, the storm that made every part of her quiver inside at the thought of him. She wanted to feel the way she had felt in the captain’s arms, as if she had come home. She knew him now, perhaps better than he knew himself. She knew the way he hid his feelings, and she knew the raw courage with which he defended those for whom he felt responsible, the fierce loyalty he invoked in others.

  She looked up and saw Mr. Murray’s gaze on her. She met it directly, amazed at herself for doing so.

  She never would have done that a year ago.

  She never could have done that a year ago.

  Hours later, David Murray returned her to her room. He hesitated at the door, then lifted her hand and kissed it.

  “I hope you will reconsider,” he said.

  She did not have to ask him about what. He meant his proposal for an immediate marriage.

  She could do nothing until she knew what had happened to Alex Malfour or whatever his name was. Until she told David Murray everything, and he had reciprocated. Probably not even then. How could she ever settle for less now that she had known glory?

  It was dark outside now. She saw one British patrol on the street, and no more.

  She waited an hour. Then another. She braided her hair. Considered changing into the sailor’s clothing, but then she would have no excuse at all if seen. This way, she could say she needed some air. Just some air.

  That, at least, would be the truth. She felt she was suffocating by not knowing what had happened, by the intricate verbal dance she’d just performed with David Murray. She knew she would go mad without knowing something.

  Midnight. It had to be long after midnight.

  Mickey would be out there someplace. He would not have deserted her.

  She waited another hour. The streets were completely quiet now. No British marines anywhere.

  She opened the door and looked out. The corridors were quiet. She wondered which room David Murray occupied, though it made no difference.

  Jenna gathered her skirts around her and her slippers made little sound as she fled down the corridor, then the stairs. The gentleman who manned the desk was nodding in a chair. She moved through the hall to the back door and quietly opened it. A half-moon and stars lit the alley outside.

  She stood in the shadows there, trying to get her bearings, hoping against hope that Mickey would suddenly appear.

  Mickey or someone else.

  She pressed her back against the wall of the building, more lonely than she ever thought she could be, even in her worst moments. Apprehension had filled her these last few hours. She had thought about the captain, and somehow she knew he was in trouble.

  She tried to tell herself it was only her imagination.

  Yet she couldn’t throw it off.

  A shadow. Then a form materialized from behind a building.

  “I have been waiting for you,” Burke said. Not Mickey. Burke. He was supposed to be with the captain.

  “How did you know I could come?”

  “
I knew,” he said with assurance.

  “Where is the captain?”

  “I just heard. He is still in the forest. He is ill.”

  Her heart dropped. “I will come with you.”

  He gave her what anyone else would consider a grimace. She knew it to be the slightest hint of a smile.

  “I just need to get a few things.”

  “Aye,” he replied simply.

  She turned around and ran into the inn, then slowed to tread more silently up the stairs. She reached the top, only to find herself face-to-face with David Murray.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  His face was in the shadows, lit only by an oil lamp from the hall. He wore no waistcoat and his shirt was open at the neck. His eyes were questioning. “My lady?”

  “I needed some air,” she explained.

  “You were talking to someone?”

  “Just a sailor.”

  He glanced around the hall. The doors were all closed tight. “May I come into your room?”

  She froze. What if he told the lieutenant and his marines that he had seen her sneaking out to meet someone? What if he kept her here? What if Burke came up to find her when she did not appear?

  “I am very tired,” she said. “Perhaps tomorrow.”

  “If I were a gentleman, I would agree,” he said. “But I have not always been one, and I need the truth.”

  “The truth?”

  He had opened the door to her room, and by his very movements he herded her inside. He also brought the oil lamp inside.

  “You need not fear me, my lady. But neither do I wish to spend my life trying to save someone who does not want to be saved.”

  She wanted to flee. Alex was deathly ill somewhere, and perhaps she could help him.

  “I am not sure what you mean,” she said instead.

  “You did not appear to be a terrified hostage.”

  “I am a Scot. I do not terrify easily.”

  “Apparently not,” he said, “if you go out at night and meet a sailor, and not one from the British ship.”

  “What do you want, sir?”

  “I do not want to covet a woman already taken. Are you taken Lady Jeanette?”

  “I am betrothed to you.”

  “I think we both understood that … we might not suit.”