by Holland Rae
There was a knock on the door, and Catalina called for entry. A young boy, just thirteen to the month, opened it and allowed a woman heavy with child to precede him into the room.
“Captain, Miss McEwan wanted to know when we might be seeing land,” he said, his voice cracking upon the last word. Catalina looked at him and felt a sense of intense fondness. When she had first met young William, he’d been naught but a child, and now he was on this side of manhood and doing it proud, if she did say so. Another reminder of the speed of time, when one was looking in the other direction. Disregarding her nostalgia and the cobwebs of memories, she turned to face the aforementioned Miss McEwan.
“Is your stomach feeling upset?” she asked the girl, indicating to William, who slipped through the door without another word. Rose McEwan nodded, though from one glance at the sickly white hue of her face, Catalina knew the answer.
“Every hour or so, I feel as though I’m to lose my meal,” the young girl mumbled, though it was clearly an effort on her part to speak. Rose McEwan was barely seventeen—the second daughter of a sheep farmer from the Americas. She had been unwed and had only just learned of her delicate situation, before fleeing for the docks in search of the notorious Catalina Sol.
“We’ll be docking at Dwyer House in just a few days’ time,” Catalina said, an entirely true note of sympathy to her voice. Though she’d never, herself, been in a family way, she had witnessed many women who had. Their experiences upon dry land had been enough to put her off the matter. To be aboard a ship on the open ocean was likely too much of a test.
“I thank ye, Captain,” Rose said, and it looked to Catalina as though she were using the whole of her strength to speak. This was no shrinking violet, even for her young age. She had done what she had to, in order to protect her unborn babe. That she appeared only mildly discomforted was a testament to her strength. The young girl took another breath. “I haven’t much to give ye in the way of thanks, and I know I’ve been an awful burden upon the crew these months.”
Catalina held up her hand to stop her. It was a speech she had heard before, from so many. “You have been no burden, and neither has the child,” she said, kindly but firmly. “And you will be no burden at Dwyer House either. You will have a life there, as will your babe, and that is payment enough to myself and the crew.” It was barely discernible, but Catalina would testify that she saw a shade of color return to the girl’s cheeks. “Now, you rest. Tell William I’ve recommended you root of ginger and whatever dry bread remains in the cupboards. Sleep these next days, and we’ll be on land well before your time.” Rose nodded, giving her thanks once more, and then taking her leave.
She’d be damned if she ever regretted leaving England. Surely, she and her sister remained in the best communication possible for a woman at sea, and if returning was what she truly wished to do, then Catalina would find a way to make it possible. Hell, she could return to the life of Lady Charlotte Talbot if that was her desire, marry a man for whom she cared, live out the rest of her days upon an estate, and bring an end to her life at sea. But it was no longer her life that was at stake. It hadn’t been a matter of simply her own life since she had first bought the Liberté and felt the cool grip of a sword in her hand. It hadn’t been her life since she had first opened Dwyer House, placed it in the charge of Mrs. Antonia Clarence, and begun a rescue mission that would take her around the world. For every Rose McEwan they safely delivered to Dwyer, two more women waited to take her place. For every William Fischer, there were four more babes in arms, simply waiting at the dock with hope.
She had hope too. Visiting Dwyer and giving Rose McEwan a stable ground upon which to birth her child was only one of the reasons she had turned the ship for Hispanolia. It had been her home from the start, and the inhabitants of Dwyer House had grown each time she returned, as word of the strange captain and crew of Liberté spread around the seas. Yes, she had returned for a report from Antonia and to bring Rose to her new home so she might deliver her child on solid land. But she also returned for a far more prudent cause—they needed the money.
Of course, no one on the Liberté or at Dwyer House ever lacked for anything. Catalina ensured the very best for her crew of runaways and vagabonds and all those she had set up on land. Once a person was firmly secured in their new home, Antonia and her ladies taught them a craft or a trade, and the sales from such items kept them all in good stead, as well as giving them skills, for if they ever wished to venture from their family at Dwyer. It didn’t hurt any that Catalina happened to run a successful trade business as well, peddling their items alongside silks and spices. But she needed more than just good money, and it couldn’t be funds drawn from the pot for Dwyer or the Liberté.
She was going to open a new home, a second house for the lost souls of the world. She and Antonia discussed it each time she returned home, and Catalina knew that it would not be long before the current place stood full to capacity. It was time to consider the future, and for that she needed a job.
While crafting and cooking was as fine a way as any to keep the coffers full, a far more businesslike venture ensured her success as a mercenary for the needy. Because, for all that the mismatched crew of the Liberté appeared as little more than women with children and young boys, they were a fighting force that could best any pirate crew in the entire sea. Catalina would know—she had taught them all herself, having learned at the hand of a master swordsman. And so they hired themselves out, mercenaries of a sort, for a fantastical price to those who could afford it and for free to those who needed. Right now, it was she who needed a fantastical sum of money to finance her next project.
Catalina turned back to her earlier thoughts. Home and the day that Armand de Bourbon had left for India were far away memories now. It wasn’t unusual for them to crop up around this time of year, and though one day they might be more faded in her mind, she would simply have to live with their strange anniversary. Instead of remorseful, Catalina thought, as she left the captain’s quarters for the deck, she should be grateful. After all, if Armand had stayed, she would have married him, and where would that have left the Rose McEwans of the world?
The deck was dazzling, alight with all the delicious sun of a Caribbean springtime, as it bounced from the boards being washed by strong young men. She got her fair share of thieves and vagabonds, but over the years, Catalina had learned how to weed out the good eggs from the bad and the ones who liked to think they were bad but were really good at heart. No. She didn’t miss anything about England, except the company of her sister. But times were good upon the Liberté, and she would never lack for those to love, and those who loved her in return. The strays and runaways she took in were her family now, and she was theirs.
Chapter Two
19 April 1803
400 leagues off the coast of the Americas
Armand Rajaram de Bourbon, Earl of Devon, Comte de Dreux, and son of an Indian princess, had a headache that would rival the morning after of any pirate or vagabond who ever roamed the Spanish Main. He was certain he could hear the waves of blood beating in his ears, as if he were standing upon the shore at high tide.
“Read the letter again.” He rarely raised his voice, but even he could not deny the sharp tone that spoke to the room at large. Harrington, a weedy man with glasses standing just to his right, cleared his throat and spoke, his voice wavering slightly.
“To the Right Honorable, The Earl of Devon,” Harrington began. Armand winced. There was no doubt in his mind that the phrase honorable implied otherwise. “If you wish to see your brother, the second son of the Earl of Devon, Henri de Bourbon, ever again, we request you adhere to these demands.” Armand rubbed his eyes, but the pounding in his head only grew worse. He knew it was unlikely to abate any time soon.
“One, cease all capture and imprisonment of pirates. Two, release all pirates from imprisonment immediately. Three, cease all trade in, sale, and distribution of silk, spice, and rum immediately. Adhere strictly t
o these demands, and your brother will be returned to you alive.” Armand had already seen the scrap of parchment upon which the demands had been laid out. He had turned it over in his hand a dozen times, first quickly, in desperation, and then slowly, in hope. He asked, despite knowing the answer, “Is there anything else on the page?”
Harrington looked like a small bird frightened by a dog, and Armand apologized, schooling his tone. “I need time to think,” he said after a moment. He dismissed several of the men from the room, leaving a small circle of Harrington and two others, Wendell and Spritz, standing before his desk.
Armand took a glance at the paper again and stood from his chair, pacing over to the window. He had received the missive late the night before. The courier had given no indication as to who had given him the letter and whether he was still upon the island. Since then, Armand had read it over more times than he could remember, until the ink had started to drip before his eyes and his vision had swum. He needed a glass of something strong.
“What are our choices?” Armand asked. Ever since the death of their father, their remaining parent, he and Henri had been as close as brothers came. While much of the pounding at his temple could be attributed to fears for his trade business, or the fears of a magistrate for the future of justice, his heart was feeling the sickness in equal measure.
“We could shut down the trade, release the prisoners, and never arrest another pirate,” Wendell put in. He had spent several decades in service to the King’s Royal Navy, and he was a man who took no nonsense from anyone, often including Armand. From the tone of his voice, it was clear that he was as likely to follow a single one of those requests as he was to don a corset and prance through the streets of London.
“I say, sir,” Harrington exclaimed, his voice ripe with overexcitement. “How dare you jest at a time like this? We are in the very midst of an emergency.”
“All I need is a crew and some cannon,” Wendell replied. “Then we won’t be in the midst of an emergency anymore.” Before his two advisors could further delve into squabbles, Armand cut into the fray.
“It hardly matters. We don’t even know who sent the demands, let alone who to threaten with cannon. Perhaps step one should be something related to that, do you not agree, gentlemen?” Wendell looked as though he were close to knocking Harrington’s spectacles to the ground, but both men knew a higher authority when it stared them in the face.
“If I might, sir,” came the restrained voice of the man not yet involved in their squabble. Spritz had lost one eye in a battle with a band of pirates when he was not yet twenty. Coupled with a long, gray beard and a wise expression that seemed to accompany his deep blue, singular gaze, he gave the impression of knowing more about the world at large than anyone else Armand had ever met. Spritz was a damned good advisor to have on a rock in the middle of the world. “I do have one idea that might protect your interests at both ends.” There was a weighty pause as all attention in the room slowly turned toward him.
“Out with it, man,” Wendell barked.
Armand quelled him with a glance. “What plan do you have?” he asked. He was beginning to feel a slight panic settling in. Nearly a whole day had already passed since his brother had been kidnapped from his very own home, one of the most guarded places on the entire island. If they didn’t act soon, Armand had little doubt that it would be far too late.
“I overstep my bounds by requesting you keep your mind open,” Spritz said. “The plan, at least initially, does not fit within the set of rules you live by.”
Armand raised an eyebrow. It was not an uncommon sensation, with Spritz, to feel as though the Holy Father himself had descended to teach man of his own frailties.
“My mind is open,” Armand reassured him, albeit, with ferocity. “What is this plan of yours to retrieve my brother?”
Spritz looked him square in the eyes, his single eye seeing well into Armand’s mind. It was a disconcerting sensation. “Catalina Sol.”
If Armand had believed his head to be pounding before, he had been sorely mistaken. Ten years ago, as their family had sailed to bring their mother back to her homeland one last time, pirates had overrun their ship. Armand had sailed the world several times by the ripe age of seventeen, and his defenses were down. His sword was in his chambers. The pirates stole, fought, and killed. In the end, after tying down all the men and stealing anything of value to be taken off the ship, they set fire to the boards, threw a few bottles of rum against the flame, and jumped for safety to the waters below, swimming back to their ship.
His mother, though she had been so terribly weak, untied them. With the help of the other women aboard the ship, the men were released into the blazing flame of the deck. Armand remembered each moment of that morning as though it were happening again, right before his eyes. He screamed to his brother and father to jump to the waters below, bellowed, his voice hoarse above the flame. And then he turned to his mother.
He remembered her expression with a glassy sheen, as though the memory cabinet of his mind took out her final smile, washed it with love and nostalgia, and showered it in a sprinkle of well-fed guilt.
“My son…” Her voice was so soft, so very soft he was barely able to hear it over the din. “My son.” She pointed to the vast ocean, where not a single island or ship appeared against the horizon, and Armand’s stomach dropped into his knees.
“You have to come,” he told her, even as every impetuous bone in his body acknowledged the horrible truth.
“I am not strong enough,” she said, and the serene smile that slipped gently across her beautiful, gaunt face told Armand that she had already made her peace. He hadn’t.
“Mama—” The name he hadn’t called her since he had been a babe in arms. “Mama, you must come with us.” Perhaps it was selfish to ask. He had often wondered. The truth of it was always going to end with her slipping out of his fingers. But he had been robbed—their whole family had been robbed—of the last weeks, perhaps last days, they were going to spend with her, of her final thoughts and expressions of love. He didn’t give a damn that their every belonging had been stolen. Far worse was the theft of their final days with his mama.
“Please keep your brother safe.”
Armand nodded, feeling a thousand miles away.
“Now go, my son,” she whispered, cupping his cheek. The fire grew closer now, and he knew that their time was short, shorter than he had ever imagined it would be.
“Mama,” he repeated. “Please come with us.”
Her eyes answered for her, and Armand wondered whether she was even seeing what was happening around her anymore.
“I love you, my son…” And then she was fading away in the flames, and Armand tried to reach for her fingers, tried to grasp her for the one last chance to take her from the ship and its terrible fire, but then they were closing in around him, and with the final glance to where his mother had slipped away, Armand had jumped from the boards of the burning ship and into the water below.
“No pirates.” He thought he had regained a grip on his calm, but the very name spoken to the room at large was enough to make his blood turn cold. “I will never grant any mercy to pirates, whatever their good intentions might be.”
“If I might, sir…” Harrington spoke quietly. For all that he came across as a bumbling fool, the man had a certain amount of courage. Armand felt as though fire was shooting from his ears, and he was itching for a fight. “Catalina Sol is more of a mercenary type. Of what I’ve heard, she’s never even killed a man who didn’t rightly deserve it.”
And Armand had thought he had a headache before. “I will work with a pirate,” Armand said, gritting his teeth, “the day they build a ship capable of sailing to the moon.” Harrington paled and stepped back. Armand rethought his earlier assessment.
“Now, if anyone else has any other ideas, I would be perfectly pleased to hear them. But under no circumstances, and I make this quite clear, no circumstances, will I ever enter a partner
ship with a pirate. I don’t care who the pirate is, and I don’t care what they do.” Even Wendell looked as though he would much rather be battling mad dogs with his fists than stay in Armand’s office a moment longer, but Armand didn’t care. He was exhausted, worried, and frustrated, and these were his closest advisors. Surely, they would survive.
“Go,” he said quietly, his mind whirling like a sail in heavy winds. He couldn’t think. He didn’t want to sit, but he didn’t want to stand. His stomach protested, but he couldn’t eat.
The three men didn’t move.
“I said go,” Armand shouted to them and felt a pang of guilt at the outburst. It wasn’t their fault his brother had been kidnapped and was being held for the worst type of ransom to be found on the open market. “I’m sorry.” They turned quickly. “I just need to think.”
Harrington nodded for the three of them, and then Armand really was alone as the door clicked into place. He was alone in the room, alone in his house, the absence of his younger brother, the one he had sworn always to protect, more powerful with each passing moment. Had he been overly reactive to Spritz’s suggestion? He didn’t think so. No good at all would result from working with pirates. He’d be damned if he would leave another of his family members ever again at their mercy.