Her only regret was to leave Great-uncle Mathias and the Singing School on Foxemoore, where she aided him in his calling of translating the language of the African slaves into Christian music. She would also miss the few children who were allowed by the family to attend the school, the mulatto twin boys Timothy and Titus, and eight-year-old Lord Jette Buckington, who “owned” them.
She cautiously scanned the buccaneers, searching the throng for a glimpse of Captain Levasseur. Her cousin was not yet in sight as the other pirates cast pieces of eight into the street. Although it was money that she so desperately needed, she would not scrabble in the dust for an unwanted favor of a pirate. What was rightfully hers, stolen by her French cousin, waited aboard his ship. She must, in spite of the risk and her uneasy conscience, masquerade herself as a common cabin boy and board that pirate vessel secretly to retrieve it.
“Zeddie, we shall never see him in this madness! We shall seek him on the wharf.”
“Wooden idols be tossed to the fire, m’gal, and your father would hang me on the yardarm should I allow you to go a-walking!”
“Oh, Zeddie, I’ve little choice. And anyway—” she said with determination “—most of them know I’m Captain Karlton Harwick’s daughter.”
“Aye, but remember the kill-devil rum pouring freely into the mugs, m’gal. It will soon make a rogue unfearful of ten men with the temperament of either your father or Levasseur.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” she said uneasily.
She was soon down from the carriage, though, and pushing her way through the throngs of merchants and adventurers toward the wharf where other longboats were still arriving.
A northeasterly breeze was tempering the tropical heat of the day’s blazing sun, yet her unease goaded her into rapidly swishing her fan of vivid blue-and-yellow parrot feathers. In the center of the fan a small mirror flashed like silver as it caught the sunlight.
Zeddie hobbled beside her, hard put to keep up with her rush, carrying his indigo-dyed shoulder sling with ornate pistol. In his younger days, he had been a decorated soldier in the army of Charles I. Zeddie had fought for a time in England’s Civil War, where he had lost an eye and had been sent to Barbados as a political prisoner in the days of Cromwell. Her father, who had known Zeddie in London before the war, had bought him from his indentured service.
Zeddie was the one person Emerald could rely on for protection in the absence of her father. And so for what ventures ill or good she might undertake in Port Royal, Zeddie was a staunch ally and never far behind.
Emerald stopped on the wharf and scanned the ships. They were various sizes; some had twenty guns, or ten, or as few as six. There were a few schooners and sloops—for pirates often preferred the smaller ships in order to maneuver shallow waters and harbor in secret coves.
She stood feeling the moist breeze, uncertain which vessel belonged to Captain Levasseur. He had, like the others, participated in the raid on Gran Granada. Zeddie had heard from the old turtle man, Hob, at Chocolota Hole that her cousin’s vessel had been sorely struck in the battle and that he had limped home in danger of being overtaken by the Spaniards until he reached his allies among the French buccaneers at St. Croix. There his vessel had been repaired.
Her eyes scanned the names of the ships, all scarred from recent battle. Uneasiness crept over her, for most bore the names of merciless pirates, even though the flags bearing the skull and crossbones or other equally vile insignia had been taken down and stashed away for future ventures. In place of the pirate flag there flew the Union Jack, the French fleur-de-lis, or the Dutch tricolor.
She noted The Black Dragon, The Kill-Devil, The Dutch Revenge, and a host of other names humorously mocking the royalty of England or the dons of despised Spain. She saw an ill-drawn picture of the king of Spain skewered with arrows burning with pitch.
“Is the turtle man certain Levasseur returned from Saint Croix?” she inquired.
Zeddie lifted his prized periwig—which a pirate had tossed to him on a previous run, calling in jest, “From the king of France”—and scratched his head. He lowered the wig again, squinting his one good eye like a bird as he scanned the vessels anchored offshore. It was a terrible yet beautiful sight against Jamaica’s setting sun, which had turned the sky into the semblance of a purple amethyst.
“M’gal, surely it is that fine one yonder. For the wretched rogue’s come back with his sea chest bulging at the seams.”
In the twilight Emerald followed his gesture to a handsome ship without a flag. It was anchored a distance away from the others, as though its captain preferred solitude.
She drew closer to the edge of the wharf to watch a late-arriving longboat. She did not see from which ship it had disembarked.
“Looks to come from the Black Dragon,” was Zeddie’s guess.
But Emerald was uncertain and wondered, Was her cousin in this longboat? Or could he still be aboard the Regale?
She stood with Zeddie watching until the longboat came near the stone steps below the sea wall. She glimpsed a half-naked brown Carib kneel in the prow and grab a rope to steady it against the dock.
Straining for a look, she saw not Levasseur but another buccaneer stand to leave the boat. She stared at the man. Wearing a white shirt with billowing sleeves laced tightly at the wrist, he was a handsome and virile figure whose features were shadowed beneath a wide-brimmed velvet hat and a cocky plume. His woolen hose were also black, worn over muscled legs with calf-length Cordovan boots sporting silver buckles.
He stepped out onto the worn sea steps and looked upward to where Emerald gazed down. He paused, and for a moment their gaze locked. Then he said something in jest to the man behind him, who laughed.
Why, he must think I’m a doxy, she thought, horrified.
Swiftly she jerked her head away in the direction of her buggy. “Come, Zeddie, Captain Levasseur must not have arrived ashore yet. We’ll wait in Father’s lookout house until it’s dark.”
Zeddie was scowling but not at the new arrivals coming up the wharf steps. She cautiously followed his stare across the street toward the gambling house, where a group of buccaneers was gathered, talking and laughing.
Emerald noticed a vaguely familiar man wearing maroon and black taffeta trimmed with Spanish lace. His short black beard was meticulously curled below an arrogant face, and his black periwig was of shoulder-length King James style curls dusting his broad shoulders. “Sir Jasper!”
She heartily disliked the conceited man, a widower—or so it was said—somewhere in his thirties. Beside operating a lucrative business as a slaver, owning two vessels that he sent to West Africa, he was a large landowner. Her father insisted that he had cheated his brother out of the family inheritance. No one in the West Indies had seen Sir Jasper’s brother in several years. She put nothing past him.
Despite Sir Jasper’s irrefutable reputation, there were prestigious families in Jamaica who would easily have given their daughters to him in marriage. The planter who gained him as son-in-law would end up with one of the largest sugar estates on the island. Because of the benefits from such a union there were those parents who were willing to overlook the man’s character and receive him as a guest in their parlors and at their fine dinner tables.
Sir Jasper seemed to go out of his way to provoke Emerald when her father was away, for unlike most of the other women, who were flattered by his attention, she would have nothing to do with the rake, nor did her father approve of him.
“The knave’s not only after my daughter, but he thinks to buy out my shares in Foxemoore. I’ll duel the rogue first!” he had said.
It appeared to Emerald that Sir Jasper delighted to annoy her. He mocked her dedication to Christianity and spoke against her helping Great-uncle Mathias at the Singing School. Jasper had hinted that he might bring the work of her uncle before the Jamaican Council for teaching Christianity to the slaves. Doing so was forbidden by island law, but he had also intimated that if her father permitted him to call upon her, he
might reconsider.
She took his interest lightly, for she was not the only girl in Port Royal that he sought to flatter. He was even more attentive to her cousin Lavender. But Lavender with her golden hair and blue eyes had already informed Emerald that she was in love with another man. Sir Jasper, she said, frightened her, for he was on her mother’s list of eligible men, although he was not considered to be nearly the prize that Baret Buckington was, whom Lavender expected to marry. Viscount Buckington was the grandson of the earl in London and was heir to all that belonged to his deceased father.
Nevertheless Cousin Lavender was alarmed, for she had told Emerald that Sir Jasper was gaining political importance in Jamaica and was expected to receive a ruling seat on the governor-general’s Council.
The news brought concern to Emerald as well. Her father said Sir Jasper was an associate of an uncle soon to arrive from London—an uncle who was close to His Majesty and having secret Spanish sympathies because of the lucrative business of clandestine slave trade on the Main.
“A merry countenance!” stated Emerald in a low voice of dismay behind her parrot fan. “It’s just our luck to run into Sir Jasper now! Quick, Zeddie, before he sees us.”
“Aye, lass, it’s the bloke, and notice whose comp’ny he seeks? Pirates! But no less one than himself, if you ask me.”
A chill prickled her skin.
Zeddie frowned and took hold of her arm to escort her across Fisher’s Row toward the buggy. “This ain’t a fair place to be hobnobbing, m’gal.”
Emerald turned to march across the street, her slippers clicking on the cobbles, and Zeddie’s gangling frame following closely behind.
“Sink me! Here the fop comes now!” he said. “Won’t be just Jamie Boy thrown into Brideswell if I draw pistol.”
To her discomfiture, Sir Jasper made a pretty movement, overtaking them and bracing himself in the middle of the street directly ahead of her. He doffed his wide hat and bowed low at the waist.
“Doth the lady rush away to join mongrels? Come, darlin’, and shoo away this noisome plague who imagines himself a bodyguard. You are, madam, I humbly assure you, quite safe in my presence. We have much to discuss.”
Masking her alarm at this fox, she stood her ground.
Sir Jasper walked toward her with a bold smile on his arrogant bronzed face, his hat held under his arm. With the other hand he reached to take hers.
“Ah, Miss Emerald, how fortunate to come upon you like this. I beg your company at supper.” He gestured across the street to the gaming house. “It is a place noted for the finest turtles in all Jamaica. Miss Hattie will see we have all our wants met.”
“Nay, Sir Jasper. If you have ought to speak to me, you can say it here and now in the presence of Zeddie.”
His eyes flickered coolly. “Your company, madam, is preferred.”
Zeddie stood behind her, and Emerald heard something of a growl in his throat.
“Come, m’gal,” said Zeddie, taking her arm.
But Sir Jasper would have none of it. He blocked her way, and his eyes fixed on Zeddie with malevolence. “Off with you, before I lose my gallant patience before the lady.”
Emerald felt Zeddie’s arm tense, and she thought him to be in contemplation of a move for his pistol—a sure mistake, seeing that Sir Jasper could exercise his power against him if he chose.
She was deciding her next move, a whispered prayer on her tongue, when Sir Jasper smiled and she felt his strong fingers on her arm, drawing her away from Zeddie to propel her across the street.
Zeddie drew his pistol. One of Sir Jasper’s men struck a blow to the back of his head.
Emerald let out a cry as he crumpled forward to the street. “Zeddie!” she gasped as she beheld the old man on hands and knees.
Sir Jasper said easily, “No alarm needed, my dear. He’ll live—not that it’s any great loss if he did not. See now! It’s only your sweet face across the table of my supper I wish for. There are at least ten women with titles who would be pleased to dine with me.”
A voice interrupted from a short distance behind her, a resonant voice that reeked calm yet cool challenge: “Your presence, Sir Jasper, is about as safe as a fox in the hen coop—and judging from the girl’s desire to depart, nearly as bothersome. She’s but a hatchling to be sent home. Let her go. As you say, ten titled women would be pleased to join you. I suggest you go find them.”
Emerald forgot Sir Jasper and Zeddie and turned to the man who had pronounced her a hatchling.
Sir Jasper also turned toward that easy yet commanding voice, as though he recognized it and felt no pleasure.
“Ah! It is you, Baret. I see you’ve eluded the Spanish don. How fortunate for the cause.”
His tone convinced Emerald that he had hoped otherwise, and she saw the buccaneer named Baret gesture with an airy wave of his hand.
“No matter. A simple device.”
Sir Jasper gave a short laugh. “I wish I had your arrogance, Captain Foxworth, and your luck. You live a charmed life.”
Emerald now realized that the buccaneer named Baret Foxworth was the man that she had glimpsed earlier in the longboat. He was smiling aloofly at Sir Jasper, and she could see that there was a barrier between them. Sir Jasper did not appear anxious to test the strength of that barrier, and Emerald swiftly sized up the buccaneer.
He was obviously an adventurer like the others who had sailed with Henry Morgan and raided Gran Granada. Yet she detected something more in his manner, a disciplined character that suggested uncompromising values.
His lively dark eyes bore a hint of sardonic humor. His hair, too, was as dark as ebony, and though absent the fashionable periwig, it was worn in the length of the king’s Cavaliers who had followed King Charles into France during the days of Cromwell and the Civil War. Also like the Stuart king, he wore a thin mustache. About his mouth hovered a faintly mocking expression.
He was armed with a hearty supply of wicked things—a long rapier and a pair of pistols. He wore these, as all buccaneers did, at the ends of a leather sling studded with silver.
“Your dinner awaits at the Red Goose,” he informed Sir Jasper. And with that same sardonic smile, more as a host than a challenger, he gestured toward the gaming house. As he did, the silver lace at his wrists gleamed in the light of the rising moon, now hanging like a shimmering orange in the black sky above Port Royal’s quay.
If Sir Jasper wished to confront him over the matter, he was soon placated. With a smile equally as debonair as his opponent’s, he bowed deeply to Emerald and completely ignored Zeddie, who was blindly reaching for his golden periwig lying in the street.
“Another time, madam,” he said and added as he smiled at Baret, “Perhaps you have plans of your own, Captain Foxworth?”
“Perhaps, Sir Jasper … but I hardly find robbing nurseries a pleasant pastime. Adieu.”
Sir Jasper took leave with his men and crossed the street into the gaming house.
Emerald turned toward the man, who now gestured to his half-caste serving man to see how Zeddie was progressing.
By now Zeddie had his periwig on, albeit crookedly. The serving man whom Baret had called “Charlie” retrieved the pistol Zeddie dropped and calmly returned it to him.
Emerald was about to express her gratitude to Captain Foxworth but found that he already appeared to have dismissed her. His manner was preoccupied as he spoke in a low voice to another of his buccaneers, who then followed Sir Jasper into the Red Goose.
When Captain Foxworth saw that she was still there, aloofness showed in his smile. He bowed. “Your servant, madam. You may go.” The remark was spoken with the same casual tone of dismissal that the court of King Charles reserved for lesser servants.
Bewildered, Emerald wondered, Who is this buccaneer with the airs of nobility? She felt a small flame of embarrassment and rebuked herself for standing there as though her feet were planted in the street like the cobbles. She disliked her plain calico dress even more. And her lack o
f status. She painfully remembered Cousin Lavender, who had everything she did not—including a noble reputation.
Baret gestured toward Zeddie, who was now on his feet, though wobbly. “I think your bodyguard is now able to escort you to your destination.”
She could think of nothing profound to say and hoped her behavior equaled that of a lady who may have come from a fashionable school in London. “My thanks for your gallantry, sir.”
He smiled faintly and offered another bow, briefly appraising her. “It’s getting late. Your carriage waits.”
Quickly she tore her eyes from his and walked away as though wearing rustling satin.
Zeddie trailed behind, his hand holding onto the lopsided periwig sitting on his bruised head.
She and Zeddie had not gone far when she heard Baret say something to his buccaneers.
“Never saw her before, Captain,” answered one. “Doesn’t look like a doxy.”
She cautiously glanced over her shoulder and saw Captain Baret Foxworth watching her. She turned her head and hurried on.
She was frowning as she and Zeddie crossed the street toward her waiting buggy. “Did you ever hear of Captain Baret Foxworth?” she asked casually.
“Aye, m’gal. A name growing as one of Morgan’s men. Foxworth’s a blackguard pirate to be sure, but a gentleman tonight, I’m thinkin’, and grateful I am.”
Emerald silently agreed and climbed into the buggy, not waiting for Zeddie to help her. She wondered that she was faintly disappointed that Baret Foxworth was one of Morgan’s captains.
He came up after her to take the reins. The night was loud with music and voices.
As Zeddie turned the horse toward home, her offended emotions over Sir Jasper’s odious behavior began to cool, and her reason was restored. She had come here for one purpose, which thus far was not accomplished.
“Oh, Zeddie, we can’t go home. I’ve got to board Levasseur’s ship, or Jamie and Ty will both be left to Pitt’s cruelties. I must try!”
“Sure now, your cousin will be a rich man after the raid on Granada. But will the daw cock restore what he stole from you so many years ago?”
Buccaneers Series Page 3