Baret let out a breath, more troubled over his half brother than he could or would admit. “I can do nothing for the boy yet. I’ve written a letter. You can deliver it for me. Along with a wood turtle that Hob carved.”
“He’ll be up till midnight with delight. Look, Baret, come home! The boy needs you. Your father may be dead, and Jette is only eight. He looks on you as his father. Then there’s the delightful young lady Emerald, just waiting to become Lady Buckington. I would think you’d be beating your sails back to Port Royal with the first fair wind. She’s as lovely as they come. Marriage will be good for you. Sell the Regale to one of your pirate friends, and let’s return to Foxemoore.”
Baret looked at him from beneath dark lashes, resisting the pull. He managed a laugh. “I always knew there was more humor in that mind of yours than pure Calvinism would allow. I confess I’d enjoy Jette immensely. And I’ve missed the schoolgirl treachery that Harwick’s daughter so blatantly inflicts on me. She ought to be here now, rummaging my desk and gliding about in pirate’s drawers. But—”
“Pirate’s pantaloons! Is that how you envision her?”
Baret concealed a smile. It wasn’t, but he wouldn’t admit this to Cecil.
“She’s emerging into a fair and noble young woman,” said Cecil.
“I’ve no doubt.” He tapped his chin thoughtfully, pretending consideration.
“Yet you persist in calling her ‘Harwick’s daughter.’ Do you realize how often you say that? As though you wish her to remain impersonal. Her name is Emerald.”
“I know her name.”
“Then use it. You might as well call her ‘Harwick’s brat,’ like the rest of the family.”
“I’ve never called her that!”
“And now you’re furious. Why? You care for her more than you admit, yet you are still thinking of Lavender.”
“I never mentioned Lavender. As for Emerald, I know she’s growing up. She’s sixteen—”
“Seventeen now.”
He knew quite well that she was seventeen. “And three years more is fine with me.”
“I’m certain it is.” Cecil gave a laugh. “You’d make it ten if you could get by with it.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Cecil. I intend to marry her. In fact, I admitted I wanted her, didn’t I?”
“In a small way.”
“Do you call twenty thousand pieces of eight small? I bought her.” He smiled. “She’s mine.”
“Indeed?”
“And it’s also been quiet and peaceful even on Tortuga now that she’s safely on her way to England. That’s just where I want her. Out of my life for three years. I need time to breathe. She can learn under the prim and sour instruction of a school-mistress, who will do her willful spirit wonders.” He added with silky innocence, “And when I see her next, she will be donned in French gowns and wearing sugar curls. She’ll be bowing and pleasing me, her dutiful master and upcoming husband!” His dark eyes danced. “‘Yes, m’lord, no, m’lord. Why, anything you say, m’lord.’”
“Hah. You scoundrel.” Cecil’s eyes flared with malicious amusement. “Well, you may see your new darling much sooner than you expect, but without bowing and pleasing your conceited whims.”
Baret scrutinized him with suspicion. Much sooner than you expect. Cecil had sounded too sure of matters. Baret glanced toward the door. “Don’t tell me you’ve brought the little darling back to my ship? I fear I’ve run out of pieces of eight, and who can tell what knave will next wish to duel me for her?”
“No, no.” He waved a hand airily. “I came alone. And if she heard you making light of your audacity in buying her with pirated pieces of eight, she’d relinquish your betrothal to the sharks swimming about and never shed a tear.”
Baret leaned against his desk. “Your warm words cheer me. It’s always cozy to have the girl you intend to marry so desperately attached.”
“You could consider your own wealth of cozy warmth sadly lacking. From what I hear from Karlton, you sent Emerald away without so much as a ring of credential promising your intentions. Every girl wishes a ring to wave under the noses of jealous friends.”
Baret glanced at the family ring on his hand, and his mouth curved. “And the Buckington ring would do well enough, I suppose. It would make Lavender uncomfortable, wouldn’t it? She always boasted it was worth the crown jewels,” he said with a touch of sarcasm. “I should send the ring to Harwick’s daughter at once. After all, it’s only been worn by family earls and countesses for generations.”
“And pirates.”
Baret winced. “I guess I deserve that.”
“You do indeed. If you’re not serious about your claim to her, Baret, you best play the gallant scoundrel you are and do something about it as soon as possible. She’s a fair child, and I won’t have her hurt any more than she has been. With your growing reputation for piracy, and Emerald known to have voyaged with you, you’ll ruin any further chances she has to marry a godly man.”
Baret frowned, and his dark eyes narrowed. “She’ll marry no one else unless I’m good and ready to give her up.”
“Such conceit. You sound the viscount, to be sure.”
“And I’m not ready,” he stated flatly. “Of course, I’ll make good. I told her that.”
“Did you? Very businesslike, I suppose.”
“Not exactly business.” He felt unexpected irritation as though trapped by the huntsman. “Did she send you here to hound me?”
“Good mercy, no! I’ve not seen her, but I have spoken to Karlton. So has Lady Sophie.”
“Then that accounts for it. Sir Karlton would want me to send the ring with blaring trumpets.”
“Do you think Emerald is the kind of young lady to chain you to her even if she is not wanted?”
“If it’s a ring she demands, I’ll send her one—one from Porto Bello. And a trunk of gowns. That should keep her busy for a while. She can tell Lavender I proposed to her on bended knee with thudding heart.”
Sir Cecil stared at him, interlacing his long fingers and tapping them with tried patience. “You would do well to bend the knee to Emerald rather than Lavender. Need I remind you it was you who dueled that odious French pirate Levasseur to claim her?”
“I remember quite well.”
“I didn’t see her chasing after you, begging you to stay, as I’ve seen the others—including Lavender.”
Baret flipped the pen on his desk. The thought brought further irritation. “Never mind. As for Lavender, why do you persist in bringing her up? She’s married to Grayford.”
Sir Cecil’s fingers fell still.
A moment slipped by. Baret, aware of the strange silence, looked up from the pen, frowning, wondering why the man had ceased his badgering. “One would think I’m yet a lad in knee pants the way you lecture. This is like that cramped chamber above the narrow streets of Paris. The only thing missing is my glass of milk.”
Cecil laughed. “Ah! Those were the days … but in truth, I didn’t come about the raven-haired Emerald or Lavender. You won’t be so pleased when you know why I’m here. I won’t be sailing with you, Baret. I’ve just come to ask you to come home before I must come to the grief of my old age.”
Baret laughed.
“The grief,” said Cecil distinctly, “of seeing your death.”
Baret cocked his dark head, scanning him. “So soon?” he mocked. Cecil’s grim expression convinced him that he was not jesting.
Baret swept an arm about his cabin. “This, beloved scholar, is ‘home.’” He looked up as Hob entered with the tea. “This is our new serving man,” he said. “You’ve not met Hob yet. He sent the turtle the night we first arrived.”
“Ah, yes …” Sir Cecil peered down his hawk nose at Hob, taking him in from head to toe. “So this is our turtle man.”
Hob’s shrewd eyes danced with good humor. “Aye, I be him, says I. An’ beggin’ your pardon, Lord Scholar, but do ye wish a dab of sweet cream in the mix
?”
Cecil’s brow lifted.
“Tea it is, ye can be sure of it. An’ no swish of kill-devil rum neither. Straight black tea it is.”
“Well, that is something to be grateful for on this day, Hob. Have you any cream?”
“Nary a drip, ye lordship, but I be knowing of an old cow the boucaniers took from hereabouts. She’s aboard the Black Dragon. If’n ye have a hankering, an’ if Captain Lex Thorpe’s ship ain’t sailed yet, an’ if the cow be in a kindly mood to give a wee bit of milk, I’ll get it for ye. She ain’t always so obliging.”
Baret laughed.
“Thank you, no,” said Cecil with bored dignity. “Black tea will suffice, Hob.”
A minute later as Cecil sipped the brew, Baret watched him, again growing uneasy. “You know me well enough, Cecil. You know I won’t return to Foxemoore yet. So why did you come, really, if not because Emerald sent you?”
“I told you. To convince you to hang up that baldric once for all.”
“A possibility for the future. But not yet. And leave my father in chains, tormented by Spanish whips? I see no cause to give up my role as buccaneer until my father’s reputation is restored and we both have audience with His Majesty. After that? I’ll decide if I like the sea well enough to remain a blackguard. After all,” he said lightly, “it’s the one career that permits me the liberty to attack Spain. Being a pirate brings me immense advantages.”
“Yes, and doubtless you’ll hang for your immense advantages,” his dour tutor challenged. “And I’ll be below the gallows reading from the Scriptures about the due results of your sins until you cease your kicking and the vultures come to feast upon you.”
Baret winced. “You always were the grandfatherly sort, Cecil. You might instead read of His grace and mercy while I twist in the tropical breeze.”
Cecil arched a dignified silver brow. “You are certain of His grace and mercy, are you?”
“As certain as a man can be.”
“Need I remind you there is also the truth of evidence of one’s having sipped pardon from His cup?”
“You may sip if you like,” said Baret with a disarming smile. “I prefer to quench my thirst with a few satisfying gulps.” Turning to the mirror to straighten his hat, he saw Cecil’s smile. Regardless of his pretended hardness, Baret knew the old scholar took great pleasure in Baret’s having learned the doctrine well.
Sir Cecil placed his thin hands on his lap and sighed as he pushed himself to his feet, housed in shiny black shoes. He threw back his thin shoulders beneath the dark frock coat and retrieved his scholar’s hat from Hob, who stood gravely as Cecil peered at him with suspicion.
“Then you’re determined to sail on this new venture?”
“The San Pedro holds an important Spanish don, one who will answer a few questions at my insistence. Yes, I intend to sail,” said Baret easily, the strength of conviction showing in his handsome face.
“Take the San Pedro and you will have double piracy charges on your hands,” Cecil warned.
When Baret regarded him evenly, his tutor sighed. “You’re as stubborn as Royce was. Then I shall leave you to your vices, Baret, and you, Hob, to your turtles.”
“Aye, me lordship, an’ I’ll be thinkin’ of ye with kindness as I makes me turtle soup.”
Cecil placed his hat snugly on his head, his jaw-length silver hair hanging straight and neat. “One thing about Foxemoore, Lady Sophie sets a delectable table. I have never seen so much food. You should repent and turn to raising sugar, if only for roast capon and guava jelly, Baret.”
“I will ponder your advice.” And Baret smiled, amused.
“I have better hope of getting my divinity student out of little Jette than you. Though I admit you studied much harder at Greek. Jette,” said Cecil with emphasis, “prefers to sing.”
Emerald and her interest in a singing school and slave chants flashed before Baret’s mind. “I’m disappointed you’ve given me up for dead,” he said smoothly. He knew his tutor caught the underlying tone of his remark, for Cecil looked at him sharply.
“I, too, have better plans for Jette,” he continued, turning grave at the mention of his half brother. “I don’t fancy Felix as his stepfather. Nor do I trust Jette to be left to his explicit care. Remember, Jette is next in line to the inheritance after me.”
“I’m well aware. So is Nigel,” he said of Baret’s grandfather, the earl of Buckington. “Jette’s in capable hands between us, and you mentioned you wanted the charming Emerald to become his governess. A wise decision.”
“A governess is hardly the title for a young girl I am expected to marry in the future. But what is this you say? My grandfather is at Foxemoore indefinitely?”
Cecil cast him an impatient glance as though Baret had been dozing at his desk. “The war, my son Baret, the war with the Dutch! You are surely aware England is fighting Holland this very hour? The earl can hardly voyage safely across the Atlantic now, can he? The rest of us are rooted to Foxemoore as well. At least until the war ends. And that may take several years. Jette will need to have his schooling on the plantation. A wry set of circumstances, considering that the plans of so many have been turned inside out, including Emerald’s schooling in London. By the by, where is she? She hasn’t shown herself at Foxemoore, and I haven’t seen Sir Karlton recently. If she’s to help me with Jette, she ought to be brought with her trunk to the Great House.”
Baret straightened from the desk where he’d been leaning. He’d been so preoccupied with his planned expedition that the possibility of a delay in Emerald’s voyage to England hadn’t occurred to him.
“They sailed for Barbados,” he told Cecil. “By now she’s on a ship for London.”
The long-range effect of the war could be disastrous to his plans, thought Baret, considering what it might mean to have the earl in Jamaica while he attacked the Spanish Main with Henry Morgan.
“The war means a good deal of trouble all the way around,” Baret told him with a frown, remembering he had promised his grandfather he’d fight for the king against Holland.
Sir Cecil appeared to follow his concerns. “So I thought myself. At least the three years or more in England for Emerald will settle the Jamaican dust as far as this marriage is concerned.”
Baret scowled under his probing gaze. “Don’t look at me like that. I intend to keep my word to Karlton, though he played the game cheaply.”
“You did little better by her. Twenty thousand pieces of eight! Well, she won’t need to move into the Great House for who knows how many years until this war is over and you redeem her honor. A fine mess of pottage that would be.”
Baret’s eyes narrowed, and he leaned back against the desk.
“Stubbornness is written in your countenance,” said Cecil.
“I said I’d keep my promise.”
“Saying so to the girl in that tone isn’t likely to send her into titters over donning a wedding dress. You look as though a matchlock were barreled into your back.”
“Never mind. I got us both into this, and I’ll defend her before the hounds.” In a gesture of frustration over more than Emerald, he doffed his hat and dropped it with boredom on his desk. He thought of Lavender.
“I suppose Grayford will now be called on to fight the Dutch here in the Indies,” he said thoughtfully, looking over at Cecil curiously, for as yet his mentor hadn’t mentioned Lavender and his cousin Grayford’s unexpected marriage at Foxemoore.
“I suppose he will,” was all he said.
“You don’t sound enthusiastic,” said Baret dryly. “What’s the matter? Do you think he’s not up to commanding the H.M.S. Royale?”
Sir Cecil brushed his sleeve, avoiding Baret’s gaze. This wasn’t like Cecil. What was he trying to hide?
“I’m not jealous of his commanding the king’s ship, if that’s what troubles you,” said Baret flatly. He snatched up the silver Peruvian cup of fresh coffee that Hob swiftly poured him. “I wouldn’t trade the Regale for t
wo of the Royal Navy’s ships!”
Cecil cast him a glance. “I must be going,” he said. “The knave whose sloop brought me here will be wanting to set sail for Port Royal. In the meantime, if you won’t redeem your reputation on the Caribbean to save your own neck, do think of the rest of us. You should, if you would listen to my advice, return to Jamaica to make peace with Governor Modyford and your grandfather. Wed the girl and settle down to grow cane.”
Baret’s mouth turned into a bored half smile. “Thank you, no. Not while my father drags Spanish chains on his ankles at Porto Bello. Forget the Dutch and French! It’s Spain that England needs to blast off the Caribbean map!”
“Temper, temper. Do you also wish to forget Emerald as well as the Dutch?”
Baret caught up his hat. “I’ve no time now to consider her or anyone else,” he said easily.
“I suggest you have time and not the inclination. Forget Henry Morgan. You’d do better to write a letter of appeal to King Charles.”
Baret ignored him. “Morgan’s getting the expedition ready for Porto Bello, and the Regale is itching to unloose her cannon on any Spanish galleons who try to stop us.”
“Attack the Main when England has signed a peace treaty with Madrid and you will hang,” said Cecil gravely. “There is no question in my mind. It’s the Dutch colonies that His Majesty has sent word to Modyford to attack.”
“If His Majesty wishes me to attack fellow Protestant brothers in favor of the inquisitors who marched across Dutch soil, he may do better in appealing to his brothers in Madrid.”
Sir Cecil winced. “Softly, lad—treason will be added to piracy.”
“I can only hang once. Hob! Here—fill it.” And he held out his cup.
Minutes later, Baret led the way to the open cabin door, ducked his head, and stepped out.
The tropical sun was blazing. The water of Cayona Bay was a glassy green-blue. The warm breeze did little to cool him as he stood, hands on hips, looking across the cove to the other vessels at anchor, all belonging to the Brotherhood.
He took the quarterdeck steps up. What Cecil didn’t know was that he wasn’t going to sail with Morgan just now. He was sailing with Erik Farrow to attack the Main.
Buccaneers Series Page 44