Sir Cecil stood looking up at him. “As I said, Baret, I leave you to your vices. My conscience will stubbornly retain you in daily intercession to our gracious Lord. In the meantime, if you need me I shall be found at Foxemoore.”
Baret smiled down at him. In spite of the man’s gruffness, he was deeply attached to his divinity master. “Take care, and speak also fair words on my behalf to my grandfather. With Felix at Foxemoore, I will need someone who can define to the earl the difference between a buccaneer and a pirate.”
“I shall try. Nigel sees little difference, and I begin to think he is right.”
Baret watched him depart the ship for the cockboat. Cecil’s words continued to plow through his mind as the small craft was rowed toward a waiting sloop on its way to Jamaica. His warning of certain trouble was not lost on a rebellious spirit.
Baret knew his plight. He had taken his share of Spanish ships and had won more than his share of fencing duels. His sword was stained with Spanish blood; he insisted it had all been done in war and not for personal vengeance.
Cecil was wrong about one thing, though. Even without his warnings, Baret’s conscience was alive and smarted with more pain than he would ever admit. Hatred for Madrid and anything Romish was the reason he had taken to privately studying Calvin’s theology and the worn Geneva Bible. There were two natures within him that were at war with each other. Perhaps neither would emerge as total victor yet.
It was not a trivial matter to him to simply forgive and forget those responsible for the torturous death of his mother. They had buried her alive for refusing to recant her Reformational beliefs. Now his father, too, was a prisoner and suffering.
He watched Sir Cecil until the boat was but a dot. Cecil wanted the youth he remembered, but it was too late to return to his Cambridge innocence, Baret thought. The young viscount who had once been was forever gone, changed by the cruelty of the West Indies and life on Tortuga.
He wondered that he felt such little concern at the possibility of premature death. He had not meant it to be this way, but little by little the hardness had set in. It had been Lavender’s gentleness that he depended on to restore tenderness to his heart. Then she had betrayed him. Now there was only Emerald. Could she ever take the place of the idealistic girl he had seen in Lavender and whom he had expected all these years to make his own?
Perhaps he would never return to England. Perhaps he would remain in the West Indies. Perhaps he would one day settle down to build his own plantation, not in Jamaica, not even in Barbados, but in the Carolinas. It was a thought. Not more than that. He had thought of the Carolinas because of Emerald. She wouldn’t need to be a countess there, enduring the gossip and cheap innuendoes that would surely plague her steps for the rest of her life. No matter that he married her. The tale of the infamous duel would endure a lifetime. No, it would last for generations if he married her.
If he married Emerald. It was curious, even to himself, that he could look back and wonder just why he had relented to Karlton.
Had he been dazed? Had it been anger at Lavender? He had felt reckless, ruthless, and, yes, even impulsive! A trait that was not like him at all. Why, then, had he agreed to the marriage? Was it possible he felt more strongly about Emerald than he understood? That made little sense, unless his mind could not relinquish the illusion of a young woman whom it had been easy to love from afar without truly testing his affection.
Marriage could not be entered into with frivolity. He knew that. And, yes, he still felt attached to Lavender, despite her marriage to his cousin. Emerald had entered his life suddenly; dramatically, and she had left her indelible imprint on his mind, but there had been no leisure to consider what it meant. Her appearance stirred his passions—she was alluring, willful, sometimes sweetly innocent—but did he know her well enough to love her, to pledge his undying devotion, his utter faithfulness before God in a marriage ceremony officiated by Sir Cecil?
He would not need to think about it now. The painful process of that emotional decision was years away. She was safely packed off to England, he told himself. His emotions, too, were securely locked away, where he intended to keep them for an indefinite period of time.
The Spanish Main waited. A dangerous path lay between him and any future in the king’s court, and liberating his father would take all his energy and skills. Emerald was out of his life now. He was free to attack Cartagena, Coro, Cumaná, Margarita! And a certain Spanish galleon, the San Pedro, leaving Cartagena, awaited boarding by his buccaneers.
Baret was still musing over his contradictory thoughts as he strolled the quarterdeck, feeling the warm wind tug at his hat. He noticed a small cockboat being rowed from the beach toward the Regale. Carib slaves dipped their oars while the one passenger picked up a telescope and fixed it upon Baret. After a moment, Baret lowered his own glass.
“If it be Cap’n Farrow,” suggested Hob, coming up from behind, “a piece of eight says he comes ‘bout Morgan.”
Baret watched the cockboat come alongside. The slave knelt in the prow to grab the rope and steady the boat against the Regale’s side. A moment later Captain Erik Farrow came nimbly up the awkward rope ladder.
Baret stood on the quarterdeck looking down at him.
Erik doffed his hat in response to Baret’s similar buccaneer salutation. He climbed to meet him.
Erik Farrow, in keeping with his style, revealed little emotion. He joined Baret at the railing, the breeze tossing his golden hair. His lean, tanned face was elegantly chiseled of fine bone, both somber and arresting, sometimes reminding Baret of a Michelangelo statue of an archangel that he’d seen as a boy, although he would never say so to Erik.
He’d told Baret he was born on the island of St. Kitts. He’d never known who his parents were and grew up as a mistreated cabin boy aboard a slave ship, trading out of Africa into the Spanish Main. Slaving was a part of his early youth that he would not discuss with Baret, however, except to tell him how he had loathed his captain and eventually set out as a buccaneer on his own. Later he became a soldier in the first Dutch War. They met while Erik convalesced in London and Baret was a youth at Cambridge. A shared hatred for the religious politics of Madrid bound them together in silent agreement to sink any galleon they came upon.
Baret had soon discovered that title and social position meant much to Erik. There had been a time in the recent past when Erik had even seemed willing to betray him to Felix for a comfortable life of nobility in London—with Lavender. Felix had hired him to spy on Baret and in return for his services had knighted him. Since then, he’d broken pact with Felix and was now loosely aligned with Baret. For how long? With Erik he was never quite sure.
Erik removed his hat. “Did Sir Cecil come about Emerald?”
Baret turned his head and gave him a measuring glance. He called her by her first name, as though he had the right.
“Yes, why do you inquire?”
Erik shrugged. “Emerald is a noble woman at heart.”
“You have deducted this, I suppose, from lengthy musing about the rarity of Harwick’s daughter?”
“I try not to think.”
He now had Baret’s full attention. “You try.”
“Yes.”
Baret’s gaze narrowed. “But you’ve noticed her.”
Erik shrugged lazily. “I confess I haven’t had much time. I was foolishly enamored with Lady Thaxton. Then there’s that cousin of hers—Minette. A bold little wench, that one.”
Baret’s irritation prickled under the hot, tropical sun that was making his dark hair stick uncomfortably to the back of his neck. His eyes turned hard. “It seems, Sir Erik, that you are destined to unwisely allow yourself to become enamored with the same women as I. First Lavender,” he said too calmly, “now, Harwick’s daughter. I confess I’m beginning to find it irksome.”
Erik lifted a fair brow. “So it seems, your lordship.”
Baret’s gaze narrowed. He waited in vain. “Is that all you have to say about i
t?”
Erik contemplated calmly. After a long moment he said, “Yes, your lordship.”
“Call me by title one more time,” gritted Baret, “and I vow I’ll draw sword over it.”
“As you wish, my captain.” Erik’s gray eyes sparkled like sun on the snow.
Baret pulled his hat an inch lower and leaned back against the rail, crossing his boots at his ankles.
“Tell me, Erik, for the question begins to plague me, how long before I knew did you vainly make plans to steal Lavender from me?”
Erik scowled. “You behave the typical offended viscount, impatient and irritated.”
Baret laughed. “Never underestimate the tantrums of nobility. If we were in London I’d have you arrested and tossed in the Tower.”
Erik’s lips tightened into silence.
Baret’s smile was dangerous. “I should, even at this late date, turn you into gallows bait for having tried to take her. However, since our precious Lavender has already become Lady Grayford, it won’t be necessary.” He turned, as though now bored, picking up his telescope again and fixing it on a ship. “Stay far afield from Emerald. You may have her little French cousin. And now! Let us forget the fairer sex, who make men’s lives miserable. Any word from Morgan?”
Erik cast his gaze skyward to watch a soaring gull. “We both waste time on memories.” He held his hat under his arm and glanced toward a ship making for Tortuga’s harbor. “No word. And we waste time waiting. We have two of the best ships on the Caribbean. We can make an expedition of our own.”
Baret tapped his chin. “You’d risk the Venezuelan Main alone?”
“Why not?”
“We’d need at least a ship or two more.”
“Pierre LaMonte wishes to join us. He’s steady and cool.”
“We’ll talk to him, but let’s be discreet. Even here there are few I trust. The French buccaneers may have cheered my defeat of Levasseur in the duel; nevertheless, they are first loyal to their own blood. And with England now at war with Holland and France, they will be sure to side with them.”
Erik went down the quarterdeck steps with him. “This venture of our own would get us both out of Tortuga for a seasonable time,” he said. “Need I remind you there is the unresolved matter of the treasure of the Prince Philip?”
“You need not remind me. I remember well. So does Levasseur. He’s been prowling about recently. Last night he met with Lex Thorpe of the Black Dragon.”
Erik glanced at him, troubled. “You should have run Levasseur through when you had fair opportunity—or let me do it.”
“There was no need. And I will take care of my own enemies. If I had killed him, Harwick’s daughter would have mourned him.”
Erik looked surprised. “She dislikes him!”
Baret’s dark eyes flashed. “She only pretends to.”
“There is something between them still, you think?”
Baret wasn’t certain. There was much about Emerald he didn’t know. “No matter, she’d have held his death to my account. I won’t give her the opportunity. She’s already offended with me over the duel.” He smiled. “It goads her that I bought her.”
Erik’s fair brow shot up. “A woman’s pride is a curious thing, my lord viscount. One must rarely trifle with it.”
Baret said thoughtfully, “I’ve a notion she’s more fond of Rafael than she admits even to herself.”
Erik shrugged. “She was willing to run away to Massachusetts with Maynerd’s brother.”
“Yes. So she was.” Baret flicked a sand fly off his wrist. It was surprising how remembering added to his ill humor caused by the heat and the stinging insects. “Ah. Dear, sweet, and gentle Jamie Boy.”
“Jamie was soft all right. But Levasseur is dangerous. You’ve not seen the last of him. He despises you even more because you spared his life.”
Baret sighed. “The world is full of ingrates.”
“And you injured his pride with the rapier when you defeated him before his crew.”
“Yes, a palatable experience.”
“Perhaps—to save yourself from further trouble—you should let it be known you are no longer interested in Emerald.”
Baret paused on the steps and stroked his thin black mustache. “A possibility,” he mused with mock seriousness, “but after I paid twenty thousand pieces of eight?”
Erik replaced his hat too carefully. “For some women a man would pay more then that.”
Baret affected consideration. “Would they now, do you think? Maybe—fifty thousand?”
Erik gave a gesture with his hand. “I suppose all things are possible.”
With a cool smile Baret suggested, “Next, even you will be wishing to duel me for her.”
The breeze blew between them. Erik went on down the steps and waited for him at the ladder.
Baret watched him for a moment with a smirk. He thought back to the duel. His own words sounded in his memory: “I have every intention of making good. A bargain is a bargain,” he had told her when she suggested he need not keep his vow of marriage, and that she understood it had been forced upon him by her conniving father.
He remembered her words exactly, for he had not expected them, and they had irritated him. Why they irritated him, he didn’t exactly know, but they still did: I would not marry a man because of a bargain.
“You have very little to say about it,” he had replied.
He might have behaved the rakish viscount, free to do with her as he wished. Still—even with his heart fuming over Lavender’s betrayal—when he had held Emerald and kissed her goodbye, she had captured his entire vision of all that was noble and beautiful. His own reaction had surprised him, and still did. He frowned. A mere lark, he thought. She was still little more than a fledgling.
The vision of the woman who came to mind, however, was anything except a child emerging into womanhood. Stubbornly he shut her from his mind. No one, including Sir Cecil, would rush him into marriage. Emerald wasn’t emotionally ready, and neither was he. Marriage would change his entire life! Instead of only himself to consider, he must make decisions that were best for her, for both of them, for if two became one flesh, so also did marriage ask that they think as one, sacrificially giving for the best of the other.
He frowned. Strangely, that seemed an easier task with Emerald than with Lavender. He wondered rather maliciously how Grayford was getting along with his delicate little rosebud. If he remembered right, the rosebud had a way of pricking sharply enough to bring blood.
He saw Erik watching him, waiting to row with him ashore. He continued on down the quarterdeck steps and swung his muscled frame over the ship’s side. Then he went lithely down the ladder to the waiting longboat to parley with Pierre LaMonte, captain of the Bonaventure.
2
DESTINATION: PIRATE’S COVE
Fire exploded from the guns of the pirate ship Black Dragon. In response, the Madeleine quaked and groaned from a broadside impact.
Emerald gasped, clutching the corner of her father’s desk.
With a shriek, Minette toppled backward onto the bunk. “Scads of horror, Emerald! Those blackguards will claim us for booty, for sure!”
Or the Spaniards will, thought Emerald. With a prayer in her heart, she hid the satchel containing the precious translation notes on the African slave chants that her uncle had accumulated while on Foxemoore sugar plantation. Then she took the small pistol that Captain Baret Buckington had given her and maneuvered through the fallen baggage and tipped chairs of the cramped cabin out onto the poop deck of her father’s ship. Grasping the carved taffrail with one hand, she peered below.
In contrast to the horrors presently going on around her, Emerald’s appearance better suited the sheltered veneer of an arriving daughter of the governor-general. Her pale blue camlet dress, with its belled, elbow-length sleeves and soft flounces trimmed with white lace and ribbon, spilled becomingly about her cloth slippers. Her thick, dark tresses were arranged in a serene chignon
at the back of her neck, and a silver cross embedded with pearls glimmered at her slender throat. In the wild and dangerous atmosphere that burst about her with smoking culverins, her cinnamon-brown eyes glowed as warmly as did the tropics themselves, while her ivory skin bore little evidence of having experienced the burning equatorial sun.
In truth, she had not come from England but from the pirate stronghold of Tortuga, where she had sailed from Cayona Bay three weeks ago for Barbados aboard the Madeleine. At Barbados she was to have boarded a merchant ship for London. But alas! Dark fortunes! Three weeks of turmoil and plans were now scattered like ashes of the dead upon the Caribbean Sea.
Her gaze narrowed, anxiously searching the quarterdeck below for a glimpse of her beloved father, Sir Karlton Harwick. How could he have brought them to this fate instead of going on to Barbados as planned?
All because of the treasure of the Prince Philip, she thought, frustrated.
The decks of the Madeleine stared back at her sullenly, littered with broken woodwork, mizzen, and sagging sail. The sharp reek of gun powder stung her nostrils. Hellish sallow smoke began to settle over the vessel like a shroud. This was it, she told herself with resignation. They were going down into the dark green waters to be met by hungry sharks. Even now the vicious creatures could be seen cruising the shoreline, just waiting for the smell of blood.
If she survived, she and Minette would be left to the evil appetites not of sharks but of Captain Lex Thorpe and his pirates—or they would be taken as heretic prisoners of Spain!
Her father stood grim and formidable in sea-splattered leather jerkin and a round black castor, under which his head was swathed with a red scarf. Tenaciously he shouted orders to his scrambling crew to prepare for the pirates’ boarding. Her stomach lurched when he whipped his cutlass from his baldric.
“Musketeers to the prow!”
Emerald gripped her pistol. She could shoot Minette first, then herself, but that would certainly show no faith in her heavenly Father. No, whatever came must be endured with trust.
Buccaneers Series Page 45