Buccaneers Series

by Linda Lee Chaikin

  Along the deck came the rush of boot steps, and lewd, shouting voices became still louder.

  Emerald’s gaze was riveted on the door. She gripped Baret’s pistol, concealed behind a layer of skirted crinolines, and waited.

  The sounds of battle were diminishing. In their place came a sound Emerald found even more ominous—triumphant laughter and the shooting of muskets to announce victory. Thorpe’s pirates had outnumbered her father’s crew. Swarming across the deck of the Madeleine, they had cut down all resistance. The approaching footsteps warned her of those who came to claim the captain’s booty and to kill any who might resist.

  She blinked as the cabin door crashed open and struck against the bulkhead. She saw pirates in the passageway, their tanned faces menacing and without mercy, their heads swathed in faded scarves of black, yellow, or blue. They held gleaming cutlasses coated with blood in one hand and pistols in the other.

  Zeddie’s feet were firmly grounded to the cabin floor in front of her. Beholding him, the pirates stopped, but then, at the sight of Emerald and Minette, they let out a low chortle and surged forward.

  Zeddie, never more courageous despite his years, kept himself directly in their path. His hands rested on his pistols in the baldric, but the fact that he did not trouble to draw them, as Sir Karlton had ordered, lent him an added authority.

  “Step back, you sulfurous scum! One step more, and I’ll empty the brains of the first sea rat who gapes on the betrothed of Viscount Baret Buckington!”

  Carrying cutlass and cocked pistol, one growled, “Blow me, get a parrot’s eye of ‘im! Viscount, ‘e says!”

  Another, in blood-soaked garments, hooked his thumbs under a belt stuffed with pistols and surveyed Zeddie. “You poke wi’ one eye, wot’s your masquerade, eh?”

  “He’s King Charlie.”

  “Ho! A piece o’ shark bait, that’s wot!”

  Zeddie emitted a growl. “Be it known, ye vermin-infested curs, that I’m in service to his lordship. An’ if ye have your wits intact, ye’ll know that the viscount is none other than the pirate Captain Foxworth of the Regale! So beware! Now—” he nodded sagely “—go an’ fetch your murderous Captain Thorpe.”

  3

  THE BLACK DRAGON

  Emerald held her breath, watching, wondering how the pirates would regard Zeddie’s challenge. Captain Foxworth was well known on Tortuga, perhaps better respected there than among the blooded nobility.

  The men stood primed for action. Each hand gripped either machete or cutlass or pistol. For a terrifying moment her heart throbbed in her throat lest she see Zeddie cut down before her eyes.

  Then their shrewd consideration of his warning appeared to take hold. Their ruthless stare fused with suspicion. Because they knew the name of Captain Foxworth or because they were already weighing the possibility of the high price they might gain through ransom, Zeddie’s warning had a quieting effect upon them.

  “Foxworth’s not a man I’d cross,” mumbled one.

  Then there was a stir as someone approached. The pirates moved aside to allow a man broad of shoulder and chest to thrust his way past them. Captain Lex Thorpe surveyed his prize.

  His blood-smeared shirt hung open from neck to waist. His chest glistened with sweat. He was breeched in leather, and a tangle of red-brown curls clustered about a thick neck, where veins protruded. Quick-darting eyes took in the scene, then whipped their way past Zeddie with indifference and settled with satisfaction on Emerald. A flash of teeth showed beneath a rat-tailed mustache. Fingering the leather bandero over his shoulder housing six pistols, he entered the cabin reeking of old sweat and rum.

  “So this is the wench.”

  “Says she’s Foxworth’s.”

  “Aye,” growled Zeddie. “Sink me, Captain Thorpe, if ye ain’t heard about the fancy duel between Foxworth and Levasseur on Tortuga.”

  Thorpe gave Emerald full attention, his bold eyes measuring her from ankle to eyebrow. “Who ain’t heard of Foxworth’s highborn wench? Levasseur’s still squawking.” A laugh rumbled in his deep chest.

  Emerald stood her ground, meeting the leering stare as though unafraid and confident of Baret’s soon appearance. “Where’s my father, Sir Karlton Harwick?” she demanded.

  Thorpe called out to the others behind him, who stood gaping at her with evil grins. “Well, brethren, we have us the bride of his lordship the captain of the Regale!”

  There was further movement at the door, and Sir Karlton pushed his way past, a hand on his blood-soaked sleeve. His silver-hued eyes reflected cool anger. “Not for long, you won’t. Foxworth will cut your gizzard out and hang it up to dry if you as much as lay a hand on her, Lex. Like his father before him, he’s one man of the titled blood who can out-buccaneer any scoundrel on Tortuga!”

  Emerald knew his wound was serious, for she saw the whiteness of his face, the sweat prickling his brow. She winced as her gaze dropped to the front of his shirt where blood soaked the cloth.

  “Zeddie, bring me the medical satchel!” she told him calmly, aware of Thorpe’s narrowing gaze.

  Zeddie moved to do as she ordered, and Captain Thorpe’s eyes followed him, then fixed on Sir Karlton with obvious suspicion. He stroked the skinny tail of his reddish mustache. “The wench be your daughter, Karlton?”

  “Aye, and a lady. An’ you’ll not be forgetting it, Lex, or it’ll mean your death. You know Foxworth as well as I do.”

  “I knows him all right, and ye better not be wily with me, Harwick. You always was a sly one—it’s why you’re in these waters—but you ain’t as privy as me, an’ I’m knowing the bait bringin’ you. If you be lying about her—”

  “I’ve no cause to lie. She’s my daughter, and Foxworth fought a duel to win her. Everyone knows it, including you. Levasseur warned you we were coming here. He would have told you about his duel with the viscount. And of my daughter being aboard.”

  Thorpe pretended ignorance. “Levasseur told me? Why, I ain’t seen him since the last campaign to Gran Grenada.”

  Her father’s eyes sparked with contempt. “No use lying to me, Lex. If you’re wise, you’ll call off your stinking crew so you and I can talk treasure of the Prince Philip. ‘Tis a small matter of two hundred thousand pieces of eight.”

  Emerald glanced at Captain Thorpe to judge his response, believing her father was trying to beguile the man into thinking they could work together.

  “There may be more if we play it right, Lex.” Karlton sat down at the table, looking confident.

  With Zeddie at her elbow, Emerald worked to stop her father’s bleeding.

  As she did, he continued to talk. “If you weren’t a fool, Thorpe, the two of us could be as rich as King Charlie. You’re the one freebooter with enough men and wit to join me on the enterprise I’m set upon.”

  Thorpe advanced a step, wiping his long fingers on the open front of his shirt. “Maybe. If ye be fooling me, though, they’ll soon be mopping up your innards to throw over the side.”

  Her father’s eyes narrowed. “We’ll talk, all right, but not with your crew gaping like baboons.”

  There was a flash of interest in Thorpe’s eyes. “We’ll talk. An’ if ye bore me with empty words, I’ll end it plainly enough.” He gestured for his men to leave. Then Thorpe came to the table and pulled out a chair. Turning it around, he sank down, arms resting on the back, chin on his hand.

  Emerald’s skin crawled, and she glanced at her father as she added the finishing touches to her treatment of his injury.

  Behind Thorpe, his henchman lieutenant, Vane, stood with his cutlass. He was a wiry man with long arms and skin charred brown by the sun. Blond curls poked out from beneath a faded blue scarf. His prominent eyes under bleached brows watched Emerald and Minette. He wore a torn canvas shirt of salt-faded red, and breeches of rawhide, so soiled with everything from caked blood to fish oil that Emerald believed they could stand on their own.

  “Zeddie,” her father said, “bring rum to the captain and his
lieutenant. We’ve much to discuss, and our time hastens from us.”

  Zeddie went to the carved cupboard set against the forward bulkhead.

  Emerald stood beside her father’s chair, one hand on his shoulder, pretending not to feel the stare of either Thorpe or his foul lieutenant. Her father amazed her. He was behaving as one of the Brotherhood and, though she could see he was in pain, offered courage and authority.

  Zeddie set on the table a tray holding a jar of rum, another containing Spanish tobacco, long narrow pipes, a tinderbox, and three drinking mugs.

  They poured for themselves.

  Vane came to sit at the table beside his captain. Taking a pipe, he stuffed it with tobacco leaves.

  “What’s the enterprise, Karlton?” Thorpe asked.

  “As if you didn’t know what was on my mind. Surely it’s why you were lying in wait for me.”

  Emerald looked on, trying to pick up information.

  Thorpe measured him narrowly. “I didn’t know it was your ship, Karlton. Thought it was the Warspite.”

  At the mention of Erik Farrow’s ship, Emerald glanced across the cabin to where Minette purposely stayed back in the flickering shadows of the lantern. She saw the girl’s interest peak. Evidently Thorpe was not on friendly terms with Baret’s ally, Farrow.

  “The devil’s luck be good enough for me. I’m glad it was your ship, Harwick, an’ this here enterprise ye speak of, along with Foxworth’s woman, be prize enough for the likes of ol’ Lex Thorpe. Speak on.” He stretched back in the chair, drinking his rum and staring boldly at her.

  Despite the heat, Emerald now wished that she had worn a cloak.

  Karlton, too, leaned back, as though he didn’t notice Thorpe’s straying gaze. “I speak of the treasure of the Prince Philip. What else, lad? The treasure be as big as any you’ll likely to see on the Main. There’s gold worth over two hundred thousand pieces of eight, and while we wait for Foxworth on Santa Margarita, bushels of pearls are there for the taking.”

  Was he speaking the truth, she wondered, or baiting the pirate captain?

  Neither Thorpe nor Vane appeared to consider it a bluff. They sat watching him, and, at the mention of the Prince Philip, their eyes burned with greed.

  Emerald recalled how Maynerd, just before he’d been hanged in Port Royal, also claimed there was treasure. And on the Regale, Baret Buckington had spoken of it to Levasseur. If what they said was true, there would be enough treasure to go around to satisfy them all, but would they be satisfied to share it?

  She refused to believe her father was involved. He’s only trying to hold off the hungry dogs, she thought. It’s a ruse. One used by Baret with Levasseur on the voyage to Maracaibo.

  “An’ how much does Foxworth know of the treasure of the Spanish galleon?” demanded Thorpe. His eyes were cold and suspicious, reminding her of a cobra weaving to its charmer’s music.

  Her father lit his pipe calmly. “He knows more than either of us. Foxworth’s own father took the Spanish ship. Maynerd was with him.”

  “So?” snarled Thorpe, as if her father were making an excuse to cut him out of the booty. “We all knows the talk among the Brotherhood about Royce Buckington being alive—and of Foxworth seeking him. And Levasseur is hot to find where Buckington stored it. He says you and Farrow know its place. As for Maynerd, he’s corpsing away, so as I’m hearing, hung by Foxworth’s own uncle.”

  “Aye,” said Sir Karlton darkly. “He was hanged all right. There’s more than pirates seeking the whereabouts of the treasure, and of Royce. Felix searches also.”

  “Levasseur says he expected to find out from Maynerd where Royce buried it, but was crossed.”

  “Levasseur won’t find it, because there’s only one man left who knows where Royce stashed it.”

  Emerald looked at her father, masking her incredulity.

  Thorpe stared at him, tapping his grimy fingernails on the back of the chair. “An how’d ye be knowing where to find it?” He added menacingly, “I don’t believe ye, Karlton.”

  “Neither does I,” said Vane. “He’s trying to keep the women from us.” He gestured with his head. “There’s another one back there.”

  Emerald glared at him. “She’s my cousin. And Captain Foxworth will have your head if you so much as lay a finger on her.”

  Sir Karlton touched his wound. “If you think I don’t know where the treasure is being held, Lex, then you’re both bigger fools than I thought you were. I would’ve been on my way now to find it, then bring my daughter to England, if you hadn’t come swooping down upon me like a black vulture.”

  The pirates exchanged interested glances, then watched him as though afraid they might be wrong after all. Thorpe drummed his fingers on the table now, his evil eyes fixed on her father.

  “All right, Karlton, seeing as how ye’ve a name on Tortuga. An’ you’re a friend of Foxworth too. Suppose ye be telling me just what you know.”

  “I learned of it easy enough, seeing that my daughter is to marry Foxworth. He tells me everything, and why shouldn’t he? He’s to be my son-in-law. And there’s not a buccaneer on Tortuga or Port Royal who won’t back me up on the fact as how Baret dueled Levasseur for Emerald. All the Brotherhood are witnesses.”

  Emerald stirred uneasily, remembering that frightening and embarrassing hour when Baret had agreed to marry her. She listened as her father told the two pirates his smooth, convincing tale. She carefully masked her shock when he stated easily, “No one knows I sailed with Royce on that last voyage. Aye, I was there when we took the Prince Philip.”

  He had been there?

  Sir Karlton continued his tale as Emerald watched him, riveted. They had been cruising for Oliver Cromwell off the coast of Hispaniola soon after Admiral Venerable and William Penn took Jamaica for England. Captain Royce Buckington had successfully attacked a Spanish ship off the southern side of Santo Domingo, and Sir Karlton was in command of one of the frigates that accompanied Royce’s flagship. After successfully removing the cargo—of which there were more than 300,000 pieces of eight—they were caught in a hurricane and became so battered by wind and sea that they not only had to lighten Royce’s ship of part of the booty but were hurled off course for weeks. When the storm abated, they were far from Hispaniola and Tortuga. They were forced onto “a certain island in the area, of which I’ll not be telling you now.”

  “Santa Margarita,” snapped Thorpe. “We all knows as much now.”

  “There on the island, the remaining treasure was safely stashed away and now waits fair and sweet distribution among the brothers signing the articles. The rest of what happened to Royce is known to all the Brotherhood. The crew came down with sickness. The weakest died or were killed by the Spaniards. The strongest, including Royce himself, were taken as slaves and sold to Spanish colonists up and down the Main—compliments of Sir Jasper. The treasure remains securely stored.”

  Emerald looked across the cabin at Minette. Their gazes met in the wordless suggestion that they were convinced.

  “An’ what makes me fool enough to believe you escaped death or slavery?” Thorpe snarled.

  “I was wise enough to sleep away from the crew the night the Spaniards attacked. I managed to hide. I might have given my life a sacrifice, but one more sword would not have turned back the Spaniards. After they left, I managed to walk across the island to friendly Indians who helped me make it to Barbados. I caught an English merchant ship to Jamaica.”

  Vane glared. “An’ you ain’t gone back for the treasure all these years? You expect us to believe that?”

  Sir Karlton shrugged. “I was a friend of Royce. I’ve spent time searching for his whereabouts, even as Foxworth has.”

  “And you didn’t bother to tell Foxworth you knew where the treasure was? How come the two of ye didn’t work together to find it, eh?”

  Emerald shifted cautiously, certain now that they had caught her father in the ruse, but he merely smoked his pipe and looked into their swarthy faces with a
calmness that reminded her of Baret. “I did tell him—on Tortuga before I sailed here. After all, he’s soon to be my son-in-law. One can’t keep such secrets from his son. Now, can he?”

  They exchanged glances. “Maybe not,” said Thorpe.

  “Aye, Foxworth knows all about it now,” her father said again. “Just like Levasseur discovered my point of rendezvous and notified you, Lex. I notified Foxworth before I set sail from Tortuga. I have big plans where my daughter is concerned. And then there was my portion of Foxemoore plantation in Jamaica. I have debts to pay, or I’ll lose her inheritance. I first intended to sail with Henry Morgan, but I learned secretly that Morgan isn’t sailing yet.”

  “Clever, ain’t he, Vane? As sly as a rum-drinking fox. An’ of course ye need us to help you find and disperse the treasure.”

  Sir Karlton touched his shoulder again. “More than ever, ‘tis a fact. On one condition.”

  Thorpe stirred in his seat and looked at his lieutenant. Vane reached for the rum.

  “An’ the location?” Thorpe demanded. “Where’s the three hundred thousand pieces of eight?”

  “Two hundred thousand,” Sir Karlton corrected. “We lost some in the storm.”

  “An’ where is it?”

  “Do you take me for a blubbering idiot, Thorpe? There’ll be no more information until my daughter and her cousin are safely in the hand of Captain Foxworth on the Regale.”

  “Ye jackanapes!” Thorpe jumped to his feet and snatched up his cutlass. “I would as soon ‘ave your head as put up with ye. D’ye thinks I’m idiot enough to send for Foxworth?”

  Emerald trembled, her eyes on the cutlass, a prayer in her heart, but her father seemed to pay no attention to the cutlass or to Thorpe’s rage.

  “Sure now, Thorpe, you’re no fool, but a pirate who smells treasure when it’s dangled before your nose. Of course, we need Foxworth! An’ I’ve already sent for him. He’s not far from here. Farrow, too.”