“If you ‘found it,’ I suggest he placed the bait there for that purpose—which you snapped up like a hungry shark.”
“Do you think I’m that gullible?”
“You must believe me, Baret. He intended you should find it! It is like Rafael to do something like this. He despises you—and me. He once asked my father to marry me, and I refused him. He’s never forgiven me for that. Nor will he forgive what happened on Tortuga. His pride is diabolical. Oh, don’t you see? He wants nothing more than to plant suspicion between us. I’d never betray you.”
He stared at her, weighing her response, and his gaze momentarily softened, but she was not sure he believed her. And more than anything else, she wanted his love, his respect, his wholehearted trust.
Slowly he retrieved the note and then, while holding her gaze, ripped it in two and tossed it overboard.
“We’ll let the matter go. If you deny it, I’ve no choice but to accept your word.”
No choice? She wanted him to believe her because he knew he could depend on her loyalty.
“I’m grieved you’d think so low of me,” she murmured, her eyes smarting.
He let out a breath. “What was I supposed to think!”
“That when I make a vow to faithfulness, sir, I’m a woman of honor—and purity. I don’t go chasing after every rogue who sails the Caribbean!” She turned her head so that he wouldn’t see the trail of tears forming on her cheeks. “You’ve been suspicious and angry with me since before I boarded your ship. I suppose you think I came here to spy on you! I’m surprised you even came to save me from Thorpe—” Her voice broke with a sob.
In a moment he was beside her, his voice soothing, his touch gentle. “I’m sorry, Emerald. Please—you mustn’t cry.”
She wondered at the sudden change. This was a Baret Buckington she hadn’t met before. One thing was growing all the more clear—neither knew the other well enough for marriage yet. They were both uncertain, suspicious. She had doubted him because of Carlotta, and he thought her capable of making plans with Rafael. His mood change pleased her and made him all the more intriguing. But just what is he truly like?
“There, now,” he said softly, “we won’t talk about it anymore.”
“But you still think I wrote that letter…”
“I cry pardon. I was too quick to accuse. If you say you did not, then likely you are right—I did take the bait.”
Silence held them, and she enjoyed the stroke of his hand on her hair. She laid her cheek against his chest, shyly fingering the cord on his shirt.
It was time to pull away. “You don’t think I betrayed you, then?”
“No.”
“You trust me? You don’t think I’m the kind of girl that would be—” she hesitated, unable to say the word.
“Unfaithful?”
“Yes, you don’t think that about me, do you? Perhaps all the gossip in Port Royal has actually influenced you even more than you realize.”
He was quiet for a moment as if considering. He cupped her chin, raising her face toward his. The look in his eyes turned her weak.
“No,” he said softly. His lips took hers, and the heavy thudding of her heart snatched her breath away. He spoke of everything that was strong, secure, and decent in a man, and she loved him.
“We’d better go,” he said quietly.
“Captain?” came a shout from the longboat waiting below. “Captain Farrow is signaling us to row over.”
Baret drew her to the railing and looked down. “Prepare to receive the lady.”
“Aye, captain!”
The lady! She looked up at him, her eyes moistening.
He smiled as he swept her up into his arms. “Can you make it with your ankle?”
“I think so.”
“Hold tight to the ladder rope.” And he handed her over the side to the waiting crewman.
7
TREASURE
Aboard the Warspite, in a small cabin adjoining the Round Room, Emerald could hear the heated discussion between Baret and her father.
“Despite all that’s gone wrong, better that you fell prey to Thorpe than to the Spaniards at Margarita. Not even Levasseur could have handled them. It was madness to have risked coming to these waters alone, least of all with your daughter! By now, all of you would be prisoners of the inquisitors at Cádiz!”
At that instant, Emerald decided to enter the cabin. “Do consider, Captain Foxworth, that my father is much too ill to engage in this kind of discussion.”
Baret turned toward her, his dark eyes flickering.
Her father, too, scowled, but he appeared more miserable than anything else.
“It won’t wait. We’ll have this out, Karlton, before you’re on your feet again and in command of the Madeleine.”
Karlton looked at him sharply, raising himself on an elbow. “The Madeleine? You’ve news about my ship?”
Baret smiled. “She’ll be waiting for us near Margarita. If that doesn’t ignite a healing flame in your bones, nothing will. We’re going to blast the Spaniards clear out of the water.”
Her father threw aside his blanket, grimacing as he placed both feet on the cabin floor. “Hah! A sight to behold, me lad, and I’m going to be boarding myself!”
“Papa, you mustn’t get up yet,” said Emerald, rushing to restrain him. Trying to bridle his emotions, however, proved impossible.
“Nay, daughter, your father is well enough, to be sure. I’ve taken worse shots in my life.”
Emerald looked at Baret and saw his crooked smile. He seemed to have known just the right medicine to return him to his old self.
“I thought the news would inspire you,” said Baret. “About as much as the thought of the treasure of the Prince Philip,” he added evenly. “But you’ve questions to answer, Karlton. We’ll not proceed with anything else until you do.”
“Baret, please,” began Emerald, but her father held up a hand for her silence.
“He has a right, lass. Keep silent.” He looked from her pleading gaze across the cabin to Baret, who stood unrelenting, watching him.
“I’ve nothing to hide. I knew you were coming here, and I made a change in plans in order to rendezvous with you, Farrow, and LaMonte!”
“And Levasseur.”
“No, he was in on it with Thorpe.”
“How did you know my plans? How did they?”
“The same way Levasseur knew. Then he contacted Thorpe—you know how word gets around Tortuga. All the Brethren were baited with your tale of two hundred thousand pieces of eight!”
“The tale was for a purpose—to discover what they knew of my father. I had no idea you’d sailed with him. Nor did I actually know where the treasure was until I found a small drawing Lucca had left in my father’s Bible. I wasn’t certain treasure even existed.”
Karlton eyed him shrewdly. “So now you know its odd hiding place. Royce was clever.”
“Yes.”
Emerald watched them nervously. She knew that the High Admiralty had already condemned Royce Buckington for piracy, and that the report saying he had stowed the treasure was widely believed—notably by Baret’s uncle, Lord Felix. She knew, too, that Baret had deliberately boasted of his father’s treasure as he moved among the buccaneers at Tortuga, hoping someone would come forward who knew his father’s fate. He had been planting bait, knowing that others would begin asking questions on their own. The shoals, bays, reefs, and tricky channels in and around the Caribbean strongholds were safe quarters for pirates, who were likely to hear things.
“Now Baret, I had every good intention of explaining to you what I knew of the treasure. It’s the reason I came. My conscience wouldn’t let me keep silent any longer.”
Baret laughed, and Emerald, embarrassed, gave him a reproving glance, which he ignored.
“Your conscience, Karlton, has never troubled you until now.”
Emerald turned her back.
Karlton ran a strong hand across his short beard. “It�
��s not the way you think I knew nothing of your father’s actual whereabouts after the Spaniards took him away. What I told Thorpe was a true account.”
She glanced over her shoulder at Baret to see if he believed him. He was inscrutable as he removed the familiar pistol from his belt and handed it to Karlton. A glance at her father’s face convinced her of his genuine pain at seeing the Buckington coat of arms.
“Aye,” he murmured, “I recognize it. ‘Twas your father’s, all right.”
“How did it come into your possession?” came Baret’s too quiet voice.
Emerald moved closer to beside her father, her face warm with tension.
“I found it where he hid it before the Spaniards came upon him. He knew there was no chance, you see. Most of the crew of both our ships was already dead. We’d put up a grand fight, Baret. You’d have been proud of him. They outnumbered us ten to one. They thought they killed us all. There was one Spaniard who saw him hiding, but didn’t know about me, Lucca, and Maynerd.”
“Don Miguel Vasquez?”
“Aye, the man.”
Emerald caught the venom in Baret’s voice and wondered how he knew the soldier’s name.
“Royce stashed the pistol where we’d find it, and before we could stop him, he surrendered. He was a valiant man, Baret. I’ve thought many times that I should have followed him into slavery out of honor.”
Baret was silent a moment. “It would not have done you nor my father any good, and certainly not Emerald. Somehow I believe you, Karlton, but that doesn’t account for the fact you’ve kept the truth from me these three years.”
“I kept nothing from you except the fact I had sailed on that ill-fated mission. Do you think I knew he was in Porto Bello? Why, I’d have told you so at once. Nay, I didn’t know. Like you, I thought he was in Maracaibo with Lucca. It wasn’t until you told me what Lucca so cleverly inscribed in that Bible that I knew about Porto Bello. Before that, I did some searching on my own. Each time I sold contraband to the Spanish colonists at Santo Domingo and San Juan, I bribed and baited them for information, but no one knew anything. And I had to work secretly because of Felix. You know he’s thick into smuggling. If word from the dons reached him that I was asking about Royce, well—you know what your uncle would have done.”
“Yes, I know quite well. And now, with both Maynerd and Lucca dead, you are the one remaining witness who can testify to the king. You have become extremely important to me. And that’s why you won’t go on the voyage to Porto Bello—or to Margarita.”
Emerald smiled at her father and looped her arm through his. “You heard him, Papa. He’s a viscount, you know—you must do what he says.
“Bah! I’ll be hoodwinked if I will. Now, look here, Buckington! Viscount or no, am I an old codger that you think you can order me about? I’ll be goin’ on that voyage to Porto Bello, aye, and not even you will stop me!”
“I’ll stop you, even if I need to shanghai both you and Emerald on a ship to England. If Felix learns you sailed with my father on that mission for Cromwell, he’ll end your life just as surely as he has Lucca’s and Maynerd’s. Think about that, if not for yourself, then for your daughter. Until I clear my father’s name—and my own—there’s not much I can do for either of you at Jamaica. If I dock at Port Royal, Felix would be on me in a moment. Then everything we’ve worked for will be lost.”
“He’s right,” she insisted. “You mustn’t do anything that may give Lord Felix opportunity.”
“Aye, I’ve known the danger from Felix all along, and ‘twas the reason I kept my sailing with your father to myself.”
“I’ll accept that much, but you haven’t explained all to my satisfaction. The treasure—you’ve known of its whereabouts these years and said nothing to me?”
“Aye, I’ll admit my sin there. But I was on my way here to rendezvous with you and explain. Royce himself swore a portion of the Prince Philip to each of us. We all fought in that battle, and we took both the Prince Philip and the Isabella fair and square. I needed my share of that treasure for Emerald.”
“I don’t want it, Papa.”
“Silence. I’m above my neck in debt, Baret. And I’ll die first before giving up what’s mine in Foxemoore. Certain shares belong to her.”
“I don’t want it at the cost of piracy,” she insisted, but neither he nor Baret appeared to pay her any mind.
“Granted, Karlton, and you’ll get your share of the treasure and more—on one condition,” Baret told him. “After repairs on the Madeleine, Emerald is to sail for England according to the bargain we made on Tortuga. And I want to make sure you keep yourself healthy and alive.”
“Aye, a bargain it ‘tis, but you’ll need help with that crypt.”
“Crypt?” Emerald repeated with distaste.
Baret looked at her. “They sealed the treasure chest in a crypt at a mission near shore.”
“It won’t be an easy matter to convince the head Franciscan we’ve come on business for Spain.”
“Simple, indeed,” Baret told him, “since I’ve come prepared with a friar’s habit—and a letter from Madrid ordering the mission to turn over the contents of the crypt. You forget I speak fluent Castilian.”
Emerald gave him a reproving glance. “One slip, and they’ll deliver you to the inquisitors.”
“Now behave yourself, daughter. You’re among gentlemen, so no need to get uppity about this.”
“I’m among pirates, so it seems!”
Baret offered her a lazy smile, then said to Karlton: “I suggest a few pearls from Margarita will go a long way to please and mellow Governor Modyford next time you see him.”
“Aye, I wouldn’t think of disappointing him.”
Emerald looked at Baret, but he turned and left the cabin.
“He’s a rogue if there ever was one.”
“Aye, but an honorable rogue, indeed. You’ve a good future ahead of you, lass.”
She went after Baret then, following him down the quarterdeck steps. “Your attack on the garrison yesterday will have every Spanish don on the Main after you, not to mention Lord Felix. And after the ship—”
“After the San Pedro,” he smoothly interrupted, “it will be Cumaná, Margarita, Puerto Cabello, and Coro. We expect to leave them with fond memories and bring back enough booty to weaken the resources of King Philip’s armies substantially.”
She scanned him dubiously, lifting one brow. “You didn’t tell me at Tortuga that you were a pirate.”
He looked not at all intimidated or ashamed. He smiled. “On the contrary, you have a short memory. I told you aboard the Regale. Have you forgotten so soon?”
She recalled vaguely an exchange between them just before Levasseur and Jamie boarded. “Then you are a pirate,” she had said, upon learning he would sign articles with her cousin. “You may say that I am,” he had replied casually.
“You may rescue your father’s reputation,” she said now, “but what of your own?”
“By the time Felix arranges my hanging, I will have found my father, and the two of us will return to London to pledge our loyalties anew to His Majesty.”
“You’re also putting yourself at great risk! Even if you locate the treasure, your actions won’t be sanctioned by the king. You yourself said the Spanish sympathizers in the Peace Party have much sway over him. After terrorizing the Main and infuriating King Philip’s ambassador, he may put you in the Tower.”
“Charles will see us both, since we will have the treasure. The charges against my father will be dismissed if I can prove that he sailed to the West Indies under a commission from Cromwell to establish English colonies. He was a legal agent, not a pirate.”
She looked at him cautiously. “Is that how you see yourself—as an agent of England and the king?”
He tapped his chin, musing. “I can only say that if Spain is defeated, it won’t be on the battlefields of Europe but here in the Indies. Each time we take a treasure galleon heading for Madrid, they lose a y
ear’s income. Bankers in Genoa, Milan, Venice wait in vain to be paid their interest—and some, their principal as well. The Spanish army in the Netherlands goes without cash to pay for provisions. Her army is defaulting on loans, something which the international bankers never forgive. Spain is learning that their slave-labor silver and gold mines are only as secure as the galleons that carry it home. We intend to destroy their ships and confiscate their wealth. Call it piracy if you wish; to me it is war. And before it’s over, we’ll have them at the peace table on our terms. That means a right to trade in the Caribbean.”
Emerald had no argument she wished to raise. Though she wouldn’t admit it, she still could not bring herself to think of him as a pirate but as a privateer, serving the better cause of England and Holland.
“Then you really think it’s possible?”
“I wish King Charles did. He underestimates the buccaneers. Men like Sir Christopher Mings have done more to defeat the Inquisition army than anyone in Europe. By the time we’ve sacked Porto Bello, Cartagena, and Panama, Madrid will be broke. Even now they run dangerously short on galleons to patrol these waters. And that commission from Cromwell—if I could find that—it would exonerate my father.”
“Since his ship was sunk, what hope is there of that?”
“There is one—that he was careful enough to store it with the treasure of the Prince Philip. We may be able to locate both. You see why I had to question your father’s motive for working with Levasseur. No one must find that important information except me. I wouldn’t trust anyone else with it, not when Felix would pay anything to have it destroyed.”
A silence came between them.
“Emerald, there’s someone on the San Pedro who can tell me where I can find my father. And,” he said evenly, “he will, if he wishes to live.”
She looked at him quickly, searching his face. “Is that why you’ve come here to take this galleon?”
“Yes, and it’s the reason Carlotta is aboard my ship. What I told you was true. She is my cousin. She has done much to help me recently. She’s from Cartagena and was on her way to Margarita to marry Capitán Don Miguel Vasquez.”
Buccaneers Series Page 54