Buccaneers Series

by Linda Lee Chaikin

  “Stab me, lass, it ain’t them blooded foxes we’re thinkin’ about. Governor Modyford is going to call you before the officials as well as your father! He wants to know what you have to say about Captain Foxworth. The Regale entered Maracaibo, an’ there’s some say about the Spanish ambassador going to protest to His Majesty about it. There’s also questions aplenty about the murder of Jamie Bradford—and suddenly no one’s calling the rascal ‘Maynerd’ anymore. And soon I expect news to come tricklin’ in from Margarita and Cumaná.”

  Emerald watched the sweat trickle down the side of his creased face, bearing witness to his alarm. All at once dread enclosed her like a spider’s sticky web. Her father was in far worse trouble than she had allowed herself to believe, and she was not much better off. Neither the governor nor members of the Admiralty Court would think much of the social status of Emerald Harwick. She was not Lavender, nor a delicately born daughter of a council member, nor even the daughter of a rich planter. She was the illegitimate offspring of a pirate’s daughter and would be looked upon as a strumpet who had run away on Baret Buckington’s ship.

  Zeddie appeared to understand her thoughts. Unlike other times, when he sought to soothe her alarms, he looked genuinely frightened.

  Her heart thudded against her rib cage. Was it possible they would arrest her and put her in Brideswell? Hang her? She recalled Baret’s half-teasing suggestion that she might be arrested. What if it were true?

  “Lord Felix is lookin’ for blood to be had, m’gal, sure as I’m sittin’ here. An’ he has his plans all neat and tidy, stab me if’n he don’t. A clever fox, to be sure. I’m thinking it ain’t you nor even Sir Karlton he’s after.”

  Her mind flashed back to Gallows Point, and memory of the carrion sitting patiently on the crossbeam made her shudder. She thought she knew. Baret must not return to Port Royal.

  “Zeddie, did the viscount go to Margarita to look for the treasure?”

  “That, lass, I don’t have the answer to. An’ your father isn’t talkin’. My guess is that he hasn’t gone there yet. He’d be busy with that Spanish don he took from the San Pedro. I have me a suspicion that your father intended to return to Tortuga and join the viscount there just as soon as he saw you and Minette on that ship safe for England.”

  Emerald’s anxiety heightened. “When will I be brought to the officials?”

  “That I’m not knowing. I’m thinking your father will do anything to spare you. He’ll tell everything he knows to keep you out of this, m’gal, but is that what Lord Felix wants?”

  “You think he hopes to lure Baret here, using us as bait? They’re wrong—he won’t risk it.” Yet, he had come to save her and her father from Captain Thorpe …

  “This is a wretched day, m’gal. Especially when I’m rememberin’ that Jamie Bradford was hanged from the yardarm of the Regale.”

  “Rafael Levasseur did that!” Minette broke in furiously. “And that pirate named Sloane! Emerald told me all about him.”

  “Aye, but whose word do they wish to believe for their own purposes? Your cousin Levasseur is sayin’ it was Captain Foxworth.”

  “That’s absurd.” Emerald fumed.

  “To be sure, Lord Felix don’t care about nothing except arrestin’ his troublesome nephew.” Zeddie shifted on the seat, flipping the reins. “I don’t need remindin’ ye how Captain Foxworth’s death will leave his uncle the earl’s one remaining heir.”

  Emerald’s thoughts turned a troubling corner. “No,” she murmured. “There is another if Baret dies.” She looked at him. “His half brother, Jette.”

  An ominous silence descended. Because of Felix’s marriage to Cousin Geneva Harwick two months ago, eight-year-old Jette, for all practical purposes, was the stepchild of Felix.

  There was only one in the family strong enough to thwart any plan Felix might entertain about Baret and Jette. “What about Earl Nigel?” she asked. “Is he still at Foxemoore?”

  “I’ve not heard. To be sure, he’s the big barracuda to appeal to about his son Felix. And Baret too, for that matter.”

  Emerald’s alarm smoldered beneath a facade of calm, for she knew that showing how afraid she was would upset Minette and Zeddie even more.

  What would she say to the Admiralty officials? What could she say to protect her father and Baret?

  Baret was convinced his father had been betrayed and sold as a slave, perhaps into the silver mines in Peru. She now suspected something she had not had time to discuss with him on the Regale. Felix had questionable plans when it came to his recent marriage. And those plans would include Jette. That Felix wanted the family title of earl was no secret to anyone in the family except, perhaps, to Geneva and Baret’s grandfather Nigel Buckington, who was in Jamaica to convince Baret to return with him to England.

  For some reason, Emerald recalled the suspicious words she’d heard at Foxemoore when Great-aunt Sophie warned Geneva about Felix the night before the wedding. “The letter says she died quite suddenly. And without a physician … he may have deliberately eliminated his first wife in order to marry you.”

  As Zeddie drove the buggy toward the lookout house, Emerald lapsed into silence. No more would be known until her father was released and he arrived with news. For he must be released, she thought. They couldn’t possibly hold him. Life couldn’t be that cruel to her. If anything happened to her beloved father, what would she do? I won’t think about it now. I can’t.

  She glanced about uneasily at the sights she knew so well, sights that now seemed far more depressing than formerly, and she noted with thankfulness that the spires of St. Paul’s Church rose dominatly above red roofs like prayerful hands of intercession entreating the throne of grace.

  The brilliant sunlight reflecting on the blue Caribbean caused the ripples to appear like a school of darting silver fish. As Emerald gazed out across the azure waters, war was the last thing on her mind and the last thing seemingly on the minds of those in the busy Port Royal harbor. She scrutinized curiously the gray merchant ship that she had seen earlier when the cannon had signaled the incoming vessel to dock.

  “Zeddie, that ship—it isn’t the vessel my father bought us passage on, is it?”

  He squinted his good eye in its direction. Then, as though he had been already aware of its presence, settled his periwig. “It ain’t English, lass. I’m thinkin’ it’s secretly Dutch.”

  “Dutch!” Startled, she wondered what made him think so.

  “They say Sir Erik Farrow is from Holland.” Minette sighed, wrapping a honey-colored ringlet of hair around her finger.

  Emerald glanced at Zeddie for an explanation. “If you know it’s a Dutch merchant ship, then the militia manning the big guns must know too. What if they attack us?”

  He offered a scornful snort. “The Hollanders won’t go attackin’, m’gal, nor will our militia. ‘Tis naught except a slave ship, bringin’ human cargo from what used to be Dutch forts along the Gold Coast of Africa.”

  “A slave ship,” echoed Emerald with dismay. She shielded her gaze to look toward the glittering green waters.

  “And Jamaica planters are anxious to buy.” Zeddie looked thoughtful as he flicked the leather reins and frowned at the horse. “I’m thinkin’ that ship might belong to some in the Jamaican Council who’d wish to keep their nefarious involvement a secret.”

  She remembered the odious Sir Jasper, who had tried to accost her outside the Red Goose gambling den before Baret had intervened. Jasper was a pirate at heart even though he was received in the best parlors. Both his wealth and his seat on the council had opened doors for him to court the best planters’ daughters on the island. What was worse than piracy to Emerald was her suspicion that Sir Jasper smuggled slaves on the Spanish Main.

  “If you’re speaking of Sir Jasper, then the governor and his officials should be told he’s befriending an enemy ship,” she said stiffly.

  “‘Tis my suspicion some on the council has dipped hands with Jasper in the slavin’ pot.
An’ they’d be swifter than a viper to cover their slimy tracks if called on it by the governor.”

  “It’s unthinkable the governor’s own council would secretly cover expenses for a Dutch slave ship!”

  He scratched under his periwig. “Sink me, gal, all things ain’t as breezy as they first appear ‘neath the fine taffetas of the Parliament gents. Why, Captain Foxworth thinks it was the slavers in the London Parliament pressured King Charlie to go to war with Holland.”

  She looked at him, scandalized. “Baret said that?”

  “Sure now, he did indeed. I heard him speakin’ so to your father on Tortuga. What’s more, your father be agreein’. Captain Foxworth says some in the royal family itself wanted this war.”

  “The royal family!”

  “Some are up to their jewels in the muck ‘n mire of slavin’. The merchants want the African trade routes and forts, and they pressured the king to deliberately send an English vessel to attack the Dutch in Africa.”

  The idea was astounding and so totally unrighteous that Emerald could only stare at him indignantly, as though Zeddie himself were involved. She frowned. “Deliberately attack the Dutch? When Holland has been through the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition—and still is in some places? How could the king ever agree to turn on a friendly nation who shares the same zeal for the Reformation?”

  His birdlike eye blinked rapidly in her direction. “Maybe ‘cause some has the zeal for the wealth of this world more’n they have for the Lord’s truth. Slavin’ brings the English merchants filthy lucre galore, m’gal. If they boot the Dutch out of the tradin’ forts in Africa, then the English merchants and fancy lords in Parliament can monopolize the slave traffic themselves. According to your father, it’s the reason Lord Felix came to Port Royal. He’s a Spanish sympathizer for one cause—filthy lucre. Just like the secretary of state, Lord Arlington, who’s a force behind the Peace Party in London. An’ here in Jamaica, Sir Jasper with his fancy taffetas and his ruby ring.”

  She looked toward the gray ship without a flag.

  Zeddie cocked his head in its direction. “I’m thinkin’ they expect to sell them slaves to the Spaniards. They’re always in want of more to replace them who die of the sweating sickness on the tobacco farms and silver mines.”

  Now that Zeddie had brought up the possibility, Emerald found herself in agreement with his conclusions. “So that’s why the sentry at Fort Charles didn’t seem concerned about letting in a ship that doesn’t fly its national flag. They’d already been told to let her pass.”

  He snorted. “It’s plain to see the Jamaican Council is lookin’ the other way.”

  Minette folded her arms stubbornly and leaned back against the buggy seat, her limpid eyes sparking. “I’m feeling no sympathy for either side, be they English or Dutch, seein’ as how I’m not forgettin’ my mother was a chieftain’s daughter and hunted down in Guinea and brought here. Not that France is any better when it comes to selling slaves.”

  When it came to the greed of the unregenerate heart, Minette was correct, thought Emerald sadly. The sin of selling men like beasts was shared by most of the European nations, and it went beyond the European to include the African himself, as difficult as that was to comprehend. Her father had told her that many chieftains, brutal as the white man who brought the chains, worked with the slavers to betray other tribes with whom they were at war, in order to gain tribal supremacy themselves.

  Tears welled in her eyes. Men were blind enough in their own sin to willingly hunt down those Christ had died to save, and chain them like beasts in the filthy holds of slave ships to sell as work animals.

  She would bring them the liberating words of the gospel. If I love Him, I will do all I can to bring them to worship Him, she promised with renewed determination.

  The sky was a warm wash of turquoise against which the palm trees cut green patterns, and from somewhere high among their fronds wild parrots were squawking. The familiar houses and shops crowded tightly together along the edge of town, rising so perilously near the water’s edge that their pilings, though driven deep into sand, would shift at the first tremor of an earthquake.

  “Zeddie, look—over in the square!” And dismay showed in Emerald’s eyes at the scene that confronted them.

  Minette anxiously leaned forward for a better look. “Slavers!”

  “Aye, not a pretty sight to behold,” warned Zeddie. “We best get from here,” and he flicked the reins to speed their horse to a faster trot.

  Emerald caught his arm. “No, stop the buggy.” And a look of both anger and pity was etched on her face. “I want to see and know, so I will never forget. So I will never lose my determination to one day fight such evil on Foxemoore. You too, Minette,” she said softly. “Remember, it was here that Ty was branded just two months ago.”

  “I haven’t forgotten what they did to my brother,” said Minette darkly. “I’ve seen it happen again many times in my nightmares.”

  “M’gal,” Zeddie pleaded, “don’t look. What good will it do ye both to see such odious happenings?”

  But Emerald took hold of Minette’s arm and directed her gaze. “See that African woman, Minette? She might have been your mother when she first arrived.”

  Minette’s breath caught with a broken sob at the sight, and she jerked her head away.

  The black woman was naked from the waist up. Beside her, a naked boy child stood staring blankly at the buying audience in the square. He wrapped his fingers around his mother’s knee and began to wail as the slaver approached with a rope.

  “You!” he shouted at the woman. “Get down. There’s a planter bought you and the boy! Take ’em away! Come, move!”

  Zeddie had reluctantly stopped the buggy on a wide, cobbled space facing the sea. Emerald’s gaze swept the guard of red-coated militia drawn up to keep order in the crowd of planters and merchants. She tensed on the buggy seat when she saw a tall man in a Panama hat, a seegar between his teeth. Red hair curled about wrestlerlike shoulders beneath a sweat-stained canvas shirt. His long brown arms were bare and swelled with hard muscle.

  “Zeddie, isn’t that Mr. Pitt?”

  Zeddie followed her troubled gaze. “Aye, it’s the rat-toothed overseer to be sure, m’gal.”

  “I wonder what he’s doing here,” said Emerald uneasily, drawing her skirts toward her. She watched Lady Sophie Harwick’s overseer move like a stalking tiger up and down the line of African men for sale.

  It had been Mr. Pitt who had arranged for Ty to be branded as a runaway slave and then placed in the town pillory. Emerald recalled the payoff of jewels that Pitt had demanded from her in order to save her cousin from the fate that had trapped him in the end. Now her eyes reflected the righteous anger she felt at the sight of the big supervisor. The family decision to make Pitt overseer had tasted doubly bitter to Emerald because the man had replaced her father on Foxemoore.

  Minette too watched Pitt with flashing eyes. “He’ll need to buy ’em all if he expects to replace the men he had hung after the uprising.”

  Emerald remembered

  The day before the uprising had begun, Lord Felix Buckington had married Cousin Geneva and thus gained a double share in the sugar plantation. Felix would be a strong voice on Foxemoore as well as in the governor’s Council for Jamaican Affairs, and according to what she knew of Baret’s uncle, he held no sympathy for slaves. As Zeddie had said, Lord Felix was involved with men in London who wished to expand slave trade on the Main.

  She watched Mr. Pitt inspect the lineup of slaves, and her skin crawled with disgust. “Judgment from God will visit us,” she murmured. “How can it be otherwise?”

  “Aye,” Zeddie’s voice rumbled in his throat. “An’ I’m thinkin’ the slave uprising on Foxemoore was only the beginning.”

  “He’s seen us,” whispered Minette.

  Emerald tensed as Mr. Pitt shouldered his muscled frame through the crowd on the square. She gripped her parasol. “He has the bitter gall to try to
speak to me?!” She turned to look straight ahead. “Ride on, Zeddie.”

  But Pitt intercepted them by stepping out in front of the buggy. He seized the harness and bit and held the horse’s head steady. A whinny sounded.

  Emerald winced at the pain in the horse’s cry and leaned forward on the seat. She snatched up the whip and threatened Pitt with it. “Let go of my horse!”

  The overseer grinned, his leathery-brown face amused, as his pale eyes boldly took her in. He patted the horse. “Say now, it’s a right pretty afternoon, Miss Emerald, an’ a fine day for hobnobbing. Calm your ruffled feathers. You and me are old friends.”

  “Since when did my father or any of us ever consider you a friend? Step aside!”

  “Still high and mighty, ain’t you? Heard all about your cozy little voyage aboard the Regale with Cap’n Foxworth.”

  Her heart sank at the veiled suggestion in his tone, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her wince.

  “Heard you slept nigh a month in his cabin.”

  Zeddie’s big dueling pistol slipped from the purple leather baldric over his chest and glinted bold and silver-barreled in the sunlight as he aimed it straight at the overseer.

  “Out of the way, ye jackanapes, before your innards splatter like ripe melon seeds on the cobbles!”

  Pitt’s malevolent eyes darted from Emerald to fix on the steady pistol.

  “You heard him,” she said.

  “You won’t stay so high and mighty for long,” Pitt said, but he stepped back in the direction of the square.

  Zeddie flicked the whip, and the horse started with a jump, causing the buggy to lurch. She caught herself on the seat and looked over her shoulder at Pitt, who stood watching them resentfully.

  So the spiteful gossip was already stirring. If Pitt knew, then so did everyone else on Foxemoore and everyone in Port Royal, including Cousin Lavender and her friends.

  “Don’t pay him any mind, Emerald,” soothed Minette. “Pitt has an evil imagination. He’ll need to eat his words when your betrothal to the viscount is announced.”