Zeddie slowed the buggy. “Aye, I wish to see his face when he learns ye’ll be a countess.”
Emerald said nothing. A sick feeling stirred in her stomach. Neither Minette nor Zeddie’s confidence matched her own.
“‘Twill please Sir Karlton no end should you go and marry his lordship sooner than first bargained. Say, before England, is my guess. With his lordship’s shares of Foxemoore added to what ye’ll receive from your father, ye’ll be crackin’ the whip as the true overseer of Foxemoore.” Zeddie chuckled over his thoughts and didn’t appear to notice her gravity. “I’d like to see his face when ye send him out to cut cane with the same slaves he’s whipped for his pleasure!”
His words slowly warmed her dull and frozen spirits. “When I send him?” she repeated dazedly.
Zeddie’s eye twinkled under the periwig. “Ye’ll be ridin’ high, m’gal. It’s as plain as can be, I’m thinkin’. Seems to me that Captain Foxworth is bound to own a hefty portion of Foxemoore, seein’ as how he’s the earl’s full-blooded grandson. Together, ye and Baret will own more’n Lord Felix and Lady Geneva put together!” He looked at her. “Says to me that will put you in position to do on Foxemoore much what you want.”
She stared at him.
He winked. “An’ with the arrogant and testy Captain Foxworth backin’ ye up—who is stoppin’ you?”
“Oooh,” moaned Minette and held her arms tightly against her as though awesome thoughts gave her goose bumps. “He’s right, Emerald. If his lordship decides to stand behind you, why—why, we both can walk about in silk with our heads high.”
Caution restrained Emerald, and she was swift to dampen their excitement. “I’m not Lady Buckington yet. And Baret has the opposition of Lord Felix to contend with. I don’t think I’ll be telling Lady Sophie to send Pitt packing to the cane fields any time soon, though the idea of firing him brings joy.”
Until now Emerald hadn’t wasted time even thinking of what her share of Foxemoore would possibly allow her to do if she did marry Baret. Now the contemplation of how much they would own was staggering. She picked up her fan and cooled her face.
Zeddie seemed certain Baret owned a good deal more than he had ever mentioned. Did he still own it after displeasing his grandfather? True, he was heir to the earldom, but Baret had intimated that his grandfather was close to disinheriting him. Lavender had told her the same thing. Yet Baret must own much if Lavender wished to marry him.
The family had been adamantly against his taking to the Caribbean as a buccaneer. She didn’t think matters had changed recently. If anything, Baret was in more difficulty with his grandfather than ever. And if Baret’s suspicions about his uncle were true, Felix would surely be scheming to turn the earl against Baret in order to assume title and inheritance.
She glanced at Zeddie from under the shade of her parasol. “I don’t know how much of Foxemoore Baret owns. Nor is he likely to get it as long as he insists on remaining a pirate.”
And, she thought, there are few things important enough to Baret for him to give up the Caribbean in order to win.
11
LADY LAVENDER THAXTON, ADVERSARY
Her father’s abandoned lookout house faced the Caribbean. Resembling an old lighthouse, it awaited her homecoming with a foreboding silence that Emerald was certain she could feel within its high, narrow walls. The structure’s plank flooring creaked beneath the floral rug under her feet, while the one overriding sound was the slapping water against its foundational pilings, sunk deep in sand.
As sunlight invaded through the door she had left standing open for fresh air, a wharf rat lumbered away to safety in a dark cranny next to the steep wood steps that led up to the top chamber. Emerald grimaced her loathing for the furry creature, and her eyes scanned the front room in search of more lurking about.
Things certainly clashed here, she thought. A cheap rattan chair, with one leg lopsided from nibbling insects, sat beside an intricately carved mahogany desk taken from a cabin on some Spanish treasure galleon. She laid her pretty silk parasol on the desktop, then jumped as Minette squealed and retreated toward the door.
Her cousin pointed disdainfully to the floor. A two-inch-long cockroach sped across the planks and disappeared between the cracks. “There’s a thousand, if I’d waste time counting,” said Minette with a mouth that quivered. “You know how I hate ’em, and I won’t go into the cookhouse to make tea.”
Troubled by her own load of burdens, Emerald tore off her bonnet and tossed it on the desk beside the parasol. “Then call Zeddie. He simply flicks them aside.”
Minette rubbed her arms and returned to the door to look down the outside flight of steps. “He’s taking the buggy to Queen Street to see if Miss Geneva is at the new town house like you said. And if she is, do you think she’ll appeal to the governor?”
Emerald couldn’t bring herself to believe Geneva would turn completely against Karlton.
“For all Geneva’s indifference toward me, she does have affection for my father. So does Lady Sophie. Oh, Minette, I’m too weary to think now. I’m famished for a strong cup of tea. And raid the jelly cabinet too, will you? There should still be a tin of honey there, and flour too. We can fry those good cakes Jonah used to make for our afternoon supper. And make them crispy, the way I like them.”
Minette folded her arms and drew back. “That old sack of flour is sure to be full ’em by now.”
“Never mind—I’ll do it,” Emerald suggested with a bravery she didn’t feel and, with a sacrificial attitude born from weariness, started toward the back of the house. She paused after a few steps and looked over her shoulder, hoping to see Minette’s expression of guilt. But her cousin had turned her head and was looking below.
Emerald’s mouth turned ruefully, and she’d once again started for the tiny cookhouse that Jonah had built on the wharf, when Minette called, “Wait—someone’s coming. A fancy carriage stopped below.”
Emerald sped back to Minette’s side, heart in her throat. “Oh, no! The officials?”
A vision of the filthy jail teeming with lice sent her heart pounding. Please, Lord, she prayed urgently, Don’t let them lock me up there! Please!
“It’s Lavender,” whispered Minette, shocked.
“Lavender!” Emerald’s fear washed away to surprise, then to a mounting concern all its own.
“I wonder what Miss Fancy Hairdo wants, comin’ here,” said Minette, watching the woman who had stepped from the pretty carriage and stood looking toward the porch.
Emerald drew in a silent breath, and her fingers brushed a dark curl from her cheek where the wind had blown it. She thought she knew the reason that brought her spoiled and beautiful cousin to see her, and the notion was not a pleasant one.
“Lavender will never help me now,” she said thoughtfully.
“When did she ever help? She didn’t help Ty none, and she’s jealous of you because you’re prettier than she is.”
Vain thoughts of appearance were the last thing on Emerald’s mind now.
“I wonder why she’s come,” Minette said grudgingly.
“Baret Buckington. What else?” Emerald sighed. “How could she have heard about the duel already? Surely Papa didn’t mention it on his arrival in town this morning. He’d be so taken up with the charges of the Admiralty, he’d hardly have time.”
Minette glanced at her, as though some memory arose unexpectedly to trouble her.
“Uncle Karlton would be as quick as a parrot after a June fly to defend your reputation. An’ you know how proud he is of the betrothal. If anyone was to say anything, he would have had time all right.”
“Proud?” Emerald scoffed. “Do you call threatening Baret with a duel to force him to marry me something I can lift my head about?”
Minette looked anxiously toward Lavender’s carriage. “Something happened between his lordship and Miss Lavender before the duel that—that I forgot to tell you about.”
Emerald’s gaze swerved from Lavender
, walking toward the lookout house, to confront Minette’s wide eyes. A strange lurch came to her stomach. “Something happened between Baret and Lavender. Something you didn’t tell me about.”
Minette cast a quick glance below.
“Vapors! She’s got a madder look on her snobby face than two wharf cats bickerin’ over a fish.”
Emerald caught her arm and pulled her into the room.
“Ouch, Emerald—”
“Quickly, tell me before she comes.”
“She—she went and married another of your cousins. You remember that lord named Grayford?”
Emerald stared at her. “What? You’re certain? She married the stepson of Felix?”
Minette swallowed and nodded firmly, her lustrous tangle of ringlets bouncing.
The silence enclosed Emerald like an iron casing. A hundred thoughts rampaged through her mind. “But why?” she whispered. “Why?”
Minette opened her mouth, then looked toward the door as Lavender’s slippers sounded on the flight of outer steps.
Emerald’s hands dropped from Minette’s arm, and they both stepped back, drawing in breaths, when a moment later Lady Lavender Thaxton’s poised and elegant form stood framed in the doorway. Her flaxen hair was arranged in coquettish curls. Her blue eyes regarded Emerald with icy scorn.
Emerald lifted her head slightly, trying to muster her own fleeing poise. I’m a daughter of the King, she reminded herself. I’ve no reason to feel inferior. Nevertheless, she did, and she felt frustrated with herself as her dignity seemed to abandon her.
Minette turned and started for the back. “I’ll—I’ll make some Dutch tea,” she said breathlessly and disappeared, as though cockroaches were preferred to the overwhelming shadow of the future duchess.
Emerald stood there, her eyes locked with Lavender’s chilling gaze. The trade wind, which arose each afternoon, gripped the siding facing the bay and gave it a jerk, as if to say, “I can easily shake you into a bundle of sticks to float away on the waves.”
“You’ve heard about your father’s arrest?”
“Yes. And he’s innocent. I must speak at once to Geneva—or even Aunt Sophie.”
“I doubt that will be possible. And Karlton is no more innocent of piracy then you are of being ‘abducted’ by Baret. It would be laughable, if I didn’t pity you. The whole of the better families in Port Royal and Saint Jago are talking.”
“They would. More’s the pity they don’t have more valuable things to do with their lives than to gossip about me and my father.”
Lavender smiled condescendingly. “They do. The planters are getting ready for the war and yowling to Governor Modyford about the need to bring the buccaneers back to protect Jamaica.”
“They’d be a bunch of fools to risk your stepfather’s gallows.”
“Oh—” she gave a wave of her hand “—you mean Felix. That’s what I came about, but it can wait a few minutes.” Lavender’s limpid blue eyes ran over her, taking in the lovely folds of satin and lace. “Why, Emerald, dear,” came the now poisonously sweet voice, “at least no one in Jamaica—or London—could accuse you of not looking like a real lady. Alas, appearances aren’t everything.” Her cold eyes met Emerald’s.
Emerald winced before she could hide her reaction to the verbal slap.
Lavender saw and smiled, satisfied. She brushed through the door and past her, glancing about with disdain. “What a filthy place to call a home. You should have stayed on Karlton’s boat.”
Emerald’s anger flared like a live coal. “You might have waited in the family carriage and sent your slave to call me.”
“What I want to say is best spoken alone.” She glanced in the direction where Minette had slipped away. “Is that half-caste cousin of yours gone?”
“Yes, my cousin went to make tea.”
“I can’t stay for tea.”
“How’d you know I was here?”
A golden brow arched. “Why—your father has made quite sure everyone knows his precious, darling daughter has returned to Jamaica.”
“I didn’t know my presence would be greeted with any stir,” she said too casually. “Few in the past have paid any notice to the offspring of ‘that daughter of a French pirate.’”
Lavender smiled coolly. “You’re right. They didn’t. There was no cause until now. But you’ve returned boasting a star feather in your cap. Everyone will soon be talking about how you and your father managed quite cleverly to steal a marriage proposal better suited a daughter of the noble blood.”
So she did know.
Emerald struggled to keep her composure, hoping against hope that a blush would not warm her cheeks. “I assure you, Lavender, I didn’t try to steal anything from you. If you’re speaking of the viscount—”
Lavender interrupted with an impatient lift of her chin. “You’re right. You did not ‘steal’ Baret Buckington from me. There isn’t a woman in the West Indies or London could have done that unless I allowed it to happen.”
Emerald’s feminine pride was stung, and she tried to keep her gaze from Lavender’s left hand, where Grayford’s wedding ring would glisten if Minette had been right.
“Imagine,” said Lavender with a cool laugh, “your father forcing a duel on the grandson of the Earl Nigel Buckington. Why, it’s laughable—if it weren’t so foolish and tragic. You know, don’t you, that neither the earl nor any of the Buckingtons in London will allow you to marry Baret?”
Emerald’s heart thudded. “I suppose his lordship can and will marry any woman he chooses.”
“What you mean, dear, is that Baret is gallant enough to take pity on you and marry you to save you from the street. You know what they do to little tarts in Massachusetts, don’t you?” And her blue eyes turned into icy sapphires. “They brand an ‘A’ for adultery on their foreheads. Just like your half-caste cousin Ty was branded as a runaway slave.”
Emerald sucked in her breath and stared at her, unable to speak.
Lavender’s pretty face hardened as she looked pointedly at Emerald’s small waist. “I suppose you’re expecting his child?”
Emerald stepped backward. “How dare you, Lavender? Nothing has happened between me and Captain Foxworth—”
Lavender shrugged her pale shoulders. “You needn’t look so stricken, like some half-sick rabbit. My little question was merely meant to help you.”
“Help me! You despise me, although I once thought you were my friend. How little did I realize then that you are only a friend to those you can manipulate to do the things you want.”
“Theatrics.” She fanned herself with a white silk fan. “I am your friend, in spite of all the shameful treachery you heaped against me.”
“I’ve done no wrong. To you or anyone else. I can explain everything, but I know neither you nor the family would listen if I did.”
Lavender paced, her silken skirts fluttering. “It’s dreadful what you did to me, to yourself. Do you think I’m the only one who thinks something happened?”
“Nothing happened, I swear it didn’t. Does my Christian faith all these years mean nothing? Do you think I played a game of hypocrisy when I helped Great-uncle Mathias in the singing school? You know above everyone else what Jesus means to me—”
“Oh, do stop such silly chatter. I know nothing of the sort. I suppose you hung about that school because you had nothing finer to do. As soon as a good-looking man came about, you were ready to leave it all, hoping to trap him. That’s why you sneaked aboard his ship. I suppose he was quite shocked when he came to his cabin and found you in his bed.”
“It wasn’t like that. What have I ever done to make you think so cheaply of me?”
“Never mind—I don’t care to hear the lurid details. Aunt Sophie and Geneva are fit to be tied, and of course all the girls have their minds made up.”
“It is the way of evil, suspicious minds!” said Emerald, her face hot.
“What do you expect them to think?” Lavender scoffed. “As you said, we
know what your mother was. And there’s only one reason why Baret would ever promise to marry you. And that’s to save you from scandal.”
Emerald could have cringed under her appraisal.
“He doesn’t love you.”
Her confident words were spoken quietly, but they couldn’t have hurt Emerald more if she had shouted them. No, he doesn’t love me, she found herself thinking and was suddenly as angry toward Baret as she was toward Lavender.
“He loves me,” said Lavender calmly. “He always has, and he always will.”
Emerald desperately wished she could say otherwise.
Lavender smiled a little. “He took pity on you is all. You and Karlton will privately be the laughingstock of all Jamaica and London. A duel! Imagine Karlton threatening him to save your honor. Poor Baret! Wherever he’d go when he returns to his title, people in London would look at him with pity.”
Emerald’s hands closed tightly into fists behind her back. “You’re wrong,” she said stiffly and lifted her chin at an attempt at dignity. “He wants to marry me. He said so.”
Instead of getting angry, Lavender gave a small laugh. “Did he say that? Darling Baret—how unnecessarily cruel I’ve been to him. And I shouldn’t have. After all, he could have just about any woman he wanted in England.” She sighed.
Emerald came alert and scanned her. “At what are you hinting?”
Lavender looked innocent. “You mean you don’t know?”
Emerald wanted to squirm under the victorious gaze.
“Baret was dreadful not to tell you.”
The suggestion was cutting. There was something important he hadn’t thought enough of her to explain.
“Tell me what?”
Lavender held out her left hand. In the sunlight streaming from the open doorway, diamonds and red rubies sprang up like blended fire.
Emerald stared at the engagement ring. Not from Baret? she thought, with a sick feeling.
“I’m engaged to marry Grayford,” said Lavender in a grave voice. “I would have married him a month ago, except that this miserable war with the Dutch had to happen now. Grayford is assigned duty with Lieutenant-governor Edward Morgan to attack Curaco. So the marriage was delayed.”
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