My colonial minx,’ Kells murmured, and bent to plant a kiss upon his love. Carolina stretched luxuriously, deliberately tempting him. ‘Go to sleep,’ he laughed, rumpling her hair. And more softly, ‘And dream of me.’ Carolina drifted into slumber, knowing that he loved her. He had proved that with the delicacy and ardour of his lovemaking. She nestled down in the bed, a woman secure. Her dreams were lovely ones - but she awakened to the scraping of boots and the light clank of a scabbard that surged against the door as it was opened.
She sat up, startled. The door was open a bit and a man’s tall figure was discernable against the dimness of the hall.
‘Is that you?’ she said, confused.
‘Yes,’ came Kells’s voice. ‘I am sorry I woke you.’
‘But - why rise so early?’
‘I sail with the tide at dawn,’ he said . . .
By the same author
Lovesong
Nightsong
VALERIE SHERWOOD
Windsong
GRAFTON BOOKS
A Division of the Collins Publishing Group
LONDON GLASGOW TORONTO SYDNEY AUCKLAND
Grafton Books
A Division of the Collins Publishing Group 8 Grafton Street, London W1X 3LA
A Grafton UK Paperback Original 1987
Copyright © Valerie Sherwood 1986
ISBN 0-586-07180-6
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Collins, Glasgow
Set in Times
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Table of Contents
Windsong Dedication
Warning
Author’s Note
PROLOGUE: ACROSS SOUTHERN SEAS
1
2
BOOK 1 The Hush-Hush Bride!
PART ONE The Change in Plans
1
2
3
4
PART TWO Sparks Fly at the Raleigh!
5
6
PART THREE Candlelight and Wine
7
8
9
BOOK 2 The Lightfoot Lass
PART ONE The Wedding Nobody Ever Forgot!
10
11
12
PART TWO The Petticoat Buccaneer
13
14
BOOK 3 The London Lady
PART ONE The Fleet Street Bride
15
16
PART TWO The Ambassador’s Lady
17
18
19
20
21
BOOK 4 Revenge!
PART ONE The Counterfeit Buccaneer
22
23
24
25
PART TWO The Silver Wench
26
27
28
29
30
31
Epilogue
Dedication
To the never to be forgotten memory of beautiful Princess, my very first cat, who strolled into my life on soft white paws in those faraway childhood days when I lived in the fabled South Branch Valley; Princess, whose soft grey and white fur and dainty ways suited so admirably her Colonial setting among the great homes that lined that lovely river; Princess, who slept like a soft and fluffy furpiece around my neck on cold winter nights and played with me in the boxwoods and irises and lilies so dear to my mother’s heart; Princess, who bore four lovely kittens and taught me so much about joy and tenderness - to Princess, the first cat ever to win my heart, this book is affectionately dedicated.
Warning
Readers are hereby warned not to use any of the cosmetics, unusual foods, medications (particularly such items as ‘High Spirited Pills’!) referred to herein without first consulting and securing the approval of a medical doctor. These items are included only to enhance the authentic seventeenth-century atmosphere and are in no way recommended for use by anyone.
Author’s Note
In this turbulent tale of love and treachery, of passion and heartfelt revenge set in the stirring 1600s, I have brought forward the adventurous love story of aristocratic Carolina Lightfoot of Virginia’s Eastern Shore, who became the celebrated Silver Wench of the Caribbean, and her dangerous buccaneer lover, Captain Kells. Their path was indeed thorny but I believe it to be not uncharacteristic of the exuberant times in which they lived, when notable impersonations sometimes took place (and men were hanged for far less than the incident involving Aunt Pet which took place off the Virginia coast).
Although all the characters and events depicted herein are entirely of my own imagination, the surroundings and many traditions are often quite real:
The ‘river pirates’ of the Thames were certainly real enough and ‘Swan Upping’, presided over by the royal Keeper of the Swans, is a pleasant custom that has existed on the river for centuries.
The ‘no questions asked’ marriage ceremonies held without crying of the banns in certain ‘privileg’d Churches’ did indeed take place - in fact, during the time of my story the register of one of these churches - St James’s, Duke’s Place - revealed that some fifteen hundred such marriages a year took place!
And indeed London’s ‘Fleet Street brides’ were in Carolina’s day a problem - even though the marriage registers of these illegal weddings were often produced as court evidence in bigamy cases.
I have always striven for authenticity in my novels and gone to great lengths to achieve it. This has been a source of great delight to me, for both my husband and I are born-and-bred genealogy buffs; we used to vacation round the country in county courthouses, researching our various family lines, reading the original documents, some of them - especially in Virginia’s ‘lower counties’ - in quaint old English handwriting. We ran all our family lines on all sides for both of us and made the happy discovery that every single line had been in this country well before the American Revolution - some in the earliest 1600s. Long a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution (when in residence at Dragon’s Lair, for some thirty years our Washington residence, we frequently did our research at the DAR Library in Constitution Hall) and of the Daughters of the American Colonists, it was a great treat for me once again to research the Tidewater and the Eastern Shore for this novel.
Since one of the most entertaining ancestresses on my husband’s side of the family was an accused witch (she was charged with having ‘flown’ through a window), I took delight in basing the charge of witchcraft in my novel on the famous case of Grace Sherwood, perhaps the best known ‘witch’ of the southern Colonies, although her witchcraft trial came several years later. She lived in Princess Anne County, Virginia, was the wife of James Sherwood and brought suit against those who claimed she was a witch, had bewitched their cotton, had arrived in the night and departed through the keyhole or a crack of the door as a black cat, etc. - poor Grace, she has my complete sympathy! A reading of her case suggests to me that Grace Sherwood was a wealthy woman and the complaints brought against her were for considerable sums of money, i.e., 100 pounds sterling, a very large sum in those days. She had the misfortune to have as the forewoman of her jury in 1705-6 the same Elizabeth Barnes whom she herself had sued for slanderously claiming Grace ha
d bewitched their cotton and from whom she had sought 100 pounds sterling in reparations. She was ordered into the ordeal by water (‘ducking’). Though bound, Grace swam determinedly, to everyone’s horror, proving ipso facto that she was indeed a witch, but somehow the charges against her seemed to peter out, thereby proving that the people of early Virginia had some sense at least, for Grace died in 1733, apparently unincarcerated!
Most of the houses included in my novel actually exist today - or did exist; many early Colonial houses were destroyed by fire or other disasters. All are authentic as to type. Level Green, the home of my heroine’s family on the York, is of course storied Rosewell, and nearby Shelly, which I mention in the book, is the home of the Pages. Although of slightly later vintage, I could not resist including Shelly because the Pages of Shelly gave birth to the noted author Thomas Nelson Page, whose ‘The Burial of the Guns’ I consider one of the finest short stories of all time - and I was delighted some years ago to find one of my own short stories included in a handsome anthology right next to one by Thomas Nelson Page! I felt I was in good company!
As to historic Fairfield, family seat of the Burwell family, the mansion burned long ago and I have been unable to obtain a description of the actual interior, save for the arches of the basement and the fact that one wing contained the ballroom. I have therefore decorated Fairfield and its mirrored ballroom in a manner suitable to the times.
I should like to add that wherever possible, the furnishings described - even the chamber pots! - are completely authentic, and many of the pieces can be found in Williamsburg and Yorktown today.
While I am on the subject of chamber pots, let me regale the reader with a few simple facts. Chamber pots are among the most common items to be found in Colonial America’s archaeological sites; from apple-green glazed to tortoise-shell leadglaze - our ancestors were well supplied. But the potters and pewterers are said to have copied the designs of the silversmiths, who set the style in chamber pots - and Aunt Pet, in my story, could rightly consider the heavy silver chamber pot that travelled with her a mark of distinction.
I must add that although reliable sources indicate that Yorktown was not actually founded as a ‘town’ until 1691, of course many homes in the area existed prior to that date, so for clarity I have referred to 'Yorktown' throughout. Similarly, it was hard actually to ‘date’ the Raleigh and its Apollo Room, but I thought that for Letitia’s legendary vanquishing of her rival, Amanda Bramway, readers would enjoy a background of 'dinner at the Raleigh’.
Because I have found my readers, from the many letters they write to me, to be both well read and knowledgeable - indeed in every way a cut above the pack - I have, for their sakes, sought to be meticulously authentic even in small details.
For example, on sword-canes (and I was especially interested in sword-canes because my father owned one and thrilled me with it in my childhood) the interesting sword-cane used by Sandy Randolph in my story is based on one presently in the Wallace Collection in London - that sword-cane too contains a small wheel lock pistol but its head is cast bronze rather than silver, its shaft of ebony, mahogany and ivory. This seemed rather a lot for my heroine to observe from the head of the stairs, so I simply categorized it as 'bronze-headed ebony’, while Rye’s more standard sword-cane is 'silver-headed Malacca’, Malacca being the material of which most of -the finest sword-canes of the time were made.
For the geographically minded, I would point out that Salamanca, while presently the capital of the province of Salamanca in western Spain, was at the time of my story a city in the ancient province of Leon, Salamanca not having been established as a province until 1833.
I would note also that the sea rovers of the Caribbean, when ready to attack, customarily ran up the personal flag of their captain. These were of many types, some red, some black, some with skull and crossbones, etc. For a man to fly a woman’s petticoat as a battle flag would be perfectly consistent with the times - thus the ‘Petticoat Buccaneer’ of my story.
And let me carry you along with me as:
I sing of loves forgotten, of dreams that did not last.
Of hopes that went a winging.
Of lovers' voices ringing.
Oh, join me now in singing - a lovesong to the past!
Valerie Sherwood
PROLOGUE: ACROSS SOUTHERN SEAS
Early Winter 1689
Lover, come close, lie down by my side,
Though I may never be your legal bride . . .
Words spoken over us, can they mean more
Than what we have now on love’s golden shore?
1
The Wedding Night
Moonlight whitened the beach and silvered the palms that rustled through Tortuga in the soft Caribbean night. A shimmer of stars, brilliant against the black velvet night, cast their cold light on the grey forbidding walls of the Mountain Fort that guarded the entrance of this mighty buccaneer stronghold. But the sleepy red and green parrots perched among the fronds were to know no sleep this night, for the sounds of a raucous buccaneer wedding still rang along the island’s waterfront and echoed across Cayona Bay.
The revelry, the dancing, the drinking, had been going on all day on the Island of Tortuga, and had not slackened even during the ceremony when shouted good wishes from shore had nearly drowned out the vows being taken by the handsome young couple on the Sea Wolfs deck. Now, well past midnight, the buccaneers and their bawds on shore were still drinking deep to Captain Kells, their departing leader, and to his beautiful bride, Christabel Willing, the glorious Silver Wench over whom half Tortuga had fought a bloody battle. From the quay, from the beach, they waved tankards and cutlasses in a last salute to the lean grey Sea Wolf as she spread her canvas and fled down the moonpath, and their clamorous farewell echoed as her great sails billowed and she drove across the silver blackness of the bay, seeking the open ocean.
On her clean swabbed decks there was laughter too, and drinking, and singing rising above the wail of the stringed instruments of a knot of lounging buccaneers. Amid it all the father of the bride, an aristocratic Virginian named Lysander Randolph - but whom the world called ‘Sandy’ - leaned his green satin-clad arms upon the taffrail and stared moodily at the departing winking lights of the Mountain Fort that guarded this great stronghold of the Brethren of the Coast - and remembered his own buccaneering past with Morgan, nearly forgotten now.
He remembered other things as well, things that seared his memory. A vision of the bride’s mother, a blazing beauty with whom he had shared a Christmastide of passion, rose up before him, then faded. His beloved Letty . . . But he had not taken her home to Tower Oaks, his plantation on the broad banks of the James. For Letty was another man’s wife and she had gone her way. So long ago . . . and yet tonight the scars were fresh again and the pain cut deep.
There was an ache in Sandy Randolph’s throat as he thought how ‘Christabel’ - the wondrous daughter he could never claim back in Virginia - had glittered tonight in her ice-blue satin gown, its wide drifting skirts all set with brilliants. Her colouring was the mirror image of his own, for her eyes were a flashing silver and her ice-blonde hair a moonlit halo. It had been a surprising wrench to ‘give her away’ on the deck of this rakish buccaneer vessel! It had come to him, as he watched her standing straight and proud and confident, taking her vows beside her tall dark-haired buccaneer, that it should all have been different, so different . . . That she should have trailed decorously down the wide curving stairway of Tower Oaks, with all the Tidewater gentry admiring her descent. That Letty’s dark blue eyes should have brimmed with tears as he, Lysander Randolph, gave the bride away. That the bridegroom should have been some easygoing Virginia planter, set to live a life of ease with idle horses and whisky, instead of this dangerous buccaneer Kells, off to seek a chancy pardon. Faced with the imminent likelihood of war, England’s king had offered a general amnesty to the buccaneers, but a king’s word was the wind’s word and easily blown away, and Sandy knew to
o that there were uneasy rumours about the recent activities of Captain Kells, such rumours as could bring a man down . . .
Leaning upon the taffrail, still cold sober after enough wine to sprawl an average man full length across the deck, Sandy Randolph thought his bitter thoughts and envisioned a world that might have been - and was not.
But in the moonlit great cabin of the Sea Wolf, the din ashore and afloat were both forgotten as a tall man and a slender woman faced each other, smiling.
The radiance of the bride’s countenance softened the hard grey eyes that looked down upon her so penetratingly. This was not the grim and purposeful visage that, on so many slippery decks, men had viewed down the shining length of a cutlass. His lean sun-darkened face had lost its saturnine cast, and it was a boyish smile the buccaneer bridegroom flashed upon his lady.
‘Christabel,’ he murmured - and her name was a sigh upon his lips.
‘Kells,’ she whispered on the wisp of a breath, and swayed towards him in her billowing satin skirts. She arched her neck, throwing back her lovely head, lifting her lips for his kiss. Her gesture had a delicate feminine grace not lost upon the captain, and her unusual silver eyes, shadowed by that fringe of dark lashes so at odds with the frosty blonde sheen of her hair, were luminous with love of him.
The tall buccaneer caught his entrancing lady in his arms and she rested against his broad chest, feeling his quickening heartbeat race against her own.
Windsong Page 1