Windsong

by Valerie Sherwood

  Carolina, lifting the tankard to her lips, remembered the jewel-encrusted gold goblets from which she had drunk wine in the cabin of the real Sea Wolf - goblets seized from the might of Spain.

  ‘The wine is delicious, sir,’ she commended.

  ‘The best Spain had to offer at the time,’ he murmured absently. His eyes never left her face as he raised his tankard to his lips.

  ‘You seized it then from a Spanish galleon?’ she made bold to ask, for she could not credit it that this raffish ship had ever taken anything more dangerous than an unarmed merchantman.

  He chuckled. ‘I am afraid not. The wine too was the gift of a lady.’

  Spanish wine, she thought and was hard put to keep her brows from lifting again in astonishment.

  ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘I prefer a good Bordeaux, but the lady’s husband preferred to stock the wines of his country.’

  The gift of a married woman? And a Spanish woman at that? Carolina was fascinated.

  ‘Allow me to propose a toast,’ he said. ‘To the most beautiful woman it has ever been my privilege to gaze upon.’

  Carolina’s heart quickened. ‘And who might that be?’ she asked coolly.

  He chuckled. ‘I think you know,’ he said, and took a long draught of the wine before setting the tankard back upon the table.

  25

  Now that it was clear that the man who sat across from her was courting her favour - and courting it indeed like the gentleman he appeared to be, Carolina studied him frankly.

  Blatant masquerader that he was, still this fellow who lounged opposite her in silver-encrusted grey satin might easily, at a distance, be mistaken for Rye. He stood as tall as Rye - and as straight. He was of a slightly narrower build and had not Rye’s breadth of shoulder or depth of chest beneath that satin coat, but his hips and flanks as he strode along beside her to his cabin had had a wiry grace. And the sweeping bow he had made to her had the easy grace of a courtier at the Court of St James. His shoulder-length hair was his own and it was as dark as Rye’s, but while Rye’s was of the deepest richest brown imaginable and only appeared black in some lights, this man’s thick hair was truly black and had more of a bluish sheen. The face that looked so boldly into her own was smiling and lightly tanned - not so deeply tanned as Rye’s which had been bronzed by the fierce Caribbean sun. A narrow aquiline nose, a mobile mouth with a slightly jeering twist, a pair of arching, quizzical dark brows beneath a surprisingly high forehead confronted her.

  But his eyes were what held her attention. They were a murky grey, lighter in colour than Rye’s and curiously flat. Empty eyes. She could read nothing in them or tell whether there was even a soul behind them.

  Those eyes fascinated her.

  ‘And you are Captain Kells,’ she murmured ironically.

  That slightly jeering smile flashed again. ‘Aye,’ he said coolly. ‘But as I told you, dear lady, there is no need to be affrighted by the name. ’Tis well known that Captain Kells never does harm to women.’

  Yes, she thought with an inner sigh, that was well known of him. He did not damage their bodies - it was their hearts he left in disarray!

  She did not challenge his statement, but sat at gaze, studying this tall languid impostor in his elegant grey satin.

  Grey, she thought stabbingly. Someone must have told him that Kells always wears grey . . .

  Her gaze, which had drifted to his satin coat, moved up again to this dissolute reckless face. For all the emptiness of those strange grey eyes, there was heat in the look he gave her.

  ‘Perhaps you should show me the rent in your coat that I am to mend,’ she suggested hastily, for she had seen his eyes stray from a consideration of her breasts in her low-cut gown and wander briefly in the direction of his curtained bunk - and she wished at all costs to forestall any discussion of that.

  ‘After supper will be soon enough,’ he told her carelessly. ‘More wine?’ Without waiting for her answer he was filling her black leathern tankard.

  Carolina decided to jolt him from his present line of thought. ‘I’d have thought you would have taken more goblets than you could well use - from some Spanish galleon,’ she said curiously.

  He had the grace to wince. ‘I have not been so fortunate with Spanish ships of late,’ he told her - and stopped as the cabin boy brought in their dinner.

  Dining with him was a treat after the monotonous fare aboard the Mary Constant. There was fresh fruit, fresh fish, and bread and cheese of a more recent vintage than anything she had tasted in weeks. She suspected he had picked up fresh supplies in the nearby Azores. She felt guilty to be enjoying all this food while the crew and passengers of the Mary Constant peered past their winking lanterns, hoping to sight shore.

  That thought crispened her voice when next she spoke. ‘I am surprised not to see any navigational equipment,’ she declared tauntingly, for she remembered how the great cabin of the real Sea Wolf had seemed to be littered with it.

  He gave her an uncomfortable look; then his face cleared. ‘No . . . Regardless of anything you may have heard to the contrary, dear lady, I do not do my own navigating.’

  So he knew that Kells was a navigator, she thought grimly.

  She toyed with her food, too disturbed to eat heartily.

  ‘From whence do you come, dear lady?’ he asked her at last. ‘For I would think that surely the men of your locality are remiss if none of them has asked you to wife.’

  ‘Oh, but one has.’ She gave him a mocking look. ‘I am a Fleet Street bride - if you chance to know what that is.’

  ‘I know very well,’ he said. ‘You are from London, then?’

  ‘No.’ She sighed. ‘But I have been living in London of late.’

  ‘And your Fleet Street husband?’

  ‘Has left me,’ she said with a shrug. ‘For another woman.’

  Those empty eyes widened. ‘I am indeed surprised,’ he murmured. ‘For a man to leave such a wench as yourself - !’ He poured her more wine.

  ‘There are many kinds of men,’ she said bitterly, for the wine was beginning to warm her. She took a long draught of it.

  ‘Doubtless that is so.’ He watched her carefully. ‘And women also, of course.’

  She decided to throw caution to the winds. ‘Who are you?’ she demanded. ‘For you are assuredly not Kells.’

  His hand, which had been lifted to pour more wine into his tankard, was arrested midway and for a moment remained very still as those empty grey eyes considered her. A wry little smile seemed to play about his lips.

  ‘And what makes you say that, Mistress Smythe?’ She noted that he had abandoned the half-bantering ‘dear lady’ with which he had been addressing her.

  ‘Because I have seen the real Captain Kells,’ she declared recklessly.

  He set the wine bottle down carefully and let his fingers drum lightly upon the scarred table top. ‘And where was that?’ he asked at last.

  Ah, it would not be wise to say that she had known Kells on Tortuga! Such caution as still remained in her reckless heart forbade that. ‘On the street in Charles Towne,’ she said clearly. ‘He was pointed out to me.’

  ‘And in what way do I fail to resemble him?’

  ‘His shoulders are broader,’ she said instantly. ‘His hair is more brown and your faces are nothing alike.’

  A slight laugh escaped him. ‘You are a shrewd observer, Mistress Smythe, and the only person on board this vessel who has had an actual view of the buccaneer in question!’

  So he admitted it! She sat back, amazed.

  Thoughtful now, he poured his wine, leaned back and drank some, and then said meditatively, ‘So you viewed Kells once in Charles Towne . . . You did not meet him perchance?’ he shot at her.

  No,’ lied Carolina through stiff lips. ‘I did not meet him.’

  ‘Too bad,’ he said with a sigh. ‘It would have been helpful if you could have pointed out his mannerisms and gestures - perhaps a characteristic turn of phrase.’

&
nbsp; ‘I did not meet him,’ she repeated woodenly. And she would stick to that, she told herself. Whatever happened!

  ‘But you mention Charles Towne . . . and your name is “Carolina Smythe” - I take it then you are from Carolina?’

  She nodded. One place was as good as another to claim for this impudent fellow!

  ‘Why do you call yourself Kells?’ she shot at him.

  He laughed, fingering his tankard. ‘Can you not guess?’ he asked softly. ‘Is it not perfect to fly another man’s flag, assume another man’s identity, take what you will of life - and leave him to pay the piper?’

  ‘But you have not taken so very much of life,’ she observed crushingly. ‘You have found no very good quarry - a handful of merchant ships perhaps.’

  ‘Three, to be exact,’ he murmured, ‘counting the Mary Constant.'

  ‘And the first Spanish carrack to pass your way would blow you out of the water,’ she hazarded.

  ‘All true.’ He looked up thoughtfully. ‘But how do you know what quarry I have found?’

  ‘It is common knowledge throughout the Colonies that Captain Kells has turned from plundering the ships of Spain to plundering anything that floats.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’ He grinned at her engagingly. ‘And there’s the rub, isn’t it? Your tone tells me that you resent the fact that a man such as myself - not even a sailor by trade - should pretend to be such a famous buccaneer?’

  ‘I wonder why you do it.’

  ‘And I have told you.’

  ‘I think you have not,’ she said daringly.

  He was watching her closely and now his grin deepened. ‘I like you. Mistress Smythe,’ he said. ‘And I think that perhaps you have not told me the whole truth either.’ He rocked back in his gilt chair. ‘But perhaps as the evening wears on, we may get to know each other better.’

  ‘I am not a seamstress,’ she said stiffly - for certainly he would find that out soon enough.

  ‘I guessed as much. What are you?’

  ‘I was a schoolgirl and a runaway. I was married in Fleet Street and deserted on London - surely such a story as mine is familiar to anyone who knows the city! I had enough money to leave London and I am now - or I was before you interrupted my journey - making my way to Bermuda and thence to America.’

  ‘Where in America?’ he asked idly.

  She gave him a frank answer. ‘I had thought of Philadelphia,’ she said, ‘because I have a sister there. But I really do not care so long as I put enough distance between myself and the man who betrayed me.’

  ‘But we are betrayers all,’ he murmured, watching her narrowly as he balanced his gilt chair precariously on its two back legs.

  ‘You will bring yourself down if the wind comes up,’ she told him resentfully, indicating the way he was sitting.

  He laughed and brought his chair back on to its four legs with a slight crash. ‘Right enough, dear lady. And now that you know my well-kept secret, what am I to do with you?’

  ‘You might put me ashore on the nearest island of the Azores,’ she said resentfully. ‘So that I might join the other passengers of the Mary Constant and continue my journey.’

  ‘No.’ He gave her a sunny smile. ‘I hardly think I will do that. Tell me about this man who deserted you.’

  ‘I do not want to talk about him!’ she flashed. ‘Indeed I have forgotten him already!’ Her flushed face gave that the lie.

  He sat studying her - and she could not know that he was wishing at that moment that he could have been the man to bring such fire to those silver eyes, to have made those beautiful breasts in their ice-green satin prison rise and fall so rapidly. He leaned forward and offered her more wine.

  She took it readily.

  ‘He was a betrayer,’ she said, her voice trembling. ‘He made me believe that he loved me.’

  ‘And then he left?’

  'And then he left with another woman!'

  ‘Ah, yes,’ he said in a consoling voice. ‘And doubtless you seek revenge?’ His face was amused, but Carolina, perturbed at the thought of Rye’s faithlessness to her - and faithfulness to the memory of someone else! - missed the implication.

  ‘I seek a new life,’ she muttered - and recklessly drained her tankard.

  ‘Mistress Smythe,’ he said suddenly. ‘I believe that you are nobody’s fool, and so I will lay my cards face up upon the table.’

  Carolina was feeling a little dizzy from so much wine swallowed so fast and she peered at him, wondering if he was making sport of her.

  ‘It is important that my impersonation of this buccaneer Kells be letter perfect,’ he explained. ‘And I am told that he has a mistress - perhaps she is his wife, I am not sure. The Silver Wench, they call her, though her name is Christabel Willing. My cabin boy - the stripling who served us just now - has been constrained to put on female clothes and wear a blonde wig to make himself appear to be this Silver Wench, but he will not bear very close inspection.’

  Well, he had fooled Aunt Pet! thought Carolina.

  ‘When my men told me we had truly a “silver wench” aboard the Mary Constant, I gave thought to yet another impersonation. You are a most amazing beauty, dear lady, and surely no hair could be more like spun silver than your own. Mistress Smythe, will you play the part of Kell’s woman, this Christabel Willing? Will you be my Silver Wench?’

  Carolina gaped at him. This fake buccaneer was actually asking her to play herself? Suddenly the humour of the situation struck her and she began to laugh uncontrollably, rocking in her chair.

  Across from her the tall man in grey looked faintly hurt. ‘I have said something amusing?’ he asked ruefully. ‘Faith, I’d have expected you to be scandalized or affrighted or scornful - even avid! Anything but to be overwhelmed by mirth!’

  But then he did not know the circumstances! Carolina was sent off into gales of laughter again.

  ‘What - what would I have to do?’ she gasped when she could speak.

  Those empty eyes upon her were very steady but the dark brows above had drawn together in a frown. ‘Very little, really,’ he said slowly. ‘There is to be another ship coming soon to these waters. It will bear a lady. And there may well be witnesses aboard who will stare through a glass at my ship and report later everything they see. And they will expect to see a woman at my side and - this is as much for the lady’s protection as my own - that woman beside me had best not be a cabin boy got up as a female. You, dear lady, could pass yourself off as this Silver Wench without causing disbelief.’

  Indeed I could! she thought irreverently, managing this time to repress her wild laughter.

  ‘But why should I do it?’ she said, cavalierly overlooking the fact that she was entirely in his power.

  Another smile, this one mirthless, quirked his lips.

  ‘For gain?’ he suggested. ‘Or doesn’t gain interest you, Mistress Smythe?’

  Carolina gave him an irritable look. ‘There are some games I could not in honour play,’ she told him evenly. Her tankard made a small definite sound of finality as she set it back upon the table.

  If she had surprised him by that flat statement, he had the grace not to show it.

  ‘But then I take it you are already dishonoured?’ he hazarded. ‘By a Fleet Street alliance from which the bridegroom has already flown?’

  A shiver of revulsion went through her. He was right to twit her, she thought bitterly. Hers was no very blameless life!

  ‘You say you seek a new life,’ he reminded her. ‘Remember, money can bring you that.’

  ‘Is that what you seek?' she asked bluntly. ‘A new life?’

  He sighed. ‘No, I seek only to repair the old one. I am in sad financial straits, Mistress Smythe, and beggars cannot be choosers.’

  ‘You do not need me for your schemes,’ she said coldly.

  ‘Ah, but I do.’ He leaned forward earnestly. ‘I need you quite badly, Mistress Smythe. Will you not do it as a favour perhaps for your host? Remember, one favour begets another.’<
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  She considered him. An attractive man, certainly, and he had offered her no harm. And yet indirectly he was the cause of all her troubles. If this man had not pretended to be Kells, had not taken Aunt Pet’s ship and sunk it off the Virginia coast, she would be legally married now to Rye Evistock.

  But perhaps Rye would have left her anyway, once he laid eyes on the Spanish ambassador’s lady who looked enough like his lost Rosalia to turn his face ashen! The thought brought sudden tears to her eyes, which made them dazzingly bright. The man before her was quite dazed by them.

  ‘Faith, you’re a beauty,’ he murmured. ‘This Caribbean wench, whatever she is like, could not have half your looks.’

  Ah, but she has, thought Carolina.

  ‘And if I do as you ask?’ she said slowly.

  ‘Ah, then I promise to show you all deference and set you ashore at any place you desire - once the deed is done.’

  Once the deed is done. ‘What deed?’ she asked impatiently.

  ‘Why - the rendezvous I told you about. With the lady.’

  ‘It is all very strange,’ she complained. ‘I do not know what I am getting into.’

  ‘You will not be getting into anything,’ he corrected her. ‘For like myself, you will have assumed a new identity. Mistress Smythe will become on the instant’ - he snapped his fingers - ‘transformed into Mistress Christabel Willing, the Silver Wench of the Caribbean.’

  And for that she could later be called to account. Carolina realized on what thin ice she was treading.

  ‘I have seen her too,’ she told him recklessly. ‘This Christabel Willing, this woman they call the Silver Wench.’

  ‘You have?’ His eyes lit up. ‘You have actually seen her?’

  She could see that he was impressed. ‘Yes. She was with Kells in Charles Towne. I got a very good look at her.’

  ‘And does she resemble you?’ he cried, rapt.

  Carolina shrugged, ‘Enough,’ she admitted. ‘We are of near the same size, our hair is the same colour. Perhaps our eyes as well,’ she said grudgingly.

  He was lost in admiration. ‘So you have seen her, you know how she walks, how she carries her head? Ah, you will be invaluable in this venture, dear lady!’