‘Solomon . . .’ mused Rye. Of a sudden his grey eyes lit up. He looked upon Robin almost kindly. ‘I thank you for that suggestion, Saltenham,’ he said obscurely. ‘I will take it to heart.’
Carolina, who had been watching this exchange between the two men, frowned.
‘What on earth did he mean?’ she demanded of Robin, when Rye had hurried on.
‘I have no idea,’ said the marquess, loosening the lace around his throat. ‘But at least he has left the immediate vicinity.’ He sounded relieved.
Carolina watched Rye covertly. His tall form was moving about among his men; he seemed to be talking confidentially to each of them. They were giving him astounded looks, she thought - and one or two broke in to raucous laughter which was immediately quenched. Then promptly some of them seemed to melt away.
What on earth was going on?
Rye did not come near her again until they had dropped anchor just off the village of Horta. Then he strode down the deck to get her.
‘You are coming ashore with me, Carolina,’ he told her, brusquely taking her arm. ‘For I will not trust you out of my sight.’ And when the marquess would have stepped forward as well, Rye turned upon him with blazing eyes. ‘You are not coming ashore, Saltenham. And do not try my patience or I may remember what you have cost me!’
Before the warning menace of that tone, the marquess stepped quickly back and watched them go.
As she climbed down the ship’s ladder into the longboat, carefully guided by Rye, one thought dinned in Carolina’s mind: Rosalia is here in Horta.
But it was not Rosalia she found when Rye, having lifted her out of the longboat, set her down to walk beside him over the black sand of the beach to a white house near the shore. It had a low-walled garden with pink and red roses clambering in wild profusion and a big yellow cat sitting in a window. The cat yawned at the sight of them and then daintily began washing its paws.
There was an old woman in the courtyard wearing one of the black enveloping capote e capellos, but she had merry eyes in her weathered face and she gave Rye a respectful nod as he passed.
‘This is her house,’ Rye told Carolina. ‘She has been gracious enough to let us use it.’ Carolina turned to smile at the old woman, and found she was being regarded with lively interest.
A moment later Rye opened the door and Carolina stepped in among the passengers of the Mary Constant.
They were gathered about a wooden table in the low-ceilinged room, talking and drinking some kind of wine which was being poured into wooden cups, and the conversation stopped abruptly when Rye and Carolina entered.
‘Carolina!’ Reba dropped her cup in her excitement, and wine splashed her widow’s weeds as she flung her black veil aside and ran to embrace Carolina. ‘We were afraid you were dead!’
‘Yes, indeed,’ Mistress Wadlow echoed. For her own widow’s weeds followed hot on the heels of Reba’s, to welcome Carolina back among them. There was a general murmur of greeting.
‘You can take those dismal garments off now,’ Carolina said gaily, almost weak with relief that beautiful deadly Rosalia was not among those present. ‘For no one is going to steal your clothes. Indeed I am sure that all your possessions will be shortly restored to you. Will they not?’
She turned to Rye, who nodded. ‘It is pleasant to see you again, Mistress Tarbell,’ he told Reba, and the other passengers exchanged significant glances. Not Jones -Tarbell. They would have something besides their capture to gossip about this night.
‘Why - Rye Evistock!’ Reba looked startled. ‘Where did you come from?’
‘He was no doubt too busy to make himself known to you,’ Carolina said laughingly. ‘And you were too busy worrying about saving your wardrobe to know who captured you.’
"Twas Captain Kells that captured us,’ said Mistress Wadlow severely.
‘No, Mistress Wadlow, it was not,’ Carolina said earnestly. ‘It was a man posing as Captain Kells.’
‘Well, I hope he has been dealt with most severely!’ Mistress Wadlow said with a sniff. ‘Frightening us all to death like that, setting us into open boats in the middle of the ocean!’ Carolina drew Reba aside.
‘Reba, I know you’ll find this hard to believe,’ she said. ‘But the man who was impersonating Kells was your marquess.’
Reba gasped. ‘Not - not Robin?'
Carolina nodded soberly. ‘The very same.’
‘Oh, I can’t believe it!’ Reba was looking around her now. ‘Where is he?’
Carolina turned back to Rye. ‘Could Reba be taken aboard the Sea Waif? I am sure Robin has something to say to her.’
‘Presently,’ he told her. ‘Just now, if you would all stay together in this room, ladies and gentlemen . . . ? You will shortly be taken back aboard the Mary Constant and will continue your voyage to Bermuda. But first we wish to search the pirate ship and find any of your possessions that might have been carried aboard her.’
There was a general murmur of approval and even Mistress Hedge, who had been eyeing Carolina and Reba with some disdain, began to look upon them more kindly.
‘We have but one more errand,’ Rye told Carolina, ‘before we can go back on board. I would speak to Captain Dawlish and his crew. They are in a nearby building.’ He beckoned her to come with him.
Carolina paused but for one thing. ‘Reba,’ she whispered, ‘Robin wants to marry you. Would you be willing to let Captain Dawlish perform the ceremony on board the Mary Constant?'
She left Reba gasping, and could barely keep up with Rye as he strode out, shutting the door on the eager throng behind him.
The old woman was still in the garden and she watched their progress past massed hydrangeas to the next house, which was a little more impressive and had a small paved terrace. Carolina looked up as they walked through its garden among climbing yellow roses, so at odds with the dark cinder cone frowning above them against a blue sky. The lower slopes of the volcano were a vivid green and laid out in patterns of vegetation - obviously it had not taken long for plant life in this damp warm climate to reclaim its own.
Glad to be bringing the good news of the Mary Constant's restoration to kindly Captain Dawlish, Carolina’s step was light as she crossed the small flagged terrace and ducked slightly as she went into the dim interior of the low building.
And then she came to an abrupt halt.
Captain Dawlish was there indeed - and he came to his feet, smiling at the sight of her. His crew also looked none the worse for wear.
But it was a figure standing at a small window that faced towards the slope of the volcano that captured Carolina’s attention. A figure that turned lazily to regard them as Carolina entered, followed by the tall buccaneer.
The Duchess of Lorca.
She was not dressed as a proper Spanish lady - not in rustling black as Carolina had seen her at Drury Lane. The Duchess had made good use of their stay at Plymouth, and she seemed to have undergone a sea change during her voyage. She was wearing a handsome gown of crimson silk that was cut so low it almost revealed the rosy tips of her breasts. She had drawn herself up haughtily at the sight of Carolina and Rye coming in together. Her chin was lifted, her aquiline features disdainful. But her shining dark curls rested upon a luminous pale olive skin and the dark pools of her eyes were endlessly enticing . . .
This then was the Duchess for private consumption. That other masked woman, handsome as she had been, could not touch this fiery beauty who gazed at Carolina so contemptuously.
At the sight of her Carolina’s heart sank - but she held her ground and gazed back just as contemptuously.
‘Captain Dawlish,’ said Rye, ignoring the Duchess except for the barest nod, ‘I have come to report that your ship is unharmed and will be delivered to you shortly. You will be able to continue your voyage to Bermuda - with my compliments.’
The crew members nodded and smiled their approval. They were at the moment seated on long benches around a table, drinking from wineskins. But the littl
e captain was effusive in his thanks. He shook Rye’s hand and clapped him merrily on the back. This was to be his last voyage before retiring from the sea, he explained. And to have had it end in capture and disgrace - well, he had been saved from that and would be forever grateful!
If the Duchess was bewildered by that interchange, she did not say so. She maintained an icy silence. Neither she nor Carolina spoke. They were regarding each other narrowly, each measuring the other. Deadly enemies with drawn swords meeting beneath the duelling oaks at dawn would have contemplated each other with more warmth.
And then the unexpected happened.
The heavy door behind them was abruptly kicked inward by a booted foot. Its wooden timbers crashed against the wall. Soldiery in corselets and headpieces with muskets at the ready sprang into the room. Above the hubbub as the lounging sailors leapt to their feet, overturning their chairs, a commanding voice roared in Spanish for them all to stand fast.
Captain Dawlish and his crew, so recently rescued from pirates, stood aghast at this turn of events, staring in horror through the incoming soldiery at something bright outside - the red and gold flag of Spain.
Carolina, in the dim interior, had found herself swept to the back of the room by the Spaniards. She surmised they must have been watching from the windows of one of the other houses, waiting for this moment when Rye was away from his ship to pounce upon the famous buccaneer who had a price on his head of fifty thousand pieces of eight back in Spain.
Carolina’s Spanish was very good. She heard the leader of this band cry, ‘You are all under arrest for you are in the company of a pirata wanted dead or alive in Spain!’ Rye had detached himself from Captain Dawlish’s company and stood a little apart. Carolina guessed that he was going to make a break for it - and knew that he would never make it. Even master swordsman that he was, he would be cut down by that massed wall of armour before he reached the door.
‘I think it is only myself you want, gentlemen,’ he said in his excellent Castilian Spanish learnt from Don Ignacio of Salamanca. ‘These gentlemen with me are the captain and crew of an honest merchant ship who have recently escaped the attack of a pirata - and the ladies are but passengers.’
Carolina struck aside a crew member who was standing uncertainly, barring her way.
‘But you must not take this gentleman!’ she cried. ‘He is no pirata. He is Diego Viajar and this lady’ - she made a wild gesture towards the Duchess - ‘is his wife. They were both my prisoners, but they escaped and took me with them as a hostage. You will have heard of me for I am the famous Silver Wench of the Caribbean, wife to Captain Kells who is, unfortunately, far away or he would make short work of you!’
She had put her head into a noose and she knew it. Or perhaps they would burn her for a heretic once they transported her to Spain. At the moment she did not care.
She turned towards the Duchess - it was now her move.
Rosalia had risen with a sinuous gesture and her contemptuous laugh sounded scornful. ‘This woman lies! Our marriage was annulled long ago in Spain!’ She stepped forward with a rustle of crimson silks and fixed her glittering eyes upon the leader of the Spanish soldiery. ‘I tell you I am the Duchess of Lorca and I have been abducted by this man! As was my husband!’ She indicated Rye who gave her a sardonic look. ‘He goes by the name Rye Evistock or Ryeland Smythe but he is the buccaneer, Captain Kells. Seize him!’
All the joy Carolina might have felt on learning that Rye’s marriage to Rosalia had been annulled was entirely quenched by the circumstances. She felt a sob rise in her throat. Her sacrifice had been for nothing. They would never live together - they would more likely die together. But that treacherous woman would go with them! She snatched at the dagger that hung at the belt of the nearest Spaniard and hurled it at the Duchess of Lorca.
Her aim was not very good. It went wide of the Duchess and clattered against the wall - but it brought the Duchess spitting like an angry cat to her knees as she ducked away.
‘Carolina, that will be enough.’ Rye’s authoritative voice rang out and he stepped forward and caught her by the shoulders before she could launch herself at the Duchess. ‘Miller, Sparks, Waite, all of you - thank you for a job well done. It was most impressive.’
And now abruptly the ‘Spanish’ soldiery had relaxed their military bearing. They were laughing and taking off their helmets and talking in English.
‘A good show we put on, didn’t we, Captain?’ cried their leader merrily. ‘And we fooled the Wench!’
Rye smiled past Carolina’s bewildered face and agreed. ‘Aye, you did. A good show.’
‘What - what madness is this?’ cried the Duchess, scrambling up in her crimson silks, her dark eyes wild black spots in a face gone ashen. ‘Who are you?'
Their leader grinned. ‘Don’t you recognize us? We’re men that was taken on in Plymouth to make up the crew of the Sea Waif when she put into port there short-handed. We’re Cap’n Kells’s men.’ He nodded towards Rye, who was grinning at him. ‘And we was all picked because this little lady here’ - he nodded at Carolina - ‘wouldn’t know our faces since we’d never been on Tortuga.’
‘On Tortuga?' gasped the Duchess. She seemed near fainting.
Carolina gave Rye a dazed look.
‘I always carry an assortment of Spanish uniforms on board the Sea Wolf,' he explained, ‘in case I decide to make a raid on the Main. I’d meant to sell these in England, but I sailed away before I’d got rid of them.’
‘But - why?’ she asked dizzily.
He gave her a broad smile. ‘I wanted to know who loved me - and who didn’t,’ he said. ‘And by heaven, I’ve found out!’ He turned to the Duchess. ‘Your husband is even now being delivered to the shore, Rosalia,’ he said. ‘He is an old man and his health has not been improved by incarceration in the cellar of an English inn before he was put to sea. With a little luck and your famous charm, I am sure you will be able to persuade some Portuguese fishing boat to sail you both to Genoa or to Cadiz.’
‘You - you have not told him that I - ?’ she choked.
‘No, I have not told him,’ Kells said grimly. ‘I will leave him to make his own discoveries. That red dress you’re wearing will tell him much for he is not a fool, your husband - only apparently preoccupied with other matters that blinded him to your schemes, Rosalia.’
She gave him a wild look. ‘But I - ’
His expression grew sardonic. ‘He knows only that you brought here a substantial ransom with which to free him. And that ransom is now safe upon my ship and will shortly be en route to Tortuga - along with the ship you bought with the Duke’s money, which I will take along with a prize crew aboard.’
The Duchess was by now collecting herself. ‘But it cannot end this way, Diego!’ she cried. ‘For if you are Kells, and Kells has flown a black petticoat in memory of a Spanish lady as his standard on the Sea Wolf all this time, then you must have flown that petticoat for me!'
‘No longer,’ he said briefly. ‘Now I fly a new petticoat.’ He glanced meaningfully down at Carolina’s yellow petticoat. Perhaps not that one,’ he added. ‘But I am sure my Silver Wench has a red one that will do.’
‘Pirata!' screamed the Duchess. ‘Spawn of the Devil! Oh, why did my uncle not kill you when he had the chance?’ For it had come to her that she would never wear the necklace now, she would never claim the fifty thousand pieces of eight, she would never be free - indeed she would stay shackled to the elderly Duke of Lorca, and as soon as he saw her in this startlingly low-cut gown, she might as well be under house arrest for all the liberty he would give her!
‘Spawn of the Devil I may be, Rosalia,’ responded Rye coldly. ‘You are the best judge of that for you are surely the Devil’s own. Come, Carolina.’ He escorted her out into the sunlight and his ‘Spanish’ troops clanked after them, bringing their wineskins with them.
‘That is what you meant when you were talking about Solomon,’ she guessed. ‘You were thinking about the two women
who both claimed the baby and went to King Solomon?’
Kells nodded. ‘And he offered to cut the child in half and give half to each. One was quite agreeable, but the other cried out no, that she would give the child up - and King Solomon awarded the child to her for he said she was its true mother.’ He looked at her keenly and with great pride. ‘It occurred to me that a similar situation would be very instructive. And Rosalia was quite willing to turn me over to certain death, while you, Carolina’ - his hard grey eyes softened - ‘were willing to turn me over to another woman if it would save my life. And to die for me in Spain.’
Carolina blushed brick-red. It was, she supposed, exactly what she had done.
‘It was - the heat of the moment,’ she protested angrily, ‘that made me do it.’
‘Was it?’ he asked sceptically.
‘Yes. It was,’ she said with a toss of her head. For she had not yet forgiven him.
‘Take the lady to the Sea Waif,’ Rye instructed his lately ‘Spanish’ followers. ‘See that she has anything she wants.’
‘Aye, Cap’n,’ was the energetic reply. ‘We’ll see to the Silver Wench for you - she’ll come to no harm with us!’
‘Reba has already been taken aboard,’ Rye told Carolina. ‘You’ll want to talk to her, I’m sure, before she and Saltenham leave us.’
‘But where will they go?’ cried Carolina, faced with this new problem.
‘They will be allowed to follow us in the Sea Wench - which is the name I’m giving his ship. And they’ll be transferred to the first English ship we pass. One of my men - who used to be a scribe back in Devon - is writing out the confession now for Saltenham to sign.’
‘But if we don’t pass an English ship?’ she cried. ‘What then?’ For she foresaw short shrift for Robin if ever he reached Tortuga.
The tall buccaneer beside her shrugged. ‘Then I’ll set them ashore on some convenient island - possibly in the Bahamas, possibly Bermuda - where they can get a ship back to England.’
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