“You’d be disappointed if I didn’t, Mother,” he replied.
She shrugged, a delicate movement. “Your father would never have let so small a thing as a storm turn him back.”
“My father was a gibbering idiot.”
Annemie’s hand shot out and her ivory fan cracked across his knuckles. “Show respect for your father,” she cautioned. “And for me.” She rapped the fan against the frame of the chair. “Home,” she ordered.
Obediently, her bearers lifted the poles.
“Don’t let me see your face again until you have them,” Annemie warned her son, then let the curtain fall.
Seething, Matthew watched the swaying chair until it vanished around a busy corner. “She wants them, I give them to her,” he growled. “If I have to sail through hell to get them.”
After the argument she’d had with Garrett in the library, Caroline had lain awake half the night unable to sleep. She’d gone to Amanda’s room. The baby was there, but her sister hadn’t come in until the case dock struck one. The two women talked quietly for a few minutes, so as not to disturb the baby, and then Amanda fell asleep. She hadn’t said where she’d been so late, but Caroline suspected it had something to do with Noah.
Caroline was so tired when she did drift off that she didn’t stir when Amanda and Jeremy crept out of the room in early morning. The first thing she knew was when Garrett shook her rudely awake.
“Are you going to sleep all day?” he demanded. “Amanda and the baby have already finished breakfast.”
Caroline pulled the linen sheet up to her chin before she realized how foolish that must look. Garrett had seen far more of her than her breasts. “What are you doing here?” she snapped.
“Get up. I need to talk to you.”
She turned her back to him. “I have nothing more to say to you.”
“I’m sure you’ll think of something. Get dressed.”
“Not with you here.” She held on to the sheet stubbornly. “You’ve no right to be in my bedchamber.”
“Caroline, I’ve no time for this. Just get dressed—please.”
“Just leave—please.”
“I’ll meet you on the beach in ten minutes,” he said impatiently.
“As you wish, sir.”
After Garrett was gone, she slipped out of bed, washed in cold water from the pitcher, cleaned her teeth, and pulled on the gown she’d worn the day before. She ran a brush through her hair, secured it casually with a ribbon, and went out to the necessary beyond the manor house, carrying her shoes and stockings like any common serving maid.
When she finally reached the beach, Garrett was waiting for her at the water’s edge. “Well?” She fixed him with a defiant glare. “I’m here. Now what do you want of me? I remind you that you told me I had two days to find the treasure. My time’s not up yet.”
Garrett’s hair was damp; she supposed he’d started the day with a swim. He wore black breeches, a white linen shirt, and a silver and black waistcoat. Between the time she’d last seen him in Amanda’s bedchamber and now, he’d strapped on a sword and tucked a pistol into his waistband. He looked like a man about to go to war.
“Caroline, I’ve a few things to say to you, and I’d appreciate it if you’d be silent until I’ve finished.”
Curious, she waited, shoes and stockings still in her hands. The sand felt warm on her bare feet, and she was still not fully awake.
“First,” he began, “I want to apologize for last night. There is no excuse for my behavior. I—”
“You’re right—there isn’t.”
He silenced her with an upraised palm. “Wait, there’s more. Something happened to me last night, something I can’t explain.”
“That’s a first. You seem to have the answer to everything.”
“I saw a ghost. Hell, I just didn’t see one—I talked to it.” He exhaled softly. “It made me think about—”
“You saw a ghost,” she replied sarcastically. “I’ve been seeing them all my life. The best advice I can give you is to keep quiet about it. Otherwise, people think you’ve taken leave of your senses.”
“You’re not making this any easier for me.”
“Kindly get to the point,” she urged. “I’m hungry. I haven’t had my breakfast.” Damn him. She didn’t care if he’d seen Kutii or the two-headed ghost of Annapolis. If he thought she’d forget last night’s shame, then he had another thing coming. It would take more than a few honey-glazed words to—
“I lied to you. I’ve lied to you from the first night I came to your room at Fortune’s Gift. I’m the man the British were searching for. I blew up the powder store.”
“I knew that.”
“No”—he shook his head—“there’s more. I’m a privateer—or at least I was. I engaged in acts of war against the English—”
Caroline moistened her lips. This wasn’t what she’d expected. “Why are you telling me this now?”
“Be still!” he ordered. “Damn it, woman, can you never hold that raven’s tongue of yours? I’m trying to make an abject confession here.”
“Confess away.”
“I’ve just told you enough to have me hanged twice over.”
“Not a bad idea,” she said.
His eyes narrowed. “You asked me if I was Osprey.”
“And you said you weren’t. You are, aren’t you?”
He nodded. “Yes, Caroline, I am.”
“You bastard!” She stared at him in astonishment for what seemed an eternity before a white-hot fury swept over her. Without thinking, she heaved a shoe at his head with all her might. He ducked and she threw the other one. The second shoe struck him in the chin, and she followed it up with a blow to his chest. “You bastard!” she cried again, punching him as hard as she could. “You told me—”
He seized her wrists and wrestled her, kicking and struggling, to the sand. They landed half in and half out of the water.
“Let me go!” she screamed. “Let me go so I can kill you!”
“Stop it,” he said. He loosened his grip on one wrist, and she reached out and scratched a furrow down his cheek. “Stop it, I said,” he protested. “You’ll hurt yourself.”
“You misbegotten, yellow-backed—” Words failed her as she twisted in his arms and tried to bite his shoulder. “You let me marry you . . .” She gasped for breath. “. . . knowing that you were the one who killed—”
“All right, Caroline, you asked for this,” he said. He stood up, threw her, kicking and punching, over one shoulder, and waded out into the cove.
“Let go of me, you son of a bitch!” she cried. “Put me down!”
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied and tossed her into the sea.
She hit with a splash. Salt water closed over her head and filled her mouth and nostrils, stinging her eyes. She came up sputtering and thrashing, tripped, and fell back under again. This time, Garrett pulled her to her feet.
“Had enough?” he asked.
She gasped for breath and rubbed her smarting eyes. “How dare you?” she cried. “I—”
“You needed cooling off.”
“You . . . you bastard.”
“I believe you’re repeating yourself, darling.”
She glared at him with as much dignity as was possible under the circumstances. Blood was trickling from his nose, and his right eyelid was beginning to puff. The welts on his cheek stood out like scarlet stripes against his tanned face.
“Feel better, now that all that’s out of your system?”
She pushed her dripping hair from her face. “You loathsome toad.” She looked around for her lost ribbon, but it was nowhere to be seen. “I hate you,” she said.
“Now you’re starting to sound like a spoiled child.”
“I do. I hate you.”
“It didn’t seem like that to me last night.”
She knotted her right hand into a fist.
“No more of that,” he said mildly. “I had it coming for lying to you, bu
t only a besotted fool would declare his treason to a Tory bride. And you did proclaim your allegiance to Mother England loudly enough.”
“Garrett.” Caroline took a step toward him. If she had the strength, she would have cheerfully held his head under water until he drowned.
“My patience is fast coming to an end,” he warned. “You hit too hard for a woman. It’s time to get on with our purpose here.”
She was still coughing up water . . . still trembling with anger. She wanted to hurt him. “You lied to me,” she said.
“And you lied to me when you said you were loyal to England.”
“That was different.” Her lower lip quivered and she was afraid she was going to burst into tears. “I . . . I thought you . . .” Loved me, she cried silently. I thought we had a chance.
“I was wrong when I pushed you away last night,” he admitted. “I did it because I knew we were both on the verge of something very different than we agreed upon when we married.”
Different? she thought. I would have died for you. Is that different? I would have put you before Fortune’s Gift—before my own life.
“Now stop bristling and listen to reason,” he said. “I am the captain they call Osprey, but I didn’t betray the Continental cause or my men. I was too badly hurt to be at the helm that night. Someone else was commanding the ship.”
“Who?”
“It’s not important.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“You expect me to believe you’re some kind of witch, don’t you? We’re in this fix together, Caroline. If we can’t believe in each other, whom can we believe in?”
“I don’t want to believe in you,” she said shakily. “I want to see you hanging from a gibbet.”
“I’m sure.” He took her hand and led her back to the shore. “I don’t expect you to believe this, but I do care for you, Caroline. Under any other circumstances, I’d consider it an honor to be your husband, and I’d make you my life’s work.”
“You’re right,” she answered wryly. “I don’t believe it.”
“I never lied to you when I said I loved you.” A crooked smile played over his lips.
“Don’t, Garrett,” she pleaded.
“We just met each other at the wrong time.”
“For you and me, it will always be the wrong time.” She looked up into his gray eyes and her heart leaped. Damn him for a lying rogue, she thought and steeled herself against his easy charm.
“We came here to seek a treasure,” he reminded her.
“And . . .” She waited.
“And whatever happened to me last night—madness or ghostly Indians haunting us—makes me think you might just be able to find that gold. I want to help. What can I do?”
She lifted her skirts and began to wring the water out of them. “I don’t know,” she said truthfully. “I don’t know how my gypsy’s sight works, and I don’t know how to find my grandfather’s Spanish treasure.”
He sighed. “You’re not trying, woman. Is there something you’re supposed to do—some spell or ritual? I’m new at this sorcery.”
“I’m not a witch, not really,” she protested. “I just have dreams, sleeping and waking. I see and hear things. Sometimes they are events in the future; sometimes they are in the past. I can’t tell the difference.”
“The journal said the Miranda lay off the limestone cliffs. Would it help if we walked along those cliffs?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. It might.”
“What have we to lose?”
“Nothing, I suppose. But why should I want your help in anything, least of all in finding the treasure? I’ll never be able to trust you again.”
“Truce, Caroline. We still need each other for all the same reasons we did in the first place. Because I am Osprey—”
She let him run on, but she was really lost in her own thoughts. She’s suspected him for a long time—suspected and hoped it wasn’t true. But now that she knew for certain . . . He was right. She didn’t hate him.
What was wrong with her? This was the man she’d sworn vengeance on. She couldn’t have been wrong about him from the start, could she? The idea that he might be telling the truth seemed too farfetched to be real.
“. . . never took you for a quitter,” he said. The word quitter struck a chord deep inside her. “I’m not,” she replied.
“Then let’s go and find your treasure,” he dared.
“All right,” she agreed. “Give me leave to change into something dry, and we will.”
For three days they trudged across the island, climbing over rocks, sliding down vine-covered hillsides. At dark they returned to eat and sleep in separate bedrooms, but every morning, Garrett was waiting for her when she came downstairs. They spoke to each other with guarded politeness when they spoke at all, but Garrett made no mention of his original two-day time limit.
Again and again, Caroline felt drawn to the area above the limestone cliffs. But each time she went there, her familiar sensations evaporated like mist over the morning sea.
On the third night, she couldn’t sleep. She rose, put on her clothes, and went back to the cliffs alone. After she’d reached the rocky outcrop, she curled her legs under her and sat still in the pale moonlight, staring out to sea.
She sat there for hours, waiting. Waiting for Kutii . . . for the return of the voice in her head . . . for anything. But all she heard was the crash of the waves, and all she saw were the stars blinking fainter and fainter until the first rays of morning struck the white stones.
Discouraged, she stood up and glanced back toward the direction she thought the house lay in. She stretched to ease her stiffness and listened to the wakening jungle noises, so different from those at Fortune’s Gift.
Something moved at the edge of the forest. She stared intently and made out a man’s lean form in the purple dawn. Garrett. How long had he been there watching her?
He raised a hand and waved. She waved back and began walking over the uneven surface of the bare rock. It was hard going; the limestone was strewn with smaller pebbles and loose dirt. Then, caught in a root, she saw a glittering object. “Oh,” she gasped. Something small and golden glowed in the sunlight. She bent to pick up the golden guinea pig and lost her balance as the gravel under her feet shifted. Before she realized what had happened, she was slipping down into an outgrowth of shrubbery.
“Caroline!” Garrett shouted. “Be careful—”
She grabbed hold of the leafy bush, but the plant tore out of the shallow earth. To her shock, she didn’t come to rest in the tangle but dropped through a crevice in the limestone and fell screaming into pitch blackness.
Chapter 19
Caroline smacked the ground hard and tumbled down a dirt embankment. She rapped her head against something solid and lay there for a moment, stunned, hardly able to catch her breath.
“Caroline! Caroline!”
Garrett’s voice seemed to come from a long way off. Not off . . . up, she realized. She’d fallen into a deep crevice in the rock. Tentatively, she reached out a hand and felt only cool air around her. Not even a crack in the rock, she corrected herself—a deep hole—and evidently much larger than an animal burrow.
She blinked and twisted around, trying to adjust to the darkness. Then she noticed a shaft of sunlight striking the ground a few yards away. The source of the light was high over her head. “Garrett,” she called weakly. “I’m down here. Help me!”
“Caroline? Are you all right?” His head appeared at the edge of the hole. “Is anything broken?”
“I don’t know.” Everything hurt, and she felt dizzy. Cautiously, she flexed her arms and legs. One knee ached worse than the other one, but she didn’t think it was serious. She tried to stand up, but immediately began to slide down the hill again. “Get a rope,” she called, pressing herself flat on her stomach and trying to hold on to the loose gravel.
“Where are you going?” he said.
“I’m trying no
t to.” She slid down a few more inches.
“I said don’t move! There may be snakes down there.”
“Snakes?” She shuddered. She hated snakes. And down here in the blackness . . . She didn’t want to think about it. “Come get me out of here!”
“Just stay still.”
She heard rustling and the sound of falling earth and stones. The circle of light grew larger, and the surrounding darkness darker.
“I think it’s too deep to climb down without a rope,” he said.
“That’s what I said to do.”
“Stay calm. I’ll have to go back to the house and get help.”
“Fine, you go, I’ll wait here,” she quipped. She shivered. It was much cooler down here than up above. “Take your time,” she said. “Don’t hurry on my account.”
She closed her eyes and began to count backward from one hundred. She’d reached thirty-one when she found nerve enough to open her eyes again. This time, she was careful to look away from the light.
At first, the hollow seemed stygian; she could make out nothing but black emptiness. But gradually, walls began to take shape. “I’m in a cave,” she said aloud. Her voice echoed. “. . . In a cave . . . in a cave . . . in a cave . . .”
She listened, but heard nothing. “Kutii,” she whispered, “this would be a good time for you to drop in for a chat.” Still nothing.
Nothing could be as frightening as waiting here— expecting that at any second she might topple into a bottomless pit. The seconds became minutes. How long, she didn’t know, but she couldn’t stand it. Little by little, she began to inch down the slope, always feeling with her toes to be certain there was something solid underneath her. Her pulse was thudding in her ears, her muscles protesting, and her mouth full of sand. Still, it felt better to be doing something than to be hanging on like a gecko to a sunny rock.
She had no way to judge distance or how far she’d come, but after a time, the floor leveled out. She sat up, felt around her, and cautiously stood. When she reached over her head as far as her arms would stretch, she still couldn’t touch the ceiling.
She looked back up the long incline. To her dismay, she could no longer see the small patch of sunlight. Subdued, she sat down, drew her legs up under her, and waited for Garrett.
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