Fortune's Flame

by French, Judith E.

  She brushed at her hair with her fingers and pulled out a broken stalk. “Some farmer you’d make,” she said, “if you can’t tell hay from straw.” Grabbing up her saddlebags, she went to the ladder.

  “Best let me go down first in case ye fall,” he said.

  “I’m perfectly capable of going down a ladder,” she answered. She was halfway to the bottom when she let out a muffled yelp. “Ginger!”

  “What are ye bleatin’ about now, woman?” he said; coming after her.

  “Ginger! That’s my mare.” She ran to the last horse in the row and threw her arms around the animal’s shaggy neck. “You’re a mess,” she murmured. “Look at you.” The mare nickered softly and tossed her head as Bess ran her hands over the bright chestnut hide, exploring muscles and tendons for some sign of damage. “Look at you,” she repeated. “No one’s touched you with a curry comb in months.”

  Carefully, Bess felt Ginger’s legs, lifting each front foot to exclaim over the poor condition of her hooves. Then she felt the mare’s belly and hindquarters, inspecting the back legs and hooves, then patting her rump. “Good girl, good Ginger,” she crooned. She stroked the mare’s back and withers and looked through the close-cropped mane for ticks. Finding one swollen with blood and removing it, she swore under her breath.

  Kincaid came to stand beside her. “Are ye certain this is your horse?” he asked. “There are many chestnut mares with one white hind foot.”

  Bess ignored him. She continued whispering to the mare and rubbing and scratching her behind the ears. “Ginger likes being scratched,” she said. “I’m sorry I don’t have a carrot for you, girl.” Bess bent her head and kissed the horse’s velvety nose. “I thought I’d never see her again,” she , said, blinking back tears of joy. “I thought she was gone for good.” Gently, she fingered the outline of the white diamond on the mare’s forehead.

  “I asked ye how ye can be sure this is—”

  “Do you know nothing about horses that you think they all look the same?” she accused. “I was there when she was foaled. I took care of her every day of her life until you stole her from me.” She glared at him. “She’s in foal herself. Do you see that? God knows who sired it. A jackass, for all I know.”

  Without warning, Kincaid grabbed her and kissed her. Startled, she tried to fight him off. He silenced her impending scream by seizing a handful of her hair and plunging his tongue into her mouth. When she twisted her head away, he pinned her between his bulk and that of the mare, pulled her hard against his shoulder, and whispered in her ear, “Hist, woman. It’s only an act. We’re nay alone.”

  His words penetrated her fury and she nodded. Cautiously, he released her and she slid sideways along the horse’s rump.

  A broad, pock-faced farmer stood in the open stable doorway. “ ‘Ware my horse,” he growled. “Do yer tuppin’ elsewhere. That’s a valuable animal.”

  Bess wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and cast her gaze down at the floor. “The horse ain’t hurt,” she said with such a good imitation of common folks’ speech that Kincaid chuckled.

  “No harm done,” he said.

  “My brother’s boat is docked yonder,” the farmer said grudgingly. “Ye said ye were huntin’ passage south.”

  “We are. I’ve heard there’s work for a soldier in the Carolinas.”

  “Don’t know about that, but my brother will take ye, iffen ye can pay. We ain’t running no charity.”

  “Where did ye get this horse?” Bess asked, still affecting a country accent.

  Kincaid dropped an arm over her shoulder carelessly. “Hold your mouth, woman,” he said. “Can’t ye tell this gentleman and me are talking business?” When she would have spoken again, he squeezed her tightly in warning. “She has a sharp tongue, but she’s handy for other things,” he said to the farmer. “You’ve good taste in horseflesh. Could I interest ye in these two mares?” He indicated the animals he and Bess had ridden in on. “I can’t be takin’ them on the water, now can I?”

  The pock-faced man eyed the horses greedily. “ ‘Tis God’s truth, ye can’t,” he said. “Are they stolen?”

  “They’re—” Bess started to reply, but Kincaid squeezed her roughly again.

  “There’s nobody huntin’ for them, if that’s what ye want to know,” he said. “Ye might say they were paid for.”

  “You’ve got papers?” the farmer asked.

  Kincaid made a sound of derision. “I’ve never troubled myself with such,” he said. “And I’ll wager you’ve no title to that chestnut mare, neither.”

  Bess’s temper was near to spilling over. “I’d not thought to sell the horses—”

  “I don’t keep ye for thinkin’,” Kincaid cut in.

  The farmer scowled and walked around the animals, running his hands over their legs. Then he raised their heads and examined their teeth.

  “Sound as a new guinea,” Kincaid said. “You’ll find no better in these parts.”

  “This one might have botts,” the man remarked.

  “They do not!” Bess said.

  The farmer spit on the dirt floor. “The near one is favorin’ a front leg.”

  “Nay,” Kincaid rumbled. “They’re prime, both of them. Go for a pretty price in Dover.”

  “Well, this ain’t Dover. Saddles go with them?”

  “Aye, and bridles.”

  “Name your price.”

  “They aren’t for sale,” Bess said through clenched teeth. She’d meant to leave the horses somewhere safe, with instructions for them to be taken back to Fortune’s Gift. Now she’d found Ginger, and Kincaid wasn’t going to let her do anything about getting her mare back. And on top of that, he was talking to her as though she were dirt under his feet.

  “Close your mouth, woman,” Kincaid threatened, “or I’ll close it for ye.”

  Bess threw him a whithering look. I’ll get even with you for this, she swore to herself. So help me/I will!

  Kincaid mentioned a ridiculously low price, and the other man shook his head. They began to argue in a friendly sort of way, and after a few offers and counteroffers, they shook hands. Bess was too shocked to speak. The Scot had sold two fine riding horses, saddles, and gear for less than what she’d paid for one of the saddles.

  Kincaid started for the door, keeping his arm firmly around Bess’s waist and forcing her to walk with him. Ginger nickered and Bess looked back at her mare.

  “Ye be takin’ the stock back to yer place on the island?” Kincaid asked. “Ye said ye had a place on Deal?”

  “Nope.” The rest of the farmer’s reply was muffled by Ginger’s frantic whinny as she tried to follow Bess. The chestnut mare tossed her head and tried to pull free.

  I’ll find you again, girl. I will. I promise, Bess vowed silently. Salt tears stung her eyes and she stumbled.

  Kincaid caught her and pulled her hard against him. The stable yard was a morass of standing water and heaps of old straw and manure. It was still raining, and a raw breeze blew from the west. The sky was an angry gray, and moisture-laden clouds hung low over the horizon.

  By daylight, Bess could see that the Cock’s Comb stood on the bank of a muddy river. The storm had churned the surface of the dark water to short, choppy waves. At the ramshackle dock, a long, low, black-hulled sloop was moored. The sails were furled and the deck was empty, and with each swell, the sloop slammed against the dock.

  “There she be,” the farmer said. “She ain’t much to look at, but fer a price, she’ll get ye to the Carolina coast and no questions asked.”

  “Aye,” Kincaid said, “that’s all I ask.”

  The pocked man grunted a reply and went ahead of them into the inn.

  “She looks seaworthy to me,” Kincaid said to Bess.

  Bess looked at the dark sloop and suppressed a shiver. When she boarded that boat, there would be no turning back. She knew she was risking everything on a dead man’s journal, an illusive ghost, and a mercenary’s sword arm.

  Al
most as though he’d read her mind, Kincaid glanced down at her and gave her a playful squeeze. His brown eyes met hers, and a trace of a smile appeared at the corners of his mouth. “Change of heart?” he asked. “It’s not too late to back out.”

  Not certain she could keep her voice from betraying her fear, she shook her head no.

  A roguish grin broke over his face and lit his eyes with specks of gold. “You’ve got grit for an English lass, I’ll give ye that much,” he said. “Did ye have a sweeter disposition and a softer tongue, we might even get on.”

  “Luckily for us both, there’s no chance of that, is there?”

  “Nay,” he answered huskily, “none at all.”

  William Myers Senior, founder and head of William Myers and Son, transporters, consignment merchants, and investment firm, rose from his desk and crossed the office to close his door, assuring privacy from the ranks of clerks in the larger chamber. Without speaking to his visitor, he returned to the window behind his desk and stared out at the rainy Chestertown street below.

  Joel Middleton, Esq., solicitor, scratched at his new horsehair wig and cleared his throat impatiently.

  Myers forced himself to control his anger at Middleton’s appearance at Myers and Son on a Monday afternoon. When he turned back to face the wraith-thin young man, his features were composed. “You were specifically instructed never to come here,” he said. “Our contact was to be at the warehouse at a mutually agreed-upon time.”

  The buck-toothed solicitor sniffed loudly and dusted an invisible piece of lint off his scarlet waistcoat. “My client gave you specific instructions.” He removed a large linen handkerchief and blew his nose. “He will be very disappointed, sir. You assured us that acquiring the plantation was a foregone conclusion.”

  Myers’ knee ached. It always ached in the rain, and the damned wooden peg was cutting into his flesh again. He wanted to sit down, but he’d always found that standing while another man sat gave him the advantage. He didn’t like Joel Middleton any better than he liked the man Middleton represented, but anyone who had business in the Caribbean had better be prepared to deal with Falconer.

  This whole affair concerning Fortune’s Gift was distasteful to Myers. Of course, the Bennetts were rascals. Old James Bennett had been little better than a pirate himself, for all his airs. He’d come out of nowhere with a chestful of Spanish gold, and he’d bought himself into Tidewater society. With the aid of his wife-a lowborn wench if Myers had ever seen one—Bennett had built Fortune’s Gift into one of the finest plantations on the Eastern Shore.

  Myers had been a young man then, newly come to the Maryland Colony and still in the employ of Jonathan Williams, but he’d heard the rumors about Fortune’s Gift and the Bennetts. Strange stories they were, mostly superstitious nonsense about ghosts and witches, and about James Bennett being some kind of royalty.

  Now James and his wife were dead. Hellfire and damnation, their only son, David Bennett, was probably dead too. He’d sailed for China and not been heard of for years. David’s daughter, Elizabeth, was the only heir. And the chit was as odd as the rest of them. She’d scandalized the Tidewater by freeing her father’s slaves and firing a trusted overseer. And most recently, she’d set tongues to wagging again by buying the indenture of a convicted felon, a Scot who should have been hanged for piracy and horse theft.

  “My client wants Fortune’s Gift,” Middleton said.

  “No names!” Myers admonished. By the king’s ballocks! If he’d been ten years younger, he’d have picked up this reedy-voiced twit by the seat of his satin breeches and tossed him out the second-story window onto High Street.

  “Falconer—”

  “No names!” Myers’ aching knee quivered, and he dropped heavily into his high-backed desk chair. “Your client would be highly incensed to hear that you were bandying his name about in public.”

  “This is hardly public.” Middleton sniffed again and dabbed at his nose. “Why haven’t you started foreclosure on the plantation?”

  “There’s been a complication.”

  “And that is?”

  “Elizabeth Bennett has disappeared.” She and the convict had vanished. Myers left that bit of information unspoken. He rubbed at his aching right arm and wished the room weren’t so stuffy. He’d known all along that his debt to Falconer would have to be paid, not in money, but in favors. He’d accepted that as a hard fact of the business world. But he didn’t have to like it, and he didn’t have to like letting vermin like Middleton into his office.

  “You know that Falconer wanted the woman as well. He’s offered a substantial reward for her delivery to the islands.” The solicitor smirked. “Dead or alive.”

  “That does it,” Myers snapped. “Get your sorry ass out of here. You tell your client that there will be no further action on this matter until he provides a respectable liaison. I won’t conduct business with scum like you, Middleton.”

  The younger man leaped to his feet indignantly. His face was rapidly turning puce, and his mouth opened and closed like a beached fish gasping for air. “You . . . you . . . you can’t talk to me like that.”

  Myers opened a desk drawer and removed a small, pearl-handled derringer. “You have two minutes to get out of this building,” he said, “and twenty minutes to get out of Chestertown. If I catch sight of you after that, I’ll shoot you as a public menace.”

  “You can’t do that,” Middleton sputtered. “Falconer will—”

  “Falconer will dispose of you as easily as he disposes of dead slaves who don’t survive the voyage from the African coast. Your stupidity and your mouth make you dangerous, Middleton. Dangerous to me and dangerous to him. If I were you, I’d take the first boat to England, or better yet, to Holland. Falconer has a long arm in seagoing circles and a longer memory.”

  Middleton was already halfway to the door. “He won’t forget this insult, I can guarantee that!”

  Myers glanced at the tall case clock in the corner of the paneled chamber. “You’ve already used up one of your minutes,” he reminded. He raised the pistol, and the solicitor fled from the room.

  It was only a matter of seconds before Middleton appeared on the muddy street below. He twisted around to shake an angry fist at Myers, but his feet kept moving. Myers turned away from the window and settled heavily into his chair again.

  So Falconer had offered a reward for Elizabeth Bennett, he thought. Wearily, he put the gun back into the desk drawer and covered his face with his hands. Suddenly he felt old.

  Falconer had drawn Myers and Son into his net a little at a time. First it had been information the man wanted, nothing more. Falconer had wanted answers to questions about the Bennett family and the plantation. That had been simple to provide, and it had cost the company nothing. Then he’d asked Myers and Son to loan monies to David Bennett to finance his foolish trip to the Orient. Now Falconer insisted that Myers and Son take Fortune’s Gift and sell it to him. All business, all perfectly legal.

  Lots of businessmen cooperated with Falconer. He was an important man, a man who had connections with every major contact in the Caribbean and up and down the coast of the American colonies. Some said Falconer was a smuggler and that he dealt with the Spanish and the Portuguese. Some accused him of having pirates in his employ. But no sensible man spoke disparagingly of Falconer in public.

  But now Falconer had gone beyond the boundaries of decency by putting a price on an Englishwoman’s head. Myers groaned. He’d gone along with Falconer even after he’d smelled something rotten when the ship bearing Elizabeth Bennett’s tobacco cargo had gone down. But he’d never agreed to any killing.

  The gnawing pain in his right arm grew sharper, and Myers massaged it without thinking. If Falconer wanted Elizabeth Bennett dead, she was as good as a corpse already—and that made Myers a party to murder.

  With trembling hands, he opened the desk drawer again, cradled his pistol, and stared at it with tear-filled eyes.

  Chapter 10

/>   The Carolina Coast

  A bolt of lightning ripped the twilight ceiling of rolling clouds, nearly blinding Bess with its intensity. Rain was already spattering across the deck of the sloop, and the waves were five feet and whipping higher with every gust of wind.

  They had been plagued by bad weather since the smuggling vessel had first ventured into the Chesapeake Bay nine days ago. The captain, “Ants” Taylor, was carrying a cargo of French brandy and muskets as well as an assortment of Dutch scissors, needles, and sewing thread. Bess had lost track of the stops they had made, usually in the dark of night to sell or trade contraband.

  The forty-foot sloop with its shallow draft and long, pointed bowsprit was ideal for maneuvering in the rivers and coves of the bay. The Jessie carried a crew of three: a free black man named Rudy; an Irish bond servant, Ian; and a mulatto boy. The boy’s name was Sam, and as far as Bess could tell, he could neither hear nor speak.

  There was a tiny, musty-smelling cabin forward and covered-over cargo holds in the aft. But despite the presence of three narrow bunks in the cabin, Bess had not spent a single night below. Instead, she and Kincaid had wrapped themselves in oiled canvas and camped out on the deck. Once, in pouring rain, she had ventured below, but after an hour of foul odors and fleas, she had welcomed the feel of clean water on her face.

  Much to her surprise, Kincaid had proved a cheerful companion. Once they left the tavern’s dock, the Scot had stopped taunting her, and although he was still overly protective where Ants and the crew were concerned, he treated her with an easy camaraderie. He remained constantly at her side and never failed to see that she received the first portion of whatever meal was being prepared and that she had a dry blanket at night.

  There had been no repetition of the intimacy they had shared in the hayloft. If Kincaid touched her, it was to steady her balance on the rocking sloop, and his physical contact was as innocent as if she were his beloved sister. Bess was at once relieved and confused by his behavior. The man she had believed incapable of acting like a gentleman was behaving perfectly, and she wasn’t certain if this was what she really wanted or not.