The Pirate's Widow

by DuBay, Sandra

  Callie caught her breath. To board that ship again, to tread her decks once more . . . yes, she longed to do so but she wondered how it would affect her now that Kit was gone.

  “Yes, Sir Thomas,” she answered, fighting to keep a tremor from her voice, “I should like to accompany you.”

  Chapter Eight

  Callie was sitting on the edge of her bed the next evening when Jem returned from a day spent with Finn. He knocked at the door then opened it, a smile lighting up his freckled face.

  “Callie! Look at this shell I—.” He stopped, his smile fading, as he saw the tears shimmering on her cheeks. “What is it, Callie?” he asked, coming to her side. “What has happened?”

  Callie drew a long, shuddering breath. “The Crimson Vengeance, Jem, I saw her last night.”

  Jem looked behind him and closed the bedroom door. “The Crimson Vengeance? But how? Where?”

  “She’s anchored in Mount’s Bay. After dinner last night, Sir Thomas had his coachman drive through Penzance and I saw her there, anchored in the harbor. She’s a British warship now, renamed the H.M.S. Vengeance. I nearly fainted when I saw her.”

  “Those poxy bastards!” Jem hissed. “Turning her into a navy scow!”

  “Sir Thomas apparently knows her captain. He’s invited me to dine with him aboard the ship next week.”

  “You’re not going, are you?”

  “Yes, I am.” She held up a hand to silence Jem’s protests. “Think about it, Jem, if I can manage to do it, I can see if Kit’s ledger is still there in its hiding place. If it is . . .”

  Jem’s face lit with comprehension. “We’ll know where his treasures are.”

  Callie nodded. “And we can leave here, if we need to, and go anywhere in the world knowing there’ll be treasure there, waiting for us.”

  “Will we need to leave here?”

  “Perhaps. There are those who resent Sir Thomas’ attentions toward me. They would cause us trouble if they could. If they managed to find out who we are . . .” Callie rose from the bed and went to the window. The endless sea stretched away from the shore. “We could take passage aboard a ship. Run to the New World.”

  “Who are you?” a deep voice asked from the doorway. Finn stood there. “And why would you need to run?”

  “I invited Finn to dinner,” Jem told her.

  “Who are you, Callie Jenkins?” Finn asked again.

  “Tell him, Callie,” Jem pleaded. “I’m tired of lying to him.”

  “The truth, Callie,” Finn said solemnly, “or I’ll walk out that door and never come back.”

  Callie hesitated and Finn turned and left the cottage, the door slamming behind him.

  “Callie!” Jem urged. “Don’t let him go!”

  Lifting her skirts, Callie ran after Finn. He was down on the beach, striding purposefully away from the cottage.

  “Finn, wait!” she cried. “Please, wait.”

  He stopped and turned toward her. “Well?”

  Callie turned to Jem who had followed her. “Go inside, Jem, I want to talk to Finn alone.”

  “But Callie!”

  “Please, do as I say. Just this once, don’t argue with me.”

  “Cyrus,” Finn said to the dog at his heels, “go with Jem.”

  “Come on, Cyrus,” Jem called, and the massive animal trotted off in the boy’s wake.

  “Let’s walk,” Callie said, starting off down the beach. “I can’t keep still.”

  With Finn beside her, Callie walked along the shore as the waves rolled in. “Understand,” she said softly, “that by telling you what I’m about to tell you I am putting my life and Jem’s in your hands.”

  “They’ll be safe there,” Finn vowed. “Tell me.”

  As they walked, as the sun dropped toward the western horizon setting the clouds afire with color, Callie told him everything—about Kit, about her time aboard the Crimson Vengeance, about how Jem came to be with them. When she reached the part about Kit’s capture and execution, she paused and daubed at her eyes with the end of her sleeve.

  “The last thing he did,” she told Finn, “was to arrange, somehow, for me to escape. I was thrown from the cart. I didn’t want to run but Kit told me to. I met Jem in the crowd and we ran together. I thought we’d be safe here. But the quiet life of anonymity isn’t quite what we’ve found.”

  Finn was silent and Callie looked up to find him smiling down at her. “You find our predicament amusing?”

  “A missionary’s widow,” he said softly. “I thought you so prim and proper. I’ve been uncomfortable around you from the start because I was afraid you’d think me crude and vulgar.”

  “Prim and proper,” Callie echoed. “I’ve seen things that would shock you, Finn Blount. I’ve danced around a blazing fire on Ocracoke Island surrounded by a hundred pirates. I’ve drunk rum with Blackbeard, thrown dice with Calico Jack Rackham, I’ve ridden in a cart through London bound for Execution Dock determined to die beside a man I loved and foolishly thought I’d grow old with.”

  “Piracy is not a profession where men grow old,” Finn reminded her.

  “I know that, I knew it then, I just didn’t want to believe it. I thought Kit was invincible. So when Kit died, I just took Jem and ran; tried to find a place so isolated that no one would ever suspect. But even here someone could find out. That is why we may have to go further; away from England.”

  “No one here would have any way of knowing.”

  “I hope not,” Callie admitted. “If they were looking for former pirates in St. Swithin there are others they’d look at first.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Callie shook her head. “I cannot tell you that. I cannot betray a fellow buccaneer. In any case, Jem wanted me to tell you the truth and I’m tired of lying to you as well.”

  “But why were you so upset tonight?” He gently touched the remnants of her tears.

  She told him of seeing Kit’s former ship in Penzance harbor and of Sir Thomas’ invitation to dine aboard her.

  “I know where a few of Kit’s treasure caches are. Not all of them; I’d need his journal for that and that was hidden aboard his ship. If it’s still there. . .”

  “How will you feel, going aboard that ship again with all the memories?

  “I don’t know. It worries me. Could I keep my composure? Would I betray myself before Sir Thomas and the ship’s captain? There is still a warrant for my execution, Finn. I could still end my days at Execution Dock with the tides washing over me.”

  “That will never happen,” Finn said fiercely. “I’d kill any man who tried to take you. Trust me when I say that, Callie.”

  Callie looked up into Finn’s blue eyes. “I do trust you,” she whispered. “Oh Finn, I do.”

  “Little pirate wench,” he said, smiling. “I envy Kit Llewellyn having you there, wild and free, aboard his ship.”

  “Do not envy him; that life cost him everything.”

  “But he had you, if only for a while, to love him.”

  “Would he think my love was worth dying for?”

  Finn moved closer in the dim half-light of the cave. His rough hand caressed her cheek as his arm drew her nearer. “Perhaps I’ll find out one day, Callie Llewellyn.”

  Callie leaned toward him and wound her arms about his neck. Tilting her face toward his, she offered him her lips. Finn’s kiss was soft, gentle, his lips brushing hers, his tongue tasting her sweetness, as his arms pulled her against him. His big hands splayed across her back molding themselves to the curve of her waist, the swell of her hip.

  Callie’s heart pounded as she felt her breasts crushed against his broad chest. It had been so long since she’d been held in a man’s embrace, felt his hands caress her, felt the proof of his desire. Had you told her that day in London that she’d ever want another man to love her, she would have denied it but there, in that ocean-washed cave where the cool evening air smelled of salt spray; she was Finn’s for the taking.

  And it wa
s Finn who broke the spell. His hands dropped away from her as he stepped back, his breathing shallow and ragged.

  “Finn,” Callie said softly, reaching for him.

  “Not now,” he said, “not like this. One day you’ll come to me, I pray, not when you’re frightened nor when you’re uncertain but when you’re free and filled with want.”

  “I am filled with want,” Callie breathed.

  “You’re a passionate woman, I can see it. But I think Kit’s still in your heart. And then there’s your other suitor.”

  “Other suitor?”

  “Sir Thomas.”

  “Damn Sir Thomas Sedgewyck! He can go hang for all I care. I just don’t know how to make him leave me be. I didn’t want to take the clothes, you know, but the dressmaker said she’d be ruined if I refused them.”

  “Still, he’s not a man you need for an enemy. He’d not take rejection lightly.”

  “No, I don’t think he would. And if he knew about all this . . . Finn, could he cause trouble for you?”

  Finn shrugged. “He could. He could set the Revenuers on me, I suppose.”

  “Why does everything have to be so complicated?”

  “It keeps life interesting.”

  Callie frowned. “I’d settle for boring!”

  “This from the woman who danced around the fire on Ocracoke Island and drank rum with Blackbeard,” Finn teased.

  “So what can we do about all this?”

  “Wait and see. That’s all we can do for now. And try not to worry.”

  “Easier said than done; and what about Sir Thomas?”

  Finn shrugged. “Play his game; let him court you. Just promise me I’ll never have to see you as his lady.”

  “That’s an easy promise. The first thing he’d do is send Jem away. He as good as told me so.”

  “The bastard. Of course, the first thing you’d do is send away that grasping old mother-in-law of his and Spindle shanks.”

  “Spindle shanks?”

  “Her daughter.”

  “Flora? Why do you call her that?”

  “She fell on some ice one winter outside the dressmaker’s shop and her skirts flew up. T’was no great treat for the eyes, I can tell you.”

  Callie laughed. “You’re terrible.”

  “I know.” He offered her his arm. “Come, let’s be on our way. Jem will think I’m up to no good.”

  “You are, aren’t you?”

  Finn’s laughter rumbled in the cave. “How could I ever have thought you a prim and proper missionary’s widow?” he asked as they started down the beach silhouetted against the sunset.

  That night Callie lay in bed, her mind racing. The appearance of Kit’s ship in its new guise had shaken her to her very core. The prospect of going aboard her filled her with a mixture of longing and trepidation. But the thought of retrieving Kit’s ledger from its place of concealment was an enticement she could not resist.

  And then there was Finn. After Kit’s death, she had never thought to want another man to touch her but there, in the shadowy cave with the surf pounding outside, she had wanted to stay in Finn’s arms. She loved the feeling of his body against her own, his lips on hers. She had felt desire for the first time since that terrible day when Kit and the crew of the Crimson Vengeance were captured by the British Navy.

  She smiled to herself in the darkness. Why couldn’t she have felt this way about Sir Thomas? Married to him, installed as Lady Sedgewyck the mistress of Sedgewyck Manor, she would surely have been safe. But she did not lie awake in the depth of the night thinking about his kisses, his caresses. Though he was undeniably handsome with his dark good looks and his elegant demeanor, he had none of Finn’s earthy appeal and, she suspected, none of the unpretentious humor and simple humanity.

  She caught herself wishing Finn was there beside her in snug bedroom of Hyacinth Cottage. How she longed to lie in his arms, cradle her cheek on his chest, hear his heart beating, strong and steady like the man himself, and feel as if nothing in the world could come between her and the simple life she desired.

  Chapter Nine

  Callie hadn’t been back to church since her confrontation with the parson. It might scandalize St. Swithin that she had stopped attending, but she couldn’t stand the man and to sit there while he lectured them on their sins and, no doubt, shot pointed looks her way, was too much. He might not quite dare attack her blatantly while she was under Sir Thomas’ protection, but Callie still had no interest in listening to the wretch.

  Knowing Sir Thomas to be regular in his attendance at church on Sunday (if for no other reason than to keep up appearances for the village) Finn became a regular visitor at Hyacinth Cottage on Sunday mornings. While Jem played with Cyrus and Rascal, Finn and Callie strolled along the beach when the weather was fine and sat near the fire in the sitting room when the chilled mist rolled in off the sea. It felt right, like a family, intimate and cozy in a way she knew could never happen amidst the cold formal elegance at Sedgewyck Manor. Let Venetia and Flora Louvain have Sir Thomas and all his worldly goods, she would never be happy there, much less as content and comfortable as she felt in her own parlor with her little pirate lad and her smuggler.

  But still Sir Thomas kept up his courtship. He might disapprove of her abandoning her attendance at church, but that did not stop him from inviting her to dinner or drives beside him in his elegant carriages.

  One evening a week after she’d seen Kit’s old ship, she stood, hands on hips, while Gemma buttoned the row of pearl buttons that fastened the bodice of a gown of rose brocade frothed with creamy lace at the low neck and elbow-length sleeves and a matching skirt. Her black hair was piled onto her head and teased into a mass of curls.

  “You look lovely, madam,” Gemma told her, standing back to admire her efforts.

  “Thank you,” Callie said with a sigh. “I wish I was dressing for something other than dinner with Sir Thomas Sedgewyck.”

  “He’s not an easy man to discourage.”

  Callie laughed. “No, indeed; I am afraid when he decides he wants something he is determined to get it.”

  Jem stood in the doorway, a little frown on his freckled face. “I wish Sir Thomas Sedgewyck would go to the devil,” he said grumpily.

  Gemma squeezed out the doorway past him and Callie reached out to ruffle his red hair. “So do I, Jem, believe me. But I’m looking forward to going tonight. If I can manage to get to Kit’s journal we will know where all his treasure caches are and then, if the time should come when we want to leave this place, we can go knowing we will have what we need to survive. Providing no one else has found them in the meanwhile.”

  “Do you think we will have to leave St. Swithin?” he wanted to know.

  “I don’t know, perhaps, if Sir Thomas will not leave us in peace. I will not be the cause of Finn’s getting put in prison or worse just because of that man’s jealousy.”

  “Finn could come with us if we went away.”

  “He could, if he wanted to.”

  “Would you want him to?” Jem asked.

  “Yes, I would,” Callie admitted, “but first things first.” She went to her dresser and pulled a knife out from beneath a pile of frilly chemises. Tucking her skirts under her chin, she slipped it into a pocket sewn into her bottommost petticoat. “If Kit’s journal is still in its hiding place, I’ll need to pry the paneling off to get it.”

  “Won’t Sir Thomas and the ship’s captain notice you prying off the paneling?”

  Callie laughed. “It’s in the privy in the captain’s cabin. I think I may rely on escaping even Sir Thomas’ attentions in there.”

  At the same time Callie was making her plans, Venetia stood in Flora’s room at Sedgewyck Manor supervising her daughter’s preparations to go out for dinner. Reluctantly, Sir Thomas had agreed that Flora should accompany Callie and he, after Venetia pointed out that it was unseemly for there to be just one lady present on a ship filled with men.

  Flora’s gown, a creamy yel
low concoction made by a London modiste and not by Mademoiselle LaSalle of St. Swithin, was beautiful and created especially to enhance Flora’s sallow coloring and less than opulent curves. The neckline was almost scandalously low and her corset had been made with several thick ruffles of lace to make it seem that Mother Nature had been more generous to Flora than was the case.

  Venetia sighed impatiently as Flora tugged as the lacy décolletage. “Leave it alone, girl,” she ordered. “If you want to catch a man, you have to at least bait the trap!”

  “Thomas doesn’t want me!” Flora cried, lashing out at the maid who held out her gloves. “He wants that whore Caroline Jenkins!”

  “He only wants her because she’s denying him her favors. The sly harlot is playing a tart’s game, I know it! There are rumors that she’s seeing Finn Blount. Finn Blount! I ask you; dangling a rich nobleman on a hook while she’s dallying with a rough, unlettered, smuggler!” Venetia shuddered. “As if any decent woman would want a cretin like that to touch her!” She looked her daughter up and down with distaste. “At least any woman with a modicum of taste.”

  Flora said nothing, she’d had enough of her mother’s chastising over her ‘lapse of taste and morals’ with Walter, but she privately thought Finn Blount an attractive fellow. He might not be elegant and educated as Sir Thomas, but Flora thought he seemed very appealing in an earthy masculine way. But then, she knew her mother did not condone her own dalliances. In fact, had Venetia known how often Flora had taken advantage of her mother’s inattention to slip out of the manor and into the forest; she would likely have boxed her daughter’s ears. Perhaps, Flora thought, Caroline Jenkins and she had more in common than one might think; it might be that both women liked a man who cared about more than his social standing and the cut of his clothes. Caroline, of course, had one inestimable advantage—she was her own mistress. If she wanted to take Finn Blount as a lover she could and snap her fingers at the opinion of those around her. For Flora, it was not so simple. If her mother cast her out and Sir Thomas did not want her, she would be alone in the world, friendless and penniless. Her mother was willing to close her eyes, with a shudder, to her liaison with Walter, so long as Flora trod the straight and narrow from then on and fell in with her mother’s plans to drag Sir Thomas, kicking and screaming if necessary, to the altar. She had no choice.