“Good Heavens!” the parson cried.
“One of Blackbeard’s crew. Never fear, I shall see him dangling from a rope or know the reason why.”
Sir Thomas’ eyes lingered on his mother-in-law’s companions. “Reverend Dougless, Mrs. Dougless, you have come to visit with us?”
“There has been a disaster, Sir Thomas,” Venetia told him. “A fire in the parsonage kitchen; not a very serious one, the damage will soon be put to rights, but I felt certain you would not object to Mr. and Mrs. Dougless spending a few nights here while the servants are dealing with it.
“Certainly not,” Sir Thomas agreed. “Tell the housekeeper to prepare a room. Now, if you will excuse me, I have business to attend to.”
Callie and Finn, followed by Jem, Cyrus and Rascal, strolled hand in hand along the beach toward Hyacinth Cottage in the warm morning sunshine. Callie had abandoned her ruined bodice in favor of one of Finn’s shirts that was now tucked into her pink brocade skirt which trailed, unheeded, in the water as the waves rolled in.
As they passed St. Swithin harbor, Callie was aware of more than one set of eyes watching them.
“We’ll be the day’s gossip for certain,” she told Finn.
“Do you mind?” he asked.
“Not at all; I’ll go into the town square and make an announcement if you’d like me to.”
“And what would you say, my bold and beautiful lass?”
“That I love you.”
Finn stopped in his tracks. Taking her hands in his, he looked into her eyes. “Say that again.”
“I love you, Finn Blount, I do.”
“And I love you, Callie Llewellyn,” he replied. “I love your courage and your spirit. I love your beautiful face and your soft skin and I love the way your eyes go all misty when I . . .”
“Finn!” Callie chided looking to see if Jem was within earshot.
Finn laughed and pulled her into his arms. She twined her arms around him burying her fingers in his thick brown hair and, heedless of the eyes watching or the tongue that would doubtless we wagging, they clung to one another, lost in a kiss that seemed to promise everything their hearts desired.
* * * *
In Sir Thomas’ absence, Venetia, the Douglesses, and Flora made their plans. By the time the master of Sedgewyck Manor had returned his fate was sealed and the conspirators satisfied that their plans could not go awry.
It was at dinner that evening that the first fly landed squarely in the ointment.
“You have been made comfortable?” Sir Thomas asked Olivia Dougless.
“Very comfortable, Sir Thomas,” she replied. “Your housekeeper has given us the most beautiful room overlooking the gardens.”
“Very good. Is there anything you need from the parsonage? I can send a footman to collect anything you might require.”
“Not at all. The maid from the parsonage came up in the pony cart with all the necessities Mr. Dougless and I should be needing. We will not impose upon your generosity for too long.”
“You must remain as long as you need to,” Sir Thomas told them.
“You are too kind,” the parson said, smiling.
“I didn’t have the opportunity of telling you what my maid said when she was here, dear Venetia,” Olivia said. “The village is abuzz with the scandal of it.”
“I disapprove of gossip, Mrs. Dougless,” the parson reproved, solely for Sir Thomas’ benefit for in truth there was nothing he liked more than hearing about other people’s disgrace.
“It is not gossip, Mr. Dougless,” his wife said, “it is merely an illustration of the old saying about trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”
“Of whom are you speaking?” Sir Thomas asked.
“Mrs. Jenkins,” Olivia told him. “Apparently after you had so kindly taken her and dear Miss Louvain to dine aboard the warship in Penzance, she took herself off to Finn Blount’s hut and spent the night with him.”
“No!” Venetia cried.
“Who is saying this?” Sir Thomas demanded.
“The entire village saw them strolling hand in hand along the shore not long after dawn this morning. Apparently they were kissing in full view of anyone who cared to look.”
“Outrageous!” Venetia breathed, “Flora, you should not be hearing this!”
“Mrs. Jenkins was wearing what looked like one of Blount’s shirts; no doubt he destroyed her bodice ripping it off her in his vulgar haste. With it, she wore a pink brocade skirt that Mrs. Brown said looked like one of the gowns you purchased for her, Sir Thomas. Apparently it was dragging in the sea as she walked along. Obviously she cares nothing for the kindness of others.”
Apart from a reddening of his face, Sir Thomas made no comment but soon after the meal had finished, he excused himself, took a decanter of brandy, and retired to his rooms.
“Oh dear,” Olivia worried when they had retired to the sitting room. “Have I miscalculated, Venetia? I thought surely the news of Mrs. Jenkins scandalous behavior would put Sir Thomas in the mood to abandon his good opinion of her and turn to dear Miss Louvain.”
“Perhaps we must put off our plan for a night or two,” Venetia allowed. “But I’m certain your news will have the desired effect. Surely Sir Thomas’ appetite for the woman will wane now that he sees her for the harlot she is.”
The evening passed in quiet conversation but Sir Thomas did not appear. When Venetia asked, she was told that Sir Thomas had retired for the night and ordered that he not be disturbed. Disappointed that their plans were apparently ruined for the present, she bade the Douglesses and Flora goodnight and retired to her own room.
It was after midnight when Flora, reading a romantic novel by the light of a single candle, heard the knocking at her bedchamber door. Throwing back the coverlet, she went to the door and opened it.
“Sir Thomas!” she cried, clutching the ruffled edge of her nightdress closer about her throat.
“Flora,” he said, and the brandy fumes engulfed her. “We were interrupted before. You were going to tell me what terrible things Walter wanted to do to you.”
He propped an elbow against the doorframe and his dressing gown fell open revealing his naked body underneath.
“Terrible things, Sir Thomas,” she breathed, “terrible, sexual things—depraved, dirty things.”
Smiling, he pushed her out of the way and entered the room. Closing the door behind himself, he took her by the wrist and pulled her toward him.
“Tell me more,” he demanded.
* * * *
“Where can Flora be?” Venetia wondered when her daughter did not appear in the breakfast room the next morning.
“Sir Thomas will not doubt be spending the day abed,” Mrs. Dougless predicted. “I’m certain he will have the headache this morning.”
“Doubtless you are right. I hope he does not suffer too . . .”
“Madam, madam!” Flora’s maid appeared in the doorway. “You must come! It’s Miss Flora!”
Venetia caught up her skirts and followed the little maid up the grand staircase and down the corridor to her daughter’s room. Olivia Dougless followed and the parson came right behind.
“What is it?” Venetia demanded, throwing open the door. “Flora, are you . . . oh, my heavens!”
Flora Louvain and Sir Thomas Sedgewyck, both naked, lay sprawled across Flora’s bed. Sir Thomas, face down on the rumpled sheets, snored heavily, dead to the world, lost in a haze of brandy and erotic exhaustion. For Flora’s part, she was spread-eagled on the bed, her wrists and ankles bound to the carved bedposts. Her body was covered with welts and a discarded riding crop lay on the rug beside the bed. Blood spattered her pale skin and the white sheets and teeth marks ringed both pale nipples on her small, bruised breasts.
“Help me, mama,” she whimpered.
The parson, pale and trembling with shock, turned away but Venetia and Olivia rushed to Flora’s aid. They drew a sheet over her and untied the bonds that held her. Olivia turned
to her husband who leaned against the wall outside the door.
“Mr. Dougless,” she said, “fetch Lord Sedgewyck’s valet and have him removed to his own room.
As the parson hurried away to do his wife’s bidding, Venetia looked at her co-conspirator.
“Well, well, Mrs. Dougless,” she said smiling. “What is that saying about being hoisted by one’s own petard?”
Chapter Fourteen
“Callie! Callie!” The Misses Bates tumbled out of their pony cart and came to the front of Hyacinth Cottage as fast as their legs would carry them.
“Miss Sophie, Miss Penelope,” Callie said, smiling. “Would you like some tea? I believe Gemma has baked some fresh bread this morning and there is marmalade.”
“Nothing, thank you,” Penelope said. “We came to tell you the news.”
“Have you heard?” Sophie asked. “The village is humming with it but we haven’t seen you there.”
“No, I haven’t been to the village. Please, sit down and tell me what’s happened?”
“So much!” Penelope cried.
“Oh, so much!” Sophie agreed. “And some of it to do with you!”
“With me? Do tell.”
“Well, they are saying that Sir Thomas Sedgewyck proposed to you and you refused him. Is that true?”
“It is true, as a matter of fact, and he did not take it well.” Callie frowned, remembering the ugly scene in the coach on the way home from Penzance.
“And, they are saying that you’ve taken up with Finn Blount instead!”
“What do you think about that?” Callie asked the spinster sisters.
“I like Finn,” Miss Sophie declared, “although Sir Thomas is very rich.” She sighed. “I wish I was rich.”
Callie smiled. “And what would you do if you were rich, Miss Sophie?”
“I would go to London and see the King!” she said. “And I would have a red dress with gold lace.”
“And you, Miss Penelope?”
“I would have a grand coach drawn by six white horses.”
“Perhaps you should have married Sir Thomas, Penelope,” Miss Sophie teased.
“I might have been willing, once,” Penelope told her sister, “but not after . . .”
“After what?” Callie prompted.
“Sir Thomas Sedgewyck is married, Callie,” Miss Penelope informed her. “He has married Flora Louvain by special license.”
“Has he? I had not thought he was interested in marrying her despite her mother’s efforts.”
The elderly sisters giggled like schoolgirls. “Shall I tell her?” Sophie asked.
“Perhaps you should not speak of such things, sister.”
“Oh tosh, Callie has been married. She is not blushing miss.” Sophie leaned toward Callie. “Sir Thomas was discovered in Flora’s bed, naked the pair of them, and Flora bound to the bedposts.”
“What?” Callie stared at her visitors. “I cannot believe it.”
“It is true,” Penelope insisted. “Flora’s maid found them and went for Mrs. Louvain. She told Mrs. Brown in the village who told Miss LaSalle who told me that Flora had been beaten black and blue with a riding crop.
Sophie took up the tale. “And if that wasn’t bad enough, the scene was witnessed by the parson and Mrs. Dougless who had taken refuge at the manor after a fire in the parsonage kitchen. After that, Sir Thomas had no choice but to marry her.”
Callie closed her eyes and thanked heaven for her escape. There were not enough titles or grand manors or riches in the world to tempt her to be the wife of a man who took pleasure from brutalizing a woman.
“And there is more,” Penelope went on.
“More? Pray what else could there be?”
“Walter.”
“You know Walter, Sir Thomas’ hermit.”
“Yes, I have met Walter.”
“He ran off with Jenna Brown and their little boy.”
“Did he? I wish them well wherever they are.”
“They are back in St. Swithin,” Sophie told her. “And Walter is in irons. Flora, that is Lady Sedgewyck, told Sir Thomas that Walter had made advances to her and threats when she refused him.”
“She said she refused him?” Flora was certain covering her tracks, Callie reflected.
“Indeed,” Penelope insisted. “And when she did, he threatened to murder everyone in the manor in their beds and revealed that he had been a member of the crew of the notorious pirate Blackbeard.”
Callie felt herself go pale. “He told Flora that?” she whispered.
“He did, he was in his cups, apparently. In any case, Sir Thomas sent to the Admiralty and discovered that there was a warrant outstanding for Walter’s execution. He sent men to find him and bring him back to St. Swithin.”
“What will he do?” Callie breathed, fearing the worst.
“Sir Thomas says he will hang him. The gallows is even now being built on the village green.”
“Dear God.” Callie sank onto the wooden bench outside the cottage’s front door.
“Are you ill, Callie?” Sophie asked anxiously. “You are as white as snow. Perhaps you should go in out of the sun and lie down.”
“Perhaps you are right, Miss Sophie,” Callie agreed. “Would you think me rude if I excused myself?”
“Not at all, not at all,” Penelope assured her. “We have to be going anyway. We must go to old Mrs. Horton’s cottage and tell her the news.”
“Yes, you must, I’m certain she will want to know.” Callie stood as the ladies took their leave. “Thank you, Miss Sophie, Miss Penelope.”
As the ladies took their leave, Callie went into the cottage. “Gemma?” she called, “come and help me change. I must go to the manor at once.”
* * * *
Sir Thomas stood, hands clasped behind his back, at the broad, diamond paned windows of his study when the butler showed Callie into the room. A fire burned in the marble fireplace dispelling the chill of the dark, cavernous room.
“Leave us,” Sir Thomas instructed, and the man bowed and left the room.
“Sir Thomas,” Callie said. “Thank you for seeing me.”
“I admit my curiosity got the better of me.” He turned toward her. “I could not believe you might actually have the temerity to show your face here after you assaulted me.”
“I assaulted you!” Callie took a deep breath. “Well, let us agree to disagree about the events of that night, shall we? I have another matter upon which I wish to speak with you.”
“Have you? I thought perhaps you had come to congratulate me upon my marriage.”
“Yes, congratulations; Mrs. and Miss Louvain must be very pleased.”
“Very. I do assure you Miss Louvain, or shall I say Lady Sedgewyck, is fully appreciative of her good fortune.”
“I am certain of it.”
“What is this matter upon which you wish to speak with me?”
“Walter Bartlett.”
“Of course. Please, sit down.”
“I am told you mean to hang him.”
“I do. He is a notorious pirate; first mate of the famous Blackbeard. He escaped British justice when Blackbeard was captured and executed but he will not escape this time.”
“Sir Thomas . . .”
“My lord, if you please.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“We are not on the familiar terms we once were, madam. I should prefer it if you would address me as ‘my lord’ like any other occupant of St. Swithin.”
“Very well, then, my lord. Walter Bartlett is no longer a pirate. He has a son with Jenna Brown who needs him. Could you not show mercy?”
“Walter Bartlett was and is a pirate, madam. Just because he no longer sails the seas does not bring back the innocent people he murdered nor restore the stolen goods to those he stole them from. He has committed many heinous crimes and he must pay for it. I have a copy of his death warrant from the Admiralty. Would you like to see it?”
“But if you would spe
ak with him . . .”
“I have spoken with him. And he spins a pretty tale. He maligned Lady Sedgewyck, do you know that? Claimed she’d been his mistress. When I refused to believe it, he told me another tale. Can you guess what it was?”
Callie grasped the arms of her chair. Surely Walter would not bargain for his own life by throwing her to the wolves. “I cannot,” she whispered.
“Oh, I think you can. It is this . . .”
He opened the drawer of his desk and took out a sheet of parchment. Callie knew what it was without looking.
“You do not seem curious,” Sir Thomas observed. “Can it be you already know what this is?” He looked at the paper. “It is the death warrant of one Caroline Llewellyn, called Callie, doxy of another notorious pirate captain, Christopher Llewellyn, called Kit. He was the one-time master of a ship called the Crimson Vengeance, a ship now in His Majesty’s service and rechristened H.M.S. Vengeance, a ship I took you aboard to dine with her captain and lieutenant.” He laughed wryly. “You’re a cool one, Callie Llewellyn. Why did you really want to go aboard that ship? What was there that you wanted? I can have your cottage searched, you know, and whatever it is will be brought to me and will only serve to confirm your guilt.”
“And will you hang me as well?” Callie asked, her mind frantically searching for a way to escape from the room and the manor before he could call his footmen to restrain her.
“No.”
She stared at him. “No?”
He shook his head. “No. I have no desire to see that lovely body dangling at the end of a rope. You are a desirable woman, Callie, may I call you Callie? You are proud and beautiful and untamed. But I mean to tame you. You will dance to my tune, madam.”
“You mean to blackmail me with this piece of paper into becoming your mistress?”
“With this piece of paper?” He shook his head. “No. This piece of paper means nothing to me.” Turning in his chair, he held the warrant in the flames until the parchment began to burn and then dropped it onto the glowing embers where it was quickly reduced to ash.
Turning back to her, he opened his desk drawer once more. “I mean to blackmail you with this piece of paper.”
The Pirate's Widow Page 10