Callie thought she would be ill. She knew without looking what it was.
“This is another death warrant sent by the Admiralty in answer to my request. As I’m sure you surmise it is a warrant for one Jeremiah Wicke, cabin boy aboard the Crimson Vengeance: young, to be sure, but apparently a fully-fledged member of the crew and therefore as guilty as any of you. It sentences him, in absentia, to be either hanged or transported. I think I know which I would choose.”
“You would hang a child?”
“I would; but only if you force my hand.” He rose from his desk. “When is your next monthly course due?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me. I know you’ve been lying with that brute Finn Blount. Are you with child by him?”
“I am not,” she answered honestly. “I am having my monthly course now.”
Sir Thomas nodded. “When it is ended, I will arrange for you to be brought to my hunting lodge. You will come willingly . . .” His smile was cruel. “I would say, ‘on your knees’ but believe me you will spend enough of your time in that position. You will become my mistress and do whatever I ask of you, endure whatever I decide to do to you, and I will allow Jem Wicke to live. Oh, and if you ever let Finn Blount touch you again I will have him killed before your eyes.”
“Will you beat me as I hear you beat your new wife?”
“You needn’t sound so censorious. I think she likes it. In any case, what I do to Lady Sedgewyck is none of your concern. You must learn to govern that impertinent tongue, madam. I would have it torn out but I have plans for it and plans for you. Now get out of my house and wait for my instructions.”
Chapter Fifteen
“Why did you not tell me this sooner?” Finn demanded nearly a week later when he finally managed to encounter Callie who had been avoiding him ever since her meeting with Sir Thomas.
She had pleaded ill health, had Gemma lie and tell him she was not at home when he came to the cottage, had forced Jem, over his protests, to refuse to act as a go-between for Finn’s notes begging for a meeting and an explanation.
“Because there is nothing to be done! Don’t you understand? He will hang Jem if I do not do as he wishes.”
“I will kill him, Callie. I will go to the manor and choke the life out of him or shoot him or . . .”
“And then I will be responsible for your death as well,” she argued. “He has Jem’s death warrant from the Admiralty. For all I know he has another copy of mine just in case.”
“Then we run. Leave St. Swithin, leave Cornwall, leave Britain.”
“How? Don’t you think he will have the ports watched? He has influence and power, Finn, whether we like it or not.”
“It can be done. He is not the only one who has people he can call on. But they would want payment. Have you any gold?”
Callie smiled. “Can you get a horse and cart?”
But the light of two lanterns, Callie led Finn into the crypt of the ruined church where Kit’s treasure lay.
“Bloody hell!” Finn stared around at the chests of gold and trinkets that littered the crypt. “I should have been a pirate! We cannot take it all, Callie, it’s too heavy.”
“We do not need to take it all; just enough to pay our way to safety and give us a start wherever we go. That is why I went aboard the Vengeance with Sir Thomas. I had to retrieve Kit’s journal from its hiding place. He hid treasures in many places, Finn, and the journal has directions to them all.” She shrugged. “Some might have been found by now, but I’m certain there will be enough for our new life.”
Finn shook his head. “Someday you must tell me everything, Callie, for I feel there is still a lot of this story to tell.”
“There is,” she admitted, “but for now, let us gather what we need to escape.”
The night before Callie had been ordered to come to Sir Thomas’ hunting lodge, she, Jem, and Gemma crept through the dunes on a moonless night to the cove where two smuggler’s boats waited. Their trunks had already been taken to the cave nearby, taken one at a time in carts covered with goods being transported to market.
Before she left the cottage, Callie put a small, iron-bound chest inside a bigger trunk at the foot of her bed.
“Do you think they’ll find it?” Jem asked.
“Oh, I believe so. Miss Penelope and Miss Sophie will want to be sure everything is in order before they offer the cottage to let again.” She ruffled Jem’s red hair. “It’s time now. We have to go.”
She squeezed Gemma’s hand as she walked past her in the sitting room. “Are you certain you want to do this?” she asked. “It will be a difficult voyage.”
“There’s nothing to keep me here,” Gemma told her. “And I’ve always longed for a bit of adventure.”
They made their stealthy way along the dunes, avoiding the shore where they might easily have been seen by men set by Sir Thomas to spy on them. When they reached the cove, the boast were waiting.
“The ship is riding at anchor,” Finn told her as she lay down in the bottom of one of the smuggler’s boats and he tucked a blanket over her. “The captain has been well paid for our accommodations and he will be ready to weigh anchor as soon as we are aboard.”
“We are on our way,” she told him, smiling.
“We are, Callie, and thank God for it.”
Word swept through the village the next day that Callie, Finn, Jem, and Gemma had disappeared from St. Swithin. Rumors abounded but there was one fact not in dispute: Sir Thomas Sedgewyck was in a rage. He offered outrageous rewards for the return of the fugitives who, to the scandalized fascination of one and all, turned out to have been notorious pirates sentenced to death by the Admiralty for their crimes.
Miss Penelope and Miss Sophie Bates stood in the bedchamber of Hyacinth Cottage staring at the pile of gold and jewels that filled the little chest they’d found when inspecting Callie’s former home.
Sophie unfolded the note Callie had left with the chest.
“Dear Miss Sophie and Miss Penelope,
Thank you for your many kindnesses. I leave this chest for you so that you may have the freedom to do as you please which is one of life’s greatest joys. I will think of you traveling to London in Miss Penelope’s grand coach with its six white horses and of you, Miss Sophie, looking beautiful in your red gown with the gold lace when you go to see the King.
Love always,
Callie”
“Pirate treasure, sister,” Miss Sophie sighed, letting the golden coins shower through her fingers. “Ought we to keep it, do you think?”
“Don’t be stupid, you old widgeon. We didn’t steal it. It was a gift. Now help me carry it to the pony trap.”
“I shall miss Callie,” Sophie said as her sister slapped the reins and they started off. “She was a lovely person.”
“For a pirate,” Penelope hedged, smiling.
“Yes, indeed,” Sophie agreed, with a sideways glance at her sister, “for a pirate.”
Epilogue
The sea was wild that night. . . Snug in their cabin aboard the French merchantman, Tigresse, Callie and Finn lay in their bed listening to the wind in the sails and the creak of the timbers. Gemma and Jem shared another cabin along with Cyrus and Rascal. The ship’s captain had demanded a large bribe to take them to the New World. They were fugitives, after all, and he did not relish the thought of the British Navy boarding his ship to recapture them.
But he was more than willing to perform the marriage ceremony they requested once they had passed out of British waters and into the open ocean.
“What will we do in America, Finn?” Callie asked, her cheek resting on his chest, the steady thump-thump of his heart beneath her ear. “Will we buy land or ships or simply be rich and idle?”
“Rich and idle sounds appealing,” Finn mused.
“You’d be bored in a trice,” she predicted.
“No doubt.”
“Jem informs me that if we are waylaid by pirates on our journey
he wants to join them. He’s a little pirate at heart. I have promised him his share of Kit’s treasure; he will be a rich man. But the sea is in his blood, I fear, and it’s the buccaneer’s life for him.”
“Not me,” Finn teased. “I married a rich pirate’s widow and I intend to grow fat and lazy living on my wife’s ill-gotten gains.”
“No, you won’t,” she disagreed.
“Well, then, I’ll be whatever you want me to be, Callie Blount. We’ll buy land and start a plantation and I’ll sit in Parliament or whatever they have in America, making laws and long-winded speeches.”
He looked at her, his blue eyes caressing, and twined a lock of her black hair around his finger. “I’ll be whatever you want me to be,” he repeated, “and so long as we are together, I’ll be content.”
Smiling, happier than she thought she could ever be, Callie closed her eyes and dreamed of a new life in a new land.
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