“Any visitors tonight?” Edward asked.
No, the old man shook his head.
“A bone or scrap for the cur? He kept watch for me tonight.”
“A good dog, I’ll give him something.”
Edward nodded and ascended the nearby narrow stairs. At Molly’s door he paused, wondering if he should check on her. Most of the visitors to the magistrate’s were staying here, and by the very nature of the place everyone knew who was there and which room they were in. Gossip would not be far off if he were caught at her door, even if only by the innkeeper.
In the end he chose not to knock on her door, less for fear of gossip than for fear she might think he came to seduce her. He walked the few short steps to his own room silently, and as he came to his door he thought he heard a sound inside: he was certain of the candlelight leaking from beneath the door.
What to do? he wondered as his body tensed, then relaxed slightly as a bit of adrenaline hit. Wait outside until whoever’s inside grows weary and steps into the hall? Force my way into my room, not knowing who’s there, if anyone? For that matter, am I sober enough to fight if I have to?
He had no illusions about defeating more than two simultaneous adversaries in any circumstances, and only then if he had luck and surprise on his side, not to mention sobriety, and a bit of incompetence on theirs. Only in tales could one man defeat two or more attackers, if they attacked at the same time from different sides. But the old man had said no visitors had been by. It was unlikely any of the guests or boarders were threats, and Edward’s windows were barred from the inside. Yet there it was again, another quiet sound, someone moving about.
Edward made up his mind. He quietly drew his smallsword with his right hand, a pocket pistol with his left, then paused, wondering how he would open, or if necessary, force the door with his hands full. He returned the sword to its sheath, drew his other pistol, cocked it and held both in his right hand, then carefully tested the door. It was unlocked and unbolted. He cracked the door open slightly, quickly shifted a pistol back to his left hand, then kicked the door open and moved swiftly into the room, pistols raised and following his eyes.
“Edward!” whispered a female voice sharply.
He passed his eyes over the woman in the dimly lit room, then kicked the door closed behind him.
“Why are you here?” he demanded as he lowered but did not put away his pistols.
“Edward! Are you still drunk?”
“If I were, I’m not anymore. Again, why are you here?”
She’s about to cry, he thought. Perhaps even for true. I must be scaring the hell out of her.
“Waiting for you. I couldn’t bear the thought of your leaving without my seeing you one last time. And I want to thank you again for your assistance at the Assizes. I also have letters to give you, for England, from some local correspondents. And I wanted to warn you.”
Edward glanced about the room again. He set his pistols at half-cock and put them in his pockets, then bolted the door. He thought his room might have been carefully searched, yet could not put his finger on any single thing out of place. Molly’s words had come across as both sincere and trite, and the combination irritated him. The sense that she was out of character seemed oddly in character. After all, she hadn’t been waiting in his bed, but perhaps that was too obvious. She had never given him any look that suggested she might sleep with him, yet some women never did, until you suddenly found them in your bed. Still, she seemed both too timid and too manipulative. An alarm was sounding, and he neither wanted to ignore it nor tread too closely to its object.
Damn Jane Hardy and her suspicions!
If Molly were here to search for the papers, she now knew he was on his guard about something, and it could only be about what she sought.
“Warn me?”
“Just to be careful, to keep yourself safe.”
“Is someone threatening me? If so, they haven’t much time left while I’m in Ireland.”
“You may only be a messenger, Edward, but there are dangerous men about, Jacobites and others, who’re surely still interested in your correspondence. You have it safe, I trust?”
“Quite.”
She passed him a small light-colored sack, inside of which was a bundle of letters tied with a ribbon, and outside of which were directions indicating mail to be delivered to Bristol, the assumption being via the Virginia Galley. Edward untied the ribbon, glanced quickly over each letter, and set them on the table, wondering if Molly wanted to see where he might put them. She said nothing more, but put a hand to her dress at her breast as if to begin undressing, or perhaps simply to send a signal. Edward pondered the consequences, but before he could make a decision, or have one made for him, there came a soft knock at the door.
“Who’s there?” Edward called as he took a pistol from his pocket and cocked it fully.
The answer was quiet, soft, confident—and a woman’s.
Edward opened the door at arm’s length so that, should someone force the door as he unlatched it, he wouldn’t be knocked to the ground.
Jane Hardy stepped in, and with her forefinger she pushed the barrel of his pistol gently aside.
“Edward, dear, you and your pistols! This isn’t the weapon I’d have you point at me. Hello, Molly, dear,” she said. “I thought I’d spare both of your reputations at the expense of mine. There are guests about downstairs, they’ve just returned from the magistrate’s and it wouldn’t do for Mistress O’Meary here to be caught with you alone, Edward dear.” She glanced at the letters on the table. “Of course, I’m sure Mistress O’Meary is only here to deliver the post. Come, Molly dear, let’s away with us before your reputation is further harmed. After all, you’re accused of high treason. Best you avoid any further hint of a stain on your honor that might harm your case.”
Edward put the pistol back into his pocket and walked into the hallway with the women. Molly, clearly angry, entered her room with scarcely another glance at Edward.
“It seems I’m jealous after all,” Jane said in a whisper. “I came to see that you weren’t lying murdered in your sleep, accused of rape, or kidnapped by rapparees. Or worse, in bed with that woman. I don’t trust her; there’s something of madness or the spider’s web about her.”
“And you’re here to protect me?”
“I consider you an investment, Captain MacNaughton.”
“Indeed?”
“Don’t worry, sir, I’m not looking for a husband. But you have the potential of one day being well-placed to do me profit, and a well-placed honest man is hard to come by. I’ll deal with most anyone, but I’ll partner only with those I trust well. We might one day be in position to help each other.”
“And this is why you came here tonight? I’ve no letters worth stealing.”
“Fool, it’s too late for words tonight. I came foremost for your strong hands and hard, at times ungentlemanly, body.”
Edward, although not quite up to the task as Jane might have liked, given how much he had drunk, still managed to please her. Or perhaps more correctly, she in her practiced way brought forth his broadside, as she liked to call it, to her satisfaction.
And the process left him quite spent and soon deep asleep.
When a servant boy woke him two hours later at three of the clock in the morning, he felt for a moment a sense of panic. His alert nature taking over, he searched his room and his effects, and all were as they had been. Even the letters Molly had delivered were still on the table, along with an added one from Mrs. Hardy, addressed to a factor in Bristol. He dressed quickly, berating himself for being a fool. But the ship would not sail before dawn, giving him an hour to do what he needed.
He added coal to the embers in the small fireplace, and put a small coffee pot, begged earlier from the kitchen, along with some coffee powder, onto the grate. As the water heated, he examined the correspondence, seven letters in all. Three were from Sir William to business associates in Bristol. All were clearly in his
secretary’s hand, and all were sealed on the outside with wax. These he disregarded, for he trusted both Sir William and his secretary, and anyway he did not have the resources here to counterfeit the seals.
When the water boiled, Edward one-by-one opened the other letters, each sealed between the folds with a common wax wafer. He held each letter over the exhaled steam until it softened the wafer, then slipped his narrow-bladed pen knife between the sealed pages and slit the wafer. He read each letter, then held it first to the flame of a candle then to steam to inspect for secret ink, then folded and re-sealed each with a new wafer. He had several sizes and colors in his writing box, and could closely match each of the wafers he had destroyed. He slightly botched one re-sealing, but covered the error by writing additional details of address over the spot where the wafer lay.
He felt a bit ashamed at having read the letters—like a poulterer, one who slits letters open to steal the money or valuables within—and a bit disappointed as well, for there was no value in them. All were common personal or business correspondence. Even Jane’s letter was dull reading. If there were any secret messages in any of them, they were hidden in cipher.
Edward quickly finished his coffee and gathered up his property. He headed down the stairs, carrying only a small portmanteau into which he had tucked the writing box and new letters, the rest of his baggage being already aboard.
Everyone was asleep, including the innkeeper. Edward opened the door—and immediately dropped his portmanteau and reached for his sword.
Yet just as quickly he relaxed. Waiting outside were the two servants who had lately been his armed escort.
“We’re sent to keep you company to the customs house quay, sir.”
“And I thank you,” Edward said. “Draw your swords, and I’ll draw mine,” he said to settle his slight suspicion that the men might have been bribed against him. “Lead on, then.”
If an ambush had been set, the ambushers got cold feet. At the quay the servants roused a waterman by kicking him thrice in his backside.
“Ah, Cap’n McNutt! Fore and aft we meet! We’re going to miss you here in Ireland, sir, but we won’t forget you! In a hundred years they’ll be talking of your fighting and fornicating!”
“Just shut up and row me to the Virginia Galley, you damned glorious whoreson.”
“Aye, Cap’n, aye, right away.”
In minutes they were alongside the ship, its crew busy making preparations to get underway.
“Stand by, waterman,” Edward said, after he paid him. He climbed aboard, his foot causing him only a little trouble as he did, and from his cabin he fetched a bottle of sack and tossed it down to the waterman.
“And for what do I owe this pleasure, Cap’n McNorton?”
“For your damned good intelligence.”
“Women will be the damnation of you, Cap’n! Fair winds!”
“And smooth waters to you!”
The Virginia Galley was soon under sail. The morning passed quickly, then the day, as they finally made their way upon the open waters, the sea entrancing Edward, as often it did when he had nothing to do but breathe it in. Even better, it distracted him from his raging suspicions. A brief trip to Ireland, which should have resulted in no more than a letter of credit and two private letters, had turned into a nasty nest of intrigues, the sort he’d hoped he had finally gotten past and which he had no interest anymore in seeking.
But no matter; he was at sea again, even if only for a short passage. The Virginia Galley sailed smoothly on, the voyage that day interrupted only once when the captain lay the ship by and queried some fishermen for intelligence of French seekers, and bought some of their catch as well. The Virginia shortened sail overnight, for it wouldn’t do to find herself aground on any of the shoals and rocks of Cornwall or Wales.
When Edward came on deck soon after dawn the following day, he found conditions nearly the same. The wind was nor’west by west, the current northerly, and the Virginia Galley sailed with the wind over her quarter on a course of west by north to put the ship to the south of Lundy Island, the safest passage into Bristol Channel. She pitched and rolled with the swell, making excellent, exhilarating speed. Several fisher-boats were in sight, and also one other vessel, by its appearance a small merchant flute, known by the English as a pink: short-masted and seaworthy, but nowhere near the heels of the swift running ship. Edward admired the galley frigate’s sailing qualities. Light, stiff, weatherly, and fast, she would make a fine privateer.
“She’s a bit foul.”
Edward looked from sea to soul. The ship’s commander, Tom Cocklin by name, had grimaced much but said little the day before, and in general kept much to himself. He suffered from intense, periodic pains in the gut, but today they took their rest from persecuting him. He seemed a skillful-enough master.
“She goes faster, then?”
“By two knots or more when she has a clean pair of heels. She’s a former French sixth rate who cruised against our privateers and merchantmen, but was captured after a fight with two privateers who trapped her against a lee shore. Our owners bought her at auction. Even now she’ll outsail anything but a few of the French privateers. The Monsoors have never caught us except by circumstance.”
“Profitable, then, most voyages?”
“No, and it’s left her owners nearly bankrupt. Bad cargoes, bad luck. We were captured by the French more than a year ago after we sprung the mainmast. But the Frenchman’s crew was too small to man the Virginia—they had taken too many prizes, couldn’t spare any more crew, and there was a stout English cruiser looking for them—so they ransomed us and let us go. Six months ago we were chased again. We escaped, but not before we took four feet of water in the hold from a shot betwixt wind and water that damnified much of the cargo. Even this voyage won’t save the owners but for a few months at most, if at all, and then the creditors and their shit-hounds will be at their doors again. The bill of bottomry’s liable and chargeable since the owners didn’t pay off their loan at the end of the first voyage. They can seize the ship anytime. We’ve a cargo of logwood, as well as some indigo and poor sugar from the last season, but I fear it won’t be enough. Damned privateers. Damned creditors. Damned Fortune and her wiles. Ah, damn, Fortune forgive me for that last oath!”
Edward grunted. “Become a privateer.”
“No, I’m not a man made for a trade that must rely so much on Fortune. The merchant trade is already too much that, and I haven’t the strength or weakness of will to grant her a greater part in my livelihood.”
“Well spoken.”
“But you’ve managed well enough at the trade, or so they tell in the taverns,” Cocklin replied.
“I’ve little to show for it.”
“Tales to tell at least, and as the seeker, not the chase.”
“I’ve been both. I would’ve given a fortune at times to have had a hull like this beneath my feet when chased,” Edward said, continuing to admire the galley’s clean lines and easy motions.
“Aye, she’ll—”
“A sail! A sail!” came the sudden urgent shout of the lookout.
“Nay!” continued the lookout, “Two sail of ships! Small ships, aye, small ships!”
“Where?” shouted the commander.
“One point aft of the starboard beam!” shouted the lookout in response.
“How stand they?”
“They’ve no sail set. Wait... their courses might be brailed up.”
“Bugger me!” muttered the commander. “No sail set? Privateers, then, wouldn’t you say Captain MacNaughton?”
“Two small ships in fair weather with bare poles? Only cruisers lie with no sail set, trying not to be descried until close aboard, leaving their prey little chance of escape. Ask your man aloft if they’re changing course and crowding sail. I’ll warrant they are or soon will.”
A few minutes later they heard the lookout’s grim words.
“Courses, tops’ls, and t’gans’ls! They stand northea
st to our forefoot!”
“Damned Fortune!” cursed Cocklin, rubbing his belly, then the stubble on his chin. “To continue west toward Bristol or stand north betwixt England and Ireland?”
“A gamble either way,” Edward replied, unsure whether the commander sought his counsel. “Four, maybe four and a half leagues distant on our present courses, they’ll speak with us; but you said none could overhaul the Virginia, even foul as she is. But if,—if mind you—they have the heels of us by two knots, then they’ll speak with us in six hours or less.”
Captain Cocklin said nothing.
Edward had the impression the merchant captain was weary of it all. Edward resumed his assessment of their situation, in hopes of inspiring Cocklin to action.
“If you stand north now on a bowline they might not overhaul us before dark, when we could escape, but it can be a treacherous passage. You could also run for Milford Haven. But if you wait too long to choose, you’ll have to work the ship to windward, and they’ll have us. If we run, no matter the direction, they’ll chase; they’ll know we’re no seeker, although they probably don’t care anyway, given there are two of them. In other words, you can’t scare them by running at them. We’re more likely to find aid on our present course, more likely to escape if we stand north or northwest.”
The Virginia’s commander rubbed his chin, fuming. His decision was a tough one: if he chose the wrong course, his owners might well sue him for the loss of the cargo and try to withhold his pay and shares, given their current financial state.
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