Home From The Sea
Page 29
“Regarding the dead, you mean?” Vicar Morley twisted in his chair and peered up at Jim with the faded eyes. “No, no. You’ve done more than enough, Master Fairley – and it was most decent of you to fetch me to whisper a prayer or two over the likes of them. Lord knows, we’re all bound for Judgment one way and another, but I’d like to think those rogues will burn a lot longer in Hades than you or I can expect to!” He sighed heavily. “They’ll have pine boxes and paupers’ graves, and we’ve no real names … still, we’ll do the best we can, as we did for the poor little Spanish girl.”
“Then, it’s over,” Jim breathed.
“Over and done,” Hardesty affirmed. “You heard Roger Dixon. You can’t hang a dead man, no matter what he was guilty of. Well, I suppose you can, but he’s not going to kick very much for your amusement at the end of the rope!”
The humor was black, and Jim gave him a cynical smile. “Thank you, John. I’ll be in touch.” Hardesty had stepped out when Vicar Morley graced Jim with a benevolent smile. “Take care on the ride home,” Jim told the old man. “I’ll have the horse I borrowed back in his own stable by evening, my word on it.”
“In your own time, my boy.” Then Morley shook a long finger at him, mock stern. “I expect to see you in church on Sunday morning, now … you’ve a good few prayers of thanks to say. You’re alive, against the odds. Call me partial if you will, but I do believe the Almighty was vigilant, Master Fairley, or it’d be you being laid to rest tomorrow, right beside your father.”
“Amen to that,” Jim said softly. “Sunday morning. I’ll be there.”
With the visitors gone, The Raven was very quiet. Mrs. Clitheroe was singing tunelessly to herself in the kitchen; Boxer sat on the doorstep in the sun while pigeons scratched about in the thatch above; the tomcat had found a patch of warm floor and was rolling luxuriously on it. Everything was so absurdly normal, Jim found himself almost on edge as if he were waiting for something, without knowing what it was.
He busied himself, sweeping, bundling wreckage to be taken out and burned, making a list of what was needed to set the tavern to rights, but all the time he was listening. He heard footsteps from the path, and was at the door as the tall, slender figure and the black dog ambled into view.
“All done here?” Toby asked hopefully. By habit his hands were buried in his pockets. His eyes were shadowed, as if he had not slept well, but no lines of dread were etched into his face today. The sea wind played in the long fair hair, tossing it into his eyes, and he raked it back.
“All done,” Jim affirmed. “Captain Dixon’s happy. The undertaker has carted off the dead, Vicar Morley’s putting them in the ground tomorrow. John found the gems on Pledge, as we knew he would. He and Dixon are quite convinced of the motivation for bloodletting … are you hungry?”
“Starving,” Toby confessed. “I’m smelling food.”
“I saved you some. Come and eat.”
The door closed behind him, and Toby had hung up his coat when Jim seized him bodily, hugged him hard enough to knock the breath out of him, and manhandled him out of sight of the kitchen so they could kiss without Mrs. Clitheroe catching a glimpse of them.
Toby groaned, face buried in the curve of Jim’s shoulder. “Eight years, I’ve lived with a bloody cold-sweated fear of these last days, yet how could I not come here? The prize was in the offing and I earned my share. Perhaps I should have stayed away, but …” He shook himself. “Times, I thought Joe or Eli would kill me, just for the sheer spite of doing it, or maybe even for the fun. The truth is, I used Nathaniel almost as much as he used me.”
“Then it was an even trade,” Jim judged. “Oh, let it be, Toby. Dame Fortune dealt the hand and they played it out – we all did. For some reason she dealt me into the game, though I never knew it at the time. Damnit – any of those bastards could have walked up to my door, any day of the last six years, and put a pistol to my head. And I wouldn’t have known what they were talking about!”
“Fear of Nathaniel, and of each other, kept them more honest than a bench full of judges,” Toby said quietly.
“It did.” Jim was conscious of the sweat prickling his ribs and scalp as the possibilities began to dawn on him fully. He shook the shadows off with an effort. “The only thing we have to think about now is where we go from here. Sit down, I’ll bring your food. Will you have an ale, or a rum?”
“How about both?” Toby pulled a chair up to the table where Hardesty and Morley had sat.
The plate set down before him with a clatter, and Jim fetched a pair of bowls for Bess. Stewed rabbit in one of them, a half pint of brown ale in the other, which she seemed to relish as much as the meat. Toby was eating as he hooked a chair with his foot and drew it closer, and for a time Jim was content to just watch the man until Toby said,
“It’s all a question of what you want to do now, Jim. You can have anything you care for – we both can.”
“What I want?” Jim was only a little overwhelmed. “What I really want is to see some of the world. All the places you’ve seen and I’ve only dreamed about after someone like yourself told stories. Places that are just flyspecks on a map to the likes of me.”
“Then, we’ll buy a ship and outfit it, crew it,” Toby suggested. “A merchantman, so she can pay her way with cargo while we see the world.”
“And you’ll show me Port Royal and Kingston, and the ports of Spain and France.” Jim could scarcely believe he was saying these things.
“If that’s where you want to go.” Satisfied for the moment, Toby sat back and mopped his lips. “First, let me visit a disreputable old dealer I know in Santander. He can turn a handful of gems into gold coin … you can’t actually spend jewels, you know! If you try, and you don’t have the pedigree of a duke or an earl to account for how you came by them, people soon assume you’re a thief.” He took a long swig of ale. “But there’s a clever old merchant with a dark little counting house a few streets back from the docks in Santander. He’ll give us half of what the gems are actually worth –”
“Half?” Jim protested.
“And he’ll consider himself very clever for cheating us on the little handful of stones,” Toby said wryly. “But half of their value is still an outrageous fortune, and then all we need is a story people will believe, for where the money came from.” His eyes danced as he looked at Jim over the rim of his cup. “I do believe I have a grand uncle in Scotland who’s about to pass away and leave me some money … and it seems you bought a treasure map from an old rummy who was so down on his luck, he sold it to you for the price of enough grog to drink himself to death in Portsmouth.”
“And we,” Jim said slowly, “take this ship of ours and pretend to go hunting for treasure.”
Toby spread his hands. “We do, if you want to return to England with a great chest of jewels and a solid explanation for where they came from. It’s almost the truth, anyway. That’s how the treasure of Diego Monteras was found in the first place. No one ever need know it was found by Nathaniel Burke’s crew and lay here, unknown for eight years, walled up in your cellar. Perhaps you and I might say we found it right where Hugo and Fernando left it … even if we have to take it back there and find it all over again.” He lifted his cup in toast. “Then, if you want to come home, there’s no mystery about where the largesse came from. You won’t have to hear, and contest, the word ‘thief’ when you take a ruby or an emerald the size of a pigeon’s egg to a dealer in London or Manchester.”
“We’ll just be rich men,” Jim whispered, and groaned, a sound of sheer pleasure. “You and me, Toby. Gentlemen explorers with the whole world to discover.”
“Yes.” Toby leaned over the table and caught Jim’s hand. “But you’ll find, Jim, nothing in the world is sweeter than coming home.”
“If you’ve someone to come home to,” Jim allowed.
“Or with.” Toby took a quick look around to be sure of their privacy, and touched a kiss to Jim’s knuckles. “Come with me to Spain. You�
��ll like Santander. It’s a port, and like any port it’s the crossroads of the very world you’re so hungry to explore. You’ll see things, hear things, you can’t even imagine.”
“I don’t speak a word of Spanish,” Jim protested.
“But I do.” Toby was smug. “I learned to speak it well. Where do you think I’ve been for so long, the law in this country forgot I ever existed! Give it a few weeks, till the excitement dies down. Let’s get The Raven back into shape, then we’ll take the coach to Plymouth and the first ship we can get to Santander. I’ll introduce you to one of life’s most charming old rascals, who’ll make you laugh, make you like him, even while he’s robbing you blind … and you won’t care a fig about being robbed.”
“And the prize?” Jim wondered. “While we’re gone?”
“Right back in the cellar wall,” Toby said darkly, “where it was hidden every day you lived here and never suspected a thing. It can stay there while we buy a ship, outfit an expedition. Yes?”
“All right.” Jim sat back and rubbed his face, wondering if he might be dreaming and at any moment he would wake and find himself alone, whiling away his days, his years, in the sanctuary that had become a prison. He managed a shaky chuckle. “So, I’m about to buy a treasure map from an old rummy, am I?”
“You could do much worse.” Toby echoed his humor.
“And until all this comes to pass we’re here at The Raven, putting right the damage.” Jim wiped the smile off his face. “The locals already know you as a balladsinger. Even Doctor John’s heard of you, and one story in particular! You know you’ll be singing for your supper, to keep them happy and stop tongues wagging.”
“I know enough songs to amuse them for months,” Toby said easily. “Supper’s not the half of it. There’s a few sweet hours to be cherished between supper and breakfast, and no one the wiser if only we’re careful.”
And a great deal to be explored, discovered, Jim thought, before they took on the world outside, seized it, shook it, made it give them what they wanted. He reached over for the rum bottle and topped off Toby’s mug. “To the future,” he toasted, holding his cup for Toby to touch his own to it. “To Diego Monteras and Fernando, wherever they are.”
“To Jim Fairley and Toby Trelane,” Toby added, “wherever they may be in a year, and ten years, or twenty.”
“Aye,” Jim said readily, “I do believe I’ll drink to that.”
Preview:
FORTUNES OF WAR
In the spring of 1588 two young men fell in love: an Irish mercenary serving the Spanish ambassador in London, and the son of an English earl. Then Dermot Channon must leave England when the embassy is expelled just prior to the onset of war, and Robin despairs of ever seeing him again. Seven years pass, and when Robin's brother is kidnapped for ransom in Panama in the years following the war between England and Spain, Robin sets sail with a fleet commanded by Francis Drake, hoping to bring home his brother. But soon enough the ship on which Robin is traveling is sunk by privateers — pirates led by none other than Dermot Channon. Reunited by a cruel twist of fate, the two men embark with passion on a series of swashbuckling adventures around the Spanish Main.
Novel length: 150,000 words
Rated: R (18+; sex, violence, language)
ISBN-13: 978-0-9750884-9-4
Publication date: August 2005
Publisher: DreamCraft
Price: $9.99 – ebook (also avail. in paper)
Cover: Jade
Peview:
DANGEROUS MOONLIGHT
In the style and spirit of HOME FROM THE SEAS comes this rollicking gay historical set in 1727 ... in the world of highwaymen, of duels fought over honor, fortunes won and lost at the gaming tables, and romance that fairly sizzles Harry Trevellion was well bred and would have been a gentleman if his father’s estate had not been lost ... and Nicholas Grey is the favorite son of a wealthy man, who was born ‘on the wrong side of the blanket’ quite by chance! Nick’s brother, Paul, is a wastrel, a scoundrel who is only waiting for their frail old father to pass away. He’ll ruin the family ... and he scorns his illegitimate half-brother, though Nicholas is doing difficult, dangerous work for their father.
Nick’s job is to courier jewelry safely between manufacturer and client ... and it’s only a matter of time before he runs into the irresistible rogue, Harry Trevellion. The two share a stormy relationship until the day Paul Rosewarne has been waiting for arrives: the master of Rosewarne Hall passes on ... and the quirks of an old man’s last will and testament put Nicholas behind bars.
It’s a world of swords, pistol duels, midnight chases, deceit and sheer sensuality, in a time when fortunes could still be made ... and lost. If you loved Mel’s other historicals, including FORTUNES OF WAR and THE DECEIVERS, don’t miss this one!
Novel length: 205,000 words
Rated: R (18+; sex, violence, language)
ISBN-13: 978-0-9758080-5-4
Publication date: July 2006
Publisher: DreamCraft
Price: $9.99 – ebook (also avail. in paper)
Cover: Jade
Preview:
THE DECEIVERS
Mel Keegan is back at sea in the days of tall ships and high adventure ...
It’s an age when sail and steam are technologies in collision, and the thousand-year tradition of the tall ships is coming to an end. Men like Bill Ryan and Jim Hale are caught in the jaws of change, in a world where survival depends on raw courage, strength and a willingness to take terrible risks
1862, on the east coast of England: the railway is the death knell of the coastal shipping trade, and many small lines like Eastcoast Packet won’t survive. Jim Hale is about to inherit Eastcoast and the schooner Spindrift ... if he and Captain Bill Ryan can first survive the explosive violence of the North Sea storms, and the vicious schemes of the shipwrecker, Nathan Kerr. Always a dangerous man, Kerr has a score to settle with Jim – and with Ryan, who has allied himself to Eastcoast. For men who have the courage to be lovers in this time, and this place, the struggle is dire, the rewards astonishing.
Meticulously researched, fabulously detailed, THE DECEIVERS will be treasured by any reader who loved HOME FROM THE SEA and DANGEROUS MOONLIGHT.
Novel length: 125,000 words
Rated: R (18+; sex, violence, language)
ISBN-13: 0-9750884-2-4
Publication date: August 2003
Publisher: DreamCraft
Price: $9.99 – ebook (also avail. in paper)
Cover: Jade