The Rebel Pirate

by Donna Thorland

  “It also frowns on fugitives from naval justice,” she replied coolly. “Your loyalty to the service has proved somewhat elastic. Tell me what would convince you to stretch it in this matter.”

  He had already been tempted to stretch it when he saw the Sally again. In the navy, ambitious captains sidestepped promotion to flagships and ships of the line, the dull steady march toward empty rank and emptier pockets, in favor of smaller commands and the promise of action and prizes.

  Schooners and frigates were what you wanted, small and fast, but there were precious few to be had, and often you chose a ship with more guns over a better sailor. The Sally, once she was armed, would offer no compromises. From the first time he had seen the trim little schooner with her lovely sharp lines, he’d wanted her. The thought of commanding her, of feeling her sails belly and stiffen and her hull thrum in answer to his orders, filled him with a desire similar to what he felt for Sarah Ward.

  “Very well,” he said. “Get Sarah Ward away from Anthony Trent, and I will take command of the Sally as far as Lisbon. Sarah’s brother should be sufficiently recovered by then to oversee dealings in the port and command the return voyage.”

  Angela Ferrers shook her head. “That would not be in our interests. Lord Polkerris is so deeply embroiled in the treasons of the Ward family, he is ripe for blackmail, and too well placed to lose as a possible source of intelligence.”

  “He is a murderer,” said Sparhawk. “A monster. And it is Sarah’s life at hazard.”

  “There are more lives in the balance than that of one sea rogue’s daughter. But I am not unsympathetic, Captain. If you are determined to spirit her away, you may find ample opportunity tomorrow, while the admiral celebrates his ascension to the white—and while we remove his naval stores, his hemp, his tar, his sails, and all the cattle and fodder from Noddle’s Island.”

  “You mean to take on the British Navy in Boston Harbor?” Sparhawk asked, incredulous. “With Captain Sprague and a company of grandfathers?”

  Angela Ferrers smiled. “I daresay Captain Sprague has a little life left in him yet.”

  Sparhawk recalled the briskness of Sprague’s step and the war club hanging at the man’s hip, and decided she was probably right.

  “Captain Sprague,” said Angela Ferrers, “will fight to protect his home and his family. If you are not willing to do the same for Sarah Ward, then she is better off with Anthony Trent.”

  “You are determined to see me branded a Rebel,” said Sparhawk.

  “I am determined to show you where your best interests lie. Step into the light, please,” she said.

  He was not in a mood to indulge her, but his concern for Sarah overrode his resistance. He took a single step.

  “Yes,” said Angela Ferrers. “I was right. The resemblance is not obvious, but it is there. You are Lord Polkerris’ missing son. He searched for you, across the Indian Ocean and through the Med, for two years.”

  Sparhawk felt the old sick fear in the pit of his stomach. McKenzie had been right. His father had learned of his survival, and tried to finish the job. More than once he thought he might have been followed, that ordinary footpads might have had deeper designs against a teenage boy on the streets of Portsmouth, in the stews of Calcutta—and he had been right.

  “If you know of my existence,” said Sparhawk, “then you also know of his crimes. He is a seducer, a bigamist.”

  “To you,” said Angela Ferrers. “But to the world he is a decorated naval officer and a baron with a comfortable income who risks his life in the service of his country. Even his renown as a duelist—and what is dueling but private murder cloaked in ritual?—is admired by his peers. He is a generous philanthropist and a beloved friend of the king.”

  “He killed my mother. He tried to kill me.”

  “He did what privilege allowed him to do. You think your quarrel is with an individual man, but it is with an empire. One that uses nations the way Trent used your mother. The way Trent will use Sarah Ward. He has taken her under his roof. How long do you think it will be before he has taken her into his bed?”

  The thought turned Sparhawk’s stomach. “I will save her from him.” As he had not been able to save his mother.

  The widow looked pleased. “There will be an opportunity for you to reach her tomorrow night. I can tell you both the place and the hour. But know this: if you pit yourself against Trent, then you pit yourself against British rule in North America. Deprive him of his prize, and he will use all of the power at his disposal—including the king’s forces—to get her back.”

  Angela Ferrers was almost certainly right, but there was no other course open to him, so he spoke the words she wanted to hear: “Tell me where to find Sarah Ward.”

  Eighteen

  At eight bells on a slightly overcast morning Admiral Graves raised his white pennant on the Preston’s yardarm for the first time. His flagship received a thirteen-gun salute from the vessels of the squadron in the harbor: the Somerset, the Glasgow, the Britannia, the Mercury, the Hephaestion; and, of course, those ships, the Diana and the Wasp, under the commands of the admiral’s two nephews, Thomas and Francis Graves.

  The salute was heard as far away as Cambridge, where the students of Harvard College had been sent home from the theater of war, and the American commanders counted their powder barrels, then counted them again, hoping they might discover some hidden error in their calculations, or at least a few extra ounces hidden beneath the floorboards.

  It was heard at the meetinghouse in Chelsea, where old Captain Sprague had marched his company to join Colonel Stark’s six hundred militia for a cattle raid.

  And it was heard by Sarah Ward as she tried to put together an ensemble that would withstand twelve hours of dining, drinking, and dancing in the sticky summer heat. As Trent had no ship, they had been spared the early-morning salute, but they would be expected to attend breakfast on the Preston, which was intended to last all morning, and where General Gage would not appear, because his wife was not on speaking terms with the admiral’s lady.

  From there they would proceed to dinner at the home of Mr. Williams on Noddle’s Island, where his wife and her cousin, Mrs. Martin, would be feting the newly arrived major generals Clinton, Burgoyne, and Howe, and the Gages, who would attend so long as Admiral Graves and his wife did not.

  Once, Sarah would have celebrated the arrival of these three commanders as the other Tories in Boston did, with a naive expectation that they would, in Burgoyne’s words, “soon make elbow room,” and send the Rebels packing. But she could no longer see British military intervention in American affairs as anything but dangerous interference. Trent’s description of the officers in question did nothing to change her opinion.

  “Clinton,” he said, “is a shy bitch. Awkward and unsociable. Burgoyne fancies himself a wit. He is only occasionally correct. And Billy Howe is every bit as sentimental about America and Americans—his eldest brother died at Ticonderoga in the Rebel general Israel Putnam’s arms—as Gage.”

  Breakfast was lavish, served under canvas awnings on the deck of the Preston. Sarah scrutinized the cabin boys who came and went among the tables, hoping that Ned might have been detailed to the flagship for the occasion, but she caught no glimpse of her little brother. The admiral’s cook was French, and quite possibly skilled, but unused to the sticky New England summer, and the elaborate jellies and aspics decorated with bright flowers and cut fruits quickly melted into sad puddles on the silver.

  There was a fracas sometime after noon on deck when word reached the admiral that Rebels were rustling cattle on Noddle’s Island. He dispatched Thomas and Francis on the Diana and the Wasp to deal with the trouble, and firmly assured the generals that their dinner on the island would not be interrupted.

  It was late afternoon by the time the major generals, Trent, Sarah, and the other guests left the Preston. The little flotilla of t
hree whaleboats waiting at the Long Wharf to ferry them to Mr. Williams’ house on Noddle’s Island had been rigged thoughtfully with sailcloth canopies, which provided welcome shelter from the slanting summer sun.

  Later, Sarah could not say exactly how they became separated, she from Trent, her boat from the rest of the flotilla. It began with the suggestion that the ladies should have the boat with the cushioned benches, and that the gentlemen should embark first, as the boat intended for the ladies was last in the queue for the gangplank and the whole party would be delayed if the time was taken to reorder the little flotilla.

  It was further suggested that since the gentlemen would now arrive first on the island, they could help the ladies debark, which would be the gallant thing to do. Sarah thought this idea might have originated with the boatmen. No mention was made of who would help the ladies to embark. The jug the gentlemen began passing around was definitely given to them by the rowers, and declared to be very restorative in the heat. No doubt it contributed to the agreeable mood with which the gentlemen left the ladies behind.

  Sarah had no trouble maneuvering her cotton polonaise and petticoats into the boat. She had dispensed with a hip roll for the occasion, knowing they made travel in small craft more difficult than necessary. Two of the ladies had worn panniers and required a bench apiece.

  General Gage’s wife, who had but lately joined them, had dressed as so many fine ladies chose to be painted, à la turque, in a purple silk robe bound with a golden girdle, and she climbed in with grace and agility.

  Elizabeth Loring, “the Sultana of Boston,” known for her gambling and her extravagant costume, wore cream silk embroidered with gold wire and, true to her reputation, was careless of her riches. The beauty settled on her bench and draped one arm over the side, sleeve ruffles trailing in salt water and ruining a fortune in gold lace.

  Lady Frankland was wearing a quilted petticoat with crewelwork, despite the heat, and required the assistance of four boatmen to lower her down. Once seated, she demanded the awning be rolled back over her bench so that she might take the sun, which she believed, against all evidence, preserved her youthful complexion.

  By that time the gentlemen were well ahead of them. It seemed to Sarah that the ladies’ vessel was being rowed at a markedly slower pace, and she itched to take up an oar and propel them at greater speed.

  The distance between the boats widened. Then, just as the two vessels carrying the gentlemen came within hailing distance of the dock at the Williams mansion, Sarah saw their rowers slip overboard, splashing into the water—with their oars—and swim for the marsh to the east of the house.

  The gentlemen began to drift.

  The ladies’ boat, rowed with new vigor, shot right, away from the Williams mansion and the dock. The gentlemen shouted. The ladies, for the most part, were dumbfounded. Within minutes their little canopied whaleboat had disappeared into a creek hidden by tall marsh grasses.

  Silence closed in around them. Lady Frankland castigated the boatman nearest her and began to belabor him with her fan. He ignored her. One of the ladies in panniers started to cry. Margaret Kemble Gage leaned across her bench and slapped her. For the first time all afternoon Elizabeth Loring looked less than bored. And Sarah wished she had brought the little muff gun Trent had given her, and not worn her mother’s necklace. She was a pirate’s daughter, and she could well guess the purpose of waylaying a boatload of bejeweled women in a marsh.

  The tall grass thinned, a rocky beach appeared on their right, and two men, their faces obscured by kerchiefs and broad hats, stood waiting, pistols in hand.

  One of them wore a copper velvet coat. The other had tried—and failed—to hide his honey gold hair in a tightly wrapped queue.

  Too late, too late. Sparhawk had come back for her, when she could not possibly go with him. When Ned’s life hung in the balance. When saving herself meant sacrificing her little brother. Trent had cautioned her the night he had proposed. She must do nothing to provoke the admiral, nothing to suggest that she might speak out against him, or attempt to reach London with her damning testimony, or Ned would pay for it. To press home his concerns, Trent had not spared her a recitation of Admiral Graves’ threats. Ned would suffer as Sparhawk had suffered as a boy. He would be lashed with the cat until he passed out, then be allowed to recover, then lashed again. Thinking of it now made her light-headed.

  The oarsmen disembarked and dragged the boat up onto the rocks.

  The golden-haired brigand who was her older brother tossed a sack into the boat. “Place your jewels and your purses in the bag,” he said, his voice muffled by the cloth, but familiar all the same. He would enjoy this piratical masquerade, her daring brother. But he did not know that Ned’s life was at risk. She looked away so she would betray no hint of recognition.

  The ladies were more anxious and excited than afraid. The masked men—after all—were the very picture of dashing highwaymen.

  “She weeps if but a handsome thief is hung,” thought Sarah.

  When the bag came around to her, she put her earbobs and her purse in it alongside Margaret Gage’s diamond earrings and Elizabeth Loring’s paste, but she could not part with her mother’s gold chain, could not bear the thought of removing it from her neck.

  The sack was collected.

  The tall brigand in the familiar copper velvet coat shoved his pistol in his pocket and waded down to the boat.

  “You ladies may row back to the farmhouse,” said James Sparhawk through his silk kerchief. Then he pointed to Sarah Ward. “But she comes with us.”

  He reached for her and she shrank back. “No.”

  Her name was on his lips, she could tell, even with his eyes veiled by the hat and his mouth hidden behind the neck cloth, but he stifled his impulse to speak it. “You have my word that I will return you to your friends unharmed, in the morning,” he said, echoing the words she had spoken to him when she took him prisoner on the Sally.

  He addressed the rest of the ladies in the boat. “Provided, of course, that everyone stays inside the manor tonight, and no boats are sent to the fleet or to the mainland.”

  If she did not go, she risked Sparhawk or Benji giving himself away, but she was determined to be back long before morning. Determined to afford the admiral no cause to punish Ned.

  Sarah stood up carefully in the tiny boat and gathered her skirts to climb over the side. Margaret Kemble Gage put out an arm and held her back. The governor’s elegant wife looked up at the masked thief and said, “Shall I relay your compliments to my husband, Captain Sparhawk?”

  • • •

  He should have guessed that Margaret Gage was in league with the Merry Widow. They were all connected: Warren, Angela Ferrers, the governor’s beautiful wife, who sat staring up at him with a smug expression. As well she might. Angela Ferrers had been determined to maneuver him to the American side: to brand him not just a thief and a fugitive, but a Rebel and a pirate.

  Margaret Gage had succeeded. Her pronouncement, to a boatload of wealthy beauties and an old woman sure to live on scandal and gossip, meant that he was no longer James Sparhawk, the naval officer who had fled court-martial, his guilt an open question; but by virtue of committing robbery in the waters of Boston Harbor, he was now James Sparhawk, pirate.

  Later, he would have to consider what argument could be made to the Admiralty about the necessity of waylaying a skiff full of aristocratic Boston ladies in a marsh.

  Just now he had to get rid of said boatload of aristocratic ladies so he could talk with one pirate’s daughter.

  “You may tell your husband whatever you like, Mrs. Gage,” said Sparhawk, removing his kerchief and his hat. “It will not get you your diamonds back.”

  He lifted Sarah out of the boat and carried her to a path above the beach. The militiamen who had rowed the boat pushed it back into the creek, and the ladies began paddling furiously, the
old besom in the bow urging them on. They were soon out of sight.

  Benji’s vigor had lasted long enough for the show, but now he was sitting on the ground looking pale. Sarah knelt beside him to examine his bandages.

  She looked up at Sparhawk. “His stitches have pulled out. He needs to lie down and rest.”

  “Not here,” said Sparhawk. “We are too close to the house. The Sally, though, is not far.”

  Sparhawk dismissed the militia, who had muskets and powder horns hidden in the grass—but not before he fished Sarah’s earbobs out of the bag and tossed the remainder of the loot to Captain Sprague’s equally elderly lieutenant. “By way of a thank-you,” said Sparhawk.

  “You are supposed to keep the jewels,” grumbled Benji. “You have no talent for this at all.” But after that, on the path through the field to the cove, with Sarah and Sparhawk supporting him, he was silent.

  Mr. Cheap was waiting for them on the white beach, armed with his sword pistol, brass knuckle rings, two hangers, and something quite like a sickle hanging from his sash.

  “Miss Sarah,” he said, “in you go first”—he gestured to the boat—“with your pretty white skirts. Then I’ll push her out.”

  “Benji first,” she said. “He needs stitching back up, Mr. Cheap.”

  Sparhawk watched, astonished, as Mr. Cheap nodded and picked up all six feet of Benjamin Ward and lifted him into the boat as if he were a newborn. Next he beckoned Sarah, but this time she shook her head and stepped back.

  “I’m not going.”

  Cheap looked from Sarah to Sparhawk, uncertain what to do.

  James had parted badly from her at the house in the North End. Her reluctance was natural, but untimely. “We must go now, Sarah,” said Sparhawk.

  She turned to him. “You should not have come back,” she said. “Micah Wild has switched sides and received letters of marque from the admiral. He has six four-pounders and twoscore men.”