He must have heard it for she made no move or any other sound, yet his right hand slid quickly to the handle of his cutlass and his posture changed.
And then his eyes were open and trained on her standing there in her black dress in the shadows where the sunset did not reach. She stepped out into the rosy glow of light.
His hand dropped away from the cutlass but he did not revert to leaning against the door.
They looked at one another in the silence.
‘You know, don’t you?’ she said. ‘Who I am.’
‘Captain La Voile,’ he said softly.
She gave a smile that had nothing of mirth in it. ‘I have dreaded this moment, since first you brought me aboard Raven. But now that it is finally here, it is almost a relief.’ She took a breath. ‘Does Gunner know?’
‘Only me.’
She gave a sigh. ‘You already know why. I guess I should tell you the rest of it.’
He said nothing. But she wanted him to know, this part of it, at least.
‘Coyote was always mine, built by my grandfather. I had sailed her in those waters from the time I was a little girl. I knew them better than anyone else. When Wendell died I had my children to provide for and a very good reason to hate the British. I wanted to sail under American rather than French colours, but as our countries are not officially at war I could not obtain an American letter of marque. So, officially, I became a pirate. Unofficially, Mr William Claiborne, the Governor of Louisiana, gave me his blessing. I had the knowledge and the ship. But no self-respecting privateer or pirate would have crewed for a woman, so I gave them the captain they expected.’
‘A player.’
She nodded. ‘All he had to do was look the part and do what I told him.’
‘I should have known the very first time I saw you on Coyote, with the dark awning above the quarterdeck, a screen for the woman who habitually stood in a captain’s place.’
‘In my defence the sun is very fierce in our Louisiana waters. I did not want to burn.’
‘Who have I got pickled in my medical room?’
‘Tobias Malhone.’
‘I would not have killed him had he not been fool enough to attack.’
‘I know.’ She nodded. ‘He was a violent and brutal man. It was not supposed to be about killing, but about trade and honour. Tobias was starting to believe he really was La Voile. He was trying to cut me out. Even if you had not come along I was closing down the operation, so that he could not destroy my good name.’
He came to stand before her, the toes of his boots touching the dark hem of her skirt.
‘How did you know?’ she asked.
‘You are a widow who still wears her wedding ring and dresses in mourning. You told me that your children were both fair-haired like their father, your husband. The man in the butt is not fair-haired. And Jean Lafitte would not have got in his ship and sailed halfway across the Atlantic to stop me reaching London with a dead La Voile. Imagine what it would do to his reputation if it was revealed that the prime operator amidst the Baratarian pirates was a woman with two children at her skirts.’
‘It took me a while to work that one out. I thought he had come to rescue me.’
‘I underestimated him, too. I thought he meant to “lose” La Voile in a skirmish.’
Neither of them mentioned the bullet. They did not need to. It was there thick in the atmosphere between them, mixed with the passion and everything else.
‘I am Le Voile.’ The admission was finally out there in the open between them. Now she just had to ask the question they had both spent the last days avoiding. ‘What are you going to do about it, Kit?’
He took her gently in his arms, and he leaned his forehead against hers, his eyelashes brushing hers as they shuttered. ‘I do not know, Kate. I honestly do not know.’
* * *
It was cool and grey the day they landed at Plymouth.
For all it was summer it did not seem so. England was a place so alien to her. She missed the boundless blue skies of Louisiana. She missed the sunshine and even the stifling humid heat that she so often complained about. But most of all she missed her children and her mama and her friends; and all of her life that was wrapped up in Tallaholm. Devon, England seemed every single one of those three-and-a-half-thousand miles away.
She climbed from the little rowing boat and stood there in the harbour’s yard, looking around her. Men hurried here and there over the damp ground. Carts, coaches and gigs crowded the road leading in and out—both delivering and collecting from the boats and ships waiting to leave and just arrived. Officers in the dark-blue uniforms of the British royal navy, their men in dark jackets and the wide trousers and striped tops of seafarers.
‘So many of your King’s men,’ she said, and felt a shiver ripple down her spine to be standing there in their midst, like a spy who had infiltrated the garrison of her enemy.
‘This is the Royal Navy’s dock. Merchantmen use the harbour just a little along the coast,’ Gunner explained.
‘Raven is not a Royal Navy vessel.’
‘We have special dispensation given that we sail on Admiralty business.’
She understood now why the ensign had been hoisted before they approached the harbour. ‘Who would have thought that the American pirate Le Voile was so important to the British Admiralty?’
‘So important that they’ll hang him by his scrawny pickled neck and pay us handsomely for the privilege,’ said Briggs from behind her.
Collier and the others nodded and smiled, practically rubbing their hands at the prospect. ‘Very handsomely indeed. When North says he’ll deliver he does. Ain’t it so, Captain?’
She swallowed.
A muscle tightened in Kit’s jaw, but he said nothing in reply.
The men turned their attention to shifting sea chests and the great oak butt that contained Tobias’s body. But their words remained.
The ground seemed unsteady beneath her, the way it always was after so many days at sea. Except that it was not only sea legs on dry land making her feel like her world was tilting. The men’s words stripped everything else away, paring it down to the danger she was in.
Run. The word whispered in her head. Escape. Kate watched Tobias’s coffin no longer, but turned away. And found her nose practically touching Kit North’s chest. She made to sidestep, but his hand captured her elbow fast and firm, preventing her flight.
She looked up into his eyes, knowing that whatever else he might do, he was not going to let her go.
* * *
They made it as far as the end of Dartmoor. Kit stopped short of heading into Exeter, choosing, instead, to spend the night in the small market town of Chudleigh at the edge of the moor. The quieter location of the Courtenay Arms Inn meant there would be fewer problems in securing stabling for both the cargo and horses.
The first hint of trouble came once they had booked in for the night and were sitting in the taproom, and the landlord and his wife brought them their plates of mutton pie and potatoes they had ordered.
Kate was sitting by his side.
‘Thank you,’ she said as the woman set the plate down on the stained and pitted table surface.
‘American?’ the landlady asked, her dark brows drawing together.
‘Yes, I am, ma’am.’ Kate held her head high and proclaimed it loud.
A hush seemed to spread across the tap room.
The landlady’s fingers fixed upon Kate’s plate, lifting it back on to the great wooden tray she carried. ‘I don’t rightly know that we serve Americans in here. Not with them causing our boys such a trouble across the sea.’
Suddenly there was a dangerous atmosphere in the inn. Raven’s crew’s hands let go their tankards of ale to close upon the handles of their muskets and knives.
Kit got to his feet and spoke not to the landlady, but across the room to her husband behind the bar. ‘If you do not serve the lady, you do not serve any of us.’ His fingers rested lightly against the handle of his cutlass.
‘It’s late and you’ll be hard pushed to find accommodation elsewhere at this hour,’ the man answered.
‘We will,’ agreed North. His eyes held the landlord’s. ‘As pushed as you to find others to fill your empty rooms and stables.’
The landlord seemed to understand that the threat was not idle. He gave a nod to his wife. ‘Serve her. I don’t suppose there’s much harm in having her under our roof for one night.’
The woman nodded and banged the plate down before Kate with a surly expression.
The standoff passed.
The locals drinking at the bar and through in the snug glanced their way too often, but Kate showed not one sign of intimidation.
His men grew rowdy, the earlier threat diluted by ale.
A serving wench came to clear the empty plates from the long wooden table. Beneath her apron the girl’s bodice was tight and low cut, her grubby chemise laced so low and loose that her huge soft breasts were in danger of spilling free. With a sly glance at Kit’s face she leaned over, presenting him with a full view. She leaned closer, deliberately brushing them against his arm, offering herself to him. The men sniggered, their gazes locked on those breasts, licking their lips. His gaze moved beyond the girl to another woman, whose eyes, the colour of the ocean they had just crossed, were watching him.
The girl’s gaze followed his before returning to his face.
‘A fine man like you...’ Her fingers reached to toy against the lapel of his coat. ‘You want to get yourself a nice English whore instead of an American.’
‘I am not his whore.’ Kate’s voice cut like a blade through the jollity and laughter.
Silence descended upon the table.
‘What are you, then?’ the girl demanded, turning to her with narrowed eyes. ‘His prisoner?’
‘She is my betrothed,’ said Kit coldly and removed the girl’s hand from his coat.
‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ the girl said coolly and, lifting her tray, left in a hurry.
Silence hissed. The whole of the crew was looking at him and Kate.
Gunner raised his tankard. ‘It seems congratulations are in order.’
Kit said nothing.
‘To the Captain and his lady,’ said Gunner.
‘The Captain and his lady,’ the men all chorused and toasted them with their tankards of ale, stamping their feet and cheering.
‘Calls for a celebration, I reckon,’ said Briggs.
‘I will leave you to celebrate, gentlemen,’ Kate said, getting to her feet. ‘It has been a long day. I think I’ll turn in for the night.’
The men all stood, as if they were gentlemen and she their captain’s lady in truth.
Kate’s expression revealed nothing, but when her eyes met Kit’s he saw the flash of resentment in them.
‘Gentlemen.’ Kit rose and followed close behind her, so that all of those locals who watched her too much left well alone.
* * *
Kate was very aware of Kit walking behind her. All the way up that rickety staircase. All the way along that long narrow corridor. They walked in silence past closed doors until they found the one they sought. When he opened the bedchamber door for her and she saw the sea chest sitting there on the floor she thought it was his, she thought...
‘Your wardrobe,’ he said from where he still stood out in the narrow corridor of the landing.
She glanced round at him, relieved that he had no intention of coming in, the atmosphere thick and cagey between them with so much that remained unclear. ‘Thank you.’
The wardrobe he had bought for her in Antigua. The words pulled all that was unspoken into the little distance between where they each stood. All they had shared: the shark, the alleyway, their bodies united in lovemaking, the bullet in his shoulder and the biggest of all, the thing that neither of them was mentioning and that was there, huge and obvious as a mountain—I am Le Voile... What are you going to do about it, Kit?
The question still whispered without answer, growing more insistent and louder and tenser with each passing day, twisting tighter in the pit of her stomach now that they were on British soil.
She would not beg. She would not plead. She had her pride and her integrity. And so did he. But it did not make all those dark long hours of not knowing any easier. She turned her mind from that and thought of her vow.
‘You should not have told her we were betrothed.’ The sight of the serving wench touching him had made her throat tighten and her fingernails cut into her palms. A fine man like you... She swallowed down the memory and fidgeted with the wedding band on her finger, reassuring herself. It was not as if it was a real betrothal.
‘What would you rather I had told her?’ The truth? He did not say the words, but they were there just the same.
She glanced away, knowing what that would mean. Her fate would be sealed. The crew of men downstairs would not stand so ready to defend her honour. There would be nothing of friendship or respect.
‘Lock the door behind me. And do not open it again until morning.’ His voice was unemotional, instructional, cool almost, as if the enormity of the dilemma did not rage between them. As if he did not hold her life in his hands. He made to close the door and leave.
‘Why do you have a care for my safety?’ Her words stopped him in his tracks, but he did not turn round. ‘Oh,’ she said softly. ‘I forgot. You get a bigger bounty if I am alive.’
He turned to her then, his face all cool, hard dispassion, but those dark eyes fixed on hers held a conflict so deep and serious and tortured that it resonated right through to her core.
The silence hissed loud.
He did not say a word to break it, just looked at her and then closed the door and she heard his booted steps recede along that narrow passageway.
She locked the door just as he had said, then leaned her spine against it and stood there, with her eyes on that sea chest, knowing full well that a bigger bounty was not the reason he was safeguarding her.
Moving to the bed, she eased off her slippers, blew out the candle and crept beneath the thin blanket.
The smoke from the extinguished candle drifted in the darkness, lit grey and curling by the moonlight that showed through the small dirt-hazed window. The flimsy curtains that framed it on either side stirred in the draught. From the taproom below came laughter and the rowdiness of men’s voices. From outside came the creak of the heavy wooden inn sign swaying, and the wind’s low howling from across the moor.
Kate lay there in the darkness, until the taproom downstairs emptied and voices and hooves faded across the moor. Lay there unmoving and silent for so long, until the men had ceased their singing and the footsteps had faded and internal doors had opened and closed again. Until there was only the creak of the sign and the moan of the wind. And only then did she let herself think of Ben and Bea back home in Tallaholm so far across the ocean and what would happen to them if she did not return. Only then did she close her eyes and silently weep.
* * *
All that he was. All that he had become. All that made it possible to live with the knowledge of what he had done. All of it hinged on integrity...on honesty. On a vow he had sworn in a prison on the other side of the world, the words of which were seared upon his heart, as raw and meaningful as if he had spoken them only yesterday. He would never be Kit Northcote again. He would not lie. He would not cheat, not in the smallest of things...or in the largest.
He had signed a contract with the Admiralty and taken half the payment up front. There was no getting out if it. He was promised to deliver them the pirate La Voile. He could giv
e them Tobias; all of his crew would stand witness that the man in the butt was La Voile. And the Admiralty would pay the money. But Kit would know the truth—that he was lying, that he had conned them. That he had cheated them. Just the thought made him feel sick.
But if he delivered them what they had paid for... He swallowed. The fact that she was a woman would not save her. They would hang her, privately, if not publically. The most courageous woman he knew. A woman of integrity and strength. The woman to whom he had made love. The woman who had dug a bullet from his shoulder. He balled his fists. How could that be right? Where was the integrity in leaving two children motherless? Where was the honesty in a man betraying his lover?
She was La Voile. And she was also the woman he cared for.
So he was damned if he did, and damned if he did not. He either cheated Admiralty or he sent Kate Medhurst to her death.
That was the crux of the decision before him. Stark and brutal, no matter how many ways he might try to disguise it and name it otherwise.
Chapter Ten
‘Briggs is watching the door that leads up to the bedchambers as you instructed. You really think that the anti-American feeling is so strong as to be a risk to her?’ Within the stables Gunner leaned back against the wooden partition and watched Kit strapping the saddle on to his horse.
‘I do not wish to take the risk. Hostility is in the air, stoked, it seems, by a series of sensationalised stories of what La Voile and his pirate friends have been doing to the British merchant vessels in their waters.’ He did not like the way she had been treated over her nationality. And no matter the risk to her safety Kate would refuse to keep quiet or pretend she was anything other. But protecting her from attack was not the only reason he was keeping a close eye on her.
[GOD08] The Lost Gentleman Page 15