Lovesong

by Valerie Sherwood

  Carolina’s warm smile thanked him for remembering to call her that. “Virginia’s shores are not very far away,” she told him in justification.

  “But England’s are,” he said lazily and she felt he was talking about last night and her too warm responses.

  “It would be easy, I suppose,” she mused, “to fall into the relaxed way of life of the islands.”

  “And what do you know of their relaxed way of life?” he wondered, leaning back and eyeing her.

  “Not a great deal,” she admitted. “But one hears engaging stories of beautiful native wenches who rule their masters’ plantations—such things as that.”

  He grinned at her. “You have a romantic nature, Christabel. Plantation ownership in the islands is not so entertaining as all that. Mostly it is just endless hard work to break the ground and get it planted with inexpert labor, nurture the crop—and then hope to God that a West Indian hurricane doesn’t destroy it as it stands, or marauders burn it, or the ship that carries it to England sink before it can be sold, or overabundance and overproduction drop the price below what it cost to produce—all the same things your father must face back in Virginia.”

  “Plus one more—being kidnapped by the buccaneers.”

  His grin widened. “That happens but rarely. As I told you, it is my cove and not my body they desire.”

  They went back to speaking Spanish and Doña Hernanda told them how worried she was that she would not be released soon enough to be present at the birth of her first grandchild, for her daughter was expecting a baby not three months from now in Cartagena.

  “Why did she not accompany you to Spain and have the baby there?” wondered Carolina. “Spain must have excellent doctors.”

  “I did not learn until I was in Spain that she was expecting and she was judged to be too frail to travel,” Doña Hernanda told her. “Her health has been poor and I would not have left her at all save that my brother was so insistent in his letters. He said how simple it would be—I could return to Spain and sail back with the flota. And now see what has happened? I am a captive, and who knows when I will be sent to Havana for eventual voyage back to Cartagena? I may miss the birth!”

  “That would be a pity,” said Carolina slowly. “Surely if someone spoke to Captain Kells . . . .?”

  “I will speak to him about it,” promised Rye. “He is a reasonable man and there is no reason for him to retain Doña Hernanda—he is not holding her for ransom. Perhaps she could be sent along the next time Spanish female prisoners are sent to Havana.”

  “How do they do that?” asked Carolina curiously. “Surely no buccaneer would sail directly into Havana harbor?”

  "‘No, the guns of El Morro would blow such an impudent fool out of the water,” said Rye frankly. “But the authorities in Havana are even more desirous of getting their women back than the buccaneers of Tortuga are to be rid of them. So when the weather is clear, a ship is sailed to some point near the Cuban coast, the women captives are loaded into a longboat, Spanish prisoners who have worked out their ransoms are set to the oars, and they row to shore in Cuba, eventually to be reunited with their families.”

  Carolina’s eyes sparkled as she tucked away that bit of information, which might prove useful.

  Rye was watching her in amusement. “You cannot plan to effect your escape by that method?” he said politely. “Your Spanish is certainly good enough, but your face—now that you have strolled along the quay— has been remarked and will be remembered by every buccaneer who saw you. Besides, if you did manage it, remember that you would be a heretic in Havana and very possibly subjected to the Inquisition which is no respecter of women or children. Small children and old women are tortured to death by the Inquisition to wring from them ‘confessions’ which will only allow them an easier death than the fire.”

  He had been speaking in English but still Carolina frowned at him. “You will upset Doña Hernanda,” she chided.

  Rye shrugged. “The truth will sometimes out,” he said.

  Chapter 27

  Carolina’s request of Hawks had borne some fruit at least. After that day, with few exceptions, the big buccaneer proudly escorted her through the crowded quay every morning. Soon the “Silver Wench” became a familiar sight there. And sometimes in the heat of the lazy tropical afternoons he allowed her to accompany Doña Hernanda and bring the Spanish prisoners big baskets of fruit. Always she sought to question them as to the fate of the Coraje, which, she told them sadly, had had her lover aboard when the storm struck—and they, quick to sympathize with the heartrending loss of one so young, so lovely, tried to comfort her by telling her how sturdy a ship was the Coraje, how fine a sailor her captain. The Coraje would have reached Havana safely, Senorita—indeed at this moment her lover’s ransom would already have been settled and matters proceeding toward his release. And who knows, he might even at this moment be strolling along Havana’s harbor front—under suitable guard of course—before the palace that faced the Plaza de Armas. He might even have stopped there and turned his face toward the sea and be dreaming himself once more in her arms!

  Carolina was not such a fool as to imagine that Thomas would be allowed to prowl the town even “under suitable guard.” He would be stashed away somewhere in forbidding Morro Castle. But even in the depths of El Morro there was hope for him—if he was still alive. And listening to these men telling her so earnestly of the skill of the Coraje’s captain, she could not but believe that the Coraje had fought her way through the storm and made Havana harbor in all her gilded splendor. And that Thomas, her golden Lord Thomas, was languishing there now, awaiting rescue.

  The thought gave her buoyancy and hardened her resolve to be gone from this place. Nor was she likely to forget Thomas’s plight even while strolling Cayona’s exotic quay, for the tall towers of the mighty Santiago, glinting gold from the blue waters of Cayona Bay, were ever there to remind her!

  She grew to like the Spanish prisoners, most of whom beamed at the sight of her and showed her every courtesy. Once or twice she heard them call her “palida ” “the pale one,” and once from a Spanish sailor who watched her adoringly as he bit into the fragrant peach and gold mango she had brought him, “the pale madonna.” And once she heard the word “argentina” murmured as she passed and guessed that here too she was called the “Silver Wench”—but in Spanish. Word got around, she thought whimsically, and Rye was right—the buccaneers were getting used to her. Some—although she had never met them—had become familiar faces to her as well. Many of them now bowed to her as she walked by and she returned their greetings with a blithe nod.

  Before the week was out she had met two of the island’s most famous womanizers: Captain Shawn O’Rourke, who as a child had been called “Tawny” for his Celtic red-blond hair, and Captain Bourne Skull— who might have been named for the dead men he had piled up, for the brawny Skull was famous with the cutlass and his specialty was chopping off his opponent’s head. O’Rourke was a lighthearted fellow, known for his blarney, while Skull was a brooding hulk of a man whose head usually seemed sunk in his enormous shoulders. They had little in common save a love of wenches and gold—and a shared birthplace, Ireland.

  It was inevitable that their gaze should fall on Carolina, for “Christabel,” as she was known here, was watched for on the quay. Men who had never known a truly patrician woman paused in their dickering to watch her walk by with her light yellow voile skirts seeming to float behind her and the brilliant tropical sun turning her hair to spun white metal.

  On this particular day she was strolling between great piles of coconuts wondering if she could reach a group of officers who had just rowed in from an English merchantman anchored in the harbor—Hawks usually steered her away from such as these—when Shawn O’Rourke and Bourne Skull sighted her. On the instant they stopped their haggling over price with a saucy prostitute fresh from the Bristol docks. Copper-haired O’Rourke grinned. “Later, wench—we’ll talk about it.” Bourne gave her
such a smack on her plump bottom that she let out a little squeal of dismay. And both sauntered as one man in Carolina’s direction.

  It was O’Rourke with his long stride who reached her first. He planted himself firmly in front of her, blocking her way between a pile of bananas on one side and a small mountain of wide-brimmed straw hats on the other.

  “Sure, ’tis a fair colleen ye have with ye, Hawks,” he said to the big buccaneer who had come to a halt at having his way barred. “I think we’ll just be introducing ourselves. I’m Captain O’Rourke of the Talon—but you can call me Shawn. And this ugly fellow here”—he grinned at black-bearded Skull who was about to shoulder him aside in his impatience to get a better view of Carolina—“is Captain Skull of the Claw”

  “I take it your ships were named to terrorize the Spanish?” Carolina dimpled for she thought O’Rourke had merry eyes. Certainly they were a brilliant shade of green.

  “And ye can call me Bourne,” rumbled his black-bearded companion.

  “I am Christabel Willing,” said Carolina, her forward progress thus impeded, and amused by Hawks’s discomfiture.

  “Mistress Christabel is staying at Captain Kells’s house,” said Hawks warningly.

  “Oh, we’re well aware of where the Silver Wench is staying,” said O’Rourke lightly. “The question is, will she be staying there long?”

  “I don’t really know,” said Carolina frankly. “If ever I get a chance to speak to Captain Kells, I intend to ask him.”

  “If ever—?” An expression of disbelief spread over O’Rourke’s handsome face. “Ye mean ye’ve not met him?”

  “Oh, yes, I met him aboard the Santiago after he had rescued me from the Spanish, but I’ve not seen him since. Although,” she added hastily for Hawks’s benefit, seeing him frown, “I lack for nothing in his house.”

  “She’s not seen him, Bourne, did ye hear her say that?” said O’Rourke.

  “I did,” rumbled Bourne. He looked Carolina up and down until she felt stripped naked. “But I find it hard to believe.”

  “So do I,” laughed O’Rourke. “I think you’re making sport of us, Mistress Christabel!”

  “Oh, no, I’m not!” she said tartly. For she had twice asked for an audience with the elusive captain and twice been refused. “Captain Kells must be the busiest man on the island—at least he has no time for me!”

  “Will ye gentlemen let us pass?” cut in Hawks, who was looking very perturbed.

  The eager pair gave ground reluctantly and when Carolina and her cutlass-carrying chaperon were out of earshot, Hawks cleared his throat.

  “Mistress Christabel,” he began uneasily. “Those two men—”

  “Oh, come,” she interrupted, laughing, for she did not want to be forbidden to speak to people. “Half the men along the quay nod to me now. Why should you mind if a few words are exchanged?”

  Hawks cast a look at the sky as if pleading for assistance, received none and said, “I think we’d best go home, mistress.”

  “Oh, Hawks—not till I’ve looked at those lengths of cloth over there.” Carolina was advancing upon the pile even as she spoke, and a smiling buccaneer proudly lifted up a silvery silk that gleamed like metal in the sun. “Oh, it’s beautiful!” She fingered it, still watching out of the corner of her eye the puzzled faces of the two men she had just left. Plainly they were astonished that Kells had not at once sought her out. It should be, she supposed, a blow to her vanity, but she could almost hope the situation remained that way, even though she would like an opportunity to plead her case with Kells.

  “Are ye finished now?” asked Hawks abruptly. He too was aware of the concentration of two dangerous buccaneer captains upon his charge, and sharply aware of how outnumbered he’d be if they chose to stroll up and demand her company for a drink in one of the nearby taverns!

  “Yes, I’m finished now,” said Carolina with a sigh. “And the sun is rather hot. I’m losing my fair complexion, Hawks—I should have one of those straw hats over there.”

  To her surprise he promptly guided her to the pile of hats and insisted she select one. Carolina was touched.

  “I’m grateful to you, Hawks,” she said, adjusting the pale wide-brimmed straw she had selected over her shimmering hair. “I wish I could pay you back but I’ve no money, and no prospect of any!”

  “Never mind that,” muttered Hawks. “Captain Kells will pay for the hat.”

  Carolina gave him a look of surprise. She could not know that Hawks was less interested in preserving her complexion than he was in shadowing her beautiful face and her gleaming hair from the hot gaze of buccaneers who, if they chose, could easily surround him and take the lass away—and what would the captain say then?

  That night as she came to supper, to her surprise she saw that the entire length of cloth she had admired, what seemed like yards and yards of it, was lying on the blue tile bench beside the tinkling fountain.

  “Katje brought it,” explained Rye, who was lounging against a pillar watching her. “She said it was a gift from Captain Kells.” He gave her a sardonic look. “You must have charmed him.”

  “Kells, Kells!” screamed the parrot, upending and hanging upside down from its hoop to regard them with bright eyes.

  Carolina gave the parrot a reproving “Shush!” and turned to Rye. “No, it was two other captains I charmed,” she laughed. “Their names were O’Rourke and Skull.”

  “Hawks told me about that,” he said. He gave her a curious glance. “Were you impressed by them?”

  “Well, Skull is a bit too fierce for my taste, but O’Rourke is charming.”

  “So say the ladies,” agreed Rye pleasantly. “You were in some danger, you know. O’Rourke is all right, but Skull is not to be trusted. He might have cut Hawks down and dragged you off.”

  “Well, doubtless then Captain Kells would have come to get me!”

  “Oh, he’d have come for you, all right.” His gray eyes glinted. “Tell me, Christabel, is it your intention to cause a riot on the quay?”

  She flushed and would have given him a sharp answer but that Doña Hernanda joined them at that moment. Doña Hernanda was overjoyed because she had learnt that she was to be sent to Havana with the next group of Spanish women—perhaps sometime this week! She broke off to go back to her room for a fan and while she was gone Rye and Carolina resumed their sparring.

  “What do you plan to do with all that material?” He jerked his head toward the pile of shimmering gossamer cloth.

  Carolina had gone over to it and was running her palm along its silvery surface. “I don’t know—unless Captain Kells has some captive Spanish sempstress eager to work out her ransom by making me endless dresses of this lovely stuff!”

  He ignored her levity. “You could send it to Barbados or Jamaica along with your measurements and one of the fashion dolls they sell down at the quay, and have gowns made up for you.”

  Carolina shrugged. She felt somehow that the gift was unreal—as insubstantial as the man who, seen once, had disappeared forever. “That would take a long time and I won’t be staying that long,” she said flippantly. “Besides, I can’t accept it. It’s one thing to have a dress replaced that’s half torn from my back—or a hat to keep my nose from peeling in this sun. That’s generosity and it’s welcome. But this is—” She hesitated, groping for a word.

  “A bribe?” he asked softly.

  She looked up and met his gaze squarely. “I feel that it’s payment on account for something,” she said with characteristic frankness. “Something I don’t mean to give. And I won’t accept so fine a gift under false pretenses.”

  “A woman of principle,” he murmured.

  “If you want to call it that,” said Carolina calmly. “I may at the moment be staying in the house of this buccaneer and eating the food at his table, but I do not belong to him and do not intend to. And to accept this”—she gave the light material a contemptuous flick of her slender fingers—“would be to—to—” Again she so
ught for a word.

  “To let him move closer to you,” supplied Rye thoughtfully. “That is how you view it?”

  “Yes.” She flushed. “Isn’t that the way you view it?”

  “Not necessarily.” He sighed. “Remember Kells is a rich man. This small extravagance means nothing to him. Perhaps in a way it’s payment for something already given. He may enjoy the notoriety of having it known that the Silver Wench sleeps in his house. Every man on Tortuga envies him the position of being your host!”

  “A position I jeopardized today?” she hazarded. “That’s what you’re really saying, isn’t it? By telling O’Rourke and Skull that I never see Kells? Well, shouldn’t I say so? It’s true, isn’t it?”

  “The truth, like gold, should be guarded well,” was his whimsical comment. “Both can be used against you!”

  Carolina sniffed. “You talk in riddles.”

  The discussion was abandoned when Doña Hernanda rejoined them. They began to talk about her life in Cartagena. Rye asked her many questions about the town and she seemed to enjoy telling him about the life there and the setting. Carolina was not paying much attention. She toyed with her green turtle soup and listened to the rustle of the palms. It had come to her uneasily that if she had offended Captain Kells by her idle remarks on the quay she might well have endangered not only her own future but Lord Thomas’s chances of rescue as well.

  When Doña Hernanda had retired with a swish of stiff black skirts to her own room and she and Rye were alone on the empty gallery, she rose.

  “I think I shall take a turn in the garden, Rye,” she said restlessly. “Would you care to join me?”

  He rose with alacrity and adjusted his long stride to her shorter one, as he accompanied her into the lush overgrown tropical garden with its locked green door that led to the outer world. Strange flower scents drifted in the night air and a light breeze rustled the fronds. It was a soft intimate sound like sheets rustling.

  Carolina, lost in her own brooding thoughts, had never felt more alone.