“I will do it.” Tears stung Carolina’s eyes and she hugged the older woman. “Captain Kells will keep you safe,” she promised.
Doña Hernanda’s dark eyebrows rose and she crossed herself. “I pray God I do not see him on the voyage!” was her fervent rejoinder.
Oh, you will, you will! thought Carolina grimly. Even though you may not know it!
Then the buccaneers were picking up the trunks and Katje indicated that Doña Hernanda was to walk ahead of them. But when Carolina would have accompanied them, she waved her back.
Carolina stood and watched her Spanish friend go. She was glad for Doña Hernanda but she could not help feeling despondent as she watched those black skirts sweep down the whitewashed hallway. She would miss her.
She sat down at the table on the gallery to wait for breakfast and watched the parrot swing upside down from its hoop. The bird was like everything else here, she told herself glumly—a little out of kilter.
Food was brought, but only one trencher.
So she was to eat alone. She felt vaguely disappointed and realized that she had hoped that Kells would not make the voyage but would send someone else.
There was a great deal of noise elsewhere in the house, she noted as she ate. It sounded as if heavy objects were being dragged about. When the little island girl came to clear the dishes away, Carolina thought she looked excited. Through the open door she could hear the sound of boots, then a crash as something dropped and a curse, but she could not see anything.
The little island girl had no sooner cleared the dishes than Katje closed and locked the door.
Rebuffed, Carolina walked across the sunny courtyard where the stones felt hot underfoot and reached the entrance to the garden. To her surprise there were two stout fellows lounging against the wall by the green-painted door that led to the outer world, and both were heavily armed. They looked up alertly at sight of her, then bowed politely.
“We were told to stand guard here, mistress,” one of them volunteered at her puzzled expression, but when she asked “Why?” he only shrugged.
Carolina turned and went back to the gallery. She whiled away the time trying to teach Poll to say “Christabel.”
She had no more luck with the parrot than she had had with the two buccaneer guards.
In the afternoon she undressed and took a restless siesta, lying upon the hot bed fanning herself with a palm leaf fan. And then when dusk came and she knew that dinner would soon be ready, she dressed and came out on the gallery.
To her surprise, Kells joined her there. He strode in armed to the teeth with a brace of pistols stuck in his belt and wearing not only a cutlass but a dagger whose hilt stuck out of his boot top.
“But I thought you were sailing Doña Hernanda to Cuba!” she exclaimed.
“There has been a change in plan. Lars is taking her there,” he said, and his gaze was not upon her but upon the courtyard wall through which could be glimpsed the garden with its wooden door to the outside world. “Bring the piece out here and set it up facing the gate,” he called back over his shoulder. “And now,” he turned to Carolina abruptly, “I think we might dine together in my private dining room.”
As opposed to the bigger dining room that doubtless existed in the wing which housed his officers, she thought. She rose—and then stepped back in alarm. Four men were wheeling a small cannon down the hall and onto the gallery.
“In one moment I will join you,” Kells told her, and went out to make sure the cannon’s mouth was lined up precisely facing the garden’s wooden door.
Hawks was one of the men who had brought the cannon out, and as he came back past her, sent by Kells to bring shot for the cannon, she caught at his sleeve. “What is happening, Hawks? Why is a cannon being set up in the garden? Are the Spanish attacking?”
Hawks cast an uneasy look over his shoulder at the entrance to the garden where he could see his captain supervising the other buccaneers. “There’s ugly talk in the town,” he told her briefly. “The captain can’t afford to take chances with you here, so he’s set up that gun in case they storm the gate.”
“They? Who are they?”
“That Portuguese captain the Spanish call El Sangre —I don’t know no more name for him than that.”
El Sangre—The Bloody One. . . . Carolina felt as if a cold wind had passed over her face. The small bronze cannon and its little crew suddenly looked very cozy. She stepped back and Hawks hurried on past her.
“Is El Sangre planning to attack the house?” she asked Kells bluntly when he came back and coolly offered her his arm.
He looked at her sharply. “What do you know of El Sangre?”
“Nothing. I have never met him.”
“You have not spoken to him on the quay?”
She returned him a look of pure astonishment. “Not that I am aware of!”
“Perhaps you’ve seen him—heavy red beard, food-stained coat and the filthiest breeches on the island? Anyway, it would seem he’s been watching you stroll about the quay and your beauty has inflamed him.”
Carolina gave a nervous laugh. “Surely you’re joking?”
“I hope so,” he said gravely. “But there were nasty rumors floating about Cayona last night and I couldn’t afford to ignore them.” He paused to speak to an efficient-looking fellow hurrying past. “Tim, did you deploy the men as I told you?”
The fellow nodded. “And with cannon taken from the ships to command all the entrances.” He flashed a grin at Carolina. “We will sell our lives dear if they overwhelm us!”
“Tim—that’s enough,” said Kells with a swift look at Carolina. And Tim shrugged and swaggered away down the corridor.
Carolina found herself growing excited. “Perhaps we should not take time to eat—perhaps we should stand watch!”
“There are others standing watch,” said Kells. “And I would have a word with you. While we dine is as good a time as any.”
She regarded him apprehensively as he led her to the room that she privately considered “a little bit of England” and seated her at the massive polished table.
“This room should have a calming effect upon your nerves,” he observed. “Familiar surroundings give one confidence.”
“Do not try to soothe me,” she said. “Tell me what is happening.”
“I intend to.” He turned as Katje herself hurried in with their dinner on a tray. A sharp conversation ensued and Katje hurried away. “She was telling me that some of El Sangre’s men have been seen drifting up this way, so it is best that I eat fast for I may be called away. You may eat at your leisure.”
Carolina looked down at her trencher without interest. “Are you saying this assault upon your house is just to abduct me?”
“Oh, not entirely,” he told her cheerfully. “Although that is partially his object, of course—and his excuse as well. El Sangre is a renegade Portuguese who has always attracted around him the most lawless elements of this island. When he is in port, which fortunately is seldom, there is always turmoil. He has received word—erroneously, I may say—that I took a large treasure off the Spanish galleons who attacked you, and he has gathered around him some riffraff from the town as well as the men from his own two ships.”
“But you should not have sent Lars away this morning!” she cried. “He and the men with him would have been a help in any fight!”
His smile was melancholy. “I would not break my word to a lady,” he said softly. “And I had promised you that if you held your peace, Doña Hernanda would go free this morning.”
She was amazed. That he should hold her in such regard! She who had scorned him! What a strange and complex man he was. . . .
“You did not need to do that,” she said, troubled.
“I wanted you to think better of my character,” he told her wryly, “which my profession of buccaneering had so totally destroyed.”
For a moment she was conscious of some magic between them, a kind of bond, perhaps the bond that brin
gs together the lost. . . .
The moment was dispelled as Kells stood up. “I have left five men to guard you,” he said. “They are among my most trusted friends on this island. Two of them will stay in this room with you—the other three at the door.” He hesitated, then handed her a large pistol. “Do you know how to use this?”
She looked at it doubtfully. “No. My father disapproved of firearms for women. My mother took a shot at him once. She missed him of course.”
Kells laughed. “I can understand his feeling. Nevertheless. ...” From a nearby cabinet he produced a long dagger with a carved jade hilt encased in a delicately worked scabbard. He drew it out and she ran her finger along the shining edge of the blade. It was incredibly sharp.
“Careful,” he cautioned. “You’ll cut yourself.” He sheathed the dagger again and presented it to her. “I doubt there’ll be any danger. But this will make you feel more comfortable. . . . Hawks will be with you,” he added.
“We could be trapped here,” she whispered, looking around her fearfully at the paneled room.
“No, there’s a tunnel. Hawks knows about it and so do the others. That’s why I’ve left you here. If worse comes to worst, there’s a way out that will lead you straight to a cove and a waiting boat. You’ll be all right, Carolina.”
She noticed that in this extremity he had called her by her right name and was somehow absurdly pleased.
It came to her that it would have been very easy for him to have sent her away with Lars and to have made it known that she was gone. Then perhaps this attack would have dissolved.
“Rye.” Her voice arrested him as he reached the door. She went around the table quickly and reached up and took his face in both her hands. “Thank you for protecting me.” She kissed him softly, full on the lips—and was surprised at the sudden shock that went through his hard body.
He stood looking down at her for a moment with his face darkly flushed and an unfathomable expression in his eyes. Then, as if he could not help himself, his long arms went round her and she found herself held in a dizzying grip while his lips wandered hungrily over her cheeks and lips. It was a very tender moment and when he pulled himself away he looked shaken.
“Have no fear,” he told her hoarsely. “This house is a fortress—I have made it so against just such an event.”
He strode through the door and immediately Hawks and another man came through it, then shot the bolt. She helped them remove the dishes from the table and they turned it over on its side so that its thick wooden top presented a shield.
“El Sangre’s men are surrounding the house now,” explained Hawks laconically.
Long moments later a quiver went through Carolina as she heard a crash, the sound of splintering wood— and almost immediately the deep-throated boom of a cannon.
“That will have been our lads greeting El Sangre’s men as they broke through the wooden door into the garden,” said Hawks with satisfaction. He grinned. “They won’t have expected to be met by cannon. Those cannon’re from the Valeroso—Captain Kells had them hauled overland through the jungle and brought in from the back.” He looked proud.
But what if they bring up their own cannon? was Carolina’s silent troubled thought. What then?
There was pandemonium outside now, dimly heard but seeming to come from many sides. There were more resounding cannon booms—which must mean that El Sangre’s men were pouring in through the different entrances—or attempting to. The battle raged on.
And then suddenly there were shouts, the clashing of cutlasses erupted in the corridor outside. She could hear running feet, shouts and curses. Hawks, who had been resting on the edge of a chair, sprang to his feet with cutlass bared.
“Go out and help them,” cried Carolina desperately. “Help Kells! Don’t stay here with me waiting for El Sangre’s men to burst through that door!”
Hawks and the other fellow looked at each other and shifted their feet uneasily. It was plain they yearned to be in the thick of it.
“I’ll be all right,” she cried. “Just show me how to get into the tunnel in case I must.”
“It’s right over here, mistress,” Hawks told her, indicating a large heavy cupboard. “You press right here.” He threw his weight against one side of the cupboard and to her surprise it began to turn. Hastily he put it back. “Tunnel’s right behind there and it’ll take you clear to the beach that way.” He jerked his head. “But you don’t want to go in there unless you have to.”
“Why not?” she demanded.
“It’s full of rats from the ships. Big ones. They might attack you. If you have to go in there, take along a cutlass.” He nodded at an unsheathed blade that stood in the corner.
Carolina shuddered. “I’ll be all right,” she insisted, but with a bit less bravado. “Go out there and help Kells!”
He listened a moment at the door and it seemed to Carolina that the fighting was moving on down the hall.
“You stay at the door,” Hawks told the other man as he shot the bolt. “And yell like a banshee if they come at you. I’ll be helping out the lads—”
Another cannon burst blotted out whatever else he might have said and they were gone, closing the door behind them.
Left alone, Carolina bolted the heavy door, took a cord from one of the wall hangings and girdled her waist with it, then slipped the sheathed dagger inside. She laid the large pistol down on the table beside her and took up her position behind the large upended table.
The next hour was perhaps the longest of her life. Around the outside there was a chorus of shots, yells, screams, a rattling sound as God knew what missiles landed on the roof, a crash or two from the nearby courtyard as thrown items went entirely over the roof and crashed down near the fountain. Twice she heard the clashing of cutlasses and thought the battle was again surging down the hall toward her. Intermittently and less frequently there came a boom of cannon.
Then, abruptly, silence fell.
Minutes later there was a knock on the door. “Christabel, it’s over. Unbolt the door.”
It was Kells! Joyfully she let him in. She had never been so glad to see anybody in her life. She felt weak with relief and almost sagged into his arms, save that he held her at arm’s length.
“Careful,” he warned. “You’ll get blood on your dress.”
She realized then that one of his sleeves was slashed and there was blood on his shirtfront. She drew in her breath sharply.
“Somebody else’s blood,” he said casually. Her gaze flew to the long gaping slash in his sleeve.
He shrugged. “A scratch.” Indeed aside from the condition of his clothing he looked quite jaunty and entirely wild. Now he flashed a glance about him. “Where is Hawks?” he demanded.
“Gone to help you,” she said sturdily. And then with a defiant look she added, “I insisted he go.” And hastily, to wipe that stern expression from his face which boded ill for Hawks, “What happened out there?”
“El Sangre has gone to his reward,” he told her in a casual voice. “And when he was cut down, his men scattered. They won’t band together again—they’re already rowing out to their ships, and with the tide going out, they’ll be making for the open sea. It seems El Sangre got word I was going to take the Sea Wolf out—he thought to attack the house in my absence, abduct you, ransack for treasure and be gone before I could return.”
Carolina drew a deep shuddering sigh. “Kells,” she said, using the name they had agreed upon just as he called her Christabel. “Do you really have a plantation in Barbados?”
“Yes,” he said. “With a cove such as I described. But it’s not much of a place. I’ve no time for it and the plantation is overgrown, the house run down.”
“Why don’t you take me there?” she asked suddenly. “Away from all this turmoil here on Tortuga?”
He hesitated, studying her—then he gave her an answer that, chagrined as she was, she realized was completely truthful. “I was tempted to do that once but now I
know that you would not stay,” he said frankly. And as she was about to demur, “Oh, I realize you think you would, now—in the aftermath of battle. But you are young and subject to whim. You would change your mind about staying—you would be gone the first chance you got.”
There was a grimness to his jaw as he said that, and Carolina sighed. That brief magic between them, that perfect understanding, was gone. They were back to their old footing—mistrust. “Were many hurt in the raid?” she asked.
“A few. The doctor is here and Nat Larkin and Katje are assisting him.”
“But I thought you said your ship’s doctor was isolated with some fever patients in his house some distance away through the grove and would not come out for fear of spreading contagion?”
Kells hesitated. There was no reason for her to know that Ives Grenoble, his ship’s doctor, had been roaring drunk for three days now and would have been no use to them in any event. Indeed, drink was poor Grenoble’s only vice and it had cost him everything: his wife, his family, his practice back in England. It had brought him at last to the beach at Cayona where Kells had discovered his talent and enlisted him to serve upon the Sea Wolf, for he could control Grenoble’s drinking while at sea by the simple expedient of having his possessions searched before he was hustled aboard. No need for Carolina to know these things—indeed she would like Grenoble, who had been in his day a gentleman.
“Yes,” he said evasively. “I told you that. But we have got Dr. Cotter up from the town. He is a good doctor, although why he chooses Tortuga to set out his shingle is anybody’s guess.”
He is one of the lost—like you, she thought with a pang.
“I need to speak to Dr. Cotter,” he said, turning toward the door.
“I’ll go with you,” Carolina offered, thinking she would volunteer to help Katje tend the wounded.
Kells gave her an approving look and led her to that wing she had never seen, where his officers were quartered. One of the rooms there had been turned into an infirmary and wounds were being stanched and bandaged. One prone figure on a cot appeared to be dead. She looked questioningly at Kells.
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