Outside the rumble of the storm grew louder. Lightening flashed, spearing the room with hot, white light, and thunder roared, vying with the fury of the wind to be heard.
Inside, too, the noise increased. She could hear their voices. It was only her cousin and the Frenchman who talked now. They were arguing about something. And drinking. She heard the clinking of glasses as their words became louder and more insistent.
Anne had almost bared the leather sheath that held her knife to her thigh when she heard the gunshot. There was only one and it came from the next room. Her heart pounded faster, and her fingers no longer remembered to be cautious lest she knock down her skirts, undoing all her tiresome effort. She grabbed at the ruffles, pulling them as best she could, lifting her head to keep a wary eye on the door.
She had no idea what happened but she expected the door to burst open any moment. When her hand clamped around the bone handle she gave a small cry of relief, muffled by the gag stuffed in her mouth. She yanked it up, careful, despite her haste not to let the knife slip from her fingers.
Leaning forward she hacked at the rope binding her feet, nearly dropping the knife when the blade sliced through the rope. Freeing her hands was more difficult. She wedged the handle between her feet, then sat up, sawing the rope binding her wrists back and forth over the honed surface.
There was still no sound from the other room... there hadn’t been since the gunshot, but Anne’s eyes still strayed to the door often as she slowly hacked through the rope. When her hands broke free she pulled the gag down, gulping air in through her sore mouth, then leaped from the bed.
Her knife was poised as she slipped to the door, placing her ear against the paneled wood and listening. Then carefully she lifted the latch and peeked through the small wedge of space. She couldn’t help the gasp that escaped her when she saw Arthur sprawled on the floor, an ever blossoming flower of crimson blood on his chest.
Anne quickly looked around the room, but d’Porteau was nowhere to be seen. Avoiding the blindly staring eyes of her cousin. Anne raced across the room and yanked open the door. Before she stepped outside her hair and clothing were soaked by the torrential rain. The wind blew so hard it was difficult to get her bearings. The murky, yellow-tinged sky and the howling wind seemed like a part of her earlier nightmares.
But Anne had no time for fantasies. She had to do something. Get help somewhere. She clutched her knife and raced toward her uncle’s cottage.
“Uncle Richard!” Anne screamed his name as she ran inside. But the rooms were empty. Back outside she dashed toward Matthew Baxter’s, her head bowed by the storm.
She let out a piercing scream when she plowed into the hard body. In the dim light it was difficult to recognize Israel until he spoke.
“Oh my God!” Anne dropped her knife in the mud as she reached up to grab the old man’s shoulders. “Jamie,” she yelled. “Is he with you?”
Israel gathered his wits, cupping his hands and calling to a dark shape farther up the path. Anne was barreling toward him before Jamie was turned around. She flew into his arms, burying herself against his soaked chest as his arms wrapped around her.
The wind tore at her skirts and hair, whistled about her ears, but for this brief moment he was her safe harbor against the storm. Anne reveled in his strength, dreading the moment when reality pulled them apart. It came sooner than she anticipated. His hands cupped her shoulders, drawing her back, until she could make out the anxious expression on his face. Water streamed from his hair, down the hollows of his cheeks.
“What are you doing out in this weather?”
Anne could tell by his expression that he was yelling, but such was the intensity of the storm that she could barely hear him. “D’Porteau,” was all she answered as the horror of the past hours surged back to her.
“I know.” Jamie tucked her under his arm, protecting her as much as he could from the elements and head down trudged toward the nearest cabin, Richard Cornwall’s. He fought the wind to open the door and push them both inside.
His hands bracketed her face, brushing away the wet strands of hair from her forehead and cheeks. “I kept close to Libertia. I just didn’t trust that d’Porteau wouldn’t return. When he did, I followed,” Jamie said after his lips touched hers. “The Lost Cause is hidden in a cove on the lee side of the island. When the Frenchman lands we’ll be ready for him. What is it, Annie?”
“He’s already here.” Words tumbled from her mouth so quickly Anne wasn’t sure she made any sense. “Uncle Richard found my mother’s brooch and I confronted Arthur. He was in on it, Jamie. He helped plan d’Porteau’s raid on Libertia. And he grabbed me and drugged me, I think. Then I heard them talking and d’Porteau shot him. He’s dead.”
“Who’s dead? Annie, tell me.” He shook her shoulders, until she looked back up at him, crystal droplets tipping her lashes.
“Arthur. D’Porteau shot him.”
Jamie let his hands drift down her arms. “Ye stay here. I’m going to find him.”
“But I want to come with you.”
“Nay. There’s a hurricane blowing out there, Annie.”
Anne’s eyes widened and she grasped his forearms. “Uncle Richard’s missing. He’s begun to wander around the island of late and this is his cottage and he’s not here.”
“He’s probably a hell of a lot drier than we are, huddled safely in someone else’s house.”
“No.” Anne shook her head. “No, I just know he’s out there.”
“Anne, listen to me.” He shook her again. “There be nothing ye can do now. Where’s d’Porteau?”
“I don’t know. I saw him only once, when he came in the bedroom and threatened me. That was at Arthur’s cabin, but he’s not there now.” Anne sucked in her breath, trying to regain her composure. She knew Jamie was right about her uncle. There was no way she could find him in this weather. And d’Porteau was a threat to everyone’s safety.
“He could be anywhere. No, wait.” Anne clutched his shirt. “I heard him say something about the sugar mill. He said his men were there, and the prisoners.”
“What prisoners?
“I don’t know. That’s all I heard.”
“That’s enough, sweetheart.” Jamie hugged her to his body quickly, then reluctantly let her go. “Now pay me heed this time and stay here. I’ll be back for ye as soon as I can.” With that he turned and shoved the door open, allowing rain and debris to blow into the room. He slammed it behind him and was gone.
And Anne, heedless of her wet clothes, and the thunderous roar of the storm, began to pace the small room.
Chapter Twenty
Their pistols and muskets were useless.
Jamie stared down at the wet firearm in his hand, then stuck it back in the sash across his chest. There was no way the powder would catch the spark. Unfortunately, d’Porteau’s crew, languishing snug and dry inside the sugar works didn’t suffer the same malady. Jamie imagined their guns would fire just fine.
He and the few men with him would discover that sad truth the moment they broke through the door.
“What we gonna do, Cap’n?”
Jamie glanced over at Israel. The wily old man was barely holding his own against the wind. Besides him, he had five other men, and a supply of knives and pikes from the Lost Cause.
Jamie cupped his hands so Israel could hear. “Be there a back door to this place?”
When Israel nodded, Jamie signaled him to lead him to it. Before they left the rest of the men in the dubious shelter of some rocks, Jamie lashed a sword and several knives around his waist, clamping an extra between his teeth.
After they fought the wind and blinding rain around to the back, Jamie struggled with the hook of one of the shutters covering a rear window. As soon as it was loose, the louvered wood began flailing back and forth, knocking against the building.
It wasn’t long before the door slivered open. Cursing a stream of obscenities worthy of his calling, a pirate inched through the
door. Huddled over against the storm he looked left and right, then spotting the loose shutter, started toward it. He didn’t notice anyone until Jamie tapped him on the shoulder.
One punch had him sprawled in the mud.
Jamie signaled for Israel to fix the shutter, then he opened the door and slipped inside. He quickly settled behind some barrels and wiped the water from his eyes. A light was glowing toward the front of the building, and it was from there that Jamie could hear voices. Loud voices, muffled by the wild fury of the storm, but clear enough to recognize the slur of heavy drinking.
Jamie worked his way from barrel to barrel, wondering how long it would take before d’Porteau would miss the pirate he sent to fix the shutter. He could distinguish the Frenchman’s nasal twang now, and Jamie honed in on it as he crept silently forward.
He was so intent upon his foe that Jamie almost missed the shuffle of sound behind him. He jerked around, expecting an attack from the rear, only to see a half-dozen men crouched down and tied together. Matthew Baxter and Mort Tatum. Jamie recognized the leaders of the settlement. The young men likely to give d’Porteau the most trouble. They stared at him above their gags with imploring eyes.
Circling back behind, Jamie worked quickly to slice through the ropes, passing out all the knives. He pressed a finger to his lips, then directed three to the left, three to the right, and motioned for the rest to follow him.
Candlelight showed perhaps twenty pirates sprawled on kegs, benches, and the floor. A few had tin cups, but most simply drank from bottles and jugs. By their sound and posture, they’d been imbibing the rum for quite a while.
Which was to Jamie’s advantage. That and surprise. But he couldn’t help noticing the loaded pistols within reach of most of the pirates.
His fingers tightened on the knife handle and he watched, waiting for the other men to position themselves around the group of revelers. Then he pushed to the balls of his feet and leaped forward.
The pirates twisted around awkwardly, their faces contorted in a grotesque mask of surprise. But drunk though they were, these men were fighters. Jamie heard the first explosion of gunfire as he grappled d’Porteau to the ground. Air left the Frenchman in a loud whoomph. For all his drunkenness and effeminate ways d’Porteau had not gained his success as a pirate by chance. He was strong and tough and ruthless, curving his fingers toward Jamie’s eyes like a cornered panther.
But there was too much at stake, and Jamie was in no mood for defeat. He pummeled his fist into the sagging jowls again and again. D’Porteau grasped for his pistol, yanking it from his jacket and swinging it forward. The barrel caught Jamie’s temple. Blood spurted out, the pain blinding him for the costly few seconds d’Porteau needed to stagger to his feet and aim the gun.
A shot reverberated through the building, and Jamie waited for the darkness to follow. But it was d’Porteau who fell back. His burly shoulder knocked against the table, jarring the candle from the shallow dish where it swam in a pool of hot tallow.
Jamie’s head whipped around in time to see Israel standing over d’Porteau, a smoking pistol gripped in his hand.
“I always did want to kill the bastard,” he said before dropping the spent gun and whipping out his knife as another adversary rushed toward him.
Jamie pushed to his feet, joining the melee. Confusion reigned, made more hauntingly eerie by the ribbons of smoke filtering up from the floor. The pirates had not been neat drinkers. Flames leapfrogged from one bit of rum-soaked timber to the next, feeding on anything flammable. When the fire reached the kegs of rum they exploded into an inferno, sucking oxygen from the air and shooting flames toward the roof.
“Let’s get out of here!”
It was Lester Perdue yelling, and Jamie turned as Israel grabbed his arm. The old man doubled over coughing, but his fingers didn’t lose their grip on Jamie’s arm. “Come on, Cap’n,” he managed to sputter before his legs folded under him.
Jamie caught him before he hit the floor, tossing him over his shoulder. Lowering his head, Jamie pushed through the smoke toward the front.
“Is anyone else inside?” Jamie yelled as he stumbled through the doorway. The rain had all but stopped and the wind stilled. But the sky held a strange light beyond what the fire gave it. Jamie dropped to his knees in the mud a few rods from the sugar works. He propped Israel against a tree trunk, then sucked in breaths of clean, clear air. A small knot of men stood, silently watching the flames eat up the building. Some of them turned toward him when Jamie repeated his question.
“It appears we all got out,” Mort answered. “Except the pirates, and Les Milkens, but he had a hole in his chest. Wait, Captain MacQuaid.” He stepped between Jamie and the fiery inferno. “He was dead. And that’s what you’ll be if you go back in there.” At that moment the roof collapsed in silent agreement, sending a glitter of sparks spraying into the sky.
~ ~ ~
The storm was over... at least for the moment.
Anne had lived in the Caribbean long enough to know the respite was temporary, that the backside of a hurricane was often more deadly. But she had time, especially if she hurried. And she didn’t think she could bear any more pacing back and forth across the floor, wondering what had happened. She needed to find Jamie. She needed to find Uncle Richard.
Anne hurried along the path, picking her way around the debris. She knew the storm was bad, but she hadn’t anticipated this much damage to the island.
In the distance she could see smoke—the sugar works—and rushed toward it as quickly as she could. It wasn’t until she was almost past the upended tree before she caught sight of something beneath the fronds. Her breath coming in painful gasps, Anne rushed forward, somehow knowing what she would find before she fought her way through the sharp-edged greenery.
He wasn’t dead. Anne could see the shallow rise and fall of her uncle’s chest beneath the wet waistcoat. But his color was bad, contrasting white to the streaks of brown-gray mud covering his face.
“Uncle Richard!” Anne tried to wake him, but her frantic calls didn’t elicit so much as a flutter of his stubby lashes.
And moving him was impossible. When Anne tried she discovered his legs were pinned beneath the uprooted palm. Though she shoved and pulled, she couldn’t budge it an inch. Anne scrambled to her feet, determined to run for help. But before she could her face was pelted with a fresh torrent of rain. The wind and rain resumed in earnest and she squatted down, shielding her uncle’s head with her body least he drown in the downpour.
~ ~ ~
She was gone.
“Damnation!” Jamie thumped his palm against the door after checking the small cottage for Anne. He left Israel and the others at the church, where most of the citizens had congregated to wait out the storm. And he’d come to fetch Anne and take her there, too, arriving here just as the fury of the hurricane broke free again. Only to find her gone.
But where?
She wasn’t at the church or sugar works. And it made no sense for her to go to another cottage. This one seemed to have weathered the first half of the storm as well as any.
Which only meant one thing. Jamie shoved through the door and into the howling tempest, not sure where he was going, only knowing he couldn’t leave her out there. Not without trying to find her.
He would later think of it as a miracle, but for now he only called it blind luck as he stumbled over the tree where she sat bent over her uncle’s still form.
“My God, Anne.” Jamie hugged her sodden body to his. She clung to him but when he tried to pull her up, resisted.
“I can’t move him. He’s trapped,” she cried, her words immediately whipped away by the wind.
And nearly dead, Jamie thought but didn’t say. “Ye get on back to the cottage. I’ll bring him.”
“No.”
She shook her head frantically and Jamie decided he didn’t have time to argue. He worked his way through the mud down the trunk until he could get a good hold. Then he wrapped his arm
s around the smooth bark and with a grunt lifted. The tree was heavier than he thought but he finally managed to shift its weight.
“Pull him, now!” he yelled into the storm.
She knew she must be hurting him as she tugged at his body. But she had no choice. When his legs were clear she called to Jamie. The tree trunk sank into marshy soil.
Gathering the older man in his arms, Jamie bent his head against the howling wind and followed Anne toward the shelter of the nearest cabin.
~ ~ ~
He knew he’d find her here.
Jamie stood watching Anne a moment, feeling her pain, before he walked toward the burial plot. The islanders had surrounded the simple graves with a fence of unpainted pickets, as if they could somehow protect those who lay beneath the ground. Or perhaps it was a reminder that civilization had once survived and flourished on Libertia.
Bending down Jamie twisted off a tangle of vines already encroaching under the fence.
She glanced around, giving him a sad smile and brushing a strand of hair beneath her bonnet. “It’s time to go, I suppose.”
“Aye.” Jamie tossed the leaves toward the undergrowth. “We’ll miss the tide if we don’t sail soon.”
Anne folded her hands, though she didn’t turn away from the small cross that marked her uncle’s grave. “Perhaps it’s best he didn’t live to see his dream destroyed.”
She turned the full force of her dark eyes on him, and Jamie could only shrug. He felt like a cad for taking her away, yet there was nothing here for her. The hurricane destroyed what was left of the sugar crop after the fire at the mill.
And the settlers, the believers in Richard Cornwall’s dream, wanted to leave. Jamie was taking them to the New World. The morning after the storm, when the sun rose in a clear Caribbean sky they’d surveyed the damage. Then they’d buried the dead, including their leader, and the pirates... and Arthur. After the funerals they held a meeting and voted... to abandon the colony.
My Seaswept Heart Page 29