Fortune Trilogy 1 - Fortune's Mistress

by Judith E. French

  Simultaneously, James became aware of two things. First, that he was alone on the deck of the Silkie, and second, that his bladder was full to bursting. “Peste!” he muttered. Concentrating on maintaining his balance despite his throbbing headache, he walked to the leeward side of the pitching boat and relieved his immediate problem.

  When he turned back from the rail, he saw what at first glance looked like a boy coming out of the forward cuddy hatch. “Who are—” James gaped fishmouthed and wiped the rain out of his eyes. A second look told him that this was no boy, but Lacy Bennett decked out in a man’s shirt and breeches with an oversized knit cap covering her red hair. “Merde!” he exploded. In two strides, he’d crossed the deck and lunged for her.

  She dodged him so neatly that his hands closed around empty air.

  “Now, Jamie,” Lacy soothed. “Calm down.”

  He grabbed for her again, and she ducked under the main boom and dashed toward the stern. “You’re a dead woman!” he promised. He rounded the mainmast and charged after her.

  Lacy reached out and jerked the knot that held the tiller fast. As the rope came undone, the boat lurched to the starboard and began to rock violently. James staggered and fell on one knee. He grabbed the tiller and threw all his strength against it. All thoughts of pursuing Lacy vanished. If he didn’t bring the Silkie under control immediately, they were in real danger of capsizing.

  Once Lacy had released the tiller, the force of wind and waves had spun the boat around so that the sails smashed to and fro with each wave. He knew he had only minutes to trim the sails. One slip and he’d lose a hand or be swept into the water. “Lacy!” he yelled, then cursed as he heard the cuddy hatch bang shut. “Damn you to bloody hell!”

  This was a job for three seasoned sailors, and his only help had just gone below.

  Straining against the tiller, James prayed that it wouldn’t snap under the weight of tons of water. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he brought the tiller—inch by aching inch—into position and lashed it tightly into place. Then he turned toward the sails. The boom vangs thudded hard, straining the limits of rope and canvas. Needles of icy rain blurred his vision. His world narrowed to a gray core of slippery deck and whipping sails.

  When the mainsail was trimmed, he was trembling with exhaustion and his hands had been scraped raw by the rope. He paused long enough to catch his breath, then adjusted the tiller lashing before moving toward the bow to tackle the halyard on the foremast.

  It wasn’t something he ever wanted to do again under these conditions.

  Later, at the tiller, James looked down at his bleeding hands and wondered how his luck had held. The rain was slacking off, but the wind showed no sign of abating. Cold to the bone, he turned his face away from the blast and let his thoughts drift back to the twists of fate that had brought him—a king’s son—to this damnable time and place.

  That red-haired witch had spoken truth when she’d said Black wasn’t his real name. And his name had been the cause of all of his troubles . . . from the beginning.

  He’d been born in the master bedchamber at Monkton Hall, fat and healthy and male. And if his mother had had half as many brains as beauty, she’d have given her second son her husband’s name and let bygones be bygones. But Alice had been a Stratford before she’d married Lord Hawley, and the Stratfords were ever ambitious. Instead, she had summoned a priest to the lying-in and, claiming that she feared the babe would die, she had insisted he be christened James Fitzroy, a veiled way of naming him a Stuart.

  Backed by her sister and both parents, James’s mother had declared that he was the natural son of the man who now wore the crown of England, the Stuart king, Charles the Second. The announcement did not sit well with Alice’s husband, Lord Hawley, who had been a supporter and friend to King Charles since Charles had been a boy. The fact that Roger Hawley was flaxen-haired and blue-eyed, as was the Lady Alice, while the baby James was black-haired and dark-eyed, added weight to the argument that James was not Lord Hawley’s son.

  James’s older brother, Nicholas, had the Hawley looks and slim build. His younger siblings, John and Hugh, were fair and slender as well. Only James bore the Stuart black hair and length of bone. A dark changeling in the Hawley cradle ...

  He’d known none of this when he was a small child. He’d only seen that it was his brother Nicholas who rode before his father on his great bay horse, or was carried into the hall to be dangled upon their father’s knee when guests were present.

  James was six when he first remembered Lord Hawley calling him a bastard . . .

  “Get your bastard son hence!” Hawley had yelled at James’s mother. “Send him to hell or your father, I care not. But get him out of my sight. He sickens me!”

  James had crept sobbing into a corner of the nursery and been shamefully sick to his stomach. His brother Nicholas had run after him, taunting him with cries of “Bastard! Bastard! Puking little bastard.”

  Later, his mother had come and dried his tears. She’d whispered to him that it didn’t matter what Lord Hawley said because he was the son of the man who would one day rule all England, Scotland, and Wales. “You are a Stuart born,” she insisted fiercely. “And when your real father comes into his own, he will raise you up to be a prince of the land.”

  His Stratford uncles had come for him soon after, and he’d spent the next three years being raised by one relative or another. His mother’s family had openly acknowledged him within the household as James Fitzroy, the natural son of Charles Stuart. They’d given him a pride in his heritage, and too often let him have his own way. The Stratfords were Catholic and in disfavor with the Roundheads; their hopes were pinned on the monarch’s Restoration and on the ties of blood James would give them to the king.

  On his ninth birthday, his mother called him home to Monkton Hall. She’d delivered safely of a girlchild, flaxen-haired with skin of porcelain hue. With three sons of his own and now a daughter, Lord Hawley was in a mood to be forgiving. James became a part of the household again, but never for even an hour did anyone forget that he was an outsider and proof of his mother’s deceit.

  In retaliation, he’d fought with his brothers. Childhood games became a contest to see who could climb the highest tower or ride the most unruly horse. Time after time, James knew he’d led Nicholas, John, and Hugh into real danger. Once, James had run across a frozen millpond and dared Nicholas to follow. When the ice broke, Nicholas fell in and nearly drowned. The incident had earned James his first real flogging from Lord Hawley.

  But nothing daunted James. He’d grown up fast and wild, taking pleasure in women before his first beard sprouted. He gambled and drank, having no ambition in life but to take his place in his father’s court once Charles returned to the throne. Lord Hawley had given him a gentleman’s education, but he’d never offered love or even a stepfather’s concern.

  And when Charles did finally notice James, he weighed Hawley’s friendship against a long-forgotten dalliance and chose the former. He denied knowing the Lady Alice in the biblical sense and denied that James was his son.

  And with that crisp statement, James’s bright future and the ambition of the Stratfords crumbled. When Lord Hawley’s solicitor offered him a position as tutor to a squire’s sons, James fled to sea at age seventeen.

  James turned the tiller slightly. His lips thinned to a hard line. He’d meant to make his fortune and return a wealthy hero ... a man Lord Hawley would respect. A man his mother could be proud of. A man a king would not disdain to claim as a son.

  Instead, the years had stretched on. He’d held to his ambitions in the heat of battle against the Spaniards, and when he lay on a muddy beach with an empty belly and a musket ball imbedded in his shoulder. He’d kept his hopes and dreams through the slogging hell of Panama and on to the desperate hours before Newgate gallows. He had them still, battered and dirty, scarred by time and reality.

  He’d be damned if he’d give up now. Quit when so much lay within his gras
p ...

  From the corner of his eye, James caught a flash of movement. He snapped his head around and saw Lacy watching him from the forward hatch. “Lacy!” His anger at her earlier actions came rushing back. “Lacy!”

  The hatch banged shut as he secured the tiller with rope. “Lacy!” He ran forward and wrenched at the hatch with his bare hands. “Open this!” The wind distorted his voice. “Woman.” He clenched his teeth, desperately trying to control the Stuart temper.

  “I’m not coming out until ye see reason,” she shouted back through the thick oak.

  “I’m being reasonable! Come out here so I can kill you!”

  “Ye came to no harm in the hold. And I got the supplies we needed for the voyage.”

  He pounded against the wooden hatch.

  “Stop that. You’re frightening Harry.”

  “Open it!”

  “I will if ye stop shouting and give me a chance to explain.”

  James straightened up and backed away, running a hand through his tangled hair. Cold rivulets of water ran down his back. “This is as reasonable as I get,” he warned.

  “I had to go ashore alone. I thought ye’d give us away.”

  “You didn’t trust me,” he shouted.

  “How could I know ye’d not take the boat and sail for the treasure without me?”

  “Open the damned hatch!”

  He heard the raw scrape of iron against iron as Lacy drew the bolt. He seized the hatch, threw it open, and started down into the cuddy

  Abruptly he froze—staring into the muzzle of a flintlock pistol.

  “Stop there.” Lacy held the weapon inches from his head, so close he could see the gleam of brass inlay ... so close he could taste the acrid bite of black powder on his tongue.

  Fury rolled up from his gut in black waves. His fingers tightened on the hatch until his knuckles turned white. “Put it down,” he ordered.

  Her hand trembled, and for an instant he read indecision in her eyes. He grabbed her wrist and they tumbled back down into the cabin in a tangle of arms and legs. He heard a gasp as his weight knocked the wind out of her. Twisting the pistol from her fingers, he placed it carefully on the bunk, barrel pointing away from them, then settled back, his knees on either side of her waist.

  She lay sprawled on her back. In the flickering light of a whale-oil lamp he saw that her eyes were closed and her face was unnaturally pale.

  “Lacy!” An icicle of fear pierced his anger. “Lacy!” He took hold of her shoulders and shook her. “Woman. If you’re faking ...” He brought fingertips to her mouth and nose to see if she was breathing.

  Relief flooded through him as he felt the slow, regular rhythm of air. Her full lips were slightly parted and her head was tilted back, revealing a vulnerable expanse of her slender white throat.

  “Come out of it now—you didn’t fall that hard.” Maybe she was trying to trick him out of giving her the beating she royally deserved, he thought. Catching a stray auburn curl between his fingers, he yanked it.

  She remained a waxen figure, as deeply unconscious as if she had been drugged.

  Genuine concern replaced suspicion in his mind. No king’s actress ever trod the playhouse boards with so much skill. He shook her again, suddenly aware that his own breathing had become strained. If he’d done her real harm ... “Lacy!” he demanded. “Wake up.”

  Her eyelids fluttered. They opened wide, and for an instant he saw an awful emptiness there, the only stirring the yellow flame of the oil lamp reflected in her cinnamon-brown eyes.

  He cupped her face between his hands. Her skin took on a deathly hue ... white satin turning rose blush beneath a spattering of freckles.

  “Lacy.” His rasping voice echoed in the tiny cabin. “Are you all right?”

  “Get off me, you thumping lout.” It came out a whisper ... somewhat subdued but far from meek.

  “My God, woman.” He moved to one side and raised her to a sitting position, his left arm behind her for support. “You scared the hell out of me,” he admitted.

  She took a deep breath, leaning against him for long seconds, then her back stiffened and she scrambled away from him and balled her fists. “I’ll not let ye hit me.”

  He swore a foul oath. “I didn’t say I was going to hit you. I said I was going to kill you.”

  “Lay a hand on me and you’d best not sleep. I’ll murder ye where ye lay, I vow I will.”

  He stood up suddenly and banged his head on the low beams. Pain shot through his head and he saw stars. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered.

  She snickered as he rubbed his aching head. “Ye can’t stand upright in here. You’re too tall. Daddy couldn’t either, but he kept trying. Guess you and he are more alike than I thought.”

  He crouched and scowled at her. “I’ve never struck a woman in anger yet—but there can always be a first time.”

  “First and last,” she warned.

  He scanned the cuddy and his eyes focused on the flintlock pistol. She was between him and the bunk. “Don’t ever point a gun at me again unless you mean to shoot.” She replied with an unladylike curse. “I mean it, woman!” he said. “I’m captain of this boat and you’ll do what I say, when I say. Understand?”

  “I’ll not be bullied by a man on my own father’s boat. We’re partners.” She tilted her head and flashed him a mischievous grin that made his heartbeat quicken. “Ye said so yourself—and ye made a blood pact wi’ me.”

  He pointed a stern finger at her. “You nearly killed both of us when you loosed the tiller. Are you out of your mind? We came within a hair’s breadth of capsizing.”

  She pulled her breeches-clad knees up tight against her chest and chuckled ... a small, merry laugh that filled the cabin with sudden warmth. “Maybe I wanted to see what kind of saltwater sailor you were,” she quipped.

  “And if I failed? You’d have gone down with the Silkie.”

  “Aye. But what sense to try and sail five thousand miles with a man who can’t manage a slamming boom vang?” She spread her hands, palm up. “If ye didn’t know your stuff, we’d drown soon enough anyway.”

  He shook his head, exhaling slowly between clenched teeth. “Damn me, woman, but you are mad as a Bedlam wench.” She was out of her head—she made no sense at all, yet with some twisted female logic she was perfectly right.

  “Nay, I’d not have let the Silkie go down in such a niddling squall. I was just lettin’ ye see that ye needed another set of hands. What are ye whinin’ about?” She smiled at him again, and he couldn’t help noticing the beauty of her even white teeth. “Ye did it, didn’t ye?” she insisted. “Ye weren’t washed overboard, and ye did trim the sails and bring the Silkie back on course.”

  “What are you doing in that ridiculous attire?” He crouched back on his heels, leaning against the ladder. He’d been chilled to his marrow when he’d come below, but now he felt overwarm. “Surely you didn’t think to fool me.” He pulled his wet shirt off over his head and looked for a place to put it.

  “Toss it over here,” she said. Carelessly, she hung the wet garment over the rail along the bunk.

  Her nearness was tantalizing. Her blue knit cap had fallen off in the tussle, and her auburn hair was a tangle around the pale oval of her face. She’d turned away so that half of her face was in shadow, but the spitting oil lamp illuminated the outline of her straight, well-shaped nose and stubborn chin. Her full lips were moist and parted, as pink as a Caribbean sunrise.

  He felt a familiar tightness in his groin, and a flush of hot blood that ran up from his toes to scald the roots of his hair. “And ...” His tongue grew thick and awkward—he who’d never been at a loss for silver words with which to woo a comely woman. His mouth went dry. “Your dress ...” he mumbled. “It’s indecent.”

  She glanced down at the buff homespun shirt and blue wool breeches, then shrugged. “Try doin’ what ye just did—trimmin’ the sails in a blow—in skirt and stays and petticoats.”

  “Still, it�
�s not seemly. It’s the natural—”

  “Poppycock!” she scoffed. “Have ye ever seen a girl babe born into this world in petticoats? In China, I hear tell all women wear breeches and consider themselves modest as nuns.”

  “Well enough if you were a China girl, but you’re English. Civilized women—”

  “Ah, Jamie,” she scoffed. “Look around ye. This be not a London drawing room. There’s only ye and me and miles of ocean. We must make our own rules or we’ll not live to share the treasure.”

  “I don’t like it. It’s unnatural,” he protested, unable to keep his gaze off the way the homespun shirt clung to her full, high breasts. They looked rounded ... he could imagine how soft they would be to touch. Soft . . . and clean ... and white. He wondered if her nipples were rose-pink or coral-brown. The last redhead he’d tumbled had had dugs as tough and brown as leather. But she’d been old and used up, her face lined with years and her eyes as dead as glass. Lacy would be as fresh as dew. She broke into his reverie with another insult.

  “Dunderhead! Think ye we’d sail to the Canaries without passing another ship? If I wore my own skirts, I might be a danger to you.”

  You’re a danger now, he thought, as the woman scent of her filled his nostrils and made his loins swell with wanting. “Ah, Lacy,” he said hoarsely, “I thought we were partners. If we can’t trust each other—”

  “I’ll trust ye. I just wasn’t about to let ye steal the Silkie and maroon me in that fishing village.”

  “You’d not think it so amusing if it was you I’d locked in that grubby hold.”

  She tilted her head toward him, and her brown eyes grew serious. “I never meant to shoot you,” she said, “but I was afraid when you ran after me so. If I’d meant ye harm, I could have shot ye while ye were asleep.” She waved her hand toward the piles of crocks and bundles.

  He realized for the first time since he’d come into the cuddy that the canvas was down and most of the brandy casks were gone.