by Lily Silver
“Is this necessary, Captain?” Jinx rounded on him with an insolent frown as he twisted about on his haunches. “His leg is prurient with infection. He may lose it, if we get out of here, that is.”
“Yes, it is necessary,” Jack snapped, “I would know the direction of the wind and the depth of the sea we’re drowning in if I’m to get us out of here in one piece, Mr. Jenkins.”
“Aye, sir,” Jinx replied with more respect in his tone. “Beg yer pardon. I’m assessing the man, while you are assessing the situation.”
Jack grabbed the canteen lying at the foot of the bed and handed it to Jinx. “Give him more water. I need to know what we are up against.” He needed to get upstairs, and quickly. Chloe was alone with that ravenous dog. Too late, Jack had realized they’d stumbled into a trap.
Too late.
The words haunted him from long ago, when he failed to save another woman he loved.
The marquis sipped from the canteen, and seemed to recover a little. He wiped his chin with the back of his hand, and gazed up at Jack with fever bright eyes. “The British have made certain overtures to assist us in freeing ourselves from the French. All that was needed was for me to meet with their envoy to sign papers saying the Spanish guerilla troops will aid the English as they free Portugal from French occupation. We must prove ourselves in the matter by giving aid to the cause of Portugal, and then they will help us push off the French horde.”
“Blimey,” Jinx murmured. “We’re in the thick of a revolution, Jack.”
“Yes, we are fighting for independence, from the old regime of Spain as well as the French bastard who crowned himself emperor!” the Spanish grandee hissed. His fervor seemed to stir him to a new alertness. “I have been empowered by the ruling Junta of Cadiz and the Juntas of the provinces in Andalusia to sign an alliance with the English and Portuguese on behalf of the dons. A spy was to come to my home here, passing himself off as my nephew. He would be a man of Portugal, easily able to pass as Spanish to fool the French if caught. Apparently the French intelligence came to know of our meeting, and Mortier was sent to intercept the envoy and prevent us from signing an accord. They were expecting an English spy to come here, not Portuguese riders.”
“And we stepped right into the steaming horse pile,” Jinx commented. He pushed himself back from the bed and stood up. “Ain’t it just our luck, Cap’n?” He walked to the cell door and peered out at the empty hallway.
“So, I am an English spy, according to your French houseguest?” Jack clarified.
The marquis nodded. “Si, Captain. They will hang you, too, I am afraid.”
“And Chloe will be at the mercy of that French bastard.” Jack turned about and lunged at the iron bars keeping him in this six foot subterranean stone cage. He rattled them, kicked at them, and pushed his shoulder against it. The bars held against his assault.
“Easy, Captain,” Jinx cautioned beside him. “What we need is scheme, a bit of intelligence to overcome the apes in blue uniforms. Brute force won’t bring down these walls, sir. Cool heads win the day, as you always say when we’re in a tight fix.”
Jack released his fury in pent up shriek. He pounded his fists against the bars in a futile effort and turned to his first mate, his teeth clenched and his fists curled. “She is alone up there.” He felt the weight of each word deepening his sense of desperation. “Alone, at his mercy.”
“Aye, Captain. She’s a smart woman, you said so yourself. She’s–-”
Footsteps were heard echoing on the winding stone stairs. Jack moved away from the door. He pressed himself against the cool stone wall and tried to control his raging emotions. He could not lose her, not this time. He would not fail Chloe as he had failed Amelia so long ago.
“Step aside,” a terse French voice called in English. “We have come for the old man.”
Keys jangled in the lock. One soldier entered the room to remove the wounded marquis. As he was bending over the man, another soldier followed and held a gun on Jack and Jinx.
“Evenin’, Captain.” It was Lt. Morgan, dressed in a French uniform. Quick as a flash of powder, Morgan hit the French soldier in the back of the head with the butt of his rifle as the soldier was bending over the marquis. Morgan gestured to the door.
Jack lunged through the opened cell door, determined to find Chloe and get her away from the French captain. He reached for his guns, shoved them into his belt, picked up his sword and snapped it to his belt. He unsheathed his steel and turned to the stairs.
He met the amused grin of Rodrigo the Bold, the man from the forest road.
“Captain, we meet again. This time you are the captive and I am the distraction sent from God to free you from your ill humored host.”
Jack could scarcely believe what he saw. Rodrigo was wearing a French uniform, complete with a high white cap and chin strap. He had a rifle in his hand.
“Whose side are you on?” Jack asked, hefting his rifle up by the strap and over his shoulder.
“I am here to rescue the marquis. I am the Portuguese emissary sent by the British to gain his signatures on an alliance between our three nations.”
“Why were you with the highwaymen in the forest? Are they not your men?”
Rodrigo laughed and shook his head. “No, Captain. I was their prisoner. They shot my horse out from under me, stupid peasants. They could have ransomed the horse for a fortune, as the creatures are scarce here. I was supposed to lead an ambush to prove my allegiance to the thugs, or be beaten to death by their brutish leader. His wife and children were murdered by French soldiers, two little girls, as it happens. He has gone insane, and ruled his band with a hard hand. Your appearance in the forest made my escape possible. We will talk of this later. Now, one of you must don the French uniform and take the marquis upstairs. It is best to blend in until we have every last man in our control. Quickly, Captain, you are larger than your comrade. You must put on the uniform.”
“I cannot. He knows me. Best one of your men go to the captain with the marquis.” He took one step up the stairs and turned to Rodrigo. “How many are left up there? And how many are on your side?”
“There are six of their men left above. We have eight men, counting the pair of you. The padre’s men have taken down the soldiers in the stable yard but their captain is bellowing for the marquis to be brought to him in the parlor. We will bring him to the French pig, and then subdue the other guards while he has his private talk with the marquis.”
“I have to find Chloe.” She was all that mattered to him at the moment. He didn’t care either way about this wild plot.
“Your little girl?” Rodrigo asked. “I think the lady you speak of is also being taken to the parlor, for a family reunion, the Frenchman said. Take the marquis to the parlor with your man Morgan, and keep to the shadows. It is getting dark. Twilight is our ally. I have a ship hiding upriver, a small fishing sloop. If we escape tonight, we can sail past the French under cover of darkness and meet the British at the Cadiz blockade. Hurry, Captain, change into a French soldier for your lady love, and we will leave this place, all of us together.”
“Amen.” Jinx said, helping Morgan carry the marquis from the stone cell.
Chloe awakened in a strange room. It was a small room, a servant’s room in the back of the house, not a family room. She sat up on the cot. Her eyes took in the barred window. It looked out into the back courtyard and stables. The ten-foot brick wall would prevent anyone leaving the villa from the back, as would the French soldiers lingering in the courtyard.
She found a small basin of water on a stand and splashed her cheeks with cool water. Her head hurt. Her lip was swollen. It seemed she’d bitten it when that arrogant captain struck her.
Footsteps could be heard on the tiled floor outside the door. She could hear talking, male voices, probably soldiers. Her blood stilled as she realized they were unlocking her door.
The moment the door was open she tried to run through it. She ran straight into a mount
ain of flesh with arms that wrapped about her like bands of iron. “Oh no, madame, we will not have you scurrying about like a hen trying to avoid the farmer’s axe. Come, Captain Mortier has arranged for you to see your kinsmen.”
She was strong-armed down the narrow corridor behind the kitchen to the wide hallway of the family quarters. She passed the front door, a massive arched wood door with iron hinges, complete with two guards on either side of it to prevent entry or exit. Chloe glanced up the open tiled stairway with longing, hoping she would be led to a more suitable room to clean up before she was presented to her uncle. Such was not the case. She was roughly escorted by the arms into the same parlor she had been in before she was struck and had blacked out.
“Ah, here is your darling little niece, Miguel,” Captain Mortier crowed, seeming to have an odd, triumphant timbre to his voice. “Mrs. O’Donovan, I present to you the honorable Don Miguel Angel Santo Ramirez, the Marquis del Amico.” The captain gestured to a slight man with peppered black-and-white hair, closely cropped. He had a wild growth of beard. The man was filthy. He had blood on his clothing, and seemed hardly the lord of the stables, let alone a lord of Spain.
A guard stood behind him in the shadows of the gathering twilight. She could just make out a hint of blue uniform in the triangle of golden light from the window, and the barrel of a rifle in the soldier’s hand.
“My lord del Amico,” Chloe said, her voice trembling as she realized she looked just as unkempt and illused as he did. She knew her hair was askew, tumbling down her shoulders in a tangled mess and she had a terrible bruise forming on her brow. Her lip was swollen and cut. She didn’t know what to say, so she bobbed a curtsey, a wobbly and ill executed one.
“Miguel,” Mortier’s voice was light and jovial behind her. “This contemptible creature before you calls herself Mrs. O’Donovan. She claims to be your relation, but I can scarce believe her tale of being the daughter of your brother, not when her maid has given us such a detailed account of her illicit origins.”
The words chilled Chloe. Marta! Marta had told them about her life in the Indies?
How could she betray me to these wretches? I’m finished making excuses for that little snot. She’ll pay for this.
Chloe’s hands were tight fists, and her breath was quick and sparse. Her heart ached. She had come so far, so far–-and the hope of starting her life fresh in Spain where no one knew her scandalous past had fed her hopes and dreams for so many weeks. It was her reason for being, her goal. Now it was crushed.
“Ah, you see, she is angry now. Observe her reaction. She’s fairly frothing at the mouth, Miguel. And her hands are fists–fists, I tell you,” Mortier said, grabbing her wrist and lifting it into the air as evidence of his claim. “No well bred Spanish lady would react so. Her masquerade as a gentlewoman is at an end.” Mortier dropped her arm. “Shall I give you a stick, my dear, so you might beat your maid? That would make good sport, eh, Miguel?”
The fact that the captain kept calling her uncle by his first name was not lost on Chloe. It was a calculated attempt to remove any and all respect due the Spanish noble as their prisoner.
“Leave my niece alone. She is innocent of any subversive activities.” The statue in the chair finally deigned to speak. “Let her go, Mortier. You have me, that is enough.”
“I scarce can believe you would still call her kin. But you won’t, not after you have heard her true history.” Mortier continued in his game, obviously relishing crushing the life out of her dream.
It was all Chloe could do to control the urge to strike him and claw out his eyes.
“She is a bastard, Miguel. Her mother was never married to your brother.” Mortier’s voice continued with glee. “And not just an illegitimate child, but a darkie’s child. Her skin may be pale as the lilies of the field, but she is the bastard child of an African slave.”
Chloe’s breath caught in her throat. She looked down at the floor and waited for a gasp of horror from her noble kinsman. Her lip quivered, and she feared she would cry.
“Enough,” Miguel Ramirez hissed. “Stop this senseless torment.”
“Torment? Why, Miguel, I only wish to reveal the truth. Do you want to claim this wretched creature, this pale African slut with not one shred of honor to recommend her? She isn’t just a descendant of slaves. No! It goes farther—she was a slave at that plantation in the Indies!”
She heard a sharp intake of breath from the direction of the marquis. Chloe didn’t dare look at him, nor would she be able to claim him as family ever again as the list of her shortcomings continued.
“And when she was set free, what did she do? Why she married another darkie bastard—the plantation owner’s leavings, I’m told. Mr. O’Donovan was African on his mother’s side, as ill conceived as she. These two wretched creatures had a child together. Can you imagine how ugly and deformed it must have been with polluted blood on both sides? It is a mercy the babe died, or I supposed you’d be presented with that monstrosity as well as this little base born whore.”
Chloe’s heart burned at the mention of her precious, perfect baby in such crude terms. She reached up and slapped the captain’s cheek. The satisfying smack echoed across the room. “How dare you speak of my son so!”
The silence in the room was oppressive.
“You will pay for that, my dear. I promise. Now then, Miguel, I will leave you to deal with this wretched creature in privacy.” The French captain left the room, his military boots clanking along the tiles to the door. The guards at the door followed him, leaving them with only the one guard behind her uncle’s chair.
Chloe sank to the floor in a puddle of road-worn despair. She had nothing to say, no voice, no argument against the horrible truth she was trying so hard to run away from.
It was all ashes. She had suffered humiliation after humiliation during her time in the slave compound, and after she was freed her reputation as a love child lingered, and then mingled with her husband’s. She turned her back on the marquis, unable to endure the rejection that must follow these disturbing revelations. She had nothing to recommend her to him. The letters she had from the count, the countess, and Lady Greystowe were worthless in the glaring and ugly light of the truth.
Her uncle was a man of honor, a Spanish noble. He had no reason to welcome her into his family, no reason to recognize her as his brother’s child. He had many reasons to denounce her and send her away forever.
Odd thumping noises were coming from beyond the door. It sounded like shouts, and the clanging of swords. Chloe remained on the floor, dejected, unable to move. They were locked in this room, what did it matter what was happening outside the door when her world inside this room was crumbling around her.
The tears came, a mortifying flood of them. She couldn’t stop the flow. She bracketed her hands over her eyes. Her humiliation was complete. Her illegitimacy and that of her spouse were things she thought could be hidden in a foreign land. But having her uncle know her secret shame, of being a slave, forced to endure the vileness of men simply because of an accident of birth was the secret she was determined to take with her to the grave.
The noises outside their room had ceased. She heard the grating of the key in the lock, as someone from outside the door seemed to be trying to open it.
“Captain Rawlings, take care of my niece.” Her uncle’s voice cut through her with sharp precision. Footsteps sounded out her doom as the lone soldier still in the room emerged from the shadows behind her uncle’s chair.
Jack had been hiding there, listening to every vile accusation against her character.
She looked up into Jack’s grim face and wailed with fresh agony.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Jack crouched on the floor in front of her. “Come Chloe, we must away.”
“No, no …” She couldn’t stop sobbing. She’d come so far, only to be met with humiliation and rejection by her only living kin.
The door was opened abruptly. “Captain,” Mr. Jinx
called out from the hall. “The house is secure. We will light the powder as soon as the women and his lordship are safely away.”
Chloe stuffed her fist in her mouth and bit hard as fresh tears overwhelmed her.
“Give us a moment, Jinx.” Jack’s arms engulfed her, drawing her near. He hugged her. “Come, Ramirez, you heard him, we cannot tarry.” The feel of his steady shoulder beneath her aching cheek brought Chloe’s awareness back from the precipice of horror.
He was hugging her? Jack was holding her close. He was holding her, comforting her.
The stinging of her cheek where the Frenchman had hit her earlier brought her up from the hard shoulder cradling her head. She sniffled and looked up. Lt. Morgan stalked in. He was wearing a uniform, a French uniform. The front door was open. They were free to go.
“What is happening?” She asked, her voice shaky from so much weeping.
“We’re rescuing you, my sweet.” Jack’s blond head moved left, blocking her view of Mr. Jinx. “At least, we’re trying to, if you let us. We have a boat waiting nearby.”
“Yes, yes.” She sniffled, and wiped away her tears with her fingertips. “Please take me away from this wretched place. I will go back to the Indies. I will be Elizabeth’s companion and be glad of it.” The sobs came again. She lifted her hand to her mouth and tried to suppress them.
“Morgan, help Jinx with the marquis,” Jack directed. He lifted Chloe in his arms as he stood. “And find Marta. We can’t leave her behind.”
“Done, sir. She’s already safe with the padre in the wagon.” Jinx and another man carried her uncle from the room. Jack carried Chloe out the front door.
Outside, they were surrounded by village men. There was a wagon hitched to horses near the church, and Marta was sitting in it, a blanket wrapped about her bent form. The house servant who had let them in stood with the village men around the wagon. Anger flared as Chloe was handed up into the wagon to sit next to the girl who had obviously betrayed all her secrets. The terrible groaning of the marquis as he was lifted up into the bed of the wagon stole her attention from the girl she longed to murder.