Dark Before the Rising Sun

by Laurie McBain

  She had become a challenge to Dante, and that made her all the more desirable. Everything Dante had achieved in life had been fought hard for—his ship, the respect of his crew, and the successes he had known as a privateer. Nothing had come easily in life for the man who’d had to fight even for his own self-respect.

  But Lady Rhea Claire had been determined too, and the Sea Dragon had hardly dropped anchor in St. John’s Harbour when Lady Rhea Claire tried to escape. She might have succeeded too, if fate hadn’t intervened in the person of Conny Brady, the Sea Dragon’s young cabin boy. Lady Rhea Claire had befriended the orphan, and the lonely little boy had come openly to idolize the beautiful and kind lady from London who always seemed to have a special smile for him. When a search party went ashore to find their missing passenger, Conny had been among them.

  And as the captain had expected, Lady Rhea Claire, having reached port, found herself in difficulties. Dressed as she was, and having arrived aboard a smuggling vessel, she had hardly looked the part of an aristocrat. Lost and dejected, with every respectable door closed in her face, Lady Rhea Claire had fallen afoul of a group of rowdy, drunken seamen, and it had only been because of the timely interruption of Conny, and then an English naval officer, that she had escaped serious harm.

  But that other member of the crew had not fared so well. Conny had been wounded trying to protect Lady Rhea Claire from her attackers. The intervention of the naval officer had prevented any further bloodshed, and that was where fate had played yet another trick on the unsuspecting crew of the Sea Dragon; for that obliging naval officer had been none other than Captain Sir Morgan Lloyd of HMS Portcullis, the Sea Dragon’s old nemesis.

  At that time no one aboard the Sea Dragon would have believed that encounter to have been anything but unlucky, and Dante certainly thought it damned unfortunate. But he was more concerned about his unconscious cabin boy and about what Lady Rhea Claire would say and do now that freedom was within her grasp than to be worrying about what the hand of fate was about to do next.

  Lady Rhea Claire’s actions in that moment had sealed not only her own fate but also that of the Sea Dragon’s crew as well. She said nothing about being forced to sail with them, about trying to escape. She didn’t even mention her kidnapping from England. Instead, she had given her name and professed her willingness to cooperate fully in any charges to be made against the man who had stabbed young Conny. Then she had returned voluntarily to the Sea Dragon, her one concern, Conny Brady.

  Sir Morgan Lloyd must have felt more than a little foolish when, upon his return to Charles Town, he heard about the warrant for the arrest of Dante Leighton on the charge of kidnapping Lady Rhea Claire Dominick, the very same lady he had just left in Antigua with the captain and crew of the Sea Dragon. And his bewilderment must have been heightened by the contradictory statements made by two women, complete strangers, both of whom claimed to have special knowledge of Lady Rhea Claire.

  One, an acclaimed Charles Town beauty and former love of Dante Leighton’s, stated quite caustically that any claim of kidnapping as had been declared in the many handbills being circulated about the colonies was false, for she had seen, with her very own eyes, the lady in question on board the Sea Dragon, and hardly complaining. In fact, she had deceived the whole lot of them. In her opinion, Dante Leighton and the lady deserved one another. Most people agreed, but secretly talked among themselves. After all, hadn’t Helene Jordane lost her own chance to wed Dante Leighton? When she broke off their engagement, she had no idea that he was the Marquis of Jacqobi, and not just the smuggler captain she thought him to be. And whether Dante Leighton had been speaking the truth or not, what better way to mortify a woman who had callously broken off an engagement, then changed her mind, than to introduce her to the woman he now intended to wed?

  Kirby, who had witnessed the scene, could have told anyone interested enough to have asked, that it had been a bit of inspired playacting on the part of the captain, and that Lady Rhea Claire had been half-delirious with fever at the time and remembered little of what had happened. And shortly thereafter, the Sea Dragon had sailed for the Indies; the captain and crew never having learned of the handbills describing their passenger and offering a reward for information, or of the strange revelations that would soon follow.

  It had been the other woman’s story, and a deathbed statement by the captain of the London Lady, that made Helene Jordane look the fool. Thin and frightened half out of her wits, a girl called Alys had come forward and told a story of having sailed from London aboard the London Lady with Lady Rhea Claire. The two had formed a friendship. Alys’s tale of the suffering aboard that ship left little doubt that Lady Rhea Claire had indeed been kidnapped. Alys, who had been destined for indentured service, had one very important piece of evidence to corroborate her story: a locket and chain of purest gold which belonged to Lady Rhea Claire. That and the information revealed by the late captain of the London Lady had convinced the authorities to issue a warrant for the arrest of the captain of the Sea Dragon.

  And so it was left to Captain Sir Morgan Lloyd to return to the Indies to try to find the captain of the Sea Dragon and his unusual passenger. That was how the captain of HMS Portcullis had come to lend personal escort to the Sea Dragon on its homeward journey and to unwittingly give safe conduct to the ship whose hold was by then full of priceless treasure.

  And that was also how Sir Morgan Lloyd of His Majesty’s Navy had come to testify that day in London on behalf of the captain and crew of the Sea Dragon. He had been honor-bound to tell the truth, and that meant swearing on oath that he had seen the lady return to the Sea Dragon of her own free will.

  By that time, Dante had found not only the sunken treasure, but his heart’s desire as well.

  In a secluded cove, where the tide lapped gently against sun-warmed sands and the sky turned savage with scarlet and gold, a man and a woman had become as one. And as night fell, their destinies became forever interwoven.

  And that destiny, once they were back in England, was precisely why Kirby was so worried as he sat drinking ale in the taproom of Hawke’s Bell Inn.

  “Well, Kirby? You don’t think the cap’n would risk losing Lady Rhea Claire, do you? He has everything he wants. He should just let the past stay buried. The captain’s no fool, Kirby. Kirby?”

  But Kirby was staring down in amazement at the chops and boiled potatoes piled high on a platter that had been placed right beneath his nose. The aromatic steam rising from his dinner, and Alastair’s words, jolted him back to the present, and he shivered with the damp that clung to his clothes.

  “The Lady Rhea Claire?” Kirby mumbled. “No, I haven’t forgotten the lady, and that is precisely why I am worried, Mr. Marlowe. Things may be different now that the captain and Lady Rhea Claire have returned to England.”

  “No, Kirby, I don’t believe that. Haven’t you seen how different the cap’n is when he’s around her? She’s changed him, Kirby. He is gentle when he is with her. And the way he touches her, as if he is afraid she might disappear.” Alastair’s voice left little doubt that he was half in love with the lady himself.

  “Aye.” Kirby surprised Alastair by agreeing. “And like I said, that’s why I’m concerned. There just might be other folk who feel the same way about her. Like her family, for instance? And they might not care for the stories they’ll be hearin’ about the captain of the Sea Dragon. The cap’n had it all his own way when we were in the Indies, but now that we’re back in England, Lady Rhea Claire’s family may have their own ideas about what is best for her. The cap’n may not be a part of her future as far as the duke is concerned. And from what I’ve heard about the Duke of Camareigh in these past few days, our cap’n may have met his match.”

  “Lady Rhea Claire is in love with the captain. She’d never leave him, Kirby.”

  “It might just be better for everyone involved if she did,” the little steward said, not mean
ing to speak his thoughts aloud.

  “What do you mean?” Alastair asked sharply, but he looked as if he did not really want to know the answer.

  “What I’m thinkin’, lad, is that once the cap’n sets his mind to somethin’, there’s no stoppin’ him. And I wouldn’t like to see the young lady get caught up in what is bound to happen if the cap’n, nay”—Kirby paused and corrected himself—“if Lord Jacqobi returns to Merdraco. Which he will. Ye see,” he continued slowly and thoughtfully, “there might be other folk as well who haven’t forgotten the past. And them folk may be hell-bent on revenge too. Dante, though he’s been gone these many years, is still the Marquis of Jacqobi. That much hasn’t changed. And for some people that title will revive old and bitter memories. When his lordship returns to Merdraco, certain people might feel like ’twas only yesterday. Then all the old hatreds will flare up. Nothin’ quite like festerin’ resentments to start poisonin’ some people’s minds over and over again.”

  “But, Kirby, the captain doesn’t have to become involved in all that. He can—”

  “He may not have any choice in the matter,” the little steward interrupted harshly. “Reckon it might already be too late to stop what’s been set into motion. Maybe we never even had a chance. ’Twas meant to be all along.” Kirby spoke sadly, remembering another time. “Only this time Lord Jacqobi isn’t the betrayed young man who knew only how to run away. He has become a man who is more than a match for his enemy this time. And when the two meet up there’s goin’ to be hell to pay.”

  “It does not have to be that way,” Alastair repeated, but he knew their captain too well really to believe himself. “Has the captain’s struggle been for naught? If only the past could be forgotten,” he spoke wistfully.

  “Ye can’t forget, Mr. Marlowe, because the past is what ye be today. ’Tis a part of ye, lad. Besides, some things may not be as much in the past as ye might be thinkin’,” he added.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that maybe the cap’n hasn’t been idle all these years. Maybe he’s been up to somethin’, and that somethin’ might not sit too well with a certain somebody, not if he finds out. Which he will, once we get to Merdraco. Aye, then the fat will be in the fire.”

  “To be sure, I’ve never seen such glum faces,” Fitzsimmons exclaimed. “I’m beginnin’ to think ye’re not God-fearin’ men. Haven’t ye read Ecclesiastes? ‘A man hath no better thing under the sun than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry.’ Well then? We’ve got the food and the drink, so let us be merry, mates! Damned if I’m goin’ to let them two woebegone faces spoil me appetite,” he declared, helping himself to a large wedge of thick-crusted cheese.

  “Aye,” Kirby muttered as he picked up his own knife and fork, thinking the Irishman ought to be quoting Isaiah instead. Even gallows-bound men deserved a last meal, he decided, washing down a stubborn piece of pork with a hefty swig of ale.

  The little steward glanced upward, toward the location of the private room where the captain of the Sea Dragon and Lady Rhea Claire were dining, and he wondered if they, too, were suffering a lack of appetite.

  Or were they, as the young so often were, blithely unaware of what the morrow might bring while they celebrated the end of a journey, little realizing that the end was often but another beginning?

  Two

  They say best men are molded out of faults,

  And, for the most, become much more the better

  For being a little bad.

  —Shakespeare

  “Another piece of gooseberry pie, Conny?” Lady Rhea Claire smiled.

  “No thank you, m’lady. I’m fair to bustin’ me new breeches already,” Conny Brady said, muffling a belch behind his hand as he looked up sheepishly.

  “Do not forget your milk, Conny,” she reminded him a second time.

  Conny sniffed, sounding like Houston Kirby when the little steward wasn’t pleased about something. “Beggin’ your pardon, m’lady, but I don’t really take to milk. Heard tell it ain’t good for a person. Reckon a wee swallow of ale might taste good, though,” he said.

  “Indeed? Well, I shall have to tell my mother and uncle about your views.”

  “M’lady?”

  “You see, my mother swears by milk, as does my Uncle Richard. And they are both in quite good health.”

  “That be the duchess, then, m’lady? She drinks milk?” Conny asked doubtfully, then eyed the mug of milk with a less suspicious eye.

  “To please me, won’t you drink just a little?” she cajoled, a slight smile curving her lips while she watched him take a deep breath, then down the contents like any good drinking man would have done.

  “Thank you,” she murmured, thinking how much he reminded her of her younger brother Robin. The boys were of a similar age, and both had dark hair and blue eyes. Both possessed a certain mischievous quality that should have given fair warning to anyone who might have mistakenly thought either one was the angel he appeared to be.

  “Cap’n, m’lady. D’ye mind if I’m excused now? I’d kinda like to join me mates. Thought I saw Mr. Kirby comin’ up the lane not more than half an hour past. And I heard Longacres down there in the taproom when I was passin’ through. I’d kinda like to be havin’ a word with him.”

  “Very well, Conny. Off with you,” Lady Rhea Claire told him with an understanding grin, knowing that the boy could never get his fill of Longacres’s pirate lore.

  “Cap’n, sir?”

  “Run along, Mr. Brady,” his captain consented. “But go easy on the ale, Mr. Brady,” he advised.

  “Ye won’t be needin’ me anymore this evenin’, then? D’ye want I should give Mr. Kirby a message?” he asked as he stepped away from the table that was now cluttered with empty platters, a linen napkin still tied round his neck and stained with gooseberry pie.

  “No, I’ll not be needing either of you anymore this evening. And, Conny, remember that you are a wealthy young man. You need no longer ask consent of any man, nor serve him. What you do from now on is your own business,” Dante reminded the lad who had spent half his life serving aboard the Sea Dragon.

  Conny frowned slightly, the thought seemed to trouble him. Then, with a shrug of his thin shoulders, he bid them good evening. But as he opened the door to leave and join his friends below, he glanced back. There was a strange expression on his face, almost one of longing, as he gazed at the captain and Lady Rhea Claire sitting companionably in the warmth of the firelight.

  When the door had closed behind his small figure, Rhea Claire carefully folded her napkin and placed it on the table. “He seems so lonely sometimes. He enjoys being with his mates, and listening to that old pirate’s stories of buccaneers, but underneath he is a very lonely little boy, Dante,” Rhea Claire said, her face sad. Although she had been raised in a loving family, she had come to know loneliness since being kidnapped from her home, and she worried about Conny.

  It seemed as though Dante had forgotten those long days of loneliness when he had had no family. “Do not mistake him for your own brother, Rhea. Conny Brady’s been more places and seen more things than many a man old enough to be his grandfather. He has become strong, Rhea. And he now has a future most of London would envy. He’ll not want for anything. He doesn’t need your pity, my dear.”

  “But perhaps he does need love, Dante, and a family who cares about him, and not just what his money might buy,” Rhea responded quietly but firmly.

  “A family? What, pray tell, is a family? A group of loving people dedicated to one another’s happiness? Or a group of selfish people related by blood, but who couldn’t care less about one another?” His slight smile was little better than a sneer.

  “I think that is an absolutely horrid thing to say.”

  Pressing a warm kiss against her forehead, his expression apologetic, he realized he had shocked her. “I did not come from a loving f
amily. My father lived in his own little world, which excluded me. For some reason he took a dislike to his only son. No, perhaps that is rather harsh,” Dante amended. “Let us just say that he was disinterested in my welfare. And my esteemed grandfather, the old marquis, was more concerned with upholding family tradition than seeing to the wants and needs of individual family members. We were, none of us, overly devoted to one another.”

  “And your mother?” Rhea asked softly, her violet eyes shadowed.

  “My mother?” Dante repeated, as if the word were foreign to him. “She loved me so much that she preferred death to watching her son grow into manhood. Not that I had given her much hope of seeing that boy become an honorable man, or even a son that she could be proud of. Too late I discovered my true enemy, and that my mother had never been happy with…” Dante paused, then continued, his voice harsh, “Well, suffice to say that I did not make her life any the more bearable. I suppose I am partly to blame for what followed. If only I had been more a friend to her. If only she had turned to me for help,” Dante murmured more to himself than to Rhea. His eyes closed against the memories, he did not see the instinctive movement she made toward him.

  He moved the hand that Rhea would have touched comfortingly, and impatiently ran his fingers through the soft, dark chestnut curls that framed his forehead and temples. “The despair she must have known. How she must have suffered because of me. Sometimes I wonder what must have been going through her mind in that fleeting yet endless moment of darkness just before the rising of the sun. If only she had waited, given me a chance to make things up to her. But she did not.

  “We’d had an argument, just one of many in those last days. I had thought her wrong, and I had stormed out of the library, not sparing her even another glance. I heard her call my name, but I never stopped. And I never saw her again. I went off to London, and it was just a few days later that I received the news. They said it was an accident, that the path had been slippery after the rain, and she had lost her footing. Everyone knew she loved to walk the cliffs. Even with a storm coming she could be seen standing on the cliffs, gazing out to sea for hours at a time. I realize now that was her way of escaping the torment of her life. Eventually it must have come to her that there could be another, more final escape. She must have thought it her salvation when she stared down at the tide breaking against the rocks so far below. And so, at dawn, she took that last step that ended it all. She no longer had to face the morrow and what it might bring.”