Dark Before the Rising Sun

by Laurie McBain

  Dante resisted the temptation to awaken her, and carefully climbed from the bed. He could not resist gazing for a moment at the unadorned beauty of her body as she lay naked against the silk coverlet. She looked so ethereal, so pure and enchanting a vision, that he could scarcely believe she was the same warm-blooded woman he had held in his arms the night before. Where was the temptress who had responded to his lovemaking with such wild abandon?

  She was so entrancingly lovely. And, strangely enough, she was his. But suddenly, on a dark feeling of despair and jealousy, Dante began to wonder how he could possibly hold on to her. She said she loved him, but what of those words she had so innocently spoken last night, when she said he reminded her of a man in a portrait which had fascinated her for years?

  Fascination? Perhaps that was all that she really felt for him. What did she know of love? He knew he had taken unfair advantage her inexperience and first tentative steps into womanhood. He had tantalized and enticed her, making her vibrantly aware of emotions she had never suspected she possessed. Perhaps any other man could have elicited a similar response. So why should he think himself special, indispensable to her happiness?

  What they had shared, that all-consuming passion, had been theirs for so short a duration that he found himself questioning its chances of surviving. Had those feelings even had a chance to become love? Once back with her family and friends, would her desire for him fade? Would she wish she’d never met him once a younger and more socially acceptable man entered her life?

  And what of her family? Until he had come into her life, they had been her whole existence. He would be a stranger to them, an outsider, an intruder. Would they resent him? Would they try to turn Rhea against him? How could the brief interlude they had shared possibly withstand the influence of those deep family relationships?

  Dante resettled the coverlet across Rhea’s shoulders. “Little daffadilly,” he spoke softly. “Have I already lost you?” Jamaica, who lay curled on the foot of the bed, cocked an ear and opened an eye at the sound of his master’s voice. But when no other words followed, he stretched with lazy contentment and resumed his feline dreaming.

  Suddenly the chill of early morning touched Dante’s bare flesh. He slipped on his morning gown, tying the silk sash around his waist as he walked over to the table and the correspondence he had left there.

  Dante glanced back at the bed, at the sleeping figure snuggled deep beneath the warmth of the quilts. With a newfound purpose, he took quill in hand and addressed the envelope he had sealed the night before.

  For a long moment Dante stared down at the address he had written, the address which had become so familiar to him over the years:

  Sir Jacob Weare

  Sevenoaks House

  Westlea Abbot

  Devonshire

  Without hesitation, Dante placed the letter upright against the silver inkstand, knowing that the letter would be posted by Kirby later in the day. But even Dante, who had thoughtfully planned out every move he was making, did not fully realize how far-reaching the repercussions of that letter would be once it was in the possession of a certain gentleman in Westlea Abbot.

  Three

  A thousand ages in Thy sight

  Are like an evening gone;

  Short as the watch that ends the night

  Before the rising sun.

  —Isaac Watts

  Eight bells would have chimed the hour and the changing of the watch aboard HMS Hindrance, a revenue cutter stationed in Bristol Channel. Patrolling a wild stretch of Devonshire coastline, it had been her duty to prevent smugglers from landing their contraband cargoes; untaxed spirits, tea, tobacco, silks, and scents deprived the Crown of much-needed revenue. But the secret coves, where during dark nights gangs of well-armed men waited with nervous impatience, were far too many. The Crown had not been able to halt the inland journey of the contraband. And because the riding officers were far too few, the tubs and bales and cases ended up stashed in neighboring farmhouses, barns, and inns. Or, perhaps, even sequestered in the sacred confines of a church cellar, along with the vicar’s complimentary cask of brandy.

  But on this day, the pale light of dawn showed the King’s colors which had been hoisted before the warning shot had been fired at the smuggling lugger, now hanging in tatters. The roar of cannon fire which had followed was now silenced by the sea crashing across the splintered decks of a once proud ship, now foundering on the rocks. Most of her crew, those who had not been washed overboard and drowned, had abandoned ship.

  She had been a good ship, served by a good captain and crew. Perhaps too good, she had been betrayed. Her course had been marked out in advance by an unfriendly hand and, her fate sealed, she had valiantly faced doom on the rocks of an inhospitable shore.

  Cold and angry, the sea heaved and rolled and lifted HMS Hindrance on the foaming crest of a wave rising toward shore, only to toss her down against the rocks yet again and again. Her canvas was in shreds and her mainmast had split and disappeared into the sea.

  Against the gray, dawning light, the dark outline of the sheer cliffs could be seen climbing ever upward toward the heavens. And rising even higher atop the summit were the dark, solitary towers. From those towers the shining beacon of light had lured HMS Hindrance toward the razor-edged reefs lurking just beneath the surface of a sullen sea.

  At the base of the steep cliffs was a narrow crescent of sandy beach, a haven against the hungry grasp of the sea. And for those few desperate men who had managed to survive the sinking of their ship, it was their one hope of escaping the fierce undertow of the breakers crashing against the rocks. But the weakened and battered seamen who staggered ashore found no safe haven upon that isolated stretch of beach. Instead, they were met by the smuggling gang, armed with bludgeons and knives. The gang accomplished what the sea had not.

  And as the sun rose high above the dark towers silhouetted against the morning sky, the infamy which had left bodies half buried in the sea-swept sands or floating out on the current toward a watery grave, was exposed to the damning light of day.

  Dead men tell no tales. But if the captain of HMS Hindrance could have moved his salt-encrusted, swollen lips, or raised a bloodied finger, he would have identified his murderer. In naming the traitor, he would have told a sad tale of how a ship and crew had come to be no more.

  He would have told of the treachery and betrayal by a fellow officer of the Crown and how, suspecting there was an informant among the troop of dragoons stationed in Westlea Abbot, he had attempted to identify the traitor who had been warning the smugglers. But the fatal mistake the good captain made had been in confiding his suspicions to the wrong man. Too late, he had come to suspect the true villain.

  The captain and the man he had so mistakenly trusted, a respected gentleman and a man in a high position of authority, had confronted the officer under suspicion. That officer had broken down and confessed his treachery, then had begged for mercy. With that plea for leniency had come the promise of valuable information concerning the activities of the smugglers. That very eve they were planning to land contraband in Bishop’s Creek, he had informed them. Two flashes of light, then three, that was the signal for the all clear. After the tubs had been unloaded, they would most likely have ended up at Bishop’s Grave Inn, for Sam Lascombe and the smugglers were as thick as thieves.

  Although it was against his better judgment, the captain had been persuaded against informing his superiors of the officer’s confession, at least for the time being. The gentleman with him was, after all, the local magistrate. He had advised the utmost discretion. Tomorrow, he said, would be a far better time to send a dispatch. By dawn they would surely have arrested the leaders of the smuggling gang and have clapped the rest in irons. They would be able to report that they had put an end to this looting of the King’s coffers.

  Unsuspecting, the young captain of HMS Hindrance agreed. With
the magistrate’s assurances that he would personally see the dishonored officer locked up in Westlea Abbot gaol with none the wiser, and then see that his men were at Bishop’s Creek at the appointed hour to lend the captain all of the assistance he would need, the captain returned to his ship.

  Perhaps he should have been more suspicious of the smuggling lugger when she sailed out of the dark, almost as if she had been waiting for a rendezvous. She had cut across the Hindrance’s bow, the smugglers calling out abuses and damning his majesty King George and all who served him, as if daring the other ship to give chase.

  Thinking the game his, the captain of HMS Hindrance ordered his helmsman to steer toward the smuggling lugger. Soon she was close to overtaking the lugger.

  The captain had smelled victory in the air, along with the smell of gunpowder which still lingered from the last round of cannon fire which the Hindrance had shot across the smuggler’s bow. In the distance he had seen the flashing of lights from Bishop’s Creek; and instead of the two, followed by three, there had been four flashes of light to end the sequence. That had been his signal that the smugglers had been apprehended, and were now safely in the hands of the authorities.

  He had the smuggler at the disadvantage. He had successfully cut off her escape to windward, trapping her between the mouth of the cove and the dragoons on shore. And because of her position, the smuggler was unable to fire her guns, except for small arms, and HMS Hindrance was out of range.

  Suddenly, however, the smuggling lugger sheered off, her bow turning into the wind. The sudden change in direction caught the captain of the Hindrance off guard, for the other captain surely knew that he would fall foul of the Hindrance, but before he could give the order to change course and bring the helm alee there was a horrible splintering noise that ripped through the Hindrance’s hull, bringing her to a shuddering stillness as she struck the reefs.

  Like a prophetic sign, the sun brought out of shadow the dark towers on the bluff. Too late, the captain realized that they had not sailed into Bishop’s Creek, but had been tricked into the treacherous waters of Dragon’s Cove, a place no ship dared venture unless her captain was familiar with the one navigable channel through the reefs.

  The narrow channel cut diagonally across the reefs which began to form just within the mouth of the cove; beyond that point there was no deep water for a ship to safely sail, only razor-backed reefs and shallows, and breakers, which rolled toward the bold shore wreathed in white water and mists of sea spray.

  With his ship now at the mercy of the pitiless sea, the captain and those few seamen who could swim, or who had managed to grasp hold of a broken piece of mast, struggled ashore. And there, on the wet sands, the captain was met by the very traitor he’d thought locked up in the gaol in Westlea Abbot.

  As the captain’s glazed eyes stared heavenward, the last sight he caught was one of the dark towers of Merdraco. And out of the shadow of the tower moved a gentleman astride a horse. And in the first light of dawn, the dying captain of HMS Hindrance cursed for all eternity the face of the man he had trusted with his life.

  * * *

  A fortnight later, in a small Welsh village on the far side of the channel, a solitary figure would stand in the burial ground of a simple church of gray stone. Braving the cold west winds blowing in off the channel, he would stare down at the newly turned earth of a grave while the silvery light of a bleak morning filtered through the branches of a cedar grove planted to shield the mourners.

  He would glance up and gaze across the turbulent waters, knowing that beyond the swirling clouds hanging low against the horizon was the coast of England. With bowed head, he would stare down at his brother’s grave, his eyes watering from the winds blustering around his caped figure. Then, with a last farewell, and a promise to keep, he would walk away slowly.

  He would never forget the words chiseled on that cold, silent headstone:

  SACRED

  TO THE MEMORY OF

  BENJAMIN LLOYD

  CAPTAIN OF HMS HINDRANCE

  LOVED—HONORED—LAMENTED

  Four

  Forever, Fortune, wilt thou prove

  An unrelenting foe to love,

  And, when we meet a mutual heart,

  Come in and bid us part?

  —James Thomson

  Houston Kirby cleared his throat, hesitating before he knocked. Even though the countless bells of the City had been chiming in a cacophony of sound since first light, he hated to disturb Lady Rhea Claire. She might have slept through the din, Kirby thought with a grimace, for he was no lover of bells since his own slumber had been so rudely interrupted. But he did have to post that letter for the captain, who had left Hawke’s Bell Inn several hours earlier.

  Readjusting his plain tiewig and straightening his neatly folded stock, the little steward started to raise his hand to knock again but the door swung open and he found himself staring at the lady herself.

  “M’lady!” Kirby said, flustered by her sudden appearance and by the manner in which she was dressed. “Oh, m’lady, ye shouldn’t be lettin’ people see ye dressed that way. What will people be sayin’?” he demanded, glancing over his shoulder worriedly while trying to stretch himself a few inches taller in order to shield Lady Rhea from any prying eyes in the corridor.

  Rhea grinned, unconcerned. “They would surely comment on the fine fit, and perhaps even ask my dressmaker’s name,” she said as she smoothed her hands over the soft buckskin of her skirt.

  “Oh, m’lady, please,” Kirby said nervously, although secretly pleased, for they both knew it had been his nimble fingers that had neatly sewn together the many patches. “Ye shouldn’t be makin’ jest here in the corridor. ’Twouldn’t be good for your reputation, m’lady, for anyone to be seein’ ye. ’Twas all right aboard the Sea Dragon, but I shouldn’t care to have anybody else seein’ ye dressed in so—so,” he paused awkwardly, staring up at her as he sought the proper word.

  “In so improper a manner,” Rhea kindly supplied.

  “Beggin’ your pardon, m’lady, but indeed so.” He stiffened as they heard footsteps approaching along the corridor.

  Relenting, Rhea allowed him to enter the room, then smiled when she heard the door shutting almost on his heels.

  “Perhaps then, since you do not approve of my attire, you would be so kind as to select the gown you think I should be wearing,” she invited while pointing to the two gowns she’d spread out across the bed.

  “M’lady, I could never be disapprovin’ of ye,” Kirby quickly disabused her of that idea. “Indeed, I rather fancy ye in that, but that was when we was in the Indies,” he said, a wistful expression lightening his customary frown.

  Rhea understood. She herself had felt something akin to longing when she remembered those vivid blue skies and waters, and the balmy breezes warming her. Perhaps that was why she had suddenly felt like wearing the clothes she had worn while on board the Sea Dragon, for she knew she would never have need of them again.

  “’Twas nice, wasn’t it, Kirby?” she said softly.

  “Aye, m’lady. Reckon I wish we was still sailin’ in them waters. Strange how safe and untroubled they seem now that we’re back in England.” He sighed, then shook his head to free himself of those thoughts. Forgetting about his wig, it inched backward to perch at a precarious angle.

  “Well,” he said briskly, “’twill be a hard choice, m’lady, but I’m thinkin’ the primrose would be lookin’ mighty nice on ye. Reminds me of that Indies sunshine, something we sure don’t see much of here, what with all of the soot and fog.”

  “Then the primrose it will be, Kirby,” Rhea decided, thinking that she had forgotten how cold and gloomy England could be in autumn.

  “Ah, here ’tis,” Kirby muttered as he picked up the letter which was still propped against the inkstand. “Reckon I oughta be gettin’ this posted,” he said, his frown r
eturning as he eyed the address. “Well then, is there anythin’ I can be doin’ for ye, m’lady? If not, I’ll be off. Got to meet the cap’n,” he told her, the letter tucked safely away in his coat pocket.

  “Will you be meeting Dante on board the Sea Dragon? He said when he left this morning that he had some banking to see to, and he also wanted to inspect the ship.”

  “Aye, m’lady. We was seein’ to that earlier. The cap’n thinks she’ll be needin’ the weeds and barnacles burned off, then have to be re-tarred. He’s seein’ to the bankin’ now. Reckon he’ll be back shortly. ’Bout time for luncheon,” he guessed.

  “I see. And Conny? Have you seen him this morning?”

  “Aye, m’lady,” Kirby responded with a wide grin. “Had breakfast with me, he did. I’m wonderin’ how someone so small can be puttin’ away so much. Left me feelin’ as queasy as I did the first time I stepped aboard the Sea Dragon. And from what I was hearin’ from that puffed-up landlord, young Master Brady was puttin’ away quite a bit of gooseberry pie the night before. ’Twas all that Parkham bloke could talk about, that and puttin’ some female’s nose out of joint because of it. Reckon I’m not understandin’ these city folk much anymore,” Kirby grumbled, shaking his wig back even farther.

  “I suspect that you and Canfield, my mother’s maid, would get along famously. She dislikes city folk,” Rhea told him, thinking that the ever-proper Canfield would certainly not approve of the clothes Kirby had gone to so much trouble to make for her.

  “Would ye be wantin’ me to send up one of them servin’ girls to help ye dress, m’lady?” he inquired solicitously, his former valet’s training never far away.