“How do you know these stories?” Badger asked.
She blinked, staring off at something none of them could see. “They were in Blackbeard’s diary. I read the stories over and over to Old Tom. I just now remembered them.”
“Tell us more stories, Jessie,” Anthony said, having slipped away from his father and sidled over to her, leaning against her shoulder. “I’ll tell you more stories later, Anthony. The most important story is about Blackbeard’s treasure. Old Tom believed there was a treasure. He believed the clues to the treasure were in Blackbeard’s diaries. Old Tom let me read only parts of the two Blackbeard diaries he had, the parts with the stories, nothing else. He also showed me the two diaries that his own father, Samuel Teach, had written, but he didn’t trust me enough to let me read any of them. There was one other diary, very old it was, the paper so yellowed I was afraid to touch it. He said it was written by Blackbeard’s great-grandma, and being it was written by a woman and long before Blackbeard was born and buried his treasure, it wasn’t important. I managed to read about half of that one before that day when things happened. It was fascinating. But it doesn’t have anything to do with the treasure, though it does involve another mystery. I’ll tell you about it later. Then, well, the other happened.” She raised her chin and said clearly, “He tried to rape me. I managed to get away from him. When he brought me down from behind, I had a rock clutched in my hand. He jerked me upright, and I hit him as hard as I could on the head. It killed him. I was terrified. I got all the diaries together, wrapped them in an oilskin cloth, and buried them. As far as I know, they’re still there. I remember dreaming about him the first several years after it happened. Then the dreams just stopped until James and I married and we—”
James said, “It appears that our marital intimacy brought the dreams back to her. I don’t like it. Pleasure to be followed by that god-awful memory.”
“A treasure, Jessie?” Anthony breathed, his beautiful Wyndham blue eyes dark with excitement. “Truly, a treasure?”
“Yes, a treasure.” Jessie was aware that everyone in the room was staring at her, all but Anthony, who really hadn’t paid any attention to anything else she’d said. She just nodded slowly. “There was a third diary Blackbeard wrote that a man named Red Eye Crimson had gotten hold of. Old Tom met him in Montego Bay, in Jamaica. Red Eye had been looking for him. He told him that he had a third Blackbeard diary and if they put all three together, then they’d know where Blackbeard had buried his treasure.
“Evidently, Old Tom didn’t have any of the diaries with him, so they agreed that Red Eye Crimson would come to Ocracoke to put his diary together with Old Tom’s two diaries. Old Tom really was convinced that if they put the diaries together they’d find the treasure. That same night Old Tom’s friend Red Eye Crimson came to my father’s house in Ocracoke and tried to kidnap me because he must have seen me leave Old Tom’s shack near the beach. He must have known I killed Old Tom. He must have realized as well that I’d buried the diaries. He had to kidnap me so I’d give them to him. My dog saved me, but I struck my head and knocked myself out. When I woke up three days later, my parents told me I’d had this awful fever and nearly died. I didn’t remember any of this.”
“You don’t think Maggie was right? One knock on the head made you forget and the other brought it back?” Badger said.
“No, it was our lovemaking. I don’t want this to continue. Soon Jessie won’t want to come to bed with me.”
Anthony was tenacious. He was jumping around from foot to foot waiting for the adults to be quiet. “I’m glad you killed that awful man, Jessie, but that’s not important. What’s important is Blackbeard’s treasure. I wasn’t born yet when Papa and Mama found the other treasure, the Wyndham Legacy.”
“It would be your first treasure hunt, Anthony. I believe it exists, probably buried near Teach’s Hole. We just have to go back and dig up Blackbeard’s diaries to find out where all the booty is buried. Even then, it’s possible we won’t have enough clues because we don’t have the third diary. My papa told me that the man who tried to kidnap me—Red Eye Crimson—would be in jail until he was ninety. So I guess we’ll just have to make due with Blackbeard’s two diaries.”
Spears rose. “I did a bit of reading about this Blackbeard fellow after Dr. Raven gave us the name. I discovered that in 1811 a Boston theater presented The Nautical Spectacle, Blackbeard the Pirate. It was all nonsense, of course. I couldn’t discover many believable accounts of him, other than that the English believed he was a Scot and everyone else believed he was an Englishman. We all agree with Jessie. This fellow, Old Tom, he was a bounder and a wicked sinner, but he did have the diaries. Jessie saw them.
“Now we know exactly what to do. We have all discussed it and decided that since the Duchess has wanted to travel for a very long time now, this is the perfect opportunity. We will journey to this Ocracoke place and find Blackbeard’s treasure.”
Maggie said, “That’s right. We haven’t found a treasure in over seven years. It’s time to stretch our brains and find another one. I believe I would like a ruby necklace this time. What do you think, Mr. Sampson?”
“You would look delicious, dearest.”
“I could prepare native recipes,” Badger said. “I understand, Jessie, that your cooks who live near water prepare what’s called a conch chowder that is cooked with potatoes and carrots. A simple dish but one that could possibly tease the palate if prepared properly. I will prepare it when we reach Ocracoke.”
“Oh, Marcus,” the Duchess said, sitting forward in her chair, Charles’s shirt momentarily forgotten on her lap, “ another treasure hunt and Badger’s conch chowder. Is that some sort of fish, Badger?”
“It is a spiral shell, Duchess, and the sea-mollusk meat inside is what one cuts up and cooks in a chowder.”
“I have several conch shells,” Jessie said to Anthony. “You can use them like a horn for calling.”
The Duchess said, “We would travel to America. We would visit James’s Marathon. We would meet Jessie’s parents. Oh dear, we would see James’s mother.”
“Sorry, Duchess, but she is unavoidable.”
“Rather like the plague,” Marcus said. He rose and began to pace. He said finally to his wife, “This isn’t something that happens in the course of three days, Duchess. We would be gone for three months, at the very least. It could be dangerous. Ocean travel is always uncertain. What would we do with the boys?”
“We will ensure that the boys are always safe,” Spears said. “The boys must accompany us.”
Anthony whooped and ran around the drawing room shouting with glee.
“Master Anthony,” Spears said very quietly, “adult ears are too sensitive to be thus abused.”
Anthony quickly walked to where his father stood beside the fireplace and planted himself beside him, not moving just as his father wasn’t moving either. Marcus began to pace. Anthony fell into place behind him, matching his steps as well as he could to his father’s.
The Duchess said, “You saw Alec Carrick just last week, Marcus. We could travel to Baltimore on one of his ships.” She added briefly to Jessie, “He’s Baron Carrick. He married a shipbuilder’s daughter from Baltimore just three years ago. Alec had a daughter by his first marriage, Hallie, and now he and Genny have a son, Dev James. Perhaps you knew the Paxtons?”
“Certainly. I remember hearing that Genny Paxton was trying to run her father’s shipyard. Now that I think back, there was an Englishman in the picture as well.”
“That was Alec. They spend more time in England than in America, but they visit at least twice a year. Genny is a very capable woman. Rather than writing vulgar ditties like my wife and abusing my adult ears, Genny knows how to build ships.”
The Duchess just smiled sweetly at him. “A treasure hunt, Marcus.”
“I haven’t seen such a sweet smile since I gave you that very special birthday present last year. Do you remember?”
The Duchess neve
r changed expressions, though perhaps her smile softened a bit. “I remember everything, Marcus. Don’t ever doubt it.”
The earl looked around at all the expectant faces. He looked down at his son’s upturned face. He recognized the excitement in everyone’s eyes. He felt it twitching and quivering inside him.
He said slowly, picking Anthony up in his arms, “ Perhaps we should think about this for another year or so. What do you think, Anthony?”
“Papa! No, please, you wouldn’t!”
He began laughing and squeezed his son tightly against his chest. “All right. If we leave next week, will that be soon enough for you?”
“That’s what I prayed to hear,” James said. “You’ll all be in this with us. I want to find that treasure as much as you do, but more importantly, I want Jessie to go back to Ocracoke and try to demolish all memories of Mr. Tom. I want her to see that old shack on the beach, look at it good, and remember every detail so that she can forget it and we can get on with things. I wish Maggie were right, that Jessie’s latest knock on the head brought the memories back, but it didn’t, more’s the pity. I should be able to protect her from more blows to the head, but dreams, nightmares, tattered memories that haunt her, that’s beyond me. I want her dreams to be of me, not of that demon from the past. I want Jessie and I to be able to make—” He looked at Anthony. “Well, you know what I mean.”
“Indeed we do,” Marcus said. “That would be damnable. Don’t you agree, Duchess?”
“Pleasure and then pain? Most damnable.”
“Although,” Marcus said, with that glint in his eyes, “some people are very fond of that concept and—”
“Don’t continue, Marcus.”
The earl looked at his son, who was all ears, and sighed. “One must be perfect for the little heathens.”
26
Copenhagen was the Duke of Wellington’s charger at the Battle of Waterloo.
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
EARLY SEPTEMBER
Marathon Farm
“I’M SORRY, JESSIE. If I’d known, I would have done something—what, I’m not sure, but something. Damnation, is she some sort of witch? No, don’t answer that.”
“How could she be here?”
James had no time to answer. All of them were tired, Charles was fussing and hiccuping through his tears, and Anthony was whining that he was hungry. Spears took his hand and said, “You will be as brave and stoic as your mama and papa, Master Anthony. All of us are hungry. All of us are tired. If you whine, we will all think you are a little boy. We will think of you as no older than Master Charles.”
“I am not Charles, but I am a little boy.”
Spears said to the Duchess, “Most of the time it works.”
“Ah, Thomas, you’ve gotten here before my mother has come out. Well, just barely. Hello, Mother. May I ask what you are doing here?”
Mrs. Wilhelmina Wyndham gave her son only a cursory glance. It was the Duchess she was staring at, the glint in her eye malevolent. “You,” she said. “I haven’t seen you for seven years, not nearly a long enough number of years. You brought your entire household to protect you? I must say, missie, you will need them. How dare you come to America? To Baltimore? To my poor son’s house? And you brought this girl back with you. How I prayed she would disappear and never show her miserable ruined face again, but she’s here. Ah, you’ve got two children. You don’t deserve them. Poor James lost his wife and his child. Why did he bring all of you here? You don’t belong here, and I insist that all of you leave at once.”
“Mother,” James said very quietly, “that is quite enough. We’re all very tired. We’ve been aboard ship for six and a half weeks. It took more hours than expected to get to the Inner Basin. Why are you here?”
“I knew you were coming,” Mrs. Wyndham said in a dramatic voice, flinging out her arms. “I knew and thus I came because I knew you would need me, my son. And you obviously do need me. I will remove all these English blighters who don’t belong here in America.”
“Mother,” James said again, this time taking her arm in a strong grasp. “I want you to leave now. I will come to see you tomorrow. Thomas, please see my mother to her carriage.”
“But, dearest—”
“I will call tomorrow, Mother.”
She gave the Duchess a last malevolent look, shot Marcus a coy look, and ignored Jessie. She followed Thomas from the house.
“Oh dear,” the Duchess said. “This was quite a welcome. She was right. Seven years between visits isn’t nearly long enough.”
“It will improve now, I promise,” James said. “Jessie, you’re exhausted, you look a bit green around the edges, and I don’t think there’s a handy chamber pot downstairs.”
“It’s all your fault, James.”
“I know,” he said, patting her cheek. “Badger promises me that you’ll get fat and waddle, but you’re still so thin. You want a chamber pot now, don’t you?”
“Please hurry,” Jessie said, and took short, shallow breaths just as the Duchess had taught her.
“Hold on, Jessie. You’ve done very well today. All this nausea won’t last that much longer. Here’s Thomas with the chamber pot. Excellent.”
It didn’t even seem odd to Jessie to vomit in front of everyone, she was so used to it. Being in close quarters on a barkentine for more than six weeks lessened one’s privacy, and she’d been sicker than a person deserved that last week of the voyage. James wiped her face with a nice cold, wet cloth. Badger handed her a glass of water.
James helped her to her feet and hugged her tight. Then he laughed. “I’ll never forget how you were certain you were dying, lying there on that coiled rope on deck, moaning and looking pathetic. You look nearly well again. Even your streamers are beginning to perk up once more. Ah, here’s Thomas to help us all arrange ourselves.”
“Men should be shot,” Jessie said.
Spears immediately stepped forward and extended his hand to the tall black man. “I am Mr. Spears. You are Mr. Thomas?”
“Well, Mr. Spears,” Thomas said slowly, wondering if the earth had suddenly turned faulty, “I suppose I’m Mr. Thackery.” Then he smiled—a wide, quite nice smile, showing lots of even white teeth. Maggie winked at him.
At ten o’clock that night, all the servants and the families had been fed and given beds. But there weren’t enough bed-chambers. For the first time since he’d bought Marathon, James was truly aware at how derelict his house was. There were patches of mold on the wallpaper, dark corners with mouse holes in them, poorly furnished rooms, and all he could do was apologize, which he did in each room they entered. Finally, the Duchess had said, “Enough, James. Candlethorpe gave me little challenge. Between us, Jessie and I will make Marathon the most impressive house in the area.”
He believed her until he glanced at his wife, who looked ready to drop where she stood. She was staring owl-eyed at him. “James, will I sleep with you in your bedchamber? The bed’s big enough, isn’t it?”
“There’s no place else for you. Let’s get you to bed. Yes, it will hold the two of us.”
“I guess I might as well, since you’ve already done your worst to me.”
She’d never before seen James’s bedchamber, and she found it to be as dismal as the rest of the house. The wallpaper was old and peeling near the windows where the damp had gotten in and was painted a mangy brown color. There was only a big bed with a scarred maple headboard and an armoire just as ancient as the bed, its doors as scarred as the headboard. There was one stingy braided rug of varying shades of brown in the middle of the floor. But she was too tired to care. She stood passively while James unfastened the buttons on her gown. When she was standing in front of him only in her shift and stockings, he said, “Let me get you a nightgown.” Then he paused, his eyes dilating. “No, perhaps you’d best learn to sleep naked with me again. You won’t always be feeling like a green peach that someone’s bitten into. Spears says not more than a couple of more weeks, hopefully
.” He didn’t add that Caroline Nightingale, an excellent friend of the English Wyndhams, had been ill for nearly five months with her second child. No, Jessie didn’t need to know that.
“I always wear a nightgown, James. I thought you enjoyed jerking them over my head and tossing them across the bedchamber.”
“Very well, just for tonight. All right? In America, I seem to lose all these little modesty rules.” He rifled through her clothes in the open valise on the floor, tossed her a clean nightgown, stripped himself, and climbed into bed. “Hurry, Jessie. I’m cold and I need you to warm me up.”
Actually it was quite warm, being the beginning of September. Thank God it hadn’t rained during their trip from the Pratt Street docks to Marathon. A long hot trip, but it hadn’t rained.
“The children are sleeping with Marcus and the Duchess. Damnation, I just didn’t remember how very old and ratty everything was.”
“It’s all right,” Jessie said as she climbed into bed beside him. “Just wait until they see the stables and your workers’ houses. Then they’ll understand where you spent all your money.”
“Are you really tired, Jessie?”
She was snuggled against his side, her palm over his heart. “No, not really tired.” Actually she was so exhausted she wanted to close her eyes and never open them again during this current week. No sooner were the words out of her mouth, no sooner had he assimilated them and begun to turn to face her, already harder than he’d imagined possible in such a short time, than he felt her kissing his shoulder. “No,” she whispered, licking his warm flesh, “I’m not tired at all.”
“Our first time in America,” he said some time later when he could speak again. He kissed her again and again until he knew she was falling asleep. “That was quite nice. I wonder if Marcus heard you yelling. If he did, I’ll hear about it tomorrow. Sleep well, Jessie.”
The Valentine Legacy Page 27
