by Fiona Monroe
"Elspeth, I cannot take the risk of any scandal arising. This way, you will be set sail within the month, and my marriage, God willing, may go ahead within a few weeks. If I keep you here, and try to find another suitable match for you at home—and that may not be as easy as you may think—circumstances may arise—your situation may become evidently disgraceful—"
Suddenly, Elspeth realised what he was talking about. She stopped crying in her surprise, and gave a nervous hoot of laughter. "You think I am with child?"
He stared resolutely at the floor. "I have to take into account that possibility."
"But I assure you, I promise you that is quite impossible."
"I cannot believe you, Elspeth. I cannot take the risk of believing a word you say."
She burst into tears again.
"Dry your eyes, sister, and make up your mind to be a good wife," said James, coldly. "You have brought this upon yourself."
The bedroom was sunk in red-tinged gloom, even in the middle of an afternoon that was bright for February. It was almost insufferably hot, for the fire was stoked so high that its flames roared. A single candle burned by the bedside, where a woman in an apron, whom Elspeth did not recognise, sat working at her needle. As Elspeth crept in, she put her work aside, stood up, and curtseyed.
Elspeth ignored her. But she was not at first so keen to look at the figure on the bed, whose laboured breaths filled the stifling room. She approached hesitantly, and made herself gaze down upon the sunken face, with papery skin stretched taunt across its cheekbones, and its proud hawk nose jutting high, and its mouth drooping open. A few wisps of white hair clung still to the wrinkled, brown-speckled skull.
Her father, the Most Honourable Henry Dunwoodie, thirteenth Marquess of Crieff.
She sat on the side of the bed. "Leave us," she said to the woman, whom she supposed to be a nurse.
"My lady, my instructions are to remain with his lordship until—"
"I said, go away. I wish to be alone with my father. How dare you question me."
"Very good, my lady."
She did not say it in a particularly meek way, and her parting curtsey was positively offensive. Elspeth knew she had no real power over any of the servants at Dunwoodie, which made her cross and ungracious with them. No doubt they gossiped about her in the servants' hall, no doubt her sudden return from Edinburgh was causing lively speculation. Some one of them would have noticed her lengthy conference with James, and perhaps heard the raised voices. There was indeed no reason to think that Mrs Leslie might not have written to the Dunwoodie housekeeper, Mrs Swankie, who was some sort of cousin of hers, and told her everything.
Slowly, Elspeth was beginning to admit to herself how desperately precarious her situation was.
Her father's arms were above the covers, lying limp on the counterpane. His hands were spotted with brown marks, though his fingernails were clean and neatly trimmed. Elspeth took one carefully into her own, feeling its skin as dry as it looked.
"Papa," she whispered.
The fingers curled around hers, and his head turned on the pillow towards her. After a moment, his eyes snapped open. He looked up at her with a gaze that was still clear, though the startling blue, once commanding eyes were weak and dimmed.
A thrill of some emotion that she hardly knew how to name, except that it was unpleasant, ran through Elspeth.
"Papa," she said again. "You must help me. Please, Papa. James is trying to send me away."
He responded with a squeeze of his fingers.
"Very far away, I mean, to the West Indies. Overseas, on a boat. He is trying to make me marry a man I have never met. You would not have that, would you, Papa? You would not have your little Elspeth sent far away for ever, and perhaps die in a shipwreck, or of a tropical fever? You would not have me married to a man I do not love?" Tears rose in her throat as she spoke, though she was trying to remain calm. She remembered sitting on his lap in the library, five or six years old, while he taught her the moves of chess by guiding her little hands over the board.
Again, the gentle pressure of feeble fingers.
"A word from you would stop it, all of it," she continued desperately. "James would never disobey you, sir."
Her father was trying to speak. A light was spreading over the ruin of his features, and his mouth was working.
Elspeth leaned further forward. "Please help me, Papa. Please!"
At last, her father managed to say, with tentative delight, "Margaret?" His hand wavered towards her face.
The sound of her mother's name was the death-knell of hope. Elspeth collapsed forward over her father's prone form and gave into anguished, despairing sobs.
Chapter Three
16th February 1817, Ilha de Perolas, Windward Islands
"Captain! Captain Scot—you've got to do something, quickly."
Roderick raised his head and found it had been resting on a table, and his cheek detached from the wood with a sticky slurp. It appeared that he had fallen asleep into a pool of something viscous and strong-smelling, but he could not quite remember what he and Marian the Maid had been drinking the night before.
He did, however, snap to his senses instantly. Long years of living at the knife-edge of life, always alert for opportunity and always wary of sudden danger, had made him quick as a fox. It would take a lot more than a few quarts of Old Diamond Eye's rough Rhenish to befuddle the Black Scot.
The back room of the Sunken Galleon was dark and close, its windows shuttered, but Roderick could see from the light spilling through the open door from the public bar beyond that it was full day. He had slept until dawn, then, where he had slumped.
The Bombardier was standing over him, agitated and gesticulating. "Captain, it's Stirling, you've got to do something."
"Stirling? What's happened to him?"
"Nothing's happened, not yet, but the Viper just made port. The Viper, Captain! I watched it come in—Veneno was right up there on the fo'c's'le, waving his cutlass, for all to see. Looked like they had a good haul, too."
"And where is Stirling?"
"He left here with the Queen last night, after you—fell asleep, Captain. Haven't seen him since. Reckon he's still with her."
This news shook the last of the cobwebs out of Roderick's head, and he jumped to his feet. An empty goblet rolled across the table and clattered to the floor. "By God, man, why didn't you go straight to him and warn him?"
"I don't know where he's lodging, Captain. And—I thought it was your business to see to."
Roderick pushed past his crewmate in exasperation, giving him a hefty and unnecessary shove as he careered for the door. The Bombardier probably had a name, but he was so-called because of his expertise with the cannons on board their ship, the Chieftain of the Seas. He could take any captured gun, of any manufacture and age, mend it and turn it to best account, and fire it with deadly accuracy onto the deck of another ship. He was not, however, the brightest spark in the crew in any other respect.
The heat of the early morning, wet and salty, hit him like a soaked rag across the face as soon as he was outside. Roderick had never, in all the years he had spent in the West Indies, got used to the heat. He still thought with wistful longing of cool, misty dawns, of haar rising from the loch, of frost that crunched underfoot and coated every bare twig in sparkling silver. To be cold again! Sometimes, it seemed to him that there could be no greater bliss.
The Sunken Galleon was directly above the shore, affording a clear view over the island's natural harbour. It was easy enough to spot the Viper; not only was she the only brigantine in port, dwarfing the Chieftain of the Seas, even at this early hour it was surrounded by a crowd of the curious and hopeful, watching as the crew brought the booty ashore.
Roderick could not see Captain Veneno amongst them. The unloading was being supervised by the Viper's Quartermaster, a spare but widely feared man known as Havoc Harrison. Roderick turned his back on the spectacle and climbed the steep street towards the lod
ging house where he was almost certain his First Mate was staying.
Ilha de Perolas was a small enough island, built around a single jutting hill that local legend said had once been a volcano. If it ever became active again, the island's principal resident would be in trouble. Near the summit was a fortress built into the rocks, curiously reminiscent to Roderick of the castle that dominated the capital city of his faraway homeland. Unlike that ancient edifice, which had seemed to grow from the very bones of the rock, the Casa de Perolas was faced in gleaming white stone. Even at this early hour, it dazzled in the sun.
The fortress had been built at least a century ago by whichever, presumably Portuguese conquistadors had first claimed this island, but it had long ago been appropriated as a private residence by the area's most successful buccaneer. Veneno had reigned there for as long as the Chieftain had been making safe harbour at Ilha de Perolas, and Roderick had heard tell from older hands that the man who was variously called the Snake or the Viper—and sometimes, confusingly, the Pearl King—had killed its former owner in a duel to gain possession. When he was not at sea he lived there with a tight knot of crewmates and land-lubber henchmen, and with a woman of outstanding beauty.
They called her the Queen, partly because she stood approximately in that position on their little island, and partly because her glossy black locks, creamy skin and lustrous eyes gave her the look, not of the common sea-whore she was, but of a Spanish or Portuguese princess. Her aloof regal manner, and her velvet and lace gowns and her jewels, contributed to that impression. Her true name was Miriam, although nobody knew whether she had any others to go with it. Veneno had brought her to the island like a fabulous piece of booty nearly two years before, and when he was ashore he wore her on his arm wherever he went. When the Viper was out of port, she stayed locked out of sight in Casa de Perolas. Roderick could sometimes see her strolling the battlements, a distant glittering figure, always flanked by at least two bodyguards.
Until the night before, when Roderick had received a mysterious unsigned note at his own lodgings, inviting him—in a woman's fair, cursive hand—to meet with 'a lady' in the back room of the Sunken Galleon.
Roderick had not overcome his early disadvantages to become captain of a modestly successful band of buccaneers by failing to be properly cautious. There was a generally-observed ban on fighting openly with blades on the island, but dark deeds still might happen in shady corners. He went to the rendezvous, because there was no way on the seven seas he was not going to investigate an invitation so beguiling, but he went with the full back-up of his First Mate Stirling, the Bombardier and three other of his crewmates. His plan was, if the lady proved to be inviting and no hidden assassins lurked in any corners, to dismiss his entourage and enjoy whatever the evening might bring.
The lady proved to be Queen Miriam herself, quite alone, and not best pleased to find that Roderick was not.
Roderick had not been made captain of the Chieftain on account of reckless stupidity, either. However far the neckline of the Queen's gown fell to reveal glimpses of two perfectly white, deliciously plump bosoms, however yearning her smoky eyes and twisting, pouting mouth, he was not going to plunder the Pearl King's booty. How she had escaped the notice of Veneno's guards he had no idea, but her presence in the tavern would surely not go undiscovered for long.
If he had been truly wise, he would have smuggled her back up to Casa de Perolas immediately. Instead, he contented himself with not dismissing his escort and ordering several quarts of Rhenish wine, and telling himself he would make sure she got safely home at the end of the evening. Veneno was not ashore and, of course, no-one had any idea when he would return. He might as well enjoy the company of the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, for the time it took to down a few flagons at any rate.
There were rumours that Miriam truly was a princess, or a noblewoman at least, whom Veneno had captured and then failed to ransom. After five minutes in her company, Roderick knew for sure that such tales were nonsense. He knew something about it, and she was not even a gentlewoman; not even a Mediterranean one. She had probably sprung up from the gutter somewhere, like a startlingly lovely flower sprouting above weeds and filth. She also spoke no English, and only broken Portuguese, so conversation was difficult. But while lacking in speech, she expressed herself most fluently and persistently in the ways that need no words. Before long, Roderick had found that she was on his lap, her perfect mouth seeking his, her breath hot and spiced in his ear.
There was only one honourable way out that Roderick knew, and that was to drink himself swiftly into incapacity and oblivion. But the news that she had, presumably, shifted her attentions to Stirling after he fell into a stupor was unwelcome in so many different ways.
There was still no sign of Veneno. Roderick glanced back towards the harbour, now far below, but it was impossible at this height to distinguish one man from another. Casa de Perolas loomed closer, but Roderick was heading for the lodging house not too far away where, he was fairly certain, Veneno would not know his First Mate was staying. Because why should the Pearl King care where the First Mate of a vessel as unimpressive as the Chieftain of the Seas laid his head at night?
The lodging house was under a thick canopy of overhanging palms, built up the steep slope of the hill, and its rooms opened out directly onto a terrace. Roderick was sure that Stirling's was the one at the furthermost end, which had its shutters closed. He paused to catch his breath, realising that he had taken the climb at half a sprint and that perhaps he was not as young as he had always been, then hammered on the wooden slats.
"Stirling? Are you in there, man? It's the Captain. Thig a-muigh!"
He added the last so that Stirling would be in no doubt that it was really he, and not some imposter sent by Veneno. After at least half a minute, and just as Roderick was considering barging in without further ceremony, there was a shuffling from within and his First Mate peered blearily around the shutters. "'S not morning."
Roderick shoved him aside and peered into the room. Out of the glare of the sun it was gloomy and muggy, but it reeked of French perfume and as his eyes adjusted, he saw the bedclothes move. A glorious billow of mahogany curls all over the pillow, white limbs below the blankets. Some words of an unknown tongue in a sweet low voice, and then the hair cascaded upwards and Roderick found himself locked into a smouldering gaze.
She made a tiny, impish smile as she recognised him, and held out her hand to him. "Capitão."
Roderick made her a sweeping bow, ignored the beckoning arm and turned on his First Mate. "What in the seven circles of hell are you doing, a ghlaoic? Taking the Queen to your bed? Did that strike you as a good idea?"
Stirling stared at him stupidly and rubbed the back of his neck. "Sorry, Captain. I thought you didn't want her."
"Of course I wanted her, who wouldn't want her—look at her—but she's Veneno's woman!"
Stirling shrugged. "I think she was getting lonely up there."
"Capitão," Miriam said sweetly again, catching his hand.
Despite himself, Roderick glanced around at her. She was kneeling up on the bed now, the covers pooling around her waist, and he could now see that she was entirely naked. It was quite impossible to avoid looking at her magnificent breasts; they seemed to defy gravity, great soft globes suspended high in mid-air, dark pert nipples pointing upwards.
"I think you're the one she really wants," said Stirling, in a gloomy tone.
"Listen!" Roderick shook off the soft hand. "The Viper has made port, Veneno will be looking for her and he could be here any moment—"
This got a reaction from Miriam. It was evident that she understood English enough to pick up on the word 'Viper' and the name of her lover. She became instantly near hysterical, throwing her arms around Roderick and pouring out a stream of tearful words in whatever language it was that came most readily to her. He had no idea what it was. It did not even sound European.
"Senhora," said Roderick firmly, desp
erately trying to disengage himself from her pressing, naked flesh. His body was most certainly betraying him in response. He spoke in slow and careful Portuguese. "You must go back to the Casa de Perolas. Quickly, put on your clothes and go."
She shook her head violently. "He will—find me—see me. You take me. He—" She gestured at Stirling, a quick contemptuous flip of her hand. "He no good. You take me, Capitão. Please."
"Senhora, that is for many, many reasons a very, very bad idea—" He was cut off by a hot, hard kiss.
Her hand seized the back of his head, grabbing his hair and yanking him down onto her. She was so violent that he could not have thrown her off without matching her ferocity, so for two fatal seconds he allowed himself to relax into the embrace.
"Harrrrghhhh!"
The door slammed open with a bang that rattled it on its hinges, and a roar of fury and triumph. Roderick had dropped the naked woman, whipped round and drawn his sword before he had given any course of action even a moment's thought.
Stirling too, though only half-dressed, had already seized his dagger and was pointing it at the huge man filling the doorway.
Miriam gave a little squeak of fright then retreated to the bed, pulling the blanket up over her bosom and watching with wary darts of her eyes to await the outcome.
"The Black Scot," growled the Pearl King, advancing into the room, ignoring the blades pointed at him. "I might have known. They told me down at the harbour that it was the Chieftain's First Mate who'd plundered what was mine. Found it hard to believe that my lady would open her locker for anything less than a captain, and so it proves. Even if you are captain of the scurviest bucket that ever scoured the seas. Stand down and stand to, sir!" And with a flourish, he drew his own blade.
Miriam gave another small scream, though Roderick thought there was an edge of enjoyment in it.
"Quieten your noise, woman. I'll deal with you later. Swing your blade, Captain Scot, and show me what you're made of!"
