by Edith Layton
He’d called her a lady. She looked at him with sudden rising joy. Then she calmed herself, clasped her hands, and said with as much calm confidence as she could pretend, “No. You were right. If you’ve something to say, Jack, I think it ought to be said in front of my friends.”
Black Jack gave her a glittering look. “Aye, then,” he said on a shrug, “if the fine lady and gentleman don’t mind me cluttering up their parlor?”
“Oh no,” Sophia breathed as Martin said, “Of course not.”
“Aye, then, I’ll tell you all,” Black Jack said, “since there’s nothing in it I’m shamed to have anyone hear.”
But the whole encounter had already made Cristabel feel ashamed. She could only nod her agreement, raise her head, go with them into the parlor, and wait for Black Jack to have his say—and for them all to see her shameful past put on display.
*
Sophia was stunned. It was as good as a night at the theater. Cristabel was a pirate’s daughter, and she sometimes spoke like one. But this man actually was a pirate, there was no doubting it, and he was in her house as her guest. If he’d been any other man wearing outmoded clothing and speaking in such harsh, uneducated accents, Sophia would have sneered. But he was so exciting, so teakwood-tanned and virile, he didn’t look foolish or quaint, even in what looked like his grandfather’s clothes. His golden jewelry looked as barbaric as his wicked smile. She gave a delicious shiver. It was terribly dangerous and yet perfectly safe. Her husband and his powerful brother stood between her and any danger. And though it was a little disappointing, in a comforting way, of course, it was obvious the pirate had eyes for no one but Cristabel.
Cristabel sat in gloom. She knew she was entertaining a figure from the past, too, and she didn’t like it. Because it was her past.
“I don’t think the capt’n knows yet,” Black Jack was saying now. “Takes three weeks to cross the sea, and don’t I know it, even if they set out the minute they found out and had a high wind behind and no rain afore them. So ’twill be a while yet. But I’d give a hogshead of rum to see his face when he does!”
“There’s nothing he can do,” Cristabel snapped, “however he feels.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Black Jack said. “We’re talking Capt’n Whiskey here.”
“Aye. But Captain Whiskey’s there,” Cristabel countered. “There’s a price on his head here. He won’t risk his neck for a mere daughter. Not when he’s got a new woman with the promise of sons in her.”
She looked at Black Jack in triumph, but then her heart sank, remembering who else was in the room. Magnus may have appreciated her looks. He might admire her spirit. She’d sometimes thought she’d glimpsed other longings in those usually unfathomable eyes. But surely he wouldn’t want anything from Captain Whiskey’s daughter. Why did life have to keep reminding him of her lowliness? She wondered sadly. Truth was part of life, she concluded, and she was the only one who kept trying to deny it.
“Well, there’s that,” Black Jack admitted. “She’s a planter’s widow, and there’s rumors he wants to give up the sea for sugarcane and rum.”
“Planter’s widow?” Cristabel scoffed. “Never. Carmen’s a waterfront whore, and everyone knows it.”
“Aye. That be Carmen. But the word is, it ain’t her—’tis a rich planter’s widow he’s going to make it legal with. Off island, and a grand plantation, they say it is too. A little thing, she is—a churchgoing lass, but full of scrap. Widowed once and tiptoeing into her thirties. But she don’t want to go there alone. She’s set her heart on the captain, God help her. They say she’s determined to lead him to church and keep him there after the ceremony. ’Tis not a new leaf—’tis a new life he’s after pursuing. And who can blame him? He’s ancient for a pirate, and wise enough to know it.”
“I see,” Cristabel said. The truth hurt. “Well then, it makes perfect sense now, doesn’t it?” she shot back at him. “How convenient it would be for you to step into his boots with his daughter at your side, so as to keep the lads happy and thinking nothing’s changed at all.”
“You know that don’t matter,” Black Jack said calmly. “How long have you been gone, Cristabel? You can’t hand down a pirate ship and crew like a king passes on his crown. No, when your father steps down, there’ll be blood and battle, and when the smoke clears, it’ll be me who has the title ‘Captain.’ And who’s at me side don’t make no difference.
“Look you,” he said, leaning forward and staring at her. “One, your father ain’t gone yet. Two, I want you no matter who he is. And three, you know that’s how it’ll be and there’s no sense running, or playing the grand lady. You ain’t no lady, and all here know it. You’re just fooling yourself and giving them a laugh. But it doesn’t matter to me. Nor will Captain Whiskey care no more. He tried to marry you high, and botched it. He’ll be glad for you to take me. And so will you. Come home with me now, lass, and that be the end of it.”
Before she could answer, Magnus did.
“No one here is laughing,” he said in a voice Cristabel had never heard from him—all the rich humor was gone from it. “Nor will anyone else. Society is like a pirate ship in some ways too: No one will care who boards it so long as she’s in the right company. And Cristabel is,” he went on in that same deadly cold voice. “Don’t doubt it.
“Now, as to her plans? I thought she wanted to make England her home; it’s half her heritage, after all. I thought she chose to stay here and get London accustomed to her before she made any further decision to move on. Was I wrong, Cristabel?” he asked, his voice gentling, but his eyes still hard on Black Jack.
“No, you were not,” she said. “That’s what I thought to do…after you convinced me to do it,” she told him with a broken laugh. Then she turned serious eyes on the pirate. “I don’t want to go back, Black Jack,” she told him. “Not ever. If you think it be a joke that a half a lady tries so hard to be a whole one, why then, I tell you it’s just as cruel a joke for me to try to be all pirate too. I never felt right at home, Jack. Never. I don’t fit in here either, but at least here I think I can live out my life quietly and happily.
“You are a good man,” she told the pirate before he could answer, “for all you are a pirate. I never heard of you taking pleasure in killing or torture. Nor were you one to force a woman—I know, I know, you always said you didn’t have to, but I know it’s a point of honor with you too. You do have honor, in your own way. But otherwise you follow the Code, even though it’s a harsh one.”
She sighed, “Were I to ever love a bold pirate lad, I suspect ’twould be you. But I can’t. I can never be with you—can you not see that? Don’t ask me no more, ’cause it pains me to naysay ye, Jack, ’cause you were always fair with me, and kind, in yer way.”
She turned her head away, but not before the others saw tears escaping and running down her cheeks. Magnus handed her his sail-sized handkerchief a second before Black Jack produced his bright bandanna.
“I didn’t come to England to make ye cry,” Black Jack said gruffly, “so leave off. I’m willing to wait and see. As for now,” he said, rising from his chair, “I think I’ll have meself a look at London town afore I leave it. I’d best be leaving here just now anyway. It never pays for a fellow in my profession to light too long in any strange spot, not knowing the tides hereabouts and all. We be like gulls in that.” He grinned at Martin. “I come by night, but it’s never dark enough to suit me, for I don’t know which of your fine neighbors might think I’d look prettier on the end of a rope than in your parlor. So you take care, Cristabel,” he said, touching her cheek with one long finger, “and I’ll see you here and there.”
She looked up quickly. “You’ll not leave England without saying good-bye?”
Magnus frowned as Black Jack’s grin grew wider.
“Not me, lass,” Black Jack assured her, “and I’m not so sure I’ll ever have to neither.”
“I meant,” Cristabel said with a sniff, “that you be
a friend, and although I’m not casting in my lot with you, I care what happens to you.”
“I know just what you meant, lass,” Black Jack said happily.
But he said it in such a way as to make everyone in the room wonder long after he left them.
*
In her brief life, she had faced down the fiercest pirates in the Caribbean, drawn steel against double-died villains who’d lusted for her, sailed halfway across the world on a strange ship with a strange man, and landed to find herself a stranger in a strange new world. She’d done all of this bravely, head held high. She had even dared defy her self-appointed protector: Magnus, Viscount Snow. But Cristabel found herself afraid to descend a staircase now, for there was nothing she feared more on earth than mockery.
She ran her hands over her gown once more. Made of apricot silk, with a tiny pattern of roses, it had a low, square neckline graciously ornamented with old lace, a tight bodice, and the full skirt looked fuller because of the hoop she wore beneath it. She wore her mother’s single pearl set in gold around her neck. That part of her attire would pass, she supposed. But her hand strayed to her hair again, and she gave it a tentative pat. It felt so odd, she knew it couldn’t look right. But Sophia and her maid had insisted. She wore her hair powdered tonight, like a lady. And felt like a clown instead.
It was such a hearty application of powder, she thought she’d sneeze her eyes out as it was put on. But when they removed the nosecone that was used to shield her face, she stared and stared into the looking glass. There was a mass of white curls high on her head, with long ringlets resting on her shoulders in back. It made her skin look dazzling; her eyes glowed like firestones. She looked nothing like herself. But she did want to be a lady, after all. She was afraid and vulnerable as Captain Whiskey’s daughter would never be.
She went downstairs with a prayer that no one would laugh in her face.
And forgot all her worries when she saw Magnus standing at the foot of the stair, looking up at her. She almost forgot to take her next breath too.
He wore a dark topaz silk coat, with lace at his broad chest and his sleeves, a long vest of ornate design, and dark silk breeches. The white of his powdered hair made his skin glow gold and set off his long, gray eyes. But all she saw were those fine eyes as he studied her.
They stood and stared at each other, neither seeming to realize it until they heard Sophia’s voice coming near. Then Magnus bowed and said, his deep voice fogged and low, “You look beyond lovely tonight, Cristabel.”
“But—my hair,” she murmured, touching it again.
“Lovely,” he repeated, and then added in a lighter tone, “for a change, mind. Beautiful as it looks, I like fire more than ice. I find I miss the bright sunrise in your own hair. For tonight, though, it’s perfection.”
Cristabel reached the bottom of the stair and gave him a tremulous smile.
“’Od’s mercy!” Sophia said as she left the parlor and came into the hall. “Stop fussing with your hair, Cristabel. You’ll have all the powder on the floor before you know it and ruin Annie’s work. I still don’t see why we can’t go to the theater first,” she complained, resuming her argument with Martin. “The play’s been on for a week and is sure to change by tomorrow. Everyone says it’s so diverting. Can’t we go there first?”
Magnus turned his usual calm face to her. “You may,” he said. “Martin too. But I won’t go to the theater with you again, Sophia. It never is diverting enough to make you stay past the first act. Martin may not mind leaving without seeing the conclusion, but I do. And don’t say you’ll stay for my sake. If you do, it will be with so much sighing, squirming to see what the audience is doing, and gossiping, that I’ll probably strangle you before the second act. I don’t know how Martin puts up with it.”
“Well, at least it’s cheaper that way,” Martin laughed. “Since you don’t have to pay unless you stay for the second act, I get to see every play in London and not pay a penny piece to do it.”
“And money means that much to you?” Magnus asked cynically.
“No,” Martin answered, “but Sophia does.”
Sophia looked at him in as much astonishment as his brother did. Then Magnus nodded, a small smile on his lips.
“Touché! Well done, brother,” Magnus said in pleased surprise. “Now then, shall we go? If you two want to go to the theater, we’ll meet you at the Porters’ house later.”
“Oh, nonsense,” Sophia said, with flustered pleasure, “as if we’d desert you now. Although I don’t know why Cristabel is worried. It’s only a small assembly, only some two hundred or so guests stuffed into the Porters’ house. It’s not like it was a grand assembly, or even a masked ball.”
“But it’s Cristabel’s first appearance in London at night,” Magnus said, “and it’s important to her.”
“We really don’t have to go,” Cristabel said, as she’d been saying since they’d told her about the outing.
“I thought you wanted to learn everything about your new country,” Magnus said.
She did, but she didn’t want everyone watching her. He understood this and knew she would never admit to fear. Smiling, he held out her cape.
The ladies’ gowns were too wide to ride comfortably together in a coach, and so sedan chairs were called for. Each lady was carried in a sedan chair with one bearer at the poles in front, another in back, and her gentleman walking beside it. A torch boy ran ahead of each chair and two footmen trotted behind, but each gentleman walked with his hand on his sword’s hilt and his eyes on the darkness beyond the jouncing flares of torchlight. This was London at night, after all.
The lights were blazing from the windows and opened door of their host’s home. When it was their turn to enter, the sedan chairs were carried right into the hall of the crowded house and each lady stepped out directly into the throng. As Magnus paid the bearers, Sophia immediately found a friend to exclaim over. Martin was hailed by his friends. And Cristabel stood and stared around herself.
Magnus turned from the sedan men and looked down at her with such a look of tender pride that all eyes went to the lovely girl. Cristabel wondered what she had ever worried about.
She could see a room for dancing beyond the one she stood in, but although music played and the musicians sawed away at their strings, there wasn’t even a pretense of dancing going on in there. There was no room for more than swaying. In fact, there were so many people pressed into the house, she could scarcely tell one from another. It was all a welter of fine fabrics and white wigs, wide skirts on the men’s coats and women’s gowns, powdered ringlets and glittering jewelry. Above all rose the surging sound and smell of two hundred people who had come in from a cold night to be crammed into an overheated house that should only hold one hundred. Cristabel could have come in rags, or tags, or a velvet gown, she thought on a rising giggle—no one would have noticed or cared.
She was wrong. Just as a miser knows to the fivepence exactly how much money he’s amassed, the rich and influential people of London knew just who belonged in their gilded circle. Every one of them wondered about the strange and beautiful young woman standing at the Viscount Snow’s side—the girl he was looking down at with such a look of fierce and gentle interest.
“Mistress Stew, from the Indies, father in shipping,” was the whisper that soon went round with such energy, it nearly caused a draft in the overheated rooms. Rich and beautiful as she was mysterious—and likely to remain so, at least with Snow to stand as her cavalier. Even the worst rakes and fortune hunters didn’t dare risk his displeasure. Not that he blocked them. He introduced her here and there with an easy smile and a calm voice. But his possession was clear to see in his stance and in the back of his knowing eyes. “Well, the big man’s caught at last,” was the next whisper, and they turned with a sigh to see what other gossip they could discover this night.
Magnus led Cristabel into the crowd. She was introduced to so many people, she gave up trying to remember them. She smile
d and nodded and didn’t get a chance to say a coherent thing to anyone for an hour. By then, some of the guests were beginning to leave.
“Sophia will stay until there’s no one left to see or talk about,” Magnus told Cristabel as he saw her look longingly at the doors when she felt a cool breeze as they closed behind a departing couple, “but we’ll leave whenever you want to.”
“Do you want to stay?” she asked.
“’Od’s life!” he said with a huge smile. “I didn’t want to come in the first place. I was for going first to a French restaurant that just opened in the Strand, and then to a small gathering at another friend’s house. But Sophia said we should take you to the finest private party in London tonight. She said she was going anyway, and then added that you might take it amiss if I didn’t take you along too. She said you might think I was trying to hide you if I didn’t.”
Cristabel put her head to one side as she thought about it, “Aye. I might have,” she admitted, “but now that you have, I wish you’d taken me to the restaurant and your friend’s house instead. Can we leave soon? It’s worse than a pirate’s picnic here, I think.”
He threw back his head and laughed. “Stay right here, Mistress Stew,” he told her. “I’ll be back in a moment. I’ll say good night to Martin and get a sedan chair for you.”
He left her standing in a niche between the ballroom and the hallway, and then disappeared into the crowd. She waited, nodding and smiling automatically as people swam past her. And so she didn’t really see who she was looking at until the man stopped in front of her, put his hands on his hips, and gave her a wide, gleaming smile. His handsome, dark, clean-shaven face was enhanced by his snowy white wig. He wore a fashionable scarlet silk long coat with oceans of ecru lace at its heart and sleeves. His shoes were buckled with silver, his vest laced with gold. As that smile slowly grew wider and wider, she began to recognize it and realize this fine gentleman wasn’t one of the gallants Magnus had introduced her to.
