RAILE HAD LITTLE to say to her for a while after the stocking incident. He was usually out on deck attending to his captain’s duties. When he was in the cabin, he was either sleeping or bending over his charts. Lorraine was certain it was because of the stockings, but she was afraid to bring up the subject. Silently she cursed herself for her folly.
The ship’s doctor of course had no such qualms—and would have made light of Lorraine’s if she had voiced them.
She had become very self-conscious about the stockings. Every time her knees brushed together and she felt the slight rasp of silk, she was reminded of what André L’Estraille had said about the legs they encased being his. The words had been spoken in jest, of course—still, they tallied too well with Raile’s angry “Don’t you know that damned Frenchman believes he has bought you?”
Certainly from that moment, André’s all-too-obvious courtship had stepped up its tempo. She had but to look around to find the gaudily dressed ship’s doctor at her elbow. His impressive fawn periwig seemed always to be brushing her shoulder as he danced along at her side. She told herself all this attention was because she was the only woman on board the vessel, and such men as André L’Estraille must always needs be pursuing a woman.
She was more preoccupied with keeping clear of Derry Cork, whose practical-joker nature she mistrusted. But Derry was on his best behavior these days and although sometimes his eyes lit up roguishly when she passed, he had not made her the butt of any more of his pranks.
The days passed sunnily—save for one thing: she still had the feeling of being watched. Not in her cabin—never there, but on deck often. Too often.
Not even André’s merry raillery completely freed Lorraine from that feeling of having somewhere a watcher in the shadows. . . .
Came a day when her invisible pursuer seemed closer than ever. Closing in, was the thought that came to mind—chillingly. It was a steamy hot day with little wind. Even André, that paragon of fashion, had shed his coat in deference to the sticky heat, which was making him irritable. On deck beside her now, he mopped his brow.
“Devilish hot, isn’t it, mademoiselle? I always think we must be getting close to hell on such a day.” He launched into one of his many stories, this one about a hot night on the Left Bank of the Seine.
Lorraine was scarcely listening. The men were clambering about the rigging, orders were being shouted, for the sails had been drooping from lack of wind and at last a little breeze had come up—they must take advantage of it.
André talked on unheard. The skin on the back of Lorraine’s neck prickled. Even before André had come up to her, she had had that feeling, now stronger than ever, of being watched.
Certainly André was not the watcher. André was beside her.
She cast a quick furtive look up into the shrouds, searching for that mysterious unseen face that always seemed to be there, probing eyes that seemed to seek her out and follow her about whenever she came on deck. But although her wandering gaze raked the sails back and forth, she saw only the sailors intent on their work. She did not see . . . him.
Still she knew he was there.
Watching her.
She dropped her gaze, frowning down at the deck. He was hereabouts somewhere, she knew that—even if she couldn’t see him.
“Mademoiselle Lorraine, you are not attending!” André’s voice, sounding vexed.
Lorraine started.
“What . . . what was it you said, André?” She was apologetic. “I must have missed it. Something about Paris, wasn’t it?”
“Mon Dieu!" he exploded, wiping his perspiring brow with a kerchief. “That was fully five minutes ago. I have taken you to Naples and back again and you have not heard a word I said!” He looked affronted.
“Do tell me your story again, André,” she said penitently. “I will promise to listen this time.”
The Frenchman snorted. “That I will not, mademoiselle! I never repeat myself. Mon Dieu, I could have been proposing marriage, and you were not even listening!”
“But I could not accept you, André, for I have no intention of . . she began, then stopped in confusion.
“Of marrying anyone,” he finished for her softly. “It is true, is it not? This is a platonic relationship you have with our tall captain, not a hot love affair?”
“No, no, I—”
“He sleeps across the door, does he not? Not in your bed?”
Lorraine opened her mouth in horror. How could André know that? Then she remembered that one night a fight had broken out among the crew, someone had come running for the captain, knocked, and promptly pushed open the door—only to find Raile’s long body lying against it.
He had scrambled up at once, commenting that he must not drink so much or he’d fall overboard next time instead of to the cabin floor, and Lorraine had thought that was the end of it. But the story must have got around and André must have heard it and drawn his own conclusions.
“Come, mademoiselle, the truth!” André’s intent attractive face was bending very close. “You are a virgin, are you not?”
Lorraine’s face was flooded with color, but on that point at least she could speak the truth. “No, I am not a virgin, André! But it is none of your affair!”
He gave her a mocking look and his amber eyes flashed brassy gold in the sunlight. “I was only going to say that if you are, then our captain is a fool!” was his parting comment. He made her a stiff bow. “Your servant, mademoiselle.” And left.
Lorraine, thoroughly upset, wandered down the deck after he left. She came upon Derry Cork leaning against the port rail and talking with the Dutchman, Jakob Heist, who was fond of card playing and had a deck of cards in his hand. Neither of them saw her and Lorraine would have gone on by save for the shocking content of Derry’s last remark, which she caught.
“. . strangled with her own hair,” he was saying. “Aye, terrible,” muttered the Dutchman, shuffling the deck of cards idly on his knee. He shook his head. “Who would do such a thing to a woman?”
“La Garrotte would do it,” Derry Cork assured him. “ ’Tis said he had strangled many women with their own long hair. Do you not remember, Heist? The town was alive with searchers our last day there—you had but to sneeze and you would trip over one!”
“I was cosseted with Cook playing cards,” admitted Heist. “And losing as well. So I didn’t know what was afoot until you all scrambled aboard shouting that we were sailing immediately!”
“Aye, I had forgot you were not out in the town to see,” agreed Derry Cork.
“The things that happen in Bordeaux,” sighed the Dutchman, as if to say: Nothing like that would ever happen in Zeeland!
At that point, out of the corner of his eye, Derry Cork saw Lorraine standing there and noticed her horrified expression. The demons of humor that drove him caused him to embroider his story still further.
“I can tell you what you missed, Heist,” he said, raising his voice slightly so Lorraine would get its full import. “Two dead women, both found in separate alleys. Horrible sight they were—eyes bulging, tongues hanging out, dead as doornails—with their long hair wrapped around their necks!”
Lorraine turned and fled. She did not hear Derry’s chuckle, but the Dutchman did. He turned and looked after Lorraine, then turned back to Derry. “You’ve frightened the captain’s wench,” he said reprovingly.
“Ah, now.” Derry grinned. “She only overheard what we all know about La Garrotte’s methods and how he had half the women of Bordeaux scared out of their wits!”
“Nevertheless.” The Dutchman looked after Lorraine’s rapidly retreating back with some indecision. For a moment he appeared about to go after her to soften Derry’s frightening words, but then he thought better of it. The captain was a jealous man—Heist had seen his expression harden when the saucy Frenchman paid too much attention to Jufvrouw Lorraine. So he shrugged and instead suggested a game of cards.
Lorraine, hurrying along the deck, felt a shud
der go through her. La Garrotte, the Strangler of Bordeaux, strangling women with their own long hair. . . . And all the crew were Frenchmen, picked up, according to MacTavish’s contemptuous words, “from the gutters of Bordeaux” by André L’Estraille. It gave the Watcher in the Shadows new meaning, and to Lorraine new terrors.
She had got hold of herself by dinner. And the meal went smoothly. André was especially gallant—as if to make up for his shortness with her this morning. Gradually Lorraine’s mood changed and she forgot about the Strangler of Bordeaux.
It was a hot night. As usual Lorraine sat plaiting her long hair into two braids before going to bed, Raile, whose mouth had formed a grim straight line at the amount of badinage that went on between her and the Frenchman during dinner, did not come back to the cabin. She supposed he was taking the watch or perhaps it was just too hot for him in the stuffy cabin.
It was too hot in the cabin for her also. She turned and tossed, perspiring, on the bunk. Then she got up and roved to the porthole. There was a light fog that made the calm sea seem mysterious, and the moon and stars were obscured. It was as if a damp blanket of white had closed down softly upon the ship and its passengers and they were drifting on a voyage to nowhere, toward a port that they would never reach.
Tossing back her long damp braids, Lorraine threw the bedsheet around her like a shawl, for she slept in her chemise, and moving on soft bare feet, went out.
The deck was silent. There was only the slight creaking of the ship and an occasional rustle of the drooping shrouds overhead. She padded about restlessly, trying to cool herself. Up ahead she could dimly see Raile in the prow looking out over the empty ocean. It was so dark and misty that she indentified him really only by the broad set of his shoulders and his height.
She stood there trying to cool her hot face, looking in his direction and wondering if she should go and speak to him. She took a step forward, intending to do just that, when she felt a sudden rush of air like a dark wind coming at her. Something flapped against her. She whirled as her hair was seized, one of her plaits caught and pulled. A cry broke from her lips as something damp and heavy slapped against her face, and from the prow a dim figure came running.
Raile was by her side in a moment and had seized her by the shoulders.
“What is it?” he demanded sharply. “Why did you cry out?”
“Something came at me out of the dark!” she chattered. “It seized me by the hair!”
“Could this be what seized you?” he asked. He was holding her damp russet skirt hung out to dry. Beside the skirt swung her russet bodice. She could only glimpse it, because it seemed to be mainly behind her. “One of your plaits seems to be caught in the hooks of this bodice,” he told her. “Hold still while I free you.”
Her laundry! She had washed her tavern garb—which she sometimes still wore—late this afternoon, hung it out to dry, and forgotten it! A sudden gust of wind must have whipped the skirt past her. And as she recoiled from that, she must have collided with the bodice, whose hooks had caught in her long plaits.
“I thought someone had caught me by the hair,” she gasped, shuddering. “And after hearing about La Garrotte today ...” Her voice trailed off. She was still shaking.
“Who was fool enough to tell you about La Garrotte?” Raile growled, setting her free at last from the clutching hooks.
“Nobody—I mean I overhead Derry Cork telling Jakob Heist about his victims.”
Raile snorted. “Derry knew you were listening, I’ll be bound!”
Lorraine gave him a wild look. Her face was pale in the darkness.
“Come, I’ll take you back to the cabin,” he said more kindly, for he could see how truly frightened she was.
The lamp swinging overhead seemed very friendly after the misty darkness outside. The cabin was washed in its golden light and the tall man who looked down at her seemed a citadel of strength.
“You need have no fear of La Garrotte,” Raile told her, frowning. “They hanged him while we were in Bordeaux.”
Lorraine stared at him. “French justice cannot be so fast!” she protested. “I heard Derry Cork say they were searching for the Strangler just before you left Bordeaux.”
“And found him.” Raile nodded matter-of-factly. “The mob was not to be appeased, for he had strangled two”—he had almost said “waterfront whores” but he amended that to “fancy women”—“that very night. The Strangler was caught bending over the dead body of one of his victims. The mob dragged him away and hanged him from the yardarm of one of the ships in the harbor. It was the last sight we saw as we pulled away.”
“I see.” She moistened her lips. “Derry didn’t talk about that.”
“Lorraine.” Raile ran a hand through his dark hair. “I’ve told you that Derry Cork—”
“Is just a small boy at heart,” she finished for him. “I know.” She sighed.
His lips twisted into a half-grin, for he had been about to use those very words, but he was still worried about her.
“Derry likes to tell ghoulish stories,” he explained. “He is full of them, and if he thinks they frighten you, he will tell many more in your hearing.”
Lorraine felt rather foolish—but that feeling she had felt outside had been real and was the stuff of pure terror. When her hair had been seized, all she could think of was: The Strangler—he has been on board all the time! He has got me! She determined to give Derry Cork a very wide berth.
“This will be a long voyage,” Raile told her soberly. “And oft times the men will have little to do. If you are wise, you will not show yourself to be gullible or they will make your life unbearable.”
Gullible! Lorraine turned away, feeling rebuffed. She soon found herself distracted by an entirely new problem, for as Raile turned to go back out on deck, he flung over his shoulder, “You’ll have a respite from ship living soon, lass, for we’re in Bermudan waters. Tomorrow—or next day at the latest—we’ll drop anchor in St. George’s harbor.”
“What?” cried Lorraine.
“You’ll like Bermuda,” he told her.
“But we can’t stop there!” she wailed.
This caused him to turn around and consider her in wonder. “Can’t?” he repeated. “Indeed we can do naught else. We’re headed for the Indies and we need to stop in Bermuda to provision and take on fresh water.”
Lorraine gave him a wild look.
“But . . . but I’ve been telling everyone that when we reach land we’ll be married. They’ll all expect us to be married in Bermuda!”
Raile considered her calmly. “Are you saying you wish to make it true?”
“No, of course not!” Lorraine blushed furiously. “I’m just saying that everyone will expect—”
Raile’s voice was bitter.
“Be damned to what they expect!” he said shortly. “Tell them anything you please.”
He stalked out, leaving Lorraine’s mind in a ferment.
CHAPTER 14
St. George, Bermuda
Summer
IT WAS WITH foreboding that Lorraine, peering forward from the prow of the Likely Lass, watched the peaks of that great submarine mountain known as the Bermuda Islands rear up before her out of the deeps of the Atlantic. Westward across the warm blue waters of the Gulf Stream lay the American coastline. North and east lay the volcanic Azores, and beyond them, Europe. To the south, past the sluggish reedy whirlpool of the Sargasso Sea, was the land of adventure: the Caribbean sailed by golden galleons; the Spanish Main with its sweating mines and its treasures; the Indies, a sugar world of rum and romance.
But Lorraine, her mind in turmoil, could think only of the humiliation that lay in store for her here when the men of the Lass discovered that she was not to marry their captain after all.
They had stood out to sea last night, waiting for dawn before braving the shark-toothed barrier reefs that guarded the hundreds of tiny isles and islets that made up the circlet chain men called the Bermudas. With daylight they h
ad negotiated that guardian ring of dangerous coral reefs that marked the graveyard of so many tall ships, and sunlight found them sailing down the Narrows. Above them brooded the thick walls and battlements of Fort St. Catherine. Past Paget Island and Smith’s Island they sped in brilliant blue-sky weather to reach at last the sparkling waters of St. George’s harbor.
A sudden buzz of excitement swept the ship at sight of the scattering of vessels anchored there, and Lorraine, who was standing at the rail beside the ship’s doctor and had noted that he too came suddenly alert, turned to him nervously.
“What is it, André? What do you see that I don’t?”
“Warship,” he muttered, and she followed his gaze to a large frigate that lay at anchor near the town.
“Does that mean we won’t be going ashore?” wondered Lorraine hopefully.
Beside her, the Frenchman snorted. “A prudent captain might avoid it, but that wild Scot yonder? He’d take us ashore through a brace of warships!”
If he had meant it unflatteringly, to daunt Lorraine and make her doubt Raile’s judgment at taking this risk, it went wide of the mark, for Lorraine felt a little thrill of apprehension and of pride as they sailed boldly on, casting anchor as casually as might any merchant vessel carrying cheese and cloth and in need of fresh water and supplies.
Now the longboat was being lowered. That meant they were about to disembark. Lorraine’s nerves were drawn so taut that she jumped when the Frenchman again addressed her.
“You are nervous today, mademoiselle,” he commented. “Bride’s nerves perhaps?” he teased.
“No, of course not,” she defended, feeling her face grow hot under his amused inspection.
“But I thought you were to be married as soon as we reached land?”
Lorraine turned, at bay—and suddenly in that moment she had decided on her story.
“Captain Cameron is displeased about it, of course,” she said, stiffly formal. “But I have decided that I will not marry him until we reach my guardian in ... in Barbados.” She choked slightly over the words.
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