Heart and Dagger

by Holland Rae

  Chapter Three

  He wasn’t asleep, when the first cannon fired. Of course he wasn’t. Sleeping was for men with clear minds and nothing to fear. Armand, with his brother kidnapped and a ransom demanded of his office and no thought or clue as to what to do next, did not sleep.

  The single positive to be found in this unfortunate circumstance was, when the first cannon fired, hitting a large ship docked in the port, Armand was not safely in his bed and counting his blessings but rather pacing his study with all of the tension of a large jungle cat, coiled tight and ready to pounce.

  He sprang to attention, the way a man does when he has spent his entire life out at sea, dealing with the sin of society—traders, rum runners, buccaneers. Before he knew it, he was out the door and down the hall, one arm already pulling on his coat, the other fastening an extra sword to the side of his belt.

  Ever since the day his mother had perished at sea, Armand had prepared for a pirate raid. He practiced fencing and swordplay every day of the week and trained against masterful swordsmen who graced the small island. He trained with a pistol, he trained with a rapier, he trained with a dagger. Though hardly a violent sort by nature—not something one would know had they only seen his exchange earlier in the evening—Armand was a powerful weapon in his own right. He refused to lose another family member or anyone upon his island, for simply not being quick enough.

  His feet pounded the wooden floors of the front hall, and then he was out the door and down the steps of his house, pushing his boots hard against the ground until the docks and large ships came into sight.

  And what a sight it was. Two of the larger ships in the port were completely aflame, fire blazing up their masts and setting their sails alight. The decks were beginning to catch too, and despite himself, Armand could not help but notice the beauty of the fire, as though the docks had turned into some sort of pagan festival right before his eyes. But fire always brought with it memories of his mother’s death, of the knowledge that he would never be good enough to save her. It made his heart clench and his feet seem to adhere themselves to the ground. Fire, fire was Armand’s most hated enemy. It was his most disdained weakness.

  The sound of screaming pulled him from these thoughts, and he realized that among the flames were several large men, now approaching the docks and the land and the innocent folk who had only just closed their market stands and brought home their wares.

  Though his legs ached and his muscles burned from the powerful run he’d just taken from his home, Armand quickly threw himself into the fray, turning for the small hill that separated him from the docks, and half running and half sliding down, until he was naught but an oar’s length away from where the thugs stood.

  Behind him, Armand could hear soldiers, and he considered the good forethought somebody had had to call them, as he himself had not. He couldn’t focus on that, however, because one of the larger pirates was approaching, and he had to prepare himself for a hand-to-hand battle that would have impressed the Vikings.

  Armand was not a small man, not by any stretch of the imagination. But the man now approaching had the advantage of at least a head in height and was nearly as wide as he was tall.

  “We’re only sending a message,” another man said, but the smoke and fire limited Armand’s visibility and made the blood in his body run hot against the night. Then, through the roar of the flame, he heard the man say, “Try not to kill ’em. You remember what the captain told us.” The man before him, whose expression was largely reminiscent of a rock, looked at Armand with hunger in his eyes, and it appeared to Armand that he was about to be the main course.

  “Mad Dog,” the anonymous voice called from the flame again. “Remember the plan.” Mad Dog, for that was apparently his name, sulked and then picked himself up and wandered off to, by the sound of it, throw rocks through the windows of local shops.

  Armand frowned. Something occurred to him, and he didn’t like it one bit. In fact, the more he considered it, the more he felt inclined to race after the monster of a man and try and beat him to a pulp, just for an outlet of his excess energy. But though he was mad, he was hardly about to embark upon a suicide mission, which also included removing himself from the billowing plumes of smoke now encompassing the entire wharf upon which he stood. He climbed slowly back up to the top of the embankment, breathing deep, fresh air when he finally could, and looked out over the chaos.

  That was what it was, truly. While he could see several vignettes of swordplay and hand-to-hand combat, the main goal of the raiders appeared to Armand to be causing as much damage as was possible. What was it the man had said—to send a message?

  Though the night air was warm, warmer still with the fire blazing upon the docks, Armand felt a sudden chill pass through him. The captain of the crew, from what he could surmise, was not with them. He obviously had no desire to get caught and likely didn’t want his ship to be caught either. He didn’t want to be followed into the open ocean. He just wanted to send a message.

  Armand would be damned to hell, if he hadn’t already gotten there, if the raid happening on his island right now actually turned out to be a random event. He was certain, increasingly so with every pained breath that he took, that these were the men who had kidnapped his brother—and they wanted to be damn sure that he knew it. Armand took one last deep breath and ran to help put out the fire.

  ****

  He hadn’t slept in more than two days. Ever since the missive regarding Henri’s kidnapping had come in the dead of night, Armand had been running on a combination of shock and fear, and then to have a pirate raid to top the next evening off—well, he wasn’t sure he would ever see a bed again. More likely than not, he wouldn’t be able to sleep if he did.

  The sun shone, bouncing off the stone square, and sending shards of bright light through the town. It made every scene of destruction, every burned beam and busted window, appear all the more devastatingly broken for the beauty of the day.

  Men were coming and going. His advisors had been standing by his side all day. Wendell tended to the cleanup and repairs of the islands, with his soldiers in fine form helping to collect whatever could be salvaged. Spritz was handling Armand’s judiciary duties as magistrate. All that needed taking care of for the trade company, Harrington had well under control. Armand was of the mind that it made a great deal of sense to surround yourself with those smarter than you. Then, at least, you could count on a job done well. Perhaps Wendell wasn’t smarter, but he was a damn good soldier, and the island, up until the last two days, had rarely seen much trouble.

  But now, townsfolk were coming up to him from every direction. Their houses had been burned, their market stalls torched, their bread and grain taken. He felt a deep sympathy for them, every hardworking sod who had been so close to making ends meet and had been forced to start all anew. Armand had always respected those who worked hard. Even when their family had been living in London, he had shied away from the folks who spent more time in their dressing rooms than they had in their offices or the House of Lords, and he’d only been a young man of seventeen when they had left the city for good.

  He felt the sting of his brother’s absence with every worry and complaint the people brought his way. Henri was good at this kind of work, reassuring folks that they would help them rebuild the town, helping those who had lost so much in the raid the night before. It occurred to Armand just how much he had to lose, if he didn’t do something to get his brother back soon. He would lose his brother, the business, and the island, just so a single pirate crew could send him a message. He didn’t think so. Not if hell froze around him.

  Armand was deep in thought when Spritz approached him. Normally, the expression upon the older man’s face was kind, if always a little reserved. But when he walked in his direction now, Armand felt the weight of an anchor drop into his stomach. What else could possibly go wrong? Armand’s mind twisted over about how much they had already lost to this one band of pirates.


  “Sir,” Spritz said quietly, taking him off to the side and leaning his head toward Armand so he could whisper softly. “There has been a death.”

  Armand’s heart went stone cold, as his first thought—that the pirates had disposed of his brother’s body upon the island shores—came and went. They needed Henri for bartering, or at the very least, perceived bartering, and they were smart enough to know it. Still, someone’s family was suffering for the tragedy—a tragedy he hadn’t prevented.

  “Who is it?” Armand asked, and even he could hear the steel edge to his voice. How had so much gone so wrong and so very quickly?

  “A boy from the smithy’s,” Spritz said quickly. “His father is William Tomlinson.”

  Armand nodded, steeling his reserve so he might turn and go directly to visit the boy’s father.

  “I believe it was an accident, sir,” Spritz added. “They think he might have perished in the fires.”

  Armand went to respond, but before he got the chance, there was a scream from the market. He and Spritz turned to face the noise and saw a woman, hunched over a form a little way from where they stood.

  “My boy,” she shrieked, giving no mind to the crowd that had gathered around her. “Jonathan!” She was wailing now, and as Armand began to walk toward her, he became more aware with every step that if he had simply heeded the ransom demands, this young boy would have lived to see another day.

  “Mrs. Tomlinson,” he said quietly. He turned to the man that was standing beside her, one arm on her shoulder, the rest of his body shaking with silent sobs. “Master Tomlinson.” They acknowledged his presence as best they could and Armand continued, “I will make it my duty to find the men responsible for this, and they will be hanged.” He paused, his own words seemingly stuck in his throat. “And I would like to have young Jonathan buried upon the estate grounds.” It was only then that Jonathan’s mother looked up to meet his eyes.

  “Sir,” she said, her eyes shining with unspoken questions.

  “His death is a mark upon us all,” Armand said, leaving out the full truth. The full truth was that the young boy with the dark hair and the long eyelashes, who looked as though he would wake at any moment, resembled Henri at a young age more than Armand would have thought possible. The truth was Armand felt a potent mixture of fear, relief, and guilt. The truth was, as he looked at the Tomlinsons, their horror still fresh, he knew what he had to do, and he was going to do it.

  Armand turned back to Spritz, who had followed him to the boy’s grieving parents.

  “Fetch me Catalina Sol,” he said.

  Chapter Four

  Catalina thought about it, her mind wandering so much that the boards of wood on the far wall began to move with the rise and crest of the sea. She thought about it, as she began to pace the room, her eyes roaming the great expansive darkness out the window. Oftentimes, Catalina was struck by the vastness of the ocean. It reminded her of her own place in the world, of how they all needed to do what they could to get by.

  The moon struck the surface of the water, illuminating it in streaks of silvery white, and Catalina knew, without a doubt, what she needed to do. There was no use thinking about it any further.

  She never got a name. If a person needed to find her, they found her. As was the case with the proposition she now considered. All she knew about the man for whom she would be working, if she decided that to be the way of things, was that he was a local magistrate, an earl, and the son of some island royal somewhere. Whether all the information she received was trustworthy or not, Catalina didn’t know and she didn’t care, as long as she had enough details to complete her mission. Men who roamed in her circles, both those who worked for her and those she worked for, had their own versions of the truth, and that was how she preferred it.

  She wasn’t going to condemn them. After all, no one aboard the Liberté had ever heard the name Charlotte Talbot, and if she had anything to say about it, they never would.

  She would take the meeting, of course, meet with the man and determine exactly what kind of work he needed done. They ran in strange circles, but Catalina had her limits, and she made it quite clear to her clientele exactly where she drew the line. When one was a sought-after, if not slightly feared, vagabond mercenary, rum trader, and all around notorious person, one could make demands that other people did their best to meet.

  It would be the pragmatic choice, to take the job—a kidnapping of some sort or another, as was told by the flushed, sweaty-faced messenger who had stammered the information to her in the pub. She hadn’t managed to get out of him exactly who had been kidnapped, but she’d learn that soon enough. It would be no skin off her back to meet the man. She was bound for Hispaniola in the first place, and she’d told the messenger to request his employer’s presence at one of the dozens of anonymous pubs down the street in the bustling port town a few miles from Dwyer House. When you ran the ship, you made the rules.

  There was a greater impetus to meet with the stranger, and Catalina knew it. Dwyer House. It was time to move forward with all that she and Antonia had discussed. She would buy a new house—expand her operations, save more of the wandering souls who floated her way, just as each of them saved her.

  So why, if the whole matter made such damnable sense, was she even debating it? There should be no question at all as to what needed doing for the cause she had left everything behind for—her family, her home, the only country she had ever known. This mattered, Dwyer House mattered, and sacrifice came with the territory.

  She pushed aside thoughts of home, of childhood and siblings and friends. The dream, more a vividly clear memory, had been lingering in the corners of her mind for days, and that made her cross. Eliza was safe at home. Armand and Henri were halfway across the world—well, maybe they were half a world away or maybe they were gone; she’d never know—from where they now sailed, but the sentiment remained. Charlotte Talbot was the name of a dead girl. She was gone, replaced by a woman who ruled the seas at her own discretion, who saved the lost and fought the evil.

  Usually, that refrain helped Catalina through the lonely nights, when from the depths of her soul she longed for England, for the warm embrace of her sister, for an old friend. But now, when she needed those words to matter most, it felt as if they didn’t matter at all.

  ****

  The Dirty Hog lived up to its name. A solid inch of grease and mud lined the wooden floors, and Catalina could swear, with unflagging certainty, that the large walrus of a bartender who was now wiping down steins for ale had taken that rag to the privy with him. She didn’t flinch. Seafaring pubs were not, on the whole, places for those with delicate constitutions.

  She felt slightly better than she had upon the ship. When the melancholy came, as it would to even the most stalwart of seafarers on occasion, Catalina found her joy and light in seeing the smiling faces of her crew—young William, not so young anymore, and Rose McEwan, who would have been cast off to poverty, and not the welcome arms of Antonia, who was currently setting up fresh beds or milking one of their goats.

  Yes, all it took to keep her mind clear and her resolve true was to see the smiling faces of her new family. Not so new, for it had been seven years since she’d set out on her own to make it in the world. They made it worth it to her, every sacrifice, every job they took.

  Someone, perhaps two or three years past, had called her the Robin Hood of the sea, and Catalina threw the name over in her mind from time to time. They didn’t steal, strictly speaking, but they took the money from those who could afford it, and they used it to help those who could not. In a sense of the phrase, they were a bit like Robin Hood’s Merry Men.

  Still, when it came to being a not-quite pirate, it served one well to remind folks that she never stole, never killed, never, except when strictly necessary, set fire to another man’s ship. For years, Catalina had been walking a fine line of the law, and so far she’d been lucky as they came.

  Perhaps that was behind the unerring, patt
ering thumps of her heart. She loathed having nerves before a meeting, especially when the feeling was such a foreign one. Catalina Sol was who she was, but it was also her nom de guerre, and when it came right down to it, she knew that she could behave in a way Lady Charlotte Talbot never would have dreamed. Having an alternate identity did keep her confidence in top form.

  But she was meeting a magistrate. And not just a plain old magistrate, but a man who, by the sound of things, boasted more titles than she did—not that a single soul this side of the Atlantic needed to know the truth of that. Until her dream about Eliza and Armand, Catalina hadn’t even thought about Charlotte Talbot in some time.

  She sucked down an ale, remembering belatedly about the dishrag, and grimaced. Well, if she were arrested and sentenced to hang for her pirate-like endeavors, she’d just have to figure out a plan. After all, she had been only eighteen when she’d slipped out of the house in the middle of the night and made a new life for herself on the open seas. She wasn’t dead yet, now was she?

  Catalina was so lost in her own musings, a rare occurrence for her, that she didn’t notice when a man in a hood came into the tavern. Men and women often came and went anonymously through the doors of an island pub, no matter the time of day or time of year, and no one paid any mind to the hooded figure slipping in now and making for the far corner table, where Catalina had planned her meeting location.

  In fact, Catalina’s mind had been so preoccupied, it wasn’t until the man, his large height behind the cloak blocking a significant amount of light, stood directly before her, that she realized she wasn’t alone.

  “Catalina Sol,” he said, and though she couldn’t see his face, she could tell he was looking down at the table, his visibility nearly as obscured by the hood as her own was of his face.

  “You can remove your hood,” she said quietly. “Nobody here will recognize you, and if they do, they won’t care.” The figure shook its head, and she shrugged. “All right then. Shall we go to the back room?” She was certain she would have seen an eyebrow rise, if she had been able to see any eyebrows.