Minette turned to look over her shoulder. “Vapors, they’re about to run us over!”
Swiftly Emerald reined her horse toward the side of the road, coming to a slow trot into some low creeping brush under the palms. She stopped, her dark lashes narrowing as she stared behind her. No planters would be riding from that direction.
She found herself frowning. Change indeed rode the wind, and she was not certain she wished it so. A moment later, two men came into view.
They saw her buggy by the side of the road and brought their muscled horses to a nervous, prancing halt. One of the men rode up beside her as she sat clutching the reins.
“Is your buggy stuck, madam?”
Emerald was vaguely aware that because of her elaborate fashion he mistook her for some wealthy planter’s daughter. She straightened her hat and made no immediate reply, pleased over the deferential treatment.
The man was perhaps in his late twenties. He had fair shoulder-length hair, drawn back under a flat cap that was stylishly tilted to the left. His features were somber, decidedly rugged in character, and his manner and way of dress gave her the impression that he might be some sort of guard. She caught a glimpse of light mesh under his black velvet tunic. He showed no emotion as he looked at her with gray eyes as cool as melting snow.
Another pirate, she thought.
He looked at Minette on the seat beside Emerald and scrutinized her.
Emerald said loftily, “I beg pardon, sir, but you are traveling recklessly. Why, you might have run me down—and would have, had I not been quick to turn my buggy.”
He looked back to Emerald. Her accusation was met with a straight face and a lifted golden brow. Slowly he turned in the saddle and spoke to the second man, who had ridden up.
“My Lord Viscount, you do stand rebuked by the young lady.”
An exchanged glance between them suggested that they shared something amusing.
Her thoughts took a hard tumble. Viscount! She tensed, her fingers tightening on her reins.
Viscount? The title repeated itself ominously in her mind. Confusion set in. Then, her alarmed gaze darted to the second man, who sat astride a fine-blooded horse, watching her with interest.
Her breath stopped. For a horrified moment she couldn’t move. His dark eyes glinted with a touch of humor, and he wore a faintly sardonic smile—one that had become all too familiar since last night.
It can’t be, but it is, she thought, staring at him. The “viscount” was Captain Foxworth, the roguish captain of the Regale.
Her worst fears had come true. Zeddie must have talked, and now he had come to Foxemoore to find her!
For a long moment he looked at her, then his gaze casually studied her gown. She sat motionless. Does he recognize me?
“Sir Erik Farrow is quick to remind me of my faults,” the viscount told her smoothly. “I plead your pardon, Miss …”
He was inquiring for her name. She remained mute. Oh, scads of horror … what can I say?
When she said nothing, he allowed her silence to pass politely, as though he hadn’t noticed.
“Henceforth, I shall ride at a more leisurely gait.” And in a gesture smoothly perfected and befitting a position of high nobility, he removed his wide hat with its cocky plume and bowed his dark head. “Your servant, madam!”
She sat nervously waiting for his courtly manner to alter into one of malicious recognition.
“Madam, I’m in a hurry,” he said, replacing his hat under the trickle of raindrops and giving her a disarming smile. “It’s been a time since I was here last—not since I was a small boy. Foxemoore sugar estate—would you know how far it is?”
Her confusion grew as he simply looked at her with a faint smile. Suddenly it dawned on her. Of course, he doesn’t recognize me dressed like this. Her hand reached to touch the veil that descended from her hat and concealed her face, making certain it remained in place. She swallowed with relief, thinking that she must keep her tone of voice as elegant as her costume. Would he wonder why she didn’t have a serving man for a driver?
But before she could speak, Minette did. “Oh, it’s not far, monsieur.” And she pointed ahead. “We’re on our way there now. Emerald and I can show you—ouch!—you pinched me—” Minette stopped abruptly, as if she caught her mistake. Her amber eyes gleamed, and she turned her head away, toying with the fringe on the buggy.
Minette just gave my name away. Did he recognize it? She glanced cautiously at the viscount and saw that he was studying her with subdued curiosity. Then he didn’t notice, she thought.
“Foxemoore,” he inquired again. “How far?”
I must stay calm. He doesn’t know anything yet. She lifted a hand toward the cane fields on her left. “All this is Foxemoore, m’lord. I … um … assume you’ve come to see Lady Lavender Buckington?” she inquired warily.
He watched her from beneath his hat. “I seek Sir Karlton Harwick. Do you know him?”
He had avoided answering her directly about Lavender, she saw, and was watching her response to the name of Karlton.
“Well … actually, yes.”
She noticed him take in the worn buggy, and that brought a moment of discomfort. He must think I’m a friend of Lavender’s who’s come to call on her. How long could she keep up this masquerade? Oh, if only Jamie Bradford would suddenly come riding up and whisk her away to a waiting ship!
“I am Baret Buckington,” he said. “I’ve come to have audience with Sir Karlton. I’ve been told he waits for me in a private bungalow somewhere near here.”
The news added to her confusion. How could he have received a message from her father since last night aboard the Regale? Could it be her good fortune that he had come for a reason other than to locate the wench who had ransacked his cabin?
Safe behind her veil she retained her dignity, telling herself that she might manage to avoid him at the house. Once he was gone, if he did say anything to her father about last night, she could explain the situation about Mr. Pitt’s demands and perhaps win his understanding.
“I … um … shall bring you to the Manor,” she said.
“I am obliged.” He bridled his horse to follow her.
Without another word Emerald flipped the reins and set forth at a fast clip, leaving him to keep pace. He stayed just behind her carriage.
“Vapors,” breathed Minette. “What are you going to do? He’s bound to recognize you from the ship.”
“I don’t know … oh, this is the worst possible thing to happen now!”
“Did you notice the gentleman with him?” Minette whispered. “Did you ever see anyone more handsome?”
Emerald frowned. “What could the viscount possibly want with my father?”
“Maybe he’s come about the debts Uncle Karlton owes to the family.”
What if Minette were right? Had the dread hour of reckoning come? Only last year he’d returned from a voyage on the Main where he had lost a ship and most of his crew in a skirmish with the guarda-costa of the Spanish Asientos. The loss of his precious goods and ship had not only spiraled his indebtedness to the family but also to secret merchants who had quietly invested in the voyage. Her father, never a man to be content for long on land, was a privateer at heart, having been in command of the family merchant vessels, but his losses at sea had changed all that, resulting in a melancholy mood.
The wind blowing against her, although bringing light rain, felt refreshing, and the horse’s swift trot helped relieve her tension. But then another possibility came to the forefront of her thoughts.
What if the arrival of Lord Felix complicated the growing problem of the snarling debt-hounds that threatened her father’s claim to his portion of the sugar estate?
Far worse, what if Baret Buckington had come to join ranks with his Uncle Felix against her father?
The vast estate of Foxemoore had not changed in the years since Emerald had been brought here from Tortuga. The boundary walls of the Great House traversed for miles a
long the outer road, fringed with tall palms. Just how her father had come to control his share in the sugar estate was another matter of gossip.
The old earl—Great-grandfather Esmond Stuart Buckington—had gone out of his way on his deathbed to alter his will and leave a double portion of the sugar not to grandsons Royce and Felix but to Karlton Harwick, whom the earl had allegedly knighted before his death.
However, members of the family denied this. Any change in the will of Esmond had been manipulated by the unethical practice of Cousin Karlton’s barrister, they said.
Her father denied any wrongdoing. “Any disagreement between the family and me is on account of Felix. He’s a Spanish sympathizer, with aims to sell religious prisoners into the silver mines of Peru,” he had said angrily. “Felix knows little of plantation management—and even less about decent treatment of slaves. Had I proof, I’d accuse the man of even more,” he had told her. “I question his sorrow over his half brother’s death.”
Emerald had wondered why her father would say such a thing until she remembered that Felix was second in line to the inheritance.
“It is Royce’s son, Baret, who is primary heir,” her father had said gravely. “The young viscount had best be cautious of his uncle.”
Thinking all this as she drove the buggy, Emerald remembered Geneva’s marriage to Felix. Through Geneva, Felix would control a greater share of Foxemoore, at least until Baret married Lavender and combined their portions.
Emerald frowned. Was it Baret or Geneva who stood the greater risk by this marriage?
She felt a tiny shiver and tried to dismiss it. She had no proof for such dark suspicions—only the argument she had overheard between her great-aunt and Cousin Geneva at the house.
And yet the foreboding remained.
She found her mind straying into paths of darkness overgrown with thorns and thicket. There was also the eight-year-old child Jette Buckington—Baret’s half brother. Jette would become the stepson of Felix if the adoption was permitted.
Speckled sunlight filtered now through the line of trees and dotted the road. Thinking of the strong men and women who stood to gain materially by the elimination of others in the sugar dynasty brought to mind her own situation. Aside from her father, no one on either side of the family would seriously consider any right she might have at Foxemoore. She was only the offspring of a pirate’s daughter.
“If I do not legally own a large share of the sugar production, then why does Felix not take it to the court, I ask?” her father had once remarked. “He’ll not take the matter to law because the man knows I hold a legal document. And not simply a lease either, but I hold it free—and will! Forever! It is signed by the deceased Earl Esmond Buckington himself.”
A legal document. Did he truly possess one, or was the mysterious parchment that he kept locked in a box in his chamber merely a spurious invention?
One morning he had brought her to his chamber to unlock the treasure box and show the deed to her. Emerald had been twelve then, too young to understand the writing, yet the seal had impressed her with the sincerity of her father’s claim. A good portion of the cane fields, as well as the Manor itself, belonged to her father and therefore to Emerald. For years she had comforted herself with the thought that regardless of family rejection, she would always have security in the Jamaica estate. But now, because of the debts owed by her father and Felix’s marriage to Geneva, she no longer believed her father’s assurances true.
At least I have Jamie, she thought.
Emerald turned from the main road to ride up the carriageway lined with fringed palms shaking in the wind. Ahead, the planter’s Great House came into view.
The English planters on the colonial Sugar Islands of Jamaica, Barbados, and Antigua sought to build their Great Houses on knolls facing windward. Emerald now had a clear view of the white-pillared house with its red-tile roof and of Port Royal Bay. Because of the coral reefs, the water sometimes appeared different shades of blue, green, amber, and even red, while on her left lay a sweeping view of green cane fields as far as her eye could see. She slowed the carriage midway between the road and the Great House and turned down the smaller wagon road between the rustling cane. The Manor loomed some distance ahead.
The square white house was tall and narrow with flowering ramblers crawling up toward Emerald’s window in a profusion of red roses. How many nights had she sat alone at that window, arms on its sill, dreaming of her father returning from one of his ventures at sea. He would come with treasures enough to sweep her away on his horse and ride her up to the front porch of the Great House, where the family would welcome her.
The dream, of course, had long ago withered in the harsh light of reality.
The truth was, her father’s emotional strength was on the decline. Depressed over the ship he had lost to the guns of the Spanish galleon, he spoke of earlier days when as a privateer he had fought on the Main with a navy made up of buccaneers.
More often than not, her father lapsed into moods of morbid silence. He would rise early in the morning to saddle a horse and spend the day at the wharves of Port Royal among the privateers or brooding inside his lookout house on the cay.
She shaded her eyes and looked toward the fields. What if he were out riding now? He might not be home until dark! How could she possibly avoid disclosing who she was to the viscount if he were to wait at the Manor until her father returned?
In front of the porch steps, Emerald whispered to Minette, “Say nothing to the workers of what happened to Ty. Leave the matter for Jonah to explain. Anger runs deep. Instead, share the good news that Jamie escaped.”
Minette nodded and climbed down, glancing cautiously toward the men. She leaned toward Emerald and whispered, “I’ll see if anyone’s heard from Jamie and bring you word later.”
Emerald watched her hurry toward the boiling house, then climbed down from the buggy herself, refusing to look in the viscount’s direction. She hurried up the steps to the door.
Drummond, the English steward who had accompanied her father during his privateering voyages, met her.
“We’ve a guest,” she told him in a low voice, and her eyes warned her father’s faithful steward that while the guest was important, his arrival might be troubling. “Viscount Baret Buckington.”
Drummond’s horselike brows quivered. “A merry development! Here, miss? Now? ’Tis the worst of luck. The master’s in a dank mood. He’s done nothing since we arrived last night but vow he’ll take to sea again to search for and destroy that Spanish man-of-war.”
“He’s not threatening that again?” she whispered.
“He’s been up in his chamber all afternoon. He’s packing a trunk, no less. Nothing I could say would quiet him this time.”
Emerald groaned. “But he just came home!”
“More’s the pity, Miss Emerald.”
Usually, between herself and Drummond, they could quiet her father for a time, but like some cankerous wound that would not heal, thoughts of revenge returned to plague his tormented mind.
“Where is he now?” she whispered anxiously.
“Still in his chamber, pacing the floor like a caged beast, I dare say! I should rather face a real lion than your father this day, but I shall call him if you wish.”
Emerald twisted the handle of her whip, frowning as she looked ahead toward the stairs. “No, I best do it. I’ll need to prepare him. I’m certain the viscount has brought us ill news.”
“The debts again?” he asked in dismay.
Emerald glanced over her shoulder and saw that the viscount had dismounted. Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t know. Whatever it is, it means trouble. Keep his lordship occupied until I prepare Father for his arrival.”
Drummond’s long fingers moved about restlessly. “Yes, yes, I shall do my utmost.”
As she hurried ahead, she heard the sound of boot steps on the hall floor behind her, and the formal voice of Drummond welcoming Baret Buckington to the Manor. She glanced
back and saw that the steward was taking his hat and riding cloak.
I must prepare Father for the worst. Would he be strong enough to deal with Baret Buckington’s demands? And how could she avoid being recognized?
Emerald hastened across the floor with its woven cane mats, hearing the others behind her.
“Ah … those wall tapestries are a wondrous sight. Where did Sir Karlton come by them?” came Baret’s questioning voice.
There was a steep flight of stairs carpeted with indigodyed hemp, and she began the long climb, lifting her skirts and petticoats as she went.
The upper hall was quite narrow, but there was a tiny gallery, which her father humorously named the “crow’s nest,” after a ship’s lookout platform, overlooking the room below. She paused there.
Baret Buckington had crossed the room and stood below the crow’s nest, studying the wall-length tapestry. Although she could not see the design from the gallery, she knew which hanging had arrested his attention. Her father often stared at it while he stood lost in some moody reverie of the sea.
All of the tapestries in the collection were of ships, many of them at risk on turbulent seas. It was the portrayal of the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 that Baret was admiring. Fire ships were floating toward the galleons, culverins exploded, and English and Spanish swordsmen were boarding while many others were falling overboard. A great wind—the “Providential Wind of God”—had arisen and hurled King Philip II’s galleons out to sea, carrying many to destruction on the rocks.
As though he felt her gaze, Baret’s head lifted, and he looked up toward the crow’s nest. Her veil remained in place, but she swiftly stepped back and sped across the dimly lit hall to her father’s favorite chamber. Her heart pounding, she knocked rapidly. “Father! Open the door! Quick, Father, ’tis me, Emerald.”
A sullen voice retorted, “Not now, girl. Begone!”
Her heart lurched. Drummond was right. He is in a dark mood.
“Father! Viscount Baret Buckington is here. All is not well. I must talk to you!”
Buccaneers Series Page 11
