Buccaneers Series

by Linda Lee Chaikin

  Minette swallowed, gripping the rough rope, knowing her cheeks had turned a hot pink. “I—I’m in your debt, Captain Farrow.”

  His eyes drifted over her face, and a smile softened his otherwise hard expression. “Your cousin will be pleased to see you again.”

  “Emerald is safe? And Uncle Karlton?”

  “Both safe aboard the Warspite. You’ll be there in the morning.”

  She didn’t know what to say. So great was her relief and joy that tears turned her wide amber eyes into sparkling gems.

  He looked down at her, his smile fading. “How old are you?” he asked quietly.

  Under his gaze the answer stuck in her dry throat. Almost sixteen, she wanted to say truthfully, but she heard herself speaking as if listening to a stranger. “Seventeen.”

  He studied her for a moment, as if measuring the truth of her confession. Slowly one hand took hold of her waist-length hair, shimmering like warm honey in the last rays of the setting Caribbean sun. Minette felt his firm embrace and his lips on hers.

  The encounter lasted only a moment, and he turned her loose, a thoughtful look on his chiseled face. He leaned over the rail, grasping the rope ladder that fell to the small craft below. “Can you climb down?” he asked her. “Jeb! Come up and help the damsel!”

  When she was safely in the ketch and set on her feet, Minette looked up again to Erik. Their gazes caught before he turned and walked away.

  Dazed, Minette followed Jeb to a cushion at the back of the vessel. There she sat, staring at the last vestige of scarlet sunset fading into the sea and hearing the distant shouts of the buccaneers.

  He actually kissed me. She raised trembling fingers to touch her lips. The tears came again, and this time wouldn’t cease. Did God have good plans for her after all? The Lord had rescued her from captivity, even though she had surely betrayed Him by kissing the crucifix.

  And Captain Farrow had noticed her, noticed her as a woman and not as a mere half-caste.

  Part Two

  ON JAMAICA

  9

  IN THE NIGHT HIS SONG SHALL BE WITH ME

  Facing windward, Port Royal Bay shimmered and glittered jade green beneath the noontide sun, but Emerald felt no pleasure in being home on Jamaica. She swallowed back the uncertainty that wanted to tighten her throat. She had dreaded the return ever since they had set sail, but never more than now as the possibility loomed that she must face the Harwick family after all.

  Emerald, her father, and Minette had parted company with the buccaneers three weeks earlier. They sailed home without further contact with the guarda costa, even though voyaging alone through the Gulf of Venezuela had been dangerous. They had arrived in Port Royal the evening before on the recovered Madeleine after completing repairs on Curaçao.

  Emerald now anxiously awaited her father’s return from his business in town, where he had gone to report to Governor Modyford as well as to arrange for her and Minette’s passage to England aboard a civilian merchant ship. If only she could board the ship without the necessity of meeting the family!

  Her trunk was packed, and the small satchel containing her precious music notes sat close beside her crossed ankles. Before his death in the slave uprising the night of the dreadful fire on Foxemoore, Great-uncle Mathias had labored long and hard, meticulously gathering the musical chants of the African slaves brought to the West Indies from Guinea. He’d entrusted his work to her before his death, and she kept it close beside her to be hand-carried. During her upcoming schooling years in England, beside learning social graces, she expected to devote private time to continuing her uncle’s creation of an African hymnbook to be used to teach Christianity to the slaves on Foxemoore and—if the Lord blessed—to all Jamaica.

  The concept of teaching Africans about Christ was not accepted by the Europeans in Jamaica—nor elsewhere in the English, French, or Dutch colonies, she thought. The laws of the Jamaican Council forbade this, and the reason seemed obvious to Emerald. From the beginning of slavery throughout the West Indies, the planters had realized that educating slaves might soon require that they be treated as brothers, and how could one in good conscience enslave his own brother? Laws also were enacted forbidding teaching slaves to read and write. And, of course, they were not permitted to attend the churches.

  What an evil thing is this, she thought angrily. With the help of God these laws must be changed, and a good place to begin would be on Foxemoore, the sugar plantation belonging to the Harwick and Buckington families.

  But even though her father owned shares in the estate and had some say in its business, she knew that those shares were at risk because of debt he had incurred several years earlier when losing a family merchant ship. Whether or not her father had gone with Baret to Margarita to locate the treasure of the Prince Philip, with the hope of paying off those debts, remained a mystery to her. Nor had the numerous questions she asked her father about the island of Margarita received satisfying answers.

  She had not seen Baret since he sailed on the ketch with Farrow and LaMonte to take the San Pedro. Erik had returned Minette to the Warspite and the Madeleine to Karlton, but Baret had gone on to the Regale with the prisoner he had taken from the Spanish galleon.

  It’s as if the entire matter has suddenly become shrouded in dark secrecy! she thought.

  As for Foxemoore and the debts, her father took joyous pains to point out that her marriage one day to the viscount-turned-pirate would place them both in an attractive situation financially, since Baret was heir to an earldom. Besides, he held a good amount of treasure of his own, acquired from his buccaneering ventures.

  Emerald carefully replaced into her satchel the notes on the chant she’d been looking at, again thanking the Lord that the soldiers of the guarda costa had not troubled to ransack the cabin where she’d hidden them.

  Restive, she sat on a squeaking rattan ottoman beneath a faded sailcloth awning on the uppermost deck. She mused over all that had happened to her and Minette, while tapping her blue-and-yellow parrots’ feather fan against her chin. She was dressed for her voyage in a pale green linen dress, trimmed with lacy ribbon at the bodice. A silver Huguenot cross glimmered at her throat.

  She was anxious to embark on a respectable merchant ship and sail for England. If it weren’t for the lovingkindness of the Lord, I should soon give up all hope, she thought. But I’ll not turn a cowardly goose—not after what we’ve been through. My future is resting upon the Rock.

  “He endured, as seeing Him who is invisible.” The verse in the faith chapter of Hebrews came winging to her mind. I too can endure by fixing my focus on Him who is sovereign and who is always with me. Drawing in a breath, she glanced at the sapphire blue sky as though she saw Him.

  Thinking of Baret did little to cool her runaway emotions. After all that had transpired, she knew him to be as bold and daring a buccaneer as any she had yet to encounter. That knowledge only served to remind her once again of her dilemma, for in spite of their romantic encounter aboard his ship, Emerald remained convinced the marriage was impossible.

  What’s more, Baret knew this as well. That realization brought a flutter to her stomach as she considered his motive in allowing the betrothal to linger on. He would not, could not, go through with it. If his plans went well, his reputation would one day be restored when he met with King Charles. One day Baret would be an earl. Why then the continued pretense where marriage to her was concerned?

  It was all unfortunate and certain to end badly, she thought, not to mention the risk to her heart.

  Tortuga! She thought scornfully of the place and what had happened there. She whisked her fan. The very memory raised its mocking head to laugh at her romantic ambitions.

  How could her blustery father have dared to demand a duel! And from Baret Buckington, a viscount, a man known to be dangerously skilled in the use of the blade. Her father was blessed that Baret had opted for the gallant role, lest he find himself buried on Tortuga beside her mother. But then, he had c
ounted on Baret’s honor.

  She reminded herself that if it hadn’t been her misfortune to be born on Tortuga with French pirates as family, she would now fare better when it came to her reputation. Could any voyage to London erase the past that dogged her steps?

  My reputation was a matter of festering chatter long before any of this happened to me, she thought, for her mother was said to have been the daughter of the notorious French pirate Marcel Levasseur. But now I face worse scandal. What of the matter concerning the Black Dragon, the attack on the Main, and the San Pedro?

  Her spirit shuddered at the conclusions the family would come to when they heard the tales surrounding her absence from Jamaica. Far worse than confronting Great-aunt Lady Sophie Harwick, or her father’s cousin Geneva Harwick Buckington, was facing young, flaxen-haired Lady Lavender Thaxton. Lavender was heiress to the title of duchess and had been contemplating marriage to the viscount for years. What innuendos Lavender would delight to let drop from her honeyed lips—what barbed accusations she would make about Emerald’s scheme to steal Baret by way of a duel!

  She stirred uncomfortably. Lavender would never believe the truth about her abduction from the wharf. She would imagine the worst. So would the rest of the family. And what of the Earl of Buckington, Baret’s grandfather? Remembering back to that night at the ball when she had seen Earl Nigel so coldly aristocratic, she shuddered.

  “Not that Papa is likely to worry much about what they think as long as I become Lady Buckington.”

  The situation had all the distressing ingredients necessary to overwhelm her if she let it. It made her feel shamelessly brazen.

  But maybe I won’t need to face any of them, she thought, swishing the fan furiously. “In a few days, at most, I’ll be sailing for England.”

  Still, as the wife of a viscount from the West Indies, she was likely to face a future of whispers and innuendoes in England, as well as a good deal of morbid curiosity at Court. “So this is the pretty tart that the earl’s grandson picked up for countess among the pirates’ brothels.”

  Emerald’s fingers touched the cross she wore. The Father accepted her in the Beloved, and she had Him to depend upon to face each tomorrow.

  And if I am afraid of gossip that is not even true, she told herself, how will I ever be able to face the opposition that will surely come over teaching Christianity to the slaves? I must not be cowardly, but brave.

  Despite her call for courage, Emerald felt anything but victorious.

  Her frown tightened as a strange pain, one she dare not consider for long, pinched her heart. I won’t be a fool and entertain the silly thought that Baret could actually care about me, even if he did kiss me.

  In England, matters would ease between Baret and her father. The years would also give her and Baret both the time and distance needed to quietly back out of the betrothal.

  Emerald grimaced, swallowing a small resentment that she refused to admit even to herself that she had hoped Baret would have chosen of his own will to give her a piece of Buckington family jewelry before she sailed. Doing so would have spoken loudly enough of his intentions. Instead, he had returned to Tortuga to meet with Henry Morgan without even seeing her again after the San Pedro incident.

  The Dutch War loomed, Captain Farrow had told her politely, and it demanded the viscount’s full attention. But she suspected he intended to use the war as a cover for his other upcoming raids on the Main.

  Emerald did not wish to contemplate the outcome of her dilemma, and she took out her frustration on the stinging sand flies that pestered her.

  “The sooner we’re aboard ship, the less chance there’ll be of confronting the family,” she said aloud.

  She stood up from the ottoman and walked from under the sailcloth to the taffrail. Shading her eyes, she looked across the bay.

  The day would be scorching. She gave an upward glance toward the topaz sky, then out across the greenish water, hoping to see her father’s cockboat returning. What was keeping him? His absence ashore set new concerns on edge. What could possibly be keeping him? Might something have gone wrong in his meeting with Governor Modyford?

  Sir Karlton had been gone since they had shared a breakfast of cassava melon and fried plantain in the Round Room. Did his delay have anything to do with her betrothal to Baret Buckington? Perhaps her father had taken time to speak to the family about it. The idea that he might have done so did little to ease her reservation over his absence.

  She paced the walkway facing the bay, seeing the masts of brigantines and sloops at anchor. She noticed that there were fewer vessels than usual. The Caribbean sun continued to beat upon the sugar-fine sand on the beach, while her gaze swept the seven-thousand-foot Blue Mountain range far in the island’s distance, said to be furrowed by deep gullies and rivers cascading through steamy jungle. The mountains rimmed the horizon, and seeing their strength and beauty, she thought momentarily of her cousin Ty, who had escaped there after the slave uprising.

  Her cousin was in the mountains now, waiting, expecting to one day join a buccaneering ship to sail the Caribbean and attack the Spanish Main. She wondered how Ty was faring during her absence from Port Royal and whether or not the evil overseer Mr. Pitt had given up searching for him.

  Minette Levasseur approached and sat moodily on a cushion under the sailcloth, a look of concern on her fine-featured face. She was a striking girl, with wavy honey-colored hair and amber eyes that complemented her moonstruck infatuation with the handsome but ruthless buccaneer Sir Erik Farrow—who, she had told Emerald too many times recently, “now thinks me a lady. He even kissed me!”

  “I wouldn’t take his kiss to mean very much,” Emerald had warned softly, thinking the same of Baret’s behavior. She suspected that Captains Foxworth and Farrow were equally ruthless, equally pirates, and—beneath their suave demeanor—looked upon a moonlight kiss as light payment for rescuing them from danger.

  Minette, wearing a breezy cotton chemise that reached to just above her ankles, seemed to lounge amid gloomy thoughts of her own. “You’re right about one thing—Captain Farrow didn’t seem to think the kiss meant anything once we was back aboard the Warspite. Why, he didn’t even come to tell me good-bye when we boarded the Madeleine for Curaço.”

  Emerald glanced at her cousin. She was about to tell Minette that she shouldn’t have permitted the rogue to kiss her, but then she recalled her own behavior with Baret. At least they had a betrothal, even if little would come of it. Still, a girl didn’t go about allowing men to kiss her until the relationship progressed toward a commitment to marriage. Emerald frowned and swished her fan, pacing.

  “The sooner we both leave here, the better off we’ll be—and the wiser for it,” she murmured.

  “At least you have a chance to be a real lady in England,” Minette complained again.

  “Will I?” challenged Emerald dubiously. “My bloodline is considered of little more respectability than your own.”

  Minette showed no relief from her melancholy thoughts. “Maybe. Do you think Captain Farrow is in love with me?”

  Emerald cast her a worried glance that Minette didn’t seem to notice. “You best forget him,” she warned in a quiet voice. “He’s a rake, even if he was gallant enough to rescue you. And he’s man enough to break any woman’s heart, especially a young girl like you. There’s small chance of winning his love, Minette.”

  She hastened on when she saw Minette’s misery. “The Lord has someone else for you. I’m sure of it. And he’ll come along when your feet reach the place on the path where the crossroad turns.”

  Minette scowled. “What if there isn’t anyone, ever?”

  Emerald’s skirts rustled softly as she stirred. “Then, if it’s His purpose, what would have been better? He loves you too much to deny what’s good, Minette.”

  “Well, maybe. I’m not sure sometimes …”

  Emerald squelched the rising doubt in her own heart. “Someday we’ll know the truth about all of life’s
mysterious denials and see He was there all the time. Why,” she said brightly, “I’ll wager angels guard our very steps!”

  Minette cast her a skeptical glance. “Is that why I was captured at the cove?”

  “You’re safe, aren’t you? And wiser for your bitter experiences.”

  “You’re right.” Minette sighed. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about that. Are you sure the Lord’s forgiven me? Didn’t I betray Him by doing what the Franciscan demanded?”

  “Yes, and there are far worse things you could have done. But you’ve asked His forgiveness, and the Lord’s grace and mercy overflow to all His stumbling children. He’s willing to forgive all our sins. As for Captain Farrow, he’s not a marrying man. That’s a danger signal for any girl. When a man says, ‘I’m not ready yet,’ watch out.”

  Minette avoided her gaze. “How do you know Captain Farrow doesn’t want to get married?”

  Emerald hesitated, feeling the hot sun beat upon her head. She picked up her hat and tied the ribbons firmly beneath her chin. “He would have married by now.”

  Minette glumly rested her chin on her palm. “You’re probably right. And anyway, he wouldn’t marry me.”

  Emerald changed the subject and looked across the bay, now gently ruffled by the breeze. “Papa’s been gone all morning. I wonder what’s keeping him. He should have reported to Governor Modyford by now—and bought us passage to England too.”

  Minette joined her at the rail. “Look—that’s Zeddie coming in the cockboat now.”

  Emerald squinted against the sunlight. “It is, but my father’s not with him.” She could not mask the concern in her voice.

  Minette’s eyes widened. “Vapors! Ye don’t think he was arrested?”

  “Arrested! On what charge?” But Emerald’s voice was sharp, because the same fear clamped like irons about her heart. “He’s no pirate. We don’t even know if he went to Margarita with Captain Foxworth. And he had nothing to do with the San Pedro.”