Erik’s gray eyes turned chill.
“I want to meet with Warwick,” Baret said. “It’s best he know what we plan to do. If he’s in on this from the beginning, he’ll be the first to trumpet our heroism to Modyford.”
“He’ll probably leave for the Sweet Turtle as soon as the meeting’s over. But caution—Captains Montieth and the Dutchman Roche will be with him, selling booty. They had some heavy prizes. Treasures belonging to the infanta.”
“All the more reason to join them,” said Baret lightly. “I’m in the mood for a pretty piece or two. Have Yorke and Hob pass word to my crew to get the ship ready. We leave, say … midnight?”
“Agreed.”
“Now back to the governor’s meeting.”
When Baret and Erik drifted into the Sweet Turtle, Baronet Warwick was shouting with the voice of a Parliamentarian. “Honorable Captains, I again bring you warm greetings from Port Royal, from Governor Thomas Modyford and his new lieutenant governor, Edward Morgan, uncle of one of your own, the daring Henry Morgan.”
A few grumbles erupted. l’Olonnaise snapped, “An’, monsieur, what does this Modyford want with us now, except bait for sharks?”
“The governor is again offering commissions,” Warwick said.
“And where is Morgan?” someone asked doubtfully.
“He’s at Spanish Town, meeting with Modyford. He’s asking for a special gathering of the Confederacy of the Brotherhood to be held in two weeks at Port Royal.”
The buccaneer captains exchanged wary glances.
“And how’s we to know, monsieur, that the gallows does not await us?”
“Aye, and why should we forget friends dangled there only weeks ago?”
“If a pirate was hung recently,” said Warwick calmly, “it was because of crimes in the Caribbean. You are not pirates but privateers—if you return to Jamaica and receive commissions from His Majesty.”
“You mean Modyford is issuing marques against Spain?”
“The governor is offering commissions, yes. And he’s willing to grant loans again for ship repairs as well. He sends assurances you will be treated to a warm welcome. And as you all know, there is no port in all the Indies that welcomes privateers like Port Royal.”
Baret noticed that Warwick chose his words carefully. The buccaneers exchanged sardonic glances.
“And none so quick to hang us.”
Warwick cleared his throat as cold eyes fixed upon him. “Gallows Point will be closed … er … indefinitely. There’s a war to be fought.”
“Indeed, monsieur, an’ who are we noble Frenchmen to fight?”
“Why, the Dutch, of course and the—” Warwick caught himself from a worse blunder. The word French was left unspoken.
He confronted cool Gallic smiles.
“You were saying, monsieur?” breathed l’Olonnaise.
Warwick lifted a hand. “My good Captains, please. I have come to you in good faith. If it’s commissions you want, then you’ll get them. If it weren’t so, would I have ventured to come here?”
“That depends, monsieur, on the real reason for your visit. Perhaps it is one certain pirate that the Admiralty officials seek.”
“I am sure, Captain, that you have me at a loss. I was sent by Governor Modyford.”
“What kind of commissions? Do you think we’ve a stomach to attack our own?” asked the Dutchman Roche. “The French governor already offers us marques to fight Spain!”
Ah, thought Baret. He had been counting on the fact that the buccaneers would not agree to attack the Dutch islands even to plunder Dutch goods. That left only the Regale and the Warspite as fighting ships for King Charles.
Baret walked to a table where several pirates in costumes as garish as peacocks sat in cool shirts and linen pantaloons. Their long, rat-tailed mustaches complemented their King Louis XIV hair length. One threw down three golden doubloons for a single coconut shell of rum, as Baret joined them.
Warwick noticed Baret, and, soon closing his speech, came to the table. “Foxworth, I should like to speak with you alone as soon as possible.” He turned back to the pirates. “And now, your wares, my Captains. What have you this time?”
Baret lingered, looking upon the wide and elaborately carved table before which stood a small iron-clasped chest, under guard by three buccaneers, fingering their pistols.
“Here, Your Excellency, is the sweet prize of a don’s wench herself, taken from Santo Domingo by me own nimble fingers. Feast your lovin’ eyes on what we bring.”
A resounding shout arose when one of the bearers threw off the catch and there was spilled onto the table a scintillating, dancing mound of treasure. Necklaces, brooches, finger rings, jeweled crosses, goblets, plates, and altar ornaments became heaped into a small but radiant pile.
Baret glanced at Warwick and saw his eyes bulge and his face flush.
“It’s your choice, Foxworth,” said the buccaneer in charge. “If it wasn’t for the Regale comin’ to our aid when ye did, we’da been sunk and shark bait by now. Take your share.”
At the mention of Baret’s aid, Warwick looked at him sharply and quizzically.
Baret smiled faintly. “A mere trifle, Baronet.”
Warwick cleared his throat.
Baret inspected the necklaces and brooches and decided they were too heavy and Spanish in taste for his liking, but worth a great deal of money. He plucked several from the pile and dropped them into his pocket. Then a jeweled comb caught his eye. He picked it up and inspected the flashing jade-green emeralds. They were of good quality. He chose some Margarita pearls, several finger rings of gold with emeralds, which looked the right size and matched the comb, and a well-crafted silver hand mirror, encrusted with seed pearls.
Warwick flushed with pleasure when the wily captain suggested that, since he was a very old friend of Foxworth, he should take a few morsels as gifts without paying. He gaped and pawed at the booty.
When they were outside Warwick drew in a deep breath. “Blast me, Foxworth, there’s a bit of pirate in me as well.”
“You, Baronet? An honorable member of the Jamaican Council? Surely not! It is men of your character, sir, that restore my faith in all that is law-abiding and honorable.”
Warwick cocked an eye at him as if trying to decide whether he was serious.
Baret smiled. “Shall we go, Baronet? It seems we each have a fine bargain to make with the other.”
“Bargain? Yes … er … that is, Governor Modyford wishes to speak with you in private about your entry into Maracaibo.”
“Maracaibo?” he asked innocently.
“Henry Morgan will be there. He’s recommended you to the governor as a steady man.”
“The news is intriguing. Before I show myself, however, there is a small matter of some import awaiting our urgent attention. May I suggest that, in the name of King Charles, I, with certain other well-disciplined buccaneer captains, thwart an attack of the Dutch on English ships at Barbados?”
19
WHY ARE MY WINTERS SO LONG?
Jasper Hall did not live up to the image that the English name had forged within Emerald’s mind. As she stepped from the carriage onto the burnt-orange tiled courtyard walled with smooth stone, she was confronted with a sprawling, Spanish-style hacienda unlike any house she had seen in Port Royal.
If the house had been built as a single story dwelling of rambling stucco and wrought iron, a second level had since been added with an attractive red tile roof. There was also a six-foot-wide strollway encircling the second story, kept cool by the speckled shade from overspreading trees.
Expecting to see smugglers such as Jasper loitering about, she was led across a courtyard of serene solitude where pleasant sounds came from a splashing fountain. She noticed somber slaves filling two large ollas with water and then suspending them from terrace beams to be cooled by wind and shade.
Several well-armed guards dozed in hammocks strung between pepper trees, where black-and-white roosters an
d auburn banty hens took refuge from the afternoon heat on low branches. Would there be a way to escape this place and return the three miles to Spanish Town and Government House?
Even so, what good would that do her? she reminded herself. In her situation, Emerald wasn’t likely to convince the governor or his officials to take her word above Sir Jasper’s. It was Felix who held the key. And she was certain she already knew his asking price for Mr. Pitt’s confession of her innocence.
Besides, Sir Jasper held a respectable seat on the very council she must appeal to. And if the powerful Lord Felix were called in to hear her tale of horror, he would gravely side with Jasper and make her appear some strumpet fabricating a story to gain her freedom. With her father dead, Geneva ill, and Earl Nigel unaware of what had befallen her since their meeting in the town house, her hopes were smothered. Reality was her prison, and dreams would not create a door of escape.
And now, if the courtyard had first appeared serene, she thought of it as secretive. Its black and purple shadows, smelling of hot stone, seemed to hide the identity of men and women long dead. Who was the Spanish official who had built the house years before Cromwell’s Western Design allowed an English army to capture the sparsely inhabited island from the band of Spanish soldiers guarding it?
This place does not fit the odious Jasper, she found herself thinking uneasily. He was unpleasant enough with all his lustful schemes, but there was evidence of another presence here, perhaps a man who preferred to move within the shadows that veiled his identity?
She walked behind Sir Jasper into a cool and spacious front salon, a prisoner of his whims. She had one small hope: Jasper was in service to Felix Buckington and would do nothing to see his own plans fulfilled until he knew Felix no longer needed her presence in order to arrest Baret.
Her faith was unexpectedly encouraged when a thought flashed into her mind: From whence comes your help? Why hope in an enemy? Do not look to Felix! Your help comes from the Lord, Maker of heaven and earth.
Yes! Only God could help her.
The apostle Paul had been in a Roman prison, yet Paul saw himself not a prisoner of Nero but a servant of the Lord. He who sent an angel to loose Peter’s chains when he was in prison, could have done so for Paul, could do so in my situation, she thought. If He did not, there were reasons why.
The first night in her chamber at Jasper Hall, Emerald’s soul cried out without ceasing to the Lord. But fear finally crowded out her prayers. At first she refused to sleep in the fine bed with its clean satin sheets and coverlet. She sat in a chair, straining to hear footsteps with each creak of the wooden beams or rustle of the trumpet vine growing below the second-story strollway. Distraught, she contemplated risking a fall from the terrace to climb down the vine into the courtyard. But flaring torchlight and the bootsteps of the guard on watch soon convinced her that was folly. With loathing she remembered the turnkeys at Brideswell.
She closed her eyes tightly, trying to shut out her fears, and the kindly face of Uncle Mathias came to mind. She saw the humble singing school on Foxemoore, saw the Bible in his hand, heard him reading one of her favorite verses from Psalms—“I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety.” David had written those words, and who knew better what it meant to be hunted and hounded and vulnerable? Yet he could sleep, in the open under the watchful stars, because the plans God had for him were good. Again, purposefully, she committed herself to the Lord and then lay down.
She didn’t wake until the rooster crowed in the pepper tree below in the courtyard. A new day had begun, bright, hot, bringing her new resolve to remain strong in the Lord.
She did not see Jasper that day, nor was there any indication that Felix had arrived. Had something happened in Port Royal to circumvent his plans? Questioning the hefty and large-boned woman who brought her meals proved futile. It was as if the mulatto were both deaf and dumb. Emerald could see the woman resented her, perhaps suspecting she was a consort of Jasper.
That afternoon the woman brought an armload of satin and taffeta and lace. Her dark eyes were sullen as she spoke for the first time.
“The master says to adorn yo’self.”
Emerald had a notion the dresses had been unwillingly confiscated from someone else in the house as young as herself.
“They belong to someone else?”
The woman pursed her lips, refusing to answer.
“I don’t want them,” Emerald told her. “Take them back to Sir Jasper. What I have on will do,” she said of the plain muslin dress she’d selected after shedding her ill-smelling garment worn at Brideswell.
The woman’s heavy-lidded eyes drifted over her. “Don’t matter what you want, but what master wants.”
“He’s not my master, and I’m dreadfully sorry he’s yours. He’s a smuggler of slaves, of rum, a man without honor.”
The woman shrugged her heavy shoulders under their yellow wrap. “They all is.”
Emerald turned away with a pang. “Not all,” she murmured, thinking of Baret.
“These is presents,” the woman told her sulkily. “Other girls be dancin’ round the room all in a hurry to put ’em on and look pretty.”
Emerald folded her arms and glanced morosely toward the terrace where the smell of flowers wafted in on a humid breeze. “Then I’m not like the other girls. The last thing I want is Sir Jasper eyeing me.”
The woman watched her curiously. “You don’t love Sir Jasper?”
“Love him! Believe me, I struggle not to hate him!”
“You love another man?”
Emerald walked toward the terrace and now heard rain pattering on the vines. “Yes,” she admitted quietly. But I’d never tell him. He loves someone else.
The woman brightened at the news. “These dresses be the senorita’s. She’ll be happy you don’t love Sir Jasper.”
Emerald conjured up images of some feisty beauty from Madrid. Then suddenly she again found herself wondering not about Jasper but about the man whose presence permeated the hacienda. She turned to the slave.
“When you say the master, do you speak of Jasper or another?”
The woman walked quickly to the divan and laid down the dresses. Emerald waited for an answer, but evidently the woman decided she’d best leave, for she headed for the door.
“Wait, please,” begged Emerald. “You can help me. I don’t want anything here at Jasper Hall. All I want is to get away as soon as possible. You could help me leave undetected.”
The woman considered but shook her head. “He won’t let you go.”
“If I could get a message to Foxemoore plantation, someone would come for me. My family doesn’t know I’m here.”
“I heard say they thinks you ran away again. No one is lookin’ for you now.”
“Please, I know you don’t like me being here. I’ll leave if you’ll help me.”
The woman shook her head and left the room.
Emerald confronted a closed door. In dismay, she let out a breath and sank onto the divan beside the senorita’s dresses.
Jasper Hall remained silent as the evening broke with another sudden rain squall. There’d been no further mention of Felix Buckington. She wondered if he would even come. Perhaps Jasper had lied, thinking she would leave Brideswell with less apprehension if she believed Felix was at the plantation. In the two days since her arrival she’d seen no one except the house slave and, from a distance, guards. And occasionally Jasper, who was seeking to woo her with fine gifts and elaborate courtesy.
There was a pretentious knock, the door opened, and Sir Jasper walked in, resplendent in black satin pantaloons, a sash, and a claret-red jacket with silver lace and large silver buttons. His full-bottomed black wig was carefully arranged with royal flair. He carried a wine goblet.
Emerald refused to acknowledge his smile and gesture that complimented her attire. She had decided it was only sensible to wear the clothes provided. The dress was saffron satin with round n
eckline, full sleeves to the elbows, and a sweeping gathered skirt, over which was a second skirt of black Spanish lace.
“Ah, sweetheart, a fitting frock for one so sweetly charming. You’d put Barbara Palmer to shame,” he said lightly of King Charles’s mistress in England. “I should take you there for all to see.”
She gave him a menacing glare to make sure he knew she rejected his suggestions. “You’re so free with your odious compliments, Sir Jasper. Are you not afraid to go to England?”
“Afraid? Whatever for?”
“Seeing as how His Majesty might hang you for piracy instead of the viscount!”
He smiled, but the smile grew wearied. “Ah, my charming little serpent. So fair of face, so biting of tongue. What I see in you is a mystery even to me. Come, darlin’, you’re so tense. Do relax and have a bit of Madeira. It will help you cope.”
“You mean it’ll turn me into a stupid little wench. Please take your liquor and leave—there’s the door, sir.”
He sank onto the divan instead and sighed. “How wearisome your religious restraints become. Ah, well…” He glanced about at the red flagstone floor. “Such a lovely chamber. It once belonged to the spoiled and lovely Dona Maria Gonzalo.” He gestured to the daybed where satin frocks lay in a heap. “Sweetheart, I treat you like pampered royalty, yet you reject my gifts as well as my advances.”
“At what price do you offer them, Sir Jasper?”
His eyes mocked her. “I suppose Mathias, with his thunderous brow, taught you to deny all fleshly enjoyments as coming from the devil himself.”
“He did not, though he would have been wise to warn me about your enjoyments.”
“How pious you sound.”
“And, of course, I’m supposed to apologize for piety? I should be ashamed of it, so I could boast of being sophisticated in things concerning lust and greed?”
“Lust and greed!” He leered and threw back his head. “Sweetheart, you’re a fledgling after all, alas! Nothing could be more immature. I thought you wiser to the ways of reality, but all you do is quote little platitudes fit for well-scrubbed faces in the nursery.”
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