The Scot Corsair

by Fiona Monroe

  It began to feel odd that nobody had come for her. The fight was certainly over. Elspeth had just decided that she would wait here no longer, but unlock the door herself and make her safety known, when she heard footsteps and voices in the corridor outside. Rough tones, she thought, as though from the common sailors.

  This was the officers' quarters. It was not a part of the ship where the able seamen generally came. Something about the timbre of the voices made Elspeth hesitate, and then she heard the creak of one door opening, followed by another. There was a cackle of laughter from one of the men, and after another few moments, the handle to her own cabin rattled.

  Upon finding the door locked, the man without exclaimed in annoyance.

  It was then that Elspeth realised what was making her uneasy. These men were not speaking in English.

  There was a rapid-fire debate on the other side of the door, a door which Elspeth suddenly became very aware was nothing more than a few planks of flimsy wood. She was unsure what the language was, except that it was not French, which Miss Gowrie had tried in vain for years to persuade into her head. It might have been Spanish. She tried to remember what powers other than Great Britain held sway here in the West Indies, but all Miss Gowrie's history and geography lessons in the sunlit schoolroom at Dunwoodie seemed equally to have deserted her.

  There was no warning. One moment, the rough foreign voices argued incomprehensibly. The next, an explosion almost deafened her. She clamped her hands to her ears, a ringing in her head, and stared in horror at the ragged, smoking hole in the wood above the door handle. Propelled by a hefty kick, the door flew open.

  Outside were two men with lined, hardened faces, wearing open shirts, chains of gold coins and brightly-coloured neckchiefs tied around their head. One man had long black hair that hung past his shoulders in greasy curls, the other was fair but had a hideous puckered scar all across one cheek. The dark-haired man carried a shotgun, and it was he who had kicked in the door. The other wielded a broad cutlass, its blade dark with what had to be blood.

  Elspeth's legs buckled from under her as she backed away to cower against the bunk. She tried to scream, but the only sound that would come from her dry throat was a strangled croak.

  Roderick surveyed the carnage with dismay. The British merchantman had not been heavily armed, he had seen that at first glance through the telescope when Luiz had announced its appearance on the horizon. All alone, obviously off course, and obviously laden with cargo that it had probably picked up in British Africa. At first, it had looked like an excellent prize, the more so since British ships no longer carried slaves. Slaves were useless as booty, taking up valuable space that might have been filled with lucrative treasures such as spices, ivory or even gold. At this stage, even food and rum would be a welcome addition to the Chieftain's supplies.

  He had ordered the black flag raised and approached the vessel openly, confident that the crew would offer no resistance and that they would be able to plunder the cargo without undue fuss.

  Then the Bombardier had, for unknown reasons, let loose a cannon which had hit the deck and felled an officer where he stood. The Captain of the merchantman, who looked like a young and eager fool anyway, had yelled that they would defend their precious cargo to the death, and called upon all his men to behave with honour.

  They had had no choice after that but to slaughter them all. Six of his own men had been killed, too, the heaviest loss the Chieftain had suffered for some time. Three able seamen from the Heron had surrendered and asked to join the crew, but while that was a gain, Roderick did not regard his men as disposable or interchangeable. The bloodshed had been entirely avoidable, had the merchant captain not decided to play the fool hero in defence of a few logs; for on inspection, the cargo hold was found to be full of un-planed African hardwood, a bounty scarcely less useless to the Chieftain than slaves would have been. It made no sense.

  There was little enough rum on board either, and the ship's rations were running low as it had clearly been nearing the end of its voyage. Roderick ordered everything that could be eaten, drunk or easily sold to be stripped from the hold and cabins anyway, and helped his men to heave the bodies of the crew overboard. His own men, he had wrapped in oilskins and carried back to the Chieftain for burial at sea later.

  "Nothing," said Washington, in tones of deep disgust, coming up from belowdecks. In his hands he was clutching a jumble of watch chains, lockets and other personal trinkets, so nothing was a rather harsh verdict. Washington glared at Roderick as if it was his fault; which, Roderick reflected, ultimately it was. It had been his decision to pursue the merchantman, it had been his choice to fly the black flag in an attempt to intimidate the crew into immediate surrender. His voice giving the order for an all-out attack, after the young captain had made his idiotic stand.

  Roderick gazed down at the captain's body; the man's throat had been slit from ear to ear, and the wound flapped almost white now that all the blood had drained to the deck. It was a foolish notion of his own, but he felt that he owed his theoretical counterpart at least a modicum of respect. He stood to attention and saluted the corpse before he lifted it in his own arms and heaved it over the side to its watery grave.

  Washington joined him at the railings and gazed down at the ripples. "He crazy, thrown his life way for wood."

  At least, that was what Roderick thought he said.

  "And you, you crazy too, Captain. We lose good men for this—" Washington used a word that Roderick did not know at all, but the meaning of which he was confident to guess from context, jangling the handful of junk in his face.

  "It looked good and it was undefended," Roderick said steadily, looking him in the eye. "We couldn't have known it was carrying nothing of value."

  "Capitão! Capitão!"

  Roderick broke off his defensive interlocked gaze with the Quartermaster and turned to see Bastos and Lummock running towards him.

  "Captain," said Lummock again, in English. He was a great hefty swain from some Suffolk farm. If it weren't for his tan and the scar that split his cheek, he would have looked more at home leaning against a haystack, chewing a straw. "We found something in the officer's quarters, we found—"

  "Uma dama," said Bastos.

  "A woman?" Roderick looked at the pair of them sharply.

  "I think she's more than that," said Lummock, with a dazed look on his broad peasant face. "I think she's a princess."

  Elspeth pulled herself together with a determined effort after the two men left her. The scarred blond one had asked her, in a barely-comprehensible accent that she thought might be English rustic, who she was. They had both seemed stunned to find her there, and she could see—despite her fright, despite their fearsome aspect—that her appearance gave them both pause.

  She drew herself up and said with as much grandeur as she could muster, "Lady Elspeth Dunwoodie, daughter of the Marquess of Crieff, presents her compliments to your commander. I will wait upon him here, should he wish to make my acquaintance."

  It worked. The blond Englishman even made a sort of bow before they both scurried away.

  Elspeth took several deep steadying breaths, and contemplated the door of the cabin, which was swinging open on its hinges. With its lock blown out, it would probably never close again. She could escape, but there was nowhere to escape to. Her wisest course of action was to remain in command of the cabin, and meet whoever commanded the pirates with all the dignity of her rank.

  She smoothed down her gown, checking once again that she presented a respectable appearance. She was dressed appropriately for the morning, in a simple gown of fine white muslin and kid leather slippers, and no ornaments but a plain gold cross at her throat. Her hair, she had pinned up herself and it was unfortunately less neatly arranged than she would have liked, particularly since her embraces with Lieutenant Wardle had undone some of her inexpert arranging. Locks were escaping down her temples and neck, she knew. Nonetheless, she held her head high and waited as ca
lmly as she could until she heard footsteps in the corridor again.

  The door was flung back, to reveal—Sir Duncan Buccleuch, in the costume of a Pirate King.

  Of course, after the first shock of recognition, she realised it was not her former almost-lover. This man was much older, his face weathered and dark, and his eyes were set somewhat deeper. But he had the same spare, lean frame, the same dark untidy hair, the same black eyes, the same sharp nose and mobile mouth. The resemblance was unmistakable and startling.

  He hesitated, looking her up and down, then bowed graciously. And when he spoke, it was the same voice. The cultured tones of a Scottish gentleman, with the lilt of a Highlander.

  "Good day to you, madam. I apologise for the necessity of introducing myself. I am Captain Roderick Scot, captain of the good ship Chieftain of the Seas."

  It sounded utterly bizarre, this voice issuing from the weatherbeaten pirate before her. And yet his manners, too, were absolutely those of a gentleman. That was not something that she could mistake. Whatever misadventure had driven this man to become a desperado of the seas, he was not of low birth.

  She curtseyed. "I am Lady Elspeth Dunwoodie, daughter of the Marquess of Crieff, of Dunwoodie in Aberdeenshire. I am delighted to make your acquaintance, sir."

  He bowed again, and then he laughed. "Well, your ladyship, you shouldn't be. I'm sorry to tell you that we've captured the Heron—and you too, it would seem."

  "Please sir, I trust you will behave towards me as a gentleman, and release me."

  "What are you doing in here? This is one of the officer's cabins. Are you the wife of one of the officers?"

  "No, sir. When you attacked, Lieutenant Wardle told me to hide in here and lock the door, for my own safety. I am nobody's wife, sir."

  "Of course you are not. Lady Elspeth Dunwoodie. So what were you doing aboard ship in the first place?"

  "I am travelling to Barbados, sir."

  He clicked his tongue. "Yes, evidently, but why?"

  She hesitated. For some reason, she was reluctant to admit to this man that she was being shipped out like a piece of merchandise, bought sight unseen. Besides, the glimmerings of a wild scheme, a desperate hope was dawning at the back of her mind. "My family has holdings in Barbados, I am going to visit my cousins there."

  It was not even a lie. Mr Isaac Crowther was some kind of cousin of Mary's, and Mary had been her sister-in-law; that made him a distant sort of cousin of her own.

  "All alone?"

  She knew it looked odd, but she tilted her chin proudly upwards. "Yes."

  He was silent, and regarded her for a long moment. There was nothing menacing in his gaze, nothing but measured appraisal and shrewd intelligence. "I remember the Marquess of Crieff," he said, surprising her. "Henry, yes—thirteenth Marquess?"

  She nodded.

  "He was one of the wealthiest noblemen in Scotland, and I seem to recall that he was blessed with a beautiful wife and a large family, too."

  Her heart squeezed. "Yes, sir."

  "But he must be an old man now, if he still lives."

  "He is still alive, sir." Or he had been six weeks ago, and nobody had yet informed her otherwise.

  When he smiled, it was exactly the same kind of quirk at the corner of his mouth that she had found so appealing in Sir Duncan. "So. I thought this ship was carrying nothing of value, or nothing of use to me at any rate. Perhaps... I was wrong."

  Chapter Six

  Elspeth trembled as the pirate Captain led her, respectfully but with one hand firmly clasping her elbow, up out of the officers' quarters and across a deck that was slick with seawater and, she was horribly sure, blood.

  The other pirates stood all around, gaping at her as if she were some kind of exotic beast of legend, never before seen by mortal eyes. They were a wild-looking, hardened crowd, dressed outlandishly in coloured silks and patchwork coats and gold and silver chains, some with a dozen rings through a single ear, and ugly black tattoos disfiguring their forearms. All had faces weathered to the colour of mahogany, and a few were actually ebony-skinned blackamoors.

  In his dress, and his aspect, the Captain was in fact the least wild, and most comely of them all.

  "Where are the sailors?" she asked. "Where is Captain Cardrew? L-lieutenant Wardle...?"

  "They put up a fight," said the Captain. "We won."

  She could hardly dare to believe what she thought he was saying. The sky, the sea and the slick wooden deck swayed, and before she had any power to command her limbs, she found herself held firmly in the Captain's arms. He had swept her up off her feet and was carrying her, actually lifting her as effortlessly as if she were a child. She could smell salt and spice on him, a not unpleasant aroma, and she did not have time to feel shame or alarm or outrage before he was striding with her across a narrow plank that had been placed between the deck of the Heron and the pirate ship. Had she been asked to cross this herself, she would not have dared place a single foot upon it. As it was, the Captain bore her across as sure-footed as a cat on a ledge, and so swiftly that she had not a moment spare to feel the terror of it before they were both on the other ship. The pirate ship.

  It seemed to her a little smaller than the Heron, and though it was not hung with shrunken heads or covered in barnacles, its sails were patchwork and the deck and rigging seemed less rigorously scrubbed and cleansed than the merchant ship. Otherwise, it was a ship like any other.

  She had this brief impression of the deck before the Captain carried her up some steps and through a door into a richly appointed cabin, with a bow window that looked forward over the waves. He deposited her gently onto a large, velvet-upholstered chaise longue that looked as if it would have been more at place in the drawing room of a great house such as Dunwoodie, although the velvet was worn bald in patches and the carved mahogany frame was scratched and pitted.

  She noticed these details, perhaps to distract her from the reality that she was captured by pirates and alone in what seemed to be the Captain's cabin with the pirate Captain himself. She saw that there was a bunk below the bow window that was nothing short of a full-sized bed, draped with silks and piled with exotically embroidered cushions.

  "Are you feeling better now, your ladyship?" He knelt beside her, a look of what seemed to be genuine concern on his face. "Here. This might do you good." He rummaged in a chest and brought out a cut-glass bottle, which he waved under her nose.

  The acrid jolt of ammonia made her cough and splutter. "Gah! Why do you have smelling salts, sir? Do you often play host to ladies?"

  "No, but we sometimes raid ladies' cabins."

  "And what... what do you do with the ladies?" she asked, trying to sound defiant, but in fact coming close to tears. The fumes of the smelling salts had violently irritated her throat, and she had always hated having them inflicted upon her by well-meaning persons. She batted away the bottle without thinking whether it would be a good idea to provoke the dangerous pirate.

  "We do nothing with the ladies." He was still on his knees, looking at her with steady eyes. "I would not have my men treat ladies with disrespect, whatever you may have heard of gentlemen of the seas."

  "Then what do you...?"

  "Nothing, as I say, other than relieve them of their jewels and send them on their way with their ship. You must understand, your ladyship, that most merchant crews choose not to oppose us. We approached under the black flag. We gave your captain plenty of warning. It was not my intention to have bloodshed. Your captain ought not to have made a stand against us."

  "Did—did you kill him? And the others?"

  "I lost six men of my own."

  Her eyes filled with tears now. "You make it sound as if it was Captain Cardrew's fault."

  "It was." His expression hardened, and he got to his feet.

  "You're a monster!" she cried. "A murderer!"

  "Aye, if you like. Now I would not have you faint in front of my crew. You are the prize bounty from this raid, and it's as well they look up
on you as such until we can find a way to turn you to account."

  "Wh-what do you mean?" Her stomach felt as if it were sinking lower and lower. She did not like the steadiness of his black gaze, so uncannily like Sir Duncan's.

  "I take it that your father the Marquess would pay well for your safe return."

  "He would!" she said immediately, forcefully. "Take me home and he will make you rich! But—but if you harm me in any way, he will hunt you down and have you killed!"

  "Now listen to me, Lady Elspeth. I'm a pirate, as you may have noticed. Pirates are hanged, if they're caught—whether I harm you or not, if the British take me, I'm a dead man. There's a big risk to me and my men, taking you anywhere near British waters. I think it would be better to deliver you to your relatives in Barbados—"

  "They do not have the money to pay a ransom!" she cried, in a panic. "At least, I do not think—"

  He continued to stare at her, and she felt that his eyes were boring into her.

  Elspeth began to feel faint again. What was she doing? Why did she not just tell him the truth about her destination in Barbados? Mr Crowther would presumably pay a ransom to secure his bride, since he was supposed to be the richest man in the Caribbean.

  They had killed all the crew. All of them, even Captain Cardrew and poor, ardent Lieutenant Wardle, whose kisses she could still taste. Surely she ought to be more afraid for her life, than afraid of marrying a man who might or might not be to her taste? For all she knew, Mr Crowther could be the handsomest man in Barbados, as well as the richest, and perhaps life there would be more pleasant than she could have imagined back in the chilly mists of an Aberdeenshire February.

  But she could not admit it to the pirate Captain. It was partly pride, the shame of her situation; but also, because she saw a real and wholly unexpected possibility of being carried back home and escaping the marriage, without it being in any way her own fault. James could not possibly blame her for getting captured by pirates, and surely the sensation her escape would create would earn her enough sympathy, attention and concern to wholly exonerate her from her misdeeds. There was no way that James would be so cruel as to send her all the way back to the West Indies again, once she had been rescued from a band of desperate pirates who had killed all the crew of the ship he had put her on. He would have to apologise to her, he would have to treat her with indulgence.