Windsong

by Valerie Sherwood

  Carolina had long suspected as much. She nodded to two tradesmen who were just then passing by, lost in talk of cargoes, their steel-buckled shoes sparkling in the sun. ‘So there never really was anyone but - your marquess?’

  Reba nodded. Her face, once so pretty, had grown melancholy, Carolina thought. ‘Oh, if only I could make you see him as I did, Carolina! So tall and straight, so magnificent! With those eyes that roved over you and’ - she shivered - ‘stripped you down to your chemise and then threw that away!’

  Carolina was used to a pair of eyes like that. She sighed too.

  ‘And I believed everything he said,’ mourned Reba. ‘Do you know I was really under the impression that I had seduced him? It wasn’t until he left me - for the second time! - that I began to realize what had actually happened.’

  ‘I don’t understand why he didn’t marry you after his wife died,’ Carolina said soberly. ‘You told me he was desperate for money, I remember.’ She bit her lip for she had not meant to suggest so bluntly that Reba’s marquess might have been persuaded to marry her for her dowry.

  But Reba, absorbed in her own thoughts, seemed not to notice. ‘I do think I could have landed him if I’d had time. But I was afraid to let Mother know how I was living - and I suppose that cast doubts on my dowry in Robin’s mind. And I was so happy with him that I didn’t want to risk - well, losing him.’

  Which you well might have, if you’d pushed for something more than a Fleet Street marriage, thought Carolina grimly. And you wouldn’t even have had the little you got!

  ‘Oh, Carolina, you should have seen how happy we were!’ Reba murmured dreamily. ‘Robin had found us that little place in Hanging Sword Alley and we almost never went out at all.’ She shivered deliciously, remembering.

  ‘Hanging Sword Alley?’ Carolina turned in surprise. But that’s off Fleet Street near Whitefriars! I thought you told me he found you a house on London Bridge with a Watergate, high up on one of the sterlings!’

  ‘I lied,’ Reba said cheerfully, and when Carolina blinked, she frowned at her. ‘Well, after all, Carolina,’ she complained, ‘there you were back in London looking wonderful and wearing new clothes and there I was, staying at Jenny Chesterton’s, feeling utterly bedraggled. I didn’t want to admit that Robin had only found me a bare little two-room place in Hanging Sword Alley! A tall house on London Bridge sounded much more impressive!’

  ‘Indeed it did,’ Carolina agreed drily, remembering that she had envisioned Reba to have been dashing about London with a coach and six. ‘But why didn’t he take you out?’ From what she had heard of Robin Tyrell, Marquess of Saltenham, he was a man who enjoyed the gaiety of night time London.

  ‘Well, he said it was because I was his new bride . . .’

  A Fleet Street bride, Carolina thought sardonically.

  ‘And of course he was fast running out of money. But - ’ Reba hesitated, then with a shrug admitted the truth. ‘I think it was really because he was afraid we’d be seen together, and my father might hear of it and storm into London and force him to marry me in a church - without any dowry at all!’

  ‘If you thought that,’ said Carolina, knowing how Reba’s mind worked, ‘I’m surprised you didn’t get in touch with your father.’

  ‘I did write to him,’ Reba said frankly, ‘one night while Robin was sleeping. But the chimney caught fire before I could get the letter posted. We all ran out into the night to save our lives, and I think maybe Robin found the letter for I know I never did. It disappeared - perhaps into the fire. It was only the rooms on our floor that were damaged. We moved into other rooms downstairs the next day. And the next day’ - her hard young face clouded - ‘was the day he left me.’

  Carolina was not surprised. From what she had heard of the rake, Robin Tyrell, he was entirely capable of that. For all that Reba had been his willing playmate, he had still blasted her young life - and apparently he did not care.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said softly.

  ‘So am I!’ Reba’s hard shell was back, protecting her inner hurt. ‘After all, I had planned to become a marchioness!’ Her brittle laughter caught suddenly on a sob and she snatched for a kerchief and violently blew her nose. ‘And - and there was something else, Carol, something I haven’t told you. Robin had found himself another woman - I’m sure of it. Twice he had come home reeking of her perfume!’

  Carolina turned her face away. She did not want Reba to see how bleak her expression was at that moment. She looked up and traced the pattern of a hunting gull winging through the sky, wings glittering white against the blue.

  ‘Do you think women are always fools?’ she asked quietly.

  Reba hesitated a moment - then she gave a frank answer. ‘Where men are concerned - yes.’

  ‘I don’t understand men who just - walk away.’ There was pain in Carolina’s voice.

  ‘I do,’ Reba said bitterly. ‘They think they’ve found something better. At least newer. I suppose it amounts to the same thing.’

  Was that it? Was that really it? Oh, she couldn’t credit it! Rye had given her no sign that he had ceased to love her - except possibly his preoccupation with matters concerning the ship and his men, and long evenings away from her. Spent with the Duchess of Lorca? The thought seared her.

  ‘We’re going to have to find a new life, Reba,’ she said tiredly.

  ‘Yes.’ Reba sounded sad. ‘But I’d give my eye teeth for the old!’

  Carolina said nothing for Reba had voiced what they both felt.

  ‘At first I thought I wouldn’t,’ Reba said, sighing. ‘But now I know that I’d take Robin back. No matter how many other women he had.’

  ‘I wouldn’t,’ said Carolina bitterly - but she knew it was her pride speaking. She desperately wanted Rye back - as desperately as ever Reba wanted her Robin.

  But . . . there was another woman standing squarely in her path.

  And suddenly, with a force so great that it lent venom to her voice, Carolina wanted revenge. Revenge upon the dark and lovely Duchess of Lorca. Revenge upon the woman who had stolen her lover!

  ‘I’d never take Rye back,’ she choked.

  She found herself brooding about that as the Mary Constant slipped through the Strait of Dover and into the English Channel. Through the choppy waters the stout little merchant ship drove, with France somewhere off her port bow and the south of England off to starboard. Hastings, where England had changed hands during the Norman invasion, drifted by, and Dungeness and Beachy Head, as Kent gave way to Sussex. Hampshire’s New Forest, ancient hunting ground of the West Saxon kings, where two of the Conqueror’s sons had met their deaths and where a scant four years ago the wild Duke of Monmouth had been seized in full flight after the disastrous Battle of Sedgemoor, passed by on her right - but it meant nothing to Carolina. History was marching by her in a line of bright beaches and green forests and towering rocky cliffs, but all she could see was one dark face and a pair of grey eyes that had smiled on her for a season. She felt ten years older by the time they reached Torquay with its terraced gardens and cascades of flowers, and passed by Plymouth Sound where in Tudor times the English fleet had waited to do battle with the mighty Spanish Armada.

  ‘That’s Plymouth Hoe over there,’ Reba told her, shading her eyes against the sun to look across the shining waters of the Sound. She studied the port. ‘All those ships ... I wonder if any of them belong to my father?’

  She sounded homesick already, and Carolina turned with Reba to study the harbour with its forest of sails.

  She would have been thunderstruck to know that the beautiful Duchess of Lorca, who had become such an obsession with her, was at that very moment sulking on the deck of one of those distant ships or that Rye had gone down into town to see how his men were faring . . .

  And then their westward voyage continued, Plymouth disappeared from view, Devon gave way to Cornwall, they were rounding The Lizard, passing Land’s End, the jagged rocks of the Scilly Isles disappearing off to sta
rboard. Before them stretched the broad reaches of the Atlantic.

  The voyage seemed interminable to the two girls, with no young people on board and little to do save eat and sleep. Blue skies alternated with grey as the ship cut a white wake through a trackless ocean, and day followed monotonous day. The passengers, tired of hard ship’s biscuits and mouldy cheese and cramped quarters, had grown quarrelsome. Even Mistress Wadlow, whose disposition was even despite her tendency to talk everyone to death, had grown petulant. This morning when her comb caught on a tangle of her grey hair, she had thrown a dozen hairpins on the floor and stamped on them.

  Although it was already dusk on a damp day with a fog bank nearly obscuring their vision, Carolina and Reba had as usual remained on deck where the air was better than it was in their stuffy cabin. And there one of the ‘mercantile gentlemen’, a Mr Souers, had found them and was now waxing expansive about his crossings, which had been many.

  ‘We are nearing the Western Islands,’ he told them, airing his knowledge. ‘The Azores - Isles of the Hawks.’ Eager to impress such pretty young creatures, he went on. ‘When I made this crossing nine years ago there was a great volcano in the Azores belching smoke and blackening the sky. I can still hear its thunder!’

  Reba shuddered and glanced uneasily at the cloud bank which obscured the direction in which Mr Souers was pointing.

  ‘Oh, look,’ she cried. ‘There’s a ship. It just shot out from behind that fog bank and it seems to be heading this way. Do you think it’s English?’

  In silence they all three studied the approaching vessel, indistinct in the dusk but coming up fast. It looked rather like the Sea Wolf, thought Carolina forlornly, and felt a twist of pain in her heart.

  ‘I can’t quite make out her flag,’ Mr Souers said, straining forward. ‘Perhaps the captain with his glass - ’ The words died on his lips.

  From the approaching ship had come another kind of thunder.

  For at that moment a shot skimmed across the Mary Constant’s port bow and struck the water just ahead of them.

  They were being commanded to stop.

  24

  Around the two girls and the tradesman, who a moment ago had been standing upon a peaceful deck, the ship seemed suddenly to erupt into frantic activity.

  ‘Do you think she’s a Spanish ship?’ cried Reba.

  ‘No, that’s no galleon,’ rumbled Mr Souers. ‘More likely a pirate.’ His Adam’s apple seemed to be hopping up and down with his increasing anxiety. ‘Where’s the captain? What does he say?’

  As if in answer, Captain Dawlish came running down the deck, bawling orders as he ran. His usually ruddy face had taken on a greyish cast and he came to a sharp halt before the two young women, crying to them to get below, ‘For can’t ye see, the devils yonder have raised a black flag and we’ve no guns to compete with theirs!’

  What with first Reba and then Mr Souers constantly jostling her to get a better view of the oncoming vessel, Carolina scarcely had a chance to study it, but at the captain’s mention of a black flag her heart lurched. Pirates? Here in these comparatively northern waters? It seemed incredible to Carolina, who had somehow associated piracy entirely with Caribbean waters and the coast of the Americas, that out here in the middle of nowhere Mistress Wadlow’s worst fears had become reality - the Mary Constant was about to be attacked by pirates.

  Not that they were to see that attack. All the passengers still on deck were busy scurrying for cover and spurred on by the captain’s whiplash words, Mr Souers promptly grasped both girls and hurried them below to find Mistress Wadlow wringing her bony hands and bemoaning ever having taken this voyage.

  ‘Oh, the fortune-teller warned me!’ she cried tragically. ‘I should have listened, that I should! And now we’ll all be walking the plank!’

  ‘I never heard of anybody being forced to walk the plank,’ Carolina told her energetically. ‘That’s a myth to frighten children. Mistress Wadlow.’

  ‘Oh, lor’,’ gasped Mistress Wadlow, envisioning other ends if not that one. ‘How much time do you think we have to live?’

  ‘They won’t kill us,’ cried Carolina. ‘It’s ransom they’re after - and jewels and gold.’ This remark was meant to be soothing but it only evoked from the older woman a rolling of faded blue eyes and a gasp that if that was true and they had no jewels and gold, even worse might happen to them!

  Carolina was about to retort that buccaneers did not rape the women they captured, but set them on ships to return home again, when she was brought up short by the realization that these men bearing down on them were not buccaneers - they were pirates, and who knew what might be their fate?

  Reba kept running to the cabin door, opening it a crack and calling out in a piercing voice, ‘Is there any news? Does anyone know what ship it is that fired on us?’

  On one of those penetrating calls, she was answered. White-haired Mr Patterson, who owned a plantation on Sandys in the Bermudas, was hurrying by and he paused to report, ‘We have not yet been able to make out the name of the vessel but we think she flies a black petticoat for a flag - which would mean that her captain is a man named Kells.’

  Carolina’s world did a dizzy turnaround. The next moment her flying feet reached the door. ‘I want to see it!' she cried breathlessly. ‘The ship!’

  But at the doorway, a shocked Mr Patterson pushed her back inside the cabin with a firm hand. ‘This is no time for sightseeing!’ he admonished. ‘The captain does not want any of the passengers on deck - and especially the women,’ he added on an ominous note.

  'Why not?’ cried Carolina. ‘What harm if we - ’

  There may yet be fighting,’ he interrupted her tersely. I have come below for my fowling piece in case the captain decides we should try to fend them off.’

  A fowling piece? When they’ll have twenty pounders aimed at our decks? Tell the captain - ’

  She got no chance to finish. Mr Patterson gave her a wounded look and cut into her words. Plainly he was a man intent on doing his duty - nobly, whether he had the proper armaments for it or not. ‘Keep the wench inside,’ he instructed Mistress Wadlow and Reba. ‘It would seem they are about to board us.’ And he shut the door in Carolina’s face and stalked away.

  Reba seized her by the wrist and Mistress Wadlow clawed nervously at her sleeve, dragging her back from the door.

  Oh, for pity’s sake, Carol!’ cried Reba in exasperation. Carolina desisted - and stood trembling. At that moment it was difficult for her to think coherently. A lean grey ship had come suddenly out of the fog - and now they were telling her that ship flew a black petticoat, the symbol of the feared Petticoat Buccaneer!

  All that Sandy Randolph had said about Kells that day at Level Green was coming true, she realized, stunned. He had fired across the bow of an English ship; he was about to board her.

  About to board us!’ Mistress Wadlow gasped, echoing her thought and even Reba shrank back. ‘And he says it’s Captain Kells,’ she whispered.

  But Carolina, hearing Mistress Wadlow wail that name, stood bemused. No matter how calamitous the circumstances, her heart for a moment soared at the prospect of seeing Rye again - and then it plummeted. She would see Rye again - but with another woman at his side. A woman at the very sight of whom he had been struck speechless. A woman whose very shadow reminded him of his one great love - Rosalia. A woman who had been able to make him forget her . . .

  Around her now all was excitement. Mistress Wadlow, now that the situation had grown desperate, had suddenly recovered her wits and was pouring out a torrent of words. They must put on their best chemises, their best petticoats, their best silk dresses - two or three of them if possible. They must hide about their persons any jewels they possessed. (She was tearing into boxes, rummaging, slipping on extra garters and extra silk stockings and a brace of petticoats even as she spoke.) And over the top of all that clothing, she insisted, they must wear their plainest, drabbest gowns.

  ‘There is no chance our bodices wou
ld hook over such wads of cloth,’ Carolina responded absently. She was grappling with larger problems than what she would wear to be captured!

  ‘But you must make them hook!’ exclaimed Mistress Wadlow. ‘So that we will be overlooked.'

  ‘There is no chance at all that we will be overlooked,’ sighed Reba. ‘My hair is too red and I’m too tall to go unnoticed. And Carolina is a blazing blonde that everybody notices! We are certain to be singled out. Oh, just this once to be mousey!’ She looked very frightened.

  ‘Well then, there’s a way!’ Mistress Wadlow was proving to be nothing if not resourceful. ‘I am bringing a trunkful of widows’ weeds to Bermuda for a friend of my daughter’s who is very large and will pay handsomely for them. We will wear those over our clothing. Surely even pirates will respect mourning!’ She was scrabbling through a large trunk as she spoke. ‘And that way we can swathe our heads and faces in heavy black veils.’ She tossed a black gown and petticoat and several thick black veils in Reba’s direction.

  Reba caught them. She looked undecided for a moment, then she began putting on the mourning garb with feverish haste.

  ‘Wait, you’re not putting on extra garments beneath!’

  ‘I would rather let the pirates have my wardrobe than be dragged off to Tortuga to wear away my life in some brothel!’ she retorted scornfully. Smoothing down a black petticoat over her slender hips, she turned anxiously to Carolina, who had not moved but stood with her head bent, her hands clenched together. ‘Wake up, Carol!’ She gave her friend a rude nudge. ‘This is no time for wool-gathering! You haven’t even begun to dress - you must hurry!’

  Carolina eluded Reba’s grasp and shook her head almost dreamily.

  ‘There is no need for all this furore,’ she told them almost brusquely. ‘I will speak to Kells.’

  ‘You'll speak to . . . are you out of your mind? Oh, you’ll do no such thing, Carol. Here, put on these mourning clothes. At once!’ Taut with excitement, she tried to drape a black garment over her friend’s head.