Windsong

by Valerie Sherwood

  ‘Without money?’ She was scandalized.

  ‘Oh, I’ll pay their passage,’ he said easily. ‘As a present for the bride who, after all, brought us together.’

  His voice was caressing and Carolina blushed again. But she turned her head away. Rye might choose cavalierly to dismiss this whole affair but she was not ready to forgive him - not yet.

  ON BOARD THE SEA WAIF

  ANCHORED OFF HORTA IN THE AZORES

  1689

  31

  On shore in Horta a tearful duchess was trying to explain her shocking décolletage to an angry husband made querulous by long incarceration. On board the Mary Constant the jubilant passengers were tallying up their baggage to make sure that nothing had been lost. On board the newly christened Sea Wench a buccaneer prize crew was drinking from wineskins and calling taunts down into the hold at the former crew that had manned it.

  But in the great cabin of the Sea Waif, the buccaneer captain and his lady were having other difficulties.

  No sooner had she entered than Carolina had sniffed the air and turned vengefully on Rye. ‘I can smell her perfume! I will not stay here - set me ashore!’ she cried.

  'We will air the cabin,’ said Rye. He moved to open the stern windows. ‘We will fill it with a new perfume - one that belongs here,’ he added caressingly.

  'If you leave me in this room, I will lock the door against you,’ Carolina warned, 'the moment you go through it!’

  ‘And I will break it down,’ said Rye amiably. 'Will that please you? To be thus besieged?’

  ‘No, it will not please me!’ she snapped. 'I want to be rid of the sight of you. Why do you think I sailed away from London, leaving no one any idea of where I had gone?’

  ‘I think you were under a misapprehension,’ he said in a level tone. ‘You thought yourself abandoned.’

  ‘It was no misapprehension.' Bitterly. ‘You took your choice between us and you chose her. Admit it!’

  ‘I do not admit it.’ He sighed. ‘I was caught in the jaws of a trap with two brides - one of the past and one of the heart. Both had a claim. Can you not see my dilemma?’

  ‘Tell me you did not lie with her!’ she demanded.

  ‘No, I will not tell you that.’ His gaze was stern. ‘Let there be truth between us, Carolina. In London, I was drawn into the past. But remember, I thought Rosalia still to be my wife, to have a legitimate claim upon me - ’

  ‘And my claim was not legitimate?’

  He winced. ‘Can you not understand how it was? New risen from the dead, she threw herself into my arms. She swore she had been forced into marriage with the Duke, she sought my protection - and before God, I believed her to have need of it, for to have bigamously married a Spanish grandee would have brought her certain death. And probably torture as well.’

  Carolina sniffed.

  ‘In the light of events, it is clear I played the fool,’ he added with a sigh. 'That I will most readily admit!’

  Somehow his bland admission that he had fallen under Rosalia’s spell in London, that she had lain with him in that very bed at which Carolina was just now gazing, that they had cozily taken their meals here on this very table on the top of which Carolina was leaning - all this maddened her - although she had been sure of it all along. She sprang back from the table as if it were contaminated. ‘I will not have you back in my life!’ she cried. ‘Set me ashore - I will find my own way to America!’

  ‘If America is your destination, then I will sail you to the Tidewater,’ he said suddenly. ‘Indeed I will sail you straight up the York and deposit you at Level Green - or up the James to Sandy Randolph’s doorstep! I will set my course now.’

  He was striding across the great cabin on his way to the deck when she stepped in front of him to block his way.

  ‘You cannot go to the Tidewater and you know it.’ she declared scornfully, eyes flashing. ‘Both the James and the York are closed to you - forever. The king’s pardon you hold will not save you there. You could go there once because none knew you - but now they know your face. You would be seized and hanged from the highest gibbet!’

  ‘Nevertheless,’ he said casually, ‘if that is your destination, I will trust none other to take you there.’

  Lord, how adamant he could be! She wanted to stamp her foot, to lash out at him.

  ‘I hate you!’ she said between her teeth.

  ‘Is that why you saved my life just now?’ he asked coolly.

  ‘I did not save your life - it was all a charade!’

  ‘But you did not know that when you hurled yourself in front of the Spanish guns,’ he pointed out. ‘And consigned yourself to death as a sea rover.’ He smiled at the thought.

  ‘I was distraught,’ she muttered. ‘I was not thinking clearly. I would not do it again!’

  ‘I would hope not,’ he agreed politely.

  ‘I must have been mad!’

  ‘Undoubtedly.’

  ‘And anyway I could not let you die because - because of what you had once meant to me.’

  ‘My feeling about Rosalia exactly,’ he told her evenly. ‘When she told me her husband had been kidnapped, I felt I must get her out of her predicament - for what she had once meant to me.’

  Damn him, she could not get the better of him! Her eyes narrowed and she took a deep breath. ‘I have not been faithful to you, I want you to know that.’

  ‘No.’ He sighed. ‘Women have never been faithful to me, it seems.’

  ‘Do not compare me with Rosalia!’ she flashed.

  ‘I will not. Indeed I think you both had reason to desert me - at first. You when you thought I had abandoned you, Rosalia when she thought me dead.’

  ‘You believe she thought you dead?’ she asked derisively. ‘More likely she deserted you when she discovered you were a heretic and she did not wish to throw in her lot with you!’

  ‘Very possibly.’ He acknowledged the thrust gravely. ‘For now I have come to know the lady somewhat better.’

  ‘I-I deserved better than I got from you!’ She felt tears sting her eyes.

  ‘You did indeed,’ he agreed promptly. ‘But remember in my behalf that I tried to shield you, I tried to leave you in Essex in safety until I could return - ’

  ‘You did not intend to return!’

  ‘Carolina.’ His voice had deepened and now he took hold of her shoulders and held them firmly even though she tried to shake him off. ‘I know now that I always intended to return. But it was my duty to find Rosalia safe harbour - or so I thought.’ His voice roughened with feeling. ‘Leaving you in London, Carolina, was the hardest thing I ever did. I ached for you this whole mad voyage. Had I known you were on the high seas, I would have pursued your ship until I found you. To hell, if need be!’

  ‘And what of Rosalia, pray tell?’

  ‘Old flames are hard to rekindle, Carolina. In my case they flickered out entirely. Rosalia is not the woman I knew. Life has hardened her, the world has cheapened her. The Rosalia I knew was very young, untried, greedy for life. I saw in her qualities she no longer possesses. In my heart I had tried to make of her the woman I was looking for - the woman I found in you.’

  For him it was a very long speech, and it went straight to her heart. It made her feel desperately ashamed of the past two nights - spent in the arms of the Marquess of Saltenham.

  ‘It’s all - ruined, Rye.’ Her voice broke. ‘We have betrayed each other - you with Rosalia, I with Robin. No matter what our reasons, we can’t go back.’

  ‘We can if we forget the past, if we leave it behind us here in the Azores where it belongs,’ he said calmly. ‘Carolina, I was angry enough at first to kill Saltenham, but I have since had time to think. To realize that it was I who drove you to what you did. And when you had a choice, Carolina - you came back to me. You could have told me that you loved Saltenham, and I would have left you together - but you did not, you came back to me. And tried to throw away your life to save mine. Why did you do all that, Carolina, if you
do not love me?’

  ‘I do love you, Rye.’ She choked out the words. But when his arms would have enfolded her, she held him off. ‘But I think we have no future together because although now, in the heat of the moment, you say you can forgive me, I do not really think you can.’

  ‘Why not?’ he asked in a surprisingly reasonable tone. ‘You did not come to me a virgin, yet still I loved you. Nor does anything that has happened since alter my feelings for you.’ He sought for words and found them not. For how could he tell her why he loved her? That it was so much more than her winsome beauty. That she was proud and foolish and wonderful. That she tilted at life with such glowing joy. That she was gloriously loyal when loyalty was needed. That she made him feel humble that she would deign to share his life, share his bed. That just holding her in his arms had made him one of life’s fortunates. No, he could not tell her all that. ‘I love you for what you are, Carolina.’ His voice had grown husky. ‘To me you are the one woman, the only woman. And I will sail you to hell, if that is your desire.’

  Wordless, she collapsed against him, felt the strong beating of his heart through his cambric shirt. For these were words she had thought never to hear him say again.

  It was all there in the timbred richness of his voice as he let his lips rove over her face, her hair, and murmured almost roughly, ‘Carolina, don’t you know - haven’t you always known - that I love you?’

  And in her singing heart perhaps she had. Known it all along, down deep in some secret hidden place, known it even through the darkest times, known it even when she was reacting with spite and fury to what she had wrongly believed was his disavowal of her.

  She had tried so desperately to throw herself away. Had indeed done it. But the gods who pity lovers had smiled upon her - not once but twice. They had given Rye back to her.

  And now she was back in the right arms - and those arms were beckoning her on to ecstasy.

  ‘If I didn’t know,’ she whispered, just a breath away from tears. ‘I know it now.’

  ‘And now,’ he said, pushing her away a little and smiling down at her. ‘Let us marry off my rival and so be rid of him. For I’d prefer to sail with the tide. These are not waters for a buccaneer to linger in.’

  ‘Reba will be pleased for I am sure she is eager to have the ceremony held,’ laughed Carolina. And it was a lighthearted laugh again. Gone was that brittle mirthless sound she had heard so often from herself of late. Gone the anger, gone the hate, gone the terrible burdens that had weighed down her heart.

  ‘And Carolina, once we get Reba safely married to her marquess, will you allow Captain Dawlish to marry us as well?’

  Carolina missed a step and turned to look up wonderingly into his face.

  ‘Shipboard marriages,’ he reminded her, ‘are legal - and God knows I’ve been trying to get you before an honest parson long enough!’

  Looking up at him, all the shadows blew away and the world was suddenly a glad place, a scene of love and laughter, of winged things taking flight. She might never be a lady of Essex, but she would be back in that big house in Tortuga, back where she now told herself she belonged. Would forever belong.

  He took her arm and they left the cool interior of the great cabin behind them and walked out upon the deck. Above them the sky was a blinding blue and their step was light for they were on sure ground now - once again they had taken each other’s measure, once again passed every test.

  The tall buccaneer smiled down fondly upon his lady whose hand rested feather-light upon his sinewy arm. And Carolina looked up and gave him a brilliant smile, her luminous eyes flashing silver against her dark lashes as the sunlight caught them. Proudly now she could walk forth into the sun - Rye’s woman, once again.

  And now there were weddings to consider and they all must go aboard the Mary Constant.

  When told that his wedding ceremony would begin as soon as the bride was dressed for the occasion, the Marquess of Saltenham had the grace at last to inquire about his men.

  ‘What will happen to them?’ he wondered. ‘I have not seen any of them. Can it be that they are all dead?’

  Rye gave him a lazy look. ‘They are none of them dead, Saltenham. They are chained in the hold of the Sea Wench and will remain there until they reach their destination - it will be an unpleasant journey for them and will give them time to meditate on their sins.’

  ‘Their destination? Where are you taking them?’

  ‘To Tortuga,’ said Rye with a sardonic look at the marquess. ‘They yearned to be buccaneers - faith, they will have their chance! I will set them ashore on Tortuga and they may thereafter fend for themselves, signing on whatever ship will have them.’

  Robin shuddered.

  ‘It is no more than they deserve,’ said Carolina.

  ‘And you may count yourself lucky not to be among them, Saltenham,’ Rye added with a bland smile that made the marquess give him an uneasy look. ‘You owe that kindness to a lady. Remember that.’

  ‘I am well aware of that and I will indeed remember it,’ the marquess said hoarsely. ‘I ask only that you give me time to escape into Europe before you use that paper - that confession I have signed.’

  ‘Official channels move slowly,’ Rye said, and there was a glint in his eye as his gaze raked over the marquess. ‘But you,’ he added ironically, ‘doubtless will move somewhat faster.’

  Carolina felt compelled to speak for Reba, who had just joined them on deck, and was looking alarmed. ‘You will have time, Robin,’ she said. ‘I promise you that.’

  The marquess flashed her a grateful look - and it was a yearning look too, a look of farewell.

  ‘There will be very little trouble,’ Reba said abruptly. ‘For the Mary Constant belongs to my father and it has been saved, and one of the other ships Robin took - and sank’ - she gave him a reproachful look - ‘belonged to my father too.’

  ‘You will already have won the approval of your father-in-law, Saltenham,’ Rye murmured humorously.

  Reba turned upon him with some heat.

  ‘My father will forgive Robin,’ she declared. ‘For after all Robin will be my husband!’

  ‘And will he pay the owners for the other ship that was sunk, the one your father did not own?’ Rye wondered aloud.

  ‘Yes, I am sure he will,’ said Reba. But she sounded less certain.

  Rye’s brows shot up. ‘Faith, you’ll have an indulgent father-in-law, Saltenham!’

  ‘And a harpy for a mother-in-law,’ Carolina murmured in Rye’s ear as Reba spoke to her marquess. ‘Do you remember what she was like?’

  ‘All too well,’ Rye said under his breath. ‘Saltenham may wish I had run him through and got it over with before he is done!’

  Carolina gave him a reproving look and he subsided. Tandem weddings took place aboard the Mary Constant that afternoon. Reba’s was first and Carolina thought she made a starry-eyed bride, standing beside the tall marquess in her best bronze silk and wearing (borrowed only!) the enormous ruby necklace that was part of the Duke of Lorca’s ransom.

  Robin and Reba sighed in unison when she reluctantly took it off and handed it over to Rye to clasp about Carolina’s neck for their own ceremony.

  Carolina had balked at wearing either her ice-green ball gown or her yellow sprigged muslin - for they were both gowns she had worn just before falling into Robin’s arms. Rye did not argue with her and if he guessed her reason, he kept it to himself.

  ‘I had bought you a present,’ he said, ‘in Plymouth, where we stopped for what seemed to me a lifetime.’ And he brought out a handsome riding habit of scarlet silk, tailored and elegant.

  ‘You had this made up for me while you were in Plymouth?’ she marvelled - and she was thinking, How angry that must have made the Duchess if she knew!

  ‘Not exactly,’ he admitted. ‘The riding habit had been made up for a young lady as part of her trousseau. But she ran away with her tutor before it could be delivered and her father refused to pay for it.
The tailor was bemoaning his ill fortune in a tavern and I chanced to overhear him. It sounded like something you might like and he had described the eloping young lady as being just about your size. I bought it from him on the off chance you’d care to wear it in Essex.’ He smiled wistfully. ‘But now there’s little chance you’ll wear it there.’

  ‘Scarlet silk?’ said Carolina. ‘I am surprised Rosalia did not want it!’

  ‘She did,’ he admitted. ‘But I refused to give it to her.’

  And that would make it doubly precious! Carolina’s silver eyes sparkled as Rye brought out the riding habit and let its scarlet silk ripple for her inspection.

  ‘Tis thin enough to wear in the Caribbean sun,’ she pronounced with delight. ‘And so beautiful! ’Twill be my wedding dress!’ She ran out to show it to Reba, who was changing into her travelling clothes in a nearby cabin.

  Reba looked at it doubtfully. ‘The colour is bad luck for a bride,’ she warned.

  Carolina laughed. She was holding the tailored silk habit up to her shoulders for Reba to see and now she twirled around, letting its skirts fly out.

  ‘Married in red, you’ll wish yourself dead!’ muttered Reba, quoting a time-honoured rhyme.

  ‘Not I!’ protested Carolina. ‘Nor, if I married Rye in black, would I wish myself back! Oh, Reba - I’ve never been so happy!’

  ‘Nor I,’ said Reba, smiling in the mirror at Carolina as she carefully applied Spanish paper to her lips. ‘Do you know, Robin told me that he had been thinking about me all this time? That he had only left without telling me goodbye because that terrible Duchess insisted that he leave on the instant - and he was so desperate for money that he did it! He said his thoughts have never strayed from me - not even once!’ She breathed a deep blissful sigh.

  ‘How - very nice of Robin,’ murmured Carolina, trying to keep the irony out of her voice. And then she tossed aside the dress and embraced her friend. ‘Oh, I do hope you’ll be happy, Reba!’

  ‘Why should I not?’ Reba shrugged airily. ‘I shall have my Robin - and I shall go home a marchioness and sweep all before me!’