The Wilde Flower Saga: A Contrary Wind (Historical Adventure Series)

by Schulz, Marilyn M

  Standish followed him out of the inn. "I meant no offense, Captain Lindsay. You must admit, Sir Edward, that if we were a nation of shy men, we would still be a dominion of Great Britain."

  Sir Edward was having troubled thoughts, and he hoped they didn’t show. He did not like the man or his suggestions, but he knew that Sir Hugh was counting on him. He had to do his duty, but he didn't have to like it.

  The captain said, "Forget it. I must be off."

  "I'm going that direction as well. There's something along the way you might find interesting."

  They walked in silence. Sir Edward wondered just how it was that Ambrose Standish knew where he would be going . . . and how the man knew so much about the new ship . . . and about Kate Senlis and her activities.

  Perhaps she wasn’t a spy for the French, but for the Americans. Sir Hugh’s words came back to him, but this new ship and his new duties did not sit quite right. And he certainly didn’t like the phrases that came to mind.

  Political stooge, even fool, seemed the most appropriate. He was to be a hound, a spy catcher. It kept ringing through his mind like a mundane murmur: Spy catcher, spy catcher . . .

  Even his pace matched the rhythm. The farther he walked, the angrier he became.

  He stopped abruptly when he saw the woman.

  * * * * *

  CHAPTER 09 - The Wilde

  It wasn't a real woman, but a ship's figurehead carved to delicate perfection. The long waving hair was gilded, and also streaked with copper and bronze. The rest was as daring as any sailor's dreams. The face and figure could not be mistaken: They belonged to Kate Senlis.

  "Ah, here we are. A fine little pond skipper, don't you think?" Standish said, too near behind. "America is a land filled with mountains and miles of virgin forests. We have our pick of materials for ships, and the Senlis family has an eye for the best."

  He didn’t have to add that with the loss of the American colonies, those raw materials were no longer available to the British, especially the Royal Navy. Unless they paid a hefty price, of course . . . natural resources and trade.

  Sir Edward turned around, and then took a step back. Standish again wiped at his nose with his handkerchief, but continued to look at the ship as he spoke.

  "Called the Wilde, of all things. The Wilde Flower actually."

  "An interesting name," was all Sir Edward could muster.

  "Her father built this ship in honor of her mother. That's Katherine up there, not Kate, though you couldn't tell the difference now. It was named something else then, I don't remember what. Probably something French—he renamed it when Katie went aboard. Said it was fitting."

  "The Wilde. Was she a wild child then?"

  "Not that I remember. There was something about wild flowers not caring where they grow. The precise saying escapes me now. I was never much of a poet. Or perhaps it was a song . . ."

  Then Standish started humming.

  Sir Edward rubbed his chin in thought as studied the figurehead.

  Standish continued, "She treats this ship like a lover. I don't understand why she leased it out, but I suppose she had her reasons. You can't always get a straight answer out of Kate."

  "A lover?"

  "A lost lover, perhaps. She stands up there at the bow and looks out at nothing for hours on end, even here in port. You'd swear she was the only person on earth."

  "How do you know?"

  "Been told. Gossip at the Blue Dolphin Inn; told by some of her crew. Sailors will tell you anything if you buy them enough rum. Not that you can find them when you want them. What’s left of her crew here know how to stay well out of the way of the press-service, mind you."

  Sir Edward nodded.

  Standish continued, quite lowly, "They say that sometimes on a calm sea, when the ships are all drifting close together, you can hear her voice echoing across the water and back again. It makes me think of mermaids."

  Standish looked out to sea with a moon-struck look on his face. Then he closed his eyes and Sir Edward watched the man’s smile slowly grow wider. He didn’t know if Standish was speaking of Kate now or of the figurehead.

  "Mermaids were said to lure ships to the rocks," Sir Edward pointed out.

  Ambrose chuckled and opened his eyes. "Not a romantic soul, eh?"

  "The Admiralty turns a blind-eye to captains who do not get permission for their women and families to come along, but it is a bad practice to start with and asking for trouble to end."

  "If women never went on ships, how would the English colonize? Or anyone else for that matter."

  "What is that?"

  "You can't just haul soldiers around and expect them to build a colony,” Standish said. “That's fine for conquest, but what about settlement and civilization? You need women for that, and they seldom match well with the natives. Half-bloods are seldom accepted in either culture."

  "Colonization is a very different proposition from war. I will leave those endeavors to better men, as always."

  They didn't speak for a moment.

  "You said when the ships all drifted together. Which ships?" Sir Edward was thinking of the new American Navy, small and hardly worthy of the term. But then there was the French Navy to consider, which had served the Americans well enough in the colonial rebellion.

  Standish said absently, "The ships of the Senlis Family Trust."

  "You mentioned that last night. What do you mean by that?"

  "They have always traveled in squadrons, never alone. That is, ever since her mother died and her father got nervous.” Standish held up his fingers for counting. “In the South China Sea, they trade silk and fireworks, also known as gun powder, with the Burma Queen and the Shima Maru. Those are the gun ships. For cargo, the Trust leases other vessels, I believe."

  There was still much active piracy in the world, Sir Edward knew, and Britain still had its fair share of trouble on those seas. Someday, he knew he would be called there. He was looking forward to it.

  "In the South Pacific skipping between anyplace that can pay a pretty penny they have . . ." Standish was thinking and closed his eyes again as he ticked off on his fingers: "The Rosanna, the Frances, the Katherine, the Eleanor, the Mathilda."

  "Women," Sir Edward said.

  "Family names, I’m told. On the seaboards of North and South America are the St. John, the St. Paul, the St. Liz, the St. Christopher and the Isabella." He leaned closer to Sir Edward as he spoke, "The Spanish like their saints, they do. Now on the runs in the North Atlantic and down to Africa, they have the Narragansett, the Delaware, the Kiowa, the Shawnee, and the Wilde though Kate took a lark and set it aside from the rest."

  "This is the ship she grew up on?"

  "Yes, this is it. Not alone, mind you. Her father was there of course. But she had a regular family in Mr. O'Malley, the first officer, and his wife, Rosalee from Dundee."

  "Irish."

  Which might explain that accent of Kate’s on odd occasions—not why it came and went, just where it came from. Sir Edward thought that maybe she did it on purpose—a distraction perhaps? Certainly to be annoying, that was more her style.

  Then they heard music of a sort. It was the shrill chirp of a piccolo mixed in with some humming. Standish broke into a wide grin. He pointed as he said, "Hello, what's that?"

  It was a pair of feet, bare well up to the ankles, swinging over the rail on the starboard side of the Wilde. They were attached to Kate, who was in boy’s clothes, and had a fishing pole tucked in the crook of her elbow.

  She played no particular tune and was easily distracted by the sounds of the men on the quay, the birds swooping past, and the workmen down below.

  They watched her for a while. She wore a straw hat and used it to wave at flies not going by fast enough. Her hands were dirty, and her face was streaked from occasionally scratching at a fly that got through her lazy defenses.

  Sir Edward could hear the workmen inside. The gun ports were open and several windows in what he assumed must b
e the captain’s quarters, and the hatches of the holds as well. Occasionally, someone yelled something up in a language that Sir Edward figured was some sort of Hessian extract. He didn't know the words, but she would pause in her music to listen then and mumbled any replies to herself. Usually.

  "Ahoy, catch anything?" Standish yelled.

  She turned too quickly and nearly dropped her pole in the process. Debris flew from the hold and past her head as she said, "Good Lord, is it that time already?"

  "Time?" Standish said, checking his own watch.

  "Seems your catch is poor today," Sir Edward offered.

  She pulled in the line, and he saw that the end was only a cork, not a hook.

  "What are you doing, Kate?" Standish said.

  "Fishing?" she said.

  It sounded hopeful and made Sir Edward turn to hide his smile.

  "With no hook?" Standish said.

  "I don't have to pay attention when food is not involved. I was supervising without appearing to do so. Besides, I don’t care for fish,” she said, and then under her breath, “Not anymore.” Then louder again, “The self-appointed foreman of the carpenters has declared my presence verboten."

  "They will not let you come in to play?" Standish said and laughed.

  She rubbed her nose, but sneezed anyway. "He said a woman has no business in men's work. My translation, and not his exact words, by the way. But in my experience it promptly becomes men's puttering if someone isn't here to watch them."

  Sir Edward opened his mouth, but Ambrose quickly interjected, "It seems we have some imposing guests approaching to your lee." Standish nodded toward the new arrivals strolling on the quay. On you leeward side, that is downwind, otherwise, Kate might have smelt them coming.

  One was an earl of note with an ailing reputation. He had been in the Army with a purchased commission during the American war. He had served with the distinction, some say affliction, of losing his entire command—save a cook, a drummer boy, his own servant, and himself—to fever, desertion, and shipwreck before participating in a single battle. However, he managed to keep the King's Colors himself, and he still had friends at the King's court. In some walks of British life, that's all that really mattered.

  "Best be off to my own business," Sir Edward muttered.

  He bowed and backed away, but Ambrose Standish had already dismissed him for the new visitors. Sir Edward glanced up to Kate, but she was out of sight. He could hear loud Hessian complaints from inside, followed by tart replies of a female variety.

  "My Lord," Standish said, bowing. "And the Marquis and his cousin. How pleasant."

  French noblemen, Standish gathered, supposedly Royalists who had sought refuge across the Channel from their now-hostile land. Such supposed-circumstances—perhaps they were in danger, perhaps not—were a perfect cover for a spy. Sir Edward slowed his pace, and then stopped at the corner of a warehouse to look back.

  Kate was off the boat now. She wore a pretty dress and a shawl instead of her sailor's canvas pants. Her face had obviously just been hurriedly scrubbed, for her cheeks were rosy and the tendrils of hair round her face were damp. She curtsied slightly in greeting, and he could see she always wore shoes.

  He muttered, “Must be a formal occasion.”

  From above, still on the deck of the Wilde, an American sailor called down. "Miss Mattie? Yeo, Mattie Little!"

  Kate looked up, and then walked over to hear what the man had to say. Sir Edward could not make out more of the words, but Kate kept glancing around to see who might also be within hearing, he guessed.

  Then the Earl boarded the ship, followed by the others, and soon they were all out of sight.

  Mattie Little?

  An alias? Or was that her true identity? Which would mean that Standish was in it as well, whatever ‘it’ might be. Spies? Collaborators with the French, or someone else—the Dutch perhaps, even the Spanish?

  He decided to talk to Sir Hugh about what he had just seen, but now he had other business. He muttered as he left, mostly swearwords, then, "I wish I could just sail away and out of this now."

  Then he remembered why he was in it, and it wasn't just the new ship or even duty such as it was. It was because Sir Hugh Tobin had asked him. It was important that he didn't let the older man down. In a way, it would be like letting his father down. Again.

  Sir Edward continued on his way, looking back a few times at the Wilde, dragging his feet like a boy who didn’t really want to go.

  * * * * *

  In the confines of the captain's cabin, Kate could smell the cigar smoke, liquor, and sultry perfume lingering around the visitors, stronger even than the fine sawdust and smell of varnish from the renovations and repairs. The dark circles under their eyes and oily skin were evidence that this visit was still part of their previous night’s revels.

  She suggested they move onto the deck. They agreed, but it was busy with sailors turned carpenter, and other workmen moving about their business.

  At least I can breath up here, she thought, and Kate thanked the sea for the fresh bit of breeze.

  The Earl admired the new teak wheel and gave it a spin. Someone cursed from below. The nobleman had the grace to blush, and the Frenchmen laughed. One took a pinch of snuff, which seemed superfluous to Kate. He sneezed, so did she—he from the snuff, she from the dust—and then the men laughed again.

  "Come, Mademoiselle, let us walk," said the Marquis.

  He grabbed her arm and led her off the ship. Standish followed behind with the others. Kate glanced back, hoping to find some reason for escape. The carpenters’ foreman was smiling and waving them on their way.

  She swore in his language, but knew the man hadn't heard.

  "Pardon?" a Frenchman said.

  "She said that it seems to be turning into a lovely day after all," Standish said.

  Kate figured that Ambrose Standish must have known of the Earl's plans to visit. That’s why he showed up here. That he knew didn't surprise her, that he came with Captain Sir Edward Lindsay did. Ambrose had a habit of turning up in places most opportune to his future—but what of Captain Lindsay?

  She gave a false smile as she tried to work her hand free, but the Marquis would not let her go.

  "There is something earthy and real about the dockside," the Marquis said in excellent English, turning back to his friends and closer to Kate in the process.

  The Earl took a deep breath, and then held his nose. "Whew, I am afraid my tastes run more toward the creature comforts than the creatures. A nice comfortable chair, a fine cigar, and a full snifter of Brandy or two."

  The other Frenchman said, "I prefer a nice comfortable blond, a fiery redhead, and a sassy brunette or two."

  The men chuckled.

  "You don't enjoy the sea air, my Lord?" Standish said.

  The Earl still pinched his nose with his fingers, but spoke anyway. "Out to sea, yes. Here on the quay, no. Too much stagnant air and foul water, or maybe it’s the other way round. Best leave this to the hired help. Right, my lovely lady?"

  Kate curtsied slightly, her head down hiding her expression. "Someone has to see to your comforts, my Lord. Who if not the women and the servants?"

  The Earl replied, "Is it true that Americans have forsaken all titles? If so, then you must call me Denis, my dear. Then our French allies will think us overly familiar and so both sympathetic to the revolutionary brigands, and what could be more dangerous than that?"

  The Frenchmen did not find this amusing.

  "When will you sail?" Standish said.

  "I really have no idea," said the Earl. "I suppose whenever she’s ready. She—that is what you call a ship, a woman? In any case, I only stopped by to take a piss off the pier and here we are at the Wilde. It was an act of God, I am sure."

  "Nothing so grand as Divine intervention, my Lord, more likely it is simply fate," the Marquis said and kissed Kate's hand yet again.

  "Fate is never simple in my estimation, my Lord," Standish said. "Bet
ter to be clever and avoid the temptation of its fickle notions."

  "Well, never let it be said that I am not a clever man," the Earl said, winking at Kate. "Take the King’s Navy, for example. I commissioned into the Army as a lark and to better the breed, for those in the Navy work too hard. They die early from fever or scurvy or too much salt in their blood. Better to relax on the ocean voyage and let others do the pulling."

  Annoyed, Kate said, “Others? You mean the men stolen off the quay by the Royal Navy. Men meant to be on their way home to their wives and—"

  The other Frenchmen interrupted, “Will you take the ship out to confirm the preparations are to your liking, my Lord? It would not do to get too far down the coast of Africa only to find the Wilde is not adequate to your needs."

  Now her anger was quite clear. Kate opened her mouth, but Standish burst in, "What a capital idea. Who did you say you—”?

  "Of course you will go," the Marquis said to Kate. As he made to kiss her hand yet again, she firmly pulled it away.

  "Ambrose, of course you’ll go too," she said.

  He flamed red, then laughed nervously. "Why Katherine, I hadn't . . .”

  She looked at him sharply. What could he be thinking? He had done that before, recently too. But no one called her Katherine—that was her mother’s name.

  Still, the Earl was overly pleased. "That is a splendid notion. You know, I don’t know my aft from my arse, though I could use the head just now."

  He meant the privy, and Kate thought maybe he should go relieve himself on a tree or the side of a building like any other hound. That’s why they were here in the first place, and now they were disrupting her plans.

  But the Marquis was also excited. "Yes, an excursion. That doesn’t sound nearly so boring as playing cards in the cathouse again. I keep losing my shirt and not in the most pleasant of ways."

  All the men laughed.

  The Earl continued, "When should we go then? A month should do, at least. I hate having it all packed up and taking the trouble to travel unless I can alight for a while at the end. No, no, there's the Wentworth's blasted ball."