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

by Schulz, Marilyn M

  “I called up the wind,” she said, touching her bracelet.

  His eyebrow rose. She glanced to Sir Edward. He looked as if he would soon begin to growl, so she added, “I gave my half of the Red Wind to Fiya as a wedding present, as she owned the other half anyway. Mr. M’bani re-christened her the Fiya, by the way. Believe that, or that a French former-slave who is now an American steward, along with his Arabic bride, stole a ship from under the nose of the Royal Navy. It’s all in your point of view.”

  “Point of view?” Senlis said.

  She kissed her uncle on the cheek. “Really, Uncle Lewis, you’ve been too long at sea.”

  At this, the man chuckled.

  Sir Edward wasn’t so easily swayed. “This is intolerable, Madam, you go too far.” Sir Edward stopped and forced himself to calmness. “We will make sail and catch her.”

  Kate said to her uncle, “Aren’t you late in sailing as well? I should think you would want to make haste. Sentiment is one thing, but profit is quite another.”

  “Aye lass, that we are. And you’re right, of course. Your auntie will have my hide for this much delay.” He winked to Sir Edward, then hugged Kate and added a kiss. “Take care, Katie, my darlin’ girl. Farewell until I see you again.”

  He offered a hand to Sir Edward, who shook it in some disbelief. These two were acting as if nothing had happened. Kate and Sir Edward stood together and watched the American vessels sail away, but they spoke not a word between them. When the ships grew too small to make out the men on the decks, they went to the great cabin below.

  “This will not go away, Kate,” he said before the cabin door was all the way closed. “What you did was wrong.”

  “How so?”

  Sir Edward couldn’t manage more than to echo, “How so?”

  “Wrong, as in laws broken? Commandments? Commands even?”

  “Marriage vows for one,” he said.

  This made her pause. Her eyebrows furrowed, and he could see that her mind was working furiously. Finally, she said, “Be more specific.”

  “I— You— Blast.”

  “We are losing the wind ourselves, Edward. Or do I have to still call you captain, or Sir Edward? Sir Edward seems a bit formal. Perhaps some pet name would do. No, maybe that would not do at all for you.”

  What she said about the wind was true, though perhaps unfair tactics: Duty had to come first.

  “This is not over, Kate.”

  “Sure and you’ll be bringing it up until your last dying breath, I have no doubt at all.” The Irish was thicker now, after her long chats with Mrs. O'Malley. “But if that’s the worst that I ever do to your pride, then count yourself a fortunate man, sir.”

  She saw the stab of pain in his eyes. She had only been joking, but what could this mean?

  Someone knocked at the door.

  “Your orders, sir?” called Mr. Murray, who was now an acting-lieutenant. “Should we make a course to go after the corsair?”

  Kate said, “It’s not a pirate ship anymore.”

  “And where would that be?” Sir Edward said, glaring at Kate.

  But Mr. Murray could not hear him, and Kate turned away.

  “Where are they going, Kate?”

  “I have no idea, though I have my opinions,” she said, but she didn’t turn his way to speak.

  He took a deep breath and held it, trying to contain his anger. Then he called out to Mr. Murray, “We will continue on our last course. If we come on the corsair, we will take her then. That will be all, Mr. Murray.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  Sir Edward said very low, “That should be fair enough even for your twisted female logic. If a man had done this, I would see him flogged, maybe hanged.”

  Even with her back turned, he could see that Kate was crying.

  “What now? I would not flog a woman, Kate, you should—“

  ”I will miss my friend,” she said, “and my family.”

  He had forgotten about that. He wasn’t sure about the Mullah’s daughter, Fiya, but Kate’s family was gone, and he understood those feelings well enough. She roughly wiped at her tears. He raised his hand to touch her face, to lend some comfort, but he hesitated. His throat felt tight and it hurt when he swallowed.

  “I have to see to my duty,” he said and left her.

  * * * * *

  That night, after his servant had cleared away the remains of their silent dinner, Sir Edward brought up the sore subject again. “We should discuss the red corsair, Kate.”

  She only nodded.

  “You had no right—“

  ”Discuss or lecture?” she said.

  He sighed.

  She added, “I’m not in your Royal Navy.”

  “But you are married to me, and I am,” he said.

  “Fine, and fair enough. I promise that I will not get taken by white slavers, steal their ship with the aid of an Arabic princess, then drift at the mercy of the wind and the waves for days on end.

  “I will not give her my share of the ship, then marry her to my uncle’s steward the day after my own wedding when I happen to be feeling a bit of bliss. I will not let her slip away with the ship in the middle of the night without a final farewell.

  “Oh, I forgot the part about the pirates. And after your navy saved us from those French raiders, too. That seems most ungrateful. Still, there it is. I promise I will not do that again, any of it.”

  He didn’t speak for a moment. She could tell he was angry, but she was angry too. No, she was sad . . . and lonely.

  She added, “But as to calling up the wind, on that, I make no promises.”

  “You make it sound ridiculous,” he said.

  “Well it is. Surely King George may do without a small Eastern-built corvette. The mizzen mast was rotting and the bowsprit was splitting as you well know.”

  “That is hardly the point,” he said.

  “It was legal, we never dropped our colors. We did not surrender, not even to you. True it was only a plague flag, but ours all the same, and I don’t think that it matters—“

  “That is not the point either, Kate.”

  “What is your point then?”

  He stared at her a moment. Damned if he hadn’t forgotten the exact point.

  She said, “I know I can’t be giving your alleged-spoils to all my heart-felt friends, sir, for I don’t have that many friends. But surely a ship now and then is not such a boon to ask? You have a family share in seventeen merchantmen now, and you shouldn’t be greedy. I suppose your crew will be missing their share from this alleged-corsair, but I’ll make it up to them somehow.”

  She spoke in that Cornish lilt once again. Mr. O'Malley’s lilt from Cornwall, not so far from my own home, Sir Edward noted. Mrs. O'Malley’s Irish brogue; her Uncle Lewis’s Boston accent—these were the people she grew up with. He knew that now. He had married one woman, but sometimes it seemed like a crowd. He fought the urge to smile. She did not, for she was smiling at him, but crookedly.

  He cleared his throat and said, “This is not amusing, Kate.”

  “If you really think about it, you’ll find that it is.” Then she forced her lips to shut into a tight line, and he could see that she was struggling not to laugh.

  “How so?” he said, his eyebrow up.

  “Why are you angry?”

  “You did something—“

  He stopped.

  She snapped, “Without your permission? Is that what you were going to say?”

  “Yes.”

  She was mad then, it was plain on her face. She glanced over to the liquor bottles. She didn’t want a drink though, he knew, but she did want something to throw. He prided himself on already knowing his wife that well.

  “That is the way of husband and wife,” he said quietly.

  “And captain and crew,” she added. “I know it’s the way of the world and especially the way of the sea. And I always thought it might be nice to be like other girls.”

  “I told you b
efore, you are not like other women.”

  “Then don’t treat me as if I am.”

  He paused. “This is new to me too. But I am captain here, you must understand that.”

  “I do, but I had a debt to Fiya and it came before any promise that I made to you. I owe her my sanity and certainly my life.”

  He hadn’t thought of it in those terms. It had never occurred to him that a woman could not only feel comfortable on a ship, but that she could own one, command one, or many, come to that . . . and what of honor, obligation? What of duty? That a woman may feel any of that was new to him too. He had the horrid sensation that Kate and his mother would get along well.

  Finally, she sighed and threw up her hands in defeat. “I will try, sir, but that is all I can promise. If that’s not enough, you best toss me over the side right away.”

  “It has occurred to me.”

  Kate looked in his eyes. For a moment, she might have believed him. Then she reached down and took off her boot. Calmly, she threw it at him, for she had no rocks nearby, it would seem, and he assumed that the liquor bottles looked way too heavy.

  “Mutiny, Madam?” he said, easily ducking.

  “Only our second day married, and it’s come to this.”

  “To attacking your captain and your husband?”

  She put her hands on her hips as she spoke, “I gave Fiya the ship that belonged to the two of us, and now you rebuke me. If you refuse me every little thing, our life together will be hell.”

  “So you have said, Madam. But stealing the property of the British Crown is not a little thing. I may have to answer to the prize court myself.”

  Her hands fell away. “And now my aim is bad. Things just keep getting worse.”

  She took off the other boot and this time did not miss.

  He stood up from his failed dodge, staring in wonder at the boot that had bounced off himself and fell to the side. It had not been gently tossed. She laughed and pointed to his face. Then she grew quiet at his stare.

  He helped her take off the rest of her things.

  * * * * *

  CHAPTER 45 - Farewell

  They made sail for the trade lanes where the frigate normally took prey. But no ships were soon found, and the crew grew more restless each day. Kate had no complaints. She stayed busy with the crew’s aches and pains, real or imagined. Her supplies were low anyway, and the surgeon had few of his own, for in the British navy, surgeons were expected to provide their own medical trappings.

  But Dr. Llewellyn had a good set of books and a respect for common medical remedies, like honey, buckthorn, and white willow bark. Kate read his books and corrected a few things that she knew to be wrong, according to her mother’s journals, that is. She enjoyed the surgeon’s company and learned how to set bones, remedy an out-of-joint shoulder, and much about her husband’s naval career.

  Still, all seemed relieved to see a dispatch vessel headed their way, if only because it broke the monotony.

  “Been looking for you for the longest time,” the master from the dispatch vessel said with a salute to Sir Edward. “Lost the wind for a few days, then the air, she turns cold and the breeze just picks up one day as if by magic.”

  In the Royal Navy, smaller vessels, supply ships, and prizes didn’t usually require a post captain. If a sail taken as a prize of war was to be sailed to a port, a lieutenant or midshipman would often take that command, depending on how many men were required to sail her, and for how long the voyage might be. Then the leader was called the master, not the captain. Dispatch vessels, fast craft for messages, seldom required more than a master.

  Sir Edward took the missives below and the officers saw to the exchange of other concerns, such a few fresh supplies and gossip from court and post. Dr. Llewellyn received a personal letter from home and disappeared down below. Then the real trading began: The steward got some black pepper for a joint of pickled ham-hock, and the bosun got some coils of new rope for the leftover casks of ale, both leftovers from the wedding celebration.

  The crew complained of the trade, for with the loss of the ale, a sailor was left to drink barrel water and his ration of rum. The ale was something to break the monotony, but they didn’t seem to mind the loss of the ham-hock. The exchange was made and that left the sailors to call over their gossip and news of home.

  Kate listened too, but Mr. Murray soon came for her: She was to report to the captain.

  “The Stalwart will make sail to Gibraltar,” Sir Edward said, but he didn’t look at her as he added, “I am to go back to England on the dispatch vessel. We leave immediately.”

  “I’ll get my things ready,” she said, but stopped.

  He still would not look at her. She waited. When he finally did, she could see that he was not happy either. He looked as if he had failed her in some way.

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly to gather her courage. “Well, I haven’t been to an attic in months,” she said. “I have nothing to wear to England anyway.”

  “I would not have done it this way, I—“

  ”Sure, and you’re making it sound like you’ll never be seeing me again,” she said. “If you get taken prisoner or killed, I will be most displeased with you, sir.” She crossed herself in the way of a Catholic, mumbling, “I could use a good shot of that sacramental wine now, Padre.”

  Sir Edward held her close, but pushed her away at the tap on their door.

  “Time to go, sir,” someone called.

  “In a moment,” he called back, with little enthusiasm.

  She noticed that he had already packed what little he would need. She sighed once again; she couldn’t really help it. He held her face in his hands and looked in her eyes. It gave her some comfort.

  She said, “Demanding wife that I am, will you do something just for me, sir?”

  “What is that?” he said and smiled just a bit.

  “If you have the choice, that is, if it’s to be taken prisoner or die . . . will you surrender? Will you stay alive? I know a captain is meant to go down with his ship, but you’ll be aboard someone else’s. Take that over instead, if you must. Surely it won’t conflict with your duty to stay afloat to fight another day?”

  He studied her face, but she did not cry or turn away. He kissed her forehead. “You have my word that I’ll get back to you,” he said and left her there looking after.

  Later, though the vessel was well out of sight, Kate looked out to the horizon for the rest of the day. She heard a song in her head, and it gave her some comfort. She didn’t notice the crewmen glancing her way now and then. Nor did she hear when a few started whistling along with the song.

  She wondered if they knew it was “Yankee Doodle.”

  When it grew too dark to see, she went to the cabin with no supper at all and cried herself to sleep.

  * * * * *

  At the Government House in Plymouth, the first thing that Sir Edward learned made him happy. His new ship had been launched, christened the Elizabeth Regina. It had already made sail to Gibraltar and would be awaiting his command there.

  He was now sitting at a table with several other men, including Vice-Admiral Sir Hugh Tobin. The man at the head of the table was not in uniform. He was a minister for the king and a favorite of the Prince of Wales. The some-times Prince Regent, the King-In-Waiting some called him, for it was said that the Prince was counting the days until he could become King in more than just intent.

  “Gibraltar, sir? Why there?” Sir Edward said.

  “Damned fool business, that is all I can say. These Whigs think the military is there for their pleasure,” Sir Hugh said. “I would give them a piece of my mind if I thought they would know how to use it.”

  Translation, the same influence that the Earl had used to commandeer the Stalwart was used to snatch up his new ship as well. It was tiring, and not common practice, but something that occurred on occasion. But with the war on, no one really accepted it gracefully now.

  The minister
cleared his throat, but said nothing more.

  “Surely, sir, the Crown could be made to see that . . .” Sir Edward stopped. He was trolling in deep waters that he knew little about. Best to steer clear, he knew. It was annoying, but he had already been through worse. He sighed in resignation.

  The second thing that he learned made the anger return. Though they knew that Ambrose Standish had escaped, these men all knew little of the whole affair, and seemed to care even less.

  “Patrols saw neither hide nor hare, as they say,” Sir Hugh said. “They found one soldier dead and another disappeared. I gather they gave up the search shortly after.”

  “Robbed his mate and then deserted,” the minister said. It was not a question.

  Sir Hugh shrugged. “Perhaps they just have not found the other body yet.”

  Sir Edward waited for more to be said, but nothing happened. In frustration, he demanded, “Did they not stop the outgoing vessels to search?”

  “Aye, after it was too late, according to the missive from Sir Humphrey de Warrenne. A good many left on the tides around then. It was not until too late in the morning that they found the first soldier dead under old hay in a stabling warehouse. Hard to tell one stink from another, it took them some time.”

  Sir Edward then told them about the red corsair, about the harsh cargo of females, and the rescue from the French mutineers. The minister asked about the French vessel, its worth, its purpose, but Sir Edward ignored him.

  “Kate said that Standish sold her, then caught passage to America,” he said. “But perhaps he just said that to disguise his movements and true purpose. I do not trust anything the man might have said, for I have seen enough of his deeds first hand. He is around still, I feel it in my gut.”

  Some of the naval officers nodded, for they understood that feeling well enough.

  “Kate, who is Kate?” the minister said. His eyebrow was up, along with one corner of his mouth. Sir Edward didn’t like the rakish look or the connotation that came when you addressed someone with this familiarity.

  Sir Hugh said, “An American heiress. Eccentric, but my wife is quite intrigued. Royal blood from the England, Wales and France—you know they say her mother’s line came from the Conqueror himself. Everyone calls her Kate; I believe that is part of her charm. The lady leased one of her family’s ships to a friend of yours.”