Pirates

by Linda Lael Miller

  “You think he deserved to be whipped?”

  Lucas paled again. “Of course not!”

  “Then what?”

  “I think,” Lucas said briskly, setting his napkin on the table, “that Duncan should have stayed away from Francesca Sheffield in the first place.”

  It was an impasse, a Mexican standoff. Phoebe sighed and looked forlornly at her food. It had tasted so good, but now she felt as though someone had wadded a beach towel and stuffed it down her throat.

  “What happened to your hair?” Lucas asked, after a long and awkward silence.

  Phoebe considered several replies, excluding the truth, of course, and decided on a convoluted version of the O. Henry yarn. “My dear old mother was dying. I sold my gossamer tresses to pay for her medicine.”

  Lucas stared at her for a moment, obviously confounded, and then rose from his chair. “Come, Mistress Rourke,” he said. “You are obviously exhausted. I’ll see you safely to your cabin.”

  Phoebe balked. Duncan had said she’d be safe with Lucas, but he might not know his brother as well as he thought he did.

  Lucas smiled, linked her arm with his, and patted the back of her hand. “I am a gentleman,” he said. “Even if I weren’t, I could not forget for a moment that you are my brother’s wife.”

  She felt a blush warm her face. Lucas was telling the truth; she knew that, though she couldn’t have explained the instinct in concrete terms.

  He escorted her to her cabin, which was comfortable and private, equipped with a washstand, towels, and a soft berth with crisp linen sheets, and waited properly on the threshold while she surveyed her quarters.

  “Get your rest, Phoebe,” he said. “And don’t worry overmuch about Duncan’s coming to Charles Town. He’s remarkably good at evading the British.”

  “Yes,” Phoebe replied evenly. “As long as he’s not betrayed by someone he trusts, I’m sure he’ll be quite safe.”

  Lucas colored slightly. “Do you think I’m leading Duncan to his doom, the way a Judas goat leads sheep to the slaughter?”

  “Are you?”

  “No.” Although Lucas spoke the word softly, it was as if he’d shouted. “No,” he said again, more moderately, straightening his waistcoat. “Despite our political differences, my dear, I love my brother. I would sooner forfeit my own life than see him perish.” He paused and inclined his head, somewhat stiffly, by way of a farewell bow. “Good night,” he said and closed the door.

  Phoebe went over and threw the heavy brass bolt before turning away. After undressing, using the chamberpot, and finally giving herself a splash-bath at the basin, she donned a nightgown, blew out the oil lamp on the wall, and crawled into bed. Her concern for Duncan ached in her stomach and throat and behind her eyes, like some kind of psychological plague. Despite Lucas’s assurances that her husband would be safe in Charles Town, the fact remained that the city had fallen to the British General Clinton in May. The place was crawling with redcoats, any one of whom would be thrilled to claim the bounty for collaring the notorious Duncan Rourke.

  For the hundredth time, Phoebe wished she’d read all of that worn-out copy of Duncan’s biography, instead of just skimming. If she had, she would have known whether or not he would be captured in Charles Town—and how long he was destined to live. Among other things.

  She shivered although the tropical night was balmy. It was better going into the Charles Town situation blind; to know the exact date and means of Duncan’ s death would be unbearable.

  Tears threatened again, but Phoebe pressed her fingertips under her eyes until the urge passed. Maybe she was doing all this worrying for nothing, she thought, with an inelegant sniffle. He’d palmed her off on his family; maybe he had no intention of going to Charles Town …

  She shook her head, unable to deceive herself. Duncan hadn’t changed his mind about seeing his father; she’d seen the look in his eyes earlier, aboard the Francesca, when Lucas had said the man was old and fragile. No, whatever the cost, her husband was bound, as surely as she was, for his family’s plantation on the Charles River.

  Duncan stood at the rail of the Francesca, watching his brother’s hired ship sunder the spill of moonlight quavering on the dark waters. His wrists still burned a little, and he was aware of a hundred bruises in as many parts of his anatomy, but the worst injury had been to his pride. Being a pragmatic man, however, he had already dealt with his feelings about nearly losing his ship to a band of pirates and then being rescued by Lucas.

  For now, Phoebe was safe, that was the important thing. The only thing.

  He smiled. She was bound to liven things up, once she reached the family plantation.

  Duncan rested his elbow on the rail and rubbed his chin. He doubted he would ever forget how Phoebe had looked, standing in the center of his cabin with that ancient pistol in her hands, holding her ground to the last. It was God’s own blessing that she hadn’t known how to load the damned things; she probably would have shot off one of her feet and sunk the Francesca in the bargain.

  He frowned. Perhaps it was time to give the ship a new name.

  In the next moment, Duncan brought himself up short. None of his men had been killed in that day’s skirmish, but several were wounded, and he had no business standing about on deck thinking fanciful thoughts. He was asking his crew to sail into the mouth of the yawning jaws of the lion by taking them to Charles Town, and that was a matter for sober reflection. His fingers itching for the strings of a fiddle or a lute, the keys of a pianoforte or a harpsichord, Duncan turned from the sight of the retreating Charles Town Princess and set his mind on work.

  The next morning, Phoebe used the last of the water in the pitcher on her washstand to make herself presentable, put on fresh clothes from her trunk, and hurried out of the cabin, eager for the sight of the Francesca. The ship was a magnificent, stirring sight, and there was always the chance that she might catch a glimpse of Duncan.

  But there was no sign of the other ship. The Charles Town Princess was alone.

  Lucas must have been watching for her, because he appeared almost immediately, and the look of amused compassion on his face told her he had a pretty good idea what she was thinking. And feeling.

  “The sea has different routes,” he said, “just like the land. You’ll see Duncan when we make port, I promise.”

  “What makes you so sure?” Phoebe asked in a small voice, still staring at the empty horizon. She felt a little queasy, and she was reconsidering last night’s theory that Duncan might have hit the road, now that he’d discharged his “responsibilities” to the woman he’d so rashly married.

  “It’s quite simple,” Lucas replied. “He can’t live without you.”

  12

  They were a full eight days at sea, during which time Phoebe failed to catch so much as a glimpse of the Francesca, though she spent hours pacing the decks. Despite Lucas’s constant reassurances, she was desperately worried about Duncan.

  Charles Town Harbor was splashed with sunlight and crowded with British warships on the morning of their arrival. There were also American clippers, obviously confiscated, with their sails folded and redcoats patrolling at their rails. The city itself, to Phoebe’s twentieth-century eyes, looked like a theme park, except for various real-life touches, like sweating slaves carrying barrels and cobbled streets dotted with horse dung.

  The Charles Town Princess tied up to a long jetty, and a contingent of British officials came out to greet the ship as her passengers began to disembark.

  Phoebe’s blood froze at the sight of them. Lucas might be on their side, politically at least, but they were bound to ask questions. They could not help noticing her short hair—she wished she’d thought to cover it, using a curtain or even a lace tablecloth for a mantle—and if they connected her with Duncan, she would be arrested.

  “Be silent and keep your eyes lowered,” Lucas rasped, though he was smiling broadly at the approaching Brits. “I’ll handle this.”

  Ph
oebe stared at the warped boards of the jetty, her heart thudding in her ears. She didn’t need to remind herself that these were people who wanted to hang her husband; the thought was branded on her mind.

  “Hello, Rourke,” one of the men said, in a blustery voice. Through her lashes, Phoebe saw a heavyset fellow with snow white hair, bright blue eyes, and a ruddy complexion. He looked like someone’s grandfather and probably was.

  “Major Stone,” Lucas replied smoothly. “To what do I owe the honor of a personal welcome?”

  Stone’s chuckle turned into a cough, and several moments had passed before he was ready to frame an answer. “Damn tobacco,” he said. “Got to give it up.”

  Lucas said nothing, and Phoebe remained silent as commanded, though she couldn’t help shifting nervously from one foot to the other.

  Major Stone coughed again, then went on in a booming, jovial voice Phoebe suspected was quite typical of him. “Can’t be too careful,” he said. “Thought you might have seen that brother of yours in your travels.”

  Phoebe’s heart stopped, then started again with a painful lurch. Here, however unexpected, was the moment of truth. For all his pretty promises, Lucas was a loyal subject of His Majesty, King George III, and he might well betray both Phoebe and Duncan.

  “Duncan is lost to us, I’m afraid,” Lucas said sadly. “Would that it were not so, but, alas, he has strayed from the fold, never to return.”

  Phoebe let out her breath. Lucas had kept his word, but there was still a very real possibility that he’d arouse suspicion with his bad acting.

  “And who might the young lady be?” Major Stone asked with cordial curiosity.

  Phoebe very nearly looked up and met his gaze, which might have been disastrous, given the fact that her emotions were usually plainly visible in her eyes.

  “Her name is Phoebe,” Lucas explained, taking a rather rough hold on his sister-in-law’s upper arm. “She’s a serving wench—a mute, as it happens.” He ruffled her hair indulgently, as if she were a pet, and Phoebe seethed. “Suffered a head wound once, and they had to shave her like a monk.”

  “Looks to be a sturdy creature,” Major Stone commented, as though discussing a prize heifer. “Where did you say you picked her up?”

  “I got the chit from another planter, down the coast a way. He owed me for four suckling pigs and a dray horse.”

  Phoebe felt her face turning crimson.

  “A good bargain,” thundered Major Stone. There was a short, resonant pause. “You’ll send word, won’t you, Rourke, if you hear from your brother?”

  “Of course,” Lucas said. “But don’t stay up nights waiting. Duncan is too crafty by half to show his face around Charles Town.”

  Major Stone made a harrumph sound, then signaled his men to precede him back along the wharf to the shore. He hesitated, and Phoebe felt his eyes on her, and although she knew the man wasn’t evil, she felt a chill of fear all the same. That was the trouble with wars: there were good people on both sides, doing what they saw as their duty, believing what they had been born and raised to believe.

  “Mind you keep the wench close by whilst in Charles Town,” the British officer said. “My men are randy, and while they’ll leave the ladies alone or feel the bite of the lash, they see these poor wretches as fair game.”

  Phoebe’s heart was now pounding so hard that she thought surely both Lucas and the major could hear it. Her opinion of the lash as punishment notwithstanding, she was keenly annoyed that only “ladies” were protected; bondswomen, slaves, and prostitutes were on their own.

  Lucas’s grip tightened, as though he sensed Phoebe’s rising ire. “Don’t worry, Basil,” he said, in the soothing tones of an old friend. “I look after what belongs to me and mine.”

  Phoebe, again peering through her lashes, saw Major Stone hesitate and then turn and follow his men down the jetty.

  “He suspects something,” she murmured. Lucas was hustling her along in the major’s wake. He retained his hold on her arm, though there was a subtle difference; before, his hold had been protective. Now, he was restraining her, probably fearing that she would do something stupid.

  “One can suspect a great many things,” Lucas remarked, “and never come up with the required proof. Now hold your tongue—you’re supposed to be mute, remember?”

  They reached the foot of the jetty, a crowded, noisy place, full of strong smells. Phoebe double-stepped to keep pace with her brother-in-law’s long strides, and took in the scene in sidelong glances. For all the dangers, it was a fascinating experience walking through revolutionary Charles Town, and she was pierced by a sudden, poignant wish that Professor Benning could see the place. He was probably the one person she knew in the twentieth century who would have given any credence at all to her account of this amazing odyssey.

  A fine black carriage waited on the low, cluttered shore, among wagons and carts and pack mules. A man in footman’s livery climbed down from the high box to tip his three-cornered hat in greeting. He was dark-skinned, with a ready smile and an abundance of bristly white hair, and Phoebe liked him immediately.

  “Hello, Enoch,” Lucas said.

  Enoch inclined his head slightly. “Suh,” he responded. He opened the carriage door and produced a set of wooden steps from inside, placing them carefully on the ground and testing them with a motion of one hand before gesturing for Lucas to enter.

  Much to Phoebe’s surprise, Lucas mounted the stairs, climbed into the vehicle, his sizable frame causing it to rock on its springs as he settled himself, and left her standing outside.

  Biting her lower lip to keep from muttering, and thus giving away the fact that she wasn’t a mute bondswoman collected as payment for pigs and a plow horse, Phoebe followed under her own power. Enoch hovered but did not offer his assistance.

  Perched on the hard, narrow seat across from Lucas, Phoebe folded her arms and waited until the carriage was in motion before speaking. “That was very rude,” she remarked stiffly.

  “You are supposed to be a bound servant,” Lucas reminded her, tugging at the fancy cuffs of his expensive shirt. “Basil Stone is a shrewd fellow, as you’ve clearly deduced for yourself, and he might well have been watching to see if I treated you as such.”

  Phoebe’s irritation subsided a little. “We’re certainly not out of the proverbial woods,” she said. “Every man on the Charles Town Princess knows you didn’t get me from another planter. They saw me board from the Francesca—”

  Lucas stopped her with a wave of one hand. “Most of them have been with our family, in one capacity or another, since before Duncan was born. They’re not going to hand him over to the hangman any more than I am.”

  “You have an unwarranted confidence in human nature,” Phoebe observed.

  “And you are a cynic,” Lucas answered, not unkindly. He assessed her hand-me-down clothes with a pensive expression. “I’m afraid you suit the role of a serving wench only too well. No need to worry, though—Mother and Phillippa will see that you’re properly turned out.”

  The carriage rolled and shifted over the cobblestones, and Phoebe was developing a case of motion sickness. It seemed ironic, given the fact that she’d never had any such trouble on the ocean. “If I’m to be presented to the world as a bond servant, whyever should I be ’properly turned out’?”

  Lucas sighed. “You will simply have to live two lives—one in Charles Town, and one in the country. Our plantation is a considerable distance from the city, after all, and Major Stone is hardly a regular guest in our home.”

  Phoebe groaned as a wave of nausea swept over her, leaving her trembling and clammy when it passed.

  Lucas reached across and took her hand, his aristocratic face a study in concern. “Are you all right?” he demanded.

  She sighed, rested her head against the back of the seat, and closed her eyes. “We bondswomen are a hardy lot,” she said. “Just throw me a crust of bread once in a while and let me sleep on the hearth on cold nights, and I
’ll probably live to be, oh, thirty-five.”

  For a moment, Lucas was silent. Then he realized she was joking and chuckled.

  The plantation was indeed a long way outside Charles Town. After an hour’s travel, they left the carriage behind and boarded a boat to travel miles down the Charles River. It was probably well after midnight when Lucas awakened Phoebe, who was curled into an awkward heap on a plank bench, to tell her they had reached their destination at last.

  There was another carriage waiting at the pier.

  Twenty minutes later, sleepy, cramped, and hopelessly rumpled, Phoebe disembarked from the second coach. It was dark, but the Rourke house was visible in the bright moonlight, a palatial structure with pillars and enormous arched windows trimmed in fine stonework. Two women in cloaks hurried out the front door and down the walk, both carrying lanterns.

  “Where is he?” the younger one demanded of Lucas. “Where is Duncan?”

  She was beautiful, dark-haired like her brothers, but her eyes were charcoal gray and trimmed in thick lashes.

  “Hush, Phillippa,” the older woman interceded. “Duncan could hardly come to us so openly, with half the British army looking for him.”

  Lucas cleared his throat. “Mother, Phillippa—may I introduce Phoebe? She is Duncan’s wife.”

  Phillippa laid one hand to her chest, which was hidden beneath the voluminous folds of the cloak. “Wife?” she echoed in plain disbelief.

  Phoebe was all set to dislike Duncan’s sister and braced for the inevitable question about her hair, when a dazzling smile suddenly lighted Phillippa’s features.

  “But that’s wonderful,” she cried. “Perhaps he’ll settle down now and behave himself.”

  Mrs. Rourke, Duncan’s mother, with her translucent skin and Grecian-goddess features, was as delicate as a madonna. She smiled sweetly and took Phoebe’s arm, linking it with hers. “Come, Phoebe—you must be exhausted. And hungry. We’ll get you settled into your room for a good rest.”