The Pirate's Daughter

by Helen Dickson

  ‘I did,’ he countered bluntly. ‘The Admiralty knew he had a daughter living with relatives somewhere in London.’

  ‘That may be so but, never having been seen, I could not be recognised. What people saw was a woman with fair hair. She might have been anyone—a sailor’s moll, perhaps.’

  ‘The Admiralty might take some convincing of that. A proclamation has been issued giving details of the ship—and that Drum O’Leary and Nathaniel Wylde’s daughter are pirates and enemies to the crown. Substantial rewards have been offered for your capture.’

  Cassandra stared at him in shock, the remainder of what colour she had left draining from her face. ‘And knowing what you do, no doubt you would be happy to put the noose around my neck yourself in order to be rid of me,’ she scorned, her voice as cutting as steel as she met the accusing eyes of her husband without flinching.

  ‘Don’t tempt me,’ he growled.

  Proud and determined, she did not resemble any supplicant. Anger and pride strengthened every fibre in her body and sent a sudden surge of blood pumping through her veins—Nathaniel Wylde’s blood, which would never bow in the face of intimidation.

  The force of her personality that burned in her eyes gave Stuart an insight of the woman who had sailed on the Dolphin to Trinidad, who must have looked as she did now, with her solid will and defiance in every line of her body. She looked magnificent and a flood of admiration he was unable to prevent washed over him. Quickly he recollected himself and drew himself up sharply, his features convulsed in a spasm of anger and exasperation.

  His cruel remark pierced Cassandra to her very soul. With a mixture of pain and anger she looked on her husband’s handsome face, at the thin line of his lips—lips that just a short while ago had courted hers and sent her into such raptures of delight. She searched his eyes, for there must be something there left over of their night of love. But there was nothing. They looked on her coldly and without emotion or love.

  ‘I deeply regret that I concealed the fact that Nathaniel Wylde was my father, but I saw no reason to divulge it. He is dead and can have no relevance to the future.’

  Her ability to mock his fate and ignore her father’s crime was too much. Stuart’s gaze snapped to her face, and Cassandra recoiled in shock from the scorching fury in his coal-black eyes. ‘You dare say that to me, when any children we might have will have his blood flowing through their veins? Can’t you bring yourself to admit that his choice of profession was indefensible—or were you so completely under his domination, and possibly as much a victim as any of the honest, unoffending mortals who had the misfortune to cross his path?’

  ‘It affected me deeply when I discovered the truth about him. I do not condone any of his actions—but nor do I have words with which to condemn him. However, I realise you must despise me for what I’ve done, for being who I am.’

  ‘You’re right.’ His voice cracked like a whiplash. ‘So savage were Wylde’s crimes that there are those he wronged who still seek to avenge themselves. There are also those in the Admiralty who would not believe you played no part in them. Knowing of your presence on board his ship—that alone would be enough to condemn you.’

  They looked at each other but did not speak, for his words reeked horror deep within Cassandra’s troubled heart. Pain and silence stretched between them so complete that it was almost audible. What stood between them was bitter and ugly, and she could not see how it could ever be any different.

  ‘Yes,’ she said quietly, so quietly that Stuart almost failed to hear her. ‘You have made me aware of that. Initially I did not know of my father’s reputation—I was too young. I only became aware of the fact that he loved and cared for me and had only stayed away until after my aunt and uncle died, when I was thirteen, because they had forbidden him to come near me.’

  ‘The reason being?’

  ‘Their divided loyalties at the time of the Civil War.’

  Stuart’s lips curled scornfully. ‘Their loyalties to each other cannot have been so divided, for how else did your father get your mother with child?’ He spoke sarcastically, with a cold contempt.

  His aggressive manner brought an angry gleam to Cassandra’s eyes. ‘Against my uncle’s wishes they met secretly, for they loved each other deeply. It only added to my own misfortune that my mother died in childbirth, denying them any chance they might have had of marrying.’

  ‘Your misfortunes! Your misfortunes bring tears to my eyes,’ Stuart scoffed, turning from her and striding across the cabin to look out of the window, at the ships beginning to manoeuvre about in the water as they prepared to get under way, reminding him that his presence would be required on deck. He turned and looked at his wife coldly, and with deliberate cruelty he carefully enunciated each vicious word. ‘’Tis you who are the bastard, Cassandra, not I, as you accused me of being. You should have told me that your father was the infamous Captain Wylde and relieved me of the embarrassment of making you my wife.’

  His harsh words cut deep into Cassandra’s heart. ‘Since you find marriage to me so distasteful, do whatever you think must be done. Since there can be no annulment, if it is to be divorce—then so be it.’

  ‘I will not sully my family’s name with a divorce,’ Stuart remarked coldly. ‘It is quite out of the question. Events must take their own course and we must learn to make the best use of them. It is a situation we must learn to live with. There are going to have to be compromises on both sides.’

  Puzzled, Cassandra stared at him. ‘Compromises?’ ‘We will both have to learn to compromise. I should have guessed who you were when I saw you on your arrival on Barbados. There was something about you that stirred my memory—but I could not think why at the time. You were careful to keep your face concealed, but now I know that it was you I saw at Nathaniel Wylde’s execution that day.’

  Cassandra stared at him in disbelief. ‘You! You were there?’ Like a flash she remembered the man her father had made his final salute to. ‘Yes—I remember you, also. It was you who captured my father’s attention when he was on the scaffold. You he looked at and raised his hand to with an air of a salute. I turned and saw you leave—but I did not see your face. You knew him, didn’t you?’

  ‘To my everlasting regret,’ Stuart replied, striding towards the door, ‘and, on returning to my ship afterwards, when I became certain I had seen his daughter in the crowd with one of his associates, I almost turned back and denounced him. Had I the sense to have done so, it would have saved me this embarrassment. Should it become public knowledge that I have made Nathaniel Wylde’s daughter my wife, then a mighty scandal will ensue and cause immense pain and embarrassment to my mother. That is something I intend to avoid at all costs.’

  ‘Before you go, please answer me this.’ Cassandra moved quickly to stand in front of him as he was about to go out. ‘What did my father do to you that was so terrible that it makes you hate him so much?’

  Stuart’s cold eyes became locked on hers. ‘Did no one ever tell you who it was who tracked your father to his haunt in the Caribbean? Who it was that hounded him to the coast of West Africa before capturing him and bringing him back to London to hang?’

  Cassandra shook her head, but then realisation of what he was saying flooded her whole being. ‘It was you,’ she whispered, her face as white as the sheet she clutched around her. ‘It was you, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Her laugh was choked and bitter, her voice when she spoke quivering with anger and pain. ‘Then you should be proud of yourself.’

  ‘I am not proud,’ Stuart replied without emotion. ‘Were you proud to be a part of it all? I sought justice, that was all. Your father was as much my enemy as Cromwell was the King’s—and he remained ruthless, remorseless and relentless right to the end. I had my reasons for making sure Nathaniel Wylde was captured and hanged for his crime.’

  ‘Tell me?’

  ‘He killed my brother. It forged a hatred between us. Having strayed from the convoy w
hich was sailing to the Caribbean, my brother’s ship was attacked and plundered by pirates. According to evidence given by a handful of those on board who managed to survive in the water until they were picked up by the convoy—unfortunately too late to be of assistance to the stricken ship—the attack was led by Nathaniel Wylde. He callously left every man, woman and child on board to drown when it sank to the bottom of the ocean.’

  This smote Cassandra’s heart and she lowered her eyes, unable to meet his direct gaze, to look upon the hatred he possessed for her father mirrored in their depths. ‘I am so sorry,’ she murmured. ‘I didn’t know.’ At last she understood completely the reason for his anger, his hatred. She was beginning to see her father in the same light as others and her love was soured. She felt betrayed, suddenly, abandoned; the image she had carried in her heart was shattered for ever—as, it would seem, was her marriage, which wasn’t even twenty-four hours old.

  John was right—she had been influenced by her father, allowing her love for him to cloud her mind to the true nature of his character, to the violence and wickedness of his chosen profession. But she had been young, naïve, a willing victim ready to fall prey to his charismatic charm and the doting, lavish attention he showered on her after years of neglect. And yet deep inside her heart she had always known the truth but had refused to acknowledge it, knowing that, on doing so, the pain would be intolerable. Stuart was completely justified to feel as he did.

  ‘He raised his hand to me in a final salute in grudging respect for the way I had succeeded in capturing him and his ship after playing a cunning game of hide and seek with me across the Atlantic Ocean,’ Stuart went on. ‘And though it pains me to tell you, considering he had no seafaring background until he became a galley slave, his navigational skills were quite exceptional. Now do you understand what I meant when I said we will both have to make compromises? It will be no simple matter for either of us having to live together, knowing what we do.’

  He continued to look at her coldly. ‘The implications of your background and involvement with the pirates—not forgetting the seriousness of the conviction hanging over you—I cannot begin to contemplate at this moment, or what my feelings are towards you and the kind of future we will have together with this lying between us.

  ‘It will be a long time, if ever, before I shall be able to forget that you are the daughter of the man who killed my brother—as it will for you, whenever you remember that I am the one responsible for the death of your father. And now you must excuse me. I have some important matters to attend to.’

  The implication that she was not an important matter was unmistakable, and Cassandra tensed at the deliberate, unprovoked insult. ‘Don’t let me detain you,’ she said tersely.

  ‘I won’t. My crew will be waiting for me to give orders to sail. If you are wise,’ he said in a blood-chilling voice as he towered over her, ‘you will avoid me very carefully while you are on my ship.’ His eyes swept over her contemptuously. ‘Dress yourself. I will inform one of the crew to bring you some breakfast.’ Clamping his hands on her shoulders, he moved her out of the way.

  In stunned silence Cassandra watched him go. She stared at the closed door. The cabin was suddenly larger, emptier, somehow more lonely. Shock had formed a merciful cocoon around her, which, as it melted away, would give place to real suffering in all its terrible anguish. She could not think what she was going to do, what would happen now. At that moment nothing mattered except the pain within her.

  Chapter Seven

  Weighing anchor and hoisting her sails, the Sea Hawk took her place in the convoy that left Barbados and began to glide beneath an azure sky towards the open sea. The chances of a propitious passage for the slow-moving merchantmen were largely dependent on favourable winds.

  Cassandra, deeply distressed by the memory of what had transpired between herself and Stuart, remained in the cabin, blindly watching the activity taking place through the window as she tried to put some semblance of order back into her crippled emotions.

  For the first time in her life she was truly afraid, afraid because until now she had given little thought to the seriousness of the situation she had placed herself in. If she should return to London and her identity was exposed, she would be arrested and hanged. If she had dissociated herself from any criminal action after her father’s execution and gone home to Chelsea, she would not be in this predicament.

  Washed and dressed and with no appetite for food, she stood alone with her wretched thoughts. With hindsight she realised she should have told Stuart who she was, and now she was tormented by the thought that she might have lost him forever—just when she realised how deeply she loved him. Her gaze drifted through the open door to the bed where they had made love. In that bed all her hopes and desires had blossomed and then shrivelled away like summer flowers when winter frost sets in. Was it to be over so soon? Were there to be no more nights spent in his arms?

  Rosa, who was feeling homesick and happy to be leaving Barbados, came to help Cassandra with the unpacking of her trunks. She smiled, pleasantly surprised to see how large and light the cabin was. Her own was next door and much smaller.

  ‘I can see you are going to be comfortable,’ she said, her eyes sweeping the well-furnished cabin, its brasswork gleaming like polished gold. However, her smile was quickly dispelled, for one look at Cassandra’s pale and wretched face told her something was wrong, as well as the red eyes which meant that she might have been crying.

  Despite the sadness that had descended on her, Cassandra managed to bring a smile to her lips on seeing her young friend. Rosa possessed a quiet sense and wisdom—and an understanding of the unprincipled life to which she had been reared on the Cape Verde Islands—way beyond her years.

  They had become close friends during the months they had spent together, and Cassandra was glad that Rosa had agreed to accompany her to London before returning to her home. However, Rosa had not been blessed with a robust constitution and her general health gave Cassandra cause for concern. From the moment she had left her home, the young woman had been susceptible to many minor ailments, each one taking her longer to recover from than the one before. Her face was pale and she was thinner than she had been when Cassandra had first met her.

  ‘I know how relieved you are to be going home at last, Rosa—to be leaving Barbados.’

  ‘Yes. The distance between the Caribbean and the Cape Verde Islands is too great by far for me,’ she replied, her voice rich and deep with an attractive trace of Portuguese. ‘On reaching London I’m sure I will soon obtain passage on a ship bound for the East Indies. They often call at the islands to obtain water. But why aren’t you on deck to see the convoy get under way?’

  ‘I can see everything pretty well from here.’

  The sadness that weighed heavy on Cassandra’s heart could be seen in her eyes and affected her voice, which brought a shadow of concern to Rosa’s dark, almond-shaped eyes. She moved to where Cassandra stood and turned her round to face her. ‘What is it? Has something happened to upset you? When I went on deck earlier for some air, I saw Captain Marston and he appeared to be in an extremely bad temper—hardly the kind of behaviour one would expect from a bridegroom the morning after his wedding. What is it, Cassandra?’ she asked gently. ‘Something awful must have happened to distress you so.’

  Cassandra sighed, knowing she could not hide the truth from Rosa’s sharp, inquisitive eyes. Besides, what had transpired affected her too. ‘Stuart has discovered who I am, Rosa. He—he paid a visit to Captain Tillotson earlier, whom, it would seem, having somehow found out who we are, lost no time in telling him.’

  In a few words Cassandra quickly told Rosa what had taken place between them on his return to the Sea Hawk, and the part he had played in capturing her father and the reason for his hatred. As the story unfolded Rosa listened in horrified silence.

  ‘Then there is little wonder your husband is angry,’ she whispered when Cassandra at last fell silent. ‘I can und
erstand completely the hatred he must have felt towards your father that drove him to avenge his brother. You must try to understand how he is feeling. This cannot be easy for him.’

  ‘I do understand, and it makes me feel quite wretched. He was none too pleased either when I confirmed what he already suspected—that you are Drum’s daughter. I fear we are both in for an unpleasant voyage home.’

  ‘As his wife, your situation is far worse than my own. What will he do, do you think? What are his intentions?’

  ‘I don’t know. At the moment I should imagine he is trying to come to terms with the mistake he has made in marrying me. He is so furious that I believe him to be capable of anything. I did not know the man his anger unleashed, Rosa, and for a time I was afraid of him. He was a stranger to me—which makes me realise just how little I know him.

  ‘What I do know is that by keeping the truth of my identity from him I have placed him in an impossible situation. I should not have done it. It wasn’t right. Because I was party to the taking of the Dolphin from her moorings—and having my father’s body cut down from the gallows, in England—there is a price on my head. If I am handed over to the authorities, I will hang for sure.’

  Rosa was appalled to think that something so terrible might befall her friend. ‘Don’t say that. Don’t even think it. Captain Marston would not let that happen. Wait and see, Cassandra. I’m sure that by the time the ship reaches England he will have put all this behind him.’

  ‘I wish I could be sure of that, but I can’t,’ Cassandra said bitterly. ‘I’ve tried to put myself in his place. At first I was shocked and angry because he did not even trouble to discriminate between Nat and me, the guilty and the innocent, but when he left me and I pursued my reflections, my attitude to him gradually became more sympathetic. Perhaps, in his place, I would feel the same. After all, why should he trust me? I am the daughter of a man on whom he had sworn vengeance and whom he had seen hang.’