Of Noble Birth

by Brenda Novak

  The lamp is out, she thought. I must relight it.

  “Someday,” Willy said, his voice grating low and cutting through her fuzzy thoughts, “someday I’ll snuff out the light in those eyes that are so much like your mother’s.”

  Alexandra had long since given up trying to understand the unrelenting anger that poured out of Willy when he was in his cups. What had she done to deserve such punishment? And Willy had loved Elizabeth. More than loved her. He had worshiped her. On her deathbed, her mother had asked Alexandra to look after him.

  A roaring, like the sound of the sea, filled Alexandra’s head, and she felt as though her body were being gently buffeted by the water’s currents.

  I don’t care what he says... I only want to sleep.

  Then another thought surfaced. The others will be here soon. Of course! That’s what she had been trying to remember: The six women who climbed the rickety stairs to the workroom garret each day before dawn.

  They would soon arrive to begin the long day’s work of sewing trousers, linen shirts, and skirts. The pittance they received for their labor, along with the demands placed upon them by Willy and his impatient buyers, required that they work sometimes eighteen or more hours in a day. Alexandra knew she could depend on them to help her if she could only last a few minutes more. But a peaceful, black abyss beckoned, and she began to move toward it.

  The lock clicked. Alexandra heard it above the crashing of the waves in her ears, though the sound had no meaning until the battered lid was thrown open. Then the cool morning air rushed upon her like a good, strong slap in the face.

  Her chest heaving as she sucked air into her lungs, Alexandra glanced wildly about until she saw Willy.

  He stood not three feet away, the imprint of a hat still matting his gray hair above a heavily lined face. Bloodshot eyes, yellowed with age and bad living, peered at her with loathing. He seemed to stare into her very soul, then he staggered away toward his own room, a string of epithets spewing from his alcohol-numbed tongue.

  It was over, for now. Alexandra closed her eyes and breathed deeply, her nails curling into her palms. No, she promised herself. Not for now. For always.

  * * *

  By the time Miss Harper arrived, Alexandra had composed herself. Though the others knew about the beatings, she did her best to conceal what she could for fear her fellow seamstresses would jeopardize themselves on her behalf. After all, they were powerless to offer any real help. They needed every penny they earned for the most basic wants—food, clothing, shelter. And it was a fortunate needlewoman indeed whose income provided enough for all three.

  As the aging spinster entered the small attic with its peaked ceiling, sloping walls, and single window, Alexandra was already hard at work on a full-dress shirt with a pleated front. Shirts required some of the most exacting needlework, forcing her to bend toward the tallow candle to better see each intricate stitch.

  “Good day.” Alexandra glanced up to smile at the woman with a cheer she did not feel. She was in charge of the small shop, and felt obligated to greet each needlewoman in a welcoming manner, though today that simple duty contended with a strong desire for comforting. Those with whom she worked were her only friends. Had anyone but Myrtle Harper been the first to arrive, Alexandra might have blurted out the whole terrifying experience. But the sight of her feeble comrade, whose steady decline she witnessed day by day, stemmed the tide of her self-pity.

  Miss Harper tilted her head in acknowledgment, but did not speak.

  Noticing how drawn she looked, Alexandra halted her work despite the pressing deadlines. “You’re ailing again?”

  The spinster nodded as she crossed the room to hang her bonnet and shawl on a hook before settling down at the large deal table that stood in the center of the floor, surrounded by seven chairs. The only other furnishings were an old clock, a coal stove, and two tallow candles.

  “What we got?” Miss Harper flexed her fingers before taking up her thimble and needle.

  “Skirts.” Alexandra pointed to a pile of burgundy velvet in the corner. Skirts were comparatively quick and easy, so Alexandra had set aside her share for the ill woman.

  “Morning,” several soft female voices called as the other seamstresses entered the room in a knot, and the room shrank instantly to the stuffy quarters to which they were all well accustomed. It was barely large enough for its scant furnishings, let alone the women who had to work in it. But they jostled about and managed to slip into their seats and position their few belongings in a relatively short time.

  Alexandra worked quietly as the other women chatted and laughed, her own thoughts returning to the morning’s episode with Willy. He was getting worse, she realized as anger and humiliation flooded her senses. Through her early years, she could have accused her stepfather of nothing beyond indifference. But he was becoming truly vindictive. She had hoped that his antipathy would go away. She’d blamed his behavior on the bottle, his bad knee, his unhappiness since her mother had died. After this morning, however, she knew such hopes were childish fantasy. He hated her.

  “Another beatin’, Alexandra?”

  Alexandra glanced up to see Libby, a frail-looking widow with five children, focus her all-knowing eyes her way.

  She shook her head.

  “Then what?”

  The others paused in their stitching to gaze expectantly at them both.

  “Come on, dear, spit it out,” Libby prodded. “Ye can’t ‘ide it from us. There might not be any telltale scrapes or bruises this time, but that devil of a man’s done somethin’.”

  Alexandra swallowed against the lump that swelled in her throat. “I have to get away from him, that’s all.”

  “An’ we’ve been tellin’ ye that for months. ‘E’s not goin’ to get any better, livin’ on the bottle the way ‘e is,” Libby agreed.

  Miss Harper made a tsking sound. “I knew Elizabeth. Yer mother would never ‘old ye to a promise to care for ‘im if ‘e wasn’t returnin’ the favor. ‘E uses ye to earn ‘is bread, that’s all. An’ abuses ye in the bargain.”

  Any mention of her mother evoked a poignant longing in Alexandra. Everything had been so different when Elizabeth was alive. Alexandra’s mother had been kind and beautiful. She’d taught her only child to read and write and speak like a lady. And when Willy had finally intervened, insisting Alexandra leave books to the lads, Elizabeth had taught her to sew. Though they stitched endless hours together, those times had been nothing like the drudgery of the present. Her mother only picked up piecework when Willy fell from a ladder at work, badly injuring his right knee. When he couldn’t stand for any length of time, the mill let him go, and finding new employment was difficult. But the worst was yet to come. On the heels of his accident, Elizabeth succumbed to scarlet fever and died, turning Alexandra’s life upside down. Without her mother, the pillar of strength who had kept the family together and reasonably happy, her stepfather was not the same man.

  “He thinks he earns our living by lining up our accounts,” Alexandra said.

  “Any God-fearin’ man wouldn’t be able to justify takin’ the lion’s share of our meager profits for an ‘our’s work ‘ere an’ there,” Miss Harper replied.

  The others nodded as Libby jammed her needle into the shirt she was sewing. “‘E ‘eld back ‘alf my pay last week because Mary Jane got sick an’ I came in a few minutes late, remember? Someday, I’d like to—”

  “We’d all like to take a stick to Willy,” interrupted Sarah, a young woman trying to earn enough with her needle to provide for three younger siblings. “But we can ‘andle ‘is miserly ways because ‘e keeps ‘is distance from everythin’ but our money. That’s not true for Alexandra.”

  “Don’t ye ‘ave any relatives who can ‘elp?” asked Merna, a new hire.

  Alexandra bowed closer to her work. “Not many I know,” she said, not wanting to announce that her mother had been banished from her wealthy family when she’d found herself pregnant, at fifteen
, by the village baker’s son. Elizabeth had gone to her young lover, hoping he’d run away with her, but her father had gotten to him first. For a few pounds and the promise of his own bakeshop someday, the boy turned his back on Elizabeth. So she left on her own, made her way to Liverpool, and went to work in a cloth mill, where she met Willy.

  “Willy has family here, but they keep to themselves. They didn’t like my mother, accused her of thinking herself above them.”

  “If they’re anythin’ like Willy, she was above them,” Miss Harper snapped.

  Alexandra smiled at the spinster’s matter-of-fact tone. “I do have an aunt on my mother’s side.”

  “The one Willy chased away when she came to visit?” Libby asked.

  With a nod, Alexandra continued, “I hear from her every once in a while, but not often.”

  “Where does she live?” asked Eliza, the young mother.

  “In London right now. I received a letter not long ago saying her husband, who’s a military man, just received a post in India. The entire family is moving there—”

  “When?” Libby pounced on the question so quickly, Alexandra paused from her work to look up in surprise.

  She did a quick mental computation. “In less than a week.”

  A sparkle entered the widow’s eyes at the same time a smile curved her cracked lips, and Alexandra began to shake her head. “No. I know what you’re thinking. I can’t go with them. I’ve thought of it, and thought, and thought, and I wouldn’t dare burden Aunt Pauline by foisting myself upon her. Besides, it’s probably the first place Willy would look—”

  “They’re leavin’ the country. Ye just said so yerself,” Sarah put in.

  “And ye could always work,” Miss Harper added. “Ye could be their servant, or the children’s governess, or just stay with them for a short while until ye found a post elsewhere—”

  Alexandra held up her hand, trying to get them to stop because she feared the hope their excitement fostered in her soul. “And how would I pay for my passage to India? I’ll not expect my aunt to carry the cost!”

  Libby and Miss Harper looked at each other, then at the others, and soon smiles curled everyone’s lips. “‘Tis almost noon,” Libby announced as Alexandra became the center of attention again. “The shirts for Mr. Cophagen are to be delivered after lunch, less than an ‘our away. Madame Fobart’s skirts are due shortly after. Payment on such an order would be significant, if ye get my meanin’.” The widow fell silent, letting the suggestion of her words hang in the air.

  Alexandra’s heart doubled its pace, even though her head still insisted she could never run to Aunt Pauline. “I only deliver our completed orders. Willy collects the money. You all know that.”

  “Convince Fobart’s manager that Willy sent ye to collect for ‘im,” Miss Harper said. “That mother of yers trained ye well. Ye could pass yerself off as a real lady if ye wanted to.”

  “But Fobart’s manager has seen me dozens of times. He knows who I am. And I have no time to arrange anything with my aunt,” Alexandra argued. “She’s leaving in less than a week. It could easily take a letter longer than that to reach her.”

  “Then ye’ll simply ‘ave to convince Fobart’s manager that Willy’s ill an’ needs the money. An’ ye’ll ‘ave to travel directly to London, and catch yer aunt an’ ‘er ‘usband before they set sail,” Libby replied.

  “What better chance ‘ave ye got?” asked Miss Harper.

  A lump of fear congealed in Alexandra’s stomach because she knew Miss Harper and the others were right. Aunt Pauline might be her only hope. But what if the manager at Fobart’s refused her and told Willy what she had done? What if she didn’t make it to London in time?

  She shuddered at the memory of the beating she’d received the last time she’d gotten the crazy idea to escape her stepfather, but slowly, she nodded and gave the others a shaky smile. Though the risks of their plan were great, it offered her a chance at freedom. A very slim chance. “All right,” she said at last. “I’ll try it.”

  * * *

  Nathaniel Kent strode boldly to the bow, his good arm gripping a rope cable to help him keep his balance on the heaving deck, the other arm hanging useless at his side. The thrill of the chase surged through his body, heightening his senses and causing his heart to pound within his chest. His quarry was close to surrendering. It had to be. The merchant brig had tried to run, but there was no escaping the sleek, fast-cutting Royal Vengeance, not on a day like this, when the sun was high in the sky, the water as smooth as satin, and the wind as steady as a camel plodding through the desert.

  Still, Nathaniel wondered why the Nightingale didn’t return their fire; he knew she carried at least four thirty-two-pound cannons.

  “What’s going on?” Mystified, he turned to Trenton, his lanky first mate.

  Trenton shrugged. “Damned if I can say. I know we come as quite a surprise, but even the first ship we took offered up a better fight than this.”

  “Still, I don’t see a white flag.”

  “Should we blast ‘em again?”

  Nathaniel thought for a moment. “Aye, maybe a direct hit will convince them.”

  The deafening roar of cannon clamored above the shouts of his men as four twenty-five-pound steel balls plunged into the sea somewhere near the stern of the Nightingale, sending large, drenching sprays of seawater across her decks. Smoke obscured Nathaniel’s view but soon cleared, rising like the ascension of a million ghosts.

  “We got ‘er!” someone cried.

  A chorus of cheers resounded.

  Nathaniel glanced back over his shoulder. His men were busy cleaning cannon muzzles so they could reload. He doubted such action would be necessary. Since the invention of the steam engine, pirates were a thing of the past, but the tales of their bygone era were not forgotten. Any good sailor could recount, and usually did, at least a dozen hair-raising stories supposedly experienced by someone in his ancestral tree.

  Banking on the fear those tales engendered, Nathaniel knew it would only be a matter of time before the Nightingale surrendered. He smiled, enjoying the feel of the deck moving beneath his feet, the wind rushing through his hair, even the smell of battle—especially the smell of battle, for it brought him that much closer to his goal.

  “There’s the flag,” Richard shouted, pointing toward the other ship. As unpredictable as a wild boar and twice as mad, Richard had been a member of Nathaniel’s crew for less than a year. “We got the bloody bastards!”

  Nathaniel turned to look. Sure enough, a white flag rippled wildly in the afternoon wind, hoisted high on the brig’s main mast. “Good girl,” he murmured to himself. “Now for your cargo.”

  Moving quickly, he headed to the side of the ship where his men lowered a boat. He heard it splash in the water only seconds before he climbed over the side and jumped in. Trenton stayed behind to take charge of the Vengeance, but Richard and Tiny, a man the size of a bear, came with him.

  Nathaniel listened to the rhythmic slap of the oars hitting the water as Tiny pulled for the other ship. The whine of voices from the Nightingale shifted on the wind. He couldn’t determine the words, but he could guess that expressions of surprise and dismay were chief among them.

  When they reached her hull, Nathaniel turned to his men. “Are you ready?”

  “I’m as eager as a sailor with his first woman,” Richard exclaimed. The barrel-chested Tiny merely nodded.

  “Let’s go.”

  Nathaniel scaled the rope that dangled to the water, climbing with the ease and grace that came only from experience, despite his bad arm. He was the first to stretch his long legs on deck. Richard and Tiny came behind.

  An older man with iron-gray hair and long sideburns, evidently the captain of the Nightingale, separated himself from his crew almost immediately. He wore a new frock coat, but his face and hands were as crusty and battered as an old sea chest. “What in damnation do you think you’re doing, firing on this ship?” he asked.

>   Nathaniel hesitated before making his reply, letting silence establish his dominance better than any amount of talking could ever do.

  Evidently the Nightingale carried passengers. Trunks, stacked in front of the artillery in great rows several feet deep, rendered the cannon useless in an emergency, making it little wonder that the other ship hadn’t returned the Vengeance’s fire.

  “I’ll have an answer.”

  Turning back, Nathaniel focused on the man who addressed him. “You’re hardly in a position to make demands,” he said smoothly, motioning toward the plethora of baggage stowed in front of the cannons and allowing his lips to curl into a smile.

  The captain’s face reddened. “You’re a fool if you’re doing what I think you’re doing. There haven’t been pirates in these waters for nearly thirty years, and for damn good reason.”

  Nathaniel’s smile turned cold as he let the hostility that smoldered inside him show in his eyes. “Considering your vulnerable situation, I’d certainly be careful who I called a fool, Captain—”

  “Merriweather. Captain Thaddaeus C. Merriweather, and I’ve likely been sailing since before you were born.” The old gentleman opened his mouth to say more, then clamped it shut again, obviously struggling to contain the emotions that occasioned this unwelcome boarding.

  “I am Dragonslayer,” Nathaniel replied. He was tempted to chuckle at the name, but he could hardly identify himself. Sobering, he scanned the faces of the Nightingale’s crew once again. He didn’t want any surprises. Captain Merriweather behaved like a proud old tar, and his men, collectively a hodgepodge of whiskers, tattoos, and handmade clothing, looked almost as tough. Nathaniel wondered how they would have reacted had passengers and their attendant baggage not been a consideration.

  “I’m glad you were sensible enough to surrender before there was any loss of life or limb,” Nathaniel said. “Especially because I mean no harm to your passengers or your crew. That is to say, we will harm no one as long as you cooperate,” he clarified, liking the old man in spite of himself. Obviously a relic from the old school, Merriweather cared about duty and honor. Men like him were entirely too rare.