Island Flame

by ROBARDS, KAREN

  Angry blood rushed into Sir Thomas’s face. It was all he could do to restrain himself from pulling the trigger. His finger ached with the effort it cost him not to do so. Cathy flushed herself under the stinging taunt of Jon’s words, but she clung steadfastly to her father’s arm.

  “I take it you want me to marry her,” Jon said with a viciousness that tore at Cathy’s heart.

  “And why not?” she cried, stung. “It’s your child, you know it is, and you share the responsibility for it! The least you can do is make certain that it doesn’t grow up a bastard!”

  “You opportunistic little bitch,” Jon snarled, and Cathy whitened under his raking glare.

  “If you speak to my daughter in such a manner again, I’ll shoot you down on the spot.” Sir Thomas had regained his composure. His voice was icy cold.

  Neither Jon nor Cathy replied. They glared at each other, anger and pain in both pairs of eyes, neither recognizing the other’s hurt. Sir Thomas looked from one to the other and relaxed slightly. He was well satisfied with the way this interview was going. If the bastard kept on in this present frame, Cathy would be hating him before the ceremony was completed.

  “And if I refuse?” Jon asked after a long moment.

  “You’ll hang,” Sir Thomas responded positively. Cathy bit her lip. Jon’s eyes swung to her.

  “Do you agree with that?” he demanded curtly.

  Cathy looked at him miserably. “Jon, I know you don’t want to marry me, but I have to think of the baby. I’m sorry.”

  “You do agree.” He swung around so that his broad back was turned to them, and swore savagely under his breath. Cathy longed to go to him, sliding her arms around that hard waist, but both Jon’s own attitude and the presence of her father held her back. There would be time enough for making it up to him after the ceremony, she thought.

  “It seems I have little choice,” Jon said coolly at last. The look he turned on Cathy made her flush. “I hope you’re not expecting a proposal in form.”

  Cathy flinched from his cruel mockery. He really was a bastard, she thought furiously. Her father had been right. Jon definitely didn’t love her!

  Now that the minor matter of the pirate’s consent had been settled, Sir Thomas dealt with the rest of the formalities with his usual efficiency. Less than twenty minutes later Cathy was standing at Jon’s side in front of Captain Winslow, while that bewildered but game gentleman read the words that united them in holy matrimony. She was surprised at the cool sound of her own voice as it made the correct responses. Inside she was a quivery mass of pain. Jon sounded equally composed. Suddenly she found herself hating him. His callous disregard of her needs and the baby’s was despicable!

  When Captain Winslow got to the part about the ring, Sir Thomas hurriedly pulled the gold signet from his own finger. In the rush he had forgotten the need to procure a proper wedding band, but that could be attended to once they were safely in England. Jon took the ring from him without a word and slid it onto Cathy’s finger, making as little contact with her as he possibly could in the process. Cathy could have wept at the feel of his warm hand holding hers so distastefully. Whenever she had imagined marrying Jon, it had certainly been nothing like this! His cold dislike of her almost made her sick.

  She numbly signed the paper that Captain Winslow held out to her, and Jon wrote his name below hers in a firm black scrawl. Then the captain was pronouncing them man and wife, and Cathy lifted her face to him hopefully. He stared down at her for a moment, his lips twisting in a jeering smile.

  “I hope you don’t expect me to give you a chaste bridal kiss after that farce,” he drawled, and, before Cathy could think clearly, she slapped him hard across the face. The mark of her small hand was plainly visible against his dark cheek. He snarled, reaching for her, and his action mobilized the other three men who had been watching the little scene with stunned surprise.

  Sir Thomas’s pistol cracked down hard on Jon’s head and Captain Winslow’s caught him on the back of the neck. He went out like a light. Mason ran to the door and bellowed for the guards, who appeared on the double. They dragged Jon away between them while Cathy stood biting on her clenched fist to stop herself from crying out. She had provoked Jon’s violence, she knew, and she bitterly regretted it. She hadn’t meant him to be hurt.

  “Papa, could you see that he’s all right?” she asked after a moment, voice low. Her father looked at her sharply, then nodded, shepherding the other two men out of the cabin with him. Cathy was standing over by the window when he returned, tears rolling down her cheeks. Sir Thomas felt a renewed surge of hatred for the pirate.

  “He wasn’t hurt, was he, Papa?” she faltered. Sir Thomas crossed the room to her, putting his arm around her waist. Cathy clung to him miserably.

  “Not at all, my dear,” Sir Thomas said sorrowfully. Cathy looked up quickly at something in his voice.

  “Papa …”

  “My child, I hope that what I’m going to say won’t hurt you. You plainly don’t love the pirate any more than he loves you, so I want you to look on this as a blessing.”

  “Papa … !”

  “He’s escaped, Cathy. Abandoned you, and your child, and my promise of a pardon for him. Now, my dear, was I right?”

  Twelve

  London was nothing at all like Cathy had imagined it would be. Instead of stately mansions surrounded by acres of parkland, there were narrow town houses separated from the streets by tiny yards and wrought iron fences. Carriages rattled over cobbled streets at all hours, while street vendors touted their wares from dawn to dusk. Garbage filled the gutters and no one seemed to pay the least heed to its stink. It was not at all unusual for the contents of a chamber pot to be emptied from a second story window onto the head of an unsuspecting pedestrian. The London of her dreams had been elegant and gay and extremely fashionable. The London of reality was merely dirty.

  Immured in the opulence of her aunt Elizabeth’s house in Grosvenor Square, Cathy was at first restless, then bored, then totally disconsolate. Even though she had attained the dignity of matronhood, it was still considered improper for her to leave the house without a female attendant. Her readily apparent pregnancy precluded her participating in the parties and balls and musical soirees of the London Season. The only pastimes left to her were sedate walks, or carriage rides through the park with Martha in attendance, or a visit to the nearby shops.

  Cathy’s enjoyment of these diversions quickly palled. The thick chill of the coming winter made the park uncomfortable for one whose blood was used to warmer climes, and her thickening waistline kept her from taking any real interest in fashion. For several weeks she managed to amuse herself by selecting the baby’s layette, but when that was complete, to the last tiny cap and satin coverlet, she could find nothing else to do. She moped about the house, smiling wanly in response to Sir Thomas’s and Martha’s attempts to cheer her. Resolutely, she refused to acknowledge that the inexplicable lowness of her spirits might have something to do with Jon’s defection. As far as she was concerned, she told herself firmly, he was a chapter in her life that was now closed.

  Elizabeth Augusta Anne Aldley Case, Lady Stanhope by marriage, and sister to Sir Thomas, had no patience with Cathy’s megrims. In her considered opinion, the girl was very lucky to have escaped so lightly. If not for her willingness to cast the mantle of her sterling reputation over her niece, Cathy would have found herself a social outcast—despite the whitewash that Sir Thomas had tried to spread over the whole unsavory affair. For although the Duchess of Kent had refrained from discussing what had befallen Lady Catherine at the hands of the pirates, the Gradys had felt no such inhibitions. What they didn’t know for a fact, they made up out of thin air. And the story they told was scandalous enough to ruin the reputation of even the most unimpeachably virtuous lady.

  Lady Stanhope, sailing into the fray like a bosomy man o’war, dismissed the rumors as false lies. Her niece, said the lady with a look that dared her listeners to
contradict her, was secretly married to an American in Lisbon before sailing for England. When the unfortunate bridegroom had fallen ill of a fever and died just days after the ceremony, a grieving Cathy had been packed off by her father to spend the summer with her aunt on the theory that a change of scenery might be what was needed to dispel the young widow’s grief. When the Anna Greer was overrun by pirates, Cathy was already enceinte. The pirate captain, when made aware of her condition, had chivalrously offered the expectant mother the use of his cabin, and had behaved toward her thereafter with perfect propriety. Sir Thomas had recovered his daughter in Cadiz after the duchess and those unspeakable chits were ransomed. And that, said my lady, was what really happened. Although polite society might titter behind its hands when Lady Stanhope was not present, no one quite had the nerve to openly dispute what she said.

  Cathy, although not really ungrateful for these efforts on her behalf, was indifferent. Even after the baby was born, she did not anticipate feeling a burning urge to shine in society, or indeed to enter it at all. It would suit her far better to retire with her child to the country, she told her father. Sir Thomas was appalled. He foresaw all his careful machinations being made the casualties of an incomprehensible female whim. He appealed to Martha for aid in enumerating to Cathy the advantages accruing to a place in the polite world, and even a possible second marriage. When Cathy pointed out, with undeniable logic, that a second marriage was out of the question as she was not really a widow, Sir Thomas squirmed uncomfortably and told her not to bother her pretty little head about that. When the time came, he said, something could be arranged.

  Besides Lady Stanhope, Cathy, Sir Thomas, and the servants, the present Lord Stanhope was also a resident of the house in Grosvenour Square. Plump, pompous, and pasty-faced, he was the widowed Lady Stanhope’s only child and the apple of her eye. She thought Harold could do no wrong, and when Harold looked down his nose at his little cousin and pronounced her wild, Lady Stanhope could only agree. Cathy’s degenerate tendencies had brought about her downfall, as Lady Stanhope told the girl repeatedly. Cathy, mindful of her father’s career and the burden her adventure had already placed on it, held her tongue and submitted, with as good a grace as she could muster, to her aunt’s homilies. But with Harold, she had no such scruples. She despised him, and did not care who knew it.

  The first of December saw Cathy going into the sixth month of pregnancy. She felt as large and ungainly as an expectant sow, and her dissatisfaction with her appearance and general malaise caused her to be snappish and impatient with anyone who came near her. The tensions in the house grew to such an intensity that she was driven to spending much time in her bedroom. It was large and elegantly furnished, with a satin-draped four-poster, delicate chairs, a mirrored dressing table, and a plush gold oriental carpet. But the lack of fresh air and exercise made Cathy pale and listless. Her days were spent huddling apathetically in front of a roaring fire, a book forgotten on her lap as she gave herself up to wistful daydreams. “If only Jon had loved me” was their usual theme, and Cathy was too heartsore to banish them. But she finally managed to convince herself that her love of Jon, if indeed it had ever existed, was now dead. In its place was an implacable antagonism.

  The coming child was becoming more real to her with every passing day. She could feel it moving inside her, its tiny kicks and rolls tickling like the flutterings of a trapped butterfly, and she thrilled to the knowledge that in less than three months she would be able to hold her child in her arms. Despite Jon’s betrayal, she would love their child with every ounce of her being. The baby would be her whole life.

  Martha was growing seriously concerned about Cathy’s melancholia, and consulted with Sir Thomas endlessly on the subject. He too was becoming alarmed. Except for the bulge at her middle, the girl had lost weight, and she was uncharacteristically quiet. Sir Thomas began to wonder if he had done the right thing. The remedy was even now in his hands, he knew, but any change of plan must be worked out quickly. After the third of January, it would be too late. Cathy would in truth be a widow.

  Newgate Prison was a horrible place, as Sir Thomas had found on the first of his numerous visits. To a prisoner without friends or money, and under sentence of death, it was hell itself. The guards had no scruples about dragging a condemned man out into the courtyard, tying him to a whipping post, and beating him until the blood ran. Sir Thomas learned that a carelessly tossed silver coin could assure such treatment on a weekly basis. He didn’t have to waste his money bribing the guards to withhold food and drink. The standard prison fare was a piece of moldy bread, twice a day, accompanied by a scummy mug of water.

  His craving for revenge was almost satisfied as he watched the weekly beatings, gloating as the once powerful-looking man was reduced to a wild-eyed skeleton. If Cathy could only see her pirate now, he thought, turning up his nose at the unwashed odor of the man’s body and staying well back out of reach of hands that he knew itched to kill him, she would recoil with revulsion. There was nothing about the pirate now to awaken maidenly hearts, and the knowledge pleased Sir Thomas mightily. Still, he worried about what Cathy’s reaction would be if by some unlikely mischance she were to discover that her pirate captain had been hanged at Tyburn instead of escaping as she supposed. Was it possible that after the passage of so much time she would be angry nonetheless?

  No anger, however, could match that which Jon Hale felt for Sir Thomas. A homicidal gleam would come into the crazed gray eyes when they rested on their captor, and his parched lips would curve in a feral snarl. Although the man was chained hand and foot, and was under the constant guard of armed men, Sir Thomas was conscious of an occasional stirring of fear. The pirate only made the mistake of lunging for him once, when Sir Thomas had remarked deliberately on his plans for his daughter’s future. The pirate emitted what could only be described as a howl and leaped like a wild beast for his throat, but Sir Thomas was able to jump back in time while the guards clubbed the man senseless. They then dragged the prisoner over to the whipping post, tied him to it, and beat him again as soon as they revived him. After that, the pirate feigned deafness when Sir Thomas mentioned how sorry Cathy was to hear of the treatment he was receiving. Feeling that his daughter’s vengeance was being well and truly served, he began to tell the man before each beating that they had been ordered by Cathy, and not himself. And the malevolent glitter in the pirate’s eyes or the twitching of a muscle in his cheek conveyed to Sir Thomas that his prisoner was indeed cognizant of what was being said to him.

  Although Sir Thomas hated Jon Hale for having dishonored his daughter, he began, very reluctantly, to feel a glimmer of respect for the pirate’s iron endurance. The man never uttered a sound, although the pain he suffered was excruciating, and the only time he showed any reaction was when Sir Thomas mentioned Cathy’s name. Even then, the emotion in his gray eyes was so fleeting that Sir Thomas was unable to identify it.

  Jon’s hanging was scheduled for seven o’clock on the morning of January third. As Christmas came and went, Sir Thomas began to have serious misgivings about the wisdom of what he was doing. Was he indeed serving his daughter’s best interests by having the pirate hanged? Or would she be better off with him for a husband? For instead of getting over her infatuations, as Sir Thomas had been certain she would, Cathy seemed no happier now than she had weeks ago. If anything, in fact, she was plunging more and more deeply into depression. If she genuinely loved the pirate, then Sir Thomas would reluctantly put her wishes before his own career. But he was still morally convinced that what Cathy felt was a mere girlish infatuation that time would remedy. It was just that it was taking rather more time to cure her than he had at first supposed. Anyway, it was too late now to restore the pirate to her, the man would very likely do her serious harm if he could get his hands on her, believing what he now did about her. Thus Sir Thomas decided that it was in the best interests of all concerned to let the execution take place. Even the pirate might welcome death as an alternat
ive to his present sufferings.

  New Year’s Day, 1843, dawned clear and crisp and very cold. Snow lay thickly on the windowsill just outside Cathy’s bedroom. The antics of the child in her womb had awakened her earlier than had lately become her custom. For a long while she lay quietly in bed, one hand pressed to her belly, while she watched the sky turn from midnight blue to a leaden gray. From the looks of it, there would be more snow before the day was out, adding to the foot or so that was already on the ground. Cathy grimaced. The somberness of the day exactly matched her mood.

  The fire in the hearth had burned down to a few glowing embers, and the room was chill. Cathy burrowed beneath the thick satin quilt, tucking it cozily around herself so that only the tip of her nose and her eyes were exposed to the raw air. She thought about getting out of bed to poke up the fire but then decided against it: it simply required too much effort. Martha would be bringing her morning chocolate in a few minutes, and the woman could do it then.

  A knock sounded very formally at her bedroom door, and Cathy smiled ruefully. Martha usually acted far more like her mother than her servant, and when she made a point of remembering her place, it was a sign that she was gravely offended. Cathy sighed, because when Martha was offended she could be as difficult to placate as an outraged Brahma bull. Apparently the words she had flung at the older woman the night before still rankled. She hadn’t meant to hurt Martha’s feelings, God knew, but she was so cross now. Her personality had changed so much in these few short months that she scarcely recognized herself.

  “Come in,” she called, resigned to spending the better part of the morning soothing her nanny’s ruffled feathers.

  Martha entered with a dignity that would not have been out of place in Queen Victoria herself.

  “I’ve brought your chocolate, my lady.”