Microsoft Word - Sherwood, Valerie - Nightsong

by kps

  "No, thank heaven." She sighed. "Here, take off your coat. Let me wash your wound and bind it." And when his shirt sleeve was pulled back and the wound washed and bound, she gave him a slanted look through her lashes.

  "After tonight I-I am afraid to be left here," she said in what she hoped was a small voice. His rejoinder was not what she had expected. He snorted. "You are afraid of nothing, Christabel! Do not think you can cozen me by prattling of your fears!"

  That he could see through her so readily, angered her. "But you can see how dangerous it is for me here," she burst out. "You must take me with you, Kells.

  Tonight proves it!"

  He cast a glance at the ceiling as if looking for strength to stay his anger. "So that is why we went through this exercise tonight'!" he ground out. "I have killed one man for you and disabled another, and it was all so that I might become apprised of the dangers of Port Royal?"

  "To a woman alone, yes!" Carolina said stubbornly.

  "By God, you are not alone!" he shouted. "I leave you in a house that is the next thing to a fort! You will be attended and protected every moment." His gray eyes narrowed.

  "You will not leave the house except in the company of Hawks and whomever else he selects to accompany you."

  "So I am to be a prisoner?" Carolina drew herself up indignantly. "Is that what you are telling me? It is to be Tortuga all over again?"

  The tall buccaneer gazed down on his maddening lady with a torment of emotions surging through him. She looked so enchanting-a beauty to melt a man's will. An overwhelming desire to take the wench with him swept over him, leaving him sweating, the lace at his throat too tight. He tugged at it in indecision, although to Carolina his dark countenance seemed carved in granite. Take her with him? God, he could hardly resist! Ahead lay long empty nights without her, afloat upon an endless ocean.

  He wrenched his mind back to realities. "What you did tonight was inexcusable," he said sternly. "I know it was," she admitted wistfully, and swayed toward him. "But take me with you anyway. Sail me to Virginia, Kells. Sail in by night and row me by longboat to Level Green. Let me wait for you there!" (For once in Virginia she would find some other way to keep him!)

  He gazed down at her, troubled. That he might carry her to Virginia and leave her at Level Green with her mother while he sailed against Spain was a tempting thought.

  Tempting-but fleeting. Too well he remembered how Carolina had helped him escape from there-she had tossed him a sword. Before witnesses. Her beautiful arrogant mother had many enemies and some of them might realize how easily they could ensnare him-just by bringing charges against Carolina for helping a fugitive escape.

  He would come from hell to rescue her, and they would know it. A trap could be set for him there. . ..

  He shook his head to clear it. His ardent desire for this silvery beauty was melting his brain. He must away before the wench teased him into making some mad mistake that could cost her her life. Best to leave now!

  There were tears in her hopeful pleading eyes as he pushed her gently away from him. All of his being wanted to take her in his arms, to succumb to her pleas, to kiss those tears away. The wrenching struggle to resist such an action harshened his voice.

  "I will spend the night aboard ship," he said curtly and turned swiftly on his heel before his resolve could weaken.

  Carolina felt as if she had been slapped. Would he rob her, then, even of this last night with him? Leave her without even a proper good-by? A wave of hot indignation washed over her-and with that wave, words to hurt him sprang to her lips.

  "I will not be faithful to you while you are gone!" she flung at his departing back.

  He turned then. His iron jaw hardened still further. "You do not mean that."

  "I do mean it!" she flashed, lifting her chin. "I intend to be very merry if you leave me here!"

  He took an angry step toward her. She had never seen such a daunting countenance. At any other time she might have quailed before that look-but not tonight. Tonight she was too desperate. She stood her ground.

  He came to within a couple of feet of her, stood breathing heavily. For a wild moment she thought he was going to strike her, but he thought better of it.

  "You will have all the time in the world for it," he said thickly, "for this may be a long voyage. And who knows, there may be some Spanish wench aboard a galleon who, when she joins us, will be as merry as my unfaithful wife!"

  Carolina gasped. She lifted her arm to strike him only to find it caught in a viselike grip. "I'd not try that," he said silkily, and flung her from him to catch for support at the bedpost.

  Her slipper struck the door as he was closing it. She could hear his boots clattering down the stairs before she could wrench it open.

  She started to follow him-no, he would only nod to Hawks, and Hawks would stop her at the door. It would be degrading to be seen struggling with Hawks in the doorway while her buccaneer strode away from her!

  Her gaze fell to the coat he had left behind him. She seized it and ran to the open window.

  "You have left your coat!" she called to him as he emerged onto the street. "And I cannot get these big cuffs through the grillwork-you will have to come back!"

  He did not even look up but swung away, a tall, determined figure, dim in the fast-gathering dusk.

  Carolina threw her other slipper at him and missed. She guessed he was on his way to a nearby tavern where he would pick up his men and be rowed out in a longboat to the waiting Sea Wolf.

  Carolina almost ran downstairs to plead with Hawks to let her pursue him.

  But-to what end? she asked herself hopelessly. Kells would not change; she had never been able to change him. He insisted on supporting her in this grand style-and she herself was an extravagant wench, as he was fond of saying-and she knew as well as he that they were seeing the end of the gold that had seemed so inexhaustible when first they had settled here.

  Kells was a buccaneer, and this was spring. He was off to snare the passing galleons that would come to the New World with the spring, bearing-not gold perhaps -but arms, rich fabrics, lace mantillas, Toledo blades, all the lavish items that Spain's wealthy colonies desired and could easily pay for. Items that could be sold for a handsome sum in the market of this buccaneer town of Port Royal.

  Kells was a buccaneer and he had gone a'hunting. There was nothing she could do about it. Carolina flung herself upon the bed in a torrent of tears.

  A little later she heard a knock on the door and sprang up breathlessly, dashing the tears from her eyes. Had her threat about being unfaithful worked? Had he changed his mind and returned to fetch her?

  But it was only Hawks bidding her to lock her door-e-Cap'n's orders.

  "Oh, bother the captain!" she cried. But she struggled up from the bed and turned the key in the big lock, and then went to stare hopelessly through the new iron grillwork of her island prison at the darkly glittering ocean reaching forever away across the moonpath.

  Somewhere among that forest of sails in the harbor was the Sea Wolf-and morning would find him winging away from her.

  Her head dropped into her hands and she sat there, miserable.

  A little later she heard Moonbeam softly scratching at the door and making little indignant sounds at finding it shut against her. Carolina got up and unlocked the door to let the cat in. She picked Moonbeam up and held that purring bundle of fluffy white fur close to her for comfort.

  "Oh, Moonbeam," she mourned. "I've said things I never meant. I've driven him away and now I may never see him again. . . ."

  And that, she knew, would break her heart.

  PART TWO

  Catastrophe

  At night I hear the rustle of your touch upon my gown And thrill to feel the rasp of silk as it goes sliding down And wake to find the moonlight streaming in as bright as day And find that I was dreaming-for you are far away.. ..

  PORT ROYAL, JAMAICA

  June 7,1692

  Chapter 10

&n
bsp; It was past eleven o'clock, the sun was reaching its zenith, and Port Royal shimmered in the oppressive tropical heat. Carolina, as had become her habit of late, had gathered up her calico skirts and climbed to the captain's walk atop the house.

  She was carrying Moonbeam in her arms, for the cat had been acting strangely since yesterday-mewing and trying to get under furniture as if hiding from a foe. Carolina had cast a suspicious look at Gilly, who had given her back such an indignant glance that Carolina decided Gilly had not attacked the cat. She had taken Moonbeam to bed with her last night and the cat had promptly scuttled under the bed and refused to come out. She had been lured out this morning by the scent of a succulent piece of fish and when she had finished her halfhearted eating, Carolina had promptly swept her up and carried her up to the captain's walk where Moonbeam seemed even more perturbed. Far from trying to jump out of Carolina's arms so that she could walk daintily along the railing-which was her usual behavior--she seemed to want to burrow under Carolina's arm.

  "What's the matter, Moonbeam?" Carolina asked solicitously, stroking the long soft fur of Moonbeam's back. "Are you getting sick? Is that it?"

  Moonbeam answered with a sound that might have been a moan. "I'll get you some fresh milk when we go downstairs," Carolina promised.

  She tucked the quivering cat under one arm and shaded her eyes with her other hand. She was staring out to sea, automatically checking the name of every ship in the harbor, even though she knew it was futile-in this dead calm, nothing had moved in or out of the harbor for days except rowboats, a fact greatly bewailed in this busiest port of the West Indies.

  Her shining hair was gilded by the brilliant sun, and shafts of sunlight leaped gaily along her full yellow calico skirts that drooped in this windless weather against her slim legs. Slowly she counted the ships in the harbor-a score or more, sails furled, lay at anchor in the glassy waters of the harbor. They were all familiar to her gaze, except for several rowboats and a large strange-looking craft which seemed to have no masts and whose name she could not see, which was being rowed into the harbor by long oars, manned no doubt by long muscular arms. But even though she knew the deadly calm this terrible heat wave had brought, she felt a sharp stab of disappointment. For Carolina's brooding gaze was seeking just one ship, the Sea Wolf-and it was not there.

  She sighed, took mewing, excited Moonbeam in both arms, petted the small animal in an attempt to quiet her, and rested her arms on the railing of the captain's walk that ran atop the house, letting her chin brush Moonbeam's soft fur. This whole week had been breathless and it was worse than usual inside the house today, but being up here on the roof gave some relief and made her tight bodice and sheer chemise seem to stick to her a little less. Her gaze raked the length of waterfront Thames Street, from Littleton's Tavern where-even as in her own kitchen down below-a beef and turtle stew for the noonday meal was being prepared in a heavy copper pot, past the fish market and Sir Thomas Lynch's wharf down to the careening area where the frigate, H.M.S. Swan, lay on its side, helpless as a beached whale. The island's other warship, the H.M.S. Guernsey, she knew was out on patrol, for Port Royal was expecting the French from St. Ann's Bay to mount an attack at any time. And past the Swan, she could see sturdy Fort Carlisle guarding the harbor.

  She turned restlessly and swung her gaze past High Street, where the bell tower of St. Paul's church dominated the skyline, to the stocks and the market bell and the goldsmith's shop. She let her eyes wander restlessly on down this long jagged sandspit that housed some eight thousand souls, to the low mangrove swamp on Gallows Point where pirates were hanged, and on across the clear blue and aqua water to the distant line of aptly named hills, the Blue Mountains, hazy in Jamaica's near noontime heat. From those hills the Cobre River flowed past Spanish Town, and along that river Kells had sought a plantation. She sighed again. Plainly it was not to be....

  She remembered with bitter regret the day the Sea Wolf and the Sea Wench had made their stately way out of the harbor, picking up speed as they ran before the wind. She had had no chance to make up with Kells, for he had not returned home before sailing. That she had sent him away from her in anger had worried Carolina more with each passing day.

  But somehow the weeks had fled by, and now it was June. Carolina had refused to attend the governor's ball, given in honor of his departing cousin. Let her depart and good riddance! had been her comment, muttered to herself. Louis Deauville had sent her a note, gracefully expressing his regret that due to his wound he would be unable to squire her-just as he had penned her a note regretting his inability to dine with her on Wednesday as invited. Carolina had torn up both notes and sent her own regrets to the governor.

  Although Louis Deauville had for a time been laid up with his wounded leg, he had made a remarkably fast recovery. And now that he was up and about, he obviously expected Carolina to invite him again to dinner. But she did not. Even though the handsome Frenchman managed to turn up whenever she strolled abroad-closely guarded by Hawks-even

  though she still found him witty and droll, even though her tingling sense of guilt that she had encouraged him out of caprice forced her to be polite to him, now that Kells was well and truly gone, she could not find it in her heart to invite Deauville to share her table. Some half-forgotten loyalty of the heart prevented her. It was one thing to dally in Kells's plain sight-and quite another to betray him when his back was turned.

  Carolina had her own code of flirtation-and it was very strict. It did not allow treachery.

  She had had word of Kells only once-and that was by happenstance. The captain of a merchant ship that had come into Port Royal had noised it about that he had sailed by a sea battle somewhere off Trinidad. A ship that looked like the Sea Wall was being attacked by a pair of great golden galleons. The Sea Wench had been nowhere in sight. No, he had not stayed to watch the outcome of the battle. He had piled on all the canvas his vessel would carry and taken himself away from there!

  Carolina winced when she heard it, for it had not told her whether her valiant buccaneer was alive or dead.

  That had been three weeks ago, and Carolina had lived in torment ever since.

  She had expected him home by now-e-she had kept telling herself bravely that Kells was invincible, he could surmount all odds--but she knew it was not so. And last week when a hurricane had roared out of the Caribbean and all but swept Port Royal away, she had listened to the tiles of the roofs blowing off and crashing like thunder against the torn-off debris in the littered street below and shuddered. For he was doubtless out somewhere in that storm as well, fighting the seas in a gallant vessel that might have had half her hull already ripped away as a result of Spanish shot. . . .

  The thought terrified her.

  But the hurricane had come and gone and left a littered beach and a massive clean-up job for the city. Port Royal shrugged. It was an island port and used to terrible blows. Now but a week later, with work crews busy, the hanging signs were all up again, broken shutters mended, most of the roof tiles put back, the beach swept clean by the tide-the taverns and hostelries had rid themselves of their broken crockery that had crashed down when the storm had blown the shutters from the windows, and it was business as usual in this bustling buccaneer port.

  May had brought floods, then had come the hurricane, and now June had brought this depressing spell in which no wind stirred. The suffocating heat wave had lasted all week and brought forth grim forecasts from some of the older townsfolk, who muttered uneasily that for forty years past, indeed ever since England had taken this island from Spain, every earthquake-and there were tremors almost every year-had been preceded by storms followed by a period of sweltering calm such as they were just now experiencing.

  Carolina, a comparatively recent arrival, had paid no attention and had scoffed at the foolish old drunk in a nightshirt who two nights ago had run through the town wild-

  eyed, crying, "First a storm, and now a calm! Take to your heels! This miserable pesthole is g
oing to sink, mark my words!"

  But who would pay any attention to that? So many people-including, indeed, one clergyman's wife-were constantly predicting the destruction of wicked Port Royal for its sins!

  There was a sound of breaking glass below and Carolina looked down to see a crowd of swaggering sailors passing by in the street, coming from Sea Lane. One of them had dropped a bottle of rum and its contents ran into the sandy street. As she watched, another of their number lurched into a passing fish cart and a loud argument ensued. Now she watched them swagger on up Queen's Street toward High Street, their rolling gait proclaiming them for what they were. One of them carried a large red and green parrot which squawked incessantly.

  Now she saw that Louis Deauville had come out of his house and was gazing about.

  He looked up and saw her and bowed. Carolina inclined her head to him. She knew he was hoping that she would come down and chat, for he was loitering there aimlessly, but she had no intention of doing that.

  It was a pensive face she turned toward the mirror-like shimmer of the glassy sea.

  Below her, had she known it, Gilly was taking advantage of her absence to slip into Carolina's bedroom.

  The past weeks had been frustrating for Gilly, too-frustrating for two reasons: For one, Jarvis was pressing her. Idling here in Port Royal, he was growing impatient with his doxy.

  For the other, she had lost Carolina's favor.