Lovesong

by Valerie Sherwood

  “I doubt it,” was his blithe response. “For the Sea Wolf s being refitted and Kells will be taking her out soon. But,” he added as an afterthought, “you two ladies will have some company at least.” He nodded his head toward the center door leading in off of the gallery.

  “You mean Captain Kells has another guest?” asked Carolina quickly. At this point another face would be very welcome!

  “Yes, an English gentleman.” Lars grinned. “But you’d best enjoy him while you can—Kells is trying to persuade him to join us!”

  An English gentleman, someone who was not a buccaneer! Carolina’s face brightened and she cast an expectant look at the door, which remained uncompromisingly closed, before she shot a last question at Lars, who was just taking his leave. “Why is this English gentleman not out here taking the air on the gallery on a hot day like this?”

  Lars shrugged. “Because he’s out taking the air on the quay, is my guess.”

  Her senses quickened. “You mean he has the freedom of the town?”

  “Oh, yes. Although now that you’re here, he may find himself locked up like the two of you!”

  “For our own protection, of course,” murmured Carolina ironically.

  Lars laughed and was gone.

  Carolina would have followed Doña Hernanda into the bedroom that she assumed they would share but that Katje, just coming out, grasped her arm, said something in Dutch, and pointed toward the door at the other end of the gallery. Her grip was surprisingly strong and brooked no resistance when Carolina demurred, insisting first in English and then in Spanish that she would prefer to stay with Doña Hernanda.

  Swept irresistibly along over the stone flooring by Katje, Carolina found herself propelled past the “English gentleman’s” door and into an even larger bedroom than the one into which she had just peered. It had big windows covered with thick iron grillwork that opened onto the gallery they had just left. Katje smiled and departed, disappearing down the hall.

  Left alone, Carolina explored her room. It was large and square and very clean. The walls were whitewashed like those on the outside and there were wooden interior shutters to keep out sun and rain. The room was comfortably furnished with a bed and a table and chairs that looked as if they might have been made in Spain, and there was a dressing table with a mirror and a trunk with a curved top.

  Curious about that trunk, since she had sailed without baggage, Carolina went over and opened it—and its contents sent her flying out onto the gallery to burst in upon Doña Hernanda, who was sitting in a cushioned chair fanning herself with a palm leaf fan.

  “Does your room contain a trunk?” she cried, and broke off as she noted there was indeed a trunk. She rushed over and threw it open. “Oh,” she said, feeling a little foolish. “I suppose it is all right then.” She turned to Doña Hernanda whose lifted brows seemed to demand an explanation. “I found a trunk in my room that contained stockings and underthings and a lacy nightrail and I thought—” She broke off in embarrassment. “Well, now that I find that a trunk was left for you with even more undergarments and night things, I suppose it is all right.”

  “But that is my own trunk!” protested Doña Hernanda. “Do you not recognize it from the ship? Both my trunks were brought in right after you left— the other one is over there in the corner. See? I have been sitting here in amazement. One would feel that we were actually guests instead of captives of sea robbers!”

  So the trunk of underthings in her room had been collected especially for her. . . . Carolina did not know just what that suggested. She told herself uneasily that this pirate chieftain was merely being remarkably civil.

  “You will be fortunate if they fit you,” said Doña Hernanda in a practical voice. “Why don’t you go back and try them on?”

  When Carolina returned to her room she found another surprise waiting. Plainly Katje had been here in her absence for on the bed was spread out a neatly pressed thin voile dress of a soft Chinese yellow that made her catch her breath—that color would turn her hair to palest gold, she knew. She wondered suddenly if Katje had chosen it, for it was hard to imagine that big blustering buccaneer appreciating such fine nuances of color harmony.

  Still her gaze was troubled. The selection of the dress showed so much special attention. . . . But when she put it on, all doubts fled and she reassured herself hastily that this gesture reflected merely kindness— surely had his motive been lechery, he would have given her clinging silk or satin! The dress was a nice fit, snug around the waist and molding her supple torso and fine young breasts. Indeed it had a carefree but elegant styling that might have come from France. Suddenly she wondered if it had, and if it had been preceded by one of the tiny exquisite fashion dolls Paris was always exporting. She sat down thoughtfully, wondering whom this gown had originally been intended for and what had happened to her.

  Katje brought her a bath—or rather she supervised the bringing of it. The actual warm water and tub were carried in by a shy, barefoot island girl with long black hair and golden skin and soft dark eyes who didn’t speak a word of English or any other language Carolina was familiar with. Katje strode along after her carrying fresh towels and a large round sponge and a washcloth and delightful scented soap. It had been a long hot day since she had bathed this morning but two baths in one day was an unheard of delight!

  Carolina marveled at ail this attention. She tried to ask Katje about it, but Katje’s English was as nonexistent as Lars had claimed. Katje smiled, shrugged, said something unintelligible in her native tongue and vanished. Carolina was left to bathe alone.

  It was near dinnertime when she strolled down to Doña Hernanda’s room. The Spanish woman was suffering the aftermath of so much worry and strain. Now that she seemed for the time to be relatively safe, she had collapsed upon the bed and refused to leave her room.

  “I am not hungry,” she told Carolina faintly. “Bring me any word of my son, and if my absence is inquired about, say that I am very tired and would prefer to dine in my room.”

  Realizing how exhausted the older woman must be, Carolina strolled restlessly onto the gallery where she saw that the blue-tiled table had been covered with a spotless white linen cloth and set with silver trenchers and cutlery. It was set for three and she wondered whether the buccaneer chieftain was going to favor them with his presence—if so, she might have a hard time explaining Doña Hernanda’s absence.

  She was just meditating on that when she heard a step behind her and turned. A tall man was striding toward her. Unlike the buccaneers she had seen on shipboard, he was wearing the ordinary dress of an English gentleman—in this case gray with silver buttons. Despite the heat he was sporting a light broadcloth coat, the wide cuffs of his sleeves decorated with silver braid. He was very fashionable up to his neck, where a froth of white lace was held in place by a piece of jet set in gold—but there fashion stopped. The sardonic face that rose above the lace was fringed by his own hair, not by one of the big curly wigs that were making the wigmakers rich and all over Europe causing peasant girls seeking money for dowries to cut off their long hair and sell it. It was a head of thick gleaming dark hair that he had, and although carefully combed, was carelessly cut and rested upon his broad shoulders, swinging as he walked.

  But even in the dimness of the gathering tropical dusk, the fitful shadows of the great pepper tree’s swaying branches, that lean purposeful face, that swinging walk, that light step, were all unmistakable—and indelibly imprinted on her memory.

  “Rye!” she gasped. “What are you doing here?”

  “I might,” was his cool rejoinder, “ask you the same question!”

  Chapter 25

  Carolina was unprepared for the sudden rush of feeling that came over her as she saw him, realized that he was actually here standing before her in his somber gray, looking momentarily as startled as she. It was as if her world had gone atilt. Over the thunder of her heartbeat she heard her own voice, sounding breathless, explaining.

&
nbsp; “I’m a guest here—of Captain Kells. He saved me from the Spanish. But you, Rye”—she sounded incredulous—“you can’t be the English gentleman they hope will join them?”

  “Even so,” was his laconic answer.

  It was a relief that the same soft-footed island girl who had brought Carolina’s bath earlier chose that moment to come out onto the gallery bearing food.

  “It would seem,” said Rye, who had got control of himself first and now seemed as calm as Carolina was flustered, “that we are to sit down to dinner. I was told there was another lady who is a ‘guest’ in this house. Will she be joining us?”

  Carolina was still fighting the tumultuous feeling in her heart that had overwhelmed her when first she saw him step onto the gallery. “Doña Hernanda is very tired and would prefer to dine in her room. Do you think that could be arranged?”

  He shrugged. “I am sure Katje can arrange it.” He turned and spoke to the island girl in some fluid dialect Carolina did not understand—and she was reminded that he was an island planter; he would know these dialects. The girl nodded and left them.

  As debonair as if they were still in Essex and not in some godforsaken pirate’s lair, Rye pulled back Carolina’s chair with courtly grace. She sank into it, smoothing down her yellow voile skirts. He dropped into the chair opposite and smiled at her across the table. It was a smile that made her very nervous.

  “You must try the conch soup,” he told her. “It is delicious.”

  Carolina had hardly been aware that there was a bowl of soup in front of her, much less what kind it was. She dipped her spoon into it and her hand shook a little as she lifted the spoon to her mouth. Rye seemed not to notice. He finished his soup slowly, as if giving her time to think.

  “And now tell me,” he said as he poured her a glass of wine, “what it is that brings you to Tortuga?”

  “Did they not tell you?” She recounted how her ship had been taken by the Spanish. But her mind was not on what she was saying. Indeed, under the calm pressure of that gray gaze, she was having trouble making sense of her narrative. The feeling persisted, interfering with her breathing, making tasteless the food upon her trencher.

  “My story is somewhat different,” he murmured, studying the ruby liquid in his glass. “A tale of rescue at sea. It seems I had sailed in an unseaworthy vessel. She was breaking up in a storm when the Sea Wolf chanced upon us. Captain Kells was kind enough to convey me here.”

  Carolina was gaining confidence at the normalcy of his tone.

  “Lars Lindstrom—do you know him?”

  Rye inclined his head. “I know the fellow.”

  “Lars tells me that these buccaneers seek to have you join them,” she shot at him. “Are you going to do it?”

  “Oh, it is not myself they want so much as my cove,” he told her with a grin—that attractive grin she remembered all too well. It still had the power to move her, and she fidgeted uncomfortably in her chair. “My property in Barbados abuts the ocean. It lies along a remarkably well-protected cove. These buccaneers seek to enlist my aid in giving them signals with a light as they pass by, telling them whether it is safe to land—and other information.”

  “So you would not be fighting aboard their ships?”

  “No.”

  Somehow that pleased her. “What do you know about this Captain Kells?”

  “Only that he is successful—and Irish.”

  She gave him an uneasy look. “When I arrived here I found a trunk containing underthings, then a dress was laid out on the bed—and everything fit!”

  “Perhaps Katje—”

  “No, the underthings were already there when I arrived. Katje could not have known my size unless someone told her.”

  Rye shrugged. “Perhaps Kells has a good measuring eye for women.”

  “Tell me”—her face was intent—“is Katje his mistress?”

  Rye seemed amused. “Would that make a difference?” He gestured toward her plate. “But you aren’t eating. This fish is excellent—a triumph of the cook.”

  “It would make me feel safer if Katje were his mistress,” said Carolina frankly. “I would sleep better if I were certain that I am not his target. And,” she added thoughtfully, “it might help me to understand this strange household.” She gave her trencher an impatient look and took a quick stab at the uneaten fish. “Did you stay in this wing alone before we came?”

  “No, I was quartered with the Sea Wolfs officers at the other end of the building.”

  She pounced on that and paused with a bite of fish halfway to her mouth. “Why do you think you were moved over here to the guest wing?”

  “I think some large plan is afoot,” he told her frankly, leaning over to refill her glass. “And until I agree to join them, these buccaneers do not wish me to know too much of the enterprise which they no doubt discuss at night in their quarters.”

  “We should escape,” she said firmly, ignoring the wine.

  “There is no need for desperate measures,” he told her in an easy voice. “Are you then so hot to get back to school?”

  She reminded him of Mistress Chesterton’s downfall. “So the school no longer has any students,” she said. “I am sure Mistress Chesterton must be rather glad for she hated trying to be conventional when she wasn’t conventional at heart!”

  “Then you weren’t being sent back?” He pondered on that.

  “Oh, no,” said Carolina. “I ran away.”

  “Why?” he asked bluntly. His gray eyes were very intent.

  Carolina sighed. “Because my mother was about to marry me off to the nearest suitor—she was certain I’d got myself into trouble in England.” She had blurted that out before she thought; the gray eyes were studying her.

  “And had you?” he asked softly.

  Carolina flushed. “Of course not! But she confiscated my letter to Thomas and now he doesn’t know where I am or why I left or—or anything.” She moved restlessly, toying with her knife. “Do you think you could get a letter off from Tortuga?”

  “I could try. But do you expect him to come here to get you?”

  Carolina gave him a level look. “I expect Lord Thomas to understand that I was shipped away from England against my will and that I have been trying to return to him ever since.”

  If he winced at that, at least the slight motion escaped her.

  “You would seem to be very loyal to this Lord Thomas,” he said with raised brows. “Despite a certain lapse in Essex.”

  She flushed again. “I realize that you have much to reproach me for, Rye,” she said. “But surely leaving me trapped in a maze to freeze to death should have evened the score.”

  “I stayed to make sure you got out safely,” he told her pleasantly.

  She gave him an uncertain look. It had not occurred to her to look about for him that night. She had assumed that he had departed instantly.

  “You were very harsh with me that night,” she complained. “You said terrible things.”

  “I was feeling harsh.” He smiled, fingering his glass. “A wench I fancied had just played me false. But”—he shrugged and lifted the glass—“we will let bygones be bygones. There is naught to be gained by our quarreling here.”

  “Rye.” She leaned toward him in a supple gesture of appeal. That gesture brought into view the loveliness of her pale bosom in the low cut-voile bodice. “As a planter on Barbados you must know sea captains who ply between Barbados and Tortuga? Merchant ships?”

  He nodded warily.

  “Could you not manage to procure passage for me with one of them? I am told you have free run of the quay.”

  “Passage to Virginia?” he asked in a thoughtful voice. “That might be arranged.”

  “Of course not back to Virginia!” she interrupted impatiently. “It was Virginia I was running away from. But could you not take note of the ships that arrive and when you find one with a captain you know, persuade him to take me along?”

  “So you are still s
et on England?” he said slowly.

  “Of course! Will you do it? Oh, I promise I would pay him for my passage when I arrived in England.”

  “You mean, Lord Thomas would pay him?” he shot at her.

  “Yes—well, no. But his family will, when I tell them that Thomas is being held somewhere in a Spanish prison and will need ransoming. And that would be better than writing to them.” She put from her firmly the thought that Thomas might be dead. He could not be dead, she told herself fiercely. The other two galleons had survived the storm, so must the Coraje!

  Rye leaned back, considering her. His face was in shadow. Night had fallen as they talked and the palm fronds swayed and rustled in the moonlight. “More coastwise vessels from the Colonies reach us here than vessels from overseas,” he murmured. “I have been watching the shipping. But tell me,” he said curiously, “how do you plan to get away?”

  “Oh, I will think of something,” she said with a careless shrug.

  He chuckled. “I don’t doubt you will,” he said appreciatively and his suddenly merry gaze told her he was thinking of London and the inn roof.

  She gave him a quelling look and recounted how pitiful Thomas had looked when last she had seen him, lashed to the mast with Spanish stripes on his back.

  “Ten lashes?” said Rye, when she repeated what Captain Garcia had said. “He will not die of that. And his family will no doubt hear from the Spanish ambassador in London in due course. You will only unduly alarm them by telling them he is imprisoned somewhere but you do not know where.”

  Plainly Rye had not enough sympathy for Thomas’s plight. She tried a new tack.

  “Besides, it is dangerous for me here.” Her voice grew plaintive.

  His ears seemed to prick up. “How so?” he demanded, suddenly alert.

  “Well”—she could feel a blush stealing over her cheeks—“I find myself a virtual prisoner in the house of a pirate captain—”

  “Buccaneer,” he corrected her softly.

  “A man who has looked at me hard enough—though he has laid eyes on me but once—to memorize my measurements!”