“I can scarce believe it,” she muttered, for her own deception as “Christabel Willing” paled before the enormity of this deception. “Lars, all of them, they should be on the stage,” she said bitterly. “And to think,” she marveled, “I trusted you!”
“And I have been worthy of that trust.” He crossed the room and poured some wine into one of the jewel-encrusted goblets and proffered it to her. “Nor am I the only one who sails under false colors,” he reminded her. “You told Lars you were Mistress Christabel Willing.”
She waved the goblet away. “It was a name I—I took not to embarrass my family,” she said in a stifled voice.
His cynical gray eyes mocked her. “I too,” he said airily.
“But—but that is different,” she sputtered. “I am not doing anything illegal. I am merely running away!”
“Perhaps we are all running away,” he said morosely, and downed the wine at a swallow. As his dark head lifted she could see the sinewy muscles of his neck and was aware again of the strength of that clean-shaven jawline.
The shock of her discovery had subsided a little now but it had left her resentful. She looked at him more penetratingly than she had ever looked—and she saw much:
He was younger than he had seemed in Essex, where his countenance had been so often grave. When first she met him, she had thought him swarthy, but now she saw that his skin, so fair beneath his tan, had been burnished to bronze by the hot Caribbean sun. His polished manner had concealed the steely inner strength of the man. For there was a hardness in him, and she had never felt it more than now—cold, impervious, unbreakable, and yet resilient. As if he had been tempered by life’s hard blows like a fine Toledo blade— he would bend if it became necessary but he would never break.
“How do you like my house, now that you’ve seen more of it?” he asked, almost wistfully.
“It is very strange,” she said in a sulky voice. “And very lovely,” honesty compelled her to add.
Her last remark seemed to please him. “Would you like to see more of it?”
“No,” she said coldly.
He gave her a penetrating look. “Oh, come now,” he said in a bantering voice. “Matters could be worse. You could have fallen into other hands—some other ship could have taken the Valeroso, wandering through the ocean with that mother-ridden fool at the helm!”
So much for Captain Santos! “That other ship's captain would have returned me.” She stated it as a fact , with no idea whether it was true.
“To Virginia? Perhaps.”
“No, to England!”
“To England? Doubtful.” His gaze passed over her in a leisurely way, seeming to caress her lightly heaving bosom, seething beneath the thin yellow voile of her bodice. “The more I look at you, the more I doubt that any man would return you, Carolina.”
“Christabel,” she corrected him.
He gave her a droll look. “Very well—Christabel.”
“How did you know I was aboard the Valeroso?” she demanded.
“I did not know. Lars told me.”
“But I told Lars my name was Christabel Willing. How could he know that I was really Carolina Lightfoot?”
“Lars told me we had bagged a silver wench. From the way he described you I knew there could not be two such. I went with him arid listened when he spoke to you through the cabin door. It was your voice, I was certain, for your voice is as hard to mistake as your face. So I arranged for Doncaster to substitute for me and watched you from behind the draperies in the great cabin of the Santiago.”
Those heavy maroon hangings! She remembered them well.
“Doncaster seemed a likely choice,” he added, and amusement curved the corners of his mouth. “I was sure you would be impressed by his monstrous size.”
Carolina flushed because she had indeed been impressed by Doncaster’s monstrous size—she had never doubted for a moment that the black-bearded giant was Captain Kells!
“But you are not Irish!” she protested angrily. “You don’t even sound Irish!”
“There are those who will swear that I am. And my brogue has been lost, I say, from being so long abroad. You see, I have brought with me several men from Essex—men who worked on my father’s estate or neighboring estates, who are loyal to me. Two have elected to be from Kerry, one from Cork, and so on. All will swear they knew me back in the Old Country.”
“Your friend Hal,” she guessed suddenly. “The one who died two winters ago—he was one of them?”
He nodded, his face gone suddenly bleak. “Cut down by a shot from a Spanish culverin. It was one of my reasons for returning to England, to make sure his father got Hal’s gold.”
“You waited rather late, didn’t you?”
He shrugged. “The same culverin shot near did for me. Convalescing gave me time to think.”
He had set up his cover well, she realized. His operations in the Caribbean were as well cloaked from English eyes as if he were indeed invisible!
She had underestimated Rye—no, Kells; she must think of him as Kells. To do otherwise might cloud her judgment of what he was capable of.
But his words about the culverin shot had chilled her. “You’ve chosen a dreadful profession!” she mumbled.
His mood must have changed because he flashed her a sunny smile.-“Sometimes a man’s profession chooses him” His voice was light but it held a tinge of malice. “But now that we’re dealing with truth for a change, we can effect a trade. If you’ll endeavor to overlook my choice of profession, I’ll endeavor to overlook your error in judgment in preferring Thomas Angevine to me.”
“My error in judgment?” Her eyes flashed. “Kindly remember that I am betrothed to Lord Thomas Angevine!”
He sighed. “ ’Tis a folly I have tried to forget. Indeed I had hoped that time and distance would have shown you your error. Thomas Angevine may have more charm but at heart he’s my brother Darvent all over again. Marry him and within a year he’ll have run through whatever fortune you possess and—”
“I have no fortune,” she cut in.
“The worse for you then. You’ll have no chance at all.” He was gazing upon her kindly. That look enraged her.
“Oh, don’t be so superior!” she cried. “You—you pirate!”
“Buccaneer, if you please,” he corrected her softly. “Call me all that I am and welcome, but do not label me what I am not.”
“Very well then, buccaneer! It is one and the same, is it not?”
“Not to me,” he sighed. “But then you do not sail the seas against Spain.”
She sniffed.
“Nor,” he continued inexorably, his dark brows grown straight and his wintry gray gaze very level, “are you in a position to stand in judgment, Mistress Willing —or are we back to being Mistress Lightfoot now?”
“I will thank you to refer to me as Mistress Willing,” said Carolina, biting her lips. “For I would rather that my family should not find out where I am.” But her glance wavered for he had brought home to her what she had forgot: They were both flying under false colors—he as the Irish buccaneer Kells, she as the English servant girl Christabel Willing.
There was a flurry of footsteps outside, a quick knock, and Katje flung open the door. At sight of Carolina standing there conversing with the debonair buccaneer captain, an expression of dismay flooded her countenance and she loosed a torrent of Dutch.
Kells gave her a grim smile and turned to Carolina. “She had come to tell me that she had lost you,” he said, then spoke to Katje in Dutch. “Katje will escort you back to your room, Christabel, in case you cannot find your way.”
She was being dismissed!
With her color very high, Carolina stalked after Katje back to the closely guarded “guest wing” of the house where a disapproving Katje saw her into her own room—and to Carolina’s indignation, promptly locked the door on her.
Carolina flung herself down to think. Every man had some weakness—but what weakness had Kells? He se
emed so impervious to the arrows of fate. But if she could only ferret out a weakness, she would have a better chance of bending him to her will—which meant, of course, aiding her in leaving the island instead of holding her here.
She puzzled and puzzled but she could come up with nothing. After a while she drifted off to sleep in the heat and when she woke, Katje was unlocking the door. It was time for dinner.
She flounced out onto the gallery to find Rye Evistock dressed as usual in his neat sober gray English clothing. She gave him a disparaging look. “You should be wearing a gold earring and have a rag tied around your head,” she said with a sniff. “So one could identify you for what you are!”
His expression, which had shone with pleasure at sight of her, lost its radiance. “Some of us lead double lives not entirely of our own choosing,” he said politely.
“Bah!” was her rejoinder.
“Others, like your unfortunate self,” he continued smoothly, “have double lives thrust upon them. How could you be expecting to travel under your own name, alone and unchaperoned, on a runaway journey to meet a rakehell who has few equals?”
“You do not know him!” she cried.
“Ah, but I have heard of his exploits with women. His fame precedes him. And look, he has caught you in his snare as well. He is to be congratulated, is our Lord Thomas.”
Carolina thought of Lord Thomas as she had last seen him, hanging limp from the ropes that bound him to the mast, and that memory sharpened her voice. “I would have thought that you, a buccaneer, could have had more sympathy for Lord Thomas, taken by the Spanish and lashed to the mast and whipped!”
Kells remained imperturbable. “Oh, I have no lack of sympathy. Indeed, had I chanced upon Lord Thomas, I assure you I’d have offered him aid!” At her doubtful glance he added, “I have news for you. Doña Hernanda is being shipped off to Havana tomorrow.”
“She is? Oh, I must tell her—she will be so happy!” Carolina turned toward Doña Hernanda’s closed door.
“She was told earlier, while you were”—he drawled the word—“exploring my house. She spent the afternoon visiting her son and has been packing ever since. I expect we’ll have to wait dinner for her.”
“But I thought you said there were not enough Spanish ladies gathered in Tortuga to make the voyage feasible yet?”
“I am escorting her myself,” he said gravely. “In your honor. I will sail her close to Havana and send her ashore rowed by those seamen from the Valeroso whom her son Captain Santos has designated as the most reliable.”
“You are foregoing their ransom?” she marveled. His white grin flashed at her. “My men would take a dim view of that. No, Captain Santos has elected to pay their ransom along with his own.”
“Rye,” she said wistfully, “take me along. Perhaps Thomas is there and—”
He shook his head. “It is not safe to sail too near to Cuba,” he told her briskly, ignoring her reference to Lord Thomas. “Havana harbor bristles with warships. The only reason they do not pay us a visit is the mountain fort yonder, whose guns sweep the channel.” He nodded carelessly toward that fortress which lay now shrouded in darkness protecting this wild buccaneer stronghold. “Should I find myself outnumbered and outgunned by rashly sailing too near Havana, I will have brought it upon myself. But I will not expose you to possible capture again by the Spanish.”
“That is not the reason,” she insisted. “You are making yourself appear noble, but your real reason is that you fear that if you take me along, I will suddenly throw myself into the longboat and try to escape you!”
“The thought had occurred to me,” he admitted. “For I think there is no end to your folly. I tolerate it only because you know so little of the world.”
That calm pronouncement left her gasping. “How dare you treat me as a child?” she flared.
“Because you insist upon acting like one, Christabel.” His gaze softened. “But such a pretty child. ... It makes you easy to forgive.”
Somehow the caressing note in his voice was more irritating than his insulting words.
“I wonder what Doña Hernanda will say when I tell her that she has been dining every night with the infamous Captain Kells?”
That brought a frown to his lean face. “You will not tell her who I am,” he told her sternly. “She is already frightened enough about making this short voyage.”
Carolina gave him a rebellious look.
“If you tell her,” he added softly, “I will change my mind about sailing her to Cuba. I will let her wait here until Captain Santos’ ransom comes through—and that may take a long time.”
“But then she would not be able to reach Cartagena before her daughter’s baby is born!” Carolina was indignant.
There was a ruthlessness in his gaze that told her he had already thought of that. “The choice is yours,” he murmured.
She knew she was beaten and her resentment surfaced when the parrot suddenly squawked, “Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!”
“You might at least have taught that bird to say something more Christian!” she rebuked him.
Kells shrugged. “I have taught him nothing.” He regarded her calmly. “The bird’s education was already complete when an old buccaneer gave him to me. He was dying, we were trying to pull him from the wreckage where part of the rigging and timbers had fallen on him when Spanish shot clipped off one of our masts, and his last words to me were, Take care of Poll, won’t you, Cap’n?’ He’d fought beside me well and Poll has swung on that hoop in my courtyard and screamed out ‘Pieces of eight!’ for three years now—and may scream for as many more if he cares to. Are you saying you object to the bird?”
“Of course not! It’s the bird’s owner I object to!”
“Oh, that’s already been made clear,” he said with a sardonic grin.
Carolina was still smoldering when she heard Doña Hernanda’s door open.
“Remember what I said,” Kells warned.
And even though it galled her, Carolina knew she must keep silent about the lean buccaneer’s identity.
Doña Hernanda had so much on her mind she did not even notice the tension at the dinner table. She enjoyed talking to Kells for his Spanish was fluent and courtly and so, after greeting Carolina with a brief, “How splendid you look, Christabel—your cheeks are so pink!” she turned to Kells and said in a conspiratorial whisper, “Do you think you could have Katje get me some thread? For I must needs sew my jewels tightly into my clothing—indeed they nearly fell out when I disembarked here in Tortuga!”
Carolina glared at Kells. Poor Doña Hernanda was innocently telling the “Lord Admiral of the Buccaneers” that she had secreted treasure in her garments!
But Kells rose to the occasion. “I think I may be able to manage it,” he told Doña Hernanda gravely. “I will send it to you by Christabel here.” He smiled. “You should caution her not to reveal where you have hidden your treasures.”
Carolina choked. Oh, the man was really too much! She yearned to rise to her feet and scream, “Doña Hernanda, this is Kells!” But her fear that he would make good his threat and hold Doña Hernanda here in Tortuga kept her silent while the older woman finished her meal and announced she must be early to bed for she feared tomorrow’s voyage.
Once Doña Hernanda’s door had closed behind her, Carolina also rose. “I too am for bed.” She gave him a dark look. “And if you use what Doña Hernanda has told her to take her jewels from her—I”
“Oh, haven’t they told you about me?” he asked carelessly. “I never take ladies’ jewels away from them. It is the treasures they wear beneath their jewels that interest me.”
Carolina gave a lofty sniff and stalked toward her room. She could almost feel his appreciative stare as he stood and watched her haughty departure.
He had bested her, damn him!
Sleep, for the American beauty, was hard to come by that night.
PART THREE
The Silver Wench
*
* *
They sing of her in Trinidad, they sing in Port of Spain
Of silver eyes and swaying hips—her kind won't come again
To shores like these. They say of her that she'll find wedding bells—
And turn away, preferring far the arms of Captain Kells!
* * *
THE ISLAND OF TORTUGA
1688
* * *
Chapter 30
Doña Hernanda departed before breakfast for the ship must catch the outgoing tide. Katje and two buccaneers came to get her. The older woman hugged Carolina before she left. “I do hope you reach England safely, niña,” she told the girl. “Ask that nice Englishman to take you. He will get you out of here.”
Carolina gave her a weary look. Had Kells been present she might have been tempted to denounce him on the spot, but since he was not she kept silent. Indeed she felt she had made a devil’s pact with him—she would not tell his secret if he did not tell hers.
“I promise you I will make my escape, Doña Hernanda,” she said in a low voice, for even though the buccaneers were out of earshot there was still Katje— and who knew what smattering of languages the girl had picked up even though she pretended she could speak only Dutch! “And please”—she leaned forward and her voice increased in intensity—“please do find out where they are holding Lord Thomas Angevine and try to send word to me here through your son, for I will be visiting the Spanish prisoners as often as they will let me. And tell his captors”—she was twisting her hands together—“tell them not to hurt him, that his ransom will be forthcoming if only they will name the sum.”
Doña Hernanda gave her a pitying look. “I will do all I can, niña,” she promised. “Meantime, bring fruit to my son and try to cheer him for he looks far too pale.”
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