But Carolina was not listening. She was smiling into the stranger’s face. ‘I think you have just saved me from a very nasty encounter, Monsieur du Monde,’ she said steadily. ‘My husband is away up the Cobre, but he will be back tonight, and I know he would wish to thank you himself. We would be honoured to have your presence at dinner tonight.’
Beside her Hawks choked. The Captain had been away on some business up the Cobre River all week and he was indeed expected home tonight. But what would he think about his lady inviting a perfect stranger - and one chance-met on the street at that - to break bread with them on his first evening home?
The stranger was gallant. His dark face flushed a little darker. ‘I will be honoured,’ he declared.
‘Good,’ said Carolina breezily. ‘We dine at seven. Our house is on Queen’s Street. Anyone in Port Royal can tell you where.’
That was certainly true! Everyone in Port Royal at one time or another had had the house of the famous buccaneer and his almost equally famous lady pointed out to him. Even this stranger who had been in town only since yesterday evening had had it pointed out to him. His eyes glinted.
‘I will be there, madame,’ he promised with another deep bow.
‘Should we not be getting on to the market?’ wondered Hawks uneasily.
‘No, we’ll go home first and get - what’s your name?’ she asked the girl.
‘Gilly,’ supplied the girl promptly. ‘I’ve - got no last name, rightly,’ she added, mumbling.
Nothing Gilly might have said could have been better calculated to gain Carolina’s sympathy. She herself - had not Fielding Lightfoot chosen to overlook his wife’s indiscretion - would not have had ‘a last name, rightly.’ But he had, and so she was Carolina Lightfoot instead of Carolina Randolph, as she might have been if her mother Letitia had been able to marry her cousin Sandy. But Sandy had a mad wife and could not divorce her. It had all led to such terrible trouble . . .
Looking at dirty, underfed Gilly, Carolina felt she might, under other circumstances, have been looking at herself.
‘Never you mind,’ she said comfortingly. ‘Do you have a place to stay?’
‘No,’ mumbled Gilly.
‘Well, you do now.’ Carolina’s voice was brisk. ‘I’ll take you home and get you settled. The market can wait.’ She turned to Hawks and as she did so her gaze passed over the two angry women, thwarted of their prey. ‘After all, I’ll want to get the’ - there was the faintest insulting pause - ‘ladies’ clothes back to them as soon as possible.’
There was an angry sniff from the madam and a squawk from the bawd beside her, but they made no move to follow as Hawks, hiding a grin, turned to accompany Carolina back the way she had come.
Raymond du Monde watched their progress, smiling, until they had turned the corner of High Street. Then, ignoring the door, he put his hands on the green windowsill and hauled himself up to where his friend John, gone several shades paler, was waiting.
He vaulted into the room.
‘How could you so call attention to yourself, Ramon?’ John cried reproachfully. He hastened to close the shutters behind his friend.
‘“Raymond”, if you please,’ Ramon said absently. He brushed off his cuffs fastidiously as if the dust of the street might have contaminated them.
‘I was about to tell you that woman was Kells’s wife when you threw yourself into the street!’
‘The Silver Wench? Ah, yes, I should have known that it could be none other.’ Ramon drew a deep sigh. ‘These clothes I am wearing do not appeal to me, John. Do you think a better suit could be procured for me on short notice in the town?’
John stared at him, aghast.
‘Surely you do not actually intend to dine at his house?’ he cried. ‘I heard you say it, but I thought you were making a pleasantry with no intent to do it!’
Ramon’s soft laughter held a wicked note.‘ Indeed, John, wild horses could not deter me from dining with the lady!’
‘But you heard her! Her husband is expected back tonight. Kells himself! I’ll remind you that ’tis said Kells personally spied out Porto Bello before he raided it - ’
‘As I am spying out Port Royal,’ interrupted Ramon with a grin.
‘And I’ll remind you also that you were in Porto Bello just before that raid!’
‘I left - some have said providentially.’ Ramon’s thin lips twisted. Although his head was cool, his manner was flippant. ‘Had I stayed but a day later, John, I would have met this infamous Captain Kells too soon! As it is, I will be glad to meet the fellow at last!’
‘Yes, yes, you are sure your sword could have turned the tide,’ said John Daimler in an agonized voice. ‘But I though you assuredly did not see him, Ramon, you are overlooking the fact that Kells may have seen you there! After all, you were in command of one of the forts there just before the raid.’
Ramon shrugged. ‘True, there is always that chance.’
‘And if he does recognize you, there in his dining room, have you considered the probable consequences?’ pursued Daimler.
‘I will meet them when they come - if they come,’ was the indifferent response.
‘And you would take such a risk on the off chance a wench will favour you - and a buccaneer’s wench at that?’ John Daimler’s temper exploded at last.
The straight black brows that faced him drew together; the narrow jaw seemed to square a trifle. ‘I know that we were boys together, John, and played together in the courtyards of Toledo,’ he said silkily, ‘but do not presume too much on old friendship. Where the ladies are concerned, I accept advice from no one!’
‘Madre de Dios!' thundered John. ‘You will get us both killed!’
‘You go back to your Spanish beginnings, Juan,’ chided Ramon, his good humour restored. ‘Please do remember - as you have been reminding me ever since I arrived here last night - that as of today I am French and you are English. And now, since it is a most beautiful day, I find myself ready to go to see the forts. I am anxious to assess their strength and’ - he grinned with a flash of white teeth - their vulnerability!’ He beamed at Daimler. ‘Be of good heart, John. Remember, if I succeed in subduing this cursed island, I may well be made governor of Jamaica. And if I am, John, you shall assuredly become my lieutenant governor!’ He slapped his old friend on the back.
John Daimler shook his sandy head and mopped a brow dampened from more than the tropical heat that was even now spreading over this city built on sand. It was true that he had been promised much if this mad venture succeeded, but at the moment he wished with all his heart that it had never been begun, that he had left what Ramon chose to call his ‘Spanish beginnings’ buried as they had been these many years. His Spanish mother had died long ago in Toledo, his Spanish relatives had never really accepted him - indeed had scorned him after her death. They had been glad enough to pack him off to England when his English father, long estranged from his mother, had died and left him a small shop in Bristol. And John Daimler had come away to the West Indies, believing that change of location would change his life. In England, with his strong Spanish accent (since lost), he had not been well accepted; but in brash new Port Royal he had hoped to forget his divided heritage and choose the one that had given him a start in the mercantile world - he could be all English.
And then this devil out of Havana, this boyhood friend from an almost forgotten past, had ferreted him out: Ramon del Mundo, scion of one of Spain’s most aristocratic houses. And John Daimler, grandson on his mother’s side of Juan Mendoza for whom he had been named, had gone along, for he had a good trade here with the English, and in this buccaneer port that would have gone out the window had they guessed him to be even half Spanish. Or so he had believed at first. Now that he was in the plot, he was not so sure. He regretted every moment. He wished fervently that he had told Ramon del Mundo to go to the Devil and let rumours be spread as they would.
Rumours could be denied. This harbouring of a Spanish spy fresh from Havana
- even overnight - could not.
And it could bring him a length of hemp around his neck.
‘Did you see her eyes, John?’ His friend was addressing him.
‘Yes,' admitted John Daimler in a resigned voice. ‘I saw them.’
‘Amazing eyes. They flash silver in the sunlight. Did you notice?’
‘No,’ croaked John. ‘But I will take your word for it. Have you not a wife in Spain?’ he burst out.
The face that whirled towards him was carved in granite and John Daimler felt called upon to add, ‘Someone who would regret this folly which may well cost you your life?’
The cold face relaxed. ‘As a matter of fact I have not, John,’ was the careless answer. ‘But even if I had, I would be hard pressed . . . Did you notice her hair, John?’
Daimler gulped and nodded.
‘Pure sunlight - but at night it would be pure moonlight. Have you never imagined such a sweep of hair across your pillow, John?’
John Daimler admitted he had, but he doubted that Ramon heard him. Ramon was still musing.
‘And her skin, John - like very silk. And the way she walked, light and proud and carefree. Women at the Spanish Court do not walk that way, John, they do not stride free. They mince, they float ... it is very attractive - but I prefer this. Did you not take note of the way she walks, John?’
‘I think it is time I take you to view the forts,’ said John sternly. ‘There are three of them: Fort James, Fort Carlisle, and Morgan’s Line. You will be well advised to take note of their defences.’
Ramon del Mundo sighed. ‘You are right, John. And after I have checked out their defences, I will do a bit of shopping in the town. For a suit to grace a lady’s table at dinner.’
John Daimler groaned.
‘Promise me,’ he pleaded, ‘that you will not dress in the Spanish style, Ramon? You look Spanish enough as it is!’
‘Oh, as to that . . .’ Ramon del Mundo airily tweaked an imaginary moustache; he had shaved off his own in anticipation of this venture. ‘We will have to see what is available, will we not?’
Meanwhile, Carolina was heading towards Queen’s Street with Gilly in tow.
At Hawks’s laconic, ‘The cap’n may not like having you invite that strange Frenchie to dinner on his first night back,’ she turned and gave him a withering look. ‘And here comes that other Frenchie,’ he muttered under his breath.
Carolina swung about to see that Louis Deauville, the Huguenot gentleman who had taken rooms recently in the house across the street from them, was approaching, twirling an ivory walking stick.
Louis Deauville had come upon the town like an avalanche, burying the scruples of most of the ladies of Port Royal with his savoir-faire, his wicked gaze that seemed to strip away the satins and the laces, exposing the tingling flesh beneath. Hardly a feminine breast that did not beat a trifle faster when Louis Deauville entered the room, scarce a lady to be found who did not beam at the sight of his tall, lounging figure, or treasure one of his gracefully worded compliments - tailored, each was sure, to her particular charms. And his boudoir tales, whispered into feminine ears, were so marvellously risqué and yet so gallant that they were repeated and tittered over behind waving fans - though seldom murmured into husbands’ less appreciative ears. It was the lighthearted opinion of the ladies of Port Royal’s elite that the fascinating Monsieur Deauville was a nobleman travelling in disguise (a rumour perhaps inspired by his own lips), that he was a man of vast wealth back in France (for was he not everywhere running up bills?), a beau of the Parisian haut monde - and that he had slept with every desirable woman in Paris!
He presented, therefore, an alluring challenge.
Carolina did not believe Louis Deauville was a nobleman in disguise. She thought he had been more likely a dancing master or a fencing master back in France - certainly that would explain his nimbleness and wiry strength. She had little doubt that he had bedded every pretty lady who was willing to go to bed with him, but she was inclined to doubt that his conquests included the French king’s mistresses (as he claimed) or the beauties of the French Court. She thought him a charming rogue and was wary of him.
But the story that had reached her third-hand over tea with the wife of a rich merchant in a handsome residence on Broad Street had intrigued her indeed. It seemed that Monsieur Deauville had spent a brief time in London. While there he had unhesitatingly hurled himself in front of a runaway carriage and when he had got the horses to stop, he had been promptly embraced by the carriage’s sole - and trembling - occupant, a striking lady in a peacock-blue gown. She had taken him home with her, regaling him along the way with the story of how she, a former headmistress, had turned her fashionable school into an even more fashionable gaming house.
At that point Carolina had sat up straighter. Jenny Chesterton! she had thought in amazement. For she herself had attended Mistress Chesterton’s School for Young Ladies in London and knew that when scandal had broken over her pretty ears, young Mistress Chesterton had quickly converted her fashionable school into a gaming house.
‘Do go on,’ Carolina had urged her hostess.
‘Well, there was not much more,’ her hostess had told her with a shrug. ‘Save that he claimed he had an affair with a beautiful former charge of the lady, who was in residence at the gaming house.’ Her lips twitched. ‘I am not sure that I believe it, but it is a delightful story.’
Save that he had an affair with - ! Carolina had set down her cup with a slight clatter. Could the affair have been with Reba, her former roommate? Reba who had since caused her so much trouble? Reba had certainly been ‘in residence’ at Jenny Chesterton’s gaming house for a time!
That had been on Thursday, and she had been dying to ask Monsieur Deauville about it ever since.
Now, as he approached, walking jauntily and twirling his cane, she eyed him speculatively. She would indeed love to question him . . . But now, with Gilly in tow, was not the time.
‘Perhaps I should invite Monsieur Deauville to dinner as well,’ she murmured irrepressibly to Hawks. ‘Tis said there’s safety in numbers, Hawks!’
Beside her. Hawks had no inclination to reply. He watched with deep disapproval as the Frenchman greeted Carolina effusively. It had not escaped Hawks’s attention that Carolina seldom left her front door but that their new French neighbour, a dandy who this morning dangled a single earring and was resplendent in a suit of popinjay-green, managed to stroll along after. He wondered if that was how they managed things in France, getting on with married women, and his dark frown deepened.
‘Tis good to see you. Monsieur Deauville,’ Carolina was saying. ‘But I am surprised that you are still here. I thought you said you were on your way to America?’
In point of fact. Monsieur Deauville had but recently fled from America with an angry husband thundering on his trail, but he had chosen to claim that he was but lately from Marseilles, a place where, as it happened, he had been born.
‘I linger here because of’ - his hazel eyes lingered on her bosom, rising and falling in the heat - ‘the climate, madame. So delightfully - warm.’ He looked as if he were growing warm himself as his gaze roamed over Carolina’s dainty young breasts.
Ah, yes, well, we must not detain you. Monsieur Deauville,’ Carolina said hastily, observing the direction of his gaze. ‘I have a new serving girl to get settled in my household today.’ She jogged Gilly with her arm and Gilly turned with a start from her rapt consideration of Monsieur Deauville’s purse, hovering so temptingly near - why, she could be off with it like that! As easy as snapping her fingers!
‘Come along, Gilly,’ said Carolina, and Gilly gave up the purse with a sigh and trudged along beside her new mistress.
Carolina hurried on towards home, and Hawks muttered, ‘I don’t like the way that Frenchie looks at you!’ Carolina privately agreed that Monsieur Deauville had a way of stripping her with his eyes, but she was still irked with Hawks for suggesting that Kells would be displeased by her
choice of dinner guests.
‘I am sure Monsieur Deauville has at least a wife and six children back in France,’ she declared airily. ‘You misjudge him, Hawks. He is a harmless flirt.’
Hawks snorted, and spent the rest of the walk home listening to Gilly fabricate tales of her life in Bristol where, according to her version, she had been badly treated at home, cast out to live in rags, unfairly jailed, and had lost a lover to the gibbet - her sorrows seemed never to end until, at their front door, she found herself out of breath.
‘She’ll steal your ear bobs, this one,’ Hawks said sourly, nodding towards Gilly as he held the door for Carolina.
Gilly turned and made a face at him.
‘Oh, nonsense. Hawks,’ Carolina said reprovingly. ‘The girl’s in trouble. She’ll be glad of a place to stay. Won’t you, Gilly?’
‘Oh, yes, mistress,’ Gilly said quickly. Too quickly, thought Hawks. And with too much of a smirk. Gilly caught his thoughts from his disapproving look and stuck out her tongue at him the moment Carolina’s back was turned.
Carolina went through the door into the cool interior of the front hall, unaware of how Gilly’s sharp brown eyes gleamed as she stared about her at the handsome furnishings. Carolina had taken in a waif today - and not for the first time; most of her servants had been picked up from the gutter.
And now - this pitiful half-fledged girl. Smiling down on Gilly’s ginger head, she had the ennobling feeling that she had done the Right Thing.
2
Before Carolina had taken three steps down the hall, one of the servants, a girl named Betts, hurried forward to tell her that a message had just been received from ‘the master’. Captain Kells would not be coming home tonight; indeed he might be detained up the Cobre River for as long as a week.
Carolina felt briefly annoyed; had she known Kells was not coming home tonight she certainly would have postponed her dinner invitation to Monsieur du Monde.
Nightsong Page 3
