Nightsong

by Valerie Sherwood

  The grey eyes across from her grew murky. ‘You seem to forget,’ he said silkily, ‘that the Marquess of Saltenham’s masquerade made me a pirate in the eyes of the king - I have no pardon nor am likely to get one!’

  Yes, and that was her fault, too! If her friend Reba had not been so in love with the marquess, if Carolina had not schemed to get them married, then Robin’s confession that he had impersonated Kells in piratical ventures against English ships would have gone unchallenged. But Carolina had begged Kells not to take the marquess’s life, and Kells had granted her request - so that Robin could marry Reba. And Reba’s mother had set up false witnesses to claim Robin’s confession was made under duress.

  ‘I suppose you are right,’ she said wistfully. ‘And it is something you must lay at my door.’

  ‘I lay nothing at your door,’ he said quickly, and his big hand closed warmly over her own. ‘It is not your fault you have a kind heart.’

  She looked at him guiltily, for Robin Tyrell, the Marchioness of Saltenham, had been - ever so briefly - her lover. She had thought herself deserted by Kells at the time, of course. Still . . .

  ‘Will those workmen never be through hammering?’ she cried, eager to change the subject.

  ‘Everything will be finished before the end of the week,’ her buccaneer promised her.

  In fact, the work was finished on Wednesday and all Port Royal was agog at the ‘strengthening’ of Captain Kells’s house - a true fortress, they muttered, what with it's little captain’s walk on the top where one could view incoming ships.

  And at breakfast on Thursday he told her he would be sailing with the tide on Saturday morning.

  ‘But you can’t!’ she cried, startled. ‘You haven’t had time to careen and provision the ship.’

  ‘Lars has already careened her,’ he said. ‘I’d promised him he could take her out. But now he’ll captain the Sea Wench and I’ll take out the Sea Wolf - we’ll sail together.’

  At least that was some comfort - he would not be alone out there; he’d have another ship to back him up.

  ‘I wish you’d take your whole fleet!’ she muttered.

  ‘And scare all the galleons back to port?’ he teased. No, ’tis better this way. Two fleet ships, a quick thrust or two and - back to Port Royal. You’ll like that, won’t you?’

  Her answering smile was wan, for well she knew that voyages - however short they were intended to be - could end up lasting for months. And all the time she would not know whether he was alive or dead . . .

  She was thoughtful through breakfast, realizing bitterly that she had been drifting along day by day, clinging to the hope that some miracle would save them: the governor would decide to lend Kells the money after all; or some departing landowner on the Cobre would urge Kells to take over his plantation on a promise to pay later; or in England Robin Tyrell would have a change of heart and confess all to the authorities, and Kells would be free to return to Essex.

  None of those things had happened, of course.

  And now Kells had announced that he was leaving - the day after tomorrow!

  As she watched him quit the house and swing out into the sunshine, taking long strides down the sandy street, Carolina’s delicate jaw hardened. Her buccaneer had left her but one alternative - and she would take it.

  When Kells returned for dinner he was greeted by a laughing, excited Carolina wearing a white apron, her long hair bound up in a linen square.

  ‘Housekeeping?’ he asked, bemused - for keeping house was not one of Carolina’s favourite pursuits. She preferred leaving that to the servants.

  ‘Oh, wait till you see!’ She seized him by the hand and ran ahead of him up the stairway, then flung open her bedroom door dramatically.

  Kells stopped short. Before him, filled with clutter, Carolina’s big curved-top trunk stood open. It formed the centre of a huge array of half-packed boxes and small chests. Women’s clothing was scattered about the bed Shoes and boots lay in piles upon the floor. Gloves, parasols, fans, scarves - a wild confusion.

  ‘I know it looks impossible, but I will be ready by Saturday morning!’ she promised him gaily.

  ‘Ready for what?’ he asked warily.

  ‘Why, to sail with you, of course.’ Her radiant smile ignored his gathering frown. ‘Can’t you see, this is a golden opportunity for me to visit my family in Virginia? Oh, Kells, you would not deny me passage when you could so easily drop me off in the York and be gone before any pursuit could find you?’

  Outside the doorway Gilly hovered. Kells shut the door behind him.

  ‘Carolina,' he said slowly, ‘I would sail you to hell if you desire it - and you know it. But it is not to the Tidewater that you wish to sail. Once aboard the Sea Wolf you will find some compelling reason why you cannot be left in Virginia, why you must continue the voyage with me.’

  Carolina’s telltale flush spoke volumes.

  ‘Oh, Kells,’ she entreated, taking an impulsive step towards him that brought her up flush against the hard muscles of his chest. She looked up wistfully into the sun-bronzed face above her. ‘Of course that is what I will do! And you should not deny me this. All I want is to go with you.’ Her luminous silver-grey eyes pleaded with him to understand. ‘Kells - fate has been unkind to us. It has robbed us of our birthright, of the life we might have shared. But we can have a life together in spite of all the devils of hell - we’ll have it aboard the Sea Wolf.'

  ‘No, Carolina, we will not.’ Her loveliness, her femininity, her pleading stance were all hard to withstand, but he managed it with an effort. Gently he put her away from him and looked down deep into her eyes. ‘You cannot accompany me on this voyage. You must wait for me here.’

  She took a step back and crunched a fan beneath her heel. Her lovely face was mutinous. ‘Why? Why must I wait here? Other captains take their wives with them. Why can you not take me?’

  Perhaps those other captains can stand the thought of seeing their women blasted from the deck, having a broken mast fall on them and crush them, watching them drown in a sinking ship or blown to pieces in battle - I cannot,’ he said briefly. ‘There is no use arguing, Carolina. This is one concession I will not make to you.’

  Her teeth caught in her soft lower lip and her eyes were dangerous. ‘Will you not?’ she asked softly. ‘Oh, but I think you will!’

  ‘Let us not discuss it now,’ he said impatiently. ‘Let us sit down to dinner in a civilized manner and not be at each other’s throat over the ridiculous notion of your going to sea on a buccaneering venture!’

  Carolina subsided, but her eyes remained dangerously bright all through dinner. She gave short answers to his best quips. And by the time dinner was over, that consuming fear she felt that he might be killed on the voyage and never return to her had made her voice waspish.

  ‘I am going to bed!’ she announced, rising.

  ‘Good,’ he said, laying down his napkin and rising, too. ‘I will accompany you. Hawks can wake me early in the morning in good time to complete the provisioning of the ship.’

  Leaving! That was all he thought about! Filled with indignation, Carolina ran up the stairs ahead of him, flung open the door of her bedroom, kicked aside some half-filled boxes whose contents scattered before her, and walked over them to her dressing table where she busied herself with taking the ribands out of her hair.

  All too aware of his lady’s dangerous mood, Kells stood with arms folded amid the clutter and watched Carolina without speaking.

  Suddenly she turned from her dressing table and her silver eyes flashed. ‘You should take me with you!’

  ‘No,’ he said wearily. ‘We have been over all that before. I will not take you into battle, Christabel.’

  ‘Then do not go!’ she cried passionately. ‘Why must you go to sea again? In heaven’s name, why?’

  He ran raking fingers through his dark hair. He was finding it hard to be patient with her but he managed to keep his voice even. ‘Because’ - he spaced his wo
rds - ‘as I told you before, we can no longer afford our style of living unless I go to sea! This house, your clothes, your jewels - ’

  ‘I do not care about them!’ She tore off the glittering necklace she wore about her neck and hurled it to the door. She was almost in tears. ‘Indeed I do not want them if that is what having them means!’

  He sighed. ‘There is an alternative, of course. I have money in England.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘I repeat,’ he said sternly, ‘I have plenty of money in England, but I must go there for it myself - the goldsmiths will release it to no one else. I have told you that - and yet you are equally against my setting foot on English soil.’

  ‘Oh, you know why! The authorities are lying in wait for you there. You would be taken - killed! Reba’s mother and the Marquess of Saltenham have seen to that!’

  ‘Very possibly true,’ he agreed ironically. ‘Still I would chance it if you were not so set against it. So for your sweet sake I will allow my newer enemies in England to live a space longer while I sail out and take what I need from my old enemies - the galleons of Spain.’

  And perhaps die from it!

  Seared by that thought, she sprang up and ran to him, threw her arms passionately around his neck and clung to him - all penitence. At least temporarily. And although her responses to his masculine caresses that night had all the fire any man could desire, there was a certain reservation in her heart against him.

  ‘This is a terrible place for you to leave me,’ she muttered resentfully when at last he drew away from her tingling body.

  About to turn over in bed, he turned towards her instead. His grin was a white flash in the starlight, half seen. ‘Terrible?’ he said humorously. ‘There is no better house in the town than this one. It is strong and defensible and decorated to your taste. You have servants, the latest Paris gowns, jewels, the city at your feet. Would you trade all that for a meagre life at sea, storms that howl in the rigging, mouldy bread, water turned green in the casks, the ever-present danger of meeting the entire might of the Spanish treasure flota at one time - or the Vera Cruz squadron - and being blown out of the water?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, as definite as he.

  ‘I’d given you credit for better sense,’ he laughed. And, sounding pleased with himself, rolled over and was immediately asleep.

  In the hall the longcase marquetry clock chimed the hour - it was two a.m.

  Beside the sleeping figure of her buccaneer, Carolina lay wakeful in the starlight, thinking. The nighttime sounds of Port Royal roistering were muted to her ears as she pondered her problem. Her pleas had made no impression at all on Kells - she might as well have saved her breath. This hot night of lovemaking which had left her so breathless had not moved him either.

  Unable to sleep, at last she rose restlessly and donned a paper-thin silken shawl from the Orient that had come to this buccaneer port via the pirates of Madagascar. The shawl was of a cool Chinese gold heavily embroidered in white silk - a pattern of sumptuous roses. The long pale fringe swished along her bare legs as she went and settled herself in the window for coolness and looked out through the new grillework over the moonlit town.

  She sat there brooding, letting the trade winds cool her hot cheeks - and started as a shadow scuttled out of the house below her and ran, barelegged and with a shawl thrown over her head to make her more a part of the darkness, barefoot down the street.

  Carolina frowned as she recognized the flying form. That would be fifteen-year-old Gilly, she guessed, slipping out to keep a tryst at some waterfront tavern - probably with some brawling chance-met buccaneer. Not all the locks nor all the grillework had been sufficient to keep Gilly in!

  Carolina sighed. Nothing was secure - not one’s house, not one’s life, and certainly not one’s future!

  Kells had said he would sail day after tomorrow and he would sail - she knew him well enough to know that.

  And without him, Port Royal would have nothing at all, she told herself. No life, no charm . . .

  Below her, parties of drunken buccaneers were even now streaming down Queen’s Street towards King’s Lane or Sea Lane, lurching against each other with cutlasses clashing, bawling drunken songs, pinching the wenches who staggered along beside them, laughing at their squeals and giggles, making the night hideous with all the sounds of what was called the most wicked city in the western world.

  Wicked? The town over which Carolina’s sombre glance passed was a town of contrasts. In a city unequalled for godlessness in this godless part of the world. Port Royal’s skyline was yet dominated by a handsome church that reared its bell tower up into the sky. And the people who thronged this busiest of New World ports by day, if not by night, were proud of their church and considered the present church bell too small - they planned shortly to send to England for a new and larger one.

  Well defended the town was, too, she admitted grudgingly, her gaze passing thoughtfully from Fort James on her left to Fort Carlisle on her right - and besides that, somewhere behind her were Fort Charles and Morgan’s Line - for the buccaneers had an unparalleled eye for defence. The three major forts loomed over the shoreline, their brass canon ever ready to defend the city. She almost wished it was not so well defended - then she would have a good reason to insist that Kells take her with him.

  Her silver-grey eyes flashed. He should take her with him - oh, she would make him do it! She would not be parted from him, left behind in this tiresome buccaneer town!

  And since persuasion had not worked, she would try another tack! Her eyes narrowed as she thought about it. Finally, sitting there, she came to a decision, and a wicked smile crossed her delicately chiselled features. Pleased with herself, she tossed away her shawl and padded barefoot back through the clutter to bed.

  Kells had but one more day to spend here before the Sea Wolf and her sister ship, the Sea Wench, sailed.

  It would, she promised herself, be a memorable one.

  Outside in the handsome hallway the longcase marquetry clock chimed four.

  8

  Carolina slept late, only turning over and mumbling something inarticulate when Kells rose and asked her if she would have breakfast with him. Her slight sleepy shrug that deliciously rippled her pale female body, shimmering in the morning heat, was answer enough. He smiled and went out the door briskly, to breakfast alone.

  It was afternoon when Carolina woke, stretched, and called for her bath. She lingered long in it, soaping her pale skin with scented French soap, giving a stream of directions meanwhile to an astonished Betts.

  ‘Yes, that is correct - the gown I wish to wear is in the trunk room down the hall. No, I know I have not worn it for a long time, but it is of scarlet silk trimmed in silver and it has with it a black taffeta petticoat garnished also with silver - oh, you cannot possibly miss it, Betts.’

  Betts’s brows elevated at what seemed to her a remarkably strange choice. Why would her mistress, who had so many delightful new frocks, select an old one? And why would she select a vivid red gown rather than one of the delicate ice-blues and ice-greens which were the captain’s favourites? And on his last day in Port Royal, too! As she went off to the trunk room, where so many handsome old clothes were packed away, Betts shook her head in bewilderment. It was indeed strange!

  But not strange to Carolina, whose plans today were intricate and not yet really worked out. The dress was red - and when she was misbehaving she always wore red. If possible. Red suited her mood when she was feeling wicked.

  The scarlet dress was duly brought and sent downstairs to be pressed while a sullen Gilly - red-eyed from loss of sleep - emptied silver pitcher after silver pitcher of warm water over Carolina to rinse off the soap as she stood in the metal hip bath, looking lovelier than any Venus rising from the foam.

  Carolina smiled at sight of the red gown when it was returned looking as fresh as when she had first worn it - on a day Tortuga would never forget! Betts felt uneasy at the sight of that smile. For her mi
stress was known to be capricious - ‘a handful’ was what the captain sometimes ruefully called her.

  Over her naked body, Carolina first put on a nearly transparent black silk chemise with sleeves that spilled a delicate spider web of black lace across her white forearms - that was not entirely fashionable now, but Carolina did not care. Her aim at the moment was to be seductive - hang fashion! Next came a shimmer of sheer black silk hose and black satin slippers with high red heels. Black garters, the rosettes set with brilliants, held the stockings taut. Silently Betts held out the black taffeta petticoat, and Carolina let it rustle sensuously down about her slim hips. It was garnished with silver threads and sprinkled here and there with brilliants. Next came the startling scarlet silk gown, low-cut enough to cause gasps among onlookers had there been any, and with big elbow-length puffed sleeves that were edged with glittering silver threads.

  Ah, she had made trouble once in this dress in Tortuga! she thought with a wicked smile as she tucked up the scarlet silk of her wide skirts into big panniers on each side, and fastened those panniers with brooches of flashing jet. The only thing missing was the scarlet ruffled parasol she had carried with it then and that had been lost somewhere long ago. No matter. She would pile her hair high up in the latest fashion and set in it enough brilliants to attract the eye! And several black velvet ribands, too, just to bring out the white-gold flash of her blonde hair!

  It was approaching dusk when Kells came home from last-minute preparations of getting the Sea Wolf ready to sail upon the morrow, and that timing suited Carolina exactly. She met him in the wide lower hall and gave him a mocking curtsy as he entered.

  He stopped still at sight of her.

  'I have not seen that dress for some time,’ he observed.

  So he remembered the stir she had caused when last she wore it! Carolina was perversely pleased.

  ‘It’s very pretty. I thought I might as well get it out and wear it,’ she announced innocently, indeed I thought we might go for a walk before dinner,’ she added. ‘Since it will most likely be our last walk together for some time.’ She tried to keep the bitter note out of her voice.