Nightsong

by Valerie Sherwood

  Marina had dashed to the head of the table and Penny had made for the foot, with the marquess and the old chaperon marooned on opposite sides of the long table in between. Dressed in her frosty best in silks that had come via Mexico from the Philippines, Marina had done her best to charm the newcomer. Waving her spoon excitedly and trying to make up in gestures what she lacked in vocabulary, she had showed off her command of English such as it was. But the marquess’s answering witticisms - in a language foreign to her ears - were too subtle for her to understand, and she almost choked on her food every time Penny’s eyes lit up at something clever that he said.

  ‘You must not make an enemy of Marina,’ breathed Penny in the marquess’s ear as they left the table.

  ‘I assure you I will do my best not to!’ he responded in an undertone and gallantly offered the excited younger girl his arm.

  She strutted out beside him with a disdainful look at Penny, who watched in amusement. Penny left them together and went upstairs to look in on the governor. She found him still sleeping heavily and came back downstairs to observe Marina banging hopefully away at the harpsichord to charm their guest. Since Marina had no ear at all for music, the marquess was beginning to show signs of strain. Penny thought critically that he had a rather hunted expression on his lean face as he smiled absently down at his young hostess.

  ‘Marina,’ Penny told the governor’s daughter in a voice of authority. ‘It is late and I am sure our guest has had a hard voyage and would like to go to bed.’

  At this interruption, Marina brought both hands down upon the keyboard in vengeful discord and rose trembling to her feet. She was spitting something in Spanish at Penny which neither she nor the marquess could understand as she flung herself out and ran up the stairs pursued by her distracted duena.

  ‘A lovely child, isn’t she?’ Penny observed scathingly when Marina’s skirts had cleared the door.

  Left alone with Penny, the Marquess of Saltenham showed no disposition to go to bed. He suggested a walk around the courtyard before retiring.

  ‘It would appear the governor’s daughter does not take suggestions too well from you,’ he remarked whimsically, when they had reached the central stone fountain and had come to a halt beside it.

  Penny laughed ruefully. ‘Marina does not take suggestions well from anyone - least of all from me! She hates me because’ - her sapphire eyes flung him a challenge - ‘I am her father’s mistress.’

  Robin Tyrell looked as if that were very instructive. He lounged gracefully by the fountain. ‘The governor must be a man of blood,’ he told her admiringly. ‘He has excellent taste in women. And to have found an unmarried lady of such beauty - !’

  ‘I am not unmarried.’ She waved him to a stone bench rear the fountain. ‘Would you care to sit down?’

  The curiosity in his eyes showed he yearned to hear more. He seated himself with alacrity on the nearest bench and watched her settle her black taffeta skirts across from him.

  ‘I have various husbands,’ she said lightly. ‘Both above and below the sod. But surely we’ve no need to discuss my marital disasters?’

  He was staring at her in fascination. ‘No - er, of course not, er - do I call you señorita, dear lady?’

  ‘You may call me Rouge,’ said Penny with a broad smile. ‘For that is the name by which I am best known. Or if others are about, you may wish to call me Doña Pennsylvania, which is also my name.’

  ‘Pennsylvania?’ The dark face looked puzzled. ‘But is that not the name of an American Colony?’

  ‘It is,’ agreed Penny demurely. ‘My parents were peculiar. I was born in Philadelphia and my mother chose to name me for the Colony.’

  ‘Mine named me for an uncle in hopes he would leave me his fortune,’ he told her frankly. ‘He did not choose to.’

  She joined him in laughter. ‘So often things do not work out!’ she said merrily. ‘I ran away to the Marriage Trees - you’ll not have heard of them, but they are a handsome stand of oaks situated on a narrow peninsula between the Virginia and Maryland Colonies. Parsons lurk beneath the branches there, hoping to wed runaway couples. I must have looked very young indeed because I had to brandish a pistol beneath my parson’s nose so he would marry us!’

  His astonishment grew. ‘You brandished - ?’

  ‘Oh, yes. The lad I ran away with had no stomach for firearms. He was more devious.’

  The dark eyebrows shot up. ‘Devious? How so?’

  ‘When we quarrelled in Philadelphia he sold me to a ship’s captain and had me dragged away by force. I arrived in Havana in somewhat circuitous fashion - by way of a French-Spanish raid on New Providence.’

  ‘Rouge! Of course!’ He snapped his fingers in delight ‘Now I remember. Rouge! Then you must be - ’

  ‘The pirate queen of New Providence, some have called me,’ Penny admitted. ‘Others’ - her throaty laughter pealed - ‘have used less complimentary names to describe me!’

  ‘But your fame precedes you, dear lady,’ Robin Tyrell insisted gallantly. ‘Indeed I have heard naught but good things about the famous Rouge!’

  ‘Then you haven’t been in the Caribbean long,’ was her cynical response.

  ‘Well, that is true,’ he admitted, nonplussed, and proceeded to tell her a long-winded tale of shipwreck and misfortune that brought a dancing light to her eyes.

  ‘Lord Saltenham,’ she began.

  ‘Oh, do call me Robin, dear lady,’ he said warmly. ‘My name is Robin Tyrell.’

  ‘Very well, Robin. I am thinking you have rather overdone the account of your mishaps.’

  He gave her a wounded look. ‘But I assure you, dear lady - ’

  ‘No, don’t assure me - assure the governor.’ She burst out laughing. ‘Twas the date,’ she told him demurely. The date you say you left England did not allow time for all that to happen!’

  Robin Tyrell coloured a trifle but he was as cool as she. Then I must correct the date of my leaving,’ he murmured. ‘I will say it was a lapse!’

  Penny was convulsed. It takes one to know one, she was thinking. ‘By all means correct your date of leaving England,’ she chuckled, ‘before your audience with the governor - for otherwise he will be sure to take note of the error.’

  Recognizing this pirate’s wench as a co-conspirator, Robin Tyrell edged a little towards her. ‘And when do you think I will see him?’ he asked in a confidential tone.

  ‘Not until his attack of the gout is over,’ Penny told him ruefully. ‘Not even a message from the King of Spain would bring him to receive a caller just now - much less the King of England!’

  The grey eyes across from her were a little daunted. They had an interesting emptiness, she thought idly, that was striking in his dissolute face. She had taken an instant liking to him and now that she was certain he was a scoundrel, she liked him even better.

  ‘I do not know what your game is, Robin,’ she said thoughtfully.

  ‘Shall we call it Survival?’ He was smiling.

  ‘Yes, well, we’re all playing that game.’

  ‘Indeed?’ The marquess pricked up his ears.

  ‘I would have been sold by the market bell as a slave on arrival in Havana had not the governor decided to pluck me from the sale for his’ - she shrugged -‘household.’

  His eyes narrowed in sympathy. ‘So you had no choice in the matter?’

  ‘None at all,’ she said serenely.

  He frowned. ‘What a lucky man is the governor!’ he said lightly.

  ‘Yes, isn’t he?’ she quipped. ‘A daughter who is a demon and a mistress some consider worse!’

  Robin Tyrell was not used to women who spoke with such directness as this. Reba never did - not to him. And her mother either bellowed unintelligibly or muttered, depending on how drunk she was at the time - he wasn’t sure whether he disliked her more drunk or sober. He warmed to the handsome redhead smiling at him across her wineglass.

  Penny was enjoying her evening. She was laughing inwardly t
hat the man who had impersonated Kells should have turned up in such an unlikely place as Havana - and on her doorstep!

  ‘Are you by chance a gambling man?’ she asked him curiously.

  His wry nod answered her. ‘It is one of my chief failings,’ he admitted.

  ‘Then let us draw cards. High card gets to ask one question which must be answered truthfully.’ Penny, who carried a deck of cards stuck in her skirt, was shuffling the cards as she spoke, and she gave them a sweeping riffle which raised Robin Tyrell’s eyebrows.

  She won the draw.

  ‘Your question, dear lady?’ The marquess was curious about what she wanted to know. He was entirely unprepared for the question she flung at him.

  ‘Where is your wife Reba?’ she asked him calmly.

  Robin Tyrell’s shoulders jerked. Penny had startled him out of his complacency. He leaned forward, peering at her in the moonlight. ‘Do I know you from somewhere?’ he demanded.

  Penny shook her head and her rich red curls danced. ‘You have never laid eyes on me before - nor I you. Tell me, is your mother-in-law as bad as ever?’

  ‘You do know me!’ he insisted.

  ‘No.’ Penny’s dark blue eyes sparkled.

  ‘Put away the cards,’ he said. ‘Ask me what you will, but at least satisfy my curiosity first. Who are you?'

  ‘I am Carolina Lightfoot’s sister,’ she said, sweeping up the cards with practised fingers. ‘And I know a great deal about you, Robin Tyrell.’

  He stared at her in astonishment. ‘Carolina Lightfoot!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Wife to Captain Kells,’ elaborated Penny, smiling. ‘I believe Carolina had something to do with your marriage?’ she added innocently.

  ‘Marriage? It’s been worse than a jail sentence!’ he burst out. ‘Faith, I’d rather be in Newgate! My harridan of a mother-in-law has taken over my life. She manages my affairs - and Reba grows more like her every day.’

  ‘The truth is you’ve run away from them,’ hazarded Penny. ‘And all the rest is moonbeams!’

  He sighed. ‘That’s about it - only not quite. His Majesty did once say - more in jest than anything else - that if I could procure any sign of friendship out of the Spanish in the Caribbean, he’d be beholden to me! But you are right, he gave me no commission. I only claimed to be his emissary in hopes of staying alive in this cursed city. It was Barbados I was heading for!’

  ‘A more likely story,’ agreed Penny. ‘But one you’ll not tell, I hope. It would probably get you locked up in El Morro along with the rest of the Englishmen who are caught in these waters. I would stick to being the King’s emissary if I were you. Am I to understand you are in fact a Court favourite?’

  ‘I suppose you could call me that,’ he said restlessly. ‘But it takes a rich wife to keep up appearances at Court.’

  ‘Well? You’ve got one, haven’t you?’

  ‘You don’t know what it’s like, dear lady,’ he said on a note of desperate appeal. ‘I was being driven out of my mind in England! Did I make any move either my wife or my mother-in-law objected to, I found my funds cut off instantly - impounded! My life has been a living hell!’

  ‘Carolina would find that amusing, I don’t doubt,’ Penny said with an unfeeling laugh.

  ‘Ah, I know that I have used her ill - and Kells, too,’ he admitted. ‘But you would have to understand the circumstances. Where is Carolina?’ he asked curiously.

  ‘How would I know?’ Penny shrugged, for she had decided to keep this interesting fellow to herself for a time. ‘She was in Port Royal when it sank into the sea. Kells, I heard, was killed there.’

  ‘And Carolina?’ he asked sharply.

  ‘Probably dead as well,’ lied Penny. She considered him carefully as this information sank in upon him. There was a certain sadness that leapt to his eyes, she thought - a kind of tribute to her beautiful younger sister.

  But the marquess recovered quickly. ‘What are our chances of departing Havana?’ he asked abruptly.

  It was Penny’s turn to raise her winglike brows. ‘I can understand why you might wish to leave,’ she mocked. But what makes you think I would desire to leave Havana?’

  ‘What you said about being sold.’ He was blunt.

  ‘Ah, but I was not sold. I am become mistress instead to a very important man.’

  ‘But are you free to come and go?’

  She shrugged. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Free to leave the city?’ he pursued relentlessly.

  Penny smiled crookedly, ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘Then you will desire to leave!’ he said in triumph.

  She sighed. ‘Yes, you are right. I do desire to leave. Most ardently.’ And it was true. Yesterday it had not been so true. Yesterday she had been inclined to drift. Today, looking into the grey eyes of the Marquess of Saltenham, it was suddenly very true. She wanted to leave Havana. ‘Indeed, I am tired of the Caribbean altogether,’ she admitted. ‘But the opportunity to depart has not yet presented itself.’

  ‘Perhaps we can escape together!’

  But Penny was too aware of the realities of life in this part of the world to take such a suggestion lightly.

  ‘Perhaps together we can get ourselves killed,’ she amended briskly. ‘I will warn you to trust no one in this house save myself. And most especially do not trust the governor’s daughter. She obviously fancies you.’

  He looked pleased.

  ‘Those Marina fancies may or may not end up well,’ she warned him, and the smile left his face.

  He sighed and his hot gaze passed over her breasts. ‘Then I suppose it is good night, dear lady?’

  ‘Robin,’ she said abruptly. ‘You do not look sleepy and neither am I. Would you like to see what entertainment Havana has to offer by night?’

  He looked delighted. ‘But can we - ?’

  Penny nodded. ‘We can. If we are careful to slip out quietly. But first I must change my clothes.’ She indicated her elegant black taffeta gown. ‘Spanish ladies of fashion do not prowl the taverns by night,’ she pointed out humorously.

  ‘I will wait for you here,’ he told her, fascinated.

  ‘No, that will not do. You will pretend to go upstairs to bed - in case Marina is spying on us. Meet me at the end of the corridor just past your bedroom in ten minutes. We will go down the back way.’

  ‘But I thought I saw someone locking up the house?’ he objected.

  ‘That was old Sancho. But he brings the keys upstairs after he has locked up and hangs them on a peg in the governor’s bedchamber. It will take me but a moment to collect the key to the back door.’

  The marquess did as he was told. He had not long to wait. Penny came down the dim hall on bare feet, carrying with her a pair of black slippers with high red heels. She carried a sword under her arm. She was smiling and waving a key as she swung along.

  ‘You look very different,’ marvelled the marquess, staring from the low-cut black bodice that displayed her elegant breasts to the brilliant red cotton skirt that rippled around her trim ankles. He blinked at the flaunting yellow turban that now concealed her luxuriant red hair.

  ‘That is because I am garbed as a prostitute!’ she laughed. ‘I picked up these clothes in the market yesterday - in case I should choose to wander about the town by night. No one would be surprised to see a woman dressed like this come out of a tavern in the darkness but everyone would remark a woman dressed as I was at dinner! And here - ’ she proffered the sword. ‘Buckle this on, for who knows what the streets will be like after dark?’

  Delighted with their escapade, the marquess tiptoed, at her direction, past the sleeping cook into the back courtyard and thence to the street.

  Penny knew just where to lead him. She had been noticing Havana’s night spots ever since her arrival. The tavern she found for them was low-ceilinged with smoke-stained plaster walls, and dimly candlelit. It had a trio with stringed instruments strumming away in one corner. They sat down at a table and ordered wine and talked and wat
ched people come and go. The drinking got heavier. The music and laughter louder. When one particularly catchy tune was struck up, Penny suddenly leapt to her feet, climbed upon the table top and executed a wild stomping dance that swirled her skirts about her hips while the onlookers stamped their feet and applauded.

  The marquess, applauding too, watched her appreciatively for a time before pulling her down, laughing into his lap. He told her he doubted he could stand off the assembled onslaught of the patrons if they chose to tear her from him and thus doubted the wisdom of inflaming them like this.

  ‘But then I was never wise!’ she laughed.

  Thoroughly enjoying herself, for she had been far too prim lately to suit her, Penny threw the applauding patrons a kiss and slid off Robin’s lap.

  ‘It’s late,’ she announced. ‘And we’d best get back, for Cook rises early and there’ll be the Devil to pay if we’re seen arriving home in the dawn!’

  The very thought of what the governor might be inclined to do if he learned his young mistress had returned in the dawn with a strange Englishman brought Robin Tyrell instantly to his feet.

  ‘I will squire you home, dear lady!’

  But Penny’s wild dance, the sight of her long beautiful legs, had attracted too much attention.

  Three strapping fellows slouched out of the tavern after them.

  It was very dark and the street was empty. Robin’s boots gave forth a hollow echo. The sandals of those behind gave little sound.

  ‘I think we’re being followed,’ he muttered. They were halfway home by now, and no matter how many circuitous turnings they took, the three still managed to keep the same distance behind Penny’s swaying red skirts.

  ‘Yes. Keep moving. We’ll want to reach the house just down the street - the one with the big balcony overhead. See it? The one with all those potted plants. When we get there I want you to swoop me up so I can grasp the grillework of that balcony and swing myself up.’

  He gave her an astonished look and instead loosened his sword in its scabbard.

  ‘Are you a good swordsman?’ she asked sharply.

  ‘Indifferent,’ he admitted.

  ‘Then listen to me and do what I tell you!’ she commanded tersely for they had almost reached her objective.