Nightsong

by Valerie Sherwood

  Carolina swallowed. She had tried to enlist Penny’s support - and failed. Now she must put her original plan into execution. She would make one last appeal to Don Ramon. She would ask him to put Don Diego under house arrest on some trumped-up charge, to keep him from knowing . . . until it was too late. And once the supposed ‘Kells’ and his real Silver Wench were gone, a grieving Don Diego would recover, he would come to believe he had been briefly bewitched by a scheming beauty, he would forget the rest, forget her. Indeed in time he might marry the governor’s daughter, or perhaps Jimena if her rich husband should conveniently die, and live out his life as a Spanish grandee!

  A little sob escaped Carolina’s lips. Penny, intent on what was going on outside, did not notice. She stood at the window, staring out.

  Feeling as if all this was happening to somebody else, Carolina moved towards the window. Toward Penny. On the way she picked up a heavy iron candlestick. She brought it down in a glancing blow against the side of Penny’s head. In horror, she watched Penny’s tall handsome frame crumple, then she bent over her - thank God she was still alive, the force of the blow had only stunned her!

  Swiftly she stuffed a gag in Penny’s mouth and tied her hands and feet together with a piece of hemp. She could hear the clatter of Kells’s boots on the stairs and she made haste to drag Penny under the big square bed and to pull the coverlet down so that Penny’s body would remain concealed.

  She had just straightened up when Kells came into the room.

  ‘A strange thing happened today,’ he said, and she could see he looked disturbed. ‘I remembered something. It was just a flash but I seemed to see you. You were wearing a dress I’d never seen before, some kind of red silk trimmed in black lace and we were quarrelling. We were standing in a second-floor room for I could look out through the grillework at the masts of ships in the harbour.’

  Carolina felt a long quiver of pain go through her. He had remembered their quarrel that last evening before he went away. She had worn the red dress. And they had been standing in their bedroom in the house on Queen’s Street a block from Port Royal’s waterfront.

  'Did you - remember anything else?’ she asked tensely.

  ‘Well, bits and flashes,’ he said. 'The strange thing was that I seemed to be wearing English clothes. I remember I had on grey trousers. And we were speaking English, too.’ He ran his long fingers through his hair. ‘There was something else. I seem to remember a boy, too. It must have been a long time ago for I was shorter. I remember he ran towards me and he was calling, “Rye, Rye!”’ He shook his head as if to clear it. 'There seemed to be no one else around and certainly no rye fields. It was forest country and there was a stream. I called to the boy. I called him “Drew”.’

  ‘Andrew,’ she murmured. He had remembered his brother when they were boys in Essex. She said, ‘I must see to something downstairs,’ and ran from the room. In the courtyard below she leaned dizzily against one of the round pillars, hanging on to it for support.

  Rye was remembering. Soon he would remember that he was Kells the buccaneer.

  Oh, God, what was going to happen now?

  ‘Carolina.’ Kells’s voice was calling her.

  Reluctantly she went back upstairs, her mind in turmoil. He must not remember in bits and pieces, not now - it would only increase the dangers threatening him.

  ‘You look pale,’ he commented.

  ‘I - it must be the heat.’ Her legs seemed to give way under her and she sat down abruptly in a chair by the bed.

  Kells was looking at her intently. He remembered it now - it was coming to him by bits and flashes but he remembered it all. He remembered sailing from Port Royal, leaving an angry, discontented Carolina behind him. He remembered the seemingly endless voyage, the frustrations, wanting to get back to her. He remembered the battle with the Santo Domingo and the other galleon, remembered cursing as his boots ripped apart at a crucial moment in the battle and nearly cost him a sword thrust in the body - the leather came apart and caught on something on the slanted slippery deck. He remembered his ship’s doctor coming to him with a dead Spaniard’s boots, tossing them down before him with a laconic, ‘Best change to these or I’ll have you in my surgery!’

  He remembered tugging the boots on, surprised that they fit. And it was those boots that had brought him here! He remembered bringing the damaged Sea Wolf into port under oars. He remembered how Port Royal’s waterfront had seemed to disintegrate before his eyes, the forts at both ends crumbling and sliding into the sea.

  He remembered thinking. Dear God, what of Carolina? And then his ship had been snatched up as if by giant hands and hurled into the town, riding over the rooftops, shearing off chimneys as it went. He remembered being suddenly airborne and seeing something - perhaps a piece of falling timber from one of the other ships that were riding the wave, crashing into the town with him. He remembered flying into it, and then his world had splintered into a thousand pieces.

  He had woken up in a comfortable bed in the governor’s palace in Havana and he had remembered nothing - his past was a blank page with nothing written on it. He might have been born in that bed, looking up at the quiet servants who scuttled in and out bringing broth and tall lime drinks.

  And they had told him he was Don Diego Vivar, sent to the New World by the King of Spain. They had divined all that from his boots! From the boots he had inherited from a dead Spaniard after winning the battle with the Santa Domingo! For the boots were so unique as to be the means of recognizing the wearer in a foreign place - as indeed Captain Juarez had recognized him! And the orders sewn into the lining were meant for Don Diego’s eyes alone.

  He felt awed as he thought about it. Some special Providence must be watching out for him to let him live through such a shattering chain of events!

  And now that some Providence had brought Carolina to his side and placed her in deadly danger . . .

  ’Carolina,’ he began. ‘I remember - ’

  ‘No,’ she interrupted unhappily. ‘You remember nothing. I have lied to you, tricked you. You are exactly who you told me you were - Don Diego Vivar. Soon you will remember that, Diego, and you will forget all the rest.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, marvelling.‘This is a change of tune!’

  ‘It is true,’ she said. ‘I have bewitched you.’

  He stared down at her. ‘Why do you tell me this?’

  ‘Because Kells - the real Kells - has returned,’ she answered him simply. ‘And he has been caught, arrested. I will die beside him.’

  She kept her voice steady but, oh, how deep the cut, that in these last hours of her life she must renounce this man before her - renounce him to save his life!

  ‘To die beside him?’ His frown deepened and he seized her shoulders. ‘I will not allow it!’

  She gave him a wistful tormented look. ‘There is nothing you can do to prevent it,’ she said softly. ‘Buccaneers are hanged in Havana and I am a buccaneer’s woman - I freely admit it.’

  ‘You are my woman,’ he growled. ‘And I would have you remember it.’

  There was a faint groan from beneath the bed.

  Kells swooped down and lifted the coverlet. ‘But this is your sister!’ he cried, amazed.

  ‘I know,’ said Carolina calmly. ‘Leave her there until I can think what to do with her. There must be some way to get her off this cursed island!’

  ‘But what - ’

  ‘I struck her down with this candlestick when she told me that she was going to save Robin Tyrell at all costs. I could not allow her to interfere.’

  He stared at her. ‘Are you then so set on death?’

  She gave a short laugh. ‘It would seem that death is set on me. But I would die beside the man I love - you cannot deny me that, Diego. I would never forgive you.’

  ‘And the man you love is Kells?’

  ‘Yes.’ It hurt her in her soul that practically her last words with this man she loved must be to renounce him, but there was no other way. �
��Yes. I love Kells. I have always loved Kells. I sought to find him in you - it was all a trick. You must learn to think of it as a bad dream and of me as a wicked woman who almost dragged you down with her.'

  ‘And all this so that I can - ’

  ‘Live on in Havana and take your rightful place here. You will be happy here, Diego, if you will forget all that I ever told you. Forget me and be happy.’

  ‘First let us take this gag from your sister’s mouth,’ he said, skilfully removing it.

  Having been dragged from beneath the bed, Penny looked up at Carolina with baleful eyes. ‘What did you hit me with?’ she demanded, wincing as she put her hand to her head.

  ‘With this.’ Carolina indicated the candlestick. ‘And I would do it again for the same reason, so have the good sense to be quiet.’

  Penny subsided, looking amazed.

  ‘I am trying to decide how to get you safely off the island,’ Carolina told her.

  ‘Safely off the - faith, you take a great deal upon yourself, little sister!’

  Carolina gave her a bleak look. ‘Do not cross me in this, Penny. Your loves are light loves - you have said so yourself. And I love but one man: Kells, who even now is masquerading as Robin Tyrell, Marquess of Saltenham. Yes, that is the truth, Penny, regardless of anything I may have told you.’

  ‘But - ’ began Penny. ‘The letter - ’

  ‘It is the truth and I would have you believe it!’ said Carolina warningly. She had reached out and was caressing the iron candlestick as she spoke.

  Penny was familiar with what caressing a weapon was likely to mean. She edged away from Carolina.

  Kells was watching this charade. He knew nothing about any letter but even without knowing, it was all perfectly clear to him. Carolina - his own dear Carolina - was out to save his neck at all costs. Even at the cost of her own. It brought a lump to his throat to realize it. And a grim determination to save her, whatever the odds.

  ‘Rouge,’ he said in a voice of authority - and he was addressing the wench of Nassau now and not the aristocratic long-lost Lightfoot daughter. ‘I am going to untie your feet now. Try to resist your obvious urge to kick me to perdition!’

  ‘No, don’t untie her!’ cried Carolina. ‘She will bring ruin upon you!’

  ‘So that we will understand each other, Rouge,’ he added pleasantly, ‘my name is Kells. I saw you once upon the beach in Nassau.’ He reached down and untied her bonds.

  ‘Yes, Carolina told me about that.’ Penny sat up, kneading her ankles. She gave Kells a curious look. ‘Tell me, have you known all the time? If so, you should be appearing upon the stage for you have fooled everyone!’

  ‘No, my memory has just come back to me,’ he told her vigorously. ‘In time, I hope to get us all out of here.’

  ‘It is perhaps a bit late for that,’ said a cool masculine voice from the doorway.

  Carolina and Kells both whirled. Kells’s hand fell to the hilt of his sword.

  Don Ramon del Mundo stood there framed in the doorway. He had come up the stairs with catlike silence. Now he stood jauntily, in perfect possession of himself, surveying the scene through faintly mocking tawny eyes.

  ‘I found your front door standing open,’ he observed by way of explanation of his sudden appearance.

  ‘Yes, I suppose I must have left it open,’ said Penny, rising in a lithe gesture. She touched the side of her head gingerly and turned to give Carolina a reproving look.

  ‘Don Diego - ’ began Don Ramon in a courtly tone.

  ‘Let us understand one another,’ said the lean buccaneer silkily. ‘My name is Kells. And from the look in your eyes as you came in, I think you already know that.’

  ‘You are right, I do,’ was Don Ramon’s cheerful rejoinder. He was remarkably debonair, thought Carolina in amazement. A very different fellow from the man she had left brooding in El Morro.

  ‘And I suppose that you will now say that you have come to escort me to El Morro to replace a certain Englishman?’ Kells’s voice was ironic.

  ‘No, I have come to deliver a gift to a lady.’ Don Ramon’s gaze played over Carolina.

  ‘Indeed? And what gift is that?’ came the cold voice of her buccaneer, who was even now figuring that with his sword out, a single spring could bring down the commander of El Morro.

  ‘Her life,’ said Don Ramon simply. He held up his hand at the sudden stillness in the buccaneer’s face. ‘Do not ask me why I do it.’ He sounded suddenly weary. ‘I think I do not know myself. But I cannot let the lady burn at the next auto-da-fé. And she would surely burn if I allow her to carry out her foolhardy but’ - his eyes softened -‘selfless plan.’

  ‘If you seek to send me away,’ said Carolina, divining what he would most likely say next, ‘I warn you that I will not go without Kells.’

  ‘No, I did not imagine that you would.’ Don Ramon sighed. ‘But I would be rid of all of you. Faith, I will clear the English out of El Morro and out of Havana at a single blow!’ He gave a wry laugh.

  ‘The marquess, too?’ cried Penny. ‘You would free Robin, too?’

  Don Ramon nodded. ‘I would free him as well. It is not my usual style to send a man to his death for what another has done.’

  ‘But he - ’ began Carolina, and Penny shushed her.

  ‘Let good enough alone, Carol,’ she warned. ‘Remember, Robin is a king’s favourite. If his life is spared - and if you let him believe that it was Kells here who saved him - why would he not ask for a pardon from a grateful king for the man who saved his life?’

  ‘He would not do it,’ Carolina said bitterly. ‘He buckled before. When Reba and her mother get at him, he will buckle again!’

  ‘Not if I take charge of him!’ Penny said lightly, but there was a look in her dark blue eyes that Carolina had not seen there before. ‘If Robin lacks backbone, he can use mine. I assure you that I will not be put off by his wife or his mother-in-law!’

  The two men were listening in some amazement to this frank interchange between the two women.

  ‘Penny, you could do it!’ Carolina cried joyfully. ‘You could make Robin keep his word! But’ - she gave he-sister a troubled look - ‘you can only be his mistress, you will never be his wife. Reba and her mother will see to that!’

  Penny shrugged her handsome shoulders. ‘Who knows?’ she said philosophically. ‘I want Robin now, but I may not want him forever!’ Her wicked grin flashed. Perhaps I will find me a royal duke. Or even’ - those shoulders moved in a slight swagger that accentuated the generous curve of her breasts - ‘a king!’

  ‘I little doubt she might,’ murmured Kells, and Don Ramon raised his eloquent brows.

  ‘So are we managed by the ladies,’ he said mockingly. I will take warning.’

  ‘And well you might,’ Carolina said warmly. ‘But I thank you from the bottom of my heart for giving me - for giving all of us our lives back again. May you not suffer for it!’

  He shrugged. ‘The El Dorado lies waiting in the harbour. Tonight she will have but a skeleton crew. Tonight there will be an unfortunate fire in El Morro which will command the attention of everyone. Many prisoners will be released - and some among them’ - he gave Kells a mocking look - ‘might at one time or another have been buccaneers. I little doubt that you will know how to take the ship, how to ease her out of the harbour, how to sail away in her!’

  Kells gave him back a grim look. He little doubted it either.

  ‘Ramon.’ Carolina stepped near to him. ‘Ramon, I - ’ Her throat seemed to close with emotion.

  ‘There is no need to speak, Doña Carolina.’ Don Ramon del Mundo’s gaze upon the blonde beauty was caressing. ‘I do this of my own free will - and I think that I will like myself the better for it.’

  Silent, but with grey eyes glinting, Kells the buccaneer strode forward and gripped his erstwhile enemy by the hand.

  At that moment he could find no words to express his feelings either.

  In Havana harbour by starlight a great w
hite and gold ship was moving, easing along, manned by desperate men who had taken her in darkness and wanted to see home again. The El Dorado was moving out to sea on the strangest mission she would ever undertake - the returning to England of a motley crew of English and American sailors and buccaneers, and a little group of aristocrats who stood on deck, watching silently as the ship moved under the guns of frowning El Morro, and then slid by unchallenged.

  They moved on into the velvet blackness of the night.

  Kells looked back at the silent guns of El Morro, a mighty fortress atop the cliffs flung up in dim silhouette against the sky.

  ‘I have made my peace with Spain,’ he murmured. ‘I do not think I could bring myself to go against the dons again.’

  Beside him Carolina, who knew why those guns were silent, felt her eyes grow misty. She had brought him peace at last, her turbulent lover. She turned and looked back, too. And of a sudden she blew a kiss to old Havana and to the man who stood frowning over the guns of El Morro, keeping them silent while the El Dorado safely carried the woman he loved from Havana harbour. She hoped he would find happiness, and joy - and arms as warm as hers to comfort him. She wished him long life and strong sons who would grow up to be men as good as he; that was her wish for that ‘man of the world’ who - had there been no Kells - she knew she could have loved with all her heart.

  Rye’s thoughtful gaze scanned El Morro’s uprearing bulk, grown hazy in the distance.

  ‘Carolina,’ he said. ‘If aught should happen to me, there is a man who loves you back there in Havana.’

  ‘I know,’ Carolina said softly. ‘I know that, Rye.’ She dashed a tear from her eye. ‘I must start calling you Rye again and not Kells for you have left that life behind you.’

  ‘Yes.’ He still looked back towards that dark fortress, fast fading from sight, and saw there a gallant enemy with whom he would never cross swords. ‘It is over, Carolina. All of it.’

  ‘Not quite all,’ she murmured, moving closer against him so that her warm hip touched his thigh. ‘We have brought something away from it - from that world.’