Bound By The Heart

by Canham, Marsha

  "Well, if Winfield is hoping to win his admiral's bars," Wade was saying, "it won't be on my wind."

  "We're going to pass on the guns?"

  "I am going to give it some serious thought. I am also going to give some serious thought to going home for Christmas. What say you to that, Roarke? Virginia in December is cool and crisp. It helps a man regain his perspective; stops him from thinking of what might have been and keeps him focused on what lies ahead."

  "You've never had trouble focusing before."

  "Nevertheless, it's high time Stephen Decatur and I had a long talk, face to face. This cloak and dagger business is beginning to wear thin."

  "He will only tell you what he has been telling you all along. His hands are tied. We have to wait it out, Morgan. We cannot be the ones to start an incident now."

  "What do you call sending two warships after us? A friendly sparring contest?"

  "Winfield has the excuse that we are smuggling guns to come after us, whereas we have no reason for an attack against him. If you want to see him fume to the point of melting his brass buttons, just sail into Bridgetown and drop anchor. Sit there for a few weeks and count how many times he sails back and forth in front of the harbor."

  "My ship was not built to stay in port. Furthermore, it isn't my aim just to make him angry. I want him making mistakes. Bad mistakes."

  "And he will. But don't let him be the cause of you making any."

  Wade scowled. "Between you and Decatur I feel as potent as a schoolboy tossing pebbles at a window."

  Roarke chuckled. "Well, you shouldn't. You and Bull have had a freer hand than any dozen other privateers combined."

  "Only because we do what we do so well." Wade grinned humorlessly. "And don't you mean because we have been used more freely? Maybe that is what tires me the most—letting everyone else's judgment rule my life instead of following my own."

  Roarke laughed. "When has anyone ever told you what to do and lived to brag about it?"

  Wade's pace slowed. They were nearing the end of a grimy laneway, and paused to look cautiously up and down the street, to listen for any errant footsteps behind that might indicate someone had been following.

  Wade shifted his weight from one foot to the other then glanced at Roarke. "You didn't happen to hear anything...about the lad, did you?"

  "Michael Cambridge? Not a word. Was there something in particular you wanted to know?"

  "No." Wade's frown deepened.

  "I...uh...did hear, however, that he no longer has a governess."

  Wade glanced over sharply. "What do you mean? Where has she gone?"

  "She's married, Morgan. As to where she's gone, I didn't ask. I didn't think it was that important to you."

  Wade's face remained impassive. "It isn't," he said curtly and started to walk again. "I imagine she was well paid for her travails and is content to be back in the arms of her bank clerk."

  Wade's pace quickened. They reached the end of the street, ducked down another narrow alleyway and entered a tavern by the rear door. His dark blue eyes raked the smoky interior, noting the faces that shouldn't be there and acknowledging the nods from his men who were already aware of the spies amongst them. Two more beagle-nosed informants were going to find it difficult to wake up in the morning.

  "Ah...there he is." Wade grinned and slapped Roarke between the shoulder blades. "Put a happier look on your face, Stuart, lad. That's your father-in-law you're frowning at."

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Chapter Fifteen

  Captain Emory Ashton-Smythe sailed the fifty-two gun frigate Northgate through the channel dividing the Twin Sisters, narrowly avoiding scraping his keel open on the jagged rocks. He anchored well out of sight behind one of the mosquito-infested atolls and posted keen-eyed lookouts high on the peaks. He had two of the navy's new brass spyglasses on board, and because he knew it would be several days before the alert would come from the lookouts, he drilled the gun crews and practiced maneuvers until he was satisfied his ship was battle-ready should the need arise. Had he needed any further evidence that Wade was a formidable adversary, he had only to stand on the forecastle and look down over the newly patched sections of deck planking, rails, and yards.

  Far to the south, Commodore Bennett Winfield had taken up position off Congor Bay. His sense of triumph was contagious throughout the crew as his first officer passed the word that the Chimera had been sighted anchoring off the smuggler's cove. Winfield moved the Caledonia closer by night, keeping eyes trained on the lights twinkling in the distance. Wade was there. He was loading the guns on board his ship. He had taken the bait.

  Winfield was roused at dawn of the third day with the news that the Chimera was weighing anchor and the first of her sails were being run up the masts. He kept a tight rein on his excitement as he ordered the crew of the Caledonia to make sail."

  "His heading, Aslop?"

  "Nor' by Nor' east, sir, as you anticipated. He will likely make a broad turn around the headland before he bears west."

  Winfield nodded. "Maintain our distance, I want no mistakes. Call the officers to breakfast now, if you please. I find myself with an enormous appetite this morning."

  "Aye, sir."

  "And keep that damned ship well in sight."

  "There should be no difficulty in doing so, sir. She is presenting us with a clear, sharp target. A shame our guns are not as powerful as the spyglass."

  "In due time, I have no doubt they will be. For now, keep me informed of every move the Chimera makes."

  Lieutenant Harvey Aslop followed his orders precisely. For the next three days, the Chimera maintained an unhurried six knots, changing course several times but always returning to a north by northwest setting. Winfield found it necessary to constantly monitor his own speed, trimming the Caledonia's sails to take no chance of being seen in the privateer's wake. So intent was he on riding the edge of the horizon that on the afternoon of the fourth day at sea, he was too low, even with his powerful spyglass, to see a second set of sails skimming across the water—sails that were, conversely, in plain view of the Chimera.

  "There she is," Roarke said quietly, handing the glass to Morgan Wade. "Right on time."

  "Trim us down to five knots," Wade ordered, swinging the spyglass around to scan the sea behind them. "Not too obviously, though. Bull knows he has to keep ahead of us, but I would as soon not take any chances on the Caledonia spotting him. Damn. Are you sure Winfield is out there?"

  "He's there, alright," Roarke said, rubbing the back of his neck. "I can feel him."

  "Like a fly buzzing around at night," Wade grunted. "You know it's in the room with you; you just can't see it."

  Roarke passed the order to Mr. Phillips to take in sail. Almost immediately two of the flying tops were reefed, along with one of the smaller foresails.

  "Winfield is bound to move up again with the light failing."

  Wade glanced at the sun, a huge ball of orange fire about to sink into the westerly sea. "Aye, we'd best give him something to look at. Light up the deck lanterns and have the stern cabin bright enough to glow. Another hour, we can signal the Gyrfalcon, then pull up even more and bring her about to shield Bull's approach."

  "You don't think Winfield will suspect something if we keep cutting speed?"

  "Our cargo bays are full of prime English muskets and several tons of black powder. He'll suspect the weight and value is keeping us cautious. Sheer arrogance would not let him suppose anything else, which is all the more reason why he is overdue for a lesson in humility. As temperamental a son-of-a-bitch as any the Royal Navy has spawned; this should leave him foaming at the mouth and throwing fits."

  Wade chuckled as he raised the glass again and scoured the horizon.

  Commodore Bennett Winfield lowered his glass, smugly contemptuous as he saw the lights glowing to life on board the Chimera.

  "He always was a cocksure bastard. Look at him, Aslop. Sailing leisurely along like he owns the whole damned ocean."
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  "The men asked if they might take their pipes on deck tonight, sir. They have rigged a canopy that should block any hint of light from escaping."

  "A single glow from a solitary pipe can be seen for miles, Mr. Aslop. No fires, no lights, no pipes. But give the men an extra ration of grog for their patience."

  "Yes, sir."

  Bennett watched the progress of the Chimera for several more minutes, then handed the spyglass to Aslop. "Carry on, Lieutenant. I shall be in my quarters."

  "Yes, sir. Sir...?"

  "What is it, Aslop?"

  "Sir...does something...well...does something feel not quite right to you?"

  "In what way?"

  The young officer flushed. "I'm not sure. It is just a feeling—"

  Bennett Winfield relaxed. "If Morgan Wade was the least bit suspicious of our presence, he would be crowding on sail and cutting west to lose us in the islands. He certainly would not be lumbering along like a pregnant sow."

  "I suppose you are right, sir."

  Winfield's eyes narrowed. "I am right, Lieutenant. Now carry on about your duties."

  "Aye, sir." Aslop watched his commander leave the bridge, then released the pressure from his lungs. Winfield's patience had a very fine thread holding it together these days, and Aslop had learned the hard way not to stretch it any finer. But the feeling that something was amiss would not leave him, and he did a complete sweep of the horizon with the powerful telescope. He gave an order for the man sitting fifty feet aloft in the crow's nest to do likewise, and even though the report came back "all clear", he refused his relief at the end of his watch and continued to pace the bridge uneasily.

  When dawn arrived, pink and hazy, Aslop had still not managed to shake off the prickle scratching along his spine. The Chimera was there. The Caledonia was keeping an even pace with her, and there was only the faintest rime of cloud curling over the seascape to mar an otherwise perfect tropical sky. Yet he refused relief for the fourth time and only knuckled his eyes harder to drive away the burn of salt and fatigue.

  The wind was picking up. Aslop's unease grew in proportion when the privateer failed to take advantage and instead, dropped the speed of the Chimera to less than four knots and flew barely a quarter of her sails. Something was definitely wrong, he was convinced now, more than ever.

  The lieutenant had just finished giving an order to have the watch in the nest changed every hour, when Bennett Winfield emerged from the forward hatchway, his fully rested and laughing complement of ship's officers strutting behind him, picking the breakfast herring out of their teeth.

  Winfield mounted the ladderway to the bridge, not a blond hair out of place, not a visible wrinkle to his uniform, not an embossed anchor on his buttons angled the wrong way. The pale blue eyes flicked critically over the loosened neckcloth and trace of stubble on his adjutant's jaw.

  "Aslop, you look the very devil himself. Have you been up here all night?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Any particular reason?" Winfield snapped his fingers and the helmsman passed him a spyglass.

  "No, sir, nothing I can—"

  "Just your...feeling?"

  "Sir." Aslop approached Winfield haltingly. "The wind is strong off his starboard side and gaining. If he cared to run up half as much sail again as he has, he could add three, four knots to his speed. But instead, he keeps trimming her, keeps slowing down."

  "And from that you arrive at what conclusion?"

  "Wade knows we're here. He is playing with us."

  Winfield lowered the glass slowly. "Your recommendation?"

  "Close up on him now, sir, before he's had enough of the games and decides to make a run for it. We can gain raking distance in two hours if we beat in at full speed."

  "What makes you think he would allow us to get that close?"

  It was on the tip of Aslop's tongue to say: an arrogance only equaled by your own. Instead he pointed his glass to the southwest, where a low line of dark cloud was crawling up the horizon. "Whether he does or not, if we don't draw up on him now there is a good chance we might lose him in the squall."

  Winfield looked again. He scanned the bank of cloud, then focused on the Chimera. "Even if he does run for the heavy weather, where can he go? He may only be guessing that we are here, testing a similar 'feeling' as your own. He may be tempting us to do exactly what you are proposing: to show our hand."

  "But sir—"

  "If he runs for the weather, we will still be on him. We know where he is heading. Believe me, Aslop, I have no intention of losing Captain Morgan Wade."

  Aslop lowered his own spyglass. He blinked, rubbed his eyes, then trained the glass on the ship they were following. The sun was lighting the distant pyramid of sails and winking off the double row of gallery windows across the stern.

  Aslop exhaled through a soft oath.

  "You may have lost him already, sir," he said quietly.

  "Aslop, your attitude is beginning to border on impertinence."

  The young lieutenant lowered the glass. "Yes, sir. Impertinent, perhaps, but I am almost certain that is not the Chimera."

  "What? What are you talking about, man? Of course it is the Chimera."

  "No, sir. I have watched her for the past two days, studied every yard and sail...and that ship is not the Chimera."

  Winfield's jaw tightened into a ridge and he jammed the glass to his eye again, staring long and hard at the ship ahead as the morning sun turned her sails cream-colored against the still-dark western sky.

  "Look how high she is riding in the water," Aslop pointed out. "There is at least twice as much hull showing beneath her stern windows as there was yesterday, which would suggest her holds are empty."

  "What the bloody hell—!"

  Someone snatched the glass out of Aslop's hand and each of the officers, in turn, studied the ship they were following. In the frenzy that ensued, orders were issued to pile on all sail. Caution was thrown to the same wind that brought the squall sweeping in from the southwest. Aslop stood at the rail watching as his prediction came true, for as soon as the Caledonia closed the gap enough to be visible to the lookouts on the ship ahead, it tacked suddenly on a course straight into the gray curtain of the squall. The unknown ship was fully rigged within minutes of the turn and running in excess of eighteen knots as it was swallowed into the sheeting rain.

  Bennett screamed orders to follow, surmising correctly that the disturbance was only a brief trick of the weather. But when the winds and rain passed, and the Caledonia shook off the last of the tropical cloudburst, the frigate was gone.

  He maintained full sail and scoured the sea west and south of the vessel's last sighting, but when nothing more spectacular than a British sloop crossed their path, he barked an immediate, hasty course change north.

  Winfield drove his ship and his men to the breaking point in an effort to reach the Sirens in time to salvage his plan. A week later, he stood rigidly silent on the deck of the Northgate, listening to a red-faced and much flustered Captain Emory Ashton-Smythe swearing that there had not been a sighting of the Chimera along the length and breadth of the reef. His capture of two French merchantmen did nothing to assuage the commodore's wrath, however, and for the next two weeks both warships patrolled the waters around the Twin Sisters. Nights found them anchored in humid, windless coves slapping at innumerable mosquitoes and plucking multi-legged beasts from their skin and food. A further month of short tempers and frayed nerves resulted in Winfield using the pair of French ships as targets for his gun crews, hulling them in under ten minutes apiece and taking one hundred and twenty outraged Frenchmen as prisoners.

  With his rage still boiling at peak level, Winfield ordered the ships home to Bridgetown. On the way he stopped off at the naval base on Saint Christopher to deliver the prisoners. There he learned that the Chimera had not only eluded the Northgate and outfoxed the Caledonia, it had broken through the blockade line along the American coast and was last reported anchored alongside Stephen
Decatur's ship, the United States.

  Bennett's rage and humiliation deepened to a cold fury. He lashed out at the two most readily available victims: Harvey Aslop was stripped of his rank and left on Saint Christopher to ponder his future. Captain Emory Ashton-Smythe was cited for dereliction of duty and ordered to pay a heavy fine. He retained command of the Northgate despite Bennett's efforts to the contrary, but lost the right to claim the cargo taken from two French ships as his prize. Neither man said a word publicly in his own defense, but privately both knew they had become the navy's newest laughingstocks courtesy of Captain Morgan Wade.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  June 1812

  Summer's child was born during a torrential downpour, on a dark and foreboding night the first week of April. She was a delicate pink mewling bundle with vivid blue eyes and a froth of auburn hair that Sir Lionel declared to be the exact shade as that of his own dear departed wife. The birthing was a slow and torturous affair, watched over by a physician and a midwife, both of whom frowned over the excessive bleeding, but who continued to reassure Summer that it was perfectly normal to feel as if her insides were being torn apart and that seventeen hours of drenched, writhing agony was not unheard of. And all worthwhile, Summer declared through a mix of laughter and tears, when she held her baby daughter in her arms for the first time.

  Bennett Winfield, when advised of the birth, climbed the stairs from the library where he had been drinking heavily and strode into his wife's room unannounced. He took one look at the wrinkled, exhausted child and left again without a word or a smile. The midwife was shocked. The servants wept in sympathy for their poor, weakened mistress. Only Summer was unaffected by his coldness. She closed her eyes and slept in peaceful, pain-free bliss for fifteen uninterrupted hours.

  Sir Lionel was euphoric. Champagne flowed like water, and no praise was too grand for his brilliant son-in-law. Visitors and well-wishers streamed through the doors of Government House, and the piles of beribboned, multi-colored gifts and parcels grew into a small mountain. Summer opened some, showed no interest in others, and even when she was strong enough to do so, she rarely left her room to greet guests. Her only constant visitor was Michael, who was intrigued by the tiny hands and tiny feet and tiny toothless smiles of his new niece.