"Indeed they do, to hold them for ransom. We have had no demands."
"They may not know who he is. They may have put him to work in the mines or... or on a cane plantation, or—"
Ross twisted his lips. "And if they have, the average life span of a white captive forced into slavery is about two months."
"He is a big, strong man."
"Who would eat more and cost more to keep alive than five scrawnier men."
She whirled around, muttering a distinctly unladylike curse, and paced to the window. "Why are you being so obstinate? If you believe so strongly that he is dead, why are you taking the Cormorant to look for him?"
"Because we still have a business to run. We still need to find new ports for trade. This company is hanging on by threads. East India Shipping is swallowing up all of the smaller export lines and establishing itself as a Goliath. We've lost a dozen trade deals with the cane growers because we cannot afford to pay the bribes or match the prices the Dutch offer. That was the part of the reason, four years ago, that your father undertook the voyage, but since then we've had to sell two more ships to pay off debts. We've had to borrow against everything we own, even the clothes on our backs."
Eva turned slowly from the window. "I had no idea it was that bad."
"You wouldn't have any reason to know because I've tried to protect you. I've tried to maintain everything the way your father would have wanted." He came around the desk and stood alongside her at the window, and when he spoke again his words were softer, his hands gentle where they touched her shoulders. "I am not wishing his death, Eva. Believe me. William Chandler was my best friend as well as my business partner. He was like a father to me and if there is any chance he is still alive, do you not think I will search as if my own life depended on it?"
"It may be his life that depends on it," she said stubbornly.
"Indeed it may. And the last thing I need is an entourage of lady’s maids squealing over snakes and spiders or fussing over which gown is best to wear in the jungle.”
“I don’t need an entourage.”
“Eva…no."
Eva sighed. He was right. Of course he was right but at the same time, she could not shake the feeling that her father was in trouble, and if no one came to his rescue, then he truly would die.
"Eva…?" Ross gently tucked a finger under her chin to tip it up to his. "We need to get on with our lives. William would not have wanted either of us to squander our happiness over one of his adventures gone wrong. You have postponed the wedding twice and so far I have been a patient groom."
She shifted uncomfortably. "Yes. I know. And I don’t mean to be so..."
"Obstinate?"
She made a little sound that he took as assent and bent his mouth to hers. The kiss, like the man, was polite and without embellishment, and she found herself resenting the two full seconds he thought suitable for such a display of unbridled passion.
He was younger than her father by a decade, tall with a pleasant enough countenance most women found appealing. Eva thought his eyes were slightly too close together over a long, thin nose that was usually tilted upward, as if the air was better near the ceiling.
With William gone it had seemed only natural for Lawrence to assume the responsibilities of looking after Evangeline as well as the business, but she knew full well there was another reason why he wanted the wedding to take place sooner rather than later: the twenty thousand pounds her mother had left in trust for her dowry.
She had been sixteen when he had proposed—two short months after the Gull had returned to Portsmouth without her father on board. She had accepted more out of a sense of duty than anything resembling love, a sentiment she suspected he wholly shared. He had wanted to marry right away, but she had insisted on waiting until her father returned from the Indies, a decision he had reluctantly accepted, but as the months passed and the debts grew, his belligerence was becoming uncomfortable. With her nineteenth birthday looming, she did not know how much longer his patience would last, and for that reason alone, she was almost happy he was adamant about undertaking this voyage to the Indies without her.
She smoothed her hands across the front of his doublet and stepped back a pace easing the crush on her skirts. "Might I expect you for supper tonight?"
"No, not tonight I am afraid, but I will try to interrupt your evening later, if only to say goodnight and pick up the letters. The Cormorant sails in a fortnight and as you can see my desk is buried under a mountain of paper. Someone... me... must wade through it and find the bottom or it will not matter if we find the lost city of gold, there will be no more Chandler-Ross Shipping. Which is another reason I need you here to oversee the daily affairs. We have a ship due in any day now from Italy and hopefully her cargo bays will be full of Florentine glass. I have given instructions to Mr. Bernard—who is infinitely capable of running the business in my absence—that he is to report to you as well as to the army of solicitors we have staving off the hungry hoards."
Eva approved the choice. Reginald Bernard had been with the company for two decades. "I assume you will be taking that horrid man, Augustus George, with you?"
Ross nodded. "The fact he stands seven feet tall, looks like a slab of solid granite, and sounds like a gorilla, will work in good stead if I have to deal with island natives."
Eva could not argue the fact. Augustus George was a brute, with a chest the size of a mature oak and a face most mothers would describe to frighten their children into obeying. He had started working at the shipping offices shortly after her father had departed for the Indies, and poor Master Bernard lost a pound of sweat whenever the big man was around.
Lawrence cupped her elbow in his hand and steered Eva toward the door. "About your father's letters... I was thinking I might make copies before I leave. They may contain some clue as to where we should try to pick up his trail."
"I have read them a thousand times and found nothing new."
"Yes, I know." He kissed the top of her head. "But fresh eyes..."
He left the sentence unfinished as they passed through the outer office of the shipping company. The ever-efficient Reginald Bernard smiled and bowed toward Eva, then with as much discretion as possible, waved a small slip of paper at Lawrence.
"Go ahead," Eva said, smiling. "The carriage is just outside, I can see myself away."
"If you're sure."
"As sure as you are that I cannot come to the Indies with you."
She turned with a swirl of her long skirts and stepped out onto the street. It was just past three and the sky was overcast. Horses were clopping past, kicking up mud from the morning deluge; pedestrians were hurrying about their business before the rains came again. Some children ran past chasing a barking dog down the street.
The carriage was waiting, the driver standing in attendance. Everything seemed drab and gray under a sky threatening rain. The only splash of color came from a woman with violently red hair who brushed past her and entered the shipping office.
They exchanged polite apologies by rote, but Eva's thoughts were still on her father.
William Chandler was not dead. She did not know how she was so certain of that fact, she just knew he was not dead.
Thinking of him, she glanced at the confectionary shop across the street and a memory was jostled loose. When she was little, as a treat, her father would bring home candied figs from the shop. They were boiled in honey and rolled in cane sugar that would crunch with every delicious bite.
She signaled her coachman to bide a moment and walked to the shop. A bell tinkled when she opened the door and a large, rosy-cheeked woman came waddling out of a back room carrying a tray of freshly baked pies.
"What can I get for ye luvie? Some nice pasties or pies? A candy stick per'aps?"
Eva described the figs and the woman nodded. "Aye. I 'ave some in the back. It’ll only take a mo' to wrap them for ye. Praise be, dearie, but ye look just like yer father."
Eva was pleasantly startl
ed. "I do?"
"Well, not harf so burly an' ye’ve no hairs on yer chin but aye, William Chandler's eyes be that same shade o' green. N’owt likely there’d be two pair like ‘em in all o' Londontown. A true shame he 'ad to lose one o' them like that, but aye. Dance wiv' the Devil an' ye can expect to pay a high price to get out o' hell."
Eva's smile faltered. "Excuse me? Lost an eye?"
"Aye. So my Billy tells me. Oy, but then again—" she looked flustered for a moment and clapped a hand to one pendulous breast, releasing a small puff of flour dust— "he mout've got it wrong. He can't read nor write so whoever wrote the words for him mout've got it wrong too."
"How would your son even know?"
"Why he runned away to sea wiv' yer da nigh on... mmmmm... four year ago? Admired the cap'n all his life, he did. He were always sayin': ‘Mam, when I grow, I want to be just like Cap’n Chandler’. Shouldn't've come as no surprise he snuck out that mornin' an’ signed himself onto the Gull. Near drove me mad wiv' worry till he sent a post home tellin' me where he’d got off to. Mind, 'is letters are full o' shite an’ blather an’ need cipherin'... an’ they come months after whatever adventure he's tellin', but at least he still has enough fear o' his mam to let her know he's alive."
Eva was afraid to move, afraid to breathe. "The last letter you had from him... was how long ago?"
The baker pursed her lips and stared at some distant spot on the wall. "Ooooh, nigh on three, four month now. But it were wrote way back at Christmastide. He were on some island called Zoomer."
"Zoomer?"
"Aye. Said they were layin' in supplies, him an’ yer da. That’s when yer da lost 'is eye, poor soul. My Billy said he looks like a real pirate now, wiv' a proper patch an' all."
Eva moistened her lips. Her blood was suddenly racing with excitement and her heart was beating so loudly in her ears she was certain the baker could hear it. "Do you still have the letter by any chance?"
"Hmm. Aye, an’ I do. Are ye all right luvie? Ye look like ye're about to split at the seams.”
"Please. May I see it? May I see the letter?"
"Oy, I don't know now. I'd 'ave to go up the stairs to fetch it. An’ the shop’s busy."
She waved a pudgy hand to indicate the one sticky-faced boy pressing his nose up against a jar of sugar teats. Eva fumbled a coin out of her purse, then another, and another. With each addition the woman’s eyes widened further out of the creases.
"Please," Eva said. "It’s extremely important. Will you fetch the letter please?"
"Aye, luvie, aye." The baker wiped her hands on the front of her apron, snatched up the coins, and hastened to the stairs leading to the upper floor. She moved with deceptive swiftness for her bulk and was back in the main room of the shop before Eva had paced the length twice.
"He talks 'bout turtles big as a boat, an’ sea creatures what swim alongside ships an’ chatter like women." She handed the letter across the wooden counter. "Talks 'bout them Spanish too, 'bout 'ow he an’ yer da were near caught once or twice near one o' their wells. Lord love a duck, I thought, if them Papists don't think they even own the water! It be all there." She huffed and pointed. "In the letter."
Eva took the precious sheets of paper and stared at them for a long moment. The ink was smudged, the pages badly crumpled and stained, and she could only imagine the long journey and the many hands that had touched them in transit. There were three sheets of tightly slanted script, with most of the words copied out how they sounded rather than how they were spelled. It would take longer than several minutes for Eva to decipher the pattern of speech, but she needed to look no further than the date scrawled at the top of the page to set her heart pounding in her chest. It was dated November of the previous year, proof her father was alive as recently as six months ago.
Lawrence would have to believe her now!
She crushed the letter to her chest and turned huge watery eyes to the owner of the sweet shop. "One more favor, please, I beg of you. May I take this letter to show to someone? I promise I shall return it."
"Oy, I don't know 'bout that, luvie," the woman said, shaking her head.
Eva found two more coins in her purse and held them out. As soon as the silver winked, it vanished into the shopkeeper’s hands. "Keep it long as ye like, there’s a good girl."
Eva released a puff of breath and ran out of the shop. She hurried back to the shipping office and made straight for Ross’s door, ignoring Reginald Bernard who jumped up and tried to block her path.
"Master Ross is with a customer."
"This is important. He will not mind the interruption, I assure you."
"Oh, but—"
She brushed past him and opened the door to Lawrence Ross’s office, her face glowing, her smile wide.
He was there, seated at his desk, the chair turned to one side and his head leaning against the leather backrest. At first she thought he was asleep, catching a midday nap. But then she caught a glimpse of fiery red hair bobbing up and down in his lap. It was the woman who had bumped her on the street. She was on her knees, wedged between Lawrence's thighs and what she was doing with her mouth was making him grunt like a rutting boar.
"Lawrence?"
His eyes flew open at her shocked gasp and he stared at the doorway. The head in his lap stopped bobbing and the woman looked over, her mouth still formed in a circle, her chin smeared with spittle. Lawrence’s breeches were open, his flesh stood at attention, thick and hard and smeared with the same scarlet lip rouge the woman was wearing.
Eva staggered back a step. She averted her eyes but found nothing to look at that would make sense out of the scene before her. Retreating hastily, she stumbled out to the street. She heard her name being called as she climbed into the carriage but the driver responded more to her angrily hissed "Drive!" than to the commotion spilling out of the shipping office, and within minutes they were galloping well away into the tangle of coaches and horses.
~~
Eva groaned and rolled onto her side. Her head ached and her fingers came away wet with blood when she gently probed her temple. She felt the deck shift beneath her as the Eliza Jane dipped into the trough of another wave and she looked slowly around hoping against hope it had all been part of the same nightmare.
But no. The bodies were there, laying where they had fallen. Twilight had descended in shades of purple and blue, the air had become heavy with moisture. She could just make out the shape of the single canvas sheet glowing blue-white against the night sky as the last hint of light touched it.
She drew the edges of the woollen cloak tightly around her shoulders. Thankfully there were no bodies staring sightlessly at her on the forecastle deck. She could not bear the thought of returning to her coffin-like cabin, and so she crawled into the tiny space beneath the thick arm of the bowsprit. She hugged her knees to her chest and bowed her head, resting it on her arms, helpless to know what to do next.
CHAPTER THREE
Gabriel Dante awoke with a huge yawn which he immediately regretted. After four days, neither his face nor his bruised and battered body was healing with its usual swiftness. Groaning at the persistent aches, he swung his long legs over the side of the bed and sat swaying on the edge for as long as it took him to control the wave of pain from his abraded back, and to glare around his ornate surroundings. He was not yet accustomed to the softness of the mattress or the whorehouse ambience of the crimson draperies and velvet chairs and made a mental note to have Eduardo start stripping away the gewgaws.
He yawned again, with more caution this time, then staggered and scratched his way to the narrow door that led out to the stern balcony. He opened his breeches and sent a long yellow stream out through the rails, noting as he did so the pair of dolphins streaking alongside the wake of the ship. When he was finished and tucked away again, he stretched to test his bruised ribs, his arms, his legs, bending from the waist and rolling his head side to side. His finely shaped and astonishingly unbroken nose twitched at the smell
coming off his own flesh.
Before returning to the Iron Rose, Nog Kelly had concocted a noxious blend of camphor oil, boar lard, and island herbs, giving Eduardo orders to apply to Gabriel's back and shoulders every night, which made him smell like a lamp and frighten bugs away. Most of the cuts and lash-marks had sealed and begun to scab over, and the worst of the bruises had mellowed from black to a yellowish blue. His eye had shrunk from the size of a small coconut to a ripe plum and if he tried very hard, he could just manage a squint through the purple lids, enough to reassure himself that his vision was intact.
He stood at the rail, his hands resting on the dark oak. Watching the wake peel out behind a ship never ceased to fascinate him. Dependant upon the light and angle of the sun, the peaks of the waves could be blue or green, clouded or translucent. The caps could be light foam or hard white curls, and at dusk, ripples of phosphorescence often made the water appear to glow, an effect caused by a particular kind of fish that swam near the surface. At this time of day, with the sun barely risen above the line of the horizon, the wash was clear enough to see the schools of silvery fish chasing after the dolphins.
His practised eye could tell by the height and width of the curl how fast the galleon was moving. Despite crews working day and night to trim some of her excess bulk topside, the newly christened Endurance still plowed through the water like a wallowing hog. He estimated at this rate it might well take another week to reach Pigeon Cay, a prospect that had him grinding his teeth yet again over the loss of his swift, agile Valour. The galleon's top speed under full sail was eight knots; the Valour had cruised at fourteen.
Gabriel returned to the cabin, where he washed and dressed, then checked the day’s charts, making a rough estimate of their position and how far they had sailed through the night. Stubs had confirmed they were well clear of the Straits and had turned east into the Providence Channel. Charting a course directly south would have pared days off the journey, but with the Spanish fleet scattered and looking for revenge, the Dante ships were forced to take the safer route, circling around Eluthera and Cat Island.
Pirate Wolf Trilogy Page 71
