Pirates of Britannia Box Set

by Devlin, Barbara

  Every head turned to the two British warships out in the bay, their rails lined with sailors watching the debacle.

  “That did the trick,” Melchor said, offering Santiago his hand as people nodded their understanding and orderly calm was restored. “I thank you.”

  The handshake was firm and genuine, but it would be foolish to hope Melchor would approve of his suit for Valentina’s hand. There were many wealthy Spanish landowners in Cuba. “De nada,” he replied. “You should get some sleep. We’ll keep watch from the Santa María.”

  Melchor hesitated then nodded his agreement. “You’re right. It’s too late to talk with Valentina. She’ll be asleep. Poor girl is exhausted.”

  Santiago felt a surge of pride. “She’s courageous.”

  “Sí. Tomorrow’s discussion will go better if we’ve slept on it.”

  As he watched Melchor retreat to the stockade, Santiago didn’t know what to make of the governor’s words.

  Treachery

  The click of the door latch penetrated Valentina’s confused dream. She decided reluctantly to ask her father if they could put off their talk until the morrow.

  He held a sweet-smelling cloth to her face.

  She inhaled deeply, falling, falling…

  Perhaps he didn’t realize the cloth made it hard to breathe. The smell, sickly now, was overwhelming, reminding her of something Alessandro had said about dangerous plants…Her father wouldn’t…

  She dragged her eyes open.

  Montserrat’s sneering face hovered over her. The suffocating cloth muffled her scream.

  “You don’t give me a second look,” he hissed, “but you’ll marry a pirate. I think not.”

  Desperate now, she sank her teeth into the cloth, hoping to bite his hand. She gagged on the bitter taste. He swore in Catalan, then slapped her across the face and covered her mouth and nose again.

  Her mind raced, searching for a means of escape, but he was too strong. He intended to murder her and there was nothing she could do to stop him.

  She clawed at his face, until the darkness claimed her and she surrendered to oblivion.

  Unable to sleep, Santiago left his cabin and wandered up on deck where he encountered Christian scanning the darkened shore. “You’re restless too?” he asked.

  “Something’s going on in the stockade,” the first mate replied. “What’s more, I could have sworn the British lowered a launch.”

  Santiago strode to the other side of the Santa María. “All quiet on the Royal Navy ships. Maybe it was something else you heard.”

  “Too dark to see with the moon hidden by the clouds, but there’s movement outside the stockade.”

  Santiago shrugged. “Hundreds of people are sleeping on the hard ground. There’s bound to be…”

  He paused when a figure loomed out of the onshore darkness.

  “Señores.”

  “Mapache,” Santiago growled, recognizing the voice immediately.

  Christian chuckled. “Come to think of it, he does resemble a raccoon.”

  “Señores, come quickly,” Montserrat urged hoarsely. “The governor and his daughter…peligro.”

  Cursing that he hadn’t insisted on Valentina and her father coming aboard the Santa María, Santiago headed for the ladder down to the skiff they’d left in the water. “Stay here,” he told his first mate. “If the British are snooping about, you’ll be safer on board.”

  Christian shook his head, patting the pistol tucked in his waistband. “I’ll be fine. Let’s see what the danger is.”

  Montserrat helped them bring the skiff up the beach. “This way. I heard a voice calling for help. I’m sure it was Lady Valentina.”

  Santiago drew his dagger and Christian readied his pistol as the vice-governor led them along the shoreline. It was slow going in the inky blackness. He began to wonder why Mapache hadn’t brought a torch. Gooseflesh marched across his nape.

  Suddenly, he made out the shape of a launch bobbing in the water. As they drew closer he saw the boat was crammed full of blacks, men and women, all gagged and chained together.

  His gut clenched when he saw there was one white woman wedged among them, sagging against her neighbor like a lifeless rag doll.

  Valentina!

  Rage sent him running towards the craft.

  “Wait,” Christian cautioned. “It’s a trap.”

  He would have heeded the warning had a sharp blow to the back of his head not sent him staggering headlong into the shallows.

  Valentina groaned as she awoke. An ache throbbed in her temples, her throat was bone dry and the sour taste in her mouth was like nothing she’d tasted before. On top of that, the bed in which she lay seemed to be pitching and rolling. Her stomach rebelled. If the movement didn’t stop soon she was going to be…

  “She’s about to retch,” a man’s voice declared in English.

  She rolled on to her side and vomited into a bowl someone had thankfully provided.

  When the heaving stopped, she looked up into the eyes of a young lad she’d never seen before.

  “Take it away, Collins,” the same male voice commanded. Her tutor had given her lessons in the language, but she understood more than she could speak. However, it was beyond her comprehension in her current state to grasp why she was apparently on board a ship with an Englishman.

  She accepted the help of a strong hand to sit up, realizing she was in a well-furnished cabin.

  “Feeling better?”

  She looked up at a tall man wearing a powdered wig, and the uniform of a Royal Navy captain. “Where am I?” she asked in Spanish.

  “Aboard the HMS Lively,” he replied in English, handing her a tumbler of water. “Captain Lewis Maitland at your service.”

  She sipped carefully, anxious not to bring on more retching. “What am I doing here?”

  He shrugged, raising both palms in a gesture of mild annoyance. “My Spanish isn’t good enough to explain that to you, my dear,” he said. “I leave it to your friend.”

  For the first time she became aware of another man, slouched in a chair in a shadowed corner. She gripped the edge of the mattress. “Montserrat.”

  The Raccoon got to his feet, looking none too pleased. “I brought you here.”

  The terrible memory assailed her. She had been falling into a bottomless abyss, unable to do anything to save herself. It appeared she hadn’t died, unless this was purgatory. She looked from one man to the other. The animosity between them was almost palpable. “I don’t understand.”

  But she did know the cause of the livid scratches on the Raccoon’s face, and it gave her a certain satisfaction. Her face stung where he’d struck her.

  The young lad slipped quietly into the cabin. Maitland took off his jacket and handed it to the boy. “I have been explaining to Señor Montserrat that our agreement was to return slaves to their rightful masters, but British colonists do not enslave genteel white women.”

  She struggled to understand the foreign words that had clearly angered Montserrat. “Slaves?”

  “I did not bring Señorita Melchor aboard with the intention of selling her into slavery,” her abductor explained in Spanish.

  The Englishman raised an eyebrow. “I see. Amante, then? Are you in agreement with this plan?” he asked her.

  Pride overcame fear. She struggled to climb over the bed’s wooden railing and came to her feet. “I am Valentina Melchor de Alcobendas y Guadarrama,” she hissed in Spanish. “I am the daughter of the Governor of La Florida. I demand to be returned to my father. This man has a wife, and I would rather die than become his amante.”

  Especially when my heart belongs to Santiago.

  Maitland paced, hands behind his back. “Unfortunately, your father is no longer the governor, and we are bound for our home port of Kingston in Jamaica, so turning back to Florida is out of the question.”

  “And my wife is in Cuba,” Montserrat said. “A place I never intend to go.”

  “Why not?” she a
sked, anger constricting her throat.

  The captain chuckled. “Because the Spanish authorities will hang him when they discover your Catalonian friend has been spying for the British government.”

  Terrifying Disadvantage

  “Is he dead?”

  “Nay, still breathing. Wake up, laddie.”

  “Velly bad, velly bad.”

  Santiago thought he recognized the voices, but his throbbing head felt like it had been split open. He was strangely chilled, as if he was lying in a pool of water. He risked opening one eye, startled to see Robertson’s nose inches from his own.

  “Aye, he’s comin’ round. Give him room.”

  Strong hands helped him sit up and he discovered he was in fact sitting on the muddy shore. He blinked rapidly to clear the fog. The first thing he saw was the battered top hat in Xiang’s grip. Fury intensified his headache as the events of the previous night came flooding back.

  “Velly bad,” Xiang repeated. “They took Masta Williams.”

  Santiago struggled to his feet in time to see Melchor striding towards him.

  “Good, you’ve regained your wits,” the governor said gruffly. “We need your ship. They’ve taken Valentina.”

  “And my first mate,” Santiago replied through gritted teeth. “Slavers.”

  But why take Valentina?

  The truth dawned as he recalled who had led them into the trap. His gut roiled. “Montserrat?”

  Melchor nodded. “I’ve had my suspicions for a while about his designs on my daughter, and about his loyalty. Can a Spaniard ever really trust a Catalán? One of the British ships slipped away in the night, and I’ll wager he’s gone with them. We must go in pursuit.”

  “But how do we know where they’ve gone?”

  “That’s easy,” Izar the Navigator said. “HMS Lively is based in Jamaica.”

  Santiago’s heart bled for his beloved Valentina and his loyal friend. “That makes sense,” he rasped.

  Xiang fussed over him all the way to the skiff. He noticed most of the Cuban vessels had already departed, which meant at least some of the refugees were on their way to freedom. He would never forget the despair in the eyes of the desperate blacks chained and gagged in the launch. And now Christian was among them.

  His anger knew no bounds when he remembered seeing Valentina in the launch, oblivious to what was transpiring. But she would probably have awakened by now. He could well imagine her indignation. “Montserrat might come to rue the day he tangled with your daughter,” he told Melchor.

  “He will when I get my hands on him.”

  Santiago shook his head. “No, Your Excellency, I claim the right to deal with Señor Mapache.”

  Melchor smiled grimly. “That’s what Valentina calls him.”

  “I didn’t know that,” he confessed, “though I’ll wager she’s using a few more colorful names now.”

  “Perro traicianero,” Valentina shrieked. “Treacherous dog,” she repeated in English so Maitland couldn’t fail to understand the depths of her contempt. Abducting her was one thing, betraying his country…

  But then he was from Cataluña.

  “Ratón,” she growled, glowering at the wretch cowering behind Maitland as she advanced on him.

  “I’m beginning to understand the scratches,” the Englishman jested.

  “Traitor,” she hissed.

  Maitland’s smile disappeared as he held up a hand. “Amusing as this is, Miss Melchor, I’ll ask you to refrain from attacking Montserrat. He is, unfortunately, considered valuable by my government.”

  “My father will kill him,” she spat.

  And Santiago will cut out your heart.

  Montserrat seemed to find his courage after hearing the Englishman’s words. “You’ll never see your father again, and as for that pirate…”

  Fortunately for the Raccoon, Maitland strong-armed him out of the cabin before she had a chance to scratch out his sunken eyes.

  “Do you need anything, miss?” Collins asked.

  She suspected the lad had understood very little of what had been said, and his genuine wide-eyed concern calmed her rage. “No, gracias.”

  Left alone, she strode over to the mullioned window, looked out at the endless sea, and dissolved into tears.

  A bath and clean clothing improved Santiago’s humor, though his head still throbbed when he emerged onto the deck of the Santa María.

  “The sea air will help,” Izar declared, as if sensing his captain’s malady.

  Santiago inhaled, admitting inwardly that the warm sea breeze on his face and the smell of the sea did make him feel better. But he wished the Basque would refrain from blowing smoke from his pipe all over him. “You’ve set a course for Jamaica?”

  He had learned long ago never to question the competent navigator, but they were heading east, not south.

  “We’ll turn south when I’m confident we won’t run into the Royal Navy,” Izar explained, once again reading his thoughts. “We’ll thread the needle through the more isolated islands of the Bahamas, then hopefully catch up with the Lively in the Windward Passage between Cuba and Saint-Domingue. Her captain will be cautious plying those hostile waters, despite the British victory.”

  Santiago looked at the sails, thinking of the anguish his stalwart first mate and his lovely Valentina must be enduring. “It’s imperative we intercept before they reach Jamaica. We’d never be able to extricate them from that British stronghold.”

  Izar nodded. “If the wind holds, we’ll manage it. The Santa María is lighter than the Lively. Not as many guns.”

  Santiago clenched his jaw. From what he recalled of HMS Lively, she wasn’t a man-o-war, but still boasted at least twenty cannon, compared to their own half a dozen. Only creative tactics would allow them to overcome that terrifying disadvantage and board her in order to rescue Valentina and Christian.

  Nassau

  Valentina awoke in Captain Maitland’s bed. She had no memory of falling asleep and sat up abruptly when she realized the Englishman was seated at his desk. “You’re awake at last,” he tried in Spanish. “We’ll be docking soon.”

  She got out of the bunk with as much dignity as she could muster and faced him, holding onto the rail as the planked floor shifted. “You must put me ashore.”

  He shook his head. “You wouldn’t want me to do that,” he said in English. “Nassau isn’t a safe place for a young lady.”

  She’d heard many tales about the town, previously a haven to pirates for decades, though a British territory. “It is your duty as an officer to see me safely returned to my father,” she insisted.

  He stood and came so close she could smell the liquor on his breath. “No, my duty is to sail this ship to Jamaica, unload the slaves, and perhaps install you in a nice little cottage I keep there.”

  She tried to move away, her stomach in knots, but he trapped her against the bunk. “You’ll never have to see Señor Montserrat again. A Royal Navy captain is surely more suited to your social standing.”

  Panic surged. The nightmare had suddenly become more complicated, though rivalry between the two men might be to her advantage. It was a notion she’d have to ponder later, her thoughts wholly preoccupied with something he’d mentioned in passing. “You are carrying slaves?”

  She breathed again when he returned to his desk and dipped a quill in the ink pot. “I decided not to waste the time we were obliged to spend escorting the Cuban flotilla to Mosé. A number of plantation owners in the Bahamas and Jamaica will be only too glad to get their property back.”

  She was afraid she might be sick again. It seemed she wasn’t the only one who’d been abducted from the stockade. Her father had told her something of what runaway slaves in La Florida endured to escape slavery, yet this arrogant Englishman was speaking of them as if they were chattels. She thrust out her chin. “They are Spanish citizens.”

  He chuckled, penning something in a ledger. “You are naive, my dear, but it’s an attractive quality. Y
ou and I will enjoy getting to know one another.”

  Her retort was pre-empted by a tap at the door. “Comin’ into port, Captain, sir,” Collins declared.

  Maitland stood, put on his tricorn, straightened the jacket of his blue uniform and proffered his arm. “A spot of fresh air on deck? Take in the sights and sounds of Nassau, such as they are?”

  She hesitated only a moment. He simply wanted to show off his command over his men but, if she learned more about the ship, there might be a chance of escape later. She accepted his arm, though they had to walk single file up the narrow companionway to the deck. He put a hand on her hip and she was reminded of Ivanna Luna boarding the French warship. She’d never liked the woman, but felt a twinge of pity for a wife who was waiting for her husband in Cuba, unaware of his infidelity. It was difficult to contemplate she hadn’t known of his treasonous activities against Spain.

  All that seemed a lifetime ago as she watched Nassau come into view.

  Maitland had brought her up on the fore-deck, but she deliberately turned her back, determined not to give him the satisfaction of her attention. The town was more interesting anyway. He had mentioned the sights and sounds, but said nothing of the overwhelming reek of fish guts, smoke, and other unidentifiable odors. The bustling port teemed with bare-chested, sweat-glistened men, whites shouting orders, blacks and mulattos doing the heavy work of loading and unloading.

  A group of three stern-faced white men watched the ship dock. They weren’t dressed as gentlemen, but their white shirts with sleeves rolled up to the elbows suggested they might be overseers for local plantations. All three carried a bullwhip.

  She suddenly felt very cold, despite the humid heat.

  The gangplank was lowered and they came aboard.