A Pirate's Wife for Me (23 page)

Cate wondered what she had got herself into. The town had looked bad from a distance, but this was more than poverty. This was hopelessness, abandonment, despair. The fishermen's' homes clustered around the harbor. As the streets wandered up the hills, the houses became larger, wealthier, and everywhere she could see signs of a former prosperity. Now doors hung crooked on hinges, the thatch roofs had holes and refuse littered the streets. The homes above looked abandoned, with shuttered windows and peeling paint.

Taran's mouth was one thin, angry line. "Is it as bad as it smells?"

"Aye." No one was in sight. She supposed that was as it should be, with the men out fishing and the women inside working, but … "Where are the children?"

Taran held his head at an angle as if listening. "I don't know."

That was the problem, really. She could hear the lapping of the waves on the round, gray rocks, the calling of the seabirds, the faint whistling of the wind through the rocks. But no children ran and played. No older sister stood with a baby on her hip. No young lad carried a bucket of water for his mother. The place was deserted.

The captain stepped up beside them. Hands on hips, he looked around. "Frightening, isn't it?"

"Where is everybody?" Taran asked.

"Hiding in their huts. Gone, if they could afford it. Dead, if they're lucky."

"I understand why they'd leave. I understand they would die. But why are they hiding?"

"They never know who'll come in with us. Sir Maddox Davies keeps mercenaries up there" — Captain Dunbar gestured — "in the old fortress."

The gray stone fortress was more stern than Taran had described. It frowned down on the town, a medieval declaration of hostility to the pirates and conquerors who would seek to acquire the Cenorinian islands. Cate could see battlements, and cannons pointed out to sea, and two men looking down on the ship, the sailors, and them.

"Are the mercenaries a problem to the townspeople?" Taran asked.

"Only if they want something the townspeople have. And the women make it their business to never walk alone," Captain Dunbar answered. Then, "Hey!" He raised his voice in a shout and hurried toward two of the sailors. "Be careful with that rug or Sir Davies will slice out my liver!"

"Sir Davies is in for a big surprise," Taran muttered.

A ragged woman peeked out the door of the public house and, seeing them alone, trudged toward them. "We have a visitor," Cate told Taran.

"What does she look like?"

Taran had come from here. He probably knew this woman. Hopefully she would not recognize him.

"I would guess our visitor is my age, but she's …" The gown had gone beyond dirty to grimy, and the hem reached the woman's knees. She wore rags around her ankles as if to disguise her immodesty, but her feet were bare. She had that shamed look about her, as if one day in the past she had worn clean clothes and leather shoes. "She's tired," Cate said softly.

The woman curtsied. "Are you going to Giraud?" Her gaze flicked toward their faces, then back to her feet. "Because I'm supposed to take a guest there." Her English was accented, but Cate perfectly comprehended her.

"Thank you. We'd appreciate that. I'm Miss —"

"Mrs." Taran interrupted, then groped for Cate's hand and squeezed it warningly. "Mrs. Tamson. I'm Mr. Tamson. Mrs. Tamson is the new housekeeper at Giraud."

It wasn't, Cate realized, that the woman didn't want to look at both of them. Taran intimidated her. She repeatedly peeked at him, then glanced away, as if the sight of his scarred and blinded face both fascinated and frightened her. "I'm Zelle. But I don't know … there was no mention of a husband with the housekeeper."

"He just returned from war," Cate said.

Zelle glanced at him uncomfortably. "I'm not supposed to take without permission."

Taran pitched his voice to a comforting timber. "We'll speak to Sir Davies. I'm sure he'll allow a poor, blind soldier wounded in the battlefield for England to help around his palace."

"Ye don't know him," Zelle muttered, then shrugged. "I'll get the cart."

When she left, Taran turned to Cate and in a low voice, warned, "You must remember to call yourself 'Mrs.' It won't do to betray yourself with such a simple mistake."

"I didn't forget. Claiming I was your wife stuck in my throat."

He squeezed her hand again. "Shrew." But for now he seemed unconcerned.

"Do you know her?" Cate asked.

"Zelle? Aye, and she knows me well. Did she act as if she recognized me?"

"She could scarcely look at you."

He smiled, that coldly sardonic smile. "A good disguise, then."

His cynicism sent an uncomfortable prickle up her spine, a sense that he read other people better without his sight than she did with hers.

"There's the cart," she told him. "The sailors are pulling it out of the warehouse, and Zelle is leading the horse. Obviously both belong to Sir Davies. The cart is a handsome, open, two-wheeled vehicle, and the horse is a gelding, strong and tall. Zelle must regularly exercise him, for he's steady as she harnesses him to the cart. They're riding to the dock. Two of the sailors strapped my trunk up on the back and flung your bag atop. All right, Taran, here we go."

When Zelle pulled up, Cate assisted Taran up the step and into the narrow cart, then seated him facing the front while she took the backward facing seat. In a normal situation, the female always rode facing forward, but there was nothing normal about her situation. She had to indulge a perfectly healthy man because everyone thought him an injured, blinded veteran of Queen Victoria's wars. The deceit made her want to slap him; she could imagine what the sailors would say about her then.

They waved as they drove off, Cate smiling with as much gracious courtesy as she could muster. On the road through the town, no one stirred in the huts or loitered in the shade; the air of desolation was so marked Cate wanted to take Zelle by the shoulders and explain how to fix matters … Surely there was a way to fix matters.

But Cate wouldn't be here to help. She would be off on to another adventure, and Cenorina would have to recover on its own.

The road climbed past a large church, a cathedral, where boards cover the windows and the doors. They passed closed store fronts, then more and more wealthy homes, then turned into the pristine forest. The trees enfolded them in their branches, rich with blue-green needles. The road twisted, allowing Cate glimpses of the bright blue sea sparkling through the pines on one side, of streams sliding down the mountainside on the other. The cart rattled through the streams, the wheels flinging up water in a slow splashing.

Taran tapped Cate's knee and indicated Zelle's hunched back.

Cate turned to face front. "Zelle, do you make this drive often?"

"Often enough." The woman spoke with forbidding reticence.

But Cate would not be forbidden. In a firm tone, she asked, "How many servants will I command?"

"You've got sixty-two maids, footmen and kitchen folk, the crazy old butler — he drinks, ma'am, but there's no harm in him — and Signor Marino, the cook."

"Sixty-two!" Good heavens, Cate had known this would be a large responsibility, but she'd thought to discharge her duties efficiently and spend her time in searching for the book.

"Used to be twice that in the days when His Majesty was alive." Zelle said nothing for so long, Cate took a breath to ask another question. Then Zelle said, "No one wants to work at Giraud anymore. Got to, of course, there's no other way to feed the mouths at home. You'll be sorry there's not more servants, ma'am."

The scent of loam and road dust mixed with the spicy scent of pine, and Cate caught sight of a red deer, staring at them from a brushy bower. Forgetting that Taran couldn't see, she exclaimed, "Oh, look!" and pointed.

"What is it?" Taran asked.

"A doe, with its beautiful brown eyes big and fascinated by us."

"Zelle, do the villagers hunt the deer in time of need?" Taran asked.

Zelle swung her head back and forth in denial. "The deer are fer the noble folk. We're not to touch them. 'Tis
Her Majesty's
pronouncement."

"So you have a queen?" Cate asked.

"Aye, ma'am. We see her occasionally, riding by in her grand carriage, bedecked in jewels and waving at us. She's not like the king. When he was alive, she pretended to care, but not now, not about us common folk."

Taran's fingers crushed Cate's. "Why do you think that?"

With a wealth of bitterness, Zelle said, "She's not starving, that's fer sure."

"Where does she live?" Taran asked.

"In the old fortress, at the top of the tower where she can see the destruction she has wrought and gloat."

"In the fortress?" That Cate did not understand. "Captain Dunbar said the mercenaries live in the fortress."

"She has to have someone close to protect her. Her … and her friend, Sir Maddox Davies." Zelle's resentment was almost a living thing. "They work hand in glove to tax us to death."

"Is there no one who can help?" Cate asked.

"Only a few of the old aristocracy are left. They hide in their valleys, conceal their wealth, keep their firearms close. If a Cenorinian is lucky enough to be one of their servants, they are fed and cared for." Zelle laughed without amusement. "Then there is the prince. Some say he's is dead, taken by the pirates. Most say he's alive somewhere, rich, fat and happy. He cares nothing for us."

A wicked suspicion coiled like a bit of dark smoke through Cate's mind. Sibeol had been so regal… "What is her majesty's name?"

"Queen Rayne Chantal. She's French." Zelle made her loathing clear.

Still Cate wasn't satisfied. "Her Majesty is here? On this island?"

"Aye, ma'am."

"Now?"

"Aye, ma'am. I saw her yesterday with me own eyes, her head wrapped in a rich silk scarf, riding out in her fancy carriage."

Suspicion was vanquished, and Cate grinned at the silliness of her thought. Yes, Sibeol was imperious, but at the same time she had brushed Cate's hair and counseled her on the proper etiquette when dealing with a former lover. No princess would be so common.

And no husband of Cate's could ever be a prince.

She eyed Taran coldly.

Certainly not this one.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Taran seemed unaware of her thoughts,
intent on discovering all he could from Zelle. "My wife was told Sir Davies is away from home."

"Aye, on one of his … missions, he calls 'em, and he'll return all smiling and happy, with coins jingling in his pocket that we'll never see." Zelle shifted, a sudden restive movement. "Ignore me. And don't stick your nose in where it don't belong. You'll get it cut off."

Cate chuckled. "Not literally, I don't suppose." An uncomfortable silence followed, and she realized — that was exactly what Zelle meant.

"What happened to the last housekeeper?" Taran asked.

"Gone." Like Zelle's burst of eloquence.

"Did you drive her back to the ship to leave?" he insisted.

Zelle shook her head. "Stupid woman. Liked to snoop. Liked to gossip. Don't gossip, Mrs. Tamson. Not healthy."

Cate turned to Taran and squeezed his knee.

Did Zelle mean the housekeeper had been murdered?

He picked up her hand and entwined their fingers.

"I'm very discreet," Cate assured Zelle. "Is there a constable who could investigate her disappearance?"

"A week ago, a woman's body washed up on the far side of the island. Bones broken. Fell off the cliffs onto the rocks. Couldn't tell 'twas her fer sure." Zelle's voice was flat and cold. "But who else could it be?"

Cate was sickened. The woman had been murdered. What a place Cate had come to. How desperately they needed her!

"Where is our bedchamber?" Taran asked. "Is it surrounded by other servants?"

Cate looked at him in astonishment. What an odd question.

"Signor Marino has his quarters by the kitchen, and he keeps his sous-chefs and scullery maids close. He fears nothing, and protects his staff. Harkness the butler sleeps where he falls. But the maids come back to the village at night, and the lads who are footmen, too, if they can get away."

All the way to the village?
Cate looked back down the steep, twisting road. "They leave? They walk? Why?"

"The men who visit Sir Davies bring their filthy foreign liquor and get stinking drunk. They fight with wicked long knives and rape the lasses." For the first time, Zelle half turned to them. "'Tis a good thing you have your husband, ma'am, fer you're too pretty fer your own good."

"That she is, but I'll protect her," Taran agreed.

"You be careful, too, sir." The road climbed, the horse labored, and Zelle slapped his back with the reins. "They'd not hesitate to destroy a man who cannot see."

"Thank you for warning me. I will be careful and stay out of their way," he said. "Are there visitors there now?'