For the Love of a Pirate (11 page)

She was gone from sight by the time he reached the village. He rode down the long street, looking curiously to the left and right. He saw curtains twitch back from windows as he rode along. Finally, he came upon a modest inn, with the sign
THE GOOD CAPTAIN
blowing in the wind. He checked. The name was inoffensive. But the picture on the sign showed a black-visaged pirate, legs apart, a mug of foaming ale in his hand. Though crudely drawn, he looked suspiciously familiar.

A coincidence, Constantine thought as he slid down from his horse, and gave the reins to an eager lad waiting there. The resemblance was merely a chance one. He was bedeviled by the idea of pirates today. Many of them doubtless had dark flyaway brows. The detail was only to make the fellow look more sinister. After all, this coast was chockablock with villains.

He straightened his jacket, regretted the loss of his hat, smoothed his hair with one gloved hand, and then, carefully sidestepping manure in the road, pushed open the door to the inn.

He squinted because the place was so dim after the bright autumn daylight. As his eyes adjusted, he saw a veritable wall of eyes watching him. It looked like the half of the village that hadn't been peering out their windows were assembled here, gaping at him silently. There was a hedge of men, and some women, of all sizes and shapes, their only commonality their rustic clothing, and the way they were staring at him.

“God Almighty!” one masculine voice exclaimed. “Them at the house was right!”

“Aye,” another voice said in awe. “Good thing it's broad daylight, or I'd be thinking he come back by moonlight to join us for a pint!”

“The spit and image,” a woman's voice marveled.

“What sort of welcome is this?” Constantine heard Lisabeth ask scornfully.

“Aye!” came a roar from the back of the crowd. “Whatever he is, or whoever he be, he's welcome!”

“Good to have ye back, Captain!” another shouted, laughing.

“Three cheers for our beloved Cap'n Cunning, hisownself, whether he be ghost or not!” someone bellowed.

They cheered until Constantine's eyes rang. His head was spinning as it was.

“And three more for his grandson, brave Jack, and may his killer rot in hell,” another man offered, when the cheering was done.

And as Constantine's heart sank, the whole motley crowd kept cheering for his long-dead but obviously not forgotten ancestors.

“C
ome in, come in, sir,” the innkeeper cried, beckoning to Constantine.

The crowd drew back to make his way clear. The innkeeper plunked a mug of ale down on the tap in front of him, and then poured a generous shot of rum, and put it beside it.

“The good captain's favorite libation,” the innkeeper said. “Or so my dad told me his dad told him. So hoist your glass, my friend, and be you himself, or his son, or his great-grandson, drink a toast with us to our beloved captain, our benefactor and friend. To Captain Cunning!” he cried, turning and lifting his own mug in a salute to the wall behind the tap.

The crowd behind Constantine did the same. With dread, Constantine lifted his gaze to the wall. The portrait hung there in a prominent place of honor. Not the exact portrait, of course. This one was obviously a copy of the one he'd seen last night. It didn't have the same murky atmosphere; the colors were instead bright and cheerful. Obviously the painter who had done the sign outside the inn had done this copy. It was almost a caricature, done in bold primary colors. The captain on the shore looked younger, more devilish, and a sight more cheerful, but in the way a demon would look as he prodded a sinner into the fires of hell.

Constantine sighed. It felt as though he were looking into some sort of distorted mirror. Because the features were his own, even though he doubted he'd ever worn such an expression.

“To the captain,” he said hollowly, and tipped back the shot of rum. He never drank in the morning. This morning he needed it.

“To the captain!” the crowd echoed.

He felt a hand on his arm, and turned to see Lisabeth standing at his side. She had a smudge of foam from her mug of ale above her upper lip. She wiped her sleeve across it, and grinned at him. “May I tell them who you are?”

He shrugged, defeated for the moment. “I'd rather not, but doubtless they already know. I suppose everything that happens in your house is soon known everywhere here?”

“In about an hour,” she agreed. “Gentlemen, ladies,” she said to the crowd, “allow me to introduce my grandfather's guest, Lord Wylde!”

The room went wild with “huzzahs!” and yelps of joy.

Constantine felt dread. They obviously knew his name, which meant they must know who he was related to.

“Why dint you tell us you were here?” one old party shouted into Constantine's ear.

“Why, because I didn't know you were,” Constantine said.

“Then let me tell you about your dad,” the old party said. He paused, and then cocked his gray head to the side. “Here!” he shouted to the crowd. “Where's a toast to the lad's father? We should raise a cheer for that fine lad. He was a treasure, he was,” he told Constantine mistily.

That toast was raised and many more, until Constantine's head hurt. It wasn't the shouting so much as the stories he heard. His father had been a highwayman, successful, it seemed, until his last robbery. He was still held in great affection. He'd been charming and witty, a good fellow all round, as they were eager to tell him. As for his great-grandfather, he was considered something of a demigod. Constantine had seldom felt worse. The only way to keep this secret would be to burn the village to the ground. Doubtless, he thought moodily, he had some ancestor or other who used to do just that.

They cheered him, they toasted him, they began to tell stories he couldn't understand because they kept interrupting each other trying to correct the stories. They were stories of hard-won battles at sea and clever, successful land robberies. One thing came clear enough. They worshiped his old pirate great-grandfather, had adored his father, and were thrilled because Constantine looked so much like them.

“It's like havin' them back, all in one go,” an old woman vowed, a hand on her heart, the other holding tight to her mug of ale.

Constantine tried to smile. But he was at an impasse. If any of these people had relatives and friends in London, and mentioned his presence, it might slip out and become gossip in the places he would most wish it never be known. He stifled a groan as the thought occurred to him.

“You're not happy, are you?” Lisabeth whispered to him a half hour later.

“Only a bit overwhelmed,” he lied.

“Ladies and gents!” Lisabeth bawled, loud enough to make Constantine start, and the crowd become still. “His lordship's tickled to see you, but he's drowning in your praise. Throw him a lifeline! He never expected such an ado. I didn't warn him, see? Let me take him down to meet the vicar now. He'll be back tomorrow, or the next day. Give the poor fellow time to get used to us.”

There was a chorus of “ayes!” and enough backslapping to cause bruises as Lisabeth led an insincerely smiling Constantine out the door and into the sunlight again.

“They meant no harm,” she assured him, looking up at him worriedly. “They just meant to pay tribute. Come, I'll take you to meet the vicar; he's something of an historian. He'll be thrilled to meet you too, but not so noisy about it. No sense in us riding, he's just up the street. No sense in riding most places here,” she said as she strolled at his side. “Everything's all that close.”

“Why do they love my great-grandfather so much?” he asked in wonderment as they walked.

“Well, he was a generous fellow. He gave employment to the village, and money to those too weak or old to follow him.”

“Or too burdened with conscience?” he muttered.

“Yes, as a matter of fact,” she said. “If a man didn't approve of the captain's doings, though most did, most of the people here were fed up with Puritanism and stupid laws. They'd had a bellyful of them. Still, some people were religious enough to have problems with the captain's profession. If they did, why then he saw to it that they didn't starve either. Grandy said that was because he was smart enough to know that a village full of people who loved him would be the best place to hide his doings. But I think it was because he also had such a big heart.”

She stopped, and looked at him, studying his face, a slight frown marring her own as she did. “But though you're his image, you're really nothing like him, are you?”

He looked down at her. For a moment, he found he hated to disappoint her. She looked so appealing. Her eyes were glowing with sunshine, her lips were very near . . . and she looked so disenchanted with him. But he had to tell her the truth for her sake, and his own.

“No,” he admitted. “I'm not. I'm about as far from my great-grandfather and my father as a man can be. The thought of piracy horrifies me. The thought of being a thief appalls me, and however dashing they were, that is, in the end, what they were. Thieves. Whether you call yourself a brigand and take a man's money at sea with a cannon and a vicious crew at your side, or call yourself a highwayman and hold people at the point of your pistol to pick their pockets, it's plain theft. And it's just not right,” he added, somewhat weakly. Because what should have sounded noble came out sounding prim and self-righteous.

“I'm not prim or self-righteous,” he added quickly. “I just try to do the right thing, all the time. I certainly wouldn't rob, pillage, rape, or steal.”

She took a step back. Her eyes flared. “Your great-grandfather only took from those who had, and from enemies of the nation. And he never pillaged, as I understand pillaging. Why burn a ship when you can take it over and add it to your fleet? Why lay waste to a town when you can leave it standing for future use? Why kill a man if you can make him yours to command? Wasteful and uneconomical. As for rapine . . .” She took a deep breath. Constantine waited. She looked as though she might attack him. Then she raised her chin and smiled like a cat, which alarmed him even more. “It is said he never forced a female with his superior strength, but only with his superior mind, and his lips, both for what he said, and what he did with them!”

Constantine's eyes widened.

She sneered. “I suppose you're now going to tell me you never seduced a female?”

He thought a moment. “In truth,” he said, as though to himself, as he considered it. “No. I never have.” Then he recalled what an improper conversation this was. “But I've no intention of sharing that part of my life with you, young lady.”

The sneer didn't leave her lips. He sighed. For some reason, that sounded worse than saying he'd seduced more females than Casanova had ever met. But he had never seduced a woman. He'd no idea of how to go about such a thing. The fact was, he realized, he'd either paid for them, or agreed to their proposals. That suddenly made him feel even worse.

Lisabeth marched silently at his side until they came to a small rose-covered cottage near the church.

“The vicar lives here,” she said. “He'll give you a cup of tea, the plain truth, and no discourtesy or shocks. But you'll have to speak up. He's eighty, and though his wits are keen, his hearing is not. You'll like him.”

Constantine suppressed a sigh. He supposed she would think he'd only like the elderly. It was a good thing, he thought suddenly, that she'd never come to London. If he were a fish out of water here, she would drown there. There wasn't a soul there that he admired that she'd like, or who would appreciate her in the least either. She was too plainspoken, outspoken, really, and too unconventional for the
ton
. The only females who could act the way she did were royals, or extremely wealthy old eccentrics. He straightened his shoulders. So he was nothing like his great-grandfather or his father, except for his looks. What of it? That was no crime where he came from—quite the reverse.

The vicar's elderly housekeeper let them into a sunny salon, and before long, the old gentleman joined them. He didn't look eighty, he moved along in sprightly fashion, and took Constantine's hand in a firm clasp. He was slender, had shrewd blue eyes, a few tufts of white hair at the sides of his head, and a warm smile.

“Sit down, sit down, my lord,” he said at once. “Would you care for some tea?”

Constantine began to sit, but paused, as Lisabeth answered before he could. “I already promised him some,” she said. “I knew you wouldn't mind.”

“Mind?” the vicar said. “I asked for it to be prepared when I heard you were heading here.”

“So I thought,” she said. “Now, the thing of it is that Lord Wylde is down from London, on a strange mission. Oh, I can tell the vicar all,” she added in an aside to Constantine. “He's kept my secrets all my life. Now,” she told the vicar. “Seems his father and my father made a pact years ago, promising us in marriage to each other—before I was even born! Folly, of course, but you remember what roaring boys they were. Well, Grandy believed in the pact though. He went up to London, and went to see poor Lord Wylde to find out why he'd never come to meet his future bride.”

Constantine let out his breath. So she herself didn't know of his engagement. The clever old man had some scruples, after all. Or did he just know that she might have some?

“And,” she went on, “turns out my lord here never knew a syllable about anything! He never met his father, nor knew anyone who would tell him the truth about him. But he came down to meet me because he is a gentleman. Well, the upshot is that chalk and cheese, is what we are. But that's not what's got Lord Wylde so down. He never knew about Captain Cunning either, until he came here! And to make matters worse, they told him his father was a decorated war hero who died in the service of his country. The poor man is very conventional, you see, and his head's in a whirl. I was hoping you could ease his mind. He just met half the village in the inn, and doesn't know what to think. He disapproves of crime, he hates pirates, and he's ashamed of the thought that his father was a highwayman. Well, it takes all kinds, you know.”