Fortune Trilogy 1 - Fortune's Mistress (7 page)

She reached the harbor at Cheswold just before dusk. The wind had died, and it took all her skill to bring the
Silkie
in close enough to hail a boy on shore. She dropped anchor while she waited for the lad to row out to her. James had given up his pounding, and his voice had grown hoarse from shouting threats.

“Be still,” she warned him as the boy neared the
Silkie.
“I’ll not betray ye. Wait, and trust me.” She stood up and smiled and waved. “Will ye row me ashore?” she called to the boy. “I promise ye won’t be the poorer for it.”

Cheswold might be the last chance they had to take on supplies before they faced open ocean. She knew that James would be sorely vexed by her trickery, but having him along when she was trying to strike up a trade with the villagers would be fatal. His speech was too high-class to pass him off as a smuggler, and his attitude was too haughty. Someone would take him for a king’s officer working undercover and run a knife in his back.

And if rewards were already posted for the two of them, she couldn’t take the risk that they’d be seen together. One country wench was much like another, but a man like James Black ... Anyone who saw him once would remember him. No, if it came to sneaking around, Jamie was a definite liability. She might have signed on as his partner in this venture, but she hadn’t thrown all her sense overboard when she’d done it.

If they had any chance of reaching the Caribbean alive, there were things they had to have. She wanted clothing for them both, kegs of fresh water, and supplies, including the sauerkraut and some apples to keep them from getting the saltwater sickness. There were herbs for medicinal purposes she didn’t want to sail without, and personal items a woman had to have if she was going to be at sea for months.

Since James was occupying the cargo hold, she had to limit her list to what would fit in the cuddy or be tied down topside. She wasn’t certain what Alfred had been carrying in the hold or using for ballast, but judging from the way the
Silkie
was riding in the water, she thought it must be something heavy. Likely, he’d taken on a full load of brandy. If so, they Could exchange some of it when they reached the Canaries . . .
if
they reached the Canaries.

Alfred kept his best trading goods in a compartment under the bunk in the cuddy. He also kept the backstaff and charts there, wrapped in oiled cloth to be safe from moisture. She hadn’t lied to James about the backstaff; she’d only hedged about where exactly it was stored. Surely, he’d calm down once he saw that she’d only locked him in the hold for his own good.

Tucked into her bodice, Lacy carried a pair of steel scissors and a silver thimble. They would make a nice gift for the wife of the tavernkeeper. Once they’d established a friendly atmosphere, Lacy could mention the casks of French brandy she had to trade. An innkeeper’s wife knew everything that went on for miles around a village, and if her husband didn’t deal in contraband goods, she’d know who would.

It was all quite civilized, and if the king was denied his tax, too bad. Common folk had to look out for themselves—didn’t they? Lacy had never felt a moment’s guilt over the smuggling her family had openly engaged in.

The wrecking was another matter ...

But all that was behind her now. She smiled at the boy and leaned forward so that he could see the tops of her breasts as she climbed down into his shallop. “Do ye have a tavern in the village, by chance?” she asked sweetly. “A place where a decent woman might find a spot of supper?”

“I should hope I do. The Crown and Goat makes the best clam pie on the coast.”

“It’s not a place where a lady has to fear for her reputation, is it?”

“Naw. ’Tis my Aunt Jenny’s inn. She keeps order under her roof, I can tell ye.”

“Good lad.” Lacy settled down on the broad wooden seat. “If you’ll take me to this paragon of virtue, I’ll see you’re well rewarded.”

As he rowed toward shore, Lacy looked back at the
Silkie
bobbing gently at anchor and hoped James would have sense enough to keep quiet until they were safely under way again.

 

James heard the splash of the anchor and the scrape of wood against wood as the small boat came alongside the
Silkie.
Then he heard Lacy’s voice—too muffled for him to understand what she was saying—and the thud of an oar pushing off. After that, there was only the gentle, rhythmic lapping of waves against the hull.

He crouched in the cramped hold and cursed himself for being a fool. How could he have been so stupid as to fall for a buxom jade’s ruse? Trapped like a rat with nothing to do but wait for the authorities to come and arrest him again!

She’d not get away with it. Not if he had to come back from hell and strangle the life out of her with his bare hands. No, strangling would be too easy. He’d think of something more painful.

“By all the imps in hell!” His voice was too far gone to do more than rasp. He’d argued with her, pleaded, and threatened. She’d not even given him the decency of an answer.

The space he was folded into was too low for him to stand upright and so narrow he could reach from side to side and touch the stacked cargo. In pitch-blackness there was little he could discern, but, using his fingertips in place of sight, he did identify the outline of a brandy keg. In frustration, he pulled the cask into his lap and used his knife to pry out the plug.

He cut himself only once in the process.

Raising the gallon keg, he drank deeply. Damn, but it was fine brandywine Lacy’s brothers were smuggling. His stepfather had served the king no better at Monkton Hall. It had been years since James had tasted any so smooth.

As the brandy warmed his insides, he softened his attack on himself. He’d trusted the wench, certain, but it wasn’t from lack of judgment on his part. It had been a natural weakness. Any man who’d been without a woman as long as he had could be expected to fall prey to the come-hither eyes of such a temptress.

He took another long swallow.

Yes, Lacy Bennett would die as unpleasantly as he could manage. She was the worse kind of witch and deserved no mercy. Even if she did have the shapeliest little arse a seagoing man ever yearned to fondle . . .

C
old rain spattered on James’s face. Unconsciously, he shielded himself with an elbow and blinked against the gray light. One minute he was sleeping soundly and the next he was coming upright, lips drawn back from his teeth in a snarl and his fists balled to do battle.

His senses registered one after another in rapid succession. Gray open sky above him. The hatch to his prison stood open wide, letting in the clean rain. Damp salt air, water-soaked deck ... and the snap of wet canvas in a twenty-knot wind.

James scrambled out of the hold, his blood pumping, heated to a fevered pitch. “What the hell?” he roared. All around him lay open sea, lead-gray and ominous, the waves churned to five-foot whitecaps.

He remembered his knife and fumbled for it, his clutching fingers finding only an empty waistband instead of steel. Blinking, he whirled around, forcing his brandy-soaked mind to clear.

Simultaneously, James became aware of two things. First, that he was alone on the deck of the
Silkie
, and second, that his bladder was full to bursting.
“Peste!”
he muttered. Concentrating on maintaining his balance despite his throbbing headache, he walked to the leeward side of the pitching boat and relieved his immediate problem.

When he turned back from the rail, he saw what at first glance looked like a boy coming out of the forward cuddy hatch. “Who are—” James gaped fishmouthed and wiped the rain out of his eyes. A second look told him that this was no boy, but Lacy Bennett decked out in a man’s shirt and breeches with an oversized knit cap covering her red hair.
“Merde!”
he exploded. In two strides, he’d crossed the deck and lunged for her.

She dodged him so neatly that his hands closed around empty air.

“Now, Jamie,” Lacy soothed. “Calm down.”

He grabbed for her again, and she ducked under the main boom and dashed toward the stern. “You’re a dead woman!” he promised. He rounded the mainmast and charged after her.

Lacy reached out and jerked the knot that held the tiller fast. As the rope came undone, the boat lurched to the starboard and began to rock violently. James staggered and fell on one knee. He grabbed the tiller and threw all his strength against it. All thoughts of pursuing Lacy vanished. If he didn’t bring the
Silkie
under control immediately, they were in real danger of capsizing.

Once Lacy had released the tiller, the force of wind and waves had spun the boat around so that the sails smashed to and fro with each wave. He knew he had only minutes to trim the sails. One slip and he’d lose a hand or be swept into the water. “Lacy!” he yelled, then cursed as he heard the cuddy hatch bang shut. “Damn you to bloody hell!”

This was a job for three seasoned sailors, and his only help had just gone below.

Straining against the tiller, James prayed that it wouldn’t snap under the weight of tons of water. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he brought the tiller—inch by aching inch—into position and lashed it tightly into place. Then he turned toward the sails. The boom vangs thudded hard, straining the limits of rope and canvas. Needles of icy rain blurred his vision. His world narrowed to a gray core of slippery deck and whipping sails.

When the mainsail was trimmed, he was trembling with exhaustion and his hands had been scraped raw by the rope. He paused long enough to catch his breath, then adjusted the tiller lashing before moving toward the bow to tackle the halyard on the foremast.

It wasn’t something he ever wanted to do again under these conditions.

Later, at the tiller, James looked down at his bleeding hands and wondered how his luck had held. The rain was slacking off, but the wind showed no sign of abating. Cold to the bone, he turned his face away from the blast and let his thoughts drift back to the twists of fate that had brought him—a king’s son—to this damnable time and place.

That red-haired witch had spoken truth when she’d said Black wasn’t his real name. And his name had been the cause of all of his troubles . . . from the beginning.

He’d been born in the master bedchamber at Monkton Hall, fat and healthy and male. And if his mother had had half as many brains as beauty, she’d have given her second son her husband’s name and let bygones be bygones. But Alice had been a Stratford before she’d married Lord Hawley, and the Stratfords were ever ambitious. Instead, she had summoned a priest to the lying-in and, claiming that she feared the babe would die, she had insisted he be christened James Fitzroy, a veiled way of naming him a Stuart.

Backed by her sister and both parents, James’s mother had declared that he was the natural son of the man who now wore the crown of England, the Stuart king, Charles the Second. The announcement did not sit well with Alice’s husband, Lord Hawley, who had been a supporter and friend to King Charles since Charles had been a boy. The fact that Roger Hawley was flaxen-haired and blue-eyed, as was the Lady Alice, while the baby James was black-haired and dark-eyed, added weight to the argument that James was not Lord Hawley’s son.

James’s older brother, Nicholas, had the Hawley looks and slim build. His younger siblings, John and Hugh, were fair and slender as well. Only James bore the Stuart black hair and length of bone. A dark changeling in the Hawley cradle ...

He’d known none of this when he was a small child. He’d only seen that it was his brother Nicholas who rode before his father on his great bay horse, or was carried into the hall to be dangled upon their father’s knee when guests were present.

James was six when he first remembered Lord Hawley calling him a bastard . . .

“Get your bastard son hence!” Hawley had yelled at James’s mother. “Send him to hell or your father, I care not. But get him out of my sight. He sickens me!”

James had crept sobbing into a corner of the nursery and been shamefully sick to his stomach. His brother Nicholas had run after him, taunting him with cries of “Bastard! Bastard! Puking little bastard.”

Later, his mother had come and dried his tears. She’d whispered to him that it didn’t matter what Lord Hawley said because he was the son of the man who would one day rule all England, Scotland, and Wales. “You are a Stuart born,” she insisted fiercely. “And when your real father comes into his own, he will raise you up to be a prince of the land.”

His Stratford uncles had come for him soon after, and he’d spent the next three years being raised by one relative or another. His mother’s family had openly acknowledged him within the household as James Fitzroy, the natural son of Charles Stuart. They’d given him a pride in his heritage, and too often let him have his own way. The Stratfords were Catholic and in disfavor with the Roundheads; their hopes were pinned on the monarch’s Restoration and on the ties of blood James would give them to the king.

On his ninth birthday, his mother called him home to Monkton Hall. She’d delivered safely of a girlchild, flaxen-haired with skin of porcelain hue. With three sons of his own and now a daughter, Lord Hawley was in a mood to be forgiving. James became a part of the household again, but never for even an hour did anyone forget that he was an outsider and proof of his mother’s deceit.

In retaliation, he’d fought with his brothers. Childhood games became a contest to see who could climb the highest tower or ride the most unruly horse. Time after time, James knew he’d led Nicholas, John, and Hugh into real danger. Once, James had run across a frozen millpond and dared Nicholas to follow. When the ice broke, Nicholas fell in and nearly drowned. The incident had earned James his first real flogging from Lord Hawley.

But nothing daunted James. He’d grown up fast and wild, taking pleasure in women before his first beard sprouted. He gambled and drank, having no ambition in life but to take his place in his father’s court once Charles returned to the throne. Lord Hawley had given him a gentleman’s education, but he’d never offered love or even a stepfather’s concern.

And when Charles did finally notice James, he weighed Hawley’s friendship against a long-forgotten dalliance and chose the former. He denied knowing the Lady Alice in the biblical sense and denied that James was his son.

And with that crisp statement, James’s bright future and the ambition of the Stratfords crumbled. When Lord Hawley’s solicitor offered him a position as tutor to a squire’s sons, James fled to sea at age seventeen.

James turned the tiller slightly. His lips thinned to a hard line. He’d meant to make his fortune and return a wealthy hero ... a man Lord Hawley would respect. A man his mother could be proud of. A man a king would not disdain to claim as a son.

Instead, the years had stretched on. He’d held to his ambitions in the heat of battle against the Spaniards, and when he lay on a muddy beach with an empty belly and a musket ball imbedded in his shoulder. He’d kept his hopes and dreams through the slogging hell of Panama and on to the desperate hours before Newgate gallows. He had them still, battered and dirty, scarred by time and reality.

He’d be damned if he’d give up now. Quit when so much lay within his grasp ...

From the corner of his eye, James caught a flash of movement. He snapped his head around and saw Lacy watching him from the forward hatch. “Lacy!” His anger at her earlier actions came rushing back. “Lacy!”

The hatch banged shut as he secured the tiller with rope. “Lacy!” He ran forward and wrenched at the hatch with his bare hands. “Open this!” The wind distorted his voice. “Woman.” He clenched his teeth, desperately trying to control the Stuart temper.

“I’m not coming out until ye see reason,” she shouted back through the thick oak.

“I’m being reasonable! Come out here so I can kill you!”

“Ye came to no harm in the hold. And I got the supplies we needed for the voyage.”

He pounded against the wooden hatch.

“Stop that. You’re frightening Harry.”

“Open it!”

“I will if ye stop shouting and give me a chance to explain.”

James straightened up and backed away, running a hand through his tangled hair. Cold rivulets of water ran down his back. “This is as reasonable as I get,” he warned.

“I had to go ashore alone. I thought ye’d give us away.”

“You didn’t trust me,” he shouted.

“How could I know ye’d not take the boat and sail for the treasure without me?”

“Open the damned hatch!”

He heard the raw scrape of iron against iron as Lacy drew the bolt. He seized the hatch, threw it open, and started down into the cuddy

Abruptly he froze—staring into the muzzle of a flintlock pistol.

“Stop there.” Lacy held the weapon inches from his head, so close he could see the gleam of brass inlay ... so close he could taste the acrid bite of black powder on his tongue.

Fury rolled up from his gut in black waves. His fingers tightened on the hatch until his knuckles turned white. “Put it down,” he ordered.

Her hand trembled, and for an instant he read indecision in her eyes. He grabbed her wrist and they tumbled back down into the cabin in a tangle of arms and legs. He heard a gasp as his weight knocked the wind out of her. Twisting the pistol from her fingers, he placed it carefully on the bunk, barrel pointing away from them, then settled back, his knees on either side of her waist.

She lay sprawled on her back. In the flickering light of a whale-oil lamp he saw that her eyes were closed and her face was unnaturally pale.

“Lacy!” An icicle of fear pierced his anger. “Lacy!” He took hold of her shoulders and shook her. “Woman. If you’re faking ...” He brought fingertips to her mouth and nose to see if she was breathing.

Relief flooded through him as he felt the slow, regular rhythm of air. Her full lips were slightly parted and her head was tilted back, revealing a vulnerable expanse of her slender white throat.

“Come out of it now—you didn’t fall that hard.” Maybe she was trying to trick him out of giving her the beating she royally deserved, he thought. Catching a stray auburn curl between his fingers, he yanked it.

She remained a waxen figure, as deeply unconscious as if she had been drugged.

Genuine concern replaced suspicion in his mind. No king’s actress ever trod the playhouse boards with so much skill. He shook her again, suddenly aware that his own breathing had become strained. If he’d done her real harm ... “Lacy!” he demanded. “Wake up.”

Her eyelids fluttered. They opened wide, and for an instant he saw an awful emptiness there, the only stirring the yellow flame of the oil lamp reflected in her cinnamon-brown eyes.

He cupped her face between his hands. Her skin took on a deathly hue ... white satin turning rose blush beneath a spattering of freckles.

“Lacy.” His rasping voice echoed in the tiny cabin. “Are you all right?”

“Get off me, you thumping lout.” It came out a whisper ... somewhat subdued but far from meek.

“My God, woman.” He moved to one side and raised her to a sitting position, his left arm behind her for support. “You scared the hell out of me,” he admitted.

She took a deep breath, leaning against him for long seconds, then her back stiffened and she scrambled away from him and balled her fists. “I’ll not let ye hit me.”

He swore a foul oath. “I didn’t say I was going to hit you. I said I was going to kill you.”

“Lay a hand on me and you’d best not sleep. I’ll murder ye where ye lay, I vow I will.”

He stood up suddenly and banged his head on the low beams. Pain shot through his head and he saw stars. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered.

She snickered as he rubbed his aching head. “Ye can’t stand upright in here. You’re too tall. Daddy couldn’t either, but he kept trying. Guess you and he are more alike than I thought.”

He crouched and scowled at her. “I’ve never struck a woman in anger yet—but there can always be a first time.”

“First and last,” she warned.