Lord of Devil Isle (20 page)

Peregrine Higgs paced the dock at St. Georges. He’d sighted an unfamiliar sail from the northernmost window of Whispering Hill skirting around the island’s reefs with the ease of familiarity. Even though he hadn’t recognized the ship, he recognized the skill of her captain. It had to be Nicholas Scott. Higgs had bolted to the stable, hitched up the wagon and drove hell-for-leather down to meet the ship.

Not that the captain would thank Higgs for his trouble.

Nicholas Scott was going to be royally pissed to find Peregrine waiting for him. Especially since the
Susan Bell
was not safely berthed at the St. Georges wharf.

Well, the captain would just have to come to terms with this rude new development. The world was full of shabby surprises.

Like the fact that Miss Sally Munroe was now Mrs. Archibald Snickering.

Higgs could see it pained Miss Smythe to tell him, but she twisted her hanky and managed to choke out the tale. At first, it boiled his gullet that Miss Munroe hadn’t even given him a chance. But once he got over the initial surprise, he found very little real anguish in his heart considering the way he’d mooned around over her.

Truth to tell, it bothered Higgs a lot less to lose the incomparable Miss Munroe than he’d expected, but the fact that Miss Smythe seemed sad for him tugged at his heart.

Higgs handled disappointment well. Captain Scott would have to take a page from his first mate’s book. If Higgs could just keep him from gutting someone first.

Like me,
Higgs thought as the schooner made its way through the channel and into the harbor.

He spread his legs to shoulder-width and clasped his hands behind his back as the schooner sidled up to the wharf. She was a pretty piece, a bit wider of beam and shorter in length than the
Susan B,
but a fine craft all the same.

And but for this rotten luck, she might have been mine to sail.

“Higgs!” Nicholas Scott bellowed from the wheel of the schooner. “What in blue blazes are you doing here? We didn’t expect you to beat us back to Bermuda.”

The captain left the rest of the mooring to Mr. Tatem and stomped down the gangplank toward Peregrine. Higgs resisted the urge to take a step back when Nicholas stopped before him. He had counted on the captain being in a good mood after an extra fortnight with the lovely Miss Upshall. A squall must be brewing on that front if the captain’s black scowl was any measure.

“I don’t see my ship anywhere, Mr. Higgs,” he said, his face taut, his voice brittle. His restraint might have been because Miss Upshall and her new maid were disembarking behind him and the captain was on his best behavior before the ladies.

Higgs didn’t think it would last.

“The
Susan Bell
is…detained,” he said, grateful that his stammer hadn’t returned.

The captain’s eyes burned in their sockets. “And yet I see you standing here bold as brass. Report, Mr. Higgs.”

“Not now. Not here. There are too many ears about.”

“Was it Bostock?” Nicholas asked in a tone of suppressed
menace. “Oath or no, if he’s commandeered the
Susan B,
I’ll have the man’s guts for garters.”

“No, it wasn’t Bostock. The difficulties are…political. ” Peregrine drew a deep breath. “Saint George Tucker has returned to the island. He’ll explain everything.”

“Saint’s back, hmm?” Nicholas frowned at the pavement, clearly churning over the possibilities. “Tell him to come around for supper tonight. We’ll get to the bottom of this at the house then.”

Tatem and a couple of the lads finished loading up the last of the baggage in the back of the wagon and handed Miss Upshall up to sit beside the driver. Her maid clambered into the back of the wagon with the luggage and pulled her bonnet down to shield her face. Nick climbed into the driver’s seat.

“I’ll expect more details when you get back to the house,” Nick said as he grasped the reins. “Tell Saint if he’s responsible for ‘detaining’ my ship, he’d better have a damn good reason for it.”

“But wait,” Higgs said. “I didn’t bring an extra horse. How will I get home?”

“Mr. Higgs,” the captain said evenly. “If you can manage to return to Bermuda without my ship, I expect you can find your way up a hill without a horse.”

He snapped the reins and the wagon rattled away.

A stiff wind whistled by and Higgs shoved his tricorne down tighter on his head. The Tuckers were one of the oldest families on the island and their home on Water Street wasn’t far from the wharf. Saint George Tucker had left Bermuda at the age of nineteen, a bit of a bounder. His father, Colonel Henry Tucker wanted him to study law. Whether Saint heeded his father no one knew. He’d left to seek his fortune in Virginia without so much as a backward glance at his home island.

Until now.

Higgs would find the prodigal at his father’s house and he’d be able to deliver his message.

But he doubted Colonel Tucker had killed the fatted calf.

“There’s something afoot,” Nicholas said to Eve as soon as they left the town behind. He sniffed the air as if the change was something he could scent. “I need you to do something for me.”

“What is it?”

“I’ll be having dinner guests this evening.” All Nick wanted was to get Eve alone and settle things between them. Her silent aloofness was driving him batty. Working his way back into her good graces was going to be hard enough without Saint on the island stirring up trouble. “I need for you to be my hostess tonight. Will you arrange things with Santorini?”

Eve nodded.

“Dinner should be a fairly sumptuous meal. Plan on a dozen guests.”

If he knew anything about Saint, it was that the man would have plenty of cohorts. Distracting, dividing and defeating him was the order of the day. If Nick could deal with Tucker’s schemes in one evening, so much the better.

“A dozen dinner guests tonight? That doesn’t give me much time,” she protested.

“Santorini would walk through fire for you.” He didn’t add that he would, too. “You’ll come up with something.”

“What’s this all about?”

“I don’t know. Higgs wouldn’t say much on the docks,” he said. “But if it’s important enough to drag Saint George Tucker back to Bermuda, it doesn’t bode well.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s a radical. Always has been. I suspect he’s gotten mixed up with that bunch in Boston who’re preaching independence or I’ll eat my hat.” Nick shook his head. Politics were only important when they interfered with trade enough to make his smuggling profitable. “And to make matters worse, the bastard’s holding my ship somewhere.”

She looked at him sharply. The two of them might have suffered a rift, but he was sure Eve knew full well how losing the
Susan Bell
would affect him.

“And if you host this Saint person for a lavish dinner for all to see, no one can accuse you of joining him secretly in whatever you think he may be planning,” she said, following his logic as flawlessly as if he’d spoken his reasons aloud. “Be careful, Nick.”

“Always.”

The dinner was spectacular. Santorini delivered a fishladen white soup, followed by honey-glazed chicken, lamb shanks, braised beef and duck a l’orange. Eve sat at the far end of the long table, amusing Nick’s guests with tales of London that he suspected were products of her own lively imagination, but she kept the conversation light and sparkling.

Eve was so lovely, so gracious, Nick found himself wondering why he resisted asking her to be his wife. He was sparing her, he reminded himself. He was a sorry excuse for a husband and not likely to improve with age. Still, the thought crossed his mind more than once as he watched her glide effortlessly through the evening.

Miss Smythe rose to the festive occasion and allowed herself to be persuaded to play the clavichord for his guests after the meal.

No one acknowledged the stench of sedition swirling beneath the surface.

As they pushed back their chairs to move to Nick’s parlor for the after-dinner music, Saint Tucker said casually, “I understand your Thoroughbred mare has recently foaled. Don’t suppose I could see the colt.”

Now it comes.
“Certainly,” Nick said. “If the rest of you will excuse us.”

Nick walked in silence toward the stable beside his former friend. Saint was younger than he by half a dozen years, and much more dandified. But between them they’d closed down some of the better taverns on the island more than once. When Tucker’s politics turned against the Crown, Nick had severed their friendship.

Treason was bad for business.

Studying law in the Colonies had evidently been good for Saint. His waistcoat was of rich velvet and his silver shoe buckles gleamed. His horsehair wig was in the first stare of fashion, but prosperity had not changed his politics.

“It’s come to this, Nick,” Saint said as he leaned over the stall to stroke the colt’s soft nose. “King Geordie won’t listen to our demands. He’s left us with no choice.”

“A man always has a choice.”

Saint bared his teeth in a half smile. “And here’s yours, Nick.”

He handed him a letter.

Nick broke the seal and read the missive by the yellow lantern light. It was couched in flowery language and self-justifying rants, but the gist of it was that the Colonies would no longer trade foodstuffs for salt. They wanted the gunpowder stored in the British magazine on the island.

Nothing less.

The letter was signed by someone styling himself “General George Washington.”

“So you’re determined on armed rebellion.” Nick refolded
the letter and handed it back to Saint. It meant a sure trip to the gallows to be in possession of such a document.

“Our cause is just,” Tucker said.

“Is starving an island full of people just?” Nick demanded. “You were born here, Saint. You know we can’t grow enough to feed ourselves. The land won’t support farming. We must trade for food.”

“Nick, we need that powder.”

“Then take your petition to the governor.”

“You know better. That old fool won’t do anything against the Crown’s interests.”

“Imagine that.”

“Besides, he’s only a puppet, not a man of parts, like you and I,” Saint said. “Everyone on the island knows who the lord of the place really is. If one wants something done, one must see Lord Nick.”

“I won’t do this.” Nick turned and started to walk away.

“Suit yourself,” Saint called after him. “But the consequences are on your head. How long will it be, do you think, before people start boiling their shoes?”

Long before winter storms turned the Atlantic into a bitter froth. No help would come from England. The Crown’s resources were stretched thin enough trying to support the troops sent to discipline the Americans. Devil Isle was on its own. Without a chance to lay up stores from the Colonies, every family on Bermuda would stand around a grave before spring. They’d bury their sick, their elderly and their young.

Rage burned in Nick’s chest. He couldn’t let that happen. No amount of loyalty to his king justified a dead child.

“Damn you, man.” He rounded on Saint and snatched him up by his shiny lapels. “Midnight. Fourteenth of
August. Anchor a ship, a whaler if possible, in Tobacco Bay. You’ll have your cursed powder.”

Nick released him, sending him sprawling on the straw-covered floor, and stomped away.

“America will be grateful,” Saint called after him. “We’ll remember those who help us fight against tyranny and unjust taxation.”

This wasn’t about taxation. It wasn’t about the divine right of kings. It was about starving children.

“I’d better see the
Susan Bell
tied up at the dock on the fifteenth and her hold had better be full of beef.”

“You won’t regret this,” Saint promised.

Nick shook his head. “I regret it already.”

As Saint George Tucker picked himself up and dusted himself off, Reggie Turnscrew peered down at him from the overhead loft. The bleedin’ sod had made Lord Nick angry. That was enough to make Reggie want to pelt him with horse apples, but none were to hand.

The worst of it were that Lord Nick had to agree to something he didn’t want to do. Something about powder, which he knew Lord Nick didn’t use. No fancy folderol for the likes of him. Wigs were for fops and dandies, so Reggie didn’t see why giving up powder should upset Lord Nick.

Maybe it was the bit about boiling shoes what had the captain so flummoxed. Lord knows, Reggie’s stomach had knocked against his backbone more than once and it were a serious state of affairs.

Not that he’d had cause for complaint since he took service with Lord Nick. Far from it. Reggie went to bed with his belly stretched tight and full every night.

And it sounded like the captain was taking steps to ensure that happy state continued. But they were steps he weren’t too keen on, that much was certain.

Reggie lay back in the straw. Powder and whaleboats at midnight and boiled shoes. It was more of a riddle than he could figure.

This was just the sort of puzzle Miss Eve might be able to untangle. He watched through the open stable door until that Saint fellow was halfway back to the big house. Then scrambled down from the loft and hotfooted it ’round to scale the fence enclosing Miss Eve’s private garden. She used to like sitting in the moonlight before they all sailed off to the Turks.

Reggie had sat in the scratchy crotch of a big cedar and watched her several evenings. With any luck at all, she’d take a turn around her garden before she retired and Reggie would get his chance to put the riddle of what he’d overheard to her.

Higgs watched Penelope Smythe’s fingers fly over the black and white keys of the captain’s clavichord. It was probably out of tune, not that Peregrine had an ear for such things, but he’d never heard anyone play the instrument with more depth of feeling. Or with such lovely white hands. He hadn’t expected Penny to display such talent.

And he hadn’t expected to start thinking of her as Penny either.

She glanced at him from under her lashes between movements in the charming little sonatina, as if to gauge his interest. He was interested all right. It was almost as if he’d never fallen under the spell of Sally Munroe.

Too bad there were other fish to fry this night.

The captain slipped back into the room and settled into a chair behind him. Saint Tucker followed a few moments later.

The message was delivered. Higgs fidgeted in his seat, wondering what the captain had decided to do.

Damn, he wished he hadn’t stumbled onto that patrol ship with the
Susan B.
Evening fog had gathered off the Carolina coast, but Higgs had seen a chance to make a run for port. Instead, he’d run into the Colonists’ blockade. It might have happened to the captain as well and Nicholas admitted as much when Higgs told him the particulars.

How could he have known the Continental Congress had just thrown up an embargo against British ships?

And Bermudian vessels counted since they flew the Union Jack.

He just wished it hadn’t happened on his very first voyage as captain. Nicholas Scott might have decided to fight instead of heaving to when the Americans declared their intention to board him. But the
Susan Bell
was outgunned by the big colonial frigate and though Higgs might have outrun her, he didn’t want to risk the captain’s ship.

When had the colonials developed a navy? True, the frigate was probably just a merchant vessel refitted to carry an impressive battery of guns, but both sides of the Atlantic had done a good deal of saber-rattling without much substance up till now. This new militarism proved that tensions ran higher than usual between the Crown and its distant subjects.

War was on the wind. And Bermuda was caught in the middle.

Higgs wondered uneasily which side Nicholas would come down on. No man considered treason lightly. The penalty was too severe.

The sonatina ended and the assembled guests clapped politely. Higgs clapped enthusiastically.

And when the captain announced his intention to offer port and cigars to his guests, Miss Upshall and Penny made their good nights and started to withdraw.

Faint heart ne’er won fair maid.

Instead of sitting back down with the rest of the men, Higgs followed the ladies out of the parlor. He’d worry about what the captain had decided to do about the American’s offer later.

“Miss Smythe,” he said. It was a minor miracle that his stammer hadn’t returned since making port this time. In fact, now that he thought on it, he hadn’t stuttered once around Miss Smythe. Sailors were a superstitious
lot. Higgs usually made fun of his mates over their hokum, but now, he began to wonder if Penelope Smythe wasn’t his own private good luck charm. “I’m not a smoker myself. I wonder if you’d like to take a turn around the garden with me before you retire.”

Her smile was a bright dawn with not a cloud in sight.

Silence finally reigned in the big house. The last of the dinner party guests was gone. Now all Eve heard was the wind soughing through the palm tree outside the door in her private garden. The breeze whispered a conversation she didn’t understand, punctuated by the loud tick of the long case clock in the distant foyer.

Penelope had come to her chamber earlier, gushing and starry-eyed.

“Mr. Higgs kissed me, Eve. Right on the mouth.”

“In that case, don’t you think you ought to call him something other than Mr. Higgs?” Eve suggested with an indulgent smile.

“I suppose you’re right. Peregrine.” Penny tested the name on her tongue. “It’s a beautiful name, but fierce as well. A peregrine is a falcon, after all. Don’t you think it’s the best sort of name a man could have?”

Eve agreed that it was a name to charm the angels, and it had certainly worked its magic on Penn, but she was distracted by her need to speak to Nicholas. She let Penny rattle on for another half hour, an astounding occurrence for one so naturally shy, and then pled a headache so she could dress for bed and be alone.

She put an ear to her door, listening for Nick’s tread on the heart of pine. When she heard him coming, she nipped over to the chair before her fireplace and picked up the book she was plowing through. It wouldn’t do to let him think she’d been waiting for him.

The footsteps halted outside her door.

Good.
The man had better stop and speak to her this night. Not that she needed his word to know her dinner party was a sparkling success. She didn’t want to talk about the party at all.

She wanted to know about the treasonous conversation Reggie Turnscrew had overheard in the stable. Before Penny’s visit, Reggie had surprised Eve by shinnying over her garden wall with a twisted tale spewing out his mouth as fast as he could tell it. From what she could piece together from Reggie’s account, Saint George Tucker was up to something dangerous. Surely Nick wouldn’t be so addlepated as to join in whatever madness Mr. Tucker was planning, but according to the stable lad, it sounded as if he had agreed.

The floorboards outside her door squeaked and Nick moved on.

Eve swore under her breath. He must have seen the light shining beneath her door. He knew she was still awake and yet he walked on.

They hadn’t spent any time alone since she’d finally and irrevocably refused to become his mistress. When he’d asked her to serve as hostess at the dinner party, she’d hoped it meant he was warming up to the idea of making her his wife. After all, she was performing a wife’s duty in the eyes of all their guests.

But he didn’t knock at her door.

So be it. She’d go to him.

When she reached his door, she turned the latch and strode in without knocking. Nicholas was just peeling off his shirt, his broad back kissed by the yellow light of his bedside hurricane lamp.

“What have you agreed to do for Saint George Tucker?”

He turned slowly to face her. “I’m considering selling him that colt if he comes up to my asking price.”

“No, you’re not.” She folded her arms beneath her breasts, painfully aware that his gaze had fallen to them. “You’re doing something that’s like to get you hanged.”

“Who’d you hear that from?”

“Never mind,” Eve said, unwilling to name Reggie. Nick wouldn’t appreciate the little wretch’s sharp eyes and wagging tongue. Eve had sworn Reggie to silence, but Nick might have other ideas. “I know about the powder.”

His gaze jerked back to her face and he closed the distance between them in a couple of long strides. “What do you know about it?”

Reggie’s details were sketchy. The boy thought Nick and his guest had argued about rice powder—“the kind them dandies wear”—but Eve suspected powder of a more dangerous kind.

“Tell me.” Nick grasped her shoulders and gave her a slight shake.

She lifted her chin. “I know you’re being forced to do something you shouldn’t.”

“Eve, you know me.” He chuckled softly. “I follow no law but my own will. Do you really think I can be forced to do anything I don’t want to do?”

“If the stakes are high enough, anyone can be manipulated.”

“You give me hope, wench. You really do.” Anyone else might have been fooled by his careless laugh, but his smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I still want you. Obviously, I simply haven’t offered you the right stakes.”

“No, you haven’t, you stupid oaf.”

“Charming, as always,” he said with a shake of his head. “How can I resist? Suppose I offered you marriage…”

“But you haven’t and now you’re trying to change the
subject.” She shook off his grasp and poked his naked chest with her forefinger. If he thought he could dazzle her into distraction with a ham-handed proposal, he was sadly mistaken. Besides, she wanted more than his name. She wanted his heart. And even if he asked her to marry him, she promised herself she’d say no unless he offered his love as well. “I’m not leaving until you tell me what you’re planning to do.”

Nick stared at her for a moment, then stalked over to his bed and sat on the end of it. “I’m going to commit treason.”

Eve followed and sank onto the bed beside him. “Tell me.”

She listened wild-eyed while he repeated the colonials’ demands. Gunpowder for food. Nothing else would do.

“It should be fairly easy,” he said. “The magazine is lightly guarded and—”

“But if you’re caught…oh, Nicholas!” The penalty for treason was still the same as when Henry the Eighth sat on the British throne.

Hanging, drawing and quartering.

“I won’t get caught.”

“But…” Her voice failed. The thought of his beautiful, strong body destroyed so utterly made her light-headed.

“Your concern is touching, love.” He cupped her cheek and drew a thumb across her parted lips.

Love.
If only he meant it. Well, she
did
mean it, even if she couldn’t say it. And she wasn’t going to let him risk himself without a fight.

“Nick, you don’t understand.” She took his hand between both of hers. “It’s a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the law. You don’t know what it means to lose control of your body. They’ll take you and they’ll
do horrible things and they’ll…break you.” Her voice hitched in a sob. It was almost as if the lash was descending afresh on her back. “You won’t be able to stop them, and I won’t be able to bear it.”

A shudder wracked her whole frame. Nick drew her into his arms and she went willingly. He was so warm, and she could feel his heart galloping beneath her palm. She tipped her mouth up to him and he covered her lips with his.

“If there is any other way around this, Eve, I will take it,” he said. “But I can see no other course but the one before me.”

She nodded woodenly. Of course, he couldn’t let the islanders starve. She understood that. But he was running a horrible risk.

“I solemnly promise you,” he said, kissing her fingertips between each word, “that I will not be caught. You and I have unconcluded business. Do you think I’d leave you when we still have a fight to finish?”

She was weary of fighting him. “Perhaps we can declare a truce.”

He laid her back on his bed and untied the drawstring at the neckline of her night shift. “For the next week, you and I are no longer at war.” He bent his head and claimed a tight nipple, sucking her through the thin cotton. “Until then, you make your bed with me and pleasure is our only law.”

She arched her breast into his mouth. “And hostilities may resume between us once you square things with the Americans?”

He pinned her beneath him and she felt his belly jiggle with a laugh. “Or perhaps we’ll decide to make the truce permanent.”

“Perhaps.” She surrendered to his touch and willed herself not to think beyond her next breath.