Microsoft Word - Sherwood, Valerie - Nightsong (10 page)

"I wanted

you to deliver a small package there for me." As she spoke she picked up the pair of pattens which had reposed on a nearby chair and folded them carefully into a linen napkin, tied it fast with a length of riband. "I would be pleased if you would deliver this pair of pattens to Mistress Letitia Lightfoot at Level Green and none other," she told him, adding with a smile, "My mother does not approve of me, and would not accept a handsome gift from me, I am sure, but while these are only cheap pattens, still they are the kind she has always wanted and they are so easy to procure here." She laughed and then sighed. "It is hard not to be able to go home, Captain Banks."

The stout little ship captain cleared his throat. He knew the Silver Wench's story and was on her side all the way. "They'll come around at Level Green," he assured her gruffly. "Families most always do. Mean-time, the Morning Star and me willdeliver this package most careful-like to your mother, Mistress Caro--"

"Christabel," she corrected him swiftly. "I always use that name here so as not to shame my mother any more than is necessary, for she shudders to think of me living in a buccaneers' port!"

Captain Banks smiled. She was a good daughter, was Carolina Lightfoot, for all she'd gone off the deep end over a buccaneer!

And watching them through a crack in the pantry door, Gilly, who had witnessed the last part of this scene, sneered to herself. There stood Captain Kells's wife, decked out in a fortune in rubies and diamonds, sending such a small and shabby gift to her mother, who apparently lived in Virginia. Not that she would send anything to her mother, no matter how rich she got-not even if she knew where her mother was, which she didn't. In jail most likely. But once she was very rich, she planned to send bright red garters to everyone she liked-she would even send a pair to Rouge in New Providence. Rouge, who would laugh and throw them away, for Rouge went barefoot mostly. Gilly yawned and let the crack of the door close, then went off to badger Cook, for whom she had formed an instant dislike. When she had the necklace, she'd buy her a house as big as this one and hire women like Cook and beat them with a stick if they dared to answer back!

Gilly couldn't wait to be wealthy-she wanted to trample the world. She was daydreaming about it and didn't even notice the package when she came in to clear the dishes and heard Carolina asking Hawks to give the good captain escort through the town-"for he's a good friend of ours, Hawks, and I wouldn't want him to get his head broken the night before he sails. See him on board safely, won't you?"

If Hawks was surprised, he did not show it. A little fellow like Captain Banks might well need protection on the nighttime streets of Port Royal. But he was surprised to find Carolina lingering about downstairs when he returned.

"Well, did you see him safe aboard, Hawks?" "Aye, that I did," he said soberly. "And his package with him."

Carolina gave Hawks a winning smile. He was as loyal to her as he had always been to Kells, she thought-more of a jewel than even those rubies that were already on board the Morning Star, carried there unwittingly by little Captain Banks.

But the stout captain had given her something to think about. Was Kells really up the Cobre shopping for a plantation? The idea had never occurred to her. She had thought he was upriver on a trading venture-or perhaps finding backers for a buccaneering voyage, for while Kells rarely took the Sea Wolf out into the sea lanes these days, he did occasionally send Lars Lindstrom-who was now captain of the Sea Wolf'S sister ship, the Sea Wench-out. and other members of his little fleet. And all these voyages had to be financed, the ships provisioned, the crews assembled, the loot divided-when there was loot, for pickings were thin now. The Spanish had grown warier.

Kells was an administrator now, she thought with a shrug. She doubted he would ever go to sea again-at least as a buccaneer. But did these trips up the Cobre mean that he was going to abandon the sea altogether and become a planter?

She could hardly wait for the week to end to find out!

Kells came home from the Cobre bronzed and smiling-but his smile did not quite extend to his gray eyes. Carolina sensed a difference in him even as he swept her up into his arms for an exuberant kiss, even as he spun her about so that her wide skirts billowed out.

"Kells," she sighed against his hard chest. "Oh, it's so good to have you back!"

"Is it now?" He put her down and grinned at her, and she was caught as always by how dangerous he looked with his light gray eyes flickering in that darkly tanned face, his dark heavy hair swinging free. "And here I'd thought you might have found other interests while I was gone!"

He's heardabout Monsieur du Monde!she thought in dismay-for she had enemies as well as friends in this town, and one of them might well have told him some garbled story about what had happened.

"I'm sure whatever you've heard, it's all wrong!" her guilty conscience prompted her to say.

His hard face softened and she realized what he had said was merely careless banter. "You have brought home another stray?" he guessed humorously.

Carolina flushed a little but she tossed her fair head defiantly. "The poor girl was running down the street in terror with two of those awful women from the brothels pursuing her. I am sure they meant to beat her half to death!"

"But you intervened?" "Of course I did! She doesn't know her age but she can't be more than fifteen!"

He sighed. "What am I to do with you?" he asked whimsically. "Will you never learn that most of these street strays aren't to be trusted?"

"Well, I'm sure this one is different-and besides, look at Betts, see how well she's turned out! And Cook-well, Cook was never quite astray, was she? But you'll meet Gilly at dinner and do remember not to frown at her when she serves you from the wrong side-I'm having to correct her quite gently for she's under the impression that having worked at a tavern in Bristol, she 'serves very elegant'!"

"I'll try to remember," he promised with mock meekness.

"Come upstairs-I'm sure you'll be glad of a bath after your hot trip down the Cobre.

Why didn't you tell me you were buying a plantation up there, Kells?"

His expression, which had been gentle upon her, hardened. "Who told you that?"

"Oh, the gossips seem to know more about us than we know ourselves!" she said airily.

"You've been misinformed," he said, and there was a rippling anger in his voice-or was it something else? She couldn't be sure. "You shouldn't listen to gossip," he added sharply.

She supposed she should not-rumors certainly ripped through Port Royal at hurricane speed. She felt a sense of relief for she had not wished to live up the Cobre, but she was abashed at his tone, reproving her-for what?

"I'll have your bath brought up," she said uncertainly, and started toward the kitchen to tell Betts and Gilly to fetch hot water. "Dinner is almost ready."

"Good,"he flung over his shoulder. "We had a bit of trouble on the Cobre, bottom of the damned boat got stove in."

She paused and turned to stare up at his tall muscular figure taking the stairs three at a time. "You could have been killed!" she cried indignantly.

He stopped and grinned briefly at her over the landing. "Not likely," he said. "We were near shore. I threw a rope over an overhanging branch and maneuvered us to the riverbank where we patched her up enough to make Port Royal. But it wa scursed hot work and all our food went into the river. I'm starved!"

Thankful that at least they did not have to live up that dangerous river and make the trek up and down incessantly, Carolina shook her head in dismay and went off to order up his hot water. Then with a sober face she went upstairs to her own room to dress.

Instinctively she felt that something was wrong, though he had said nothing, and as she dressed for dinner she quickly opened the curved top trunk, which was always kept locked with a key that she wore fastened to the waist of her petticoat, and opened the false bottom. It was a shock to find the box empty-and then she remembered: it was empty because she had sent the necklace to her mother in Virginia to payoff the debts on Level Green.

She felt oddly lost without it, for she wore that necklace whenever she felt insecure, because it was not something Kells had given her, she had won it herself, earned-despite the fact that things had turned out badly after all. The necklace had been truly hers, hers to give.... And now-oh, well, she would wear the copy.

"Well, aren't we got up splendidly?" Kells greeted her with a grin when she came downstairs wearing a white gown and the glittering necklace.

"I am dressed in celebration of your return," she defended. He studied her keenly.

"But wearing the copy and not the original. Tell me, have you lost the necklace?"

She started, for she had forgotten that those keen gray eyes of his saw everything, that they could tell paste from real. The fake "diamonds," he claimed, lacked the light-gathering brilliance of the real ones-no one else had ever seemed to notice, but, then, she usually wore the original.

"I sent it to my mother," admitted Carolina. "They were about to lose Level Green and-and I couldn't let it happen, Kells. No matter what they think of us."

"How very noble of you," was his dry comment. "At least it makes my decision easy,"

he added cryptically.

She frowned at him. "Whatever do you mean?"

"Nothing," he said with a shrug. "Let us go in to dinner." He proffered his arm.

And so they went sailing into the green dining room to feast on the best repast Cook could create. Kells pulled back Carolina's chair and seated her with ceremony. He had changed from the casual leathern breeches and flowing shirt he had worn up the Cobre and was dressed in good civil English clothes again, a dark gray suit, wide-cuffed with silver buttons, a froth of white lace spilling over his fine hands and highlighting the handsome emerald ring he wore, which matched a similar stone in the snowy Mechlin at his throat. Carolina was inescapably tempted to compare the deep green fire of his jewels with the single pink stone Monsieur du Monde had sported. But, then, she told herself, Monsieur du Monde was not the Lord Admiral of the Buccaneers.

The pantry door swung open.

"Kells," said Carolina, looking at him across the forest of silver that graced the frosty white linen cloth, "this is Gilly. She will be serving us tonight."

And Kells's dark head swung about as he turned to gaze upon the young girl who had just entered the room. Gilly stared back at him avidly, her brown eyes bold and sparkling. Indeed she was so fascinated she did not move.

"Gilly," said Carolina with a sigh. "Captain Kells would like his dinner served now."

Gilly gave a start and quickly bobbed a curtsy. She gave the handsome buccaneer captain a brilliant, admiring smile. She made all of her usual mistakes in serving, but Carolina did not chide her. Obviously Gilly was bedazzled just being in the same room with the famous buccaneer.

Kells's gaze upon Gilly was thoughtful as she left the room, and Carolina, afraid he did not like her, said quickly, "Gilly is most amusing. She has spent some time upon New Providence."

"That does not recommend her," he growled.

So she had been right: Kells did not like Gilly! "I mean, she tells interesting stories that entertain me," she explained.

"Most stories about New Providence-if true-would not entertain you," Kells told her bluntly. "They would horrify you."

She watched, nettled, as he finished his conch soup. Perhaps a good dinner would put him in a better mood! She let Gilly clear the soup bowls away and bring in the fish before remarking airily, "Gilly told me she knows Rouge!"

Kells looked up from his fish. "That does not recommend her, either."

"Indeed? What do you know about Rouge?"

"Very little. I have seen her but once."

"You have actually seen her? This woman everybody talks about? You never told me that! Tell me, what does she look like?"

He grinned at the consternation in her face. "She has horns instead of hair," he said.

"And gigantic muscles that bulge when she walks."

"Oh, stop teasing me!" she cried in exasperation. "Gilly insists Rouge is beautiful-and kind. Tell me what she looks like!"

"She is indeed very beautiful," he said meditatively, and Carolina felt a bit chilled.

"But as for being kind?" He snorted.

"Where did you see her?" she demanded.

"I put in at New Providence once for repairs after a storm. I saw her on the beach, standing there in men's clothes with her red hair streaming down, inciting two fellows to kill each other with cutlasses."

"And did they?" she asked, fascinated.

"No," he sighed. "They staggered away-they were both very drunk-and she pulled out the cutlass she wore at her belt and ran after them, shouting, with the naked blade wavingin the air. The argument wandered behind one of the lean-to shacks that dot the beach and I lost interest."

"Do you think anyone was killed?"

He shrugged. "Very possibly. Life is cheap in New Providence." "And that was the only time you saw Rouge?" "Yes. This girl, this Gilly"-he dropped his voice "if you are bent on giving her a new life, I suggest you let me find her employment in one of the taverns."

"Oh, no, Kells, she'd promptly slip back into her old life-why, she could even end up in one of those brothels on Thames Street."

"Which may be where she came from." He sighed. "Very well, Carolina. I will not cross you in this matter since you are so set upon it, but as I will be away so much and-"

"What? Why will you be away?"

His eyes glinted. "Tell me about Monsieur du Monde," he cut in briskly. "And why I might have heard rumors."

So he had spoken to Hawks and Hawks had told him! "I-Monsieur du Monde sprang forward to rescue Gilly," she said in confusion.

"And you invited him to dinner." "Well, I had expected you to be here," she said in her defense. He accepted that. "This Monsieur du Monde, what is he like?"

"He said he was from New Providence, but he ain't," supplied Gilly, who had just re-entered the room with a large platter of biscuits. "I'd have seen him there-he ain't the kind could be missed."