Microsoft Word - Sherwood, Valerie - Nightsong (51 page)

Penny's malicious smile flashed. "Hurt Robin?" she echoed scornfully. "I doubt you could bring yourself to do so, you're so squeamish! I might, but not you. Have you thought what it would be like to stand there, watching them hang him? For I have no doubt they'd insist on treating your tender eyes to that spectacle!"

Carolina shivered and closed her eyes. She had not got that far yet in her mind.

Indeed she had not reached past the accusation stage. Now silently she asked herself if she could do it. Really do it.

"But I must do it, Penny!" she burst out. "Can't you understand? Kells is hurt, his memory is gone, he may never recover. I can't let him be led blindly to his death, believing he's somebody else! Oh, Penny!" Suddenly she saw a way out- for Robin at least. "After I denounce Robin, you can sway the governor. After all, you're sleeping in his bed!"

"Not while he has an attack of the gout!" Penny said cynically.

"But afterward, you can talk to the governor, you can persuade him that killing Robin might precipitate an English attack on Havana itself, you can get him to arrange an escape!"

"For Robin and you?" Penny asked slowly.

"Not for me, I don't ask it!" cried Carolina, for she could see that Penny was considering the possibility. Across from her those sapphire eyes were narrowing in thought.

"An escape, not for you-just for Robin... ." mused Penny. Suddenly the comers of her mouth curled in wry amusement. "You really are the little martyr, aren't you, Carol?

And what do you think your precious Don Diego will be doing meanwhile? Do you think for a moment he'll let you perish upon the gallows or at the stake?"

Oh, God, there was that/ Carolina's face went a shade paler. She had forgotten that Kells would try to save her. And if they spirited her away to Spain, he would undoubtedly follow-and die for it.

"But it's all a wild dream," Penny mocked. "Because I won't let you do it-any of it."

She turned to look out the window, and took a step toward it. "I think I see Don Diego coming now." She flung the words over her shoulder at Carolina. "Or should I call him Kells?"

Carolina swallowed. She had tried to enlist Penny's support-and failed. Now she must put her original plan into execution. She would make one last appeal to Don Ramon. She would ask him to put Don Diego under house arrest on some trumped-up charge, to keep him from knowing . . . until it was too late. And once the supposed

"Kells" and his real Silver Wench were gone, a grieving Don Diego would recover, he would come to believe he had been briefly bewitched by a scheming beauty, he would forget the rest, forget her. Indeed in time he might marry the governor's daughter, or perhaps Jimena if her rich husband should conveniently die, and live out his life as a Spanish grandee!

A little sob escaped Carolina's lips. Penny, intent on what was going on outside, did not notice. She stood at the window, staring out.

Feeling as if all this was happening to somebody else, Carolina moved toward the window. Toward Penny. On the way she picked up a heavy iron candlestick. She brought it down in a glancing blow against the side of Penny's head. In horror, she watched Penny's tall handsome frame crumple, then she bent over her-thank God she was still alive, the force of the blow had only stunned her!

Swiftly she stuffed a gag in Penny's mouth and tied her hands and feet together with a piece of hemp. She could hear the clatter of Kells's boots on the stairs and she made haste to drag Penny under the big square bed and to pull the coverlet down so that Penny's body would remain concealed.

She had just straightened up when Kells came into the room.

"A strange thing happened today," he said, and she could see he looked disturbed. "I remembered something. It was just a flash but I seemed to see you. You were wearing a dress I'd never seen before, some kind of red silk trimmed in black lace and we were quarreling. We were standing in a second-floor room for I could look out through the grillwork at the masts of ships in the harbor."

Carolina felt a long quiver of pain go through her. He had remembered their quarrel that last evening before he went away. She had worn the red dress. And they had been standing in their bedroom in the house on Queen's Street a block from Port Royal's waterfront.

"Did you-remember anything else?" she asked tensely.

"Well, bits and flashes," he said. "The strange thing was that I seemed to be wearing English clothes. I remember I had on gray trousers. And we were speaking English, too." He ran his long fingers through his hair. "There was something else. I seem to remember a boy, too. It must have been a long time ago for I was shorter. I remember he ran toward me and he was calling, 'Rye, Ryel' " He shook his head as if to clear it. "There seemed to be no one else around and certainly no rye fields. It was forest country and there was a stream. I called to the boy. I called him 'Drew.'''

"Andrew:' she murmured. He had remembered his brother when they were boys in Essex. She said, "I must see to something downstairs:' and ran from the room. In the courtyard below she leaned dizzily against one of the round pillars, hanging on to it for support.

Rye was remembering. Soon he would remember that he was Kells the buccaneer.

Oh, God, what was going to happen now?

"Carolina." Kells's voice was calling her.

Reluctantly she went back upstairs, her mind in turmoil. He must not remember in bits and pieces, not now-it would only increase the dangers threatening him.

"You look pale." he commented.

"I-it must be the heat." Her legs seemed to give way under her and she sat down abruptly in a chair by the bed.

Kells was looking at her intently. He remembered it now-it was coming to him by bits and flashes but he remembered it all. He remembered sailing from Port Royal, leaving an angry, discontented Carolina behind him. He remembered the seemingly endless voyage, the frustrations, wanting to get back to her. He remembered the battle with the Santo Domingo and the other galleon, remembered cursing as his boots ripped apart at a crucial moment in the battle and nearly cost him a sword thrust in the body-the leather came apart and caught on something on the slanted slippery deck. He remembered his ship's doctor coming to him with a dead Spaniard's boots, tossing them down before him with a laconic, "Best change to these or I'll have you in my surgery!"

He remembered tugging the boots on, surprised that they fit. And it was those boots that had brought him here! He remembered bringing the damaged Sea Wolf into port under oars. He remembered how Port Royal's waterfront had seemed to disintegrate before his eyes, the forts at both ends crumbling and sliding into the sea.

He remembered thinking, Dear God, what of Carolina? And then his ship had been snatched up as if by giant hands and hurled into the town, riding over the rooftops, shearing off chimneys as it went. He remembered being suddenly airborne and seeing something- perhaps a piece of falling timber from one of the other ships that were riding the wave, crashing into the town with him. He remembered flying into it, and then his world had splintered into a thousand pieces.

He had waked up in a comfortable bed in the governor's palace in Havana and he had remembered nothing-his past was a blank page with nothing written on it. He might have been born in that bed, looking up at the quiet servants who scuttled in and out bringing broth and tall lime drinks.

And they had told him he was Don Diego Vivar, sent to the New World by the King of Spain. They had divined all that from his boots! From the boots he had inherited from a dead Spaniard after winning the battle with the Santa Domingo! For the boots were so unique as to be the means of recognizing the wearer in a foreign place-as indeed Captain Juarez had recognized him! And the orders sewn into the lining were meant for Don Diego's eyes alone.

He felt awed as he thought about it. Some special Providence must be watching out for him to let him live through such a shattering chain of events!

And now that same Providence had brought Carolina to his side and placed her in deadly danger....

"Carolina," he began. "I remember-"

"No," she interrupted unhappily. "You remember nothing. I have lied to you, tricked you. You are exactly who you told me you were-Don Diego Vivar. Soon you will remember that, Diego, and you will forget all the rest."

"Well," he said, marveling. "This is a change of tune!"

"It is true," she said. "I have bewitched you."

He stared down at her. "Why do you tell me this?"

"Because Kells-the real Kells-has returned," she answered him simply. "And he has been caught, arrested. I will die beside him."

She kept her voice steady but, oh, how deep the cut, that in these last hours of her life she must renounce this man before her-renounce him to save his life!

"To die beside him?" His frown deepened and he seized her shoulders. "I will not allow it!"

She gave him a wistful tormented look. "There is nothing you can do to prevent it,"

she said softly. "Buccaneers are hanged in Havana and I am a buccaneer's woman-I freely admit it."

"You are my woman," he growled. "And I would have you remember it."

There was a faint groan from beneath the bed.

Kells swooped down and lifted the coverlet. "But this is your sister!" he cried, amazed.

"I know," said Carolina calmly. "Leave her there until I can think what to do with her.

There must be some way to get her off this cursed island!"

"But what-"

"I struck her down with this candlestick when she told me that she was going to save Robin Tyrell at all costs. I could not allow her to interfere."

He stared at her. "Are you then so set on death?"

She gave a short laugh. "It would seem that death is set on me. But I would die beside the man I love-you cannot deny me that, Diego. I would never forgive you."

"And the man you love is Kells?"

"Yes." It hurt her in her soul that practically her last words with this man she loved must be to renounce him, but there was no other way. "Yes. I love Kells. I have always loved Kells. I sought to find him in you-it was all a trick. You must learn to think of it as a bad dream and of me as a wicked woman who almost dragged you down with her."

"And all this so that I can-"

"Live on in Havana and take your rightful place here. You will be happy here, Diego, if you will forget all that I ever told you. Forget me and be happy."

"First let us take this gag from your sister's mouth," he said, skillfully removing it.

Having been dragged from beneath the bed, Penny

looked up at Carolina with baleful eyes. "What did you hit me with?" she demanded, wincing as she put her hand to her head.

"With this." Carolina indicated the candlestick. "And I would do it again for the same reason, so have the good sense to be quiet."

Penny subsided, looking amazed. "I am trying to decide how to get you safely off the island," Carolina told her. "Safely off the-faith, you take a great deal upon yourself, little sister!"

Carolina gave her a bleak look. "Do not cross me in this, Penny. Your loves are light loves-you have said so yourself. And I love but one man: Kells, who even now is masquerading as Robin Tyrell, Marquess of Saltenham. Yes, that is the truth, Penny, regardless of anything I may have told you."

"But-" began Penny. "The letter-"

"It is the truth and I would have you believe it!" said Carolina warningly. She had reached out and was caressing the iron candlestick as she spoke.

Penny was familiar with what caressing a weapon was likely to mean. She edged away from Carolina.

Kells was watching this charade. He knew nothing about any letter but even without knowing, it was all perfectly clear to him. Carolina-his own dear Carolina -was out to save his neck at all costs. Even at the cost of her own. It brought a lump to his throat to realize it. And a grim determination to save her, whatever the odds.

"Rouge," he said in a voice of authority-and he was addressing the wench of Nassau now and not the aristocratic long-lost Lightfoot daughter. "I am going to untie your feet now. Try to resist your obvious urge to kick me to perdition!"

"No, don't untie her!" cried Carolina. "She will bring ruin upon you!"

"So that we will understand each other, Rouge," he added pleasantly, "my name is Kells. I saw you once upon the beach in Nassau." He reached down and untied her bonds.

"Yes, Carolina told me about that." Penny sat up, kneading her ankles. She gave Kells a curious look. "Tell me, have you known all the time? If so, you should be appearing upon the stage for you have fooled everyone!"

"No, my memory has just come back to me," he told her vigorously. "In time, I hope to get us all out of here."

"It is perhaps a bit late for that," said a cool masculine voice from the doorway.

Carolina and Kells both whirled. Kells's hand fell to the hilt of his sword.

Don Ramon del Mundo stood there framed in the doorway. He had come up the stairs with catlike silence. Now he stood jauntily, in perfect possession of himself, surveying the scene through faintly mocking tawny eyes.

"I found your front door standing open," he observed by way of explanation of his sudden appearance.

"Yes, I suppose I must have left it open," said Penny, rising in a lithe gesture. She touched the side of her head gingerly and turned to give Carolina a reproving look.

"Don Diego-" began Don Ramon in a courtly tone.

"Let us understand one another," said the lean buccaneer silkily. "My name is Kells.

And from the look in your eyes as you came in, I think you already know that."

"You are right, I do," was Don Ramon's cheerful rejoinder. He was remarkably debonair, thought Carolina in amazement. A very different fellow from the man she had left brooding in EI Morro.

"And I suppose that you will now say that you have come to escort me to EI Morro to replace a certain Englishman?" Kells's voice was ironic. "No, I have come to deliver a gift to a lady." Don Ramon's gaze played over Carolina.

"Indeed? And what gift is that?" came the cold voice of her buccaneer, who was even now figuring that with his sword out, a single spring could bring down the commander of EI Morro.