The Diamond King (30 page)

Meg’s smile could have lit the room if a lantern hadn’t already illuminated it. Still, it did get brighter.

Jenna pulled up the cover. The porthole was open and a fresh breeze flew into the room. She started to close it but Meg had protested.

Meg snuggled in the bed, wincing just a little. Jenna had rebandaged the wound after looking at it. There was less secretion and it looked as if it might finally be healing. Some of the painful redness had receded.

The child should sleep well, particularly after seeing Alex and being assured everything was well with her world.

But would it ever be? Regardless of his feelings for children, the captain—she was trying to think of him that way again—apparently did not want ties.

He did not want family. He did not want obligations. He did not want any of the things that she so desperately needed.

Perhaps now that he did not feel so hostile about her, he would let her have Meg and Robin.

It was a matter of making the proposition in the right way, at the right time.

She would not have him. Or a husband. But she would have what her heart had yearned for these past years: someone to love.

She hesitated. She did not want to leave. But then she heard the sound of the anchor being pulled up, the creak of the ship as it started to move. He would be here soon.

Her thoughts drifted back to the room last night and again this morning. She feared they might for a long time.

She tried to shake the images from her mind. She had other things to do, including changing her clothes. She still wore the dress she’d worn to the governor’s residence.

She heard passengers being herded through the ship, listened to their loud complaints. She stayed where she was.

Then a crewman came by and quenched the lantern. “The captain doesn’t want any lights,” he said. “And he wants you to return to his cabin.”

Jenna took one last look at the sleeping Meg and left the sick bay for the captain’s room.

The captain’s cabin was dark, but she heeded the crewman’s words. The captain, she’d learned, never issued orders unless he had good reason for them. It took several moments, but her eyes gradually adjusted to see shapes. Celia was not there, and she wondered what had happened to her friend.

She slipped off the hoop skirt, then twisted around until she was able to unbutton the top of her dress in back. Thankful for the low neck, she was able to twist it around and finish unfastening the buttons.

Then she sat on the bed in her chemise. She wanted to cry, but she would not. She would not give him the satisfaction, nor herself the pity. Instead, she found a simple day dress that tied in the front and put it on. She longed for the trousers and shirt that Meg wore. She could not even imagine the freedom those clothes allowed.

She looked out the two windows of the cabin. She could still see some lights from the town.

Without putting on gloves, she went to the door and opened it. She would never wear them again, at least not to cover the mark. At least the captain—Alex—had given her that. If someone could not accept it, then they were not worth knowing.

Alex
. No wonder she never felt as if Will fit him.

Alex
did
fit him.
Alexander
. Her mind ran over Scottish families with sons with that name. Too many to remember.

And if she did? It would be knowledge she needed to forget. She
was
hurt, even angry, but she knew she would never do anything to hurt
him
.

The passageway was dark. If she had not become so familiar with it, she would have lost her way. She found the companionway that led up to the main deck. It did not take her long to adjust to the rhythm of the ship this time.

She reached the main deck, opened the hatch, and stepped out into the fresh breeze of a Caribbean evening. She loved the smell of the sea. She looked around. Claude was at the wheel. She did not see the captain. She did see Celia standing next to Burke. Amazingly his arm was around her.

Longing pierced her.

She turned and looked at the flickering lights of the town. One by one they faded as the ship turned away from the harbor. More sails were being hoisted. She felt the ship quicken.

Then she heard the cry of “Sail ho.”

Burke’s arm dropped from Celia and he pushed her toward the hatchway. Jenna ducked around to its side, trying to make herself invisible. Where was the captain?

Then she heard his voice not far from her.

“Flag?” he asked.

“British,” said the sailor up the mast.

She heard curses. “They were waiting.”

“The French must have known,” one man muttered near her.

“Set the royals! Rig the stuns’ls.” Alex’s voice overpowered all the others. “Gun crews to your stations.”

“Better get below,” one sailor said as he brushed past her down the companionway.

Instead, she peered out to sea and saw a huge ship under full sail turning toward them. She remembered the fear she’d felt several days earlier when the British ship pursued them into the storm. There was no storm tonight, only a clear sky lit by stars and a crescent moon.

They were not moving at top speed yet. They had not set all the sails, and she watched as men grabbed lines and hauled sail. She felt the kick of the ship but she knew it would not be fast enough.

The captain left Claude and started for the hatchway, then stilled when he saw her.

She had expected to be ordered off the deck, as she had before. Instead, he touched her cheek. “The governor was more sly than I thought,” he said.

“Or maybe he did not know,” she said, unwilling to believe their host could be so devious.

A loud boom echoed in the night air. She saw the splash to the left of the ship. “Go to Meg,” he said. “Remember, no lights.”

“What about Robin?”

He hesitated. “I would tell him to go with you, but he won’t. He knows we’re shorthanded. I’ll be looking out for him.”

She did not hesitate. She went down the companion-way, then to the sick bay. Meg was sitting up on the cot.

“What is going on?”

“A British ship,” Jenna said. “It was apparently lurking in wait for us.”

“I want to go up and help.”

So did Jenna. But she realized she would be more a hindrance than a help. So would Meg.

“Everyone would be looking out for you rather than doing what they should,” she said.

“Robin—” Meg started to protest.

“Robin isn’t wounded,” Jenna said, knowing Meg would completely reject the notion she couldn’t help because she was a girl. She paused, then added, “Want to know a secret?”

“Aye,” Meg replied, her eyes wide.

“I wish I were up there helping too, but I know I would be more trouble than assistance.”

“But you—” Meg’s lips clamped down.

“I know. I was taken from a British ship, but that does not mean I agree with everything they do.”

“You... do not?”

“Nay,” Jenna said. “I’m on your ... Will’s side.”

Meg’s face broke out in a broad smile. “I knew you would be.”

“And now the best way we can help is to stay here until someone comes.” She felt the lurch of the ship as added sail quickened the ship’s movement. It was a swift ship. But swift enough to outrun the warship?

She heard the boom of cannon from their own ship and held Meg’s hand tighter. Then another. It sounded just like thunder she’d heard nights ago.

Meg trembled. Despite the child’s brave words about helping earlier, she must remember the day she was hurt.

The roar of cannon came every few seconds. Then she heard shouts. Exultant shouts. Something had happened. Had they hit the British ship?

But still the cannon roared. Her heart pounding, her throat dry, she waited. It was the hardest thing she’d ever done. But she could not leave Meg’s side. She would not put it past Meg, no matter how frightened she was, to go topside.

She remembered a few nights ago when they were also being pursued. She wondered whether one ever got used to it, especially if one was a child.

Despite the dryness in her throat, she started a song, a funny little ditty, and before long Meg joined her in singing away the fear.

She felt the ship lurch forward again. She knew all the sail was up, and the ship felt as if it were flying through the sea.

The door opened and Celia entered, her face flushed.

“They knocked down a mast of the British ship,” she said excitedly. “It’s falling behind.”

Jenna stared at her in disbelief. “Have you been up there?”

“Aye, for a little while,” she said. “Mr. Burke, he told me to come down here, but I stayed around the hatchway and I heard them shout.”

Timid, seasick Celia?

Was what she, Jenna, had catching? And what did she have? A new taste for adventure and excitement, for freedom and independence?

“You are not seasick?”

Celia looked surprised. Then she frowned, as if she had not even thought of it. “No, my lady, I guess I am not.”

Jenna couldn’t help but giggle at the startled tone of her voice. Maybe Celia had been sick before out of loneliness and fear. Whatever had happened, Celia looked prettier than she ever had before.

Jenna could not imagine a more unlikely choice for sweet, timid Celia than the burly, rough-speaking Burke.

Celia sat down on the floor next to Meg. “My mistress says you have a brave little soul.”

Meg looked at her suspiciously just as she had regarded Jenna earlier. “I am not little,” she said.

“Nay,” Celia said. “I can see that. And I heard you singing. Ye have a bonny fine voice, just like my lady.”

Some of the suspicion left Meg’s face. “You did not leave with the others?”

“Nay, I would not be leaving my lady.”

Loyalty meant something to Meg. Jenna already knew that. Otherwise she would not have followed the captain into who knew what.

She was suddenly aware that the booming had stopped.

“Will you stay with Meg?” she asked Celia.

“Aye, it would be my pleasure.”

Meg smiled slightly.

Jenna gathered up her skirts and ran out the door and up the gangway. She opened the hatch cover and went out on deck. The ship was moving swiftly, kicking up water as it plowed through the seas. She saw a new scar on the bow, but no one appeared to be wounded.

One of the sailors saw her and came to her. “We hit their mainmast,” he said. “We left them behind.”

“No one was hurt?” She held her breath. She thought of Hamish, Mickey, and, most of all, the captain, as well as the other hands she was beginning to know.

“No one was hurt, my lady. The captain and Mr. Torbeau are plotting a new course away from the sea-lanes.”

“Then we are safe?”

“For the time being, my lady.”

She saw Robin then, pulling on the sheets of one of the sails. He looked earnest and full of pride.

Jenna knew boys as young as eight were often employed on ships, usually as powder monkeys. Robin was twelve and large for his age, and yet she couldn’t help feeling a jerk of apprehension for him.

But she had discovered what she’d intended, and now she hurried back to Meg.

She wondered if she would ever get used to the idea of children being exposed to such danger. But where would they be safe? Robin, in particular, would be in danger in Scotland. He was a lad with a banned name.

She and Celia exchanged glances and she knew that Celia saw the anxiety in her expression.

“It will be all right, my lady.”

Jenna nodded. But she didn’t think it was all right.

She knew fear now that she had never known before.

Jenna had no idea where the
Ami
was heading. At the moment, she didn’t care. She was beginning to believe its escape was
her
escape.

They had left the warship far behind. The
Ami
was sailing swiftly in a good wind, skimming over a now quiet sea.

She went up on deck with Meg. Meg’s fever had faded, and Jenna could no longer keep her below. Not even “Will” could do that. It was better, she thought, if she went with Meg in case she became dizzy or faint.

Jenna had asked whether she wanted to wear the new dress, but Meg shook her head. “It is too fine,” she said.

Jenna did not argue the point. Meg would have to make up her own mind as to when she wanted to become a lass. In the meantime, it was just as well. The crew was well disciplined but still composed of men. That Meg was considered as much a cabin boy as Robin probably kept her safe.

And the trousers were probably safer for her, too. The deck was often slippery, and the wind had a way of blowing a dress against one’s body, and even sweeping it upward. She felt her own garment doing that now. It was a day dress, one she’d worn in her own rooms at home. A simple white shift with a blue overdress. She usually wore a lace cap with it, but now she bound her hair with only a piece of ribbon to keep it from her eyes. She’d used precious water last night washing it, using the rose soap she’d found at the governor’s house. It felt clean and fine.

She planned to wash Meg’s tonight, despite the caution with which all water was used aboard ship.

But now she watched as Meg, accompanied by a protective Robin, wandered among the men. receiving warm teasing about “getting out of work.” Despite her recent illness and still obvious weakness, she was as surefooted through the companionway and up on deck as the most seasoned seamen.

She grinned and made retorts, and the wind and sun colored cheeks that had become too pale.

Oddly enough, she flourished in this rough company.

But then. Jenna thought, so had she. Everyone seemed to be accepted for what they could do, not for what they were, or had been, or what their pedigree was. No one stared at her arm with distaste or fear. If she had been despised in the beginning, it had been due to her family’s name, not her appearance.

She stood at the railing and watched Meg, who finally sat down on coiled rope and held court. This quite possibly was where the child belonged, among adventurers who cared for her. The thought was, she knew, indicative of the changes she’d undergone.