The Pirate's Widow (13 page)

Chapter Fourteen

  
“Callie!
 
Callie!”
 
The Misses Bates tumbled
out of their pony cart and came to the front of Hyacinth Cottage as fast as
their legs would carry them.

  
“Miss Sophie, Miss Penelope,” Callie said,
smiling.
 
“Would you like some tea?
 
I believe Gemma has baked some fresh bread
this morning and there is marmalade.”

  
“Nothing, thank you,” Penelope said.
 
“We came to tell you the news.”

  
“Have you heard?” Sophie asked.
 
“The village is humming with it but we haven’t
seen you there.”

  
“No, I haven’t been to the village.
 
Please, sit down and tell me what’s
happened?”

  
“So much!” Penelope cried.

  
“Oh, so much!” Sophie agreed. “And some of
it to do with you!”

  
“With me?
 
Do tell.”

  
“Well, they are saying that Sir Thomas
Sedgewyck proposed to you and you refused him.
 
Is that true?”

  
“It is true, as a matter of fact, and he did
not take it well.”
 
Callie frowned,
remembering the ugly scene in the coach on the way home from Penzance.

  
“And, they are saying that you’ve taken up
with Finn Blount instead!”

  
“What do you think about that?” Callie asked
the spinster sisters.

  
“I like Finn,” Miss Sophie declared, “although
Sir Thomas is very rich.”
 
She
sighed.
 
“I wish I was rich.”
 

  
Callie smiled.
 
“And what would you do if you were rich, Miss
Sophie?”

  
“I would go to London and see the King!” she
said.
 
“And I would have a red dress with
gold lace.”

  
“And you, Miss Penelope?”

  
“I would have a grand coach drawn by six
white horses.”

  
“Perhaps you should have married Sir Thomas,
Penelope,” Miss Sophie teased.

  
“I might have been willing, once,” Penelope
told her sister, “but not after . . .”

  
“After what?” Callie prompted.

  
“Sir Thomas Sedgewyck is married, Callie,”
Miss Penelope informed her.
 
“He has married
Flora Louvain by special license.”

  
“Has he?
 
I had not thought he was interested in marrying her despite her mother’s
efforts.”

  
The elderly sisters giggled like
schoolgirls.
 
“Shall I tell her?” Sophie
asked.

  
“Perhaps you should not speak of such
things, sister.”

  
“Oh tosh, Callie has been married.
 
She is not blushing miss.”
 
Sophie leaned toward Callie.
 
“Sir Thomas was discovered in Flora’s bed,
naked the pair of them, and Flora bound to the bedposts.”

  
“What?”
 
Callie stared at her visitors.
 
“I
cannot believe it.”

  
“It is true,” Penelope insisted.
 
“Flora’s maid found them and went for Mrs.
Louvain.
 
She told Mrs. Brown in the
village who told Miss LaSalle who told me that Flora had been beaten black and
blue with a riding crop.
 

  
Sophie took up the tale.
 
“And if that wasn’t bad enough, the scene was
witnessed by the parson and Mrs. Dougless who had taken refuge at the manor
after a fire in the parsonage kitchen.
 
After that, Sir Thomas had no choice but to marry her.”

  
Callie closed her eyes and thanked heaven
for her escape.
 
There were not enough
titles or grand manors or riches in the world to tempt her to be the wife of a
man who took pleasure from brutalizing a woman.
 

  
“And there is more,” Penelope went on.

  
“More?
 
Pray what else could there be?”

  
“Walter.”

  
“You know Walter, Sir Thomas’ hermit.”

  
“Yes, I have met Walter.”

  
“He ran off with Jenna Brown and their
little boy.”

  
“Did he?
 
I wish them well wherever they are.”

 
“They are back in St. Swithin,” Sophie told
her.
 
“And Walter is in irons.
 
Flora, that is Lady Sedgewyck, told Sir
Thomas that Walter had made advances to her and threats when she refused him.”

  
“She said she refused him?”
 
Flora was certain covering her tracks, Callie
reflected.

  
“Indeed,” Penelope insisted.
 
“And when she did, he threatened to murder
everyone in the manor in their beds and revealed that he had been a member of
the crew of the notorious pirate Blackbeard.”

  
Callie felt herself go pale. “He told Flora
that?” she whispered.

  
“He did, he was in his cups,
apparently.
 
In any case, Sir Thomas sent
to the Admiralty and discovered that there was a warrant outstanding for
Walter’s execution.
 
He sent men to find
him and bring him back to St. Swithin.”

  
“What will he do?” Callie breathed, fearing
the worst.

  
“Sir Thomas says he will hang him.
 
The gallows is even now being built on the
village green.”

  
“Dear God.”
 
Callie sank onto the wooden bench outside the cottage’s front door.

  
“Are you ill, Callie?” Sophie asked
anxiously.
 
“You are as white as
snow.
 
Perhaps you should go in out of
the sun and lie down.”

 
“Perhaps you are right, Miss Sophie,” Callie
agreed.
 
“Would you think me rude if I
excused myself?”

  
“Not at all, not at all,” Penelope assured
her.
 
“We have to be going anyway.
 
We must go to old Mrs. Horton’s cottage and
tell her the news.”

  
“Yes, you must, I’m certain she will want to
know.”
 
Callie stood as the ladies took
their leave.
 
“Thank you, Miss Sophie,
Miss Penelope.”

  
As the ladies took their leave, Callie went
into the cottage.
 
“Gemma?” she called,
“come and help me change.
 
I must go to
the manor at once.”

*
   
*
   
*
   
*

  
Sir Thomas stood, hands clasped behind his back,
at the broad, diamond paned windows of his study when the butler showed Callie
into the room.
 
A fire burned in the
marble fireplace dispelling the chill of the dark, cavernous room.

  
“Leave us,” Sir Thomas instructed, and the
man bowed and left the room.

  
“Sir Thomas,” Callie said.
 
“Thank you for seeing me.”

  
“I admit my curiosity got the better of
me.”
 
He turned toward her.
 
“I could not believe you might actually have
the temerity to show your face here after you assaulted me.”

  
“I assaulted you!”
 
Callie took a deep breath.
 
“Well, let us agree to disagree about the
events of that night, shall we?
 
I have
another matter upon which I wish to speak with you.”

  
“Have you?
 
I thought perhaps you had come to congratulate me upon my marriage.”

  
“Yes, congratulations; Mrs. and Miss Louvain
must be very pleased.”

  
“Very.
 
I do assure you Miss Louvain, or shall I say Lady Sedgewyck, is fully
appreciative of her good fortune.”

  
“I am certain of it.”

  
“What is this matter upon which you wish to
speak with me?”

  
“Walter Bartlett.”

  
“Of course.
 
Please, sit down.”

  
“I am told you mean to hang him.”

  
“I do.
 
He is a notorious pirate; first mate of the famous Blackbeard.
 
He escaped British justice when Blackbeard
was captured and executed but he will not escape this time.”

  
“Sir Thomas . . .”

  
“My lord, if you please.”

  
“I beg your pardon?”

  
“We are not on the familiar terms we once
were, madam.
 
I should prefer it if you
would address me as ‘my lord’ like any other occupant of St. Swithin.”

  
“Very well, then, my lord.
 
Walter Bartlett is no longer a pirate.
 
He has a son with Jenna Brown who needs him.
 
Could you not show mercy?”

  
“Walter Bartlett was and is a pirate,
madam.
 
Just because he no longer sails
the seas does not bring back the innocent people he murdered nor restore the
stolen goods to those he stole them from.
 
He has committed many heinous crimes and he must pay for it.
 
I have a copy of his death warrant from the
Admiralty.
 
Would you like to see it?”

  
“But if you would speak with him . . .”

  
“I have spoken with him.
 
And he spins a pretty tale.
 
He maligned Lady Sedgewyck, do you know
that?
 
Claimed she’d been his
mistress.
 
When I refused to believe it,
he told me another tale.
 
Can you guess
what it was?”

  
Callie grasped the arms of her chair.
 
Surely Walter would not bargain for his own
life by throwing her to the wolves.
 
“I
cannot,” she whispered.

  
“Oh, I think you can.
 
It is this . . .”

  
He opened the drawer of his desk and took
out a sheet of parchment.
 
Callie knew
what it was without looking.

  
“You do not seem curious,” Sir Thomas
observed.
 
“Can it be you already know
what this is?”
 
He looked at the paper.
 
“It is the death warrant of one Caroline
Llewellyn, called Callie, doxy of another notorious pirate captain, Christopher
Llewellyn, called Kit.
 
He was the
one-time master of a ship called the
Crimson
Vengeance
, a ship now in His Majesty’s service and rechristened H.M.S.
Vengeance
, a ship I took you aboard to
dine with her captain and lieutenant.”
 
He laughed wryly.
 
“You’re a cool
one, Callie Llewellyn.
 
Why did you
really want to go aboard that ship?
 
What
was there that you wanted?
 
I can have
your cottage searched, you know, and whatever it is will be brought to me and
will only serve to confirm your guilt.”

  
“And will you hang me as well?” Callie
asked, her mind frantically searching for a way to escape from the room and the
manor before he could call his footmen to restrain her.

  
“No.”

  
She stared at him.
 
“No?”

  
He shook his head.
 
“No.
 
I
have no desire to see that lovely body dangling at the end of a rope.
 
You are a desirable woman, Callie, may I call
you Callie?
 
You are proud and beautiful
and untamed.
 
But I mean to tame
you.
 
You will dance to my tune, madam.”

  
“You mean to blackmail me with this piece of
paper into becoming your mistress?”

  
“With this piece of paper?”
 
He shook his head.
 
“No.
 
This piece of paper means nothing to me.”
 
Turning in his chair, he held the warrant in
the flames until the parchment began to burn and then dropped it onto the
glowing embers where it was quickly reduced to ash.