The Pirate's Widow (7 page)

  
“I will consider the matter.”

  
Sir Thomas handed her into his carriage and
climbed in beside her.
 
“Will you really
consider sending Jem to the parson’s school?” he asked as they started off.

  
“I will,” she admitted.

  
“I think it would be wise.
 
As the parson said, it will take him away
from those with whom he should, perhaps, not be encouraged to spend too much of
his time.”

  
“Meaning Finn Blount,” Callie surmised.
 
“Forgive me, Sir Thomas, but having met Finn
Blount I can see that he is not so different from most of the men in the area
who ply their trade as salvagers when the opportunity arises.”

  
“He is also a smuggler,” Sir Thomas told
her, “and quite a notorious one.
 
I can
promise you if the Revenuers get their hands on him, they will not go
gently.
 
Surely you would not want Jem
tainted by association.”

  
Callie looked out of the window at the
passing scenery.
 
Jem, her little pirate
boy, tainted by association with a local smuggler.
 
Still, if he was with Finn when the Revenuers
managed to capture him, inquiries might be made that could land them both in
mortal danger.

  
“Perhaps it would be good for him to try the
school,” she agreed thoughtfully.

  
Sir Thomas nodded his approval as the
gatekeeper of Sedgewyck Manor ran out to swing the wrought iron gates wide to
admit the carriage.

  
Tea was brought to them in the scarlet
drawing room where a huge portrait of Sir Thomas’ great-great-grandmother, the
notorious lady pirate, Lettice, Lady Sedgewyck hung over the marble mantel.

  
“I do apologize for the absence of my
mother-in-law, Caroline,” Sir Thomas said.
 
“But she is indisposed and the butler tells me Flora has been closeted
with her mother all day.”

  
“That’s quite all right,” Callie assured
him.
 
“You must not disturb Mrs. Louvain
on my account.”

  
She hid a smile behind her tea cup for
Sophie Bates had been at pains to tell her in church that Venetia Louvain took
to her bed after hearing that Sir Thomas had spent hundreds of pounds on
Callie’s new wardrobe.
 
Her hopes of
seeing her second daughter installed in her late sister’s gilded shoes as
mistress of Sedgewyck Manor seemed to be fading fast.

  
“Will you stay to dinner?”

  
“Thank you, Sir Thomas, but I cannot.
 
I really must go home after tea but it is
kind of you to invite me.
 
Another time,
perhaps?”

  
“Another time,” he said tightly and Callie
was certain he was not used to having his invitations refused.
 
“You will at least accompany me on a walk in
the garden before you depart.”

  
Callie could think of no plausible reason to
refuse and so she and Sir Thomas strolled through the sunken garden behind the
great house and followed the path into the woods at the edge of the lawn
accompanied by Sir Thomas’ favorite hound, Achilles.
 
As they walked they came upon alcoves and
glades, places where the woods had been tamed to form little bowers where one
might wile away long lazy afternoons.
 
It
was all delightful and Callie could not help but think what it would be like to
be the mistress of such a place.

  
“Do you like it, my dear?” Sir Thomas asked,
his hand warm on hers where it rested in the crook of his arm.

  
“It is beautiful, Sir Thomas,” she answered
honestly.
 
“You must be very happy here.”

  
“I am.
 
Though I confess that there is emptiness; a home without a mistress is
not as welcoming as it could be.”

  
“What was she like, your late wife?
 
Did she resemble her sister?”

  
“Flora?”
 
He laughed.
 
“Flora and Charlotte
were half-sisters.
 
Charlotte was the
daughter of Venetia and her first husband.
 
She and Flora were nothing alike.
 
Charlotte’s beauty was dark and smoldering; there was a fire in her
eyes, a promise in the very air around her.

She
was more like you than like Flora.”

  
Callie turned her head to hide a smile.
 
Poor Flora, poor Venetia, plotting and
planning to regain the position as Sir Thomas’ lady wife with little chance of
success.
 
If Sir Thomas liked his women
‘dark and smoldering’ the pale, insipid Flora was unlike to inspire his
passion.

  
As they rounded a bend in the path, Achilles
began to bark and scampered ahead of them on the path.

  
“Where’s he going?” Callie asked.

  
“To see Walter.”

  
“The hermit?”

  
“Yes, his cave is just ahead.”

  
Inside Walter’s lair, Flora Louvain stood
propped against a roughly hewn table, her skirts hiked up to expose her narrow
backside, while Sir Thomas’ hermit took her from behind, his head thrown back,
his eyes tightly shut.
 

  
Flora moaned.
 
“I love you, Walter, I do,” she rasped.
 
“Do you love me?”

  
Walter frowned.
 
Why did the damned chit have to talk?
 
He’d been lost in an inspiring fantasy, a
tropical beach and a beautiful and buxom native girl with long, gleaming black
hair and skin like warm honey.

  
“Walter?” Flora prompted breathlessly.

  
“Hush, my sweet,” Walter said, stepped away
from her and fastening his homespun breeches.
 
“I heard a dog bark.
 
I think . .
.”

  
Achilles reached the rough planks that
served as a door and barked for Walter’s attention.

  
“It’s Sir Thomas’ dog,” Walter said.
 
“He must be on his way.
 
Quickly, you must go.”

  
“You never answered my question,” Flora
pouted, pushing down her skirts and tucking her small breasts back into the bodice
of her gown.
 
“Do you love me?”

  
“Madly, my sweet, passionately, now go
before we are discovered.”

  
Walter peered out around the door and saw
only the hound, wagging his tail, his tongue lolling.
 
“Go, now, hurry.”

  
Flora leaned toward him for a last kiss but
he shoved her roughly out the door and closed it behind her, not waiting to
watch her disappear into the forest surrounding his home.

  
Just as Sir Thomas and Callie rounded the
last bend in the path, Callie heard a commotion in the underbrush and what
sounded like a woman’s cry.

  
“What was that, Sir Thomas?” she asked.
 
“Perhaps someone’s hurt.”

  
“Likely only an animal,” he replied,
unconcerned.
 
“Here, here is Walter’s
home.”

  
Set back from the path, Callie saw Sir
Thomas’ favorite folly, a fanciful reconstruction of a cave made of gray stone,
smoothed to make it look as if it were natural, rising out of the leaf-littered
floor of the forest.
 
As they approached,
a man in rough clothing with a ragged beard and shaggy black hair pulled back
and tied with a string at the nape of his neck appeared and struck an attitude,
one hand raised to shield his eyes as he gazed off into the distance.
 
Achilles gamboled happily around his feet but
he paid no attention to the animal.

  
“Good afternoon, Walter,” Sir Thomas
said.
 
“I’ve brought a lady to meet you.”

 
The hermit abandoned his attitude and bowed
to his employer.
 
“Sir Thomas,” he said,
“I trust you are well.”

  
“Tolerably so; let me present Mrs. Caroline
Jenkins.
 
She and her young son have
taken Hyacinth Cottage.”

  
“Madam,” the hermit made her an elegant bow,
“your servant.
 
How do you find St.
Swithin?”

  
“Everyone has been most kind and attentive
Mr. . . ?”
 
Callie stopped, her eyes
widening, as she looked closely at the bearded hermit.

  
“Walter, ma’am; I am called Walter by one
and all.”

  
“Walter, then, I admit I have not lived in
this country for many years; my husband and I traveled extensively, and I had
not heard of the custom of having a hermit living in one’s garden.”

  
“It is, I believe, more common among
noblemen in England than here in Cornwall,” Walter replied, “but then Sir
Thomas is, perhaps, more sophisticated than some of the gentlemen hereabouts.”

  
“I’m sure.”

  
Back at the manor, Flora sent her maid for a
basin of warm water.
 
She had skinned her
knee falling over a log in her flight.
 
Her cheeks were flushed and her hair had come down from its pins.
 
The lace trimming the neckline of her gown
was torn; Walter was none to gentle in his wooing.
 

  
As she tucked her skirts beneath her chin
and used the wet cloth to wash away the sticky evidence of her encounter, the
door opened and her mother appeared.

  
“Flora, where have you—“Venetia’s eyes took
in her daughter’s disheveled appearance and the wet cloth tucked between
Flora’s thin thighs.
 
“What have you been
about, my girl?”

  
“Sir Thomas!
 
Sir Thomas!”
  
A maidservant came
running up the path, her skirts flying.
 
“Sir Thomas, something’s wrong with Mrs. Louvain and Miss Flora.
 
There are the most dreadful sounds coming
from Miss Flora’s room; screams and cries and crashes.
 
It sounds like the walls are coming down.”

  
“Drat it!” Sir Thomas growled.
 
“Dear Caroline, I fear we must abandon our
walk.”

  
“Sir Thomas,” Walter said, “if you will give
me permission to leave my post, I will see Mrs. Jenkins to the carriage and you
may see to Mrs. and Miss Louvain.”

  
“Caroline, if you would permit . . .”

  
“Of course, Sir Thomas, you must see to your
mother-in-law. I understand completely.”

  
“Thank you, my dear.”

  
Sir Thomas hurried away followed by the
maidservant and Achilles who barked at his mater’s heels.
 
As soon as they were out of earshot, Callie
turned to the hermit.

  
“Walter Bartlett?” she said, smiling.

  
“Caroline Jenkins?” he replied with a grin.

  
“How are you, Bartlett?”

  
“Fair to middling’, Callie Llewellyn.”

  
She slipped her hand into the crook of his
arm and they began a leisurely stroll back to the manor where the carriage
waited to take Callie home.

  
“It has been so long,” Callie said, “since
Ocracoke.”

  
Walter, whom Callie had known years before
as Bartlett, first mate on the
Queen
Anne’s Revenge
, nodded.
 
“Aye, three
years and more.”

  
“I thought you dead along with Teach.”
Edmund Teach, Walter’s former captain, had terrorized the high seas as
Blackbeard, the most notorious pirate of all.

  
“I was ashore when Maynard attacked.
 
I signed on to a British warship bound for
England and lay low.”

  
Callie sighed.
 
“I heard Maynard cut off Blackbeard’s head
and hung it from his bowsprit.”

  
Walter nodded.
 
“They say Blackbeard’s headless body swam
around Maynard’s ship seven times before it sank.”
  
He put his hand over Callie’s as it lay on
his arm.
 
“And Kit?”

  
“Dead as well.” Callie bit her lip.
 
“Hanged in London.
 
The last thing he did was arrange my
escape.
 
I thought to find a small
village and hide until the world forgets about Kit Llewellyn and his doxy.”