The Raider (29 page)

“I've been waiting for you to come here for days. I have something important to tell you.”

Jess wiped away her tears. Now he'd tell her that Alexander and the Raider were one and the same person. Now he'd eliminate her fears that it wasn't the truth. Now he'd relieve her worries about Alex's health. Now he'd at long last trust her.

“I've been thinking about what has happened between us and I've decided that you're right.”

“Yes,” Jess said, smiling. She
was
right. She was trustworthy, she wasn't foolish as he thought and she deserved to be told the truth.

The Raider looked at the ground, as if what he had to say was very difficult for him. Jess felt sympathy for him.

“This isn't easy for me to say, but I've finally listened to you.” His head came up. “You
are
a married woman and I've decided to respect that. Cynthia Coffin has let me know that she'd be delighted to receive my attentions. Therefore, I'll be seeing her from now on and leaving you to your husband.” He turned away from her.

Anger rushed through Jessica's veins. With one great leap, she jumped onto his back, hanging on with one hand and beating whatever of his body she could reach with the other hand. “I'll
kill
you, Alexander Montgomery. You touch another woman and I'll attach a live clam in its shell to your—”

He pulled her around to the front of him and kissed her.

She pulled the mask off his face as they kissed. “It
is
you,” she whispered.

“The one with the cruel mouth,” he said. “The weak-spined piece of seaweed you married.”

He was holding her off the ground and she began to kick.

“You made me miserable! Our wedding night! I cried all night. And there you were, sneaking in the window.”

“What about Ethan Ledbetter? What about the way you told me no woman would have me? You said a woman'd only want my money and that the
good
Montgomerys hadn't answered the distress call. And you made everyone laugh at me. I was shot and bleeding and you called me a drunk.”

She was kissing his face, her hands running through his hair. “What about when I saved you from the gunpowder? I had your blood on my hands and there you sat—alive and well—yet you let me worry myself sick over him—you.”

“And remember when I saw you after that? You cried on my back.”

She hugged him. “Oh, Alex, how could you be so completely different? Alex is so delicate and soft, while the Raider is…” She stopped and looked at him. “It's a good thing that mask covered that big nose of yours or everybody in the county would have known who you were.”

“Big nose?” he said threateningly. “Let's see what my big nose can get into.”

Jessica squealed with delight as Alex began untying her dress, then followed his fingers with his face, nuzzling her breasts. He tossed her onto his hip as if she were a child and continued undressing her while he kissed her. “Not sorry you didn't get Adam?” he asked as his lips moved down to her breasts.

“Alex, you're the only man I love. No matter how many people you are, you're the one I love.”

He lowered her to the ground after that, his mouth making hot little circles on her breasts, her stomach, her thighs. Her hands searched for him and she was impatient when she touched fabric.

Alex removed his clothing quickly and lay beside her.

Jess pushed him off the top of her. “I want to see all of you. I want to see that you really are Alexander.”

Chuckling, Alex lay still as she inspected him in the fading light.

For the first time Jess could see his face and his body. She knew both of them well, but Alex's face had always been atop a grotesque body. She ran her hand over his flat, smooth belly, then looked at his face. It was indeed Alex's face.

“Satisfied?” he asked.

“Not by a long way,” she said, moving her hand down until she grasped his manhood.

Alex was no longer laughing as he pulled her to him. “It's been such a very long time, Jess.”

“Yes,” was all she could murmur as he moved on top of her.

His hands caressed the inside of her thighs, then the outside, until she was impatient for him. “Alex,” she whispered and he entered her as smoothly as water lapping at a ship's bottom.

He made love to her slowly, gently, until the passion began to rise in both of them. Eagerly, Jess pushed him onto his back and climbed on top. She opened her eyes for a moment, then smiled at her sense of confusion. The only man who'd ever made love to her before wore a mask, and the only way she'd seen an adult Alexander was as a fat invalid.

But she thought no more as Alex pulled her to him and caressed her buttocks as she moved up and down.

At the last, when they could no longer stand their torment, Alex pushed her beneath him, Jessica's legs locked about his waist, and finished.

Jess clung to him for a long moment, not wanting to release him, afraid he'd disappear again.

He seemed to understand what she was feeling and pulled away from her to smile. “Who do I become now? The Raider or Alexander?”

She was suddenly serious. “You have to continue to be Alexander in public. People will guess you're the Raider if you change now.”

“You mind if I'm the Raider at night?” he asked, nuzzling her neck.

“Feel free to raid whatever you find in your bed.”

“Oh?” Alex said, laughing. “Think you'll sleep with me now?”

“I've
always
wanted to sleep with you,” she protested, then laughed. “Oh, Alex, so
that's
why you didn't want me in your bed. You knew I'd know if you—”

He kissed her. “I thought you might guess. And you learned after I kissed you at my father's request, didn't you?”

“Mmmm, maybe,” she said.

He began to tickle her. “ ‘Why, I'd
hate
you, Alexander,' ” he mocked in a falsetto voice. “What did you call me? Lying, sneaky, deceitful?
You
could have written the book. And my hair!”

“It
is
a little thin, Alex.”

He rubbed his hair and his face on her bare breasts. “You have a lot to answer for.”

“Maybe it will take me a lifetime.”

“At least,” he said, his eyes glowing. “Let's get back. I have to become Alex again for dinner, then I can raid you tonight.”

Jessica giggled.

One minute they were laughing and the next all hell broke loose. They had been so enraptured with each other that they hadn't heard the six men sneaking into the cove, their lanterns covered with black cloth.

At a command from someone, the cloths were removed, the lantern doors opened and Jess and Alex were lying in a pool of light, surrounded by six leering men.

Alex used his body to cover Jess as best he could while grabbing her dress and draping it about her. Before them stood the admiral, Pitman behind him.

“I arrest you, Alexander Montgomery, in the name of the king,” the admiral's voice boomed, “for treason.”

Pitman rushed forward, grabbed Alex's Raider mask carelessly tossed onto the rocky beach and looked at Alex. “This'll teach you to play with me. Did you think I wouldn't know about those pearls?”

“But Alex—” Jess began but Alex stopped her.

“Take your lanterns away and let her dress,” Alex said. “I'll go with you.”

“Alex, no!” Jess cried.

The admiral motioned the lanterns away as Alex stood, as proud nude as at any other time.

She dressed in the darkness as she watched Alex, in the circle of light, pull on his clothes. The black silk, the way he stood, his broad shoulders, his flat stomach no longer concealed by padding, proclaimed who he was.

He never looked back as he walked away with the soldiers.

“I found him and lost him all in one night,” Jess said, then began running.

A
LEX
has been arrested,” Jessica said, slamming the door to the dining room of the Montgomery house behind her.

“Oh my God!” Eleanor began to cry, her body shaking.

“Whatever for?” Marianna said. “Did his clothes frighten the sun away?”

Jessica gave vent to her anger and fear. “For being the Raider,” she screamed. “And
your
husband betrayed him.”

Nicholas entered the room before Marianna could speak. Immediately, he went to Eleanor and pulled her into his arms. “Alex?”

Eleanor nodded against his shoulder.

“This is ridiculous,” Marianna said. “Alexander is as likely as I am to be the Raider. He'd starve to death if Jessica didn't cut his food for him. They'll release him when they see the size of his belly.”

There were hot tears beginning to roll down Jess's face. “He doesn't
have
a fat belly. He doesn't have anything wrong with him. He's perfect, he's…” She was crying too hard to finish.

“Perfect?” Marianna said. “Alexander? But he's fat and—” She halted, then her eyes widened. “You mean Alex
is
the Raider?”

No one bothered to answer her.

“I have to tell his father,” Jess said, trying to control herself. She ran down the hall and burst into Sayer's room.

His face changed when he saw her. “Alex,” he gasped.

Jess did what she often did when she was upset and ran into his arms. “Pitman told. He found out about the pearls and was angry. It would be easy to spy in this house. The admiral took Alex.”

Sayer stroked her back and let her cry for a while, then pushed her away from him and said, “We have to make a plan.”

“They're going to hang him. My Alex.”

“Stop that!” Sayer commanded. “Nobody hangs Montgomerys. We get shot or die of sword wounds or get crushed under barrels, but we
don't
get hanged. You understand me? Now stop that sniveling and let's figure out what to do. First, get Eleanor and Alex's Russian in here, then that Italian woman and young Nathaniel. Give Marianna a glass of whiskey and tell her to go to bed. We'll try to make some plans tonight.”

It was Sophy who was able to think most rationally. Eleanor, Jessica and Nathaniel were every minute on the verge of tears, while Sayer and Nicholas were enraged.

“What proof do they have that Alex is the Raider?” Sophy asked.

“He's my son,” Sayer bellowed. “Of course my son would—”

Sophy kissed the old man's forehead and winked at Jess. She tried again. “It's my guess that we have time. I don't think the admiral will hang Alex tomorrow.” She put up her hand to stop the protests. “I think the admiral will want to gloat. He'll send for more Englishmen to come observe him. At least, I think he's a man of vanity.”

“Mrs. Wentworth had to give him her pier glass so he could see himself in his uniform,” Eleanor said.

“Yes, I thought so,” Sophy said. “I wish we had someone else to play the Raider. If more raids were made while Alex was in prison…” She looked at Nicholas.

“He's taller than Alex. People would see at a glance he wasn't the Raider,” Jess said.

“That didn't matter when
I
was the Raider,” Eleanor snapped.

Everyone turned to her until she fidgeted in her chair. “I found the message Jess had taken from the admiral. It had fallen to the floor and been blown under a cabinet. So I knew the English were planning to search the
Poinciana
when most of the crew was gone. Alex and Jess were gone, so I borrowed Alex's Raider clothes and led the soldiers away from the ship.”

“And almost got yourself killed,” Jess yelled. “If I hadn't seen you from the top of the hill, you'd have been trapped. Alex saved your neck.”

“Yes, but if you—”

Sophy stepped between the two quarreling sisters. “I think I have a plan. First of all, we need to find out what's going on. Jess, do you think your Wentworth ladies would help Alex?”

Jess was solemn. “This town would die to save him. He has done much to help them.”

“I think I have an idea.”

*   *   *

“I knew I would catch him,” the admiral was saying while sitting at the Wentworth dining table. “He never fooled me with that fat belly and that wig. I suspected him all along.”

Mrs. Wentworth slammed her glass down and her husband kicked her ankle under the table.

“Good work,” Mrs. Wentworth mumbled.

Abigail was still too stunned by the news to speak. Jessica Taggert had won after all. She'd won the man with the money, as well as the most desirable man in this decade. While she, Abigail, had to make do with weekly visits to where Ethan was hiding in the forest. He wasn't in the English army; now he was a fugitive.

“Yes, and I'll hang him for what he's done. Just as soon as the other officers get here, I'll hang him,” the admiral said.

“Here, Admiral,” Mrs. Wentworth said, “have another muffin. I made them especially for you. Do you have any idea when the officers will be here?”

“End of the week. Come Saturday morning I'll hang that traitor.”

Abigail blinked back a few tears, then hid her face so the admiral wouldn't see. She wondered what Jessica was doing right now. Her head came up and she looked at her mother. Jessica was making plans. She knew that as well as she knew the curls in her own hair.

“We must console the Montgomerys,” Abigail murmured. “They must be devastated.”

“I'll hang anybody that interferes in this,” the admiral bragged. “I hear old man Sayer Montgomery used to rule this town. Well, Warbrooke has a new master now.”

Mrs. Wentworth looked down at her plate.

*   *   *

Eleanor met Jessica and Nicholas at the wharf at one in the morning when Nick's ship returned. “Well?” she said as loudly as she dared when Nick came down the gangplank. “Did you get it?”

“No kiss?” he teased.

Eleanor gave a pointed look to a tired Jessica following him. “You had no problem with the ship's master?”

“They treated Nick as if he were the master,” Jess said.

“All Russians treat each other with great respect.”

“It's just us you treat like rubbish, is it?” Eleanor asked.

“Here, take this,” Jess commanded her sister, handing her a canvas bag.

“You
did
get it.”

“We bought every pot of black dye Boston had to sell. Is everyone ready to start distributing it? We don't have much time.”

“We're ready.” She put her hand on Jess's arm. “The admiral moved the trial to tomorrow. The winds were good and his officers arrived a day earlier than expected.”

“Then the people of Warbrooke will have to work tonight,” Jess said firmly.

“But nothing will be dry,” Eleanor began, then stopped. “They'll wear them wet, then. Jess, have you slept?”

“No! She paced the deck over my head all night so I, too, did not sleep,” Nick moaned.

“You look healthy to me,” Eleanor said.

Nick grabbed her waist and pulled her to him. “Come, we have work to do.”

All night the Taggert children ran from one house to another, slipping through the shadows, whispering directions and plans.

The Wentworths did their job of entertaining the admiral and his officer friends with a noisy party that distracted the men from anything going on outside.

Jessica had given Marianna orders to keep her husband busy. “Even if you have to sleep with him,” she'd said.

Marianna had paled. “I guess I owe Alex that much. I wish I'd believed in him.”

“I wish I had, too,” Jess murmured.

Eleanor had tried to get in to see Alex while Jess was gone, but the guards had refused to let her see him. There was a double row of guards surrounding the building where he was held and she couldn't sneak past them.

By dawn, Eleanor had the children in bed, their faces showing their exhaustion. On impulse, she pushed Jess, fully clothed, in with them. “Be still or you'll wake them.”

Jess was too weary to protest. She slept.

*   *   *

Alexander's trial before the English judges was a farce. They knew he was guilty before a word had been spoken. He was still wearing his black silk clothes, his hands tied behind his back, as he stood in the prisoners' box.

There were very few people from Warbrooke at the trial, only a few girls whose sighs were audible as Alex stood with his shoulders back, chest out, legs apart and black whisker stubble on his sharply cut cheeks.

“Quiet them,” a judge commanded.

A bailiff brought forth Alex's Raider mask and tied it in place while Alex stood impassively.

The girls in the gallery gave a swooning sigh.

“It looks to me that he's this Raider,” a judge said and the others nodded.

The admiral nodded smugly toward the men surrounding him. It was essential to him that he impress these men.

“Hang him.”

The bailiff grabbed Alex's arm and was about to lead him away when a man came flying through the window, glass going everywhere. He was dressed entirely in black with a mask just like the Raider's.

“So! You think you caught me, do you?” the masked man yelled delightedly.

“What's the meaning of this?” a judge roared. He pointed at the admiral. “I thought you'd caught the scoundrel.”

“I did,” the admiral yelled. “This is an imposter.”

Chaos and noise reigned in the courtroom as English soldiers began chasing this new Raider, who was now on the balcony. The pretty young girls in their frilly dresses kept getting in the way though, and the young soldiers quite often tripped over a dainty foot. Then they had to comfort the girls because a few skirts were torn.

“Seize him!”

Through the opposite window of the courthouse came charging another Raider.

“So! You think you caught me, do you?” the new Raider said.

Everyone halted for a moment, even the two young men who were rolling on the floor with pretty girls.

“Seize him!”

“Which one, sir?”

“Either of them,
both
of them,” the admiral shouted.

One Raider made it out the broken window while the first one—or was it the second one—was caught.

“Unmask him!” the admiral ordered. The judges had sat back down, as had the admiral's officer friends whom he'd invited to Warbrooke at his expense to witness his triumph. They were beginning to look amused.

The soldiers pulled off the Raider's mask.

“Abigail Wentworth!” the admiral gasped.

The judges snickered and the officers laughed while the soldiers holding Abby let their hands slip over her body.

The north doors of the courtroom burst open. “We caught him, sir.” Four soldiers held another Raider. They stopped when they saw Alex, still wearing his mask, still standing in the witness box and Abigail wearing men's trousers. They unmasked their Raider.

“Ezra Coffin,” someone said.

The south doors opened.

“We caught him, sir.”

By now the officers were howling with laughter, glad to witness the pompous admiral's humiliation. The judges were trying to keep their dignity.

“Shall we release them all or hang them all?” a judge asked solemnly.

“Look out the window,” someone called.

Within minutes, only the judges, the admiral and Alex were left in the courtroom because everyone else had rushed outside to see the excitement.

Warbrooke was awash with Raiders. They were on rooftops, in the church steeple, upon damp-looking black horses. Two well-upholstered Raiders were on a porch, each churning butter, and one Raider about five feet tall was holding the hand of a three-foot-tall Raider and carrying on his hip a two-foot-tall Raider who was trying to remove his mask. Four English soldiers started chasing a Raider who had what looked to be a twenty-inch waist and thirty-seven-inch hips. One limping, suspiciously old-looking Raider was leading a cow wearing a black mask.

The judges, after a few minutes at the window, returned to their seats.

“Release him,” they said tiredly and since there was no one else to do it, the last judge in line lifted his robe, took out a knife and cut Alex's bindings.

“But he's the Raider,” the admiral said. “You're releasing him to defy me again. You can't let him go.”

Alex pulled the mask from his face and walked out of the courtroom. Jess was waiting for him, wearing her red dress, just outside.