The Raider (9 page)

“Eleanor said—” Nick broke off. “I thought
you
were the Raider. Did
you
tear her dress?”

Alex frowned. “Yes, I guess I did. I didn't mean to, it was all Abigail's fault. ‘Do with me what you will',” he mocked. “And then there was Jessica, lying on the ground. She was asleep, but at first I thought she'd been hurt and the Raider—I mean me—I grabbed her and she hit me and…”

“Her dress was torn. I understand. Did you tear it completely off?”

“Of course not! Even the Raider, blowhard that he is, wouldn't hurt a virtuous woman.”

“You should have used your sword. The women like that. I once sliced a gypsy's dress off, layer by layer, while she danced. And later—”

Alex threw down his brush and started toward Nick. “She's not like that! She's brave and generous and intelligent and—”

“But the Raider took advantage of her. Perhaps you should challenge him to a duel.” Nick's eyes were laughing, his mouth twitching.

Alex stood over Nick, his muscles straining with anger, and he began to see the absurdity of what he was saying. He turned back to his horse. “I may be the Raider but I am Alexander also.”

“Ah, the dilemma, whether a woman loves the man himself or what she thinks he is. Or perhaps she is torn between a man's mind and his kisses. Which do you think she'll choose?”

Alexander didn't answer his friend because, at the moment, he wasn't sure which man he wanted her to choose.

He laughed aloud at his thought. “What do I care what Jessica Taggert does? I'm grateful she helped the Raider. Helped me, I mean. She's pretty and desirable, but so are half the other single women in the world. My father informed me last night that it was time I married and produced an heir or two. He says he doesn't want to die without grandchildren. I think he's spending too much time with young Nathaniel.”

“Don't mention that boy's name to me!” Nick said. “He never leaves Eleanor's side. Yesterday I—” Nick stopped, smiling at some memory he seemed to want to keep to himself. “I would not have so much trouble if I did not have that boy around.” His head came up. “Why don't you marry your Jessica?”

“As who? The Raider or Alexander who she thinks is fat and lazy? The Raider would marry her while leaping from one yardarm to the next so the soldiers couldn't catch him, and Alex would never be able to make up his mind which coat to wear. I doubt if she'd have either man.”

“Ah,” Nick said.

“And what does that mean?”

“Ah. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Alex gave a final brushing to the horse. “Tomorrow Alexander Montgomery shall go courting. There are other women in this town besides Mistress Jessica. Sweet, docile, lovely women, women who judge a man by what's inside him. I may not look so good when I'm padded and wigged but there is a
man
underneath. Jessica will see that when she knows there are women who can see beyond a few yards of satin.”

“You have more faith in women than I do.”

“I have faith only in Jessica. She has more sense than most women.”

“As has her sister. Except now and then—”

“Now and then Jessica can be an idiot. Why doesn't she see that I am—”

The men continued with the lament of all men.

*   *   *

Eleanor tried to prepare dinner on the same table where Jessica was doing her accounts.

“Would you be more careful with that?” Jess snapped when Eleanor splashed batter on a precious piece of paper. “I don't think old man Clymer will like cornmeal on his ledger.”

“He won't care what's on it. All he wants is an excuse to see you. He's only pretending that his hand is injured. Yesterday I saw him using an axe.”

“Whatever the reason, we can use the leather from his tannery. The children need shoes for winter.”

Eleanor kept stirring the batter in the big wooden bowl. “Jess, have you seen Alexander lately?”

“Not in about a week,” she replied, adding numbers in her head.

“You didn't have a quarrel, did you?”

Jess looked at her sister as if she'd lost her mind. “What are you talking about? What would we quarrel about?”

Eleanor poured the batter into a cast-iron spider by the tiny fireplace. “I don't know. You two seemed to be such good friends for a while and now you never see him. You aren't laughing at him again, are you?”

Jess gritted her teeth. “No, I didn't laugh at him. I didn't shake my finger at him. I didn't jump around a corner and yell ‘boo' at him either. You ought to know why I haven't seen him or anyone else.” She glared at Eleanor over the table. After she'd been taken prisoner for helping the Raider escape and Alex had obtained her release, Jessica had been given a blistering lecture by Sayer Montgomery, with Eleanor sitting nearby and crying juicily into half a dozen of her employer's clean handkerchiefs. It had been bad enough that Jessica had been banished to the forest the day George Greene was to be whipped, but when she'd returned with her dress torn and a bruise on her throat, Eleanor had been nearly hysterical. Jess had lied about her dress, but Eleanor had seen through it and Jess had given herself away by blushing when the Raider's name was mentioned.

Now, a week after the raid, Jess was still more or less housebound. She hadn't been on her boat, she hadn't been in town. Instead, she'd been left with the full care of all seven children. As if that weren't enough to drive her out of her mind, old man Clymer had asked her to balance the accounts of his leather-tanning business in exchange for several tanned hides.

So for a week Jess had recorded sales (Clymer was two years behind in his bookwork), pulled a child away from the fire, added a column of figures, prevented one child from killing another, re-added the column, yelled at Nathaniel to stop tormenting his sister and go dig clams, re-added the column, then swatted Sam because he was pulling the cat's tail, then…On and on for seven whole days.

And now Eleanor was asking her if perhaps she'd angered Alexander. “I haven't angered anyone. I have been the perfect young lady. I have dipped candles, I have washed clothes, I have washed faces and bottoms. I have—”

“And you have avoided the customs officer. You know the man suspects you, Jessica. Only Mr. Montgomery—”

“Yes, I know,” Jess sighed. “I am very grateful. I really am glad of all he's done and I am very sorry I ever was such a fool as to help the Raider.” She caught her sister's eye. “Any news yet?”

“There are reward handbills posted everywhere. Mr. Pitman means to have this Raider of yours.”

“Not mine!” Jessica said. “Not mine at all! I merely happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Eleanor opened her mouth to speak, but a knock on the door stopped her. It took her a moment to make her way through the children who'd run to the door, but she opened it to see Alexander standing there, resplendent in pink twilled silk. His wig of powdered curls was tied loosely at the nape of his neck with a pink satin bow. In his hands was a carved wooden chest. He patted a child's head while he greeted Eleanor, then looked at his hand that had touched the child.

Eleanor handed him a damp cloth. “Good evening, Alexander. What brings you out on this fine evening?”

“I wonder if I might talk to Jessica?” he said rather shyly. “Outside. I mean, I thought we might walk down to the mill.”

“Sam! Stop that. I don't know, I need to work on these ledgers,” Jess said. “Is it important?”

“She'll be right there,” Eleanor said, pushing Alex out the door and taking the wet cloth from him. “Jessica,” she said sternly, “take my cloak and go with him.”

“There's too much danger for me to leave the house, but a Montgomery arrives and suddenly I'm safe. Who'll protect me from the hummingbirds that attack that coat of his?”

“Jessica…” Eleanor warned. “Go! He's been courting young women all week.”

Jess's eyes widened. “And you think I'm next? Oh heavens, Nathaniel, go get me a bucket of war paint, Master Alex is on the hunt.”

Eleanor just stood there, glaring at her sister.

“All right, I'll go. Nate, if you hear me call, come get me.”

“And the hummingbirds?” Molly said.

Eleanor pushed Jess, wearing her sailing garb, out the door without a cloak. “Be nice to him,” she whispered before closing the door.

“Hello, Alexander, been working?” Jess asked, smiling at him as they began to walk. She would have been glad to see him—anything for a diversion—if she hadn't been so anxious to get Clymer's accounts done.

“I hear you've been seeing Mr. Clymer this week,” Alex said, clutching a wooden chest that was propped on his protruding belly.

“More than I wanted to. He says he hurt his hand and can't do his accounts. Four times a day he finds a reason to visit me.”

“Has he asked you to marry him yet?” Alex asked.

“I'd put it at every twelve minutes. The last time he did, Sam wet on his leg. Ol' fish-face Clymer didn't move a muscle, just stood there and waited for my answer.”

“Which was?”

“ ‘No thank you, Mr. Clymer, but it was very kind of you to ask.' Same as it has been for years.”

“Why don't you marry him? He's rich and he could give you and Eleanor and the kids a nice place to live, nice clothes, all the things women want.”

“Not
all
women. Eleanor and I made a vow after our parents died that we'd only marry if we wanted to, and we'd wait for the right men. We won't settle for second-best.”

“And Clymer is second?”

She stopped walking and looked at him. “Alex, what is this all about? And what have you got in that box? Eleanor says you've been courting this week. Has something gone wrong?”

“Could we sit down? These shoes pinch my feet,” he said honestly. He sat on a flat rock just off the road. “Truthfully, Jess, I came to you for advice. My father wants me to get married.” He was watching her face intently for expressions of emotion.

“And?” Jess asked. She sat on the grass near him, a weed in her teeth. “There are lots of women around here. None of them to your liking?”

“A few. Cynthia Coffin is awfully pretty.”

“She sure is, and she bakes great bread. Your father would like her. So, did you ask her?” She didn't see the look of disgust on Alex's face.

“I haven't asked anyone yet. I'm just searching. The Coffins loved the idea of me for a son-in-law.”

“Mr. Coffin would love to get his hands on your father's wharf space. He probably thinks you're incompetent as well as…” She stopped and gave him a quick look up and down. “New coat?”

His face brightened around a steely look in his eyes. “Like it?”

“Alex, why don't you—”

“And Ellen Makepeace invited me to supper,” Alex said, cutting her off.

“Ellen is a sneak. I wouldn't marry her if I were you.”

Alex's jaw clenched. “Cathryn Wheatbury didn't seem interested in me at all.”

Jess yawned. “That's because she's in love with Ethan Ledbetter. But then so are a lot of women. Ethan's going to give you some trouble. You have the money and the Montgomery name, but then Ethan has…” She smiled.

“Ethan has what?”

“Looks, charm, intelligence. He's very much a gentleman. The last time he was on the
Mary Catherine
we—”

“On the
Mary Catherine!
What were you doing alone with him?” Alex demanded.

Jessica sat up and looked at him in surprise. “Now don't you go ordering me around, too. I've had more than my share from both your father and my sister. It so happens that Ethan came to buy some haddock—and he came with his mother. Ethan had to carry the fish for her.”

Alex relaxed his body. “It's a wonder he could lift them.”

“With those arms?” Jess said, smiling dreamily in memory. “That man could carry the hindquarters of a whale home. You know, Alex,” she said, sitting up straight, “a couple of times it's crossed my mind that maybe Ethan is the Raider. They're built alike, both tall, strong, both very good-looking, and I doubt that Ethan's afraid of anything. Only last year he—”

Alex was sitting upright on the rock, his back as rigid as a sword blade. “How do you know what the Raider looks like? The last time I saw you, you were saying you hated him.”

“I do, but that doesn't make me blind. Ethan has the strength to swing on a rope like the Raider did.”

“So do half the sailors on the dock. Maybe any one of them could be this Raider you seem to think so highly of.”

“That I…” She looked at him in the fading light. “Alex, are you jealous?”