The Rebel Pirate (19 page)

He sent the boy into the night, found a bottle of rum and two glasses in the well-stocked kitchen, and returned to find Ward sitting up. James handed Sarah’s brother a glass. “You’d best drink,” he offered. “It’s never pleasant, letting the sawbones fish for lead in your belly.”

Ward did not reach for the glass. “I want you to understand that I am not a moralist or a prude. I know my sister is partial to you. And you might make her happy for a while. But Micah Wild’s betrayal left a mark on her. I don’t mean the gossip. She doubts her own worth. Your esteem is not enough to restore her. Nothing less than a man’s name and fortune will make her whole.”

“I did not offer your sister my protection because I think her unworthy of my name. Quite the opposite. If I were free to consider marriage, I would, but I am not.”

And he told him. The whole story. The things he had not told Sarah Ward. About what Slough had done to him on the
Scylla
. How he had fought the first time and then, when Slough ordered him tied to the gratings and lashed, discovered that he preferred being defiled to being beaten. How someone at the jail on Nevis had been paid to pour lye down his mother’s throat so she could never tell her tale, and then sold her into indentured servitude on a plantation where she had died of overwork and starvation.

Sparhawk told him everything, because he was privy to this man’s secret, and Ward had risked his life for him.

“My father is a ruthless man. You must see that once I step forward with proof of my identity, any woman tied to me by marriage would be a threat to him. And he would deal with such a threat as he has in the past—ruthlessly.”

“All the more reason,” said Benjamin Ward, “that if you truly care for my sister, you will leave her alone. You and I have only just met, and here I lie waiting for the sawbones with a ball in my belly.”

He was right. Sparhawk’s encounters with the Ward family had not been to their benefit. He had destroyed their hopes of escaping poverty, driven Sarah to an act that could get her hanged as a pirate, and nearly seen Ned drowned.

Ward finally reached for the glass at his side. “Sarah cannot leave the safety of Boston because of Micah Wild. He has made it known that the
Sally
is his property, and Sarah along with her. Admiral Graves suspects her of piracy. I am suspected of treason. General Gage may have me taken up at any time. My sister needs a protector here, who can shield her if I am arrested. She forbade me to speak of it to you, but it is no secret that she is about to receive a very good offer. From a man of property and standing, who is a friend of government. You should encourage her to forget about you, and take it.”

“She is only helping me to satisfy her overdeveloped Ward sense of honor,” said Sparhawk, remembering her rebuff on the
Hephaestion
.

“If you believe that, you are a fool. Honor demanded we help you escape. It did not demand we bargain with the Rebels for proof of your innocence. A month ago my sister vowed the
Sally
would carry no more contraband. Now she directs me to pick up a cargo of Spanish gold for the Merry Widow, a very dangerous woman. Sarah would be safely betrothed, she and Ned secure and beyond the reach of Admiral Graves now, if she did not hold out some hope of you.”

“In a few days’ time,” Sparhawk said, “the point will be moot. We will sail for England, and it is unlikely that I will return to America. If I survive Graves and the Admiralty Court, I will have my father and a case in Parliament to contend with.”

“Then tell her,” said Benji. “Tell Sarah you are leaving and you are not coming back. That there is no future to be had with you, so she can accept the one waiting for her.”

Sparhawk could imagine a great many things with Sarah Ward, but delivering such a speech was not one of them. Still, he resolved that he would do it, tell her that tonight’s meeting would be their last.

The boy returned from his errand a few minutes later and reported to Sparhawk.

His trip to Province House with its marble floors, silk-hung rooms, and haughty servants had been daunting, but he had persevered. “I spoke to the lady alone, as you told me, and to no one else. She said she would relay the message to the gentleman, but that she did not know if he would come.”

It was the best he could hope for under the circumstances.

“And the other lady?” asked Sparhawk. “What did she say?”

“She said a word I’m not allowed to use.”

Benjamin Ward laughed, then groaned in pain. “At least you can be certain he spoke to my sister.”

James gave the child a coin and sent him back to his mother.

An hour later, Sparhawk answered a soft tap on the door and admitted a man who should not have been in Boston at all. Joseph Warren was dressed far less flamboyantly than when he had visited Sparhawk a month ago at the Golden Ball. Tonight he could pass for a mechanic in plain brown breeches and an old leather waistcoat.

“I learned of your predicament a few days ago,” said Warren, “and hoped that you might call on me.”

“In truth,” replied Sparhawk, “it is the physician I sent for, not the Rebel.”

Warren gave a wry smile. “My colleagues in Congress do the same. When I have completed my errand of mercy, though, will you hear me out?”

Sparhawk agreed and led Warren into the parlor.

Benjamin Ward took one look at the newcomer and cursed. “Dr. Warren should not be in Boston. The army will hang him if they find him here.”

“Then they had best not find me,” said Warren pleasantly. “Close the shutters, please, and muffle the cracks with cloth. Then bring me a light. Spermaceti for preference.”

It was, as Sparhawk had foretold, an unpleasant business, but Ward was almost silent throughout, save for the moment Warren plucked the ball free with a distinctly liquid sound.

“There,” he said with satisfaction, dropping the gory bullet into Ward’s hand. “A token of King George’s affection.”

Ward rolled the bloody slug around in his palm. “I was there at the meetinghouse in March when you gave the Massacre Day oration,” Ward said, taking a deep swig from the rum bottle as Warren began to sew the wound closed. “I saw that fusilier captain in the first row reach up and offer you a handful of bullets.”

That
was a part of the story that Sparhawk had not heard. It was the clearest message that if—
when
—fighting broke out in earnest, Warren would not be treated as an honorable enemy. Benji was right. The doctor was mad to be in Boston. But it was the madness of Edward Hawke and Francis Drake, and Sparhawk could not help but like the man for it.

Warren tied off his neat line of stitches. “The British think we will not fight,” he said. “That we are bumpkins and cowards. But I mean to return the fusilier’s favors, by and by.”

A little while later, in the old-fashioned dining room with its elaborate sideboard and conspicuous Bible box, Sparhawk listened to the Rebel doctor’s offer.

“The Provincial Congress will pay you handsomely for intelligence about the disposition of the squadron, the draft, armaments, and manpower of the ships stationed in the harbor, and Graves’ immediate plans.” Warren named a large sum. “More, if you will accept a commission. There is also the promise of an excellent farm in Cambridge, with a fine house.”

“Confiscated from a Loyalist, I presume.”

“A regrettable necessity,” said Warren. “It is not possible to leave strategically situated land in the hands of the friends of government.”

No doubt Micah Wild had justified the burning of the Ward home in much the same way, and Henry Tudor the dissolution of the monasteries. “That is a very martial proposal from a physician,” Sparhawk observed.

“The day is coming when the only way to save American lives will be to take British ones. Some will see it as a betrayal of my Hippocratic oath, but I mean to trade my scalpel for a sword.”

Like the farmers and farriers and innkeepers on the road to Boston; the caulkers and shipwrights in Salem; and the maddening, beguiling Sarah Ward. Every effort the Crown made to force obedience pushed another American into open rebellion.

“If I aided or joined your cause,” Sparhawk said, “it would be taken as proof of my guilt. And I do not relish the thought of spending the rest of my days as a wanted criminal.”

“Do you really believe that Graves will allow you to walk into the Admiralty and present your evidence?”

Sparhawk didn’t. If he had truly been a Shropshire gentleman’s son making a naval career, his chances of reaching the marble steps of the Admiralty building alive would have been poor. But he had survived Slough and the docks of Calcutta and half a dozen other port towns that were as bad or worse. He knew when he was being followed, and could defend himself against an attacker.

“The
Sally
is fast,” said Sparhawk. “Barring misfortune, we should reach London ahead of any pursuit.” And he had other matters to attend to in England: his father, his inheritance, a measure of justice at last for his mother.

Warren got up from the table and walked into the hall. He closed the door to the little parlor where Benjamin Ward lay sleeping off the effects of rum and surgery, then returned to the dining room and closed that door as well.

“At the risk of being indelicate,” Warren said, “I was given to understand that you were connected to an American lady. She has risked a great deal to free you. For her part in this affair, Graves could hang her. I confess that your desire to leave surprises me. You do not strike me as a man who uses women callously. Does the lady’s danger mean nothing to you?”

He was speaking of Sarah Ward and the deal she had struck with the Rebels for the evidence to free him.

“It means a great deal to me,” replied Sparhawk. “And that is why I am parting with her. Because our connection has brought her nothing but misfortune, and to continue it would only place her in greater peril.”

Warren gave him a wry smile. “When a man says that he is parting with a lady for her own good, it is often self-serving, and yet it is almost always true.”

“In this case,” said Sparhawk, “to remain with her would be the selfish choice. And she has better defenders than I to keep her safe from the admiral.” Lucas Cheap and Benjamin Ward would see that no harm came to Sarah Ward. Sparhawk could not have sailed if he believed her to be unprotected and in danger.

Warren sighed. “I am in a poor position to argue with you. My own dealings with the fair sex are tortuous. I am to be married again shortly, to a woman with the soul of a poet and the fortune of a pasha.”

“My felicitations,” said Sparhawk.

“Thank you,” replied Warren. “Unfortunately, I have also gotten my children’s governess pregnant, and because I am providing for the girl, my intended has discovered it.”

It was of a piece with what Sparhawk had seen of the man so far: honorable, but danger-loving and reckless. Few men would risk the affections of an heiress to dally with a governess.

“I presume you will not cut the girl off to placate her.”

“Of course not,” said Warren. “Women are shockingly unforgiving of one another, but Mercy will come around. She is not passionate herself, you see, so she does not understand how I can love her but still consort with the governess. If you have found a woman who can stir both spirit and body, sir, do not give her up lightly. Do not. The alternatives can be damnably complicated.”

Sparhawk had found such a woman, and he was not leaving her lightly. “I am sorry,” he said, “but my mind is made up.”

“I wish your answer were different,” said Warren. “I do not believe that you will receive justice from a government that I know to be unjust, but I pray and hope that I am wrong. I wish you Godspeed, Captain Sparhawk.”

They shook hands like civilized Englishmen, in the full knowledge that they might meet again as enemies. The doctor checked Ward’s condition one last time and slipped out into the night.

Sparhawk was sitting in one of the caned chairs in the dining room when he heard the scratch at the window. He let Sarah Ward, followed by Mr. Cheap, into the house he had bought for her.

He was glad to see the sailing master at her side, not just because the streets were dangerous at night, but because he did not want to be alone with her. Warren had been right. She stirred him, body and soul. He had been tempted to violate his own principles and seduce her aboard the
Sally
, and he had been on the verge of it again in her father’s keeping room. He would have consummated his desire yesterday on the
Hephaestion
if she hadn’t had the good sense to refuse him. One look at her face tonight, the worry and tension written clear across her piquant features, told him that any encounter alone between them in such a charged atmosphere would end in something more than a heated embrace.

But not with Mr. Cheap present.

“Your brother is out of danger,” Sparhawk said.

A little of the color returned to her cheeks.

Cheap grunted and pushed past her into the parlor. He bent over the chaise where Benji lay resting.

“Holed below the waterline,” clucked Mr. Cheap, with the disapproval that fathers reserve for mortal sins.

Benjamin Ward turned his eyes, bloodshot with rum and pain, on that forbidding countenance. “I failed to follow your advice, Mr. Cheap,” he confessed, in as solemn a manner as a pint of Jamaica’s best would allow. “I looked back. Never look back. You and Father always say.”

Cheap sighed. “You must have made a great wide target of yourself too, to get belly shot so.”

Sarah Ward crossed to her brother’s bedside, removed the rum bottle from his hand, and raised a plucked eyebrow at the last few ounces sloshing in the bottom. “I’m not sure I approve of the medicine, but at least someone has done a nice clean job with the stitchwork.”

Mr. Cheap turned to Sparhawk. “He won’t be getting to the
Sally
on his own two feet tonight, and there’ll be no moving him quiet enough to sneak past the watch at this hour.”

“He cannot stay here,” said Sarah Ward, turning to Sparhawk. “The regulars are already out, searching for an escaped prisoner and his Rebel accomplice.”