The Pirate's Widow (10 page)

  
“Her daughter.”

  
“Flora?
 
Why do you call her that?”

  
“She fell on some ice one winter outside the
dressmaker’s shop and her skirts flew up.
 
T’was no great treat for the eyes, I can tell you.”

  
Callie laughed.
 
“You’re terrible.”

  
“I know.”
 
He offered her his arm.
 
“Come,
let’s be on our way.
 
Jem will think I’m
up to no good.”

  
“You are, aren’t you?”

  
Finn’s laughter rumbled in the cave.
 
“How could I ever have thought you a prim and
proper missionary’s widow?” he asked as they started down the beach silhouetted
against the sunset.

  
That night Callie lay in bed, her mind
racing.
 
The appearance of Kit’s ship in
its new guise had shaken her to her very core.
 
The prospect of going aboard her filled her with a mixture of longing
and trepidation.
 
But the thought of
retrieving Kit’s ledger from its place of concealment was an enticement she
could not resist.

  
And then there was Finn.
 
After Kit’s death, she had never thought to
want another man to touch her but there, in the shadowy cave with the surf
pounding outside, she had wanted to stay in Finn’s arms.
 
She loved the feeling of his body against her
own, his lips on hers.
 
She had felt
desire for the first time since that terrible day when Kit and the crew of the
Crimson Vengeance
were captured by the
British Navy.

  
She smiled to herself in the darkness.
 
Why couldn’t she have felt this way about Sir
Thomas?
 
Married to him, installed as
Lady Sedgewyck the mistress of Sedgewyck Manor, she would surely have been
safe.
 
But she did not lie awake in the
depth of the night thinking about his kisses, his caresses.
 
Though he was undeniably handsome with his
dark good looks and his elegant demeanor, he had none of Finn’s earthy appeal
and, she suspected, none of the unpretentious humor and simple humanity.

  
She caught herself wishing Finn was there
beside her in snug bedroom of Hyacinth Cottage.
 
How she longed to lie in his arms, cradle her cheek on his chest, hear
his heart beating, strong and steady like the man himself, and feel as if
nothing in the world could come between her and the simple life she desired.

Chapter Nine

  
Callie hadn’t been back to church since her
confrontation with the parson.
 
It might
scandalize St. Swithin that she had stopped attending, but she couldn’t stand
the man and to sit there while he lectured them on their sins and, no doubt,
shot pointed looks her way, was too much.
 
He might not quite dare attack her blatantly while she was under Sir
Thomas’ protection, but Callie still had no interest in listening to the
wretch.

  
Knowing Sir Thomas to be regular in his
attendance at church on Sunday (if for no other reason than to keep up
appearances for the village) Finn became a regular visitor at Hyacinth Cottage
on Sunday mornings.
 
While Jem played
with Cyrus and Rascal, Finn and Callie strolled along the beach when the
weather was fine and sat near the fire in the sitting room when the chilled
mist rolled in off the sea.
 
It felt
right, like a family, intimate and cozy in a way she knew could never happen
amidst the cold formal elegance at Sedgewyck Manor.
 
Let Venetia and Flora Louvain have Sir Thomas
and all his worldly goods, she would never be happy there, much less as content
and comfortable as she felt in her own parlor with her little pirate lad and
her smuggler.

  
But still Sir Thomas kept up his
courtship.
 
He might disapprove of her
abandoning her attendance at church, but that did not stop him from inviting
her to dinner or drives beside him in his elegant carriages.

  
One evening a week after she’d seen Kit’s
old ship, she stood, hands on hips, while Gemma buttoned the row of pearl
buttons that fastened the bodice of a gown of rose brocade frothed with creamy
lace at the low neck and elbow-length sleeves and a matching skirt.
 
Her black hair was piled onto her head and
teased into a mass of curls.

  
“You look lovely, madam,” Gemma told her, standing
back to admire her efforts.

  
“Thank you,” Callie said with a sigh.
 
“I wish I was dressing for something other
than dinner with Sir Thomas Sedgewyck.”

  
“He’s not an easy man to discourage.”

  
Callie laughed.
 
“No, indeed; I am afraid when he decides he
wants something he is determined to get it.”

  
Jem stood in the doorway, a little frown on
his freckled face.
 
“I wish Sir Thomas
Sedgewyck would go to the devil,” he said grumpily.

  
Gemma squeezed out the doorway past him and Callie
reached out to ruffle his red hair.
 
“So
do I, Jem, believe me.
 
But I’m looking
forward to going tonight.
 
If I can
manage to get to Kit’s journal we will know where all his treasure caches are
and then, if the time should come when we want to leave this place, we can go
knowing we will have what we need to survive.
 
Providing no one else has found them in the meanwhile.”

 
“Do you think we will have to leave St.
Swithin?” he wanted to know.

  
“I don’t know, perhaps, if Sir Thomas will
not leave us in peace.
 
I will not be the
cause of Finn’s getting put in prison or worse just because of that man’s
jealousy.”

  
“Finn could come with us if we went away.”

  
“He could, if he wanted to.”

  
“Would you want him to?” Jem asked.

  
“Yes, I would,” Callie admitted, “but first
things first.”
 
She went to her dresser
and pulled a knife out from beneath a pile of frilly chemises.
 
Tucking her skirts under her chin, she
slipped it into a pocket sewn into her bottommost petticoat.
 
“If Kit’s journal is still in its hiding
place, I’ll need to pry the paneling off to get it.”

  
“Won’t Sir Thomas and the ship’s captain
notice you prying off the paneling?”

  
Callie laughed.
 
“It’s in the privy in the captain’s
cabin.
 
I think I may rely on escaping
even Sir Thomas’ attentions in there.”

  
At the same time Callie was making her
plans, Venetia stood in Flora’s room at Sedgewyck Manor supervising her
daughter’s preparations to go out for dinner.
 
Reluctantly, Sir Thomas had agreed that Flora should accompany Callie
and he, after Venetia pointed out that it was unseemly for there to be just one
lady present on a ship filled with men.

  
Flora’s gown, a creamy yellow concoction
made by a London modiste and not by Mademoiselle LaSalle of St. Swithin, was
beautiful and created especially to enhance Flora’s sallow coloring and less
than opulent curves.
 
The neckline was
almost scandalously low and her corset had been made with several thick ruffles
of lace to make it seem that Mother Nature had been more generous to Flora than
was the case.

  
Venetia sighed impatiently as Flora tugged
as the lacy décolletage.
 
“Leave it
alone, girl,” she ordered.
 
“If you want
to catch a man, you have to at least bait the trap!”

  
“Thomas doesn’t want me!” Flora cried,
lashing out at the maid who held out her gloves.
 
“He wants that whore Caroline Jenkins!”

  
“He only wants her because she’s denying him
her favors.
 
The sly harlot is playing a
tart’s game, I know it!
 
There are rumors
that she’s seeing Finn Blount.
 
Finn
Blount!
 
I ask you; dangling a rich
nobleman on a hook while she’s dallying with a rough, unlettered,
smuggler!”
 
Venetia shuddered.
 
“As if any decent woman would want a cretin
like that to touch her!” She looked her daughter up and down with
distaste.
 
“At least any woman with a
modicum of taste.”

  
Flora said nothing, she’d had enough of her
mother’s chastising over her ‘lapse of taste and morals’ with Walter, but she
privately thought Finn Blount an attractive fellow.
 
He might not be elegant and educated as Sir
Thomas, but Flora thought he seemed very appealing in an earthy masculine
way.
 
But then, she knew her mother did
not condone her own dalliances.
 
In fact,
had Venetia known how often Flora had taken advantage of her mother’s
inattention to slip out of the manor and into the forest; she would likely have
boxed her daughter’s ears.
 
Perhaps,
Flora thought, Caroline Jenkins and she had more in common than one might
think; it might be that both women liked a man who cared about more than his
social standing and the cut of his clothes.
 
Caroline, of course, had one inestimable advantage—she was her own
mistress.
 
If she wanted to take Finn
Blount as a lover she could and snap her fingers at the opinion of those around
her.
 
For Flora, it was not so
simple.
 
If her mother cast her out and
Sir Thomas did not want her, she would be alone in the world, friendless and
penniless.
 
Her mother was willing to
close her eyes, with a shudder, to her liaison with Walter, so long as Flora
trod the straight and narrow from then on and fell in with her mother’s plans
to drag Sir Thomas, kicking and screaming if necessary, to the altar.
 
She had no choice.

Chapter Ten

  
A jolly boat from the
H.M.S. Vengeance
took Sir Thomas, Callie, and Flora out to the warship
anchored in Mount’s Bay.
 
The ship’s
master, Captain Horatio Reynolds, resplendent in his blue frock coat trimmed
with gold, welcomed them aboard and introduced his second in command.

  
“Sir Thomas, ladies,” he said, “allow me to
present Lieutenant Fitzalan.”

  
The young lieutenant made them an elegant
bow.
 
“Welcome aboard.”

  
Sir Thomas stepped forward.
 
“Captain, lieutenant, allow me to present my
late wife’s sister, Miss Flora Louvain, and my dear friend, Mrs. Caroline
Jenkins.”

  
Flora simpered, holding out a hand toward
the handsome young lieutenant.
 
Gallantly, he took it and bent over it but his lips fell short of making
contact with her creamy kid glove.

  
“Miss Louvain,” he said.
 
“Mrs. Jenkins.”

  
“Thank you for allowing us to visit your
ship, Captain Reynolds,” Callie said, slipping her arm through the crooked arm
the captain offered her.

  
“Is this your first time aboard a British
warship, ma’am?” the captain asked.

  
“It is,” she admitted.

  
“But not her first time aboard a ship,” Sir
Thomas informed him.
 
“Mrs. Jenkins late
husband was a missionary and together with him and their young son, they sailed
to many distant lands.”

  
“Is that right?
 
Where have you been, Mrs. Jenkins?”
Lieutenant Fitzalan, Flora clinging to his arm, asked.

  
“We visited America, lieutenant, and the
West Indies, as well as Africa.”

  
“Wonderful places.
 
Myself, I should one day like to venture into
the Pacific.
 
The reports one hears are
of tropical paradises.”

 
 
“This
seems a fine vessel,” Sir Thomas commented as they climbed the stairs to the
quarterdeck.

  
“Indeed, it is.
 
She’s new to the service, Sir Thomas, I am
her first commander.”

  
Callie said nothing.
 
All around her were reminders of Kit and
their lives together, their adventures, triumphs, tragedies . . .
  
She held her breath as they entered the
captain’s day cabin where a table had been elegantly set.
 
Aside from new furniture and a fresh coat of
paint the room had not changed greatly and Callie thought she could almost hear
Kit’s voice calling from the room beyond, the night cabin.

  
“Shall we sit down?”

  
The meal began with a chicken
fricassee.
 
“This is delicious,” Callie
told the captain.

  
“You are fortunate to be dining aboard in
port,” Captain Reynolds told her.
 
“I
assure you we would not dine so well in the middle of the ocean.
 
But then, having traveled, I’m certain you
are familiar with the limitations of life at sea.”

  
“Indeed, I am,” she admitted.

  
“You said the
Vengeance
was new to His Majesty’s service, Captain,” Flora
said.
 
“And yet, if you’ll pardon me, she
does not seem to be newly built.”

  
“No, indeed, she is not newly built, Miss
Louvain,” the captain confirmed.
 
“She
was taken as a prize, captured by the crew of
H.M.S. Dauntless
and refitted for the service at Portsmouth.
 
She was formerly the
Crimson Vengeance
, a pirate ship, captained by the notorious Kit
Llewellyn.”

   
“A pirate ship!”
 
Flora shuddered dramatically.
 
“I hope there are no ghostly pirates
aboard!
  
You must protect me from them,
Mr. Fitzalan.”

  
“Indeed I would,” the young lieutenant
agreed.
 
“You may place your safety in my
hands.”

  
She placed her hand over his.
 
“I knew I could.”

  
She shot a glance toward Sir Thomas to see
if her flirting with the handsome young officer was having the desired effect
of making her erstwhile brother-in-law jealous but his eyes were fixed on the
captain.

  
“The pirates were routed, then,” he said,
popping a brandied cherry into his mouth.

  
“They were captured and hanged at Execution
Dock,” Captain Reynolds said.

   
“No more than they deserved, I’m sure.”

  
“Of a certainty, Sir Thomas; in fact, this
very ship was once the
Seabird
, a
merchantman out of Boston.
 
Kit Llewellyn
captured her and massacred all aboard.”

  
Callie gritted her teeth.
 
It was a lie.
 
She had been aboard Kit’s former ship, the
Black Rose
when he had intercepted the
Seabird
he had taken the cargo stowed below decks and sent the crew
on her way aboard his former ship before taking command of the
Seabird
and rechristening her the
Crimson Vengeance.
 
Several former crewmen aboard the
Seabird
had joined Kit’s crew—most had
been killed in the battle with the British Navy but a few had survived and
perished at Execution Dock.

  
She wanted to defend Kit but she knew she
could say nothing and, doubtless, these men would not believe her even if she
told them the truth about Kit.

  
“It is unfortunate that there are still
pirates plying the seas,” Sir Thomas said.

  
“Here, here,” Lieutenant Fitzalan said,
raising his glass.
 
“Death to all
pirates!”

  
Callie raised her glass to her lips with the
others but could not bring herself to drink such a toast.
 
She was glad when Sir Thomas went on:

  
“They should all be put to death for their
atrocities.”

  
Callie said nothing but she thought it
monumentally hypocritical for a man whose family fortune was based on piracy to
make such a pronouncement.
 
Whatever he
thought, time had not washed the blood from the gold his ancestress had stolen
to finance her fine manor and elegant grounds.
 
Sir Thomas Sedgewyck could posture and preen to his heart’s content but
the fact of the matter was that the blood of pirates still flowed in his veins
no matter how blue he wanted to believe it had turned over the past few generations.

  
When dinner ended, Captain Reynolds rose
from the table.
 
“Shall we go out onto
the quarterdeck?
 
The sunset promises to
be very fine this evening.”

  
Callie rose with the others.
 
“I beg your pardon, Captain, but if I might
join you in a moment, I’d be grateful . . .”

 
“Ah, of course; Lieutenant Fitzalan will show
you the way, ma’am.”

  
While the others filed out of the cabin, the
young lieutenant showed Callie through a set of doors to the captain’s private
cabin where a boxlike hammock had replaced the bed she’d shared with Kit.
 
Several swords hung on the wall and, with a
start, Callie recognized Kit’s own cutlass with its long curved blade and
intricately etched guard.
 
She reached up
to touch the handle feeling almost as if she could still feel the warmth of his
hand there.

  
“Careful, Mrs. Jenkins,” Lieutenant Fitzalan
warned.
 
“It’s fearfully sharp.”

  
“I’m sure,” Callie agreed, turning away.

  
“Right behind that curtain, ma’am,” he told
her, pointing to a doorway in the wall shielded by a drapery.
 
“I shall wait in the dining room to escort
you out to the others.”

 
“Thank you, lieutenant.”

  
Callie slipped behind the curtain and
listened for the sound of Mr. Fitzalan’s retreating steps.
 
When she was sure he was gone, she lifted her
skirts and took out the knife she’d hidden in the pocket of her petticoat.

  
The little room held two seats of ease,
little more than a box with two holes through which the occupant could relieve
themselves directly into the sea.
 
When
Callie had sailed with Kit it had also held a small metal tub in which she
could bathe herself in the water collected in water barrels on the deck to
catch rainfall.

  
She shook herself out of her reverie.
 
She mustn’t tarry too long or she might
arouse suspicion, or at least embarrassing speculation.
 
With her knife, she pried out the carved
medallion centered in the wall above the seats of ease.
 
Within lay a small cavity barely large enough
to hold the Kit’s leather-bound journal and a few precious trinkets.
 
Callie took the small book, thankfully much
smaller than the heavy captain’s log no doubt taken as booty by the British
which had been kept on the desk in the day cabin.
 
This was Kit’s own journal, recording private
thoughts as well as the locations of the treasure caches he’d hidden on their
travels.
 
Callie secreted the small book
in the pocket of her petticoat.
 
There
was another object in the hidey-hole and her hand trembled as she pulled it
out.
 
A gold locket with a long gold
chain glimmered in her hand.
 
With
unsteady fingers she opened it.

Two
miniatures, one of her, the other of Kit, were inside.
 
Painted by an old man in Valparaiso, she had
thought them surely lost.
 
Snapping it
shut, she added it to the journal in her pocket.

  
She heard footfalls in the room outside and
knew Lieutenant Fitzalan was growing impatient.
 
Dropping her skirts, she fitted the medallion back into place, slid the
knife into the waistband of her skirt and smoothed the boned bodice over it.

  
She smiled as she left the tiny chamber and
rejoined Lieutenant Fitzalan.
 
“I’m sorry
to detain you, sir,” she said, slipping a hand through the crook of his arm.

  
“No need to apologize, Mrs. Jenkins,” he
assured her.
 
“Shall we join the others?”

  
Callie wasn’t sorry to see the evening end.
 
Once she had retrieved Kit’s journal she
wanted nothing more than to get off this ship with its tormenting mixture of
good and bad memories and Sir Thomas seemed to be the worse for too many ‘loyal
toasts’ to His Majesty.

  
Her
 
mind was filled with memories of raucous nights spent celebrating the
taking of a great prize, or somber days stitching the bodies of lost friends
into their hammocks before committing them to the depths of the sea, of nights
spent in Kit’s arms, of that last, bloody battle when it was clear that
everything was lost.

  
“You are very quiet, Caroline,” Sir Thomas
said as they rode away from Penzance, the light of the full moon guiding them
far more efficiently than the lanterns burning on either side of the coachman’s
box.
 
“Did you not enjoy your evening?”

  
“I did, Sir Thomas,” she told him.
 

  
“Perhaps Mrs. Jenkins is thinking of the
handsome Lieutenant Fitzalan,” Flora piped up.
 
“She seemed to tarry overlong with him in the captain’s cabin while the
rest of us went out onto the quarterdeck.”

  
“Flora,” Sir Thomas said grimly, “I’m going
to have the coachman take you home to the manor and then I will see Mrs.
Jenkins home.
 
I have a question to ask
her.”

  
Even in the dim light of the coach Callie
thought she saw Flora’s normally sallow cheeks go even paler.
 

  
“Perhaps you should wait until another time,
Sir Thomas,” she said.
 
“Miss Louvain
looks quite out of sorts suddenly.”

  
Flora said nothing but dashed up to her
mother’s room the moment they’d reached Sedgewyck Manor.

  
“Ah, you’re back,” Venetia said from her
place in front of her looking glass where her maid was braiding her long gray
hair for the night.
 
“I hope you did not
let that dreadful Jenkins woman have all the attention.”