The Pirate's Widow (2 page)

Chapter Three

  
“Do I have to go?” Jem asked for the third
time as he waited with Callie by the cart track that ran behind Callie’s
cottage.

  
“Yes, you have to go,” Callie said again,
running her fingers through his unruly thatch of red hair.
 
“If we’re going to make our home here, we
must try to become a part of the village and village life revolves around church.”

  
Jem sighed.
 
“I wish . . ,” he began.

  
“I know, so do I.
 
Here they come.”

  
A modest carriage appeared around the bend
of the cart track.
 
The Misses Bates were
inside, dressed in their Sunday finest.

  
“Callie,” Jem asked, “can I ride on the box
with the driver?”

  
“I don’t see why not.”
 
She smiled at the sisters as the driver
pulled on the reins and the docile old mare pulling the carriage stopped.
 
“Jem would like to know if he might ride on
the box.”

  
“Of course, climb up, my boy,” Miss Sophie
invited.

  
Jem scrambled nimbly onto the seat beside
Tompkins, the Bates coachman while Callie stepped up into the carriage and
settled onto the seat opposite the two sisters.
 
They rode along the narrow cart track passing others dressed in their
Sunday best walking toward the ancient church overlooking in the center of St.
Swithin.

  
When they reached the church, Jem jumped
down and gallantly helped the ladies down from the carriage.

  
“Thank you, Master Jem,” Miss Sophie said
with a smile.
 
“I like to see a young man
with good manners.
 
Your mother has done
a good job of raising you.”

  
Jem grinned at Callie behind the older
ladies backs.
 
If only they knew that
Jem’s real mother had allowed him to join a pirate crew at the age of eight
they might not be so impressed with her parenting skills.
 
But Callie had taken him under her wing from
the first though it was sometimes difficult to convince him that although he
was a fully-fledged member of the crew of the
Crimson Vengeance
he was also an eight year old boy with a lot to
learn.

  
The church was approached through a lych
gate and Callie and Jem followed the sisters up the path that led through the
church yard and into the church where a huge carved wooden angel hung on the
wall.

  
“That’s the figurehead from the
Archangel,
” Miss Penelope told her as
they took their seats in the Bates family pew.
 
“It was owned by our father and went aground during a storm not far from
here.
 
A great many of the crew were lost
and, as they were local lads, our father decided to put the figurehead there as
a memorial.”

  
“How fine,” Callie replied.
 
“And the tomb there, near the altar?”

  
Sophie nodded toward the large marble tomb
at the front of the church.
 
“That is the
tomb of Lettice, Lady Sedgewyck, great-great-grandmother of the present Lord
Sedgewyck.
 
She was a great patroness of
the church and so when she died her husband buried her in a place of honor.”

 
“Is he not buried there with her?”

 
“No, he preferred to be buried in the crypt
beneath us.”

 
 
If
either Bates sister thought the arrangement strange they gave no sign of it and
Callie had the opportunity to ask no more questions because a commotion began
at the back of the church and spread forward.
 
She looked over her shoulder to see a tall man in black, his coat and
waistcoat heavily encrusted with gold embroidery,
 
accompanied by two tall, thin ladies, one
older, one younger though clearly related, making their way down the aisle
toward the second of the box pews across the aisle from the Bates family pew.

  
He stopped to allow the ladies to precede
him into the pew and as he did looked down at the Misses Bates with a smile.

  
“Miss Penelope, Miss Sophie,” he said with a
gallant little bow.
 
“You’re looking well
today.”
 
His smile faded as his dark eyes
fell on Callie seated further down the pew.

  
“Sir Thomas Sedgewyck,” Miss Sophie said,
“may I present Mrs. Caroline Jenkins and her son, Jem.
 
They are tenants at Hyacinth Cottage.”

  
“Mrs. Jenkins,” Sir Thomas said.
 
“I look forward to furthering our
acquaintance.”

  
“Sir Thomas,” Callie replied.

  
Just then the pastor, the Reverend Mr.
Dougless, appeared and took his place at the pulpit near the tomb of Lettice,
Lady Sedgewyck, and Sir Thomas took his place beside his two companions.

  
Throughout the service Callie was aware of
Sir Thomas, just across the aisle, casting sidelong glances her way.
 
Though she kept her eyes to the front and her
attention ostensibly on the Bible readings and sermon, she could see, from the
corner of her eye, that the tall, handsome man in black and gold was having
trouble keeping his concentration.

  
Sophie Bates noticed his interest as
well.
 
“You seem to have captured Sir
Thomas’ interest, my dear,” she whispered. “His mama-in-law will not like
that.”

  
“Mama-in-law?”

  
“The older lady with him is Mrs. Venetia
Louvain, mother to Sir Thomas’ late wife, Charlotte.
 
The younger lady is her other daughter,
Flora, Charlotte’s half-sister, whom she hopes to see become Sir Thomas’ second
wife.”

  
“She wants her daughter to marry her elder
daughter’s widower?”

  
“So they say.
 
After all, Sir Thomas is very rich and has no
heir.
 
He will surely want to
remarry.
 
Should he marry some other
lady, she may not want the mother and sister of her predecessor as permanent
houseguests.”

  
“No, indeed,” Callie agreed.

  
When the service ended Callie and Jem
followed the Misses Bates out of the church, just behind Sir Thomas and his
companions.

   
Penelope Bates introduced Callie to the
Reverend Mr. Dougless and his wife, Olivia.

  
“Welcome to the neighborhood, Mrs. Jenkins,”
the reverend said.
 
“And your son, how do
you do, Master Jenkins.
 
I hope I shall
have the pleasure of seeing you at the school I conduct at the parsonage.”

  
Jem cast an apprehensive glance at Callie
and she smiled.
 
“Perhaps you may,” she
told the reverend.
 
“Jem is used to being
schooled at home.”

  
“Then it may do him good to be among other
children and know the discipline of regular lessons,” Olivia Dougless decreed.

  
Callie decided she did not care for the
parson’s wife and was glad when the Misses Bates took their leave of the parson
and moved toward the lych gate.

  
They had nearly reached it when a voice
called out:

  
“Mrs. Jenkins?”

 
Callie, Jem, and the sisters Bates turned and
found Sir Thomas Sedgewyck coming toward them, his two companions in tow.

  
“I wanted to apologize to you, Mrs.
Jenkins,” Sir Thomas said.

  
“Apologize, Lord Sedgewyck?”

  
“I should have welcomed you to the village
long since.
 
I do not know how your
arrival managed to escape my notice.”

  
“I am certain you had other, more important,
matters to consider.”

  
“Please, allow me to present my
mother-in-law, Mrs. Venetia Louvain, and her daughter, Flora.
 
My late wife was Mrs. Louvain’s elder
daughter.”

  
“Mrs. Louvain, Miss Louvain,” Callie said,
“I am pleased to meet you.
 
This is my
son, Jem.”

  
“How do you do,” the elder of the two said
coolly.
 
Her daughter merely smiled wanly
and assumed an air of bored indifference.

  
“I wonder, by way of redress for my
neglect,” Sir Thomas went on, “if you, your son, and of course Miss Penelope
and Miss Sophie, would accompany us back to the manor for dinner?”

  
Callie heard the excited gasps of the Bates
sisters and knew she could not refuse.
 
“That is most kind, Sir Thomas,” she said.
 
“I’m sure we would be delighted.”
 
The little exasperated glance that passed
between Venetia Louvain and her daughter did not escape Callie’s notice.

  
“Thank you, shall we go?”

  
Sedgewyck Manor overlooked the sea on the
opposite side of St. Swithin from Callie’s own Hyacinth Cottage.
 
The grounds ran down to a river that fed into
the harbor around which the village had been built.
 
From the tall, arched windows of the Great
Hall with its elaborate hammer beam ceiling, one could look down on the
village.

   
“Sir Thomas can certainly keep watch on
things in the village from here,” Callie told Sophie as they stood side by side
before one of the leaded windows whose diamond panes shone in the sunlight.

  
“His family has owned this land for nearly
two hundred years,” Sophie told her.
 
“It
was his great-great-grandfather who built this house soon after he was knighted
by Elizabeth I.”

  
“She must have given him a prodigious income
along with the knighthood,” Callie said.

  
“Oh no, the Sedgewyck fortune came from
piracy.”

  
“Piracy!”

  
“Shhh, Sir Thomas doesn’t like it spoken of,
but his great-great grandmother, that same Lettice Sedgewyck whose tomb you saw
in the church was a notorious pirate.
 
Her husband was away at sea often and, when he was gone, she recruited
lads from the village and the estate and took to piracy.
 
They say she amassed a fortune; the basis of
the Sedgewyck fortune today.”

  
“But if she. . .”
 

  
Callie’s question was silenced as Sir Thomas
entered the room closely followed by Venetia Louvain and her daughter.

  
“Do they ever let him out of their sight?”
Callie whispered.

  
Sophie giggled.
 
“Not when there’s a pretty woman nearby.”

  
“Perhaps you’d like to see the garden, Mrs.
Jenkins,” Sir Thomas invited.
 
“I’m
certain Mrs. Louvain and Flora would be happy to entertain the Misses Bates
since they’ve seen the gardens many times.”

  
Venetia Louvain’s thin cheeks flushed red
and her large, dark eyes flashed with anger.
 
Had she dared refuse, Callie was certain she would have but her
continued welcome at Sedgewyck Manor depended on Sir Thomas’ good will and
should he ask her and Flora to leave, there would be much less chance of her
convincing him to marry the girl.

  
“Of course, Sir Thomas,” she agreed.
 
“Ladies, shall we go into the little parlor?”

  
Jem came up and touched Callie’s elbow.
 
“May I run down to the shore?”

  
“I suppose so,” she agreed, ‘but don’t stay
long and don’t get wet, if you please.”

 
 
Sir
Thomas held out his arm.
 
“Now then,
shall we?”

  
The terraced gardens immediately behind the
manor were abloom with flowers rioting over the stone walls and bordering the
hedges that divided the garden into sections, each with its own statue.
 
In the center a fountain played, the water
drops creating rainbows in the bright sunshine.

  
“It is delightful,” Callie told Sir Thomas
as he led her along the borders pointing out the various kinds of plants his
gardeners tended with such loving care.

  
“I am glad you like it.
 
There are several other gardens here at the
manor as well as a walk through the woods where you may meet my hermit.”