The Pirate's Widow (5 page)

 
“Missus,” he said, with a nod of his head as
he crossed near them.

  
“Mr. Blount?” Callie said when he would have
gone on his way.

  
He stopped and turned toward them and Callie
saw that, beneath the heavy fringe of dark brown hair, was a pair of
startlingly blue eyes set in a tanned face with chiseled features above a chin
with a deep cleft.

  
“Aye, I’m Finn Blount.”

  
“I am Callie Jenkins.
 
I live at Hyacinth Cottage on the other side
of the village.”

  
“I’ve seen you there,” he confirmed.

  
“And I’ve seen you on the beach.
 
My son is Jem; I believe you have met him.”

  
“A lively lad,” he replied, his hard
features softening and his mouth curving into the shadow of a smile.

  
“I hope he is not proving a nuisance.”

  
“No, he’s a good lad.
 
He loves the sea.”

  
“Yes, he does.
 
I fear he misses life aboard ship.
 
Has he told you much about our travels?”

  
“He said your husband was a missionary and
you traveled the world.”

  
“We’ve seen many wondrous places.”

  
“Ma’am?”
 
Gemma touched Callie’s elbow.
 
“Finn does jobs for Miss Penelope and Miss Sophie.
 
Haply he could fix the broken hinge on the
back door.”

  
“Yes, that is true.
 
Would you come see if you can fix the door
for us, Mr. Blount?”
 

  
“I’ll come by and look at it if you like,”
he promised.

  
“Thank you, I would be grateful if . . .”

  
“Mrs. Jenkins, are you on your way home?”

  
Callie turned to find Sir Thomas’ carriage
drawn up in the street behind her.
 
“Gemma and I were just talking to . . .” She looked back to gesture to
Finn but he was gone, nowhere to be seen.
 
“Oh, he’s gone . . .”

  
“May I offer you a ride home?”

  
“How kind of you, Sir Thomas.”

  
The coachman climbed down and helped Callie
into the carriage and Gemma onto the box before he climbed up beside her and
took up the reins.

  
“I noticed you were speaking with that
ruffian Finn Blount.”

  
“I was.
 
He did not seem like a ruffian, Sir Thomas, he was most courteous.
 
And Gemma speaks highly of him.”

  
“Perhaps,” he said, his dark eyes fixed on
the coachman’s liveried back, “but he’s no fit company for a lady, I assure
you.”

  
Callie did not reply but made a note to
herself to speak no more of Finn Blount to Sir Thomas in future.

Chapter Five

  
A few days later Finn Blount appeared at
Callie’s cottage with a rough-hewn box containing his tools.
 
His shaggy dog, Cyrus, trailed at his heels.

  
“Won’t you come in, Mr. Blount?” Callie
said.
 
“We have fresh bread and tea or
cider if you prefer.”

  
“No, thank you, Missus,” he said.
 
“I’d rather just get to work.
 
And call me Finn, if you please, everyone
does.”

  
“Only if you will call me Callie.”

  
He shook his head and a lock of his brown
hair fell down over his forehead.
  
“That
wouldn’t be fittin’, Missus,” he told her.

  
“Please, all my friends call me Callie; and
I hope we’ll come to be friends.”

  
He paused in his examination of the broken
hinge and looked at her curiously.
 
“I
don’t think Sir Thomas’d approve.”

  
“Does it matter if he approves or not?”

  
“Not to me,” he insisted, bending once more
to his labors.

 
 
“Nor
to me.”

 
He said no more but a tiny smile curved his
full lips.
 
“All right, then, as you
will, Callie.”

  
“Thank you, Finn.”

  
Cyrus barked and Callie looked over to see
Jem trying to wrestle a piece of driftwood out of the dog’s powerful jaws.

  
“Jem enjoys playing with Cyrus so much.
 
Perhaps I should get him a dog of his own.”

  
“Like Cyrus?” Jem asked, laughing as the dog
nearly pulled him off his feet.

  
“Oh, I was thinking more of a dog like Shark
Bait.”

  
“Shark bait?” Finn asked as he fitted a
replacement hinge he’d brought with him into the space left by the broken one.

  
“Sherbet, Mrs. Louvain’s dog; the first time
we went to dinner at the manor, she said his name was Sherbet and Jem thought
she said shark bait.”
 

  
Finn laughed.
 
“She can’t have liked that.”

  
“She did not.
 
The way she looked at Jem, I was glad she
didn’t have a knife in her hand.”

  
“The butcher’s bitch had a litter not long
since.
 
Cyrus is the father.
 
I could bespeak one of the puppies for you if
you like.”

  
“Oh yes, Callie, please, please!” Jem
begged.

  
Finn cast a curious glance toward the boy
and Callie saw that they’d have to take care around him for it was obvious that
not much escaped his attention.

  
“Very well, son,” she said pointedly.
 
“If Finn would be so kind, perhaps the
butcher could save a puppy for you.”

  
Finn stood and swung the door back and forth
on its new hinge.
 
“There you are, Miss .
. . Callie,” he amended.
 
“That should
work for you now.”

  
“Thank you, Finn.
 
What do I owe you?”

  
He waved a dismissing hand.
 
“The hinge was an old one and it was no great
work to put it on.
 
Call it a favor for a
friend.”

  
Callie turned at Gemma appeared in the
doorway and announced that supper was ready and waiting.

  
“Well, you’ll take supper with us, I
insist.
 
The least we can do is feed
you.”

  
“That I will,” he agreed.
 
“Let me go to the pump and wash my hands and
I’ll be along.”

  
Callie and Gemma watched as Finn walked
toward the pump trailed by Cyrus and Jem.

  
“He seems a nice man,” she said, touched by
the patient smile he gave Jem who prattled away at him while he pumped water
for Finn to wash with.

  
“For a ruffian,” Gemma said a touch of ice
in her tone.

  
“Sir Thomas thinks anyone who works with
their hands and has to earn their living is a ruffian.
 
Some of the best men I have ever known he
would order off his land at the point of a gun.”

  
Finn and Jem returned and Cyrus curled up in
the last rays of the setting sun on the back stoop while they sat down to
supper.
 
Gemma, as usual, refused to join
them but Callie noticed that she was more attentive than ever, checking
constantly to see if any of them, especially Finn, were in need of anything to
make their meal perfect.

  
For her part, Callie could not remember
having enjoyed a meal so much since the rowdy suppers aboard the
Crimson Vengeance
when Kit and his crew
told stories and sang songs each more outrageous than the last.
 
She sat back in her chair and watched as Finn
teased Jem into eating the vegetables Gemma had cut up into the stew pot,
something he normally tried hard to avoid.
 
It was good, she thought, for him to spend time around a man.
 
He’d been too long cooped up with only Gemma
and herself for company.

  
Gemma came in with the pie they’d received
from the baker when she and Callie had walked into the village.
 
Finn smiled up at her as she sat it on the
table and she fumbled, nearly dropping it into his lap.
 
Callie hid a smile and Jem grinned at her and
rolled his eyes.

  
“You’ve been exploring the tunnels that run
from the shore up into the village, haven’t you?” Finn asked Jem when Gemma had
at last managed to serve the pie and retreat to the kitchen.

  
“There are a lot of them,” Jem replied.

  
“You must take care; some of them are
considered private property; the men who claim them hide their goods inside and
they play rough if they suspect an intruder.
 
They won’t care that you’re a child, boy.”

  
Jem looked mutinous and Callie knew he
objected to being called a child.
 
Still,
she appreciated Finn’s warning.

  
“Take care, Jem,” she said softly, “I would
not have you harmed.”

  
“I will,” he agreed with a sigh.
 

  
When supper was ended, Finn rose to leave.

  
“Thank you for my supper,” he said.

  
“Thank you for fixing the door,” she
countered.

  
“I’ll speak to the butcher about saving a
pup for the lad.”

  
He smiled and, with a ruffle of Jem’s red
hair, turned and went out the door.
 
Cyrus, waiting patiently for his master, leapt to his feet, his tongue
lolling out of his mouth.
 
As Finn
started down the beach, the dog gamboled at his heels, a piece of driftwood in
his jaws, trying to tempt his master to throw it.

  
Callie watched him until he disappeared
around the next point of land.
 
‘Ruffian’
Sir Thomas had called him and, a ruffian he might be by Lord Sedgewyck’s
standards, certainly he was not cultured or sophisticated, but there was a
quiet strength about Finn
Blount and, she suspected, a gentle and tender heart beneath that rough
exterior.
 
He had about him a dignity
that had nothing to do with titles or wealth and which, in the end, mattered
more than either.

                                          
*
   
*
  
*

  
The storm that struck the Cornish coast a
few days after Finn’s visit raged for two nights and two days until Callie
began to wonder if even the ancient stone walls of Hyacinth Cottage which had
safely sheltered generations would be proof against it.

  
“Will it never end?” she asked aloud as she
mopped up rain water that had seeped beneath the front door and puddled on the
slate floor tiles.

  
“It’s a bad one,” Gemma agreed.
 
“Perhaps we should have gone to the manor
after all.”

  
Callie rolled her eyes.
 
Sir Thomas had sent a footman with the
carriage to Hyacinth Cottage soon after the storm had begun to invite Callie,
Jem, and Gemma to take refuge at the manor for the duration of what promised to
be the most violent storm to hit that part of the coast in years.
 
Callie had sent him back with a note thanking
Sir Thomas for his offer, but insisting that she thought they were perfectly
safe within their own walls.

  
“The storm is bad enough,” she said, pausing
in her labors as a crash of thunder shook the leaded panes of the windows,
“without spending it closeted with Sir Thomas and the Louvains.
 
A few more sour looks from that old Medusa,
Venetia Louvain, and I swear I’ll turn to stone.”

 
“Jem could have made friends with Shark
bait,” Gemma suggested with a grin.

  
“About the time he called that dog ‘shark
bait’ again, Venetia would have had him tossed out in the storm.
 
He’d have had to go hide in Walter’s cave.”

  
Callie carried her wet mop to the
kitchen.
 
“I hope Finn is all right.
 
Where does he live, Gemma?”

  
“He has a little cottage up the coast, near
the inlet where he lands his boat.”

  
“He won’t be doing any smuggling in this
weather, that’s for certain.
 
I just hope
he and Cyrus don’t get washed away.”

  
“Do you like him, ma’am?” Gemma asked.

  
Callie gazed at her for a moment.
 
“I do like him.
 
And I know you like him as well.”

  
Gemma shrugged.
 
“I think him handsome, that’s all.
 
I’ve plans for my life, ma’am, and they don’t
include courting a man at this point.”

  
“You want to be a lady’s maid and travel,”
Callie said.

 
“That I do.
 
And I will, someday.”

  
“I believe you,” Callie told her.
 
She sighed.
 
“I am fighting a losing battle against this water.
 
If this storm doesn’t end soon, I fear the
animals will begin coming out of the hills two by two.”

 
The morning of the third day dawned sunny and
calm.
 
The seashore was littered with
flotsam and jetsam tossed up by the storm and Callie put on her oldest dress,
determined to pick up the driftwood and do away with the jumble of dead sea
creatures sprawled pitifully on the sand.

  
But as she stepped out the front door of her
cottage, she saw a stream of people making their way past, strung out along the
sand as far as the eye could see.
 
They
moved with a single purpose, some carrying baskets and crates.
 
Hearing the rumble of wheels and the clatter
of hooves, she moved to the side of the cottage and saw that the cart track
behind her home was also alive with men and women pushing barrows and driving
ox carts and pony carts.

  
Going back to the track, she stopped a man
with a weathered face and an empty barrow.

  
“Your pardon, sir,” she said, “but what is
happening?”

  
“A ship, lass,” he said, “driven on the
rocks by the storm down there, beyond the next point.
 
She’s broken up and the shore is covered with
goods.”

  
“And everyone is going down there to salvage
it?”

  
“Aye, they are.”

  
“But what of the crew?
 
What of the passengers?”

  
“I know naught of them; my business is with
the ship and its cargo.
 
Now, let me be,
woman, or there’ll be nothin’ left by the time I get there.”

 
Callie stepped back and the man went on his
way, quickening his step, determined not to be the last salvager to arrive at
the bounty the sea had given them.

  
“What is it, Callie?” Jem asked, coming to
her side.