Captive Splendors (14 page)

She was no different now, she told herself as she carefully stepped over the cobblestones. She had been beaten, used and abused, but she was still Wren. She had her mind, her heart and her wits, and she had come through the battle intact. It never occurred to her to consider the fact that she had just killed one man and maimed another. To survive, you simply did what you had to do.

The velvety darkness was like a shroud cloaking the girl scurrying down a series of crooked alleys. Only once did Wren lift her eyes to get her bearings as she stealthily made her way from Briarthorn Lane into a maze of even narrower alleys and cul-de-sacs. It had to be here, that small doorway with the chipped wood and rotten hinges. Lottie would help her. Lottie would take her in her arms and crush the breath from her slim body, all the while mouthing words of comfort. She would smell the same—sour and dirty. Wren smiled to herself. Lottie would slap her soundly and cuff her behind the ears for her absence all these years. If the old woman was mean enough tonight, Wren might even receive a swift kick on her shinbones to show that Lottie wasn't losing her touch. Lottie was queen of the maze, and every derelict came to her for help at one time or another. If you were on Lottie's good side, you never went hungry and you always had a blanket, even if it was full of bugs. Lottie's philosophy was simple: if the straights saw bugs crawling over you, they left you alone. A few open sores never hurt anyone, and soap and water was a killer.

The maze. Wren turned this way and that, trying to get her bearings. Ten years was a long time. She had to remember. She put her fingers to her temple and forced her mind to quietness. She had just light-fingered a gent and relieved him of his purse, and he was chasing her. Which way had she gone? Memories flooded her weary brain, and she sprinted to the right and then to the left, the gent more than a memory. She ran and ran till the splintered door with its rusty hinges loomed before her. Thank God for the big yellow ball in the sky!

Drawing in a deep breath, she rapped sharply three times at eye level and then gave the door a resounding kick, as she had done years ago. She repeated the process three more times before a raspy voice demanded to know who was beating down the door at this ungodly hour.

“Lottie, it's Wren! I have to see you—please let me in!”

“Ye can't trick me, girl. Me Wren is living with the gentry, lo these many years. Now, give me the straight of it or ye'll be in the arms of the law. Me own law!” the voice said harshly.

“Lottie, it's true. I'm Wren. I ran away and I got myself in trouble and need your help. Listen to me! Remember the time we rolled two drunks we thought were sleeping, and one of them slashed at you with his knife? I came up from behind and kneed him like you taught me. You still carry the scar from the elbow to the wrist on the outside of your left arm. Please, Lottie, let me in. I have nowhere else to go.”

Wren waited, her heart pounding, for the old woman to slide first one heavy bolt and then another. Suddenly she was wrapped in plump arms, the sweet sour smell of the woman's sweat engulfing her. She was safe. Lottie would take care of her.

“Come in here to me parlor,” Lottie cackled gleefully. “I knew it was ye all along. I was jest punishing ye for not being in touch with me all these years. But ye came back to old Lottie. Tell me what ye look like. Have ye grown into a beautiful young lady like I said ye would?”

Tears burned Wren's eyes. She couldn't be blind, not old Lottie! “I'm a young lady, but I don't know if you could truthfully say I'm beautiful. What happened, Lottie? How did you lose your eyesight? Who's taking care of the maze if you can't. . .”

“Don't ye fret, girl. I'm still queen of the maze,” the old woman said quickly, hearing the anguish in Wren's voice. “But to answer your question, a gent from the other side of town took a torch to me and burned off me hair and blinded me. I've been like this for four years now. Ye ain't asking what happened to the gent.”

Wren laughed. “I don't have to ask. He's dead and his body was chopped in two and dumped into the Thames.”

“Right ye be, little one. Old Lottie can see more without sight than most people if they had four eyes. Me senses are keen, and the men—they look after me much the same way I looked after you. I can hear a footfall at the beginning of the maze. I heard you, and I heard you stop to get your bearings; and if I know you, my girl, you stood there trying to decide which way to go. I heard every step you took. Any time I wanted I could have had old Bart on ye quick as a whistle. But I didn't. I wanted to see who had the wits to try and come into the maze.”

“You have to help me, Lottie. I've gotten myself into some trouble and I don't know what to do. I don't have a shilling to my name and I'm ripe for Newgate. I killed a man tonight!”

If Lottie was surprised at the girl's words, she gave no hint. “Sit here and let me get you some food and ale. Me larder was just stocked today by the generosity of a farmer on his way to market. Bart relieved him of his wares, and we can eat till tomorrow and still have plenty left over. When your belly is full, you can cope with anything.” She handed Wren a thick wedge of cheese and a chunk of soft, moist bread. “And for a sweet, we have a basket of honey buns.”

“Bless old Bart,” Wren sighed, relieved to be among friends.

“I've got some cold mashed turnip if ye want it,” Lottie volunteered as she ladled the vegetable into a thick yellow bowl.

“Want it! I'd kill for it,” Wren said softly. “I haven't eaten in days. Lottie, if I live to be a hundred, I know that I'll never taste food this good.”

“We'll be giving your praise to the farmer the next time we meet up with him,” Lottie cackled. “Eat now, till your stomach won't hold another morsel, and then we'll talk.”

When she had finished eating and emptied her cup of ale, Wren felt her eyes grow heavy but forced herself to remain awake. She had to talk to Lottie and beg for her help. Lottie would know what to do. In a halting voice that grew stronger with the telling, she repeated what had happened to her, leaving nothing out.

Old Lottie listened to Wren, her sightless eyes focused on a point of past memory. “One thing I'm not understandin'. Why in Heaven's name did ye come here? Not that I don't want ye, understand. My house is always open to my little Wren. Only what about the van der Rhyses? Ye be sayin' how much they love ye and all, so whyn't ye go back to them and tell them what's happened to ye?”

“Oh, Lottie,” Wren cried, “I can't. I can't! I couldn't face them now, not after what happened to me and what I've done. And after the way I doubted Sirena? The things I said to her? I wouldn't blame them if they never wanted to lay eyes on me again. Oh, Lottie, I just can't go back!” she sobbed, covering her face with her hands.

“If this Sirena loved ye like a mother, I don't see why not, child. Ah! Yer so young, ye don't know how forgivin' a mother's heart can be.”

“Don't make me go back, Lottie. Please. I . . . I've got to get away from London for a while. I can sail with Caleb. When the time's right, he'll take me back to Sirena and Regan. But right now I couldn't face them. I've betrayed their love, their trust!”

“Hush, now, child,” Lottie soothed. “We'll do it any way ye like. But ye can't stay here, not that I don't want ye, but now that ye've led the fine life, ye can see this is no place for ye. I'd give ten years off me life if ye'd stay, but ye can't and that's the straight of it. We'll have to think of something. This Malcolm sounds like a proper weasel to me, and what ye did to him was too good for the likes of him. I doubt if the law will be after ye for the killing, and those others ye said went to the wharf will run for cover like the river rats they are. Ye'll sleep now, and I'll have some of the men go to the wharf and see about this Sea Siren ye been telling me about. How could yer own brother desert ye like this?” she grumbled.

“He didn't desert me, Lottie. He doesn't know. And he isn't my brother, you know that.”

“Thank God for that,” Lottie muttered under her breath. She might be old and blind, but she had heard the girl's voice change when she mentioned Caleb's name. “Lie here on this cot, and when ye wake, Old Lottie will have everything come right for ye. Here,” she said, handing Wren a dingy coverlet.

“Is it full of bugs?” Wren asked sleepily.

“Scores of them, and a proper nest or two at the hem. Ye don't bother them. . .”

“And they won't bother you,” Wren laughed, rolling over and pulling the filthy rag to her chin.

Lottie waited till Wren's breathing was deep and regular before she clapped her hands sharply. Within minutes three men walked into the room and stood there patiently. From the depths of her shapeless dress Lottie withdrew a pouch of gems and fingered its contents deftly. She spoke softly, urgently, and the men showed no emotion at her orders. They shook their heads to indicate they understood, one of them held out his hand for the ruby she had selected, and they departed as quietly as they had come.

A single tear trickled down one wrinkled cheek as Lottie laid a rough, caloused hand on Wren's sleeping head. She knew the girl was beautiful, as beautiful as she herself had been in her younger days. Out of a hidden pocket she withdrew a comb of sorts and tried to straighten her straggly, ill-kempt hair. Eventually she gave it up as too much of an ordeal, and a colony of head lice scurried down her back. Now, why had she gone and disturbed them? She settled herself in an old, battered cane rocker and waited for the lice to make their way back to her wild mane of hair before she, too, fell asleep.

 

The wharf was alive with voices and movement and torchlight as Caleb's crew readied the
Siren
for tomorrow's sailing. Men hauled provisions while Aubrey Farrington tapped his elegant cane on the deck, his watery eyes missing nothing. “Thank you, Lord, I knew you'd see it my way,” he muttered as a bare-chested seaman hoisted a wooden crate to his shoulder.

Caleb sat nonchalantly on a tack box, his eyes as alert as Farrington's. If there is a King of Fools, I'm it, he told himself. Any time the old gambler looked as he did now, Caleb knew he was missing something. He'd make damn sure he searched the
Siren
from top to bottom before he sailed. The old fox had something up his sleeve, and it wasn't cards or his arm.

“How many, Aubrey?” he asked, blowing a fragrant cloud of blue-gray smoke in the gambler's direction.

“One hundred or so, give or take a few. You have plenty of room and then some. Don't start fretting, Cal. Everything has been taken care of.”

“That's the part that frightens me,” Caleb snapped. “When you take care of things, I always wind up on the short end of the stick. It will be dawn soon; we should both get some sleep.”

“Sleep!” Aubrey shouted. “And let these men rob us blind! Never! I'll stay right here till dawn. If you feel the need for some sleep, you go right ahead. I'll watch things for you.”

“And who is going to watch you? My mistake was not putting a leash around your neck the first time I met you. I'll just stay right here, and if you're half as smart as you think you are, you'll stay within my line of vision.”

The gambler nodded agreeably. “Whatever you say, Cal.”

“You know, Aubrey, before this ship sails I'm going over her from stern to stern to see what it is you're trying to have me smuggle to the colonies for you.” Caleb watched him with narrowed eyes. Farrington wasn't a gambler for nothing. His face remained impassive, even a little sly.

“I'll ignore that insult because we're such good friends. For shame, Cal. How could you think I'd try to pull the wool over your eyes?”

“You said it, Aubrey. Try. You can't. I don't want to find myself on the high seas carrying something a bastard bunch of pirates want. I have no intention of getting my throat slit or having my passengers harmed because of some fanciful whim of yours. From stern to stern, remember that.”

The desperation on Farrington's face was almost lawless. In the bright moonlight Caleb could see the frenzy in the old rake's eyes. His voice softened unexpectedly, throwing the gambler off guard. “If you'd just tell me what it is you're trying to get me to take, we might come to some kind of terms. Realize, Aubrey, that I'm smarter than you and that you can't get away with anything. If you try your usual tricks, then all these . . . these passengers, as you call them, will be waiting dockside when I set sail—alone.”

Farrington took one last look at Caleb's smoldering dark eyes and wavered, straightened his slumped shoulders. “For the last time, I don't know what you're talking about. I'm not hiding anything on your ship, nor do I intend to. I may be old, Cal, but I'm not a fool.”

For a minute Caleb almost believed him—until he squinted in the moonlight and saw the same look of desperation in his eyes. He sighed. He would search the ship, as he had said, and woe be to the old man if he found something other than rotting wood and rats.

When the last store of provisions was safely put away in the galley, Caleb strolled on deck, dawn but moments away. He loved the beginning of a new day, but his gut churned at what this day might bring. He had to have been a fool to agree to Aubrey's plans. Well, it was too late now; he had given his word, and he would have to sail for America as promised. He glanced about restlessly, and realized he wanted a woman. He wanted one now. With everything going on around him, he wondered how he could even think about women at a time like this.

He pushed the thought from his mind and settled himself against a roll of sail. Somewhere, someplace, someday, he would find a woman full of wonder and excitement, a woman who would love him the way he would love her. They would make love the first time to his satisfaction and the second time to the satisfaction of both; each time they would be tantalizing and incomprehensively cruel with each other, yet gentle, So very gentle, as if their lovemaking were an assault and a confession at the same time, as if it had to illustrate a confusion in themselves that was imperative for both to understand. If he sailed the world over, he wondered if he would ever find such a woman and if he would recognize her for what he wanted her to be, needed her to be, in order to make him complete. I'll know, he told himself, a touch of arrogance on his face. I'll know.