Columbine (7 page)

Dianna twisted her hands in the worn remains of her cloak and tried to picture herself in such a setting.

As a lady, she was both educated and accomplished.

She could read and write and cipher, play on the spinet and sing, speak French and a little Italian. But none of that would matter unless the buyer of her indenture was genteel as well, and Saybrook, to her eyes, did not have the look of a genteel place.

She glanced back to where Captain Welles stood by the wheel, and at once felt reassured, He was a good man, if plain-spoken, one she could trust. He had treated her civilly since the moment he’d had the shackles removed, and he had risked the displeasure of his employer to bring the passengers food. He had promised to find her a decent place, and she was confident he would, and she thanked God once again that her future did not depend on a man as unpredictable as Kit Sparhawk.

News of the Prosperity’s safe return had raced through Saybrook, and already a crowd was gathering-wives and mothers with new babies, children hopping with excitement, friends and neighbors calling greetings across the water, their words frozen into clouds in the cold air. As soon as the ship bumped alongside the uneven cob dock, the welcomers swarmed on board, the joyful reunions began in earnest.

The happiness was infectious, and Dianna couldn’t help grinning herself. She had come this far without harm. What worse could lie ahead?

Across the heads of the jostling crowd, she spotted Kit, hatless, his long hair blowing wildly in the wind.

Against her will something inside her gave a little lurch. He was laughing, his flashing smile brilliant with the pleasure of homecoming. But his eyes seemed joyless as he scanned the faces around him, and curiously Dianna wondered whose he sought.

Then abruptly his grin vanished and his expression grew solemn. Effortlessly he dropped over the side and hurried to meet a young woman with auburn hair who blushed shyly as Kit took both her hands in his.

She was pretty, noted Dianna miserably, very pretty, indeed and even the heavy cloak she wore was un, able to disguise her obvious pregnancy. Seven months the Prosperity had been away, but time enough.

,

“Ah, so he’s found Patience Tucker already,” said a sailor softly to his wife.

“Poor lass!

“Tis well she’ll have Master Sparhawk to watch after her now.”

“Not before the young ones, mind,” murmured his wife, cocking her head toward the two boys who tugged excitedly at their father’s coat.

“They’ll learn such things soon enough.”

The chill that passed through Dianna had nothing to do with the wind. Too well she remembered the scandal when one of her friends had let herself be seduced by a handsome favorite of the Queeh’s, an earl he was. He’d gotten the girl with child, killed the girl’ sbrother in a duel, and then Dianna’s friend had drowned herself. The earl, along with the rest of London society, had merely shrugged it all away as unfortunate unpleasantness and been back again at court the next week as if nothing had happened.

So Kit Sparhawk was kinder than that, but still there seemed no likelihood of him wedding the girl.

Perhaps he, too, was already married to another.

Dianna watched the pair walk slowly away, her arm in his for support.

Dianna shivered, all pleasure in the morning now gone. What would have become of her if she, too, carried Kit’s child? She’d come so close, so dangerously close, to lying with him, Lord help her! She had been weak and Kit had been strong, and his kiss and touch had brought a fire to her blood that she hadn’t known existed. She had been willing. He had been the one to stop. Again she heard her uncle’s taunting voice and his bitter accusations. New England or old, some things would never change.

For the next week Dianna continued to live on the Prosperity, waiting while Captain Welles sought a buyer for her indenture. From the way he avoided her, she suspected this had not proved as easy as he’d hoped, and she hated not knowing what would come next. But steadfastly she ordered herself not to worry and tried to fight back the insecurity that gnawed at her. She still had the company of the Penhallows, who also remained on board. Soon they would begin their journey westward, by wagon, to their new land.

It was late one afternoon when Dianna and Eunice stood together on the deck, idly tossing biscuit crumbs to make the gulls wheel and dive. Dianna had been careful to choose the larboard side, away from the dock, and away from Kit, who was supervising the men unloading the hold. Every so often she could hear his laughter over Eunice’s chatter, and her back would stiffen with irritation. What cause did he have to be so merry? If he was the fine gentleman he pretended to be, he wouldn’t be here carousing with common sailors. Why didn’t he just go away, so she could forget she’d ever seen him? Crossly she bounced a bread crust off a gull’s head, wishing it were Kit’s instead.

Suddenly a great clattering on the dock scattered all the gulls into noisy flight, and every man raced across to the starboard side, cheering and waving.

Excitedly Eunice hurried to join them, and with an impatient sigh, Dianna followed.

“Oh, Iud, ye know who it must be, don’t ye, Dianna?” exclaimed Eunice, her eyes round with wonder.

“It must be Cap’n Jonathan Sparhawk his-self, what everyone feared were dead!”

Dianna stared down at the man on the back of the black stallion, calling out to the crewmen as he swung his three-cornered hat over his head. He wore a scarlet coat laced with gold, the polished buttons winking in the late afternoon light, and his neck cloth fluttered over his shoulder as he expertly brought the horse to a halt at the water’s edge. His clumsiness as he dismounted surprised Dianna, until she saw how he favored his right leg as it touched the ground, and the brass-headed cane he untied from his saddle.

And even if Kit had not leaped at him at once, nearly knocking him sideways with the fierceness of his greeting, Dianna would have known they were brothers. They were too much alike not to be, both pounding each other delightedly on the back, grinning and howling like madmen. Jonathan stood a shade shorter and his hair was black as the stallion’s coat, but he had the same green eyes as Kit, the same powerful build and easy physical confidence. And, decided Dianna instantly, he had the same damnable charm.

“What a sight they be,” Eunice said with a sigh, “each one handsomer than the’ other! To think there be two such, oh!”

“And twice the trouble to bedevil womankind,” said Dianna tartly. Yet her eyes still lingered on the brothers, just as Jonathan, over the first flush of re. union with Kit, had instinctively turned to find the two young women watching from the rail.

“By all that’s holy, Kit, you’ve women in my sweet Prosperity!” he exclaimed with relish.

“Delectable ones, too, from the look of them. And here I pitied you old Abraham’s company!”

Kit scowled and made a disgusted noise deep in his throat.

“The one’s a silly little maid with her whole clacking family behind her, but the other’s worse trouble by far.” Briefly he recounted Dianna’s past, carefully omitting himself.

“A rogue gentlewoman!” Jonathan’s eyebrows rose suggestively.

“She’s still a plump enough little chick with that cloud of golden hair.”

“Nay, Jon,” said Kit too quickly.

“It’s the beauty, the dark-haired one.”

Jonathan scratched his jaw, considering. He had spent enough nights wenching side by side with his brother to know the scrawny little creature with the thatch of eyebrows was not to Kit’s usual taste, nor had his explanation rung quite true.

“So Abraham expects to get ten guineas for her. She doesn’t look worth half that to me, but I’ll buy her for you if you wish.” He grinned wolfishly.

“For those cold nights at Plumstead.”

“Toss your gold in the river before you spend it on her!” exclaimed Kit, appalled at the idea.

“I’d not have the little baggage within twenty miles of Plumstead!”

Kit saw the gleam in his brother’s eye and realized he’d tipped his hand. Blast the girl for showing her face to Jonathan! Tonight, in some tavern, he’d likely spill the whole sorry tale, and Jonathan, the cocksure little whelp, would just as likely gloat and taunt him for being an old, worn-out fool.

But then he recalled how close he’d come to losing Jonathan’s taunts forever. For the first time, Kit noticed how heavily his brother leaned on his cane, the strain on the edge of his smile, and he realized just how much pain Jonathan’s bravura entrance on horseback had cost him. He swung his arm around Jonathan’s shoulder, offering support, and was both surprised and concerned by how readily his brother leaned into him.

“Come along, Jon,” he said gruffly.

“We’ve much to say, you and I, and there’s far warmer places to say it.”

But first Jonathan looked back to the ship, and, with a grand flourish, doffed his hat to the two girls.

“Ten guineas,” he said slyly to Kit, “and she’s all yours. Call her my gift to you.”

Eunice giggled into her hand at the attention, but Dianna wished it had been Kit, not his brother, who had turned back. With Jonathan Sparhawk now here to oversee the Prosperity, there would be no need for Kit to remain. This, then, could be the last she ever saw of him …. “Dianna Grey!” Captain Welles’s voice was sharp, and Dianna guiltily wondered how many times he’d called her before she noticed.

“Come, girl, I haven’t all day.”

There was a stranger beside the captain, and the frank appraisal the man gave Dianna made her blush.

He wore a large-brimmed hat with a beaded band, a long black coat like a parson’s and greasy leather leggings. He was not tall, but stocky, his legs bowed outward, and although his hair was wispy and white, Dianna could not guess his age. The bones of his face seemed to almost jut through his leathery skin, and Dianna feared the man himself would be equally sharp, with no softness or gentleness, no humor in him anywhere.

“Stop gawking like a lackwit, girl,” growled Captain Welles impatiently.

“You won’t favor yourself keeping your new master awaiting.,”

Dianna sat on the deck of the sloop Tiger, her back braced against the hatch cover and sheltered from the wind. She had been there since they had left Saybrook that morning, preferring the open air to the small, stuffy cabin below and the seemingly endless dice game her new master had begun with the two other passengers. Every so often she heard Asa Wing’s voice rise above the others, and she wondered if he had won or lost.

The only thing she now knew of the man was that he liked gaming; he had volunteered nothing else about himself or their destination. She didn’t even know why he had bought her indenture in the first place. He was clearly not accustomed to servants, nor did he seem interested in her in the lustful way her uncle had been. In fact, he really didn’t seem interested in her at all.

She rested her head on her arms. She hated the feeling of helplessness, the way a total stranger now controlled her life for the next seven years. Seven years! She would be thirty then, an ancient crone, too old by far for any husband. When her father had lived, he had been family enough, but after two months with the Penhallows, she imagined herself more and more with a home of her own and babies and a husband that, to her dismay, always looked like Kit Sparhawk.

She sighed and brushed her haft back from her face. She had never been in love, but she realized how close she’d come to it with Kit. She tried hard to forget his unpredictable kindness and his smile and the way his kiss had left her breathless and eager, and tried to remember instead how he always believed the worst of her, how he’d played along with her uncle, and how he’d tried to starve them all on the Prosperity. And, too, she couldn’t forget the auburn-haired girl who’d met him at Saybrook.

No, it was better like this, better to never see Kit again. There were other men as handsome in the world, and others who might come to love and cherish her in a way Kit Sparhawk never would.

She stared out over the water. The river had grown narrower, and shallower, too. The rippled surface had changed from green to silver, and the tang of the ocean faded as salt water gave way to fresh. The landscape was changing as well. First the town had been replaced by neat farms, barns and houses centered in snow-dappled fields. Then had come the wild meadows, where big trees had long ago been cut for timber and firewood and where new saplings grew brave and leggy among the stumps, But now, as the sun dropped low, there seem el nothing but old snow and rocks and trees, endless trees, their dark boughs hanging over the river and brushing against the sloop’s mast.

“Here, girl, you’d best eat.” Startled, Dianna

looked up as Asa squatted beside her and handed her a chunk of the coarse bread he was eating. He wore soft-soled shoes, sewn of leather, that had made his footsteps silent, and the ease with which he could appear without warning unsettled her.

Chewing, he flipped up one corner of her cloak and fingered the fur lining.

“What dye Londoners pay for a cloak like this?”

“I don’t recall exactly,” said Dianna.

“Seven, perhaps eight guineas. My father bought it for me.”

Asa grunted with disbelief.

“Mighty dear for rabbit.”

“Nay, it’s beaver. Madame du Paigne would not have sold rabbit in her shop.”

“Nay, girl, ‘tis rabbit,” he countered amiably, unimpressed by Madame du Paigne or her shop.

“Oh, it’s been dyed an’ clipped to look fair, but them pelts grew up by hoppin’, not swimmin’.”

He uncorked a small earthenware jug and tipped it back. When he was finished drinJdng, he sighed contentedly, wiped the jug’s neck with his thumb and offered the jug to Dianna. She shook her head, but decided instead to take advantage of his good humor.

He must, she thought, have been the winner in the game below.

“Where are we bound?” she asked.

“Wickhamton.”

He might have said the moon for all that meant to her.

“Is that where you live?”

“Near enough. Though the house be Mercy’s now.”