Dark Before the Rising Sun (4 page)

And if there was anyone to lay the blame on for the predicament they now found themselves in, thought Kirby, then it would have to be the Spanish foretopman who'd long ago survived the sinking of his ship in a hurricane. All aboard had been lost except for the cursed foretopman, including the galleon's cargo, a hold laden with chests of gold and silver newly minted in Mexico City. Not satisfied with merely escaping with his life, the Spanish foretopman had decided to press his luck further, and throughout the following years he had looted the ship of some of its fabulous wealth. His conscience troubling him, however, he had confessed his misdeeds in his last will and testament. Years later that document ended up in a card game in St. Eustatius in which the captain of the
Sea Dragon
was holding the winning hand. Perhaps because the information revealed on the parchment had been a dying man's last confession, Dante had considered it worth the journey to Trinidad. And in the ruins of a plantation overgrown with jungle, he discovered a strongbox containing a map. The sunken galleon's location was clearly marked.

Because secrets like that are hard to keep, and because many a man had dreamed of finding a fortune in sunken treasure and would have stopped at nothing to get it, Dante and the crew of the
Sea Dragon
had not been alone in their search. Many were after the misbegotten gold from the conquistadors' El Dorado.

And that was why, when the captain of the
Sea Dragon
had discovered the trespasser in his cabin, the prized treasure map spread across a table, Dante thought Lady Rhea Claire Dominick just another conniver out to get her hands on the fortune. The captain had found it hard to believe her outrageous tale about being kidnapped, and even harder to believe that she was the daughter of an English duke. It seemed obvious that she was a street urchin who'd been sent on board by a rival treasure hunter to find that map.

Her feeble explanation that she had accidentally stumbled across the map that had been so cleverly hidden from all of Charles Town had been yet another far-fetched tale meant to confuse the captain.

They'd had very little choice. The girl having seen the map, Dante couldn't risk turning her loose. So she had sailed to the Indies with them, and only Kirby, Alastair, and the captain had known the real reason why she went with them.

Soon, however, when Lady Rhea Claire had recovered her health, it became clear that she was indeed the person she claimed to be. Even the cleverest actress could not have played so refined and gracious a lady. Every word, every action bespoke her aristocratic upbringing.

The captain had continued to display an unusual degree of antagonism toward her. Of course, the captain had just been involved in an unhappy love affair with a woman in Charles Town, a woman whose lies and selfish scheming had destroyed his love for her. But Lady Rhea Claire was so different from that other woman. There could be no comparison. The captain's ill-tempered moodiness confused Kirby.

And then, suddenly, he had understood. The captain's behavior had not been because he
disliked
her, but rather because he had found himself becoming enamored of her.

That startling turn of events had had the little steward more concerned than if he'd spied an unfamiliar sail looming to starboard. If Lady Rhea Claire was indeed the kidnapped daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Camareigh, then she had no business aboard a smugglers' brig or, worse, becoming involved with a man most people thought little better than a pirate.

Kirby could still remember thinking that their one chance of salvation had been the gentle innocence of Lady Rhea Claire. The only thing she had cared about was returning to her family in England. Once the
Sea Dragon
had reached Antigua and their lovely passenger went ashore, Lady Rhea Claire would have forgotten all about the
Sea Dragon
and her captain. And although he might have had a harder time of it, eventually Dante would have forgotten the golden-haired, violet-eyed girl he should never have even known existed.

That was what should have happened when they'd docked in Antigua. Instead, the captain of the
Sea Dragon
had forbidden the lady to leave her cabin. The captain's explanation for keeping her aboard ship seemed quite reasonable. The voyage of the
Sea Dragon
was a quest, the outcome of which could change the lives of every man aboard. They could not afford to be detained and questioned in Antigua.

But Kirby was not deceived. He had seen that determined glint in the captain's eye too many times. The real reason was only too evident: dressed in a skirt made from bits and pieces of buckskin and leather donated by each member of the crew, and a blouse cut from one of the captain's fine cambric shirts, her golden hair swinging in braids entwined with colorful ribbons, Lady Rhea Claire had become an endearingly familiar figure aboard the
Sea Dragon
as she sat on the companion ladder, Jamaica curled in her lap.

And watching her from the deck above, Dante, the
Sea Dragon
's slightly disreputable captain, had come to want the gentle-born lady who seemed to represent all he might once have possessed, and had lost when he had fled England. She was a very real ghost from his past, but just as elusive as his memories.

And Kirby was afraid that his fears were to be sadly realized as the captain tried to hold on to a dream that could never be fulfilled and just might turn into a nightmare for the captain and the lady he seemed determined to possess.

She had become a challenge to Dante, and that made her all the more desirable. Everything Dante had achieved in life had been fought hard for—his ship, the respect of his crew, and the successes he had known as a privateer. Nothing had come easily in life for the man who'd had to fight even for his own self-respect.

But Lady Rhea Claire had been determined too, and the
Sea Dragon
had hardly dropped anchor in St. John's Harbour when Lady Rhea Claire tried to escape. She might have succeeded too, if fate hadn't intervened in the person of Conny Brady, the
Sea Dragon
's young cabin boy. Lady Rhea Claire had befriended the orphan, and the lonely little boy had come openly to idolize the beautiful and kind lady from London who always seemed to have a special smile for him. When a search party went ashore to find their missing passenger, Conny had been among them.

And as the captain had expected, Lady Rhea Claire, having reached port, found herself in difficulties. Dressed as she was, and having arrived aboard a smuggling vessel, she had hardly looked the part of an aristocrat. Lost and dejected, with every respectable door closed in her face, Lady Rhea Claire had fallen afoul of a group of rowdy, drunken seamen, and it had only been because of the timely interruption of Conny, and then an English naval officer, that she had escaped serious harm.

But that other member of the crew had not fared so well. Conny had been wounded trying to protect Lady Rhea Claire from her attackers. The intervention of the naval officer had prevented any further bloodshed, and that was where fate had played yet another trick on the unsuspecting crew of the
Sea Dragon
; for that obliging naval officer had been none other than Captain Sir Morgan Lloyd of HMS
Portcullis
, the
Sea Dragon
's old nemesis.

At that time no one aboard the
Sea Dragon
would have believed that encounter to have been anything but unlucky, and Dante certainly thought it damned unfortunate. But he was more concerned about his unconscious cabin boy and about what Lady Rhea Claire would say and do now that freedom was within her grasp than to be worrying about what the hand of fate was about to do next.

Lady Rhea Claire's actions in that moment had sealed not only her own fate but also that of the
Sea Dragon
's crew as well. She said nothing about being forced to sail with them, about trying to escape. She didn't even mention her kidnapping from England. Instead, she had given her name and professed her willingness to cooperate fully in any charges to be made against the man who had stabbed young Conny. Then she had returned voluntarily to the
Sea Dragon
, her one concern, Conny Brady.

Sir Morgan Lloyd must have felt more than a little foolish when, upon his return to Charles Town, he heard about the warrant for the arrest of Dante Leighton on the charge of kidnapping Lady Rhea Claire Dominick, the very same lady he had just left in Antigua with the captain and crew of the
Sea Dragon
. And his bewilderment must have been heightened by the contradictory statements made by two women, complete strangers, both of whom claimed to have special knowledge of Lady Rhea Claire.

One, an acclaimed Charles Town beauty and former love of Dante Leighton's, stated quite caustically that any claim of kidnapping as had been declared in the many handbills being circulated about the colonies was false, for she had seen, with her very own eyes, the
lady
in question on board the
Sea Dragon
, and hardly complaining. In fact, she had deceived the whole lot of them. In her opinion, Dante Leighton and the
lady
deserved one another. Most people agreed, but secretly talked among themselves. After all, hadn't Helene Jordane lost her own chance to wed Dante Leighton? When she broke off their engagement, she had no idea that he was the Marquis of Jacqobi, and not just the smuggler captain she thought him to be. And whether Dante Leighton had been speaking the truth or not, what better way to mortify a woman who had callously broken off an engagement, then changed her mind, than to introduce her to the woman he now intended to wed?

Kirby, who had witnessed the scene, could have told anyone interested enough to have asked, that it had been a bit of inspired playacting on the part of the captain, and that Lady Rhea Claire had been half-delirious with fever at the time and remembered little of what had happened. And shortly thereafter, the
Sea Dragon
had sailed for the Indies; the captain and crew never having learned of the handbills describing their passenger and offering a reward for information, or of the strange revelations that would soon follow.

It had been the other woman's story, and a deathbed statement by the captain of the
London Lady
, that made Helene Jordane look the fool. Thin and frightened half out of her wits, a girl called Alys had come forward and told a story of having sailed from London aboard the
London Lady
with Lady Rhea Claire. The two had formed a friendship. Alys's tale of the suffering aboard that ship left little doubt that Lady Rhea Claire had indeed been kidnapped. Alys, who had been destined for indentured service, had one very important piece of evidence to corroborate her story: a locket and chain of purest gold which belonged to Lady Rhea Claire. That and the information revealed by the late captain of the
London Lady
had convinced the authorities to issue a warrant for the arrest of the captain of the
Sea Dragon
.

And so it was left to Captain Sir Morgan Lloyd to return to the Indies to try to find the captain of the
Sea Dragon
and his unusual passenger. That was how the captain of HMS
Portcullis
had come to lend personal escort to the
Sea Dragon
on its homeward journey and to unwittingly give safe conduct to the ship whose hold was by then full of priceless treasure.

And that was also how Sir Morgan Lloyd of His Majesty's Navy had come to testify that day in London on behalf of the captain and crew of the
Sea Dragon
. He had been honor-bound to tell the truth, and that meant swearing on oath that he had seen the lady return to the
Sea Dragon
of her own free will.

By that time, Dante had found not only the sunken treasure, but his heart's desire as well.

In a secluded cove, where the tide lapped gently against sun-warmed sands and the sky turned savage with scarlet and gold, a man and a woman had become as one. And as night fell, their destinies became forever interwoven.

And that destiny, once they were back in England, was precisely why Kirby was so worried as he sat drinking ale in the taproom of Hawke's Bell Inn.

“Well, Kirby? You don't think the cap'n would risk losing Lady Rhea Claire, do you? He has everything he wants. He should just let the past stay buried. The captain's no fool, Kirby. Kirby?”

But Kirby was staring down in amazement at the chops and boiled potatoes piled high on a platter that had been placed right beneath his nose. The aromatic steam rising from his dinner, and Alastair's words, jolted him back to the present, and he shivered with the damp that clung to his clothes.

“The Lady Rhea Claire?” Kirby mumbled. “No, I haven't forgotten the lady, and that is precisely why I am worried, Mr. Marlowe. Things may be different now that the captain and Lady Rhea Claire have returned to England.”

“No, Kirby, I don't believe that. Haven't you seen how different the cap'n is when he's around her? She's changed him, Kirby. He is gentle when he is with her. And the way he touches her, as if he is afraid she might disappear.” Alastair's voice left little doubt that he was half in love with the lady himself.

“Aye.” Kirby surprised Alastair by agreeing. “And like I said, that's why I'm concerned. There just might be other folk who feel the same way about her. Like her family, for instance? And they might not care for the stories they'll be hearin' about the captain of the
Sea Dragon
. The cap'n had it all his own way when we were in the Indies, but now that we're back in England, Lady Rhea Claire's family may have their own ideas about what is best for her. The cap'n may not be a part of her future as far as the duke is concerned. And from what I've heard about the Duke of Camareigh in these past few days, our cap'n may have met his match.”