Microsoft Word - Sherwood, Valerie - Nightsong (4 page)

And then this devil out of Havana, this boyhood friend from an almost forgotten past, had ferreted him out: Ramon del Mundo, scion of one of Spain's most aristoetatic houses. And John Daimler, grandson on his mother's side of Juan Mendoza for whom he had been named, had gone along, for he had a good trade here with the English, and in this buccaneer port that would have gone out the window had they guessed him to be even half Spanish. Or so he had believed at first. Now that he was in the plot, he was not so sure. He regretted every moment. He wished fervently that he had told Ramon del Mundo to go to the Devil and let rumors be spread as they would.

Rumors could be denied. This harboring of a Spanish spy fresh from Havana-e-even overnight-e-could not. And it could bring him a length of hemp around his neck.

"Did you see her eyes, John?" His friend was addressing him.

"Yes," admitted John Daimler in a resigned voice. "I saw them."

"Amazing eyes. They flash silver in the sunlight. Did you notice?"

"No," croaked John. "But I will take your word for it. Have you not a wife in Spain?" he burst out.

The face that whirled toward him was carved in granite and John Daimler felt called upon to add, "Someone who would regret this folly which may well cost you your life?"

The cold face relaxed. "As a matter of fact I have not, John," was the careless answer. "But even if I had, I would be hard pressed. . . . Did you notice her hair, John?"

Daimler gulped and nodded.

"Pure sunlight-but at night it would be pure moonlight. Have you never imagined such a sweep of hair across your pillow, John?"

John Daimler admitted he had, but he doubted that Ramon heard him. Ramon was still musing.

"And her skin, John-like very silk. And the way she walked, light and proud and carefree. Women at the Spanish Court do not walk that way, John, they do not stride free. They mince, they float •.. it is very attractive-but I prefer this. Did you not take note of the way she walks, John?"

"I think it is time I take you to view the forts," said John sternly. "There are three of them: Fort James, Fort Carlisle, and Morgan's Line. You will be well advised to take note of their defenses."

Ramon del Mundo sighed. "You are right, John. And after I have checked out their defenses, I will do a bit of shopping in the town. For a suit to grace a lady's table at dinner."

John Daimler groaned.

"Promise me," he pleaded, "that you will not dress in the Spanish style, Ramon? You look Spanish enough as it is!"

"Oh, as to that ..." Ramon del Mundo airily tweaked an imaginary mustache; he had shaved off his own in anticipation of this venture. "We will have to see what is available, will we not?"

Meanwhile, Carolina was heading toward Queen's Street with Gilly in tow.

At Hawks's laconic, "The cap'n may not like having you invite that strange Frenchie to dinner on his first night back," she turned and gave him a withering look. "And here comes that other Frenchie," he muttered under his breath.

Carolina swung about to see that Louis Deauville, the Huguenot gentleman who had taken rooms recently in the house across the street from them, was approaching, twirling an ivory walking stick.

Louis Deauville had come upon the town like an avalanche, burying the scruples of most of the ladies of Port Royal with his savoir-faire, his wicked gaze that seemed to strip away the satins and the laces, exposing the tingling flesh beneath. Hardly a feminine breast that did not beat a trifle faster when Louis Deauville entered the room, scarce a lady to be found who did not beam at the sight of his tall, lounging figure,or treasure one of his gracefully worded compliments--tailored, each was sure, to her particular charms. And his boudoir tales, whispered into feminine ears, were so marvelously risque and yet so gallant that they were repeated and tittered over behind waving fans--though seldom murmured into husbands' less appreciative ears.

It was the lighthearted opinion of the ladies of Port Royal's elite that the fascinating Monsieur Deauville was a nobleman traveling in disguise (a rumor perhaps inspired by his own lips), that he was a man of vast wealth back in France (for was he not everywhere running up bills?), a beau of the Parisian haut monde-and that he had slept with every desirable woman in Paris!

He presented, therefore, an alluring challenge.

Carolina did not believe Louis Deauville was a nobleman in disguise. She thought he had been more likely a dancing master or a fencing master back in France-e-certainly that would explain his nimbleness and wiry strength. She had little doubt that he had bedded every pretty lady who was willingto go to bed with him, but she was inclined to doubt that his conquests included the French king's mistresses (as he claimed) or the beauties of the French Court. She thought him a charming rogue and was wary of him.

But the story that had reached her third-hand over tea with the wife of a rich merchant in a handsome residence on Broad Street had intrigued her indeed. It seemed that Monsieur Deauville had spent a brief time in London. While there he had unhesitatingly hurled himself in front of a runaway carriage and when he had gotten the horses to stop, he had been promptly embraced by the carriage's sole-and trembling-occupant, a striking lady in a peacock-blue gown. She had taken him home with her, regaling him along the way with the story of how she, a former headmistress, had turned her fashionable school into an even more fashionable gaming house.

At that point Carolina had sat up straighter. Jenny Chesterton! she had thought in amazement. For she herself had attended Mistress Chesterton's School for Young Ladies in London and knew that when scandal had broken over her pretty ears, young Mistress Chesterton had quickly converted her fashionable school into a gaming house.

"Do go on," Carolina had urged her hostess.

"Well, there was not much more," her hostess had told her with a shrug. "Save that he claimed he had an affair with a beautiful former charge of the lady, who was in residence at the gaming house." Her lips twitched. "I am not sure that I believe it, but it is a delightful story."

Save that he had an affair with-l Carolina had set down her cup with a slight clatter.

Could the affair have been with Reba, her former roommate? Reba who had since caused her so much trouble? Reba had certainly been "in residence" at Jenny Chesterton's gaming house for a time!

That had been on Thursday, and she had been dying to ask Monsieur Deauville about it ever since.

Now, as he approached, walking jauntily and twirling his cane, she eyed him speculatively. She would indeed love to question him. . . . But now, with Gilly in tow, was not the time.

"Perhaps I should invite Monsieur Deauville to dinner as well," she murmured irrepressibly to Hawks. "'Tis said there's safety in numbers, Hawks!"

Beside her, Hawks had no inclination to reply. He watched with deep disapproval as the Frenchman greeted Carolina effusively. It had not escaped Hawks's attention that Carolina seldom left her front door but that their new French neighbor, a dandy who this morning dangled a single earring and was resplendent in a suit of popinjay-green, managed to stroll along after. He wondered if that was how they managed things in France, getting on with married women, and his dark frown deepened.

"'Tis good to see you, Monsieur Deauville," Carolina was saying. "But I am surprised that you are still here. I thought you said you were on your way to America?"

In point of fact, Monsieur Deauville had but recently fled from America with an angry husband thundering on his trail, but he had chosen to claim that he was but lately from Marseilles, a place where, as it happened, he had been born.

"I linger here because of'-his hazel eyes lingered on her bosom, rising and faIling in the heat-"the climate, madame. So delightfully-warm." He looked as if he were growing warm himself as his gaze roamed over Carolina's dainty young breasts.

"Ah, yes, well, we must not detain you, Monsieur Deauville," Carolina said hastily, observing the direction of his gaze. "I have a new serving girl to get settled in my household today. " She jogged Gilly with her arm and Gilly turned with a start from her rapt consideration of Monsieur Deauville's purse, hovering so tempt-ingly near-why, she could be off with it like that! As easy as snapping her fingers!

"Come along, Gilly," said Carolina, and Gilly gave up the purse with a sigh and trudged along beside her new mistress.

Carolina hurried on toward home, and Hawks muttered, "I don't like the way that Frenchie looks at you!"

Carolina privately agreed that Monsieur DeauvilIe had a way of stripping her with his eyes, but she was still irked with Hawks for suggesting that Kells would be displeased by her choice of dinner guests.

"I am sure Monsieur Deauville has at least a wife and six children back in France,"

she declared airily. "You misjudge him, Hawks. He is a harmless flirt."

Hawks snorted, and spent the rest of the walk home listening to Gilly fabricate tales of her life in Bristol where, according to her version, she had been badly treated at home, cast out to live in rags, unfairly jailed, and had lost a lover to the gibbet-her sorrows seemed never to end until, at their front door, she found herself out of breath.

"She'll steal your ear bobs, this one," Hawks said sourly, nodding toward Gilly as he held the door for Carolina.

Gilly turned and made a face at him.

"Oh, nonsense, Hawks," Carolina said reprovingly. "The girl's in trouble. She'll be glad of a place to stay. Won't you, Gilly?"

"Oh, yes, mistress," Gilly said quickly. Too quickly, thought Hawks. And with too much of a smirk. Gilly caught his thoughts from his disapproving look and stuck out her tongue at him the moment Carolina's back was turned.

Carolina went through the door into the cool interior of the front hall, unaware of how Gilly's sharp brown eyes gleamed as she stared about her at the handsome furnishings. Carolina had taken in a waif today-and not for the first time; most of her servants had been picked up from the gutter.

And now-this pitiful half-fledged girl. Smiling down on Gilly's ginger head, she had the ennobling feeling that she had done the Right Thing.

Before Carolina had taken three steps down the hall, one of the servants, a girl named Betts, hurried forward to tell her that a message had just been received from

"the master." Captain Kells would not be coming home tonight; indeed he might be detained up the Cobre River for as long as a week.

Carolina felt briefly annoyed; had she known Kells was not coming home tonight she certainly would have postponed her dinner invitation to Monsieur du Monde. But her impetuous dinner invitation was forgotten when the same serving girl-a child of the London docks, her face scarred by her misadventures, a girl whom Carolina had rescued and who adored her beyond measure-handed her a letter and said solemnly,

''T was delivered by Captain Trollope of the Hopemont, mistress, who said he had it by Captain Carleton of the Bombay, who told him he could not recall who it was gave it to him."

"Never mind, Betts," Carolina said dryly, snatching up the letter. "I can guess who it was gave it to him!"

For her sister Virginia always clung to the forlorn hope that even though the authorities had come and searched Rye's father's house, that the present whereabouts of the notorious Captain Kells had escaped them.

Carolina sighed-how like Virgie to believe that!

But the letter was to her a breath of home. She paused only to give Betts, who was frowning a little as she stared down at Gilly, instructions to remove Gilly's petticoat and chemise and turn them over to Hawks, who would dispose of them.

Betts looked amazed at such orders from her mistress.

"If I give her underclothes to Hawks, what's the girl to wear?" she blurted. "Just her dress against her skin?"

"Just see that she has a bath," said Carolina, who was impatient to read her letter.

"And a dressing gown. I'll find her some proper attire as soon as I've read this." She waved the letter. "Gilly, go with Betts. She'll take care of you."

Gilly fixed Betts with a belligerent eye. "I'm hungry," she announced sullenly. "Of course you are," said Carolina. "Betts will get you something to eat. Go along with you now."

Gilly flounced away arrogantly after adoubtful Betts, and Carolina went into the cool, airy high-ceilinged living room to read her precious letter.

And that letter, which had reached her so circuitously, took her mind from everything else.

It was indeed from her sister Virginia, written from Essex-and since Virginia, worried that the authorities would trace her letters to Carolina, wrote so seldom, its arrival was an event.

"I should have penned this letter sooner," Virginia began apologetically, "but I am kept busy with Andrew's literary projects-he has just begun a new translation of Virgil!"

Studious, bookish Andrew! Carolina's face broke into a smile. He and Virginia were so well suited.

But the next lines made her catch her breath.

"I am afraid I have sad news for Rye," wrote Virginia. "His older brother Giles died last week. He drank himself to death at last-just as we had predicted. And the end was terrible-he screamed and saw demons and clawed at the sheets. I could not face it. I ran away although I know I should have nursed him, but Andrew said I was right for I must keep a happy face for my little one. And we may have another death soon, for although Rye's father is still alive, he gasps for every breath-indeed I do not see how he holds on at all."

Carolina expelled a deep breath. For a moment the hand holding the letter dropped to her lap and she looked out through the window at the brilliant blue sky over Jamaica.

Kells's brother Giles was dead. And his father soon would be.

They had discussed what was happening far-away in Essex, Kells and she-and Carolina had not been happy with his conclusions.

Rye Evistock was elderly Lord Gayle's third son. But his wastrel eldest brother Darvent was dead, shot last year in a brawl over a wager in a Colchester tavern.