Pirates (22 page)

“Have you noticed,” Duncan asked, after a nod of capitulation, “that you are starting to speak our language?”

Phoebe sighed. “All this formality tends to rub off on a person. I’ll have to practice modern idioms in my spare time, just to keep my memory fresh.”

He laughed and took her arm. “Come,” he said. “I want to show you how the ship is managed. You may need to know someday.”

Phoebe wanted to understand the complexities of controlling such a craft, it was true, but her reasons were rooted in curiosity, and a deep, insatiable desire to learn all about everything. She did not want to “need to know,” however; that would mean that something had happened to Duncan.

“You are quite forward-thinking—in some ways—for a man of the eighteenth century,” she said.

“The men of the twentieth are more so?”

Phoebe considered. “Well, no,” she admitted at long last. “Some of them
want
to be, I think. They’re just learning to be sensitive—watching
Donahue
, beating on drums,
and getting in touch with their feelings about their fathers, things like that.”

Duncan followed as he escorted Phoebe forward, toward the wheelhouse, where the lessons would begin. “Beating on drums?”

“It’s a way to validate the primitive side of their psyches.”

“I take back everything I said before. You are not starting to speak our language, and I am not learning yours.”

Phoebe laughed. “Perhaps, over the next forty or fifty years, I’ll be able to explain it all properly. What this new nation of yours has come to after two hundred and twenty years.”

“I’m not sure I wish to know,” Duncan said, only half in jest. He could not have guessed, though Phoebe had had inklings, when on the edge of sleep or waking, that he was fated to find out firsthand. Whether he wanted to or not.

Shortly after sunset, which was a glorious spill of crimson, gold, apricot, and pink light over a turquoise sea, a skiff was rigged and lowered over the side of the ship. Simone descended to it, via a rope ladder, with a minimum of fuss from the crew and no apparent notice at all from the captain. Two able seamen awaited her and pushed off when she was safely aboard.

She had, Phoebe knew, a pouch of gold coins in her possession, and a paper stating that she was a free woman, and not a slave. The document had been signed, not by Duncan, of course, but by Phoebe, and witnessed by the first mate and the ship’s surgeon.

Phoebe waved from the rail, and she thought Simone saw the farewell gesture, but she did not respond. Silently, Phoebe wished her rival Godspeed, and prayed she would never tell, on purpose or unwittingly, that she had worked in the household, and taken pleasure in the bed, of one Duncan Rourke. Rebel, pirate, and enemy of the Crown, marked for severe punishment—he would make a splendid example—and ultimately marked for death.

Phoebe prayed silently, her hands folded, her heart humble.
Please. Let Simone forgive Duncan for not loving her. Let her keep her peace and go on to have a happy life.

There was no knowing then, of course, whether that prayer would be answered, and though she had tried, mostly, to be kind, and always to be honest and fair in all her dealings, Phoebe was not a particularly religious person. She did not pretend piety, for if there was a God, He would surely recognize such a deception, being omnipresent and omnipotent. But if that Deity of deities cared at all for the affairs of the men and women on one paltry but beautiful blue-green world, a speck in a vast configuration of stars and asteroids, comets and meteorites, moons and planets, Phoebe would be most grateful for any help.

Meanwhile, Simone and the two crewmen were skimming over the water in a fleet little skiff, and presently the thickening shadows swallowed them, and Phoebe turned from the rail.

She returned, alone, to the cabin belowdecks, where a lamp was burning, lit by Peter Beedle, one of Duncan’s most trusted men, who was there still, arranging the contents of a tray on the small, fold-down slab of carved wood that served as both a desk and a dining table. He favored Phoebe with a deferential, rather shy nod and murmured, “Mistress Rourke.”

“Hello,” Phoebe replied. She felt the ship bobbing on the water, a sensation she’d gotten used to long since, deeming herself a born sailor. Then she realized the vessel was not at anchor, but under way, and wheeling to the starboard side, if her senses were correct. She frowned, puzzled. The men with the skiff could not have deposited Simone on shore and arranged for her escort to Queen’s Town so quickly. “Are we leaving those men behind?” she muttered, musing aloud rather than expecting Beedle to answer her.

He did, being a polite and knowledgeable sort. “Yes, mistress,” he said. “There’s hard sailing ahead of us this night, for we’ve spotted a ship nearby, with no colors flying to tell us who she be. Not that that would be proof,” he added as a wry afterthought, thinking, no doubt, as Phoebe was, of the collection of flags carried by the
Francesca
herself, allowing Duncan to pass the ship off as Dutch or French or Spanish or British, as he might choose.

Phoebe was troubled and had not touched the wine or food, but only sat staring at it, when Duncan came in five minutes later. Beedle, of course, had already returned to his post, whatever and wherever that was.

“Mr. Beedle has clean hands,” she said, when Duncan entered. “Thank you for that.”

Duncan chuckled; there was a chart rolled under his arm, and he laid it on a shelf, secured by the bolted-down clock in front of it, before crossing the room to wash at the basin. “You surprise me, Mistress Rourke. I expected a harangue because we had sailed off without two members of our crew—along with a very sturdy skiff, I might add, that was much prized by the captain.”

“Beedle told me we were being pursued,” she said, as her husband came at last to the narrow table and sat down next to her. The lamplight made shadows on his aristocratic face, sharpening the angles and deepening the hollows, and she thought of a mountain range at sunset, as seen from an airplane window.

Duncan smiled, filling Phoebe’s plate first and setting it authoritatively before her, then attending to his own. “Pursued? Was that the word he used, or merely your interpretation?”

Phoebe hesitated. “My interpretation,” she admitted, when she could sustain the silence no longer.”

“Ah,” said Duncan and ate two small, roasted potatoes, with impeccable manners, before going on. “We believe the other vessel is a British supply ship,” he said. “Given that she flies no colors, it is safe enough to assume that she’s carrying a cargo her officers wish to keep secret. She is also a vessel of war, however, and surely takes us for either pirates or patriots—rebels to her—and is therefore sworn to sink us to the bottom at the first opportunity.”

Phoebe, who had been swallowing a green bean, choked in the process. When she’d recovered, which Duncan waited with patient vigilance for her to do, she gasped, “You expect them to attack us?”

Duncan drained a cup of wine, and Phoebe wished sorely that she dared indulge, too, but she had fetal alcohol syndrome to consider, and she was taking no chances with their child’s health. The child she already thought of as John Alexander Rourke, thanks to Old Woman.

“They’ll try,” he said at long last. “We are, at present, leading them into an ambush—one of the many small, sheltered coves these islands offer. If they follow, we will, of course, be certain of their intentions. You shall be put ashore, naturally, before the fighting begins.”

Phoebe did not particularly want to be present for the battle, but neither did she feel inclined to leave Duncan, even—especially—in those circumstances. “You must know what I think of that idea without my bothering to tell you.”

He picked up a chicken leg and pondered it, never glancing in Phoebe’s direction. “That you refuse to leave my side,” he said, sounding almost bored. “I must confess, it’s a trait I admire. However, in this case, my beautiful and lusty bride, you shall not be given a choice.”

P
hoebe considered carefully before responding to Duncan’s edict. He was indeed being arbitrary, decreeing that she would have no say in her own immediate destiny, insisting that she was to be removed from the ship before any encounter with the unmarked vessel tagging after them. On the other hand, his intentions were unquestionably good; he was trying to protect her. If his methods were slightly highhanded, well, he could not be blamed overmuch. After all, he was a man of his times.

“Everyone has choices,” she countered moderately, her hands folded in her lap.

Duncan had abandoned his supper and was busy plundering a battered but ornately carved oaken chest, ferreting out various woolly-looking garments and tossing them into a pile on the floor. “Yes,” he agreed, almost as an aside, “and here are yours: You may leave the ship with dignity, comporting yourself like a lady, or you may leave it kicking and screaming. In either case, you shall be put ashore.”

Phoebe sighed. She must control her impulses, all of which favored open rebellion. A rash action on her part could seal Duncan’s fate, and that was a prospect she couldn’t live with.

“Stand up,” he commanded, crossing the small cabin with an unwieldy garment in his hands.

“Listen to me,” Phoebe said, just a shade of impatience creeping into her tone. All the same, she stood.

Duncan held the top to a set of woolen underwear against her, frowning as he measured its fit with his gaze. “What?”

“I’ll be safer if I stay with you,” she told him, her voice trembling slightly—with conviction, though, and not trepidation. “Think about it, Duncan. I could be eaten by sharks before I ever reached the shore. Or drowned. And let’s just suppose I was lucky enough to reach dry land. I might be captured by natives, or another band of pirates. At least if I’m with you, you’ll be able to keep me safe.”

He lowered the undershirt, and his frown gave way to an expression of beleaguered exasperation. “I suppose you’re right,” he conceded at long last. In a breath, his conciliatory manner was gone. “You’ll keep yourself belowdecks the whole while, Mistress Duncan,” he warned, “or I swear you’ll never make another voyage aboard this ship.”

Phoebe smiled tentatively and took the scratchy shirt from his hand. “It would have been a poor disguise anyway,” she said.

“It wasn’t meant for deception,” Duncan countered impatiently, just as an urgent bell began to sound somewhere up on deck. He was already moving toward the door as he finished speaking. “But for warmth. People do perish from the chill, you know, even in these southerly islands.”

Phoebe nodded, still standing beside the table. “Take care,” she whispered.

He opened the door with a kind of hasty grace. “Stay here,” he said. A moment later, the heavy wooden panel had closed between them, and she heard a key grate in the lock.

A wild, totally instinctive desire rose within Phoebe, urging her to fling herself against the door, screaming like a cat crammed into a fishing creel, and then subsided again. In the next instant, something struck the side of the ship with such violent impact that she had to grasp the back of a chair to keep from falling. Simultaneously, a terrible sound, a monstrous,
grinding screech of wood-against-wood, filled the passages of Phoebe’s ears and threatened to explode there.

That sound was followed by even more disturbing ones—the metallic clash of swords, the thunder of cannonballs, the shouts of angry men, and the screams of wounded ones.

Phoebe was terrified and, for long moments, paralyzed in the bargain. But as the din on deck increased to deafening proportions, she forced herself to consider the very real possibility that Duncan and his men would lose the battle. If that happened, she must be prepared to defend herself.

Her first thought was a cowardly one: that if Duncan was dead, she didn’t want to live anyway. Then she remembered the child nestled inside her, and she knew she could not give up.

A quick search of the room yielded two pearl-handled cap-and-ball pistols, but whether or not they were loaded was anybody’s guess. Phoebe laid them on the bed and studied them doubtfully. A firearm in the hands of an untrained person, she knew, was worse than no weapon at all. The pistols could blow up in her face, or simply click ineffectually when the invaders burst through the door. Furthermore, she would have only a single shot with each one, since reloading was beyond her. She had to make those musket balls count.

Biting her lower lip, Phoebe picked up one of the guns and grasped it in both hands. It was cumbersome and unbelievably heavy, and just holding the thing made every inch of her skin tickle with sweat. Her wrists trembled, and her knees felt like jelly, and she had yet to face a single pirate.

So much for courage.

She put the pistol down with a shaking hand, dragged a chair into position facing the door, and reclaimed both weapons. Then she sat, waiting, her heart hammering at such a rate that it made her dizzy.

Above decks, the fighting and shouting and shooting went on and on. There were lulls, but the din always started up again. She could not guess how much time passed, whether
hours or only moments. Terror held her in a suspended state, a dimension of its own.

Half-moons of perspiration formed under her arms, and she had to dry her palms on her skirts more than once. The cold terror in the pit of her stomach finally dissolved, and exhaustion nearly overwhelmed her. She felt as if she’d been drugged, and her eyelids seemed weighted. And so she kept her vigil, pistols lying dense in her lap, one damp palm resting lightly on each handle. When at last, in the midst of an oasis of quiet, someone tried the door, Phoebe started violently. One of the guns crashed to the floor, and she braced herself for an explosion, but there was none. Nor was there time to retrieve the lost pistol. She raised herself to her feet, the remaining one aimed and wavering in both hands, and held her breath.

A stranger filled the chasm. “Put that thing down before you hurt yourself,” he said.

A tiny muscle on the inside of Phoebe’s trigger finger twitched, sending a chill down her spine. “Where is my husband?” she demanded.