The Diamond King (21 page)

She had come close to willing him to do it.

No man had ever looked at her with desire in his eyes. It was a new and intoxicating feeling.

But she knew it would come to nothing. He would never consider an alliance with a Campbell. He’d made that clear.

She could never consider an alliance with a man of violence.

A man without a country. A man who was wanted by at least one country.
Her
country.

She wanted peace and contentment and family.

And yet...

She could not get his face from her mind, nor the almost chagrined offer he had made. She could tell how much he cared about the children, when he’d asked her to stay. Not demanded. Requested. He had even voiced concern over her marriage. The expression on his face had told her it was one of the most difficult things she’d ever done.

He had done it for Meg. And that touched her heart. No true villain would be capable of such an act to one he considered an enemy.

She glanced back at the hatchway leading below. At least Meg was resting. But the lingering fever worried Jenna. After months of hiding in the Scottish mountains, Meg simply did not have the strength to resist it. She had the will, though.

Jenna had come up to get some fresh air. She had, she knew, also hoped to catch a glimpse of her enigmatic captor. But she soon discovered he had not yet returned and that the crew was getting restless, even nervous.

Probably because they were under the guns of Fort Royal.

She wondered whether she too should be nervous.

Why did he not return?

“Do you see him?” Robin appeared beside her.

“Who?” she said, not liking that sudden moment of guile. But she didn’t want anyone to realize she was actually watching for the captain.

“The captain. Will,” Robin explained.

“I was looking at the mountain,” she said.

“It’s a volcano,” Robin offered. “Will told me about it the last time we were here.”

“Did you know Will before ...”

“Culloden Moor?” Robin finished.

“Aye.”

“Nay,” Robin said shortly.

Jenna knew from his tone that she should not persist or she would break down the small trust she had already established with him. “The crew likes him,” she observed, choosing a less sensitive topic.

“Aye,” Robin said unhelpfully.

“He must have been at sea before.”

“He would have to tell you that,” Robin said, turning his gaze from her and searching the wharf.

Another hour went by, then another. She continually went down to check on Meg. She was awake the second time, and Jenna sat with her, trying to make conversation without saying anything that might upset her. She certainly was not going to ask any questions about “Will.”

“How do you like the sea?” she asked. That seemed a fairly innocuous question.

But Meg’s lips turned down in a frown. It took several moments before she mumbled, “I like it.”

But could she really? The only lass among so many men. No female to talk with. No one to answer questions. No mothering. Little gentleness. What was her past life like, or had the horror of the last eighteen months completely clouded the past?

“I like it, too,” Jenna finally said. “There is something liberating about it.”

“Liberating?”

“Making you feel free,” she explained.

“Did you not feel free before?”

Meg was asking her questions now. Jenna hoped that talking and thinking of something other than her wound would be good for her.

“Nay,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because of the birthmark on my arm,” she said frankly. “A lot of people believed it is the mark of the devil. They feared me. And my parents thought it best if I did not appear in—”

“But that is no‘ your fault.” Meg said with indignation. “And I did no’ even notice,” she added.

Of course she had. Everyone did. No one could help but notice. But pleasure flooded Jenna at the heated defense. She could not remember when anyone had defended her. That it came from a badly injured eleven-year-old lass made it even more ... touching.

“Thank you,” Jenna said.

“But ye are to be wed,” Meg said. “He must not care, either.”

Jenna could not say anything. It was terribly humiliating that she was wedding someone who had never seen her, who possibly did not even know about the birthmark. She flinched at the idea that people would believe she was so desperate that she would travel half the way around the world to wed a man she’d never met.

People? No. The captain.

“He says not,” she said. She did not know whether that was true, but it was what her father had told her.

“I think you are bonny,” Meg said in a vehement defense.

“Thank you.”

“But you are, Jenna,” Meg protested.

A warmth enveloped her at the use of her name combined with the child’s protectiveness. How ironic that a child not yet twelve sensed something that Jenna had never expressed before, not even to herself.

“So are you,” she said with a smile.

“Nay, I am plain. My ma used to say so. She said I was too much a hoyden to ever get a husband.” Meg tried to sit, and she grimaced, but still she did not cry out.

“You can say something,” Jenna said. “Scream, cry, yell.”

“That would no‘ do any good,” Meg said with the certainty of one who knew.

Jenna wondered if Meg would ever cease touching her in so many ways.

Meg was still too warm, the wound still too raw for Jenna’s satisfaction. The pain was also still too intense.

“Where’s Will?” Meg asked as she shifted her position, then sat back with a little sigh of relief.

“He’s gone ashore.”

“And Robin?”

“He’s watching for the captain.”

A flicker of worry passed over Meg’s face. Jenna wondered whether the lass would always worry about people leaving her, or being taken away. “It is a French island,” she said. “He will be fine.”
Selling English goods
.

“Will you see if he has come back?” Meg asked.

“Aye, if you wish it.”

Meg nodded, her eyes huge and red-rimmed. Fear was very much in them. For the captain? For Will? The two were the same yet Jenna sometimes had problems uniting the two. The captain was ruthless, reckless, emotionless. Will was the man who had touched Meg so gently.

She stood. “I will be back.” She wanted to tell her to get some rest, but Meg would not do that now. Something was bothering her. Some instinct told Meg all was not well.

Jenna hurried up the companionway to the top deck. The number of men watching had grown. The tension had become palpable. One of them particularly seemed agitated. Burke, she remembered. He had been down to see Meg several times, though he never directly addressed Jenna. It was obvious that he held her Campbell heritage against her as much as his captain did.

“What is wrong?” she asked Robin, who seemingly had not moved from the place he’d been earlier.

“The captain cancelled orders for the crew to go ashore. That is unusual. And there has been no sign of him.”

“Perhaps someone should go into town and—”

“He said to wait.”

“And everyone does what he says?” It was a ridiculous question. Of course they did. He was the captain, but he was more than that to many of them. She’d learned that, though she did not yet entirely understand why.

“Aye,” Robin said. “Most of the time,” he added honestly, and she was reminded that he and Meg had stolen aboard.

“We need a doctor,” she said. “Cannot someone go ashore and ask for one, and perhaps ask about the captain at the same time?”

Robin’s face brightened. He turned to Hamish who’d apparently taken over command of the ship. “Should we send a boat for a doctor?”

Hamish frowned, then nodded. “The captain did say he’d be seeking a doctor.”

She did not say more. She had planted a seed, and now she had to let it grow. If she pressed, then they would be suspicious.

She was doing it, she told herself, only for Meg’s peace of mind, certainly not for her own.

In minutes, Hamish was calling for volunteers to go in the longboat into town to find a doctor and see what they could find out about the captain.

Burke stepped forward, but Hamish shook his head. “The captain wants you here.” Another man, and then a third volunteered. Jenna wanted to go, but she knew that was out of the question. They might have become more tolerant of her, but she was still a prisoner on board.

Still, she could tell Meg that they would have news soon.

Alex fumed in the handsome prison to which he and Claude had been relegated.

The interview with the governor had not been productive. Apparently he’d been intimidated by English threats. The island had been attacked—and taken—more than once by the British.

He’d learned that a neutral ship had visited Martinique with a warning from the British authorities in Barbados. It was known that a pirate was operating in the Caribbean, and if the French in Martinique helped the pirates in any way, they would pay a price for it. Since the peace treaty between the two countries was apparently nearly completed, the governor himself could be charged with crimes.

The governor obviously believed the threats. He was a timorous man who was greedy. Alex suspected he feared an investigation of the large sums he took to expedite the sale of British goods on the island.

He and Claude were prisoners while the governor vacillated between greed and fear. Louis Richard did not want to return the
Charlotte
to the British and lose all the commissions and bribes. He could, of course, seize the
Ami
, but he was not quite sure of the importance of Alex’s backers in France.

The governor obviously had not expected Alex and the
Ami
to return, much less with an English prize and English passengers. So he dithered, insisting in the meantime that Alex and Claude stay as his guests in his residence. Well-guarded guests.

Alex had tried to tell the governor they needed a doctor. The man had not listened. He obviously had not wanted to give Alex a chance to send a message to the ship and allow it out of the harbor until he’d made a decision.

Alex paced up and down the room, as Claude drank from the bottle of wine provided by the governor along with a platter of roasted chicken, cheese, and fruits.

“You should try this wine,” he said. “Our host has good taste.”

“Probably from the last ship I brought in,” Alex replied.

“His greed knows no end. He wants the
Ami
. He wants to soothe the British by giving them the
Charlotte
.”

“And your head,” Claude added helpfully.

“We have got to get the hell out of here,” Alex said. “If that treaty ...”

“
Oui
,” Claude said cheerfully. “We will all hang at the end of an English yardarm.”

Gallic insouciance
. It drove Alex mad. “Just think of a way out.”

“Without killing some Frenchmen and becoming hunted men in France and every one of its possessions as well as every English one?”

“Aye.”

“That might be more ...
difficile
.”

Alex went to the window. There were two soldiers outside that, too. He looked out at the ships in the harbor. “Do you think he is acting on orders from France?”

“
Non
. He has his own problems here. Too little protection from France and a very big threat by the English. And he is greedy. He knows a peace treaty is likely and is using that excuse to seize our ship for himself and pacify the English with the
Charlotte
.”

Alex cursed under his breath. He’d not liked the governor from the moment he met him. “What if we escaped and went to sea?”

Claude shrugged. “If we make it out under the guns, there is little he can do. I do not believe the French government would appreciate his greed. That could be one of the problems. He might like the idea of our being taken by the English. There would never be tales of bribes. For every dollar the governor takes in bribes, the French government loses.”

“We will have no safe haven.”

“We have none now, Captain.”

“Then let us find a way out of here.”

Claude took a sip of his wine. “Without killing too many of my fellow countrymen, I hope.”

* * *

The quarter boat returned to the ship. Robin climbed up the ladder like a monkey. “The doctor will not come on board, but we were given permission to take Meg to him,” he said to Jenna, who was waiting.

“Where is the captain?”

Robin frowned. “They just said he was meeting with the governor. But he’s been gone eight hours, and there have never been soldiers on the dock before. They will not let anyone come ashore except Meg and whoever comes with her.”

“I would like to go with her,” Jenna said.

He frowned. “I don’t think the captain would like that.”

“He was going to release me here anyway,” she said.

Hamish stood beside them. “I donna like this,” he said. “Any of it.”

Robin swallowed hard. “If we get ashore, maybe we can find out something about the captain.”

Hamish brightened slightly at that. In her brief observations, Jenna thought he was a man who was competent when told what to do but unwilling to make decisions on his own.

Jenna wanted to say something, but she was still viewed suspiciously if not with the original hostility. But she too wanted to know where the captain was and whether there were problems, or perhaps if the peace treaty had been completed. She did not care about the captain’s fate, she told herself, but she did care about Meg and Robin and Hamish and some other members of the crew.

“I’ll tell Meg,” Jenna said.

Robin nodded as he looked at Hamish.

“Aye,” Hamish said, “Robin can go. He knows that Frenchie talk.”

“I’ll get Meg ready,” Jenna said. “How can we get her down?”

“Hamish can carry her,” Robin said.

Jenna nodded, then went down the companionway to the sick bay. Meg was awake, her face clammy. Still, she summoned a piece of smile. “Is Will back?”

“Nay, not yet. But we are taking you on shore to see the physician.”

“A real one,” Hamish added.