The Diamond King (37 page)

She blinked rapidly. “But I did not, sir. I was locked in a cabin the entire time. I knew nothing until I was taken to the Portuguese trader.”

“Did they rob you?”

She hesitated. She did not want to convict Alex and his crew any more than they already were, yet it would seem very strange indeed if the pirates had not taken her valuables.

“My coins and some poor jewelry,” she said. “Someone advised me to sew most of my jewelry in the hem of my dresses, and I did that. They did not know all I had.”

He looked at her with admiration. She shrank inside herself. She did not want admiration for duplicity. She didn’t think she wanted his admiration at all. She did not want to like him.

Why couldn’t he have been unpleasant and bullying and accusing? Why did he have to be so understanding? So trusting?

You made a promise.

Circumstances have changed.

She was no longer a virgin. She would be cheating him. Lying to him.

Her mind and heart continued to argue within her. She wondered whether the battle was obvious to David.

He will find out that not only did you help the pirates, you slept with one. Then what would a marriage be like?

Three children. A home. A family.

“Lady Jeanette?”

She looked back up at him. His brows were drawn together in consternation.

Jenna put her hand to her head. “I am sorry. It is too much. The last months ... oh, do you understand? I cannot talk about it now.”

He nodded. “I know you will need time. I just want you to know I will do everything I can to make you safe. I will ask the lieutenant if the questions can wait.” He bowed. “Will you have supper with me?”

She had no reason to refuse. At the moment, she would have promised the world if he left.

She stood. “Aye. Thank you for all your kindness.”

“You are welcome.” He paused. “It was not entirely explained to me how ... pretty you are.”

She? The woman that no one wanted?

The very thought renewed suspicions that it may not entirely be her charms but her dowry and his need for a mother for his children that prompted his understanding. And yet, for the first time in her life, she had choices. But did she? She felt like a fly entrapped in a web and not one but several spiders were after her, one of which was her own conscience.

“I will try to fend off the lieutenant until tomorrow,” David said, “and I will return at six.”

“Thank you,” she replied gratefully.

“I will move to the inn this afternoon. If you need anything ...” His voice faded away, but he searched her face for a moment before quietly opening the door and leaving.

Alex knew when the sun rose. He knew it by the heat. But when he tried to move, he could not. His face was drenched in sweat, but his body was shaking with chills.

He couldn’t remember ever being this sick, even after Culloden when he was wounded so severely. He’d been weak from loss of blood, from infection, but this ... Whatever it was blurred the world and racked his entire body with tremors.

He heard the priest mutter something he did not understand.

He tried to sit but could not. He was shaking too badly. He curled up into a ball, trying to find warmth in his own body.

A blanket covered him, then another.

“Malaria,” he heard the priest say in Spanish.

Alex heard the word. It seemed hollow, far away, but it penetrated somewhere deep inside. Men died of malaria. He had heard of it, but had never known anyone who had it. He fought the chills, tried to move and rise to his feet. He had to get somewhere. He had to keep moving....

“Must... leave ...” His teeth were chattering so hard, he could not make out his own words.

He heard the priest say something to the guide, but then he was seized by more shaking, and he could no longer concentrate on what the priest was saying, or even what he himself intended to say.

Mickey slunk among the shadows, trying to make himself invisible. The bloody British were all over
Vit�ria and particularly at the inn. The fellow in the fine clothes, in truth, had not left and a detachment of marines had made it their headquarters as they searched
Vit�ria.

They were knocking on every door, asking questions. He had pulled a cap far down on his head to hide his red hair and had folded his body against a wall as if drunk. He had been passed once, but he did not know how much longer he could fool these bloody English. His hand rested on his dagger, but he was loath to use it. Not for any moral reasons, but because he realized a death would prompt an even greater search.

He wondered what was happening with Miss Jenna. At least she had not been taken from the inn. She was shrewd enough to outsmart the bloody soldiers, but she was still only a woman. If they wanted to take her, they could.

Mickey waited until nightfall, then, using the shadows for cover, he made his way back to the tavern. Burke was gone.

No one else understood English or even his poor attempts at a few words of Spanish. Three people were there. Three faces looked at him with blank expressions. Then he heard English voices outside.

One man gestured to him, and he followed the man to a door in the back, down a dirt road, and then into a forest. The man he’d followed was dark complected with black hair and a dark beard. His eyes were like pieces of coal.

“Where’s Burke?” he asked.

The man shrugged. “Follow me,” he said.

* * *

Jenna looked over her poor bedraggled wardrobe. She had the simple day dress she had worn from the ship, the sailor’s clothes, and one afternoon dress. Her trunk with her trousseau was still on the
Ami
.

She glanced down at her arm. The wine-colored birthmark was still there, but it was no longer the whole of her. She realized for the first time how she had allowed it to rule her life.

She would never wear a glove again. Unless, of course, she was disguising herself.

The thought startled her. Where had it come from? Why would she disguise herself unless she became a fugitive? Or choose to be one? Jenna looked longingly at the sailor’s clothes she’d worn the night before. How free she had felt.

And now she was trapped.

Or freed?

How strange that after a lifetime of never having choices, she had too many now.

She looked in the steel mirror over the table and tried to see herself objectively, to see what David Murray had seen.

A stranger looked back at her. Not a mouse with her plain brown hair pulled back in a knot. Her face glowed with the sun. Her hair was touched by gold as it cascaded down her shoulders. Her mouth was still too wide, her nose too stubbed. But now she saw life in them rather than the pallor of one confined and without hope.

Was it love that had changed her face?

She left the mirror—a foolish exercise in vanity. But still, to one who had never had reason to have vanity, it was seductive.

She sat in front of the window and watched quarter boats and tenders go back and forth. Her gaze followed the details of marines spreading across the town. How long before they learned that the
Ami
had been there in the guise of the
Isabelle
? How long before they knew a Scotsman had gone ashore?

How long before they turned to her for answers?

How long before she knew the answer she could give them?

She gazed at the sea and saw Alex’s face, his body braced against the wind and his strong arms steering a ship that weighed tons. He had done it with such ease and confidence, and even pure joy. She had felt that joy, standing next to him, feeling the same rhythm of the sea, the dance of the ship across the waves, the fresh breeze against her skin. She had felt wonderful, full of a kind of power she’d never known before.

Was it all a myth, a fancy that could not last?

A tear trickled down her cheek. Duty. Honor. Desire. Hope. Love. Need. All the important emotions.

All of them conflicting.

Where was Alex?
Not the captain. Not the pirate. Alex
. Alex with whom she had made love. Who had made her believe that she was so much more than a plain woman who deserved nothing but loneliness.

What would happen if she went with David Murray? If she mothered his children and gave birth to others?

Her head hurt. Pounded with decisions she did not know how to make. Alex did not care about her. But she had given him her heart. How could she give less to David Murray, or did he care whether she had a heart to give him?

Did Alex even have a heart?

She brushed that thought aside quickly. Or course he did. She had seen it in the way he looked at the children. How many had he brought out of Scotland at the risk of his own life?

She was not included in that small charmed circle. She was a Campbell and no matter what she did, she would always be a Campbell to them.

Yet he had desired her, even treated her with respect.

She did not know how long she sat there, staring at the sea that had both imprisoned and liberated her. It would not be long before David Murray arrived to take her to supper. Perhaps she could learn more about him.

She knew that the decision she had to make should not rest on the character of the man, but on the character of herself.

Meg and Robin. She saw the children in her mind’s eye. How could she go without seeing them again, without finishing the book she’d been reading to Meg, without teaching her the joys and agonies of being a female, without showing Robin there was a softer side to life? What if they lost the one person who had protected them? What if they lost Alex?

She’d vowed to remain with the children, to help them, to provide for their physical needs as well as those of their hearts and souls.

She felt a keening noise coming from her throat. She tried to stifle it, but she knew she was not entirely successful.

Think! Do not let emotions rule everything else. What is most important to you ? It is your life. No one else’s.

And suddenly she knew.

Mickey met Burke in the mule shed in back of Burke’s lodging. “I cannot get to her,” he said. “The British are everywhere, asking questions.”

“I know,” Burke said. “They have been here and at the tavern.” He spat. “Someone told them they had seen a gringo in this area. I do not believe whoever said the words will live long.”

That sounded reasonable to Mickey. He did not like anyone who interfered in someone else’s business, particularly for profit. Greed made a man untrustworthy. “What do you plan to do?”

“The captain should have returned today. Something has delayed him. Tomas has gone off to look for them.”

“Tomas?”

“The man who guided the captain to the meeting place with the
bandeirantes
. He returned early. His wife had a child two days ago. It cries all the time, and he was ready to leave again.”

“I don’t like this,” Mickey said. “The British do not look like they are leaving soon and some toff has moved into the inn. I heard one of the Brits saying he is Lady Jenna’s ... intended.”

Burke grimaced. “An English toff. She deserves better than that.”

They exchanged glances. Neither of them had thought much about the Campbell lass other than with the hatred they’d directed toward a Scottish clan that had sided with the bloody British. Not at least until she had helped the captain in Martinique and nursed young Meg back to health. Disdain had slowly turned into guarded respect.

They had also both seen the way the captain’s eyes had returned to her every time he thought no one was looking. It had become a matter of speculation among the crew.

“We cannot let that happen,” Burke said to the man he disliked.

“Nay,” said Mickey, who returned the feeling.

“If she disappears now, the British will turn Vit�ria inside out.”

“Aye. We have to wait until we know where the captain is.”

“Keep an eye on her,” Burke ordered.

Mickey bristled. “I do not take orders from you.” Then he smiled. “But I planned to do it anyway.”

Burke’s expression was grim. “I hate waiting. If only...”

“We do not know where he is. All we can do is wait. I suppose this bandit, or whatever he is, knows what will happen if he betrays us.”

“I ha‘ made that clear,” Burke assured him.

“I can find you here?”

“Aye. I will let you know if there is any word.”

Mickey hesitated. He wasn’t sure how much he could trust Burke. But then the captain trusted him completely. He nodded. “I will be around the hotel, looking drunk.” He paused. “Our lady will not be getting on that ship.”

Whenever Alex thought he might survive the shaking, the fierce fever, then the racking cold, the attacks started again.

He was barely conscious of Marco and the priest. The priest, whose name Alex still did not know, used his robes to help dry the sweat, and his own blanket to cover him when the chills replaced the burning heat. He urged on Alex spoonfuls of water mixed with some kind of bark and made him drink it. Cinchona, the priest had called it. It was so vile it was all he could do to swallow it.

The priest even prayed over Alex.

That, Alex thought, was an exercise in futility. Alex no longer believed in God. If He was a benevolent being, He had forsaken certain of His children long ago. If He wasn’t, then Alex saw no reason for entreaties.

He wanted only a woman with hair streaked with gold and eyes the color of the sea. He wanted to hear her voice singing a sweet song, and he wanted to see a smile on her face.

He should not want that at all. A groan ripped from his throat, and he tried to contain it. He’d learned about the importance of silence. Even in this lonely place, and despite the weakness that claimed his body, part of him clung to caution.

It rained, the water filtering through the heavy growth and soaking all their supplies. When the sun emerged, the forest literally steamed. Yet still he shivered so hard he could not talk. He knew he mumbled something, but he couldn’t understand it. After what seemed like hours, the shaking subsided, but he knew it was only a matter of time before the fever returned. Perhaps he could take advantage of that small window of time.