Christine Dorsey - [Sea 01] (41 page)

Turning, Jack saw a young woman standing in the sand. She was short and fine-boned, and her hair shone red in the sunlight. Jack’s mouth went dry. He didn’t need Miranda’s prodding to approach her.

“Elspeth?” Jack searched her features, trying to reconcile the child he’d known with the young woman standing before him.

“I wanted to see you before you left,” she said in halting English. “To tell you how happy I am that you are safe.”

“We’re both safe.” Jack reached for her hands. “Come.” He pulled gently. “Come with me to Charles Town. You have nothing to fear there.”

“I have nothing to fear here,” she said, pulling her hands from his grasp. “My husband is in St. Augustine. I will not leave him.”

She was confirming what Miranda had said, but Jack didn’t think he could accept it. Not after all these years. He grasped her shoulders. “Elspeth, listen to me—”

“It’s Isabel, not Elspeth, and I have listened... to your wife. She wanted me to leave with you also. But I do not wish to go. Please, do not waste this time we have in foolish pleas. Be content that I am happy.”

“But—”

“Cap’n, we need to be shovin’ off!”

“I’m coming.” Jack barked the words over his shoulder. When he looked back at his sister his throat felt tight. “I’ve searched for you for ten years... ten years. Wondering if you were alive or...” Jack’s voice thickened, and he had the uncomfortable feeling he might cry. But that was foolish. He was a pirate, after all. He took a deep breath. “Ever since that day the Spanish attacked, the day you wanted to come with me to meet Nafkebee and I wouldn’t let you, I’ve feared you were dead. I can’t just leave you here... with the enemy.”

“You must.” Elspeth grasped his hand. “My life here has been good. Nothing for you to—”

“Cap’n!”

“You must go. I’ve subjected you to further danger by coming. But I wanted so badly to see you. Now go, please.” Elspeth smiled and gave him a gentle push. “Go.”

He had no choice. With each moment he delayed, he endangered his crew and his wife. But God it was hard. She pushed at his hands again, and Jack turned, taking three strides before he stopped. Whirling about, he retraced his steps, scooping his sister into his arms and hugging her to him. “I love you,” he whispered, before putting her down and hurrying back to the longboat. With King he pushed off from the beach.

They were nearly to the ship when Spanish soldiers exploded through the trees and began firing. But the distance was too great, and the musketballs fell harmlessly into the turquoise waters.

Jack shaded his eyes as the others climbed up the rope ladder to the
Sea Hawk’s
deck, searching the shore for any sign of Elspeth.

“She left the beach before you set foot in the longboat,” Miranda said. “Don’t worry about her. She knows what she’s doing. ‘Tis she and Don Luis who helped with your escape. Elspeth kept us informed of de Segovia’s plans for you. Her husband is de Segovia’s secretary. She felt badly using his knowledge, but she could not stand by and let her brother die. And Don Luis was responsible for the explosions. He used just the right amount of powder and fuse to create havoc without really harming anyone. He was really very pleased with the way it turned—”

Miranda laughed at the expression of amazement on his face. Leaning across the seat, she touched his whiskered cheek.

Later, when the
Sea Hawk
was under sail, skimming along the waves toward Charles Town, Jack and Miranda resumed their discussion.

“ ‘Tis inconceivable that Don Luis, a Spaniard, would help me escape.”

“I don’t think, so. After I explained the circumstances to him in a rational way...” Actually, Miranda admitted to herself, she had been anything but rational when she’d escaped from the
castillo
and gone to see Don Luis. She had wept and wrung her hands, declaring her life over if her husband remained a prisoner.

“But, God’s blood, he’s a Spaniard.”

“Jack,” Miranda said softly. “Elspeth thinks of herself as Spanish also. Since she was five she’s been with a family who loves her very much. They took her to Spain and reared her as one of their own children.”

“But she wasn’t theirs,” Jack said, his chin raised defiantly. “Does she forget her real mother and father, the settlement at Port Royal?”

“No. And she hasn’t forgotten you either.” Miranda’s heart went out to her husband when she saw his bottom lip quiver. He turned away and paced to the windows, and Miranda continued. “She met her husband in Spain, then returned with him to St. Augustine when de Segovia came back; she never liked the commander but didn’t know until I told her that he was the one responsible for the raid on Port Royal.”

“Her husband—” Jack paused and turned toward Miranda. “There were many Spanish soldiers killed when I escaped. Could one of them have been...?”

“No,” Miranda was quick to assure. “Elspeth made certain he didn’t go to the
castillo
today.” When Jack’s brow raised in question, Miranda shrugged. “She is with child. I imagine she used that as an excuse.”

Jack nodded, then stared out to sea. “I suppose I shall have a Spanish niece or nephew someday.” When Miranda didn’t answer, Jack glanced over his shoulder toward her. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m getting up.” Miranda swung her legs over the side.

“But—”

“Jack, I’m fine.” Miranda gave his broad chest a shove as he knelt beside her. “De Segovia landed on my foot when he fell, but it’s all right now.”

“You’re certain?”

Miranda pulled up her skirt to reveal a shapely ankle which she turned from one side to the other. Jack resisted the urge to push her gown higher. Instead he stood and crossed his arms, frowning down at his wife. “Then, I have something to say to you. I recall a promise you made the night we spent in the
castillo
. A promise to get out of St. Augustine. You obviously didn’t do it.”

Pushing to her feet, Miranda faced her husband, her expression as dark as his. “No. Instead I saved your roguish neck. And this is the thanks I get for it?”

“If it’s thanks you wish, you shouldn’t have risked your own neck to save mine. You did promise—”

“What nerve you have, to speak of promises. Or is it just pirates who are allowed to break theirs? What of your vow to take me with you when you went to St. Augustine?”

Jack’s chin jutted forward. “‘Twas for your own good that I broke that vow.”

Miranda’s expression softened with love. “And ‘twas for your good that I broke my promise to you.” She stepped toward him, and his arms unfolded, then pulled her closer.

“When I saw you with de Segovia... When I thought he might kill you...” His embrace tightened, and Jack buried his face in her raven hair.

“It’s over now. You have your revenge.”

“But it wasn’t revenge. When I killed him, my parents, Elspeth, the hell he put me through, were not foremost in my mind.” His thumbs caught under her chin, lifting her face toward his. “I killed him to keep him from hurting you. It was for you.”

“Where are you going?” Miranda rounded the landing of the stairs at her father’s house in time to see Jack opening the front door. They had arrived in Charles Town less than an hour before. Leaving Phin in charge of the
Sea Hawk
, Jack had hustled Miranda and himself off to the house on Tradd Street. Once there he had suggested Miranda go upstairs and rest.

She’d been tired, but though she’d lain on her bed, she couldn’t sleep. Her mind had been too active. And it had not been filled with gravity or the theories of light travel or anything else she learned in books. It had been thoughts of her husband and his behavior that worried her.

On the voyage back to Charles Town he’d been loving —though he’d never repeated the revelation made that night in the cell that he loved her. But mostly he’d been quiet. She’d caught him many times staring out the transom windows, absorbed in thought. Thoughts he’d declined to discuss with her.

Miranda feared he planned to leave her.

She had heard Phin and the others talk of the riches to be had in the Indian Ocean. They were pirates, and the call of wealth and thrill of adventure was in their blood. It was in her husband’s blood, too.

Now he was leaving and he was reluctant to face her with the news. So in true rogue form he planned to simply steal away into the night.

Except it was morning, the sun was shining, and Miranda, wasn’t about to let him leave her like that. She hurried down the stairs.

“Where are you off to,” she repeated, because his expression held a trace of guilt.

“For a walk. Down to the docks,” he clarified.

“Let him go, daughter. You can’t be forever hovering about.”

Miranda turned on her father, who’d come into the hallway. “I’m not hovering. I simply questioned.”

“I’ll be back soon.” Jack leaned over and gave his wife a quick kiss before exiting through the door.

“Jack.” Miranda reached for the latch, but her father beat her to it.

“Give him some time, Miranda.”

“Only if you tell me what’s going on. I know ‘tis something. He’s leaving me, isn’t he?”

“No.” Her father seemed genuinely surprised. “ ‘Tis nothing of that sort.”

“Then, what is it? I have a right to know.”

Henry sighed and taking her hand led her toward the parlor. “I suppose you do.”

Jack hesitated outside the narrow brick town house and took a deep breath. The time for confrontation was at hand. He had both longed for and dreaded this since the day de Segovia had told him of the betrayal.

He knew what had happened.

Now he was going to find out why.

“Master Jack, this is a surprise.”

“Hello, Molly.” Jack stepped through the paneled door. “Is my uncle at home?”

“Yessir, he’s in his library. I’ll be tellin’ him you’re here.”

“Don’t bother.” Jack’s hand upon her plump calico-covered shoulder stayed the black woman. “I’ll give
him
a surprise, too.”

“Whatever ya say, Master Jack.” The woman went mumbling off back down the hall. “Whatever ya say.”

Jack didn’t bother to knock. He simply opened the door and stepped into the room. The furnishings were grand, imported from the mother country at great expense, or in the case of the desk his uncle sat behind, pirated from a Spanish galleon at no monetary cost at all.

“Jack!” Robert dropped the quill from his long, slim fingers. “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”

“Or ever, for that matter.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“ ‘Tis nothing.” Jack waved the comment aside with a flick of his hand. “De Segovia is dead,” he said without preamble. “I knew you of all people would be pleased by the news.”

“Dead? Are you sure?”

“Aye. By my own hand.”

“Well, that’s... that’s wonderful to hear.”

“Now they’re avenged. My mother and father. Your brother. All the members of the settlement at Port Royal.”

Robert started to rise, but Jack strode toward the desk and motioned him back to his seat. He settled back reluctantly. “You must be very happy.”

“As should you. Surely you felt a healthy hatred of the Spaniard who led the attack?”

“You know I did.”

“So you always said.”

“What is that supposed to mean? Listen, Jack, I’m busy at the moment with the plantation accounts. Perhaps we can discuss this later.”

“We’ll discuss it now.” Jack shoved Robert back into the chair when he tried to stand. “I’ll tell you now of my narrow escape from St. Augustine. How without the help of my wife and crew I would be dead by now. Garroted in front of throngs of Spanish onlookers.

Have you ever had to anticipate such a fate for yourself,
Uncle
Robert? Have you ever had to worry that your wife may not have escaped? Have you ever had what you thought were your last days marred by the knowledge that you’d been betrayed by your own flesh and blood?”

The color drained from Robert’s face, and he stared silently at Jack, his mouth grim.

“What, no frantic questions demanding to know what I mean? But, then, you know what I’m talking about, don’t you, Robert?”

“I have no idea what—”

Jack leaped forward, grabbing Robert’s lace cravat and hauling him up till they were nose to nose. “Don’t lie on top of everything else.” Jack’s voice raged through clenched teeth. “He told me. De Segovia told me about your letter when I was his prisoner awaiting execution. That you told him of Snebley’s Creek, and that I was coming to St. Augustine after him. Pox take you, he told me!”