Lord of Devil Isle (22 page)

Digory Bock couldn’t read, but he knew exactly what the official proclamation said. The contents of the governmental placard were cussed and discussed all over the island, but no one stepped forward to claim the “great reward.” The islanders had their suspicions about who might have been bold enough to relieve His Majesty’s troops of the powder. Suspicions that were confirmed when the
Susan Bell
wallowed up to the wharf late in the afternoon, riding low in the water. She was heavy with goods from the Americas.

Fear over the embargo with the Colonies had already led some to start hoarding, but a deal had evidently been struck. Trust Lord Nick to act on their behalf. There were rumors of a missing Frenchman on folk’s lips, but no one cared much about what might have
befallen him. Every larder in Bermuda would be full come the winter storms. The island was grateful.

No one in his right mind would go to the magistrate.

“Not even me,” Digory mumbled into his tankard. “Me what has no reason to love Cap’n Scott.”

“Pardon me, sir, but did I hear you mention Nicholas Scott?” The dandy at Digory’s elbow leaned toward him.

“Who’s asking?”

“Lieutenant Fortescue Rathbun, retired.” The man swept a sissy bow and straightened his powdered wig.

Digory spat a gob of phlegm on the tavern floor.

“More important,” Rathbun said, slapping a coin on the bar. “I’m the man who’ll buy your next drink.”

Digory nodded for the man to sit. For the price of a drink, he could stand anyone’s company, even a perfumed popinjay like this one. The man signaled for another tankard to be brought.

“Now tell me,” he said. “What have you against Captain Scott?”

Digory slurped the foam off the dark ale. Didn’t the man know it would go bad if a body let it sit too long?

“Well?”

“He cuts me off’n his crew, that’s what. And why, I asks ye? Just because I likes me ale.” Digory took another pull at the tankard. “Me, what never did him harm. Even now, wouldn’t do him no harm.”

The stranger chuckled. It was not a pleasant sound. It seemed to Digory that the man was laughing at him. “And how could the likes of you harm ‘Lord Nick’?”

“I could harm him plenty. We all could.”

“You have piqued my curiosity, indeed,” Rathbun said, leaning confidentially on the bar. “As much power as Captain Scott wields around here, I find your assertion highly doubtful.”

“Don’t you be troubling yourself ’bout my ‘ ’sertions,’” Digory said. He suspected a “’sertion” was something a molly might take an interest in and he wanted no part of that sort of unnatural doings. “But I could bring the cap’n low if I was of a mind to and I’d line me pockets in the doing of it, too.”

Digory glanced meaningfully at the placard he couldn’t read and cocked a hairy brow. The man followed his gaze to the official proclamation.

“Hmm.”

The man sounded impressed. Perhaps he’d spring for another pint.

The man lowered his voice to a whisper. “You’re certain Scott was behind this Powder Steal?”

“Sure as shite stinks.”

“Then if you have evidence that Nicholas Scott perpetrated this crime, what’s keeping you from reporting him and claiming the reward?”

“Ah, there’s the rub.” He had no actual evidence against the cap’n, only the pinch in his gut to go on. And besides, Digory was not high in the court’s favor. The judge was still smarting over an altercation involving Digory and the magistrate’s pig.

“And mighty good eating it were, too, though nothing could be proved, all the
evidence
being missing, ye see,” he’d told his mates later.

If it came down to Lord Nick’s word against his, Digory knew full well whose ear would be pinned to the stocks.

The man was getting restless. He might not buy any more drink unless Digory kept him talking. Digory swilled the last of his pint and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“I could go to the magistrate, but the folk on the island, they love the cap’n. Lord knows why! Now if I was
to go to the ’ficials…” Digory held out his tankard hopefully and the man nodded to the alekeep. Digory waited till the fresh pint was in his hands before he continued. “Well, I wouldn’t likely live long enough to spend my ‘great reward,’ would I? Folk won’t stand for anyone speaking against the man who brings them beef for the winter.”

“Ah, yes. Your Captain Scott’s a veritable Robin Hood,” the man said dryly.

“Weren’t no hoods robbed,” Digory said. Blast, if the man wasn’t a bit simple. “It were only the powder what was taken.”

The man rolled his eyes and slid off the bar stool. Then he stomped out of the tavern.

Digory lifted his tankard toward the placard. “Here’s to ye, Cap’n. Ye may have cut me from the crew, but this day ye saw me safe to two pints what didn’t cost me a penny.” Digory took a big gulp of the bitter dark liquid and then belched loudly. “God keep ye, Nicholas Scott!”

Rathbun strode across the cobbles. His shoes no longer sported silver buckles. He’d sold them a week ago. Every day spent on this cursed island was costing him money he didn’t have to spare.

The fact that Nicholas Scott had stolen the King’s powder was an open secret, but he could find no one who would testify against him. He’d tried to approach the magistrate with the information as soon as the rumor reached his ears, but without concrete proof, no one would give Rathbun even a small portion of the promised “great reward.”

Somehow, he needed to return to his original plan.

It was elegant in its simplicity. Rathbun only needed to deliver three bona fide English ladies to a certain madam in Charleston and his financial worries were
over. Miss Marabelle had agreed to make him a half partner in her brothel as payment upon delivery of said Englishwomen.

According to the proprietress of The Red Lady, she had a wealthy, reclusive client with particular tastes. He was a devotee of the teachings of the Marquis de Sade and planned to re-enact all that Frenchman’s cruelest fantasies on the flesh of three Englishwomen whom no one would miss.

His requirements were simple.

They must be wellborn virgins. They must be English. They must be expendable.

And the mysterious gentleman was willing to pay most handsomely to indulge his passions.

Sally Munroe was already beyond Rathbun’s reach, married to that simpering bureaucrat Archibald Snickering, but if he could see Nicholas Scott incarcerated, Eve Upshall and Penelope Smythe would be without protection. Two English ladies were better than none. They’d be forced to continue on to the Carolinas with him.

Of course, women who are forced to do something become difficult to handle. When he’d dangled the prospect of marriage to wealthy planters, they’d been amenable enough, but now that they enjoyed the protection of Nicholas Scott, that carrot held no allure. He waffled back to considering the use of force, but Captain Bostock had promised not to support him if the women were unwilling travelers.

Somehow, he had to convince Eve Upshall and Penelope Smythe that they
wanted
to go with him. He sat down on a bench in the shade of a mimosa tree in a little park on busy Water Street to give the matter a think.

Across the street, a carriage rumbled to a stop and the two women in question climbed out just as a brilliantly workable idea formed in his mind.

“Here, Reggie,” he overheard Miss Upshall say to their young driver as she dug in her reticule for a coin. “Get yourself some penny candy and pick us up at teatime, if you please.”

Not till teatime, eh?

No one would miss them for hours.

When Lieutenant Rathbun first stopped them on the street, Eve was only annoyed. Now her heart hammered in her chest. Rathbun knew Nick was behind the raid on the magazine and he claimed to be able to prove it.

“So you see, as a loyal subject of the Crown, it is my duty to turn over the evidence I’ve collected to the magistrate,” he said.

“What sort of evidence?”

Rathbun put a finger to his mouth. “That’s a matter for the court, not you. Suffice it to say that not everyone on this island is in Lord Nick’s pocket. I have three credible witnesses who saw him steal the powder and will swear to it.”

Three!
Only two was enough for her to be sentenced to flogging. She lifted her chin.

“No one would testify against Captain Scott,” Eve said, willing it to be so.

“I admit they were afraid to come forward without my protection.” He paused to smooth his wig. “But upon my word, they will testify.”

“Everyone respects Captain Scott,” Penny said. “No one will believe your witnesses.”

Hope flared in Eve’s heart.

“A man like Scott has as many enemies as friends. This audacious crime has blacked the governor’s eye,” he said. “They’ll believe my witnesses because it’s in their interest to settle the matter. Governor Bruere
needs to be seen punishing someone swiftly for this act of treason.”

The English court had been quick to believe witnesses against her, and Eve was innocent. Nick was guilty. Hope guttered in her heart and fizzled entirely.

“You do remember the penalty for treason, don’t you, ladies? Much as I hate to bring up such a ghastly business, I don’t doubt St. Georges will be full to bursting on the day when they hang, draw and quarter Nicholas Scott and his whole nefarious crew.”

“His crew?” Penelope went white as parchment.

Eve’s vision tunneled, but she forced herself to drag in a deep breath.

Rathbun nodded. “You don’t think Scott did this evil thing alone, do you? No, his whole scurvy crew will watch their own entrails burn.”

Penny sagged but Eve grasped her arm and steadied her. “That will not happen. The islanders won’t allow it,” Eve said stonily.

“Hmph! So trusting, my dear. The Bermudians may love Nicholas Scott now, but when they realize the wrath of our king will rain down on this island, they’ll clamor for his blood,” Rathbun said. “Did anyone speak up to stop your flogging?”

She shook her head, unable to trust her voice.

“And they won’t stop justice from being done here. And do you know why?”

“I know one thing that will stop you from telling me.” She tried to push past him, but he grasped her forearm. “Let me pass.”

“Not until you hear me out,” he said. “The islanders will see him punished because people love a spectacle. Hanging, drawing and quartering a whole crew is something they can talk about for years. They’ll deplore it
loudly, of course, but they won’t be able to look away. They’ll hang on every scream. They’ll gawk in horrified fascination as the guts spool out. People love the misery of others. You, of all people, should know that.”

She swallowed back the rising gorge. “We are on a public street. Remove your hand from me or I will scream.”

“If you scream, you sign his death warrant,” he promised. “But, if you come with me to the Carolinas now, both of you, and without a fuss, I will not bring forth my witnesses.”

“No, we aren’t going with you.” Eve had to find Reggie and the carriage. They had to hurry back to Whispering Hill. Nick would know how to deal with this.

“Suit yourself, though I doubt you’ll look good in black,” he called after them. “Oh, wait! You’re not his wife, so you won’t even be able to publicly mourn him. Not that mourning a traitor is a healthy idea.”

Eve kept walking. Rathbun dogged them.

“I know what you’re thinking. You plan to run back to warn him now.” His voice seemed eerily disembodied, coming from behind them. “Be assured that the magistrate will send troops to arrest him long before he can see his crew assembled and his ship under sail. He has no way to run. No place to hide. And neither does his crew.”

“His crew.” Penny stopped in her tracks. “We have to go with him, Eve.”

“But—”

“There is no other answer for it,” Pen said. “I love Peregrine. I can’t let him be…” Her face crumpled and she sobbed into her kerchief.

Shaking with fury, Eve turned on Rathbun. “You’re bluffing.”

“Perhaps,” he admitted with a cruel smile. “And perhaps
I just spent the morning with Digory Bock, a man your captain thoughtlessly cut from his crew. He and his friends will testify.”

Digory Bock. The name sounded familiar to Eve. Yes, that’s the one Nick had struck from the ship’s roll for drunkenness.

“The stars are aligned against your captain. Someone will be blamed for the theft of that powder. Someone will be made to pay. The common folk may love your ‘Lord Nick,’ but let me assure you, those who hold an official post don’t think much of someone styling themselves with a title they don’t really deserve.”

“I don’t think he has any witnesses, Penny,” Eve said, trying to sound more confident than she felt.

“Are you willing to wager his life on it?” he asked. “I assure you I can point the magistrate in Scott’s direction and he makes an admirable target. Mr. Bock was quite willing to talk to me.” Rathbun narrowed his eyes at her. “The stakes are rather high, aren’t they?”

Too high.

“We’ll come with you.” Eve spat out the words. “But know this. If I get half a chance on the way to Charleston, I’ll feed you to the sharks. So sleep lightly, Lieutenant.”

“Thank you, Miss Upshall.” He dipped in a low, mocking bow. “Forewarned is forearmed.”

Reggie twisted his cap in his hands.
Oh, Lord, oh Lord. Now I’m in for it.

“What do you mean they’re gone?” Nicholas Scott bellowed. He was like to wear a trough in the floor with all that stomping about.

“They waren’t there. I does just like Miss Eve says, I nipped round to the general store and had a couple o’ cinnamon sticks. Then I brings the carriage back to Water Street at the time she tells me, but they plumb aren’t there.” Reggie shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “I checks every store, but no one seen ’em, not even the hatter and if ladies is going to buy anything, they always buys hats.”

The captain snatched him up by the collar and brought him nose to nose. “Stick to the point, Reggie.”

“Aye, the point.” He breathed a sigh of relief when Lord Nick set him down and resumed pacing. Reggie had never seen the cap’n so fit to burst, straining at his moorings like a ship battened down for a gale, he was. “Then I drives down to the wharf to see had me mates seen the ladies. They tells me ‘aye,’ they seen ’em.”

The captain stopped pacing and glared at him. “Go on.”

“Me mates says the ladies boarded the ferry with this feller what looks like a dandy, but seems a bit down on his luck. Frayed about the edges, he were.”

“Which ferry?”

“The one bound up the country to Ireland Island and Somerset village.”

“Bostock makes berth there.”

“Aye, that’s the name me mates said they heard. The dandy, he pays the ferryman extra to sail ’mediately. He were plannin’ to take passage to the Colonies on the
Sea Wolf,
he says, if they could catch it, that is. Cap’n Bostock were sailing today.”

Nicholas snatched his spyglass from the desk and strode to the nearest westerly window. “I see the tip of a mast sailing into the sun.”

“Be it the
Sea Wolf
?” No one could work for Nicholas Scott long without hearing whispers of his enmity with the master of that unnaturally named vessel. Every proper seaman knows a ship’s a lady, not a fierce growling beast, and she ought to have the name o’ one.

“Find Mr. Higgs,” Captain Scott ordered. “Tell him to assemble the crew. We sail with all speed.”

“But sir—” Reggie felt strange making a suggestion to the likes of Captain Scott, but the words popped out of their own accord. “The
Susan Bell
likely isn’t rigged for a voyage. She’ll need water and victuals and—”

“No, she won’t. We aren’t going far.” The captain raised his spyglass again and trained it on the horizon. “Only far enough to catch that black-sailed bastard.”

The ship’s bell clanged incessantly for the better part of half an hour and the crew responded to the summons at a run. Even Digory Bock came to stand on the wharf, hoping the captain might relent and let him back on the ship’s roll.

“How many pints have you drunk this day, Bock?” Nick bellowed down between issuing orders for the
Susan Bell
’s sails to be unfurled.

“Only four,” Digory shouted up to the deck. “Or maybe it were eleven.” It was hard to be certain.

“Decide which and come back when you’re sober,” Scott said as the gangplank was shipped. “I can’t use a man who’s always three sheets to the wind. You’re a decent enough seaman, Bock. See if you can become a decent enough man and we’ll talk. Mr. Higgs, slip those cables now!”

“Godspeed, Cap’n,” Digory said under his breath as the
Susan B
glided between the inner harbor islets. The captain had as good as given him a berth again. It was only a matter of time before he was sailing with his old mates. Digory was glad he hadn’t gone to the magistrate now. He swiped his greasy sleeve across his mouth. “Good news like this calls for a drink!”

Night fell and the
Sea Wolf
was still beyond Nick’s reach. But just before the sky darkened to indigo, he managed to take a final bearing on the distant black sail. If Bostock ran true to form, he’d drop some of his canvas for the night watch. Nick had more sail laid on.

“Shall I give the order for the running lamps to be lit?” Higgs asked.

Nick shook his head. “I don’t want Bostock to know we’re coming. Starlight will do for the old girl.” Wind strained the ship’s sails, but she glided almost silently through the night. The only sound was the shushing of waves against her hull. “Get some sleep, Pere. I’ll stand the first watch.”

“I don’t know as I can, sir,” Peregrine said. “Penny’s on that ship.”

“And you’ll not be worth anything to her unless you’re rested. Relieve me at two bells, Mr. Higgs.” His tone made it an order.

Nick stood at the helm, letting the ship speak to him
through the wheel while his crew slept. As usual, the
Susan Bell
calmed him. The world was mad, but all was quiet here. There was only the wind and the waves and the mathematical dance of the stars across the black sky.

And then suddenly, he was aware of another presence. The scent of lavender wafted past and he knew immediately who it was.

“I’m sorry, Hannah,” he whispered. “I love her. I must have Eve. If he stands in my way tomorrow, oath or no, I’ll be sending him to join you.”

Or perhaps Nick would be seeing his dead wife again. He and Bostock were evenly matched. It might go either way. A cold finger ran down his spine.

The lavender scent faded so completely, he wondered if between fear for Eve and exhaustion, he’d only imagined it. The soughing in the topsails was probably just the wind, he told himself.

Eve and Penny were taking a turn along the port rail in the pearly dawn. Neither had slept. And neither wanted to remain cooped up in their airless cabin a moment longer.

Penny had cried half the night, but Eve remained dry-eyed. It was as if a shroud had already covered her heart. Nicholas Scott was as good as dead to her.

She couldn’t feel a thing.

“A sail! A sail!” one of the crewmen called out from the
Sea Wolf
’s crow’s nest.

“Whither away?” Adam Bostock cupped his mouth and shouted up to the seaman.

“A point off the starboard bow and closing fast. It’s the
Susan Bell,
sir, flying every stitch of canvas she can bear.”

Eve gathered her skirts and ran to the starboard side. She leaned on the gunwale to see the ship bearing
down on them for herself. The wind blew her mobcap off, but she didn’t care.

Oh, God! He’s come.

Her dead heart woke to aching life and the tears she hadn’t shed the night before stung her eyes now.

“Captain Bostock, what do you intend to do about this?” Lieutenant Rathbun stormed across the deck. “You can outrun them, can’t you?”

Bostock peered through his glass at the advancing vessel. “I could lay on every sail, but the
Susan B
would still catch us. We’re fully loaded and she’s riding high in the water. Best for us to heave to and see what our old friend Nicholas wants.”

“You are obligated to protect your passengers.”

“My willing passengers,” Bostock agreed with a meaningful glance at Eve and Penny. “Are you willing, ladies?”

Rathbun shot a murderous glare at them. He still held Nick’s fate in his verminous hand.

Eve’s heart went cold again. “Aye, we’re willing.” She spat the words out. “Aren’t we, Penny?”

Penny nodded miserably.

“There, you see,” Rathbun said.

“More than you wish I did,” Captain Bostock said stonily. “What’s going on here?”

“Nothing that need concern you. Just get us to Charleston and you’ll be paid your fare.” Rathbun screwed his face into a scowl and reluctantly added, “With a bit more thrown in for this slight aggravation.”

Adam Bostock laughed. “You don’t know Nicholas Scott a bit if you think he’s only a slight aggravation.”

Just then a loud boom reverberated over the water and a nine-pound ball whistled past the
Sea Wolf
to splash into the ocean a hundred feet off the prow.

“That madman is firing at your ship!”

“No, he’s signaling for us to stop and parley.” Bostock glared across the water at the
Susan Bell.
“If Nick was aiming at my ship, he’d have hit it. No, he won’t fire. He made a promise to—” The
Sea Wolf
’s captain stopped himself in midsentence and eyed Eve thoughtfully. “He doesn’t want to endanger…someone he means to take back to Devil Isle with him.”

“This is your chance,” Rathbun said softly. “You hate the man. I’ve seen it. Fire on him. Blow the bastard back to Bermuda.”

Another cannon ball whistled overhead, dropping harmlessly into the swells in front of the
Sea Wolf.
But the shot was closer this time.

“Blast the man!” Bostock said. “Much as I’m tempted by your suggestion, Rathbun, I made a promise to someone, too.”

Adam Bostock bellowed orders to his crew and several seamen began climbing the rigging and reefing the sails. Rathbun stomped and swore, but nothing he could say would dissuade Bostock from slowing his vessel. Eve returned to the rail to gaze across the expanse at Nick’s ship.

She could see him, standing at the prow. She couldn’t see his face clearly yet. She didn’t want to see it when she had to tell him she could not return with him. The heady joy she felt when she first saw he’d come for her disappeared when she realized it changed nothing. Rathbun could still see Nick branded a traitor and Eve couldn’t allow that to happen.

The
Susan Bell
pulled to within a boat’s length of the
Sea Wolf.

“Nicholas Scott!” Bostock bellowed. “Why are you firing on my ship?”

“Permission to come aboard and we’ll discuss the matter,” came the shouted reply.

Permission was granted and the
Sea Wolf
’s crew sprang into action, running a cable through a system of pulleys attached to the main mast. The cable was attached to a line which was affixed to a crossbow bolt. Bostock took aim and shot the bolt squarely into the
Susan Bell
’s main mast.

Nicholas loped back from his position on the prow to yank the bolt from the mast. He pulled the cable taut and climbed onto the gunwale.

Eve’s heart constricted. Balanced on the narrow rail, the corded muscles in his forearms rippling, he was magnificent. When he launched himself into the air with a shouted “Now!” her belly turned backflips. But instead of falling into the waves, he rose into the air. Bostock’s crew hauled away on the cable and Nick came flying across the distance between the two ships.

Once he was over the
Sea Wolf,
he let go of the cable and landed with a roll on the deck. Eve ran to him and he caught her up in his arms.

He cupped her face and kissed her hard. Then he pulled back and said one word, but it was enough to break her heart.

“Why?”

“I’ll tell you why,” Rathbun said. “Because she wants to be the wife of an honest man who’s loyal to the Crown, that’s why. Isn’t that right, Miss Upshall?”

A threat simmered beneath his words.

Nick surely heard it, too.

Maybe he wouldn’t make her say she didn’t want him. Maybe he’d understand she was doing this for him and let it go. Her chest ached so, she could scarcely draw breath. Her mouth wouldn’t form the words to tell him good-bye forever.

Surprisingly, Nick smiled at her. “’Twill be all right, sweetheart. Trust me.” Then his face turned to stone
when he looked at Rathbun. “Am I to understand you accuse me of being less than loyal?”

“Treasonous is more like it.”

Nick drew his blade from its scabbard. “Much as I hate to get blood all over your deck, Adam, I can’t let an insult like that pass.”

“I’d be disappointed if you did.” Bostock folded his arms across his chest.

“So be it. May God have mercy on your traitorous soul,” Rathbun said as his sword cleared its sheath with a metallic rasp. “For I shall have none.”