Paxton and the Gypsy Blade (10 page)

Jase and Colleen had discussed in great detail how firm they were going to be during this visit, and though their resolve was great, it was difficult not to give the twins whatever they wanted. And later, after they'd blown out the candle in the boys' room and had gone downstairs for a cup of tea before turning in themselves, they rationalized their shameless indulgence with a very simple excuse: that was the joy of having grandchildren.

On Monday, as promised, Jase took the boys sailing on the bay. That night, though the October weather was brisk, they helped set up a tent on the north lawn and camped out like seasoned frontiersmen. On Tuesday, they accompanied Jase on his rounds of the Paxton offices and played aboard a Paxton topsail schooner that had put into the estuary the night before to load a half-dozen bales of cowhides. On Wednesday, Forbes, the butler, drove the twins and their grandma Colleen around the bay to the Atlantic shore, where they ate a picnic lunch and gathered seashells. That night, it was two exhausted little boys who lolled on the rug in the parlor and played lackadaisically with a set of wooden figurines that Jase had carved for his own children twenty-five years earlier.

“Time to go to bed, boys,” Colleen announced.

“Awww …” Jason complained, while Joseph rolled over and pretended not to hear.

“You've had a long day, and now it's sleepy time.”

Jase finished playing the tune, one he'd composed many years earlier, closed the keyboard cover and watched the proceedings, so reminiscent of scenes that had taken place at Solitary when Tom and Benjamin and Hope Elaine had been children. A great deal of time and painstaking effort had gone into the creation of his accurately detailed carvings. There were a dozen sailors, including a mate and captain, enough to handle his representation of the first Paxton-owned vessel, a barque-rigged ship that plied the coast as far north as New York before the War for Independence. There was a Yamasee Indian family: a chief, two warriors, two squaws, and three children, all resplendent in traditional tribal garb. A squad of uniformed British soldiers contended with a dozen buckskin-clad frontiersmen armed with long rifles. Last but not least were a half-dozen pirates, Jase's tribute to his forebears. Strangely enough, though purely coincidentally, one wore a black patch over his left eye and looked remarkably like Tom Gunn Paxton.

“Not sleepy,” Joseph declared sullenly, breaking his grandpa's reverie.

“You heard your grandmother,” Jase said firmly. “Up you go.”

“He took my Indian,” Jason wailed, snatching at the chief.

“Did not,” Joseph said.

“Did too. Grandma!”

“Stow it!” Jase roared.

Wide-eyed, the twins froze.

“Enough's enough, by God! Now, you two mind your grandmother.”

Jason sniffed. Joseph's lower lip quivered as he fought the tears.

“If you
don't
,” he said, leaning forward and fixing them with a ferocious leer, “I'll see that you walk the plank tomorrow. Of course”—the leer became a grin and a wink—“if you
do
, maybe I'll take you to Charleston with me to spend the night, eh? What do you think of that?”

Jason giggled, and both boys brightened immediately, especially Joseph, who loved going anywhere. “Can I go to bed now?” he asked in all seriousness.

Jase stifled a guffaw.

“Will you tell us a story?” Jason asked in turn.

“No stories tonight,” Colleen said. “Toys in the box, and then up we go.”

One by one, Indians, soldiers, frontiersmen, sailors, and pirates were placed in the box Jase had made for them. “Care to lend a hand?” Colleen said to her husband as she stood and lifted Jason from the floor.

Joseph climbed into the chair behind Jase, wrapped his arms around his grandfather's neck, and rested his head on his shoulder.

“Sleepy?” Jase asked.

Joseph yawned. “No.”

“I'll bet.”

The house was quiet. The servants had finished with their after-dinner chores and most of them had retired. Only Forbes, who was never fully satisfied with the state of the house and was always watchful for something else that needed his attention, was still stirring. The hall was lighted by an argand lamp fueled with whale oil and mounted on the wall. Jase lighted a candle and led the way up the stairs.

“Daddy?” Jason mumbled sleepily.

“Hushaby,” Colleen crooned.

Bedtime for played-out boys, a time Jase had missed all too often when his own were the twins' age. There'd been reasons enough, of course: land to till, a house and stables and barns and outbuildings to raise, businesses to reestablish after the ravages of war. Still, it was a shame that it took a man until he was half a century old to experience the softness of a child's breath against his neck as he carried him to bed. Candle in one hand, his other arm under Joseph's bottom, he stepped aside to let Colleen open the bedroom door, then again preceded her and lowered Joseph onto his bed before lighting the bedroom lantern and blowing out the candle. “Growing like weeds,” he said, helping Colleen put Jason down. “I put 'em on the scale at the tobacco warehouse yesterday.” He shook his head in disbelief. “Joseph weighed forty pounds, and Jason thirty-eight.”

Colleen moved with an economy of motion that some women never learn and others never forget. Shoes and stockings off, then shirts, then breeches. Tiny bodies were lifted and covers turned down, then blankets tucked snugly under chins. “They're beautiful, aren't they?” she said, gazing down at first one and then the other. “Do you remember?”

Jase moved behind her and put his arms around her waist. “What?”

“One night when Tom was seven, Benjy was five, and Hope was three. It was late in January, and that steel-gray mare with the black eye that you liked so much had just foaled. I'd put the children to bed and you came in, still covered with blood and smelling like horse, and stood beside me looking down at them.”

“I remember,” Jason Behan said simply. He kissed the top of her head. “You told me I stank.”

“I know. And you stalked out of the room. I was angry because Tom had been impossible and I was tired and you'd been too busy to help me.”

“Those were hard days. I never held it against—”

Colleen turned in his arms and put two fingers against his lips. “I never told you how sorry I was for saying that,” she said, her eyes moist with the memory. “I should have told you I loved you, but all I said was—”

“That was a long time ago, Colleen, and I did my share of saying the wrong things at the wrong time.” He nodded down at the boys. “Look at them. Things worked out well enough. You ever see such a fine pair in your life?”

“You're partial,” Colleen said with a low laugh.

“Nope. That's all those other grandfathers. I'm making an observation based on …” He paused. “What's that?” The front door rattled a second time. “Who'd be calling at this time of night?”

Colleen shrugged. “Forbes is still up. He can answer it. Someone needing directions, probably.”

They heard the low rumble of an unfamiliar voice, the words indistinguishable, then the sound of the front door closing, followed by the tramp of heavy boots on the stairs. “Stay here,” Jase told Colleen, keeping the alarm out of his voice.

The hair on the back of his neck prickling, Jase moved quickly around Jason's bed, snatched the pitcher from the basin on the nightstand, and then, the pitcher half-raised, stopped short and stared into the wide black mouth of a fifty-caliber flintlock pistol. “Who the hell are you?” he asked in a voice harsh with rage and surprise.

“I am Onofre Sanchez, señor,” the man with the gun said. He swept off a black soft-brimmed hat with a long red feather in the band and, eyes and gun not wavering from Jase, bowed. “Regrettably not at your service.”

Colleen watched as the tall, broad-shouldered man with the heavy paunch stepped through the door. Long black braids entwined with silver wires hung below his shoulders. A full black moustache dropped from the corners of his mouth in an oriental manner, and dark, bushy eyebrows gave his lean face a menacing cast despite his ready smile and the merry glint in his coal-black eyes. He wore a blousy white shirt and a red vest covered with ornate silver stitchery, and a matching red sash. Just below the sash rode a broad leather belt, from which hung a rapier with a leather-wrapped hilt and a brass hand guard. Dark breeches that hugged his legs vanished into high black boots that were polished to a bright sheen.

“Jase … Jase—” Colleen stammered.

What Sanchez wanted could only be limited to a very few things, none of them good. “It's all right, Colleen,” Jase said, trying to calm her and simultaneously edging away from the beds so she and the twins would be out of harm's way if he saw a chance to use the pitcher. “What are you doing in my house?” he demanded of Sanchez.

Three other men, all bearded and roughly dressed, with kerchiefs bound around their heads, crowded into the bedroom behind Sanchez. “Waiting for you to stand very still, señor,” Sanchez said in a voice that only a fool would take as friendly. “And lower your arm slowly and drop the pitcher before I grow nervous and, in my fear, accidentally squeeze the trigger, no?”

Arguing with a half-inch ball of lead was pointless, and Jase did as he was told. The pitcher bounced once on the rug, hit the hardwood floor, and shattered.

“Grandma?” Joseph asked, startled awake by the noise. Confused, he turned and saw Sanchez. “Who are you?” he asked, his eyes full of wonder.

“Step back now, Señor Paxton,” Sanchez said, ignoring Joseph and still sounding as if he had nothing more on his mind than a pleasant visit. “We wish to hurt no one, but we have a mission which we must accomplish. Señora? If you would be so kind as to join your husband?”

“I most certainly will not!” Colleen took two steps and stood between Jason and Sanchez. “Not until you tell us what you want.”

Sanchez shrugged, and motioned with his free hand. At his signal, the three men hurried past him toward the beds. “Very well, señora. We are here for the children.”

“No!” Colleen cried.

Jase suddenly broke to intercept the three pirates. Sanchez jammed the pistol into Jase's stomach, effectively blocking his progress. “You're mad,” Jase wheezed. “Absolutely mad. I'm giving you ten seconds to get out of here.”

Colleen snatched Jason out of his bed, threw him beside Joseph, and lay half-across them in an attempt to protect them with her body. Awakened to pandemonium, the twins were crying. The three men hesitated. Sanchez spoke sharply to them in Spanish. “I am sorry, señor,” he added with a soft disappointed clucking sound. “I've told you that we have a mission, and I must carry it out, so please tell your wife not to be such a foolish lady.”

Colleen clutched the twins to her bosom and clawed and scratched with her free hand at the first pirate to reach her. “Get away!” she screamed. “Get away from me, damn you!”

The first pirate grabbed her arm, the second leaped over the bed and caught her other arm. Together they separated her from the boys and hauled her backward off the bed. The third jumped over Jason's bed and grabbed Jason's arm and one of Joseph's legs as the boys tried to crawl after Colleen.

The twins howled in fear. Colleen raged as the two men holding her unceremoniously dumped her on the floor and went back to help their comrade with the boys. Jase started at the gun and tried to gauge his chances.

“Bastards!” Colleen shrieked, scrambling to her feet and attacking the first pirate from behind.

The pirate cursed, turned, and pushed her back sharply, sending her reeling into a chair. The chair broke and Colleen fell heavily. Distracted, Sanchez looked to the side, and in that second Jase knocked his pistol aside with one hand and sent a fist at Sanchez's face. The pirate was knocked aside. Jase hurtled past him and headed for the closest of the other three.

Sanchez shouted a word of warning a fraction of a second before Jase slammed into the first pirate and sent him crashing into the nightstand. The second pirate thrust Joseph into the hands of the third and, before Jase could get his balance, pulled his cutlass. Jase made a desperate grab for the weapon, but his age was against him. The pirate dodged away, raised his cutlass, and could easily have lopped Jase's head off; but instead, on Sanchez's order not to kill him, he swept Jase's feet out from under him with a well-placed kick.

Jase grunted and went sprawling to the floor. He landed with a crack that everyone in the room heard. Face drained of blood by the shock, Jase rolled over, moaned, and tried to get up, but failed.

“Grandpa!” Joseph screamed, his cry cut off by a filthy hand clamped over his mouth.

“Jase!” Colleen half-crawled, half-ran to Jase's side and lifted his head into her lap.

“Get them out of here,” Sanchez ordered his men in Spanish. “Wait for me downstairs. My apologies, señora,” he said to Colleen in English as his men carried out the kicking, screaming twins. “I had hoped that there would be no need for violence.”

Jase's face was pale, his forehead beaded with sweat. His leg lay at an impossible angle. “Tom? Tom!” he called in agony. “Help me up, Colleen. Help me up, damn it!”

“Hush. Just lie still …”

Colleen cradled his head and rocked him as she would a child. “Why?” she asked Sanchez savagely. Tears streamed down her face and blood down her arm where the broken chair had cut her. “Why are you doing this? For money? What kind of monsters are you?”

“Wealth is the chief pursuit of every man, señora,” Sanchez replied.

“Then we'll give you money! As much as you want, and anything else you want. Just release the children and leave us alone.”

Sanchez shrugged apologetically. “I regret that I cannot, dear lady. We have already been paid, and we are honest pirates. Your money means nothing to us now. Only the children are important. Only they can fulfill the terms of the agreement with my employer.”