Paxton and the Gypsy Blade (37 page)

The hall was empty; the house quiet. Adriana pulled on her blouse, tied the pages to her thigh, and, tapping on wood for luck, slipped out the door and barred it behind her. A single lantern burned at the head of the stairs, another in the foyer. She paused at the corridor to Bliss's room, checked to see that Ramon was asleep, and darted to the front door. A moment later, fresh air cool on her skin, she ran, a free woman, through the night.

Sir Theodotus Vincent stood at the window of his study and regarded the slight red glow at the summit of The Sleeping Giant. The glow matched the one in the bowl of the pipe that was firmly clenched in his teeth, and smoke drifted around his head in the same manner as the sulfurous clouds eddied around the volcano.
Damned stinking smoke anyway
, he thought, sick of the smell and personally affronted by its frequency during the last two months. There hadn't been any when he'd arrived at San Sebastian, and he'd be damned glad when it stopped its infernal spewing again—as the islanders assured him it soon would.

But it was too late in the evening to worry about a little smoke. Sir Theodotus polished off his bedtime glass of sherry, tapped out his pipe, and set about extinguishing the lanterns for the night. It had been a good day. He and the boys had taken an excursion to the port that morning and had lunched with his friend Charlie Waite at the Captains' Club. The afternoon had been quiet, with only one minor altercation—something of a record, given the ability of the twins to turn the merest frustration into a calamity, or a squabble over a trifle into a pitched battle. Even dinner had gone well—both boys had eaten without balking for a change—and they'd played quietly together until bedtime, a little over three hours earlier.

Time for one last peek in at them before he went to sleep. There was so much about them he enjoyed: watching them play, watching them grow; watching them sleep, their faces twin studies in innocence. They were Jenny all over again, he thought, and if there was any trace in them of their father, he chose to ignore it. The house was quiet. Yawning widely, he closed the study door and started down the hall toward the stairs, and then stopped when his butler appeared out of the darkness at the rear of the hall. “Is that you, Juan?”

“Yes, suh,” a deep, mellow voice answered. “There's a woman out back wants to see you.”

Sir Theodotus frowned. “At this hour? And out back? I don't believe I want to see anyone who comes calling in such a manner. Who is she, anyway?”

“Don't know, suh. Looks like an island girl, but says she don't be.” He paused. “Say she came from Cap'n Bliss's house, suh.”

Vincent's frown deepened. “Good Lord, why would Bliss be sending a girl to see me? One of his trollops, no doubt, though I'd have thought he was in no shape for that sort of thing yet.” He waved a hand in dismissal. “Send her away. If her business is important, she can return in the morning at a decent hour.”

“My business is too important to wait for morning, sir,” Adriana said from the end of the hallway. “Or manners. I'm sorry about the hour, but it wasn't of my own choosing.”

Sir Theodotus looked past his butler and saw a figure silhouetted in the doorway that led to the rear of the mansion. “Go away, girl,” he said. “I've no time for you, whatever you want.”

“No time to discover that a man you trust is a traitor, a thief, and a murderer?”

“What the devil are you talking about?” Sir Theodotus demanded, brushing past the butler and stalking toward Adriana. “I could have you thrashed, you know.”

Adriana held her ground. “You could, but you won't. Not after you hear what I have to say.”

Her beauty was spellbinding. Her breasts, dimly visible under the sheer fabric of her blouse, rose and fell in a delicious rhythm. “Who are you?” Sir Theodotus asked, mesmerized.

“My name is Adriana. And as far as I know, I'm the only survivor of the
Cassandra
, a ship that Bliss sank last week.”

Sir Theodotus's breath caught in his throat. The
Cassandra
! He'd read Bliss's dictated report. The
Cassandra
was a Paxton ship, and he had no doubt that Thomas Gunn Paxton had been aboard her, bound surely for San Sebastian in an effort to steal back his sons. “You He,” he rasped. “The
Cassandra
exploded and burned, and went down with all hands.”

“According to whom?” Adriana asked. “Captain Trevor Bliss?”

“Do you question him, girl? Do you dare impugn the honor of—”

“He lied,” Adriana said flatly. “Rather than take them prisoner, Trevor Bliss ordered his crew to murder eight surviving members of the crew of the
Cassandra
. I alone was saved, and brought here to be kept prisoner in Bliss's house so he could toy with me and torment me when he regained sufficient strength.”

“But … but I
know
Bliss,” Sir Theodotus protested. “Why in heaven's name would he do something like that?”

“I don't know,” Adriana said, judiciously omitting the story of her attempted murder of Bliss, “but I do know that he tried to rape me three years ago, and that on the same night he murdered my brother.”

“This is preposterous!” Sir Theodotus snorted. He gestured angrily to Juan. “Throw her out,” he ordered. “And see that she doesn't return.”

“No,” Adriana said, reaching for the pages with a casual disregard for the amount of flesh she revealed in the process.

Juan stopped short and, unsure of himself in the face of Adriana's strange behavior, looked back at Sir Theodotus for advice.

“Not before you read these.” Adriana untied the piece of linen holding the pages to her thigh. “Does the name LeBusque mean anything to you?” she asked.

“You must know it does,” Sir Theodotus snapped. “What's that you have there?”

Adriana unrolled the pages so Sir Theodotus could see the writing. “They are pages from Captain Bliss's journal, and they indicate treason. Are you interested?”

“Of course I am,” Sir Theodotus said, reaching for them. “Let me see that!”

“Not quite yet, Governor.” Adriana moved the pages just out of his reach. “I'll give them to you to study, and you may draw your own conclusions—in return for your promise to shield and protect me from Captain Bliss.”

She was definitely British, to judge by her speech, so there
was
a possibility that she and Bliss had met before. Bliss and LeBusque were as thick as thieves—the irony of the idiom struck him at the same time as the thought—so her accusations might have some substance. In addition to which, she was bold as brass, especially for a woman, and her boldness intrigued him. “Very well,” he conceded. “Give them to me. If you're telling the truth, I'll see that no harm comes to you. Be warned, though, girl: if you're lying, you'll come to grief.”

Adriana almost handed the pages to him, and then, belatedly cautious—Sir Theodotus was, after all, the man who had kidnapped Tom's sons—she hesitated. “Do I … that is …” Embarrassed and fearful of offending him, she blushed and rushed on. “Forgive me for seeming to doubt you, but do I have your word, sir?”

“Ye gods, girl, I've said as much!” Sir Theodotus thundered.

Adriana shrank away from him. “I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean—”

“Now, now, miss.” The angry frown became a paternalistic smile. “I once had a daughter your age, and I assure you I'm not going to allow Bliss or anyone else hurt you.” He held out his hand. “So let's take a look, eh, and get down to business?”

Reassured, and having little choice in any case, Adriana surrendered the pages. And for the first time in what seemed an eternity, she felt safe.

Sir Theodotus ambled back to the light at the bottom of the stairs and scanned the first page. “Damn!” he grunted. The penmanship was Bliss's. LeBusque's name leaped off the page. Fifty thousand pounds … a percentage of profits. Sir Theodotus's stomach churned. “Does he say when?” he asked.

“Not exactly,” Adriana said. “But soon. It's on the third page.”

The governor scanned the third sheet and then, his face turning white, folded the pages and thrust them in his pocket.

“Prepare a room for the young lady,” he said, his voice faint and shaking. “Upstairs, I think, in this case. And tell no one she is here, do you understand? No one. Her presence must be kept a secret for the moment.”

“Yes, suh!”

“Then you believe me?” Adriana asked in a voice weak with relief.

The hour was late and he needed time to contemplate the information that had fallen into his hands. “Please be so kind as to accompany Juan and follow his instructions,” he answered. “You have sanctuary for the present. Afterward …” He rubbed his eyes and looked bleakly at the journal pages. “Afterward, we shall see. Now, run along. We'll talk again in the morning.”

Adriana followed Juan as ordered. Behind her, alone in the foyer, Sir Theodotus Vincent, His Majesty's governor of San Sebastian, lighted a taper from the lantern and trudged down the hall to his study. A long night lay ahead of him, and not at all a pleasant one.

CHAPTER XIX

“… I have assured LeBusque that we need not fear Vincent's finger spoiling the pie: with those two brats of his in our—”

Hands? It has to be hands
, Sir Theodotus thought, wishing for the dozenth time that he had the following page. If only the girl had taken.… No. She'd done well, had chosen wisely. The last thing he wanted Bliss to know was that his journal was missing.

But how could Bliss have become embroiled in such an unsavory venture? He was young, personable, and had friends in the Admiralty. Surely fifty thousand pounds and a minuscule percentage from an island as small as San Sebastian couldn't compare to the long-term rewards he could expect in the British Navy. Fifty thousand pounds was all well and good, but at the expense of being a wanted man for the rest of his life and never being able to return to England? What would he do when he ran through those fifty thousand pounds? Where could he go that his infamy would not precede him? No one esteemed a traitor; no one trusted a man who had sold his soul and sold out his country. More heinous yet, he had compounded his crime by stooping to threaten harm to children. A man who could do that was beyond salvation—and more important to Sir Theodotus, acutely aware who the children were, also dangerous in the extreme.

The night was filled with fears for the boys' safety and doubts about his ability to quash the imminent coup attempt. The hours dragged. Restless, alarmed by every unidentifiable noise, he prowled the house in search of imaginary intruders. Morning found him dozing fitfully in an armchair in his study, and waking abruptly with a sense of urgency that he couldn't dispel. There wasn't a moment to lose: Bliss was presently laid up, but even so, his absence probably wouldn't stop LeBusque if the planter was ready to move. The third page had been dated over three weeks earlier. The coup attempt could come at any time.

The first order of business was to protect the boys, to which end he wrote—and almost sent, before good sense prevailed—a note to the captain of the marine contingent on the island. Tearing it up, he sent instead for his friend Charlie Waite, the harbor master, and asked him to come immediately to the mansion on a matter of some urgency. Only then did he take time to make his toilet, say good morning to the boys, and choke down a bit of breakfast.

Sir Theodotus had passed the previous night in astonishment and alarm, but by late morning he had marshaled all of his thoughts and was clear-eyed and determined. He was interrogating Adriana when Charlie arrived. Waite was shown into the study and sworn to secrecy. “Just listen for now,” Sir Theodotus said, showing the burly harbor master a chair, “and get the gist of things. I'll answer questions later. Now,” he continued, turning back to Adriana. “You're sure, you're
positive
, that Hernandez and Hadlock aren't involved?”

“Not positive,” Adriana admitted. “I was reading fast, the light was bad, and I'd scarcely slept for over two days, so I might have missed something. But I believe the only thing they're involved in is the illegal shipping.”

Waite's eyebrows rose. “Illegal—”

“Try to remember,” Sir Theodotus said to Adriana, interrupting. “Were there any other names mentioned?”

“Someone named Andre? A clerk? I think—”

“One of my clerks,” Charlie said. “Would you mind telling me just what exactly's going on here?”

Half an hour later, after Adriana had been dismissed, Charlie knew as much as Sir Theodotus, and by the time the mariner's clock on the mantel chimed at noon, the two men had decided on a course of action. Because word would surely get back to Bliss if the marines were used, Waite promised to find two dozen trustworthy men who would be well paid to keep their lips buttoned and to guard the mansion and the twins. A trusted clerk on Sir Theodotus's staff would be sworn to secrecy and would begin all the necessary paperwork: a compilation of evidence and the drawing up of formal charges and other legal documents. LeBusque would be placed under surveillance, and certain members of the crew of the
Druid
—still in port—would be interrogated about the alleged murders of the survivors of the
Cassandra
. Last but by no means least, the boys were to be restricted to the mansion grounds, and Sir Theodotus would become officially indisposed and in seclusion until such time as the conspirators' plans were better known.

The days passed at a maddeningly slow pace. The sun crept into the eastern sky, reluctantly set in the western. The Sleeping Giant belched and grumbled, spewed its dyspeptic stink over the island, and rested again. The nights passed with the speed of a ship becalmed. Sir Theodotus tried to read to the boys but, irritated by their unending stream of questions, turned them over to Adriana, to whom they had taken a liking the moment they'd met her. At long last, on Friday, December 14, one of the men Sir Theodotus had sent to the eastern end of the island returned, and the plot was made clear. A French warship due in those waters had been ordered to lay out of sight off the coast until New Year's Eve. At morning's first light, the ship would enter the harbor and two companies of French marines would capture the crew of the
Druid
as well as the British contingent ashore while they were still in their cups after a large party—arranged by Bliss—to welcome in the New Year. Within an hour of the warship's arrival, if all went well, the flag of France would fly over the governor's mansion, which would be occupied by LeBusque, who was to be the new French governor. The evidence was plain; there was no disputing the culpability of Bliss or LeBusque. All that remained was to arrest the conspirators and bring them to the bar of justice. With luck, daring, and a good deal of preparation, Sir Theodotus could even hope to take the French warship and so turn the tables completely.