Pirates (25 page)

“One can suspect a great many things,” Lucas remarked, “and never come up with the required proof. Now hold your tongue—you’re supposed to be mute, remember?”

They reached the foot of the jetty, a crowded, noisy place, full of strong smells. Phoebe double-stepped to keep pace with her brother-in-law’s long strides, and took in the scene in sidelong glances. For all the dangers, it was a fascinating experience walking through revolutionary Charles Town, and she was pierced by a sudden, poignant wish that Professor Benning could see the place. He was probably the one person she knew in the twentieth century who would have given any credence at all to her account of this amazing odyssey.

A fine black carriage waited on the low, cluttered shore, among wagons and carts and pack mules. A man in footman’s livery climbed down from the high box to tip his three-cornered hat in greeting. He was dark-skinned, with a ready smile and an abundance of bristly white hair, and Phoebe liked him immediately.

“Hello, Enoch,” Lucas said.

Enoch inclined his head slightly. “Suh,” he responded. He opened the carriage door and produced a set of wooden steps from inside, placing them carefully on the ground and testing them with a motion of one hand before gesturing for Lucas to enter.

Much to Phoebe’s surprise, Lucas mounted the stairs, climbed into the vehicle, his sizable frame causing it to rock on its springs as he settled himself, and left her standing outside.

Biting her lower lip to keep from muttering, and thus giving away the fact that she wasn’t a mute bondswoman collected as payment for pigs and a plow horse, Phoebe followed under her own power. Enoch hovered but did not offer his assistance.

Perched on the hard, narrow seat across from Lucas, Phoebe folded her arms and waited until the carriage was in motion before speaking. “That was very rude,” she remarked stiffly.

“You are supposed to be a bound servant,” Lucas reminded her, tugging at the fancy cuffs of his expensive shirt. “Basil Stone is a shrewd fellow, as you’ve clearly deduced for yourself, and he might well have been watching to see if I treated you as such.”

Phoebe’s irritation subsided a little. “We’re certainly not out of the proverbial woods,” she said. “Every man on the
Charles Town Princess
knows you didn’t get me from another planter. They saw me board from the
Francesca
—”

Lucas stopped her with a wave of one hand. “Most of them have been with our family, in one capacity or another, since before Duncan was born. They’re not going to hand him over to the hangman any more than I am.”

“You have an unwarranted confidence in human nature,” Phoebe observed.

“And you are a cynic,” Lucas answered, not unkindly. He assessed her hand-me-down clothes with a pensive expression. “I’m afraid you suit the role of a serving wench only too well. No need to worry, though—Mother and Phillippa will see that you’re properly turned out.”

The carriage rolled and shifted over the cobblestones, and Phoebe was developing a case of motion sickness. It seemed ironic, given the fact that she’d never had any such trouble on the ocean. “If I’m to be presented to the world as a bond servant, whyever should I be ’properly turned out’?”

Lucas sighed. “You will simply have to live two lives—one in Charles Town, and one in the country. Our plantation is a considerable distance from the city, after all, and Major Stone is hardly a regular guest in our home.”

Phoebe groaned as a wave of nausea swept over her, leaving her trembling and clammy when it passed.

Lucas reached across and took her hand, his aristocratic face a study in concern. “Are you all right?” he demanded.

She sighed, rested her head against the back of the seat, and closed her eyes. “We bondswomen are a hardy lot,” she said. “Just throw me a crust of bread once in a while and let me sleep on the hearth on cold nights, and I’ll probably live to be, oh, thirty-five.”

For a moment, Lucas was silent. Then he realized she was joking and chuckled.

The plantation was indeed a long way outside Charles Town. After an hour’s travel, they left the carriage behind and boarded a boat to travel miles down the Charles River. It was probably well after midnight when Lucas awakened Phoebe, who was curled into an awkward heap on a plank bench, to tell her they had reached their destination at last.

There was another carriage waiting at the pier.

Twenty minutes later, sleepy, cramped, and hopelessly rumpled, Phoebe disembarked from the second coach. It was dark, but the Rourke house was visible in the bright moonlight, a palatial structure with pillars and enormous arched windows trimmed in fine stonework. Two women in cloaks hurried out the front door and down the walk, both carrying lanterns.

“Where is he?” the younger one demanded of Lucas. “Where is Duncan?”

She was beautiful, dark-haired like her brothers, but her eyes were charcoal gray and trimmed in thick lashes.

“Hush, Phillippa,” the older woman interceded. “Duncan could hardly come to us so openly, with half the British army looking for him.”

Lucas cleared his throat. “Mother, Phillippa—may I introduce Phoebe? She is Duncan’s wife.”

Phillippa laid one hand to her chest, which was hidden beneath the voluminous folds of the cloak. “
Wife?
” she echoed in plain disbelief.

Phoebe was all set to dislike Duncan’s sister and braced
for the inevitable question about her hair, when a dazzling smile suddenly lighted Phillippa’s features.

“But that’s wonderful,” she cried. “Perhaps he’ll settle down now and behave himself.”

Mrs. Rourke, Duncan’s mother, with her translucent skin and Grecian-goddess features, was as delicate as a madonna. She smiled sweetly and took Phoebe’s arm, linking it with hers. “Come, Phoebe—you must be exhausted. And hungry. We’ll get you settled into your room for a good rest.”

Phillippa hurried after them as Mrs. Rourke ushered Phoebe toward the front door. Lucas remained behind, probably to help Enoch put the team and carriage away.

“But I have a thousand questions to ask!” protested the girl. Phoebe figured she was around eighteen.

“You may save them,” said Mrs. Rourke, gently but firmly, “for the morning.”

The task was evidently beyond Phillippa’s powers. “Where is Duncan?” she chimed, following them through the darkened house and up one side of a beautiful double stairway. “Is he all right? Did you wear a lace wedding dress? What happened to your hair?”

Mrs. Rourke sighed. “Good heavens, Phillippa, sometimes you are a trial. Go and wake Marva, please. Ask her to bring some of that pheasant we had for supper.”

“No, please,” Phoebe protested quickly. “Don’t disturb anyone. I’ll be fine until morning.”

“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Rourke. “You are dreadfully pale.”

With obvious reluctance, Phillippa turned and went back down the stairs, in search of the unfortunate Marva. Phoebe, meanwhile, allowed herself to be squired into a large chamber, its furniture reduced to bulky shapes in the darkness.

Mrs. Rourke set her lantern on a table and proceeded to light several candles from its flame. Phoebe looked with gratitude upon a large feather bed, longing to lose herself in its softness and slumber like Sleeping Beauty, until Duncan came and awakened her with a kiss.

“You poor dear,” Mrs. Rourke said. “I vow, you are
nigh unto swooning, even now. Come here, and I’ll help you out of that dress.”

The lady was obviously of gentle breeding. She had been roused from her bed in the middle of the night, confronted with a strange, short-haired woman in a shipwreck victim’s hand-me-downs, and promptly informed that she’d just inherited a daughter-in-law. She was remarkably unruffled, considering all that.

“You are very kind,” Phoebe said, almost croaking the words.

Mrs. Rourke took a nightgown from a massive chest and held it out to Phoebe. “You are a member of our family,” she replied, gently and at length. She helped Phoebe out of her dress and into the nightie, as though she were a weary child. “I’ll bring water and a basin from my room,” she said and went out.

After Phoebe had washed, and eaten the pheasant and buttered bread Phillippa brought to her, she settled back against a mountain of feather pillows and sighed, wearily content. She closed her eyes and did not open them again until late the next afternoon.

Phillippa was perched in the windowseat, sketching. She wore a gray dress, and her gleaming black hair was wound into a heavy chignon. “I thought you were going to sleep forever,” she announced. “Are you hungry?”

Phoebe’s first priority was the chamberpot, though of course she couldn’t be quite so blunt as to say so. “I—”

“Or maybe you’d like to have your bath first? Mother’s found some lovely clothes for you to wear, until we can send for our dressmaker. Shall 1 go and ask Marva and Easter-Sue to fill the tub?”

A bath sounded heavenly, and the errand would buy Phoebe the privacy she needed to attend to an urgent and basic need. “That would be wonderful,” she said. “The bath, I mean.”

When Phillippa returned some twenty minutes later, she was accompanied by her mother. Mrs. Rourke was even more beautiful in the light of day, and she fairly exuded serenity. Phoebe wondered how that was possible, when
there was a war on and one of her sons was, for all intents and purposes, a wanted man.

“Have you rested well?” Mrs. Rourke asked, and her smile seemed genuine, as well as gracious. She had yet to really pursue the subject of Duncan’s whereabouts, though she’d had ample opportunity the night before, and Phoebe wondered if the woman was a model of restraint or simply disinterested. Of course, she had probably spoken with Lucas.

“Yes,” Phoebe responded, sitting up in bed. “I feel like a new woman.”

Phillippa was staring at her hair and frowning. Her expression was curious, rather than hostile, and Phoebe took pity on her. She formulated what she hoped was a credible story, and she was ready to try it out.

“I was in a nunnery for several months,” she confided, warming to the outrageous tale even as it spun like gossamer from her tongue. ’I wanted to be a nun, but, well, in the end I found out I didn’t have the calling.”

Phillippa’s eyes were the size of portholes. “Duncan
married a nun
?” she gasped. Then she smiled, and it was blinding, luminous with delight. “Great Zeus and Apollo, that’s superb!”

“Hush!” Mrs. Rourke said, more sharply than she had the night before. “How many times have I told you that a lady does not swear?”

Phillippa ducked her head, but her eyes were glowing with mischief. “Sorry, Mother,” she murmured, while Phoebe began to wish she’d thought up a less spectacular lie; this one was bound to get her into trouble.

Phoebe made a mental note never to say “Great Zeus and Apollo,” not that there’d ever been much danger of it, and spoke demurely. “I wasn’t actually a nun. I hadn’t taken my vows, you see.”

“There is no need to explain,” Mrs. Rourke pointed out, as a black woman, probably Marva, entered with a tray. Behind her clattered two maids, lugging a huge copper bathtub.

Marva, who was thin and wiry and had an air of innate
dignity, set the food tray gently in Phoebe’s lap. “Poor little thing,” she said, with a cluck of her tongue. Then she turned, shaking her gray head, and scooted out of the room. Mrs. Rourke and Phillippa left, too, after seeing that the bathtub had been positioned correctly on the hearth.

While one last maid puttered with the fire, Phoebe consumed a planter’s breakfast of sausage, hotcakes dripping syrup, eggs, and fried potatoes—fat grams be damned. She was hungry, and she needed her strength.

When she’d finished eating, the tray was whisked away, and people began arriving with buckets of steaming water, which were poured into the waiting tub. Phoebe was naked and stepping into her bath practically the instant the door closed on the last servant.

It was bliss. Phoebe sank to her chin, feeling decadent. A nice hot soak could make up for a multitude of small adversities, she thought, smiling. Between this and the meal she’d just consumed, she’d be her old self in no time.

For nearly an hour, by the mantel clock, Phoebe luxuriated. Then, because the water had grown chilly, she scrubbed herself, from head to foot, with a cloth and the sweet-smelling soap that had been left for her by one of the maids. She was out of the tub and bundled in a towel as big and soft as a blanket, when a soft tap sounded at the door.

“Phoebe?” a familiar female voice called. “It’s me, Phillippa.”

“Come in,” Phoebe called, with a rueful half-smile. It was question time.

Phillippa entered, carrying an armful of fluffy, eyelet-trimmed garments. “I’ve brought you drawers, a camisole, and petticoats. Mother’s had a cornflower gown brushed and aired, and Marva will bring it up in a few minutes. It will compliment your blue eyes.”

Phoebe accepted the linen undergarments gratefully and stepped behind an ornately carved and painted screen to put them on. A part of her was waiting for Duncan to arrive, listening for his footstep in the hallway outside the door of her room.

“I’m so glad you’ve come to Troy,” Phillippa said.

“Troy?” Phoebe purposely spoke in a bright, happy voice, although she was beginning to be afraid. Perhaps the British had captured her husband, perhaps he had already been hanged for a criminal.

“It’s the name of our plantation,” Phillippa said happily. “I’m not surprised that Duncan didn’t tell you. He thinks it’s silly, and so does Lucas.”

Phoebe came out from behind the screen, smiling. “What do you think?”

Phillippa looked mildly surprised by the question. “That it’s wonderfully poetic,” she confessed. She was seated on a hassock, near the dying fire, her fingers interlaced. “My grandmother, Jenny Polander Rourke, chose the title when she came here to marry my grandfather, some sixty years ago. She loved the Greek classics.”

“Troy” seemed an odd choice for a young bride, given the fact that the fabled city had eventually fallen. Had that been Jenny Rourke’s vision for her husband’s plantation, that it would be invaded by enemies, razed to the ground, and remembered only in legend? Phoebe considered what she knew of the nation’s future, and a brief uneasiness fell over her heart like the shadow of a dark angel. Even if the great house survived the remainder of the Revolution—there were four years of fighting left, if she remembered her history correctly—the Civil War was still ahead.