Ripples in the Sand (The Sea Witch Voyages) (11 page)

Twenty One

There was no fire in the room. Jesamiah sat hunched in the window seat, fully clothed; even with his coat draped around his shoulders he was cold. The insides of the small glass windowpanes were patterned with ice; freezing air stealing through the ill-fitting frame. His knees were drawn up, hands beneath his armpits, chin tucked into his chest. He had been hunched there for most of the night, too miserable to notice the cold and discomfort. Dawn was touching the horizon over to the east, a pale light against the darker sky. The moon had set a while ago, leaving him shrouded in the darkness with only the sound of the girl’s rasped breathing for company.

He had spent a good while downstairs drinking and gambling at the various card tables, urged on as she had clung like a limpet to his arm. He had lost a purse-full of money at her insistence; she was either very poor at cards, or shared the profits with the dealers. The latter probably. They had eventually stumbled up the back staircase, she giggling, he stopping once to piss into a provided pot on the landing.

He turned his head to look across the room, the heaped blankets on the bed barely visible in the faint light. Only the crown of her hair showed, the rest of her was hunched within the meagre warmth of the covers. He’d had sex with her, the animal rutting of fornication, but it had not been lovemaking; there had been nothing tender about it. Coarse, base; the two-backed beast. He had rolled from her the instant he had done and she had curled herself into the blankets and fallen asleep, disinterested in him, wanting only his silver, nothing more. He had not even undressed for her, merely unlaced his breeches and did what most men did: used a woman with no thought for anything except his own pleasure. Christ, good God! He’d not even taken off his boots! The only things he had removed were his hat, coat and weapons and that was for convenience and comfort – his – not hers. He buried his face in his hands; nausea was churning in his gullet. When had he last used a woman for the pleasure of lust and nothing more? He had made love to the beautiful Francesca in the woods on Hispaniola, and to Alicia when he had met with her in Nassau. Tiola had been mad at him about that – ‘Cesca and a few others she did not know about. Well, he was fairly certain she didn’t.

Tucking his hands under his armpits again, he stared out the filthy, ice-patterned window. Alicia. His sister-in-law. He had been with her that day he and Rue had sauntered into the Virginia plantation and ruined his brother’s party. Aye, that coupling with Alicia had been nothing more than lust, although her heat had been as ready as his own. That episode had been more about taking revenge and cuckolding his brother, except Phillipe was not his brother after all. Jesamiah rested his head on the wall of the window recess. What was he then? Funny, these last months since the events of last Fall he had not thought about it. Too much happening. He’d been recovering from wounds received and then Tiola had been so ill. Tiola. He closed his eyes, groaned.

Phillipe’s father had been Edward Teach. Blackbeard. Edward Teach had been sired by Jesamiah’s father. That made Phillipe his nephew and Teach the brother.

Blackbeard was my brother,
Jesamiah thought as he gazed out at the strengthening light
. A man worse than the one I’d assumed to be my brother all those years. Related to him, is it any wonder I’m the bastard I am?
He groaned again
, What the fok am I doing here?

He felt as if he had the weight of the world pressing down on his shoulders. “I hate it here,” he said aloud. “Why did I come?”

He sighed, a long, slow, drawn out sound and realised he would have to focus attention on getting to see this man, Benson, and sort out the tobacco and the other illegal stuff. I
need to get rid of that cargo and get out of here.
He sighed again
. I need to stop being so bloody stupid. So Tiola was sitting with a man. What if there was nothing sinister in it? What if I’ve jumped to conclusions and made a sodding fool of myself?

He stood up, tossed his coat to where he had been sitting, and looked around for his hat and weaponry. He slid on the strap which went over his right shoulder and across his chest, his cutlass hanging from it at his hip, familiar, comfortable. Powder pouch and tinderbox were attached to the belt he secured around his waist, the sheathed dagger positioned in the small of his back. He checked his pistol was loaded, poked its barrel beneath the belt, and tightened the leather a notch. He took a handful of silver coins from the coin purse in his waistcoat pocket and left them on the small table where a laver and jug were set. No water in the jug. He put his hat on, went to collect his coat. Glanced out the window.

Swore.

Tiola was standing, her back to him, on the wet sand at the edge of the water where the river and the sea mingled as one, not quite salt, not quite fresh. What was she doing? The wind was blowing around her cloak and the rain was starting again. She would catch her death out there.

Jesamiah tried the window catch intent on opening it to see clearer, but it was rusted solid. He wiped at one of the ice-frosted panes. The tide had turned, was still low, but the beach had hollows and pools where the incoming water flooded deeper. He watched her for a few minutes, expecting her to turn, walk away back to the safety of the quay, but she made no attempt to move; just stood there, motionless.

Damn.

Twenty Two

“Tiola!” Jesamiah shouted, as jumping down the last three steps his boots squelched into the wet sand at the bottom. He did not mean to sound angry. He had intended to be apologetic, to ask calmly for an explanation, but the words came out wrong. “What the fok do you bloody think you’re doing?” He strode across the sand, not noticing his boots breaking the ice-rimmed sea-puddles as he marched across the exposed beach, splashing through shallow water where the tide remained captured in ragged channels.

“Tiola!” She made no movement. Getting closer, he shouted again, “You stupid woman! You’ll either drown or freeze out here!”

I will do neither, for I cannot drown. Nor freeze.

“So I’ll just leave you here then shall I? Leave you to wait for the tide to swallow you up? Let the entire population of Appledore wonder how a woman can stand out here covered in seawater, yet survive? My guess is they’ll wait for the tide to recede again then burn you. Or does fire not kill you either?” He had reached her now. His sailor’s callused hands clamping onto her shoulders he spun her round, the sea swirling in a whoosh of agitated spray. He shook her, with no idea why he was so angry. “Answer me!”

Fire will kill me, ais, though it is only heretics and traitors they burn. Witches are hanged.

“Do not bicker with me, woman. You know perfectly well what I meant.”

No Jesamiah, I do not. Nor do I know why you are angry with me, or why you are hurting me. Was she good, the woman you swived last night? I hope for your sake she did not carry syphilis. If she did, do not expect me to cure your prick, for I cannot.

“I used one of your cundrums, or whatever it is the bloody things are called. Don’t change the subject. And talk to me properly, not in my head.”

“Cundum. The word is cundum.”

“I don’t give a fok what the word is.” He shook her again, hard enough to make her head loll from side to side. The sea was higher now, swishing at her skirt so that it caught and tangled around his boots. “And you know why I’m so angry. What else do you expect me to be? I see a stranger kissing and fondling you as if you were any cheap tavern slut, and you expect me to not mind?”

“He was not.”

“He was!”

Tiola tipped her face upward, she was much shorter than he, the crown of her head only coming up to his chest. “Yet you expect me to not mind that last night – other nights – you place your piece inside a woman and have no thought for my feelings?”

“That’s different.”

Rage tore across Tiola’s drawn face. She lifted her arms and shrugged aside his grip, her strength more than she had intended or he would have expected, sending him staggering backwards a few paces. Arms whirling to keep his balance, the sudden movement took him away from the clutch of the sea, on to a bank of firm sand. Renewed anger tore through him. “Use your magic on me, would you? What are you going to do next? Cast a spell so I forget and forgive?”

A wave broke against Tiola’s leg with a swish of sound, and she heard the sniggering voice behind it.

~ Jessh…amiah! ~

“How dare you!” Tiola shouted back at Tethys, her anger boiling over. “Be aware that I will fight you if I have to!”

The unintended exclamation left her lips and she saw Jesamiah’s expression change from anger to fear, then back to anger. He had seen her power and how she used it, not all that often, but he knew enough to be afraid of what she could be and do when she wanted. She stepped away from the water, and the outburst of anger influenced by Tethys’s manipulation immediately evaporated.

Calm, lowering her arms and softening her voice and expression Tiola walked towards Jesamiah. He took a larger step backwards. “I was not talking to you, Jesamiah, I did not mean to speak aloud. There is an enemy mutual to both of us. It is that enemy who has been disruptive, she who has caused the weakness I have recently suffered. I promised you once that I would never use my Craft on you. I do not break my promises.”

“No, only your marriage vows,” he snapped.

Tiola regarded him a moment, controlling her desire to slap him. “Unlike you, Jesamiah, I have broken no vows.”

Having enough of the pointless exchange Jesamiah turned on his heel and marched off. “You’ll be wanting me to believe, next, that you do not lie either,” he sneered. “I’ve better things to be doing this day than practicing verbal swordsmanship in the middle of a flood tide. Go cuddle your lover, see if I care.”

She waited until he was halfway across the beach, well out of Tethys’s reach, then spoke low voiced, into his mind.

Carter Trevithick is not a lover, Jesamiah. He is my brother.

Twenty Three

Not listening, too angry to hear her properly, Jesamiah climbed the steps, marched along the quay and headed up the hill. His stride soon had him breathing hard and sweating, but he pushed on, too angry to admit defeat in anything, even the punishing pace he had set. He stopped near the top of the hill and looked back over the estuary. The tide was still only half in; birds were wading in the shallows and pools: oystercatchers, curlews, gulls. Now it was full daylight, there were more people on the beach; women and children poking in the wet sand of the encroaching waves for crabs and shellfish, men tending their fishing boats aslant on their keels, a few mending nets. The smaller of the two ferryboats was on the Appledore side of the Torridge channel, a mere forty feet wide at low tide, but too deep for anyone to wade safely across. Even in his anger Jesamiah had noticed, as he passed by, that that the ferryman was asleep in the stern, his hat over his face, body slumped. The second, larger boat could carry several passengers and livestock. This was a flatter vessel, more of a raft than a boat, and was manoeuvred by two men, one steering a tiller the other pulling hand over hand along an overhead rope. A neat, simple contraption with an efficient pulley system to power it.

No one with a green cloak and red dress stood on the sand. Tiola had gone then. Her brother? That man was her brother?

Leaning on the wooden gate, Jesamiah studied the sheep grazing on the short salt-tanged grass. There would be lambs soon skipping about among the buttercups and daisies. Her brother! He wiped a hand over his face. “If there are prizes for fools, I guess I get the highest award.”

~ Tiola? I’m sorry. ~

A lugger was at anchor out beyond the Bar, waiting for the channel to deepen. Dark, heavy clouds loured over Exmoor. More rain coming. With no response from her, Jesamiah pushed away from the gate, continued walking. “At least Squire Benson will not be hunting again today,” he said aloud as he sauntered up the last hundred yards. “I’ll get this damned stuff sold and move on.” He swung left, following the road until he came to the track leading to Knapp House. He briefly wondered if perhaps he was a little early in the day for it could not be much past eight of the clock, and he had been invited for lunch, not breakfast. Ah well, too bad.

The house looked quiet as he approached, his boots scrunching on the gravel, although he noticed the shutters and drapes were not closed. That was a good sign, no one seemed to be still abed. No smoke from the chimneys though. It all seemed too quiet. Jesamiah shrugged; perhaps he was too used to the close confine and almost permanent bustle aboard ship?

About to step up to the front door to knock, a woman appeared from around the side of the house, awkwardly trying to secure her bonnet while not spilling the contents of a basket swinging from her arm. The wind gusted up from the estuary and caught the hat’s brim and she squealed as the ribbons slid through her fingers. The bonnet was snatched from her head, tumbling over and over along the ground.

Jesamiah ran forward, grabbed it before the ribbons trailed through a pile of horse dung.

“Oh! Thank you!” the woman laughed, breathless from the surprise of losing her hat and seeing him standing there.

She was not young, in her mid-thirties Jesamiah reckoned, but her eyes sparkled and despite the few silver streaks in her hair, she was pretty. He held out the bonnet, smiled, touched his own hat with one finger. “Good morning, ma’am. I am seeking the squire.”

Hastily the woman secured her hat, shook her head. “I am sorry but he is not here. He and Lady Benson are over at Instow House with their daughter. Only the kitchen maid is withindoors.”

Another wild goose chase! Jesamiah sucked in his cheeks, controlling his temper. “Instow House?”

Smiling, she pointed across the river. “That big white house halfway up the hill. Mistress Hartley – Isabella Benson as was – is in a bad way with her labour.” She spoke well, with good diction; a slight Devon burr, but not the deep local dialect. “She has been in childbirth with her first for a full four and twenty hours now, poor maid. We all said how her hips were too narrow and her husband too big in his… ”

Embarrassed, the woman blushed. Indicating the muslin-covered parcel in her basket she neatly changed the subject. “I came to fetch this ham that Lady Benson has kindly donated for my grandmother, Lady Dynam, Dowager Countess Westley’s forthcoming birthday celebration.”

The name Dynam rang a bell, but Jesamiah could not recall which particular bell was tinkling at the back of his mind. So, she was not a servant as Jesamiah had assumed, but, although the gown covering her slender figure was clean and elegant, it was plain and somewhat worn. Her appearance did not shout granddaughter to a noblewoman. Illegitimate-born maybe?

Standing on tiptoe slightly, she craned her neck upwards, peering across the shrubs and low wall towards the river and the far bank. “I’m from Tawford Barton, situated down near the river near Instow. I will have to run the gauntlet of that wretched Kildy again on the way back, but I am pleased to be able to do something for Grandmamma. She will be ninety and eight years of age. Can you imagine? Almost one hundred years old and she is still sprightly and in possession of all her faculties, although her hearing is not as sharp as once it was.”

Neither was Jesamiah’s – the cannons dulled the auditory senses, and nor could he imagine a woman of that great age. Surely she would be some shrivelled, crabby thing without teeth and smelling worse than old Toby Turner. All he said, however, was, “Kildy?”

“One of the ferryboat men.“ She pointed vaguely towards the river. “I suspect I will have to wake him. Jethro Kildy is a lazy scut.”

“Does he row the white-hulled gig?”

She nodded.

“Then, aye, you will. Last I saw of him he looked dead to the world.”

She snorted. “That will be him.”

They were walking towards the gate, the woman prattling on, eager to have someone new and interesting to talk to. She indicated the basket again. “Lady Benson sent word that she had forgotten to deliver the ham. My kinsman, the present Viscount Westley, has kindly offered to host a small private party for Grandmamma. I felt obliged to fetch this contribution to the celebration myself.”

“Despite the dreadful Kildy?”

She laughed. “Yes, despite the dreadful Kildy!”

It seemed that she had connections, and connections meant possible trade. Thinking quickly, Jesamiah decided what to do. He could return to Appledore, wait around here in the hopes that the man would appear, or… He smiled again. How often had he been told by the womenfolk that he had such an endearing, persuasive smile? He removed his hat and offered a deep, courteous bow. “As it seems I must go to Instow to conduct m’business, may I carry your basket and escort ye, ma’am?” He straightened, replaced his hat and reaching out, took the basket. “Kildy will have to face me, this time.”

She giggled and returned a bobbed curtsey. This stranger was a handsome man, and there were few of those in and around Appledore and Instow, and even if she was the wrong side of thirty, she still had an eye for someone worth looking at. She took his arm, then stopped, her face blushing as red as a poppy. “My, what must you think? Here’s me walking off with you and I do not even know thy name!”

“Captain Jesamiah Acorne, at your service, ma’am.” Again Jesamiah removed his hat and gave a bow. “You are a fair young damsel in need of her basket being carried.”

“The damsel is Mistress Pamela Radcliffe.”

“Pamela?” Jesamiah queried, raising one eyebrow. “Can’t say as I’ve heard that name afore now.”

She blushed slightly, a glow which heightened the shape of her cheekbones and twinkled in her eyes. “Papa loved poetry, the name comes from the heroine of one of his favourites, although I must confess I have no idea which one, for I have little time for reading. What with Grandmamma and Aunt Bethan, and the house, and the farm, and the Viscount, Uncle Cleve. I oft times wish I had two pairs of hands and an extra pair of feet.” She laughed. She had a low, giggling, laugh, “And eyes in the back of my head!”

No husband by the sound of it
, Jesamiah thought. He glanced at her fingers to see if she wore a wedding band, but her hands were encased in knitted, woollen gloves.

They were walking down the steep, narrow track, overhung by leafless branches that did little to keep out the sudden spatter of rain, the woman clinging to her escort in the more slippery parts, which to her barely concealed delight were several.

“It’s lovely, this track,” she said, “when the weather is gay. Full of primroses and mayblossom in the spring, bursting with roses come the summer.” She reached out and plucked a knot of bright red rose hips. “See? Oh!” Her mild flirting was halted abruptly as a figure lurched from the bushes ahead straight into their path. Black cloak swirling, hat tucked over his face, a pistol in his hand waving menacingly in their direction.

“Hold Hard! Your money or I take your life!”

Jesamiah’s hand went straight to his own pistol, his thumb cocking the hammer as he pulled the weapon from his belt. He aimed it straight at the thief, and said laconically, “Ain’t you a little short for a highwayman?”

“Height has nothing to do with it,” came the brave answer. “I am the most fearsome scoundrel ever – save for Blackbeard the pirate! Put up your weapon I say, or I will fire my shot!”

Jesamiah almost laughed, but managed to keep a stern growl in his voice. “Be that so?”

Mistress Radcliffe was not so amused. “Your papa will tan your backside, Thomas Benson, if he knew you to be up to such games. Where did you get that pistol? You put it away right now!”

The squire’s youngest son lowered the gun and removed his hat. “Aw, you’m no fun, Miss Pamela.”

“Fun?” she retorted. “And do I be looking like I have time to be having fun?”

Uncocking his own weapon, Jesamiah slipped it back through his belt, held out his hand for the one the boy clutched. “You’d best be giving that to me, young man. Weaponry ain’t a toy, nor for such as you at your age.”

Reluctant, the boy did as he was bid.

Jesamiah grunted and made sure the gun was safe by pointing the barrel at the ground, cocking and firing. The hammer clicked, nothing more. “Take heed, you scamp; never point a gun at anyone less you intend to kill him.”

“But it ain’t loaded.”

“If I’d shot you dead first, it would be a bit late to be explainin’ that fact don’t ye think?”

The boy’s shoulders sagged.

“Don’t ye think?” Jesamiah repeated, louder.

“Aye, sir. I suppose so.”

“Good. Make sure you remember it. An’ I reckon, seein’ as Blackbeard be dead, that makes you the most fearsome scoundrel after all.”

The boy’s face lit up with enthusiastic interest. “Dead? Blackbeard? Edward Teach himself? Well strike me!” Then suspicion furrowed his brows. “How do you know? I don’t recall Pa readin’ anything in the news -sheets.”

“And how do you know what your papa’s been reading?” the woman chimed in, although she also wanted to know the answer. She cocked an eyebrow at Jesamiah, hoping he would take the hint to say some more. He did.

“I know because I was there when he was killed.” Jesamiah, speaking as casually as if he were talking about the weather, was rewarded by a small gasp of excited alarm from Miss Radcliffe. “A Lieutenant Maynard shot him straight through the heart. Though he already had several other bullet wounds and many more from cutlass and dagger.” He handed the pistol back, indicated that the boy was to stow it carefully tucked through his belt.

“Truly? You b’ain’t tellin’ me stories?” The boy’s eyes rounded in awe.

Jesamiah shook his head, then ran a finger across his throat and crossed his heart. “As straight as I’m standing here it’s the truth. I was wounded too, maybe I’ll show you the scar some day. They cut his head off and threw his corpse overboard. The old bastard swam three times round the boat before he sank to the bottom of the sea.” Which had, in fact, been only a few feet deep as the tide had been on the turn at the time – hence the body washing in and out and not being carried away.

Tom Benson said nothing, merely gawped in admiration.

“Captain Acorne,” Miss Radcliffe admonished, “this lad’s mother will not thank you for filling his head with such nonsense. I assure you, he can do that quite enough for himself.”

“Captain Acorne? You are Captain Jesamiah Acorne! Oh huzzah!” the boy yipped and danced a few steps of excitement. “Of the
Sea Witch
? The next most notorious pirate after Blackbeard?”

Chuckling slightly, Jesamiah offered his arm to the young lady, and started walking down the hill again, Benson skittering at his side like an over-exuberant pup.

“Captain Acorne? The pirate who sailed with Malachias Taylor in the
Mermaid
? Who raided Nassau without firing a shot; who killed nine men in a fight with one blow? Who…”

Hastily interrupting because he could see Miss Radcliffe warily sidling away from him, Jesamiah set the record straight. “You’ve been reading too many of those exaggerated news-sheets, boy. I ain’t no pirate no more. I signed for amnesty and a pardon a while back. I’m a respectable merchant trader now. And no one can kill nine men with one blow.” The young lady looked relieved, the boy, crestfallen. Jesamiah grinned and offered his arm again to Miss Radcliffe. With the track leaving the shelter of the trees and descending sharply through an open field to the riverbank, she took the offer willingly. Pirate or no, she had no wish to slip and end up on her backside in the mud.