The Pirate's Jewel
Read The Pirate's Jewel Online
Authors: Cheryl Howe
THE PIRATE’S JEWEL
by
Cheryl Howe
First Printing, March 2004
Copyright 2004 © by Cheryl Howe
First Kindle Edition, June 2013
Copyright 2013 © by Cheryl Howe
All rights reserved. No part of
this book may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, distributed, stored in or
introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by
any means, whether electronic or mechanical, without express permission of the
author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes.
This is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or
are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons,
living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cover art by Kimberly Killion,
The Killion Group
Proof reading by Faith Williams,
The Atwater Group
To my dad, Les
Howe.
Thanks for
introducing me to historical romance and sailing
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Charles Town, South Carolina, 1775
How could all her dreams have come to this? Jewel
Sanderson glanced across the tavern filled with patrons taking their noontime
meal. At a small table next to the wall sat her future husband, picking through
his uneaten stew. She quickly averted her gaze, unable to accept the
inevitable. With a tray of empty tankards balanced on her hip, she crossed the
crowded room and put as much distance between Latimer Payne and herself as
possible.
She set the tray on the long bar without bothering to wipe
away the perpetual puddle of ale that warped the varnish. Marriage was her only
option and Latimer Payne her only prospect. After five years without a word from
him, it was past time she accepted the fact that her father wasn’t coming back.
The memories she clung to—a moonlit battle, a pirate’s map, a golden
swashbuckler of a father with eyes the same green as her own—had withered to
nothing more than the diaphanous dreams of a lonely adolescent. She was no
longer a girl and had to look her choices square in the eye.
If it weren’t for the blasted map she kept wrapped in a
silk handkerchief beneath her mattress, maybe she would have realized her
father’s vow to return was as false as the one he’d made to her mother, to
ensure her welfare and that of the unborn Jewel when he’d deposited them in
Charles Town all those years ago. He’d not bothered to honor his promise then;
there was little room left to believe he would now.
Jewel glanced back to the table where Latimer Payne sat.
Her mother slipped into the empty chair opposite him. Jewel stuck the wet rag
in her apron pocket, not caring if it soaked all the way through to her best dress.
She had to stop her mother from delivering her to the man by sundown.
Reaching the table, Jewel forced a smile. “May I bring you
another ale, Master Payne?”
He didn’t stand at her approach. Not that Jewel expected
him to court her—the thought actually caused an involuntary shudder. Everyone
involved knew this was no more than a business arrangement. Latimer needed a housekeeper
and mother for his five children, and Jewel needed a protector. Or at least
that was what her mother had decided. Jewel disagreed. Still, she understood
what drove her mother. The woman’s greatest fear was that Jewel would lose her
heart to the wrong man and find herself in the same strait she had—unmarried, pregnant,
alone.
“
Jewel
.” Her mother’s strained tone snapped Jewel back
to the present. Worry knitted the woman’s brow and had aged her since this
morning. “Latimer is concerned about the trouble we’re having with our
customers. He doesn’t think it proper for a maid to be around men of such temperament.”
Payne brought a pinch of snuff to his long nose and
sniffed loudly. After a vigorous fit of sneezing, he cleared his throat. “Such
violent outbursts are a sure sign of a choleric humor. Too much yellow bile. A
good cupping would do them well.”
Jewel tried to keep her smile from becoming a grimace.
Latimer Payne had asked for her hand after he treated her, free of charge, for
a burn she had on her arm from the kitchen fire. He had heated a glass cup, placed
it on the burn, and when the hot cup raised a blister, he’d lanced it. The burn
did heal, but the blister got infected.
“Perhaps some of your fine treatment would cure them of
the ailment, sir,” suggested Jewel. Maybe if he were busy with other patients,
he’d forget about her.
Latimer took a long swig of ale. He lifted his mug and
handed it to her mother. “Another if you would, Mistress Sanderson.”
Jewel’s mother got up with the tankard in her hand. Before
she left to do Master Payne’s bidding, she gave Jewel a warning look. Her
displeasure Jewel could tolerate, but the pleading she saw in response to her
own gaze forced her to stay when she wanted only to snatch the mug from her
mother’s hand and fetch Payne’s ale herself.
Payne gestured toward the empty chair. “Sit. You look pale.”
“Thank you, but I have customers.”
He cleared his throat. “Those men, the choleric ones, they
aren’t the type of patients I take on. Their violent temperaments make them too
difficult to control. Brute force is all they understand.”
Jewel nodded, slightly nauseous. Marriage to this man would
give her the chance to have a life of relative comfort. She’d be much better
off than her mother. Even the taint of illegitimacy would be lessened with her
securely yoked to an upstanding citizen.
And it would permanently smother the last breath of the
woman she knew she was meant to be. If only she knew that the map her father
left led to an actual treasure, her choice would be simple. The idea of
persuading a captain to help her locate it, and then have nothing to pay him
with except herself was unappealing, but with her father’s prolonged absence
and the inevitability of her marriage to a man she found slightly revolting,
allying herself with a stranger might not be such a bad option. Unfortunately,
the fact that her father had never returned also led her to the conclusion that
his map held no real value. Perhaps the treasure had already been found.
Perhaps her father had merely provided the map because he’d wanted to escape
her pleas to go with him.
Jewel picked up Payne’s crockery bowl, which remained half
full of stew that had obviously grown cold. “I need to see to my customers.”
“Of course, see to your customers. But don’t take too long
to accept my suit. The element here is more stimulating than is proper for a
woman. Take that gentleman who just walked in the door. He’s sure to cause
trouble.”
Jewel followed Latimer’s gaze. The gentleman in question
stood at the far end of the room, in shadow. Jewel blinked, trying to place the
familiarity she felt. The way he filled the doorframe, his height, his
presence—all singled him out from the men around him. But after all this time,
it couldn’t be him. Her father? A rush of hope swelled from her chest and
filled her throat. She couldn’t breathe, much less speak.
Latimer sniffed loudly. “Too much blood. Sanguine humor. Full-blooded
and bloodthirsty. Stay away from him.”
Jewel set the bowl she held down with a clank, plucked at
the ties of her apron, and left it all lying on Latimer’s table. She heard
Payne’s sputtering protests as she darted between a bank of tables and long
benches, ignored calls for her attention from impatient patrons, her focus only
on the stranger. No doubt desperation conjured the impossible, but a hopeful
flutter under her rib cage swore she wasn’t wrong.
The new arrival stepped more solidly into the tavern and
Jewel’s determined stride faltered. His hair was dark, not blond. A tide of
disappointment threatened to whisk her off her feet. Just when she had
convinced herself of her foolishness for believing her father would return for
her, a glimpse of a stranger could bring it all back. The fresh loss cut her
anew, a hot knife through her heart.
She continued her approach, knowing she’d appear even more
foolish if she abruptly retreated. To hide her despair, she tilted her chin up
slightly. Her show of false confidence brought her gaze to his face. She was
surprised by what she saw.
He was uncommonly handsome. Jet eyebrows framed blue,
vibrant eyes. A full mouth softened his strong jaw and conspired to make his
rough features almost beautiful. Jewel’s stare touched him from head to toe. He
was tall, lean, and muscular all the way down to the taut calves emphasized by
his knee-length breeches. When her eyes returned to his face, he scowled at her
obvious admiration.
Recognition hit her like a cold blast of air off the ocean.
Her desperate wishes were answered—though not by her father but the man who’d
accompanied him on his fateful visit so long ago. She stared at his features with
undisguised intensity, teetering on the edge of doubt. As she tried to remember
this man’s face, he looked familiar and strange at the same time. His name came
to mind.
“Nolan?” It felt right on her tongue.
His curt nod confirmed her shaky memory but warned he
wasn’t as pleased to see her again as she was him. Even so, Jewel breathed a
sigh of relief. Fate had intervened. Not only had her father finally come for
her, his timing proved dramatic. Perhaps he waited outside. She glanced over
Nolan’s shoulder and out onto the busy street. Before she could speak, he
directed her to the edge of a long table away from the other customers.
He laid his tricorn hat on a clear spot between empty tankards
and piled bowls crusted with dried stew. Jewel reached for the dirty dishes, a
comment about a busy noonday on the tip of her tongue. Simple speech seemed a
difficult task, though, in this physical presence of a dream come to life.
She resisted the urge to glance at Latimer. The fact that
he probably hadn’t vanished into thin air like the villain from a fairy tale
once the curse was broken didn’t mean her father wasn’t waiting on a ship in
the nearby harbor.
Nolan shoved aside plates along with a half-eaten loaf of
bread and gestured for her to sit. His stern gaze didn’t invite argument.
Though his manner was commanding, she took note that he patiently stood until
she found her seat across the bench. With her shoulders high, she gripped her ale-soaked
gray wool skirts and spread them as if she wore voluminous silk the colors of
spring. He knew she was more than just a lowly barmaid without family or
status; she was the daughter of a notorious pirate and a woman who held the key
to a treasure.
He straddled the polished oak bench and removed his
gloves. “I see you remember—”
“Oh, I remember.” Jewel’s nerves stretched at Nolan’s decidedly
unfriendly manner. A fluttering of her heart in a sensation close to fear
forced her to purse her lips to stop their tremor. “I never told a soul about
that night. I’d almost begun to believe I dreamed it.”
She studied Nolan, trying to reassure herself of his familiarity.
But he wasn’t familiar. If he’d not scowled, she might not have recognized him
at all. He was no longer the awkward youth who had challenged her father the
night the treasure map had been given to her for safekeeping. At the time,
she’d thought him not much older than herself. Now he seemed like a seasoned
man far beyond her years. Suddenly, he was more threat than friend.
The memory of their first meeting resurrected itself with
more clarity and fervor as she studied Nolan’s blue eyes and tight jaw. His
scowl was the same, though he was now clean-shaven. And his navy coat and
pressed fawn breeches belonged to a gentleman. He even wore white stockings.
Perhaps it was a disguise.