Beyond the Savage Sea Page 16

  She felt herself grow pale.

  “I didn’t think of that. I may have endangered you, too —you and Matthew Plum.”

  The heated intensity went out of him. His shoulders relaxed.

  “There’s likely no real harm done this time. But don’t, for God’s sake, do it again. Let it be, Edwinna. Don’t precipitate anything that we can’t handle.”

  He looked at her with grim tenderness.

  “I don’t want to mourn another wife. I can’t take it, Edwinna. Especially a wife that I am just getting to know and like—a wife I haven’t even kissed yet. So be careful. Please.”

  Her mouth went dry. So did her lips. She touched her tongue to them. His clean black hair glistened so in the sun. She gazed at him. Strong feelings stirred. She wanted his kiss, wanted it fiercely, but the old fears came surging. With Drake, a kiss would be the beginning of other caresses, intimate caresses. She wasn’t ready for that.

  “I’ll be careful.”

  He nodded.

  “Good.”

  She whirled and strode swiftly down the hill to the boiling house, but her thoughts that afternoon were bewildering ones. Drake Steel would care if she died. She hadn’t known that.

  * * * *

  Edwinna waited impatiently for Planters Council. To be absent from harvest as short a time as possible, they traveled to Bridgetown the day of the Planters Council, starting out at three in the morning. Riding under a sky full of sparkling stars that seemed close enough to touch, they followed dark, silent paths into darker cane fields that rustled in the trade winds like heavy black silk. She wore a pistol in her belt. Drake did, too, and kept a loaded musket in the saddle sheath, a precaution not against runaway slaves, but against Jacka, Hastings, and Yates, who led the affingoes, with their burdens of molasses kegs and rum that gurgled in casks. Drake and Matthew Plum had convinced her to take the three convicts along. Not to do so would arouse suspicion; the task of taking the affingoes to and from her Speightstown storehouses and her Bridgetown storehouses had always been theirs. Also, given the freedom of Bridgetown, they might tip their hand as to what was afoot. But she was glad for Drake’s company and for the company of Sean and Valentine O’Brien. She’d also brought Jeremy and Marigold along.

  Excited and unaware of trouble, Jeremy’s and Marigold’s voices rang in the darkness as cheerfully as the twitter of cane sparrows. Adventure-bound, they tramped along, heads bobbing. Parts of their conversation drifted to her ears.

  “Are you truly going to be a wine merchant when you grow up, Jeremy?”

  “Ay. Pro’lly in London. On Thames Street.”

  “That sounds grand, Jeremy.”

  “Ay. And after we’re married, Marigold...”

  They liked Drake. Well...so did she.

  They reached Bridgetown by midmorning, and rented two rooms at the Nancy Belle Inn—one for her and Marigold, the other for Drake and Jeremy and Matthew Plun. They hurriedly washed and dressed.

  In her room, Edwinna unbraided her hair and brushed it out. It fell past her shoulders, long and thick. She felt a ripple of excitement while brushing, knowing Drake’s gaze would be on her hair in that sensual way. She pulled on a gown, wishing she’d paid more attention to style and fabric and color, but those things had always bored her. Now she suddenly wished she had a fabulous gown.

  She arranged the cracked looking glass so she could see herself and tugged the neckline down. She had good breasts, firm and full on a slender frame, and she had a sudden fierce urge to show them off. She tugged the green silk fabric lower. Dinny would be at Planters Council, all breasts and red hair and charming smiles. She still seethed whenever she thought of what Dinny had done with Drake.

  There was a tap at the door.

  “Ready, Edwinna?”

  She took one last look in the glass and wrenched the door open. Washed, closely shaved, his hair carefully combed and clubbed back to the nape of his neck with a black velvet ribbon, Drake stood before her. He looked elegant in a new black suit, impeccably tailored to fit his wide shoulders and slender waist. He wore a white silk shirt, black silk stockings, and shoes of fine black leather. He looked like a London wine merchant.

  She waited uneasily for his reaction to her.

  “Well...” he said. She smiled at the admiration in his voice. A slight flicker of his black-lashed eyes made her guess her gown wasn’t London fashion, but the warmth of his smile made that thought unimportant.

  “You look lovely.”

  She smiled proudly.

  The stairway of the Nancy Belle was narrow, in disrepair, and creaky. Drake went down first and at the street door gave her his arm. She took it. She’d never walked holding onto a man’s arm before. It seemed awkward and strange.

  The Planters Council met six streets away in another hastily erected Bridgetown building that served as both city hall and the island’s jail. To enter the building, they had to pass through the jail—a stifling-hot place that clamored with noise and reeked with odor. White prisoners were locked in crowded cages. Blacks suffered worse. Stuffed into cages not three feet high, they crouched on hands and knees like animals, their tall bodies cramped in agony. Their eyes wore the hopeless glaze of death, for they had nothing good to anticipate. They were runaways.

  Edwinna’s steps slowed in sympathy. Drake put a hand on her back and pushed her onward. About to follow her through the doorway, he swept the jail with a last disgusted look, then grew startled.

  “Edwinna.” He pointed at dark eyes filled with pain that gazed at them from a low cage. “It’s the runaway I freed.”

  Uneasiness rippled through her. “Don’t say anything. Don’t tell anyone. It will stir up trouble for you and for my plantation.”

  “Poor bastard.”

  The Planters Council room was loud and noisy. Planters milled about, talking energetically, puffing on long clay pipes filled with Virginia tobacco, swilling down kill-devil punch that they dipped from huge bowls set on the long meeting table. Of the twenty-five planters assembled, two in addition to Edwinna were women. Edwinna pointed out Lady Maud Locksley, who had a booming voice and smoked a pipe. Then there was Dinny, who spotted them at once and waved exuberantly from the opposite side of the room.

  Edwinna didn’t wave back. She wanted to scratch Dinny’s eyes out for bedding Drake.

  “Do you wish us to sit with Dinny?” she asked stiffly, unable to keep the jealousy out of her voice.

  “No. I’ve had enough of Dinny’s company. I’ve no wish for more of it. Let’s sit elsewhere.”

  Edwinna was gratified when the largest landowner on the island and council president, Mr. Drax of Drax Plantation, came immediately to meet Drake. Deeply worried about the bondslave situation in Barbados, he intended to address that issue first and asked Drake to speak to it.

  Taking seats at the table, Drake whispered to her, “I want to buy that runaway slave. The one I freed. Can that be done?”

  Her eyes widened. “Yes. But why?”

  “Poor devil. I feel a responsibility to him.”

  “I’ll arrange it during dinner break. I’ll find out who owns him. But...we’d best not make the offer ourselves. It might bring trouble down upon our heads.”

  “Can you ask Dinny to buy him for us?”

  She wanted to say no, but she knew Dinny was the best choice. She could trust her to keep Drake’s secret. She hesitated only an instant.

  “Yes. I’ll talk to Dinny. I know she will buy him for us. She can take him to her plantation. Then we can buy him from her. No one need ever know it was the runaway you freed.”

  “I like you.”

  It startled her. She felt the pulse flutter in her throat.

  “I like you, too, Drake.”

  They shared a smile and she felt oddly breathless.

  Mr. Drax called the assembly to order just as her uncle strode in. She gripped the edge of the table, prepared to do battle with him. Drake calmly covered her hand with his. Blistering them with a look, George
Crawford seized a chair at the table’s opposite end and sat, a hot, angry man. Wasting no time, he interrupted Mr. Drax.

  “I refuse to sit at table with that—that pirate!” He indicated Drake with a jab of his thumb. “Crucial matters are decided here—matters of harvest, shipping. He will spy on us, send word to his fellow pirates, and we will lose everything we ship.”

  Edwinna jumped to her feet. “Drake Steel is not a pirate. He is a London wine merchant. He was a prisoner aboard that pirate ship. We are legally wed, and no one here can dispute it. Drake Steel is my— ”

  “Your husband, dearling,” Dinny trilled, staunchly in Edwinna’s camp.

  Edwinna rounded on her. “Dinny, you be quiet! He is my husband, not yours.”

  Drake yanked her to her seat, his face red. “Edwinna, shut up,” he whispered angrily. “This is no place for a cat fight. Shut up, or so help me God I will march you to the Nancy Belle and lock you in your room.”

  “I am only trying to defend you.”

  “I’ll defend myself, speak for myself.”

  Edwinna sat back, put out with him. Her uncle was barreling on in his blustery way.

  “A marriage of expedience,” George Crawford accused. “So that I should be deprived of governing Thomas and Harry’s plantation.”

  Lady Maud Locksley barked with laughter, pipe smoke snorting out of her nostrils. “And what marriage is not expedient? A man weds because he finds it expedient to hump a woman every night. A woman weds because it is expedient to have children. Go soak your head in the bucket of kill-devil you crawled out of, George Crawford. I did not ride my rump sore traveling all the way to Bridgetown to listen to you wash Crawford family linen in public. Be done with it. I want to hear what Mr. Steel has to say to this bondslave trouble.”

  Mr. Drax pounded his gavel on the table for order. “As do we all,” Mr. Drax said. “Mr. Steel, will you speak to the issue?”

  “Gladly.”

  “Here, here,” the others said approvingly.

  Her uncle seethed and sent dark looks everywhere, but no one cared. “That pirate freed a runaway slave. It is against the law!”

  “He did not!” Edwinna burst. Drake gave her a warning look. She shut her mouth, but it was difficult. She was used to giving orders, not taking them. A rumble went through the room. “Runaway slave? Freed a runaway?” This was not liked. Edwinna wanted to strangle her uncle, making trouble like this for Drake. She couldn’t hold her tongue.

  “The slave had been badly tortured,” she burst out again. “Mr. Steel showed compassion freeing him.”

  “Of course he did, dearling,” Dinny trilled loudly, foursquare on Edwinna’s side of the issue.

  “Edwinna!” Drake snapped. She sat back.

  Mr. Drax banged on the table to restore order. When the room grew quiet, Drake calmly addressed the assembly.

  “First, Mr. George Crawford is correct. I freed a runaway slave. I will not apologize for it, and I will do it again if ever I come across a runaway in such a sorry state.” Edwinna gasped, but he swung her a look. The rumbling undercurrent started again. “Second, I am not a pirate. I am a man of business, like yourselves—a London wine merchant. I was a prisoner aboard that pirate ship, not a pirate. Third, to the business at hand. Edwinna, her overseer, Matthew Plum, and I believe there may be a bondslave conspiracy afoot on this island.”

  The room grew utterly silent. Small wonder. Convicts accounted for almost half the population of Barbados. The other half consisted of black slaves. The planting class was a slim, precarious minority and lived in daily danger of uprisings.

  Taking his time, Drake described the midnight bondslave gathering he’d witnessed on his last trip to Bridgetown, telling what he’d seen and heard. He reminded them of the letters he and Edwinna had sent, though they needed no reminder; they’d been worried for weeks. He took a list out of his pocket. “From your letters, the total number of weapons missing on the island are: ninety-six muskets, fifteen kegs of gunpowder, thirteen pistols, thirty-five bill-cane knives.”

  There was a shocked uproar, everyone talking at once. Drax banged his gavel. Maud Locksley spoke above the noise in her rough, booming voice, “Then we can presume bondslaves are amassing weapons to fight against the governor’s troops in an uprising.”

  “That is a logical assumption, yes.”

  Talk burst out all over the room. Still seething, George Crawford raised his voice louder than any. “Lies! This pirate merely wishes to ingratiate himself with us, worm his way in, become one of us. He wants to take over my nephews’ plantation. He wants to become a wealthy planter, like us!”

  “Maybe that’s true,” someone else shouted.

  Edwinna had to bite her tongue to keep from leaping into the fray. Drake drew a breath that made his coat seams strain.

  “You think I want to become one of you slave owners? God help me! I would not be one of you for anything in this world. Trafficking in human flesh. Sucking the life’s blood out of human beings so you can get rich on sugar. Become one of you? I’d sooner be dead.” Edwinna waited, breathless, scared for Drake.

  Mr. Drax said sternly, “Your opinion of slave owners, Mr. Steel, is neither here nor there. To the matter at hand...”

  Drake drew a breath to calm himself. “I think,” he said, “it is likely the conspirators will gather tonight. The date of Planters Council has been set for months. It is likely the ringleaders are among the bondslaves you brought with you.”

  “Nonsense,” Crawford blustered. “Tricks, lies.”

  “Ah, shut up,” Maud Locksley boomed.

  The meeting erupted with loud, hot talk. Everyone had something to say to the issue. When they’d talked heatedly for an hour, it was decided the planters would patrol Bridgetown that night, after midnight, searching for any clandestine bondslave gatherings.

  A big blustery planter from St. Michael’s Parish said, “Then let’s march out and find ’em. All of us, with musket and pistol. Gather ’em up and string ’em up.”

  Drake smiled a little. “If we come marching through town like an army, they’ll scatter like cane sparrows. Let’s a few of us go—say, a committee of ten. Ten men, paired off, won’t be noticed. Twenty or thirty would be noticed.”

  The planters agreed to it, and the morning session ended.

  Edwinna was fiercely proud of Drake, but devastated for herself. You think I want to become one of you slave owners? God help me. I would not be one of you for anything in the world. When Drake Steel returned to London, he would not come back. She knew it.

  * * *

  Chapter 11

  At midnight Drake slipped out of the Nancy Belle and into the dark street. Bridgetown lay black as a tomb except for several drinking houses where a candle burned and drunken seamen caroused. A rising moon hovered over the bay, its pale light reflected in a skimpy necklace of surf far out on the reef. Keeping to the shadows, he walked swiftly to the city hall to meet with the planters. He wore a pistol.

  When he’d gone to Edwinna’s room to tell her he was off, she was up, dressed in breeches, hair braided, pistol in her belt, ready to go with him. He’d had to argue with her to get her to stay behind. Reluctantly she’d agreed, but only after he’d pointed out that someone had to protect Jeremy and Marigold in case of trouble.

  The door of the dark jail stood open. No one saw any point in locking it, evidently. There was no official jailer in Bridgetown, only a magistrate who, when he thought of it, sent his slaves to the jail with food. Drake had felt extremely proud at the end of the lavish council dinner when Edwinna had stood and bluntly ordered the serving men to collect all of the leftover food, take it to the jail, and dispense it to the prisoners.

  He strode silently through the jail. The cage of his runaway stood empty. Edwinna had been faithful in that. She’d talked to Dinny, Dinny had talked to the owner, and, soused to the gills, the owner had readily sold the runaway to Dinny, no doubt considering himself a clever businessman since the sick slave would sur
ely die. Drake knew it, too. The smell of death had clung to the poor creature. But at least he would die on Crawford Plantation, in whatever slight comfort David Alleyne could provide.

  Nine men assembled in the darkness of the council room. Drake had expected eight. To his irritation, George Crawford had come. He reeked of kill-devil rum and began ranting the moment Drake walked in. “Trickery. I see no conspiracy but this pirate’s conspiracy.”

  “Shut up,” Drake snapped, “or by God, I’ll knock you silent. You’ll alert every bond- slave in this town and give us away, if you have not already.”

  “Ay, Crawford,” the others growled. “Shut up.”

  He glowered in silence. The men quickly paired off, deciding which sector of Bridgetown each pair would search. Crawford insisted on accompanying Drake and his partner. “To keep an eye on you, pirate.”

  “Then do it, but do it with your mouth shut,” Drake warned, and Crawford reluctantly held his tongue.

  They set off quickly, Drake and John Monyford, a husky planter from St. Michael’s Parish. They strode toward the waterfront, heading for the sugar storehouse where Drake had seen the bondslave meeting.

  Aside from Crawford’s presence and his rum stink, the night was as lovely as any Drake had ever seen. Moonlight lay upon the entire crescent of Carlisle Bay. The surf rolled in with a murmur, whispering up onto the sand. The trade winds caressed his face. It was a night for love, not for hunting convicts. He thought of Edwinna and the softness of her hair.

  In contrast to the moonlight on the sea, the narrow, smelly waterfront alleys and the storehouses lay dark as the bottom of a wine barrel. Rats ran underfoot. Bats swooped, hunting gnats and mosquitoes. A fruit bat with a wingspan a yard wide, swooped so close that it stirred the air in front of his face, then alighted in a papaya tree, folded its huge wings, and began to eat.

  The planters searched the waterfront futilely. They saw nothing amiss—in fact, saw nothing moving but a horse that had managed to break free of its hobble and was munching tussocks of salty beach grass. It was a frustrating expedition. Drake had been so sure the conspirators would gather tonight.