Surrender of a Siren

Page 47

Joss gave a low whistle. “And?”
“And—” Gray grabbed the bars with both hands and pushed back. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
He didn’t want to think about it, either, but he could hardly keep from doing so. What had frightened her? For all her brave talk, Gray was certain he’d seen fear in her eyes. Was it watching him put in chains that had spurred her to flee? Perhaps she had her own reasons to avoid arrest.
“Her name isn’t even Jane Turner,” he said bitterly. “She’s not even a governess. She’s some sort of conniving little thief with six hundred pounds beneath her stays.”
“I thought you didn’t want to talk about it.”
Gray shot his brother a look. It was then that he noticed the haggard shadows on Joss’s face, and the bruise purpling beneath his left eye. “No, let’s talk of other things. How long have you been here?”
“Two days.”
“The guards give you that?” Gray gestured toward his own eye. Joss shrugged.
Gray released a string of oaths. “Which one was it? He’ll pay for it with his life, I swear to you.”
“Settle down, Gray. And for God’s sake, don’t go punching yourself in the eye just to even the score.”
Gray shot him a look. “Not amusing, Joss.”
“Oh yes, it is. Give me credit for a joke when I make one. It’s nothing, Gray. I’ve had worse. You’ve given me worse. And it’s no more than a man can expect, I suppose, when he’s an alleged pirate.”
“Piracy charges.” Gray cracked his neck. “What a joke.” This was the voyage he’d finally gone respectable, and what had it gotten him? Jilted and jailed. No good deed went unpunished.
A few hours later, the guard sauntered back down the corridor. “You’ve a visitor, gentlemen. A lovely miss.”
An irrational surge of hope rose up in Gray’s breast. She came back, some fool voice whispered. She wouldn’t leave you.
Light footfalls sounded on the stone floor, and a figure emerged from the darkness. Of course. It was Bel.
“Joss. Dolly.”
She clung to the bars, and the two of them joined her from the other side.
“How’s Jacob?” Joss’s voice was tight. “How’s my son?”
“He’s fine, Joss. A bit taller than he was when you saw him last, and twice as mischievous. A Grayson man, through and through. He’s been asking for his papa.” She sniffed back tears.
“I’ve spoken with my friend, Mr. Wilson,” Bel continued. “You’ll remember him, Joss. He’s the one who used to be a solicitor in London, before he devoted his life to charity.” Her gaze flitted toward the guard and she lowered her voice. “He’s made some inquiries. He says … He says your situation doesn’t look good.”
“What does that mean?” Joss asked. “Surely once the judge has the story from Gray, he’ll not press any charges.”
“That’s just the problem,” Bel said. “It’s Mallory’s word against Gray’s.”
“And mine,” Joss said. “And every crewman’s aboard the Aphrodite and the Kestrel.”
“Not every crewman. There’s someone … an officer who just arrived today, who’s taking Mallory’s side.”
“Brackett.” Gray released a groan. “The bastard.”
“And the other crewmen, Mr. Wilson says their testimony could be too easily disregarded, since they might face charges themselves.”
“What sort of charges could they face?” Joss asked.
“Piracy, for the crew of the Aphrodite. Mutiny, for the Kestrel’s men.”
Gray swore under his breath. No, their situation did not look good. “So we bribe the judge. Every man has his price.”
“We can’t.” Bel shook her head.
“Bel, this is no time for scruples. This is hanging we’re discussing.”
“I mean it won’t work,” she continued. “Mr. Wilson knows something of this Mr. Fitzhugh. He’s ambitious, Mr. Wilson says, eager to make a name for himself and obtain a better post. That’s why he’ll press charges on such slender evidence. He means to make an example of Gray.”
Joss turned to Gray. “Why would he make an example of you?”
Gray clenched his jaw. He knew precisely why. “Not all privateers stopped seizing ships with the end of the war. Some of them kept right on plundering, even without letters of marque. They’re pirates now, with no allegiance to the Crown. It’s a problem for honest merchants. Like me,” he added ironically.
Understanding lit his brother’s eyes. “And the best way to discourage privateers from turning pirate …”
“Is to capture the most successful privateer of them all. And hang him.”
Gray turned and paced away from the door. “This Fitzhugh plans to make his career on my neck. Goddamn it.”
“Dolly, please don’t curse.” Bel’s voice cracked as she spoke. “We need God on our side now.”
“Seems no one else is,” Joss added.
“There’s to be a sort of hearing tomorrow,” Bel said. “The judge will hear testimony and decide whether he has sufficient evidence to convene a court of piracy.”
“A court of piracy?” Joss repeated.
“Yes,” Gray said, “in order to charge us, he has to summon representatives of the governor, all the way from Antigua. It’s no small undertaking. He won’t go to the trouble if he’s not certain we’ll hang.”
“I see,” Joss said. “It would seem much hinges on tomorrow.”
“Everything hinges on tomorrow.” If he didn’t walk free tomorrow, she’d be too far away. He might truly lose her. Damn.
Bel reached for his hand through the bars. Gray accepted the comfort of her small, chilled fingers wrapped around his own.
“Mr. Wilson will try to intercede for you,” she said. “The rest of us will pray.”
Gray squeezed her fingers. “You do that.” If Bel prayed, God might actually listen. “What of Miss Turner?” The question was out before Gray could stop it.
“Who?” A strange look crossed Bel’s face. “I don’t know any Miss Turner.”
“The lady from the dock, Bel. What happened to her?”
Bel frowned. “I don’t know,” she whispered, eyes downcast. “She said someone would be meeting her, and then Mr. Wilson found me, and …”
“And she left.” Gray pressed his forehead to the bars. Christ. She’d truly left. She’d truly left him. Until that moment, he hadn’t believed she could do it.
He must have done something wrong. Perhaps he ought to have demanded her secrets. Perhaps he should have held back some of his. Or maybe … God, maybe she’d been playing him for a fool all along.
“I’m sorry,” Bel said. “I suppose she just slipped away.”
“I can’t believe I lied to him,” Miss Grayson said, opening the green plantation shutters to admit a sultry breeze. “I’ve never lied to my brother in my life.”
Cringing, Sophia sat on the edge of the bed. As if all her own lies to him weren’t bad enough, now she’d gone and corrupted Gray’s sister. “I’m sorry to ask it of you,” she said. “But it was for his benefit. If my name reached the judge’s ears today, he might not believe my story tomorrow.”
“But how could the judge not believe the truth?”
How, indeed. Sophia’s lies were growing so numerous, even she couldn’t keep them straight. But when she’d assumed Sophia to be a missionary, Miss Grayson had handed her the perfect way to help Gray, as well as the perfect escape. One more day of deceit—in this, her most challenging role yet—and she would be done.
Miss Grayson sat down beside her. “I suppose it was in service of the greater good. But the look on Gray’s face when I told him you’d gone … He was—”
“Furious, I’d imagine.”
“No,” Miss Grayson said, surprised. “Not angry at all, just … disappointed, I think. His face went very grim. For all his initial resistance to the sugar cooperative, he must be attached to the idea now.” She beamed at Sophia.
“That must be your good influence, Miss Turner.”
Sophia thought it best to change the subject. “This isn’t your bedchamber, is it? I couldn’t put you out, you’ve been so kind.”
Gray had not been exaggerating when he described his sister’s kind nature. Indeed, Bel seemed to Sophia some kind of saint. While Bel had visited her brothers in jail, Sophia had been offered a series of small miracles: a bath in fresh, fragrant, heated water; a feast of tropical fruits and risen bread and unsalted meat; a freshly laundered dress; a soft, clean bed in this bright, airy chamber. If Gray had only been with her, Sophia would have felt welcomed into Heaven.
“No, this isn’t my bedchamber,” Bel answered. “It was once my mother’s, but no one has used it in years.”
“Has your mother been gone so long, then?” From what Gray had told her, she’d thought Bel’s mother had died more recently.
“She died a little over a year ago. But we had to move her from this room several years earlier, when she first took ill.” Bel opened a door between the windows, and beckoned Sophia. “Come have a look.”
Sophia stepped through the door and emerged onto a stone-tiled portico framed by a Grecian colonnade. Beyond the railing, a lush, green valley fell away from the house, the hillsides blanketed with fields. In the distance, two craggy mountains framed a wedge of ocean blue. “How beautiful,” she breathed. “I can see all the way to the harbor.”
“Yes. It’s a lovely vista. Transporting house hold goods to the top of a mountain isn’t especially convenient, but one can’t complain in the face of such grandeur.”
“Why did you move your mother to a different chamber?” she asked. “I should think this vista would cure all manner of ills.”
“Perhaps, for some. Though in my mother’s case, the risk was too great.”
She gave Sophia a melancholy smile. “She suffered an attack of brain fever, you see, when I was just a girl. She survived, in body—but her mind was never quite the same. For the rest of her life, she was prone to fits of… unpredictability. For her safety, we moved her to a room facing the mountainside, below-stairs.”
Sophia bent and peered down over the rail at the mossy limestone boulders below. It was a long way down. To think, Bel had grown up concerned that her mother would fling herself off this portico? If her own mother stood in the same place, she would think only of hanging draperies. Sophia felt a sudden swell of gratitude for her boring, sheltered childhood.
“The land you see below used to be my father’s plantation. Now the family owns only the house.”
“Were you angry, when Gray sold it?”
Bel turned to her. “But how would you know about—” Her eyes widened with understanding. “Ah, I can guess. My brothers are still fighting?” She shook her head. “He did the right thing, selling the plantation. Joss would have done the same. As would I have done, if these matters were ever placed in ladies’ hands.”
Below them, dusk painted the valley purple with shadow. Sophia gathered the borrowed shawl about her shoulders. “But I don’t understand. If Gray and Joss were in agreement then, why do they keep arguing now, over the sugar cooperative?”
“Why do men argue over anything?” Shrugging, Bel continued, “I wish I’d never suggested using the privateering money. My brothers have drawn such lines over the notion, and now neither will back down. It’s nothing but a source of acrimony. Now the cooperative’s coming to pass anyway, thanks to mission-minded Christians like you, and Mr. Wilson.”