Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
In spite of all romantic poets sing,
This gold, my dearest, is an useful thing.
— MARY LEAPOR, ENGLISH POET AND COOK-MAID, “MIRA TO OCTAVIA”
Crushing his hat in his hands, Petey hesitated outside the entrance to Captain Horn’s hut just after dusk. The place looked empty. It was dark as pitch, especially with only stars hereabouts to light the night.
Should he knock? But on what? There wasn’t a door. Even though the captain’s hut was the best, it still had no window shutters nor a proper door with a latch. Was it any wonder the women didn’t want to be living in these wee cottages?
The rest of the island wasn’t so bad, however. He’d strolled about today, looking it over. It was a right nice bit of land. Something could be made of such a place, if somebody cared enough to do it.
But that wasn’t his concern. Right now, what mattered most was why the captain had sent for him.
It was a mite alarming, to say the least. Petey steered a wide path around the man as a general rule.
The pirates had made it clear that Captain Horn was fair and not given to unreasonable punishments, yet there was no telling what the man would do now that he had his eye on Miss Willis.
Petey groaned. The little miss had surely set the captain back on his heels today. Petey ought to be grateful to her for trying so hard to delay the weddings. After all, she did it to help him and Ann.
But she’d pushed the Pirate Lord to anger, and that didn’t sit too well with Petey.
A trickle of sweat rolled down his nose, and he wiped it away as he peered cautiously into the ominous black hole of the hut.
The captain was obviously asleep or gone.
No point in staying here to risk angering the man even more.
He turned away, but just then a deep voice rumbled out of the hut’s dark interior. “Don’t just stand there, man. Come in.”
Petey jumped, then gulped down his fear. That pirate captain was plain unnerving, that’s what he was.
“I didn’t see you there,” Petey muttered as he entered the room.
No response. There was a scratching sound, a tiny spark, and then an oil lamp’s low flame, which grew larger as the captain turned the wick up. Now Petey could see that the pirate stood beside a table. At least the man’s saber appeared to be out of sight, which was exactly where Petey liked it.
“Take a seat, Hargraves.” Captain Horn gestured to a chair, then picked up a bottle of what looked like rum. “Would you like to wet your whistle?”
Petey managed a nod. He needed something to get him through this. He didn’t sit down, though. He didn’t like to sit in the presence of his enemy, especially when that enemy was offering him strong drink.
As soon as the pirate poured a goblet of the golden liquor and handed it to him, he took a great, burning swallow, then wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his shirt. Unable to withstand the suspense any longer, he took another swig for bravery, then spoke. “You wished to see me, Cap’n?”
Casting Petey a cool glance, Captain Horn set the rum bottle on the table and corked it. “Relax, Hargraves. I’m not going to have you keelhauled. I merely wish to show you something I think you’ll find interesting.”
That put Petey on his guard at once. Did the captain think to fill him up with rum, then take his head once his guard was down?
Petey braced himself as the captain went to a trunk in the corner and opened it. When the man picked up a long object and turned, Petey nearly fainted, expecting to see the pirate’s saber.
The man held a scepter instead.
Torn between relief and shock, Petey gawked at the golden, jewel-encrusted rod that winked and sparkled.
As if he knew exactly what Petey had been fearing, Captain Horn smiled and twisted the scepter in the air almost as he would a sword. “Have you ever seen something so beautiful, Hargraves?”
Unable to do more than shake his head, Petey continued to stare at the scepter. Surely it was merely the lamplight that made it shine like a handful of fallen stars. Petey knew such things existed, but he’d never thought to see one with his own eyes.
Without warning, the pirate tossed the scepter in the air toward him.
As it twirled, the hundreds of tiny facets reflecting the glow of the lamp, Petey sprang to snatch it from the air, barely saving it from hitting the rough plank floor.
It was cold and heavy in his hands, and the metal gleamed so brightly he knew it must be solid gold.
He rubbed his fingers over it in wonder.
A diamond the size of his thumbnail marked one end of the rod.
Then a seemingly endless string of perfectly rounded pearls spiraled up the long rod to the ball embedded with rubies and emeralds the size of walnuts.
He was so enraptured that it took him a second to realize that Captain Horn was speaking again.
“I ‘acquired’ it during my days as a privateer.” The pirate sipped his rum, his eyes intent on Petey.
“One of your English ambassadors was carrying it to the Prince Regent. It was a gift from an Indian rajah, I believe. No doubt the rajah thought to appease the English thirst for land with such a gift, but we both know it would take more wealth than that to satisfy your lust.” The captain gave a smile as wide as it was wicked.
“And since rumor had it that George would soon have a scepter of his own, I decided he didn’t need another. ”
Only with an effort did Petey swallow his outrage at such blatant disrespect for His Majesty. The pirate was baiting him, and Petey dared not rise to it. Fingering the facets of a pigeon-blood ruby, he asked, “Why are you showing this to me?”
“It’s yours.” Petey snapped his head up only to find that the pirate was no longer smiling. “I have no use for it. What good is a scepter in paradise?”
Setting the scepter down carefully on the table, Petey eyed the pirate with suspicion. “And why would you be givin’ it to me?”
“Can’t you guess? I want you to relinquish your claim on Miss Willis.”
Stunned, Petey shook his head to clear it.
The man would give a solid gold scepter to have one troublemaking Englishwoman in his bed?
Either he was mad … or he was already wealthy enough to buy ten scepters.
Or even more likely, this was some sort of game in which Petey would be the loser regardless.
“And what am I to do with it? As you say, what good’s a scepter in paradise?”
“Ah, but you won’t be in paradise. You’re leaving. Tomorrow. When my men sail out for Sao Nicolau, you’ll be traveling with them.”
Hope leapt in Petey’s chest, but he fought it down. “You’d truly let me leave?”
The pirate shrugged. “Why not? If you abandon your claim to Miss Willis, such as it is, you can leave the island and go wherever you wish. I know you told me you couldn’t return to England, but there are plenty of other places where you can live quite comfortably once you sell that scepter.”
God help him, the man meant it. For a brief moment, Petey actually considered taking the blooming thing and heading out for parts unknown.
But his sense of responsibility wouldn’t let him. What good was all that gold if it meant betraying his family and Miss Willis’s trust in him? He had to live with himself after all.
A shame that he couldn’t use the pirate’s offer to get Miss Willis off the island, but Captain Horn obviously wouldn’t allow that. So he was stuck here. He couldn’t leave her to the mercies of the Pirate Lord when the man was clearly determined to have her.
Petey started to hand the scepter back, then hesitated.
Did he dare pass up this chance for escape?
The longer he and Miss Willis stayed here, the more likely the pirate captain would get his hands on her anyway.
She might pretend to be immune to the man, but Petey could tell she was more than a little enamored of him.
The balmy air, the intimate living circumstances, the isolation …
all of it would soon lead her to succumb, with or without Petey around.
And if the pirate was willing to offer a golden scepter just to get Petey away from her, the man would never allow her to marry Petey.
Indeed, with that being the case… “Why are you givin’ me the chance to leave?
Why not just kill me? It’s not as if anybody would stop you.
” When the pirate cast him a sinister glance, Petey added hastily, “’Tisn’t a suggestion, mind you, but a question.
It seems to me that pirates being what they are—”
“Cruel, bloodthirsty killers, you mean.” The captain propped one booted foot on a chair, his eyes glittering.
“There are all sorts of pirates roaming the sea, just as there are all sorts of sailors. I don’t know what you’ve heard of me, Hargraves, but I don’t murder men in cold blood, and certainly not for a woman.
I’ve killed in the heat of battle, ’tis true, but even that was before I became a pirate, when I served my country as a privateer. ”
“But the things I’ve heard, the things they say—”
“What else would you expect a baronet to say after he’s been shown to be a coward? He says the pirates drank blood and ravaged innocents and that’s why he didn’t lift a finger to stop them when the ship was taken.”
There was an unmistakable thread of bitterness in his tone.
“The truth is, my reputation for taking prizes against high odds during the war made it easy to be a pirate afterward. When merchant ships saw my flag hoisted, they didn’t put up a fight.
They knew they were outgunned and outmanned, and they didn’t intend to risk their lives for a few caskets of silk.
If you recall, that’s exactly what happened with the Chastity. ”