City of Dreams (71 page)

Mostly she supported every other right he claimed over the next years, including his notion to become a privateer at age nineteen. Because she knew her son was besotted with the sea and would likely sail off anyway. Far better he do so as master of his own ship, under favorable arrangements made by her.

His mother was the first to invest in Morgan’s
Fanciful Maiden.
And it was because she did, and because her reputation for being fiendishly clever about business was known all over the city, that others backed a nineteen-year-old who’d never been to sea. They knew the veiled witch wasn’t about to lose both her son and her money, and they were right.

When she struck her bargain with Morgan her only requirement was that she choose his first mate. Morgan agreed and his mother sent him off with Tobias Carter, a man who had captained four legendary privateers of his own, then drank and gambled away most of the proceeds. “Your legs are gone, your cutlass arm won’t last more than sixty seconds in a fight, and your belly’s rotted with rum, but in your youth you were the best there’s ever been and there’s nothing wrong with your brain,” she told him. “My son will supply the physical prowess. Teach him the rest.”

It all went exactly as she’d intended. So far everything had. “Cuf is back from the island,” she said giving the bandage on Morgan’s shoulder a final pat. “Everything went well.”

“The notes I sent you?”

“Safely sealed in the gold horse’s head with the ruby eyes. The one that belonged to your father. Do you remember?”

“I remember.” He didn’t look at her. “Though I expect he doesn’t.” She started to say something but he cut her off. “It’s not the old madman upstairs I’m concerned about. The horse’s head is buried near the boulder? Exactly as I instructed?”

“So Cuf says. You know he’s entirely reliable.”

“I do.” Morgan had found a shirt in the cupboard. He put it on, enjoying the clean white linen against his skin, then walked to the small table near the window and poured a glass of canary wine and offered it to her. She shook her head. Morgan drank it himself, quickly, appreciating the rush of warmth in his belly. God, every muscle ached and he was weary to the marrow of his bones. But, he hoped, not too tired for the girl. He pushed the thought away, knowing he had to deal with business first. That had been one of his mother’s earliest lessons. Always business first.

She sensed his impatience to be gone. “What about your crew?”

Morgan poured a second glass of wine. “I paid them all off with a handsome bonus. Came to four hundred pounds each.”

Squaw’s eyes narrowed behind her veil. Sixty percent of the prize to the crew was standard. And generous, but only with generous pay could men be inveigled into anything as dangerous as privateering. Fully half who set out never came back, and press gangs were not permitted to do their work on behalf of any but His Majesty’s navy. If you wanted pirates worthy of the name you had to pay them.

“Four hundred each to a crew of seventy-five means you handed over thirty thousand pounds. So the balance of the voyage’s prize is worth … Dear God, Morgan, nearly twenty thousand pounds.” Her voice betrayed her astonishment. “That’s incredible. You’ve never brought back so much from a single voyage.”

Morgan smiled, enjoying one of the few times he’d managed to surprise his mother. “We took four Spanish merchantmen. Not one had more than nineteen crew or three cannons. The greedy fools never learn. Reserve every inch of space for cargo and you’re doing the privateers a favor.”

“Doing Morgan Turner a favor,” she corrected, filled with pride. “But even four cargos, Morgan … I don’t see how—”

“The fourth was a Guinea ship stuffed to the gunwales with live ware. The blacks were on the block within minutes of our reaching Bahama Island, and the money in hand half an hour later. After that we had a bit of pure luck. There was a French East Indiaman,
La Madeleine,
in port. The best of the Quebec factors was aboard.”

“Ah,” she said, no longer trying to disguise the smile in her voice. “Trading with the enemy.”

“Why the hell not? I’m my mother’s son, aren’t I?”

Squaw laughed and waited for him to tell the rest of the story, savoring the moment. If she’d been a man, she’d have gone to sea as a pirate, exactly as Morgan had done. Better still, a legal pirate who had no need to fear His Majesty’s almighty navy. But then, what wouldn’t she have done if she’d been a man? Surgeries so extraordinary the whole world would have sat up to take notice, for a start. “Tell me about the French factor.”

“He was happy to take our sugar and indigo when I told him he could have it below the rate I’d expect at the Exchange, just so long as he paid in bullion. All in all, you’re right, close to twenty thousand’s left, or near enough as makes no difference. I didn’t count every last doubloon. Of course the lawyers and provisioners and factors this end will need to be paid out of our pockets.”

She waved that consideration away. “Of course. But what about the crew? If any of them talk it will—”

Morgan turned back to the decanter. It made a handy excuse not to look at her when he spoke. “The men won’t talk. There’s no profit in it for them. Anyway, most chose to stay in the islands when I told them the
Maiden
wouldn’t sail again.”

It was the thought of Petrus Vrinck that made him not want to look at her. The only Dutchman to sail with the
Maiden,
curse his black soul. Vrinck, drunk as a lord and screaming curses and waving his cutlass around. And Tobias Carter staying Morgan’s hand when he intended to kill the drunk for his insolence. Some ancient debt between them, Tobias said, that had to be respected. Last Morgan had seen of Vrinck, the man was staggering off toward the interior swamps of Bahama Island. Probably drowned long since. “The men won’t talk,” he repeated.

“And the
Maiden?”
she asked, watching him.

“To be sold, of course, as we agreed.”

“Of course. I meant, how did you bring her home? Since the crew remained behind in the islands.”

“Most of them remained. We returned with a helmsman and a crew of four. We avoided the shore and the coves that best serve a privateer and took the open sea, navy fashion. Fortunately we were never challenged.”

“I see.” She nodded gravely. “I take it Tobias Carter’s among those who came back with you?”

“Yes. I suggested the old sot stay on Bahama Island and be rid of the cold winters in his declining years, but he insisted on accompanying me for the last leg of the voyage. ’Sweared I’d see you home safe, lad, and by a whore’s piss, that’s what I’ll do.’”

She chuckled at his clever imitation of Carter. It was too bad about Morgan’s affection for his first mate, but she couldn’t let that stand in her way. There were five witnesses walking around New York who knew what had happened on the
Fanciful Maiden’s
final voyage. They’d have to be dealt with, Carter among them. That was her job, not her son’s. “Well done,” she said softly. “All of it.”

He flushed with pleasure at her praise.

“Go on,” she said, nodding toward the door. “Claim your copper-headed prize. But mind your shoulder.”

She was in his bed, waiting for him with the covers drawn up to her chin.

“He’s tired,” Mistress O’Toole had said when she’d brought Roisin upstairs to the most elaborate bedroom the girl had ever seen. “He won’t want anything fancy.” She’d lent Roisin a silk wrapper after her bath. When they got to the bedroom she tugged it off and laid it carefully over the foot of the high four-poster bed. “Just get yourself between the sheets, naked as God made you. And make sure you’re still awake when he comes.”

She was wide awake. Green eyes staring at him as he approached. Morgan took off his shirt and dropped it on the floor. She saw the way the black hair curled over his chest and ended in a vee about his flat stomach. And how large was the bulge in his tight-fitting breeches. All the same, he looked tired. Even a bit careworn.

“I must say you cleaned up well.” He smiled, and that made him look a good deal younger and less exhausted. “Your hair’s a wonder.” He leaned forward to touch it but winced. Unthinkingly he’d used his right arm; it was stiffening as a result of the shoulder wound.

Roisin reached up from beneath the satin quilt and gently touched his bandage. Pirate or no, she was grateful to him. The bed was clean and warm, and her back was not striped with welts. “Does your wound hurt?”

“Only a very little.”

“It’s been cleverly bandaged.”

“By my mother. She’s remarkably good at such things. We Turners come from a long line of healers.”

“I know a bit about healing.”

“Do you? It’s an odd combination with whoring.” He spoke the words unthinkingly, laughing, backing into a chair and sticking out his long legs. “Here, lass. I don’t want to send for anyone to disturb us now. Come pull off my boots.”

Roisin slithered to the edge of the bed and reached for the silk wrapper. “No,” Morgan said. “Stay as you are. I want to see what I’ve got now that it’s washed and clean.”

She hesitated for only a moment, then lifted her chin and climbed down from the bed. Turning her back to him, she straddled his right leg.

“Lovely,” he said admiring the curve of her buttocks, still flushed pink with the warmth of the bath. “That’s an ass a man can truly enjoy. It’s going to be a fine evening. What’s your name?”

“Roisin.” She tugged his right boot off, then moved to the left. “Roisin Campbell.”

“Rosheen,” he said, giving it the same pronounciation she had. “It’s a pretty name.”

“Thank you. But none spell it as it should be spelled.”

She was still standing over his left boot. God, an ass to dream about on a lonely night at sea. “Know how it’s spelled, do you?” he said chuckling. “Have I found a little street doxy who can read and write?”

“I can read and write, yes. My mother taught me, but—”

She’d given up on his boot and was turning to say something more, but Morgan waved her back to her task. “C’mon, lass. Get that boot off.”

He liked the side swell of her tits when she was bending forward like that, and the scent of flowers that rose from her skin now that she’d been properly washed. “What’s your specialty?”

“I … I have no specialty. I’m not—” The left boot came free; she gathered up the pair and carried them over to the wardrobe on the far side of the room.

“No specialty,” Morgan said. “Too bad. But never mind, before the night’s over we may have discovered what you’re best at. Here, turn around and let me get a good look at the front of you.”

Roisin turned and stood in front of him, waiting.

“Closer,” Morgan said and she took a few steps toward him. “Now move over there into the light of the fire. Holy bloody savior, but I’ve got an eye! You’re a flaming wonder, girl. You’re wasted on the street. If you can perform anything up to the standard of your looks, I’ll see to it that you get a place in the finest bordello in New York. That should be inspiration enough.”

“I … Please, I haven’t the words to say how grateful I am, but can I expl—”

“No thanks necessary, Roisin Campbell with the perfect tits and the incredible ass who knows how to read and write. And that’s enough talk. I’m too damned tired to get up and walk to the bed. Come over here and service me. Make it last longer than two minutes and the bordello job is yours.”

Roisin went toward him. The grate was behind her and her face was in shadow, so he didn’t see the tears that streaked her cheeks.

Morgan had loosed his breeches and freed himself. He reached for her, clasping both hands around her tiny waist, and lifted her onto his lap. “Not like that, lass,” he said with soft laughter when she sat back on his knees. “You’re going to do the riding. I’ve a fine mount for you.”

He squirmed until he’d gotten her kneeling over him the way he wanted her to be, then thrust upward. She gasped. “Don’t,” he said quickly, all hint of laughter gone from his voice. “You don’t have to pretend. I grew up in a whorehouse. I know all the tricks and I hate them. Just move. No, not up and down right away. Side to side first. Yes, like that. Ahhh, it’s perfect. You’ve a sweet, tight cunt, Roisin Campbell. It’s going to take you far, but tonight it’s all mine.”

Outside the door, her ear pressed to the carved oak paneling, Flossie listened to Morgan’s grunts and groans and smiled. Exactly what the lad needed after a long hard voyage. And the girl had seemed clean enough once they scrubbed away the surface dirt. She’d checked the child’s privates for any sign of a rash or a canker and seen none. Ah, wasn’t it all in God’s hands in the end? There was nothing she could think of worse than having her precious Morgan get the French disease, but neither was anything going to stop a lad of twenty-two from taking a turn in the stubble. Better here in his own house, with a strumpet Flossie had herself prepared for him.

Sure and didn’t all the saints in heaven know that was what she’d been doing for as long as she could remember, readying women for a fucking by one or another of the DaSilva men. So to speak. And if she died this very night she’d be after telling her savior the same thing she’d often enough told herself: And what else was I supposed to do, Lord Jesus, lie down in the gutter and starve?