Heather Graham - [Camerons Saga - North American Woman 02] (2 page)

“Yes, Theodore, I have heard of it,” Roc said. Lord Theodore Kinsdale paused to bow in acknowledgment to the governor. Spotswood nodded and met Cameron’s eyes above the little man. They both smiled. Theodore Kinsdale was a good man, a fine man. He supported the governor in all things, and held many a merry ball. He owned vast sugar estates in the islands, but preferred to live in Williamsburg. He did, in fact, despise the three-hour drive out to Cameron Hall, and so, for him to have arrived here unannounced, he must be flustered and upset indeed.

“Alexander, what do you intend to do about all of this!” Theodore demanded.

Spotswood glared at him. “I have ships all over the coast! I am doing things, man!”

“Have a drink, Theo,” Roc Cameron suggested.

“Don’t mind if I do, don’t mind if I do. Scotch!”

He sat in one of the handsome twined chairs upon the porch and mopped his face with a scarf. He stared from Roc to Alexander Spotswood, and then back again. “My daughter sails,” he moaned.

“When?” Roc Cameron said.

“Her ship has left this very day.”

Spotswood cleared his throat. “There’s no reason to believe that your ship will be attacked.”

“There is every reason to believe that the
Silver Messenger
will be taken! I am a wealthy man. The ship sails with a tremendous cargo. Why, her jewels alone are worth a fortune.” He stared straight at Roc Cameron. Cameron stiffened. The two gentlemen were engaged in a running feud. Roc Cameron’s father and Theo had betrothed their children at birth.

Roc now found such an arrangement barbaric. He preferred to choose his own bride, at his own time. And rumor had reached him, even from England. The girl wanted nothing to do with him. He didn’t consider himself unduly proud, but admittedly, her rumored refusal annoyed him. Still, it made matters easy for him. He had vowed to his father upon his deathbed to uphold his every promise. To keep his honor.

“I’m sure that she will be safe—” Alexander began, trying to mollify Theo.

But Theo would have none of it. He jumped up, staring at Lord Cameron. “Roc, please! Your father was my dearest friend. You can make sure that she is safe! You have friends among the pirates—”

“Friends!” Roc Cameron exploded.

Theo lowered his voice just a shade, clamping his hands together, trying to hide his agitation. “She is my life!” he whispered. “She is all that I have left! I ordered her to return home to marry you! Now she sets sail. All right. You have not friends among the pirates, you have relations—”

“I do not claim pirates as relations!” Roc said firmly. He knew that the lieutenant governor was staring at him, and he cast the man a warning glare, then returned his attention to Kinsdale. “Sir! You would make it sound as if I fraternize with the likes of pirates.”

Governor Spotswood grinned at Roc, sitting back, preparing to enjoy the promised show. Roc Cameron frowned to him darkly but the governor’s grin widened.

“They say,” Theo said, his fists clenched by his side, “they say that the Silver Hawk is a Cameron—”

“He is no Cameron!”

“That the silver eyes give him away. They say, too, that out of some curious respect for the family name, he is willing to negotiate with you. It is rumored that he is quick to seize your
ships, and quick to return them for a reasonable fee. They say that you have some power, that you have even been to that island of his and negotiated with him. By God, Petroc! You must help me!”

Cameron threw up his hands. “So, milord, this pirate comes from some ill-begotten and illegal branch of my family! So he is a bit less willing to cut my throat than yours. What would you have of me?”

Theo was silent for a long moment. Then he drew a scroll from within his pocket. “Marry her. Now.”

“What?” Cameron exploded incredulously.

“Marry my daughter now. Fulfill the vow you made to your father.”

“The girl isn’t even here—”

“I have proxy papers. I acquired them when I was in London.”

“But your daughter—”

Theo waved a hand in the air. “She has signed them. Oh, I grant you, she doesn’t know what she signed, she was arguing with me—speaking with me, that is—about other matters. But it is all well and legal, I assure you. Marry her now—”

“Why?”

“Because the Silver Hawk is your cousin. Because he might find my ship, and my daughter. And even if he does not, many of the others will respect his relationship with you, they will fear what he may do if they seize that particular ship.”

“This is insane!”

“No! Cameron, you do not understand!” The man’s voice trembled, his countenance had gone white with emotion. “It’s the darkness, you see. She cannot stand the darkness.”

Kinsdale was losing his mind.

Roc Cameron wasn’t prone to rudeness, but he threw up his hands, turned around, and started walking down the slope of the estate toward the water. Kinsdale! The man was too much. Roc could not agree to the insanity.

Nearing the bottom of the slope, he turned away, not wanting to see the workers on the docks. He stared down at his ship, the gunned sloop the
Lady Elena
, named for his mother. It would be time to sail again soon. Very soon.

Inhaling sharply, he turned away and strode back toward the eastern side of the house. The outbuildings were there. Neat cottages for the servants, the smokehouse, the kitchen, the stables, the blacksmith’s shop, the cooper’s workhouse, the laundry. Far below them, enveloped by trees, lay the graveyard.

He walked there and paused. His mother and father and an infant child lay closest to the new fence. A hundred years of Camerons lay beyond them.

He walked back to the slate headstones that his father had ordered re-etched just before his death. They belonged to his great-grandparents, Jassy and James. He touched the cool stone and thought of the pair. They had endured. They had come here and created a dynasty, and they had endured. They had braved the Indians and remained despite the annihilating attack of 1622. Their heirs had populated a large part of Virginia. And the Carolinas and New York and the eastern states, he thought with some amusement.

Then his smile faded slightly and he turned around again, leaving the cemetery behind him. He strode back toward the house. Spotswood and Kinsdale were no longer on the porch. He heard their voices coming from the formal dining room. Peter would have seen to it that his guests were fed, he knew.

He hesitated then strode up the wide, sweeping stairway that seemed to climb to lofty heights from the expanse of the hall.

At the top of the stairway was the portrait gallery.

Camerons were always painted. The practice had begun with Jamie and Jassy, and continued to Roc’s mother and father. He passed by his parents’ pictures briefly. They were wonderful portraits. She was beautiful and dark and shyly smiling; he was proud and dignified, and the strange silver color of his eyes had been well captured by the artist. Still, Roc did not pause long. He walked down past his grandparents and great-grandparents. Then he paused, before Jassy Cameron.

She had been a fighter, so he had heard, and the sizzle of fire was captured in her gaze, while laughter was captured upon her lips. She had been a beautiful woman, stunning, and with fine and delicately chiseled features. Her eyes had been
painted so that they seemed to fall upon him. Even as a child, he had often come to the portrait, fascinated by it.

He glanced at Jamie. Lord Cameron. Dignified, proud, young. Roc owed them something. Camerons peopled the New World and the Old, and yet he was the heir to their legacy.

Jassy Cameron’s glance seemed to remind him so.

“All right, milady,” he said softly to the picture, “I have long been a man, and I do realize that three decades is considered a sufficient age. And perhaps my life is haphazard and reckless. But, you see, I’d had in mind to choose the mother of my children myself. This girl could be cross-eyed or quite insane, you know. She could bring in some horrible disease.…”

His words trailed away. His eyes fell over the length of the portrait hall. To every Cameron pictured here, honor had been sacred. He cast his hands upon his hips and walked back to his parents’ pictures. “I am against this, sir. Totally. You taught me to be my own man in all things, but you have left me with this vow! For the record, sir, I am totally against the marriage. But”—he paused—“as you wish it, Father. I will do my very best for her.” He started to walk away, then he turned back, wagging a finger at the portrait. “Sir, I do hope that she is not cross-eyed or hunchbacked!”

He burst into the dining room. Spotswood and Kinsdale were just picking up tender bits of venison. Startled, they looked at Roc.

“Let’s have done with this thing, then,” he told Kinsdale.

Kinsdale leaped to his feet. “Peter, Peter! You must run quickly to the rectory and bring back Reverend Martin. And his daughter, Mary. She may stand for Skye.”

Roc nodded. “Do it, Peter, please. Sir—” he addressed the governor. “You will stand witness to the legality of this rite?”

“If Lord Kinsdale’s papers are in order, and it is your wish.”

“It is my wish,” he said.

The governor sighed, staring at the table. “And it was such a delectable dish!”

In a matter of minutes, the flustered Reverend Martin arrived with his blushing young daughter.

Words were said, and papers were signed and witnessed, and then the deed was done.

Kinsdale was no longer interested in dinner. Indeed, he no longer had a wish to remain. “I intend that everyone shall know that you have wed her, and the Cameron name will keep her safe.”

“Lord Kinsdale—”

Roc tried to stop the man, but Kinsdale was in a hurry, asking Peter to call his coachman and valet so that he might start back, despite the fall of darkness.

“Theo! Listen to me. There are no guarantees upon the open sea! Can’t you see, man—”

His new father-in-law clutched his hands. “Thank you. Thank you! Remember, sir, that she fears the darkness above all else. Keep her from it! I left a locket with her picture in it on the table.” Kinsdale pumped his hand. Lord Cameron escorted his guest to the doorway. His coach, the lanterns swinging from the driver’s canopy, awaited him. “Cameron, I will trust in God Almighty, and in your fine name and honor!”

With that, Kinsdale was gone.

Roc Cameron wandered into the house and into the dining room. Spotswood had sat back down to venison freshly warmed for him.

“Eat up! ’Tis your wedding feast!” Spotswood said, holding the locket in his hands.

Roc Cameron scowled sharply and laughed.

“Don’t you care to see your bride?”

“Is she cross-eyed?”

“No. She is quite beautiful.”

“What can you tell from a tiny portrait?”

Spotswood closed the locket with a snap and pocketed it. He smiled. “I know the lady. I haven’t seen her in years, but the child gave great promise.”

“Wonderful,” Lord Cameron muttered darkly.

“She has a will of steel, my friend. A fine temper to match, and she is bold and quite intelligent and—”

“She will come here and mind her own affairs and that shall be that,” Roc said flatly.

The governor smiled, looking at his plate. “I think not,” he said softly.

“Your pardon, sir?”

“I said, ‘So, it seems that you will sail sooner than expected.’ ”

“Yes, so it seems.” Lord Cameron stood and poured himself a fair measure of whiskey. “To my cousin, Governor! To the Silver Hawk. May we negotiate the very best of terms.”

“To the Silver Hawk.” The governor raised his glass.

Roc Cameron slammed his glass down upon the table and left the room in a controlled fury. Lieutenant Governor Alexander Spotswood lowered his glass more slowly. He pulled the locket from his pocket and snapped it open and smiled down at the delicate and beautiful features that looked his way.

“And to you, Lady—Cameron!” he said softly. “Skye, it will be good to see you home. It will be most intriguing to see the sparks and feathers fly when you meet your new lord. Ah, if I wasn’t the governor, I would set sail myself, for this promises to be high adventure!”

He snapped the locket shut and nearly set it upon the table. After all, Kinsdale had left it for Roc Cameron.

A slow mischievous grin came to his features. He pocketed the locket again. Let him imagine that his bride was slack-jawed and cross-eyed!

His smile faded slowly. Pirates
would
go after Lord Kinsdale’s ship if they heard that she had sailed. She would carry not only his daughter, a valuable hostage, but her personal belongings, and God alone knew what else. Of course, she could cross the ocean unmolested.

She could …

But it was doubtful. The world was indeed in sad shape.

“Pirates!” he swore vehemently.

Indeed, it was sometimes a sorry world. Pirates were plaguing the coast, and a German was sitting upon the throne of England.

He patted his pocket where the locket lay within it. “Take care, milady!” he said softly. “I’m afraid that for you the tempest has already begun.”

I