Of Noble Birth (3 page)

Miss Harper tilted her head in
acknowledgment, but did not speak.

Noticing how drawn she looked, Alexandra
halted her work despite the pressing deadlines. “You’re ailing
again?”

The spinster nodded as she crossed the room
to hang her bonnet and shawl on a hook before settling down at the
large deal table that stood in the center of the floor, surrounded
by seven chairs. The only other furnishings were an old clock, a
coal stove, and two tallow candles.

“What we got?” Miss Harper flexed her
fingers before taking up her thimble and needle.

“Skirts.” Alexandra pointed to a pile of
burgundy velvet in the corner. Skirts were comparatively quick and
easy, so Alexandra had set aside her share for the ill woman.

“Morning,” several soft female voices called
as the other seamstresses entered the room in a knot, and the room
shrank instantly to the stuffy quarters to which they were all well
accustomed. It was barely large enough for its scant furnishings,
let alone the women who had to work in it. But they jostled about
and managed to slip into their seats and position their few
belongings in a relatively short time.

Alexandra worked quietly as the other women
chatted and laughed, her own thoughts returning to the morning’s
episode with Willy. He was getting worse, she realized as anger and
humiliation flooded her senses. Through her early years, she could
have accused her stepfather of nothing beyond indifference. But he
was becoming truly vindictive. She had hoped that his antipathy
would go away. She’d blamed his behavior on the bottle, his bad
knee, his unhappiness since her mother had died. After this
morning, however, she knew such hopes were childish fantasy. He
hated her.

“Another beatin’, Alexandra?”

Alexandra glanced up to see Libby, a
frail-looking widow with five children, focus her all-knowing eyes
her way.

She shook her head.

“Then what?”

The others paused in their stitching to gaze
expectantly at them both.

“Come on, dear, spit it out,” Libby prodded.
“Ye can’t ‘ide it from us. There might not be any telltale scrapes
or bruises this time, but that devil of a man’s done
somethin’.”

Alexandra swallowed against the lump that
swelled in her throat. “I have to get away from him, that’s
all.”

“An’ we’ve been tellin’ ye that for months.
‘E’s not goin’ to get any better, livin’ on the bottle the way ‘e
is,” Libby agreed.

Miss Harper made a
tsk
ing
sound. “I knew Elizabeth. Yer mother
would never ‘old ye to a promise to care for ‘im if ‘e wasn’t
returnin’ the favor. ‘E uses ye to earn ‘is bread, that’s all. An’
abuses ye in the bargain.”

Any mention of her mother evoked a poignant
longing in Alexandra. Everything had been so different when
Elizabeth was alive. Alexandra’s mother had been kind and
beautiful. She’d taught her only child to read and write and speak
like a lady. And when Willy had finally intervened, insisting
Alexandra leave books to the lads, Elizabeth had taught her to sew.
Though they stitched endless hours together, those times had been
nothing like the drudgery of the present. Her mother only picked up
piecework when Willy fell from a ladder at work, badly injuring his
right knee. When he couldn’t stand for any length of time, the mill
let him go, and finding new employment was difficult. But the worst
was yet to come. On the heels of his accident, Elizabeth succumbed
to scarlet fever and died, turning Alexandra’s life upside down.
Without her mother, the pillar of strength who had kept the family
together and reasonably happy, her stepfather was not the same
man.

“He thinks he earns our living by lining up
our accounts,” Alexandra said.

“Any God-fearin’ man wouldn’t be able to
justify takin’ the lion’s share of our meager profits for an ‘our’s
work ‘ere an’ there,” Miss Harper replied.

The others nodded as Libby jammed her needle
into the shirt she was sewing. “‘E ‘eld back ‘alf my pay last week
because Mary Jane got sick an’ I came in a few minutes late,
remember? Someday, I’d like to—”

“We’d all like to take a stick to Willy,”
interrupted Sarah, a young woman trying to earn enough with her
needle to provide for three younger siblings. “But we can ‘andle
‘is miserly ways because ‘e keeps ‘is distance from everythin’ but
our money. That’s not true for Alexandra.”

“Don’t ye ‘ave any relatives who can ‘elp?”
asked Merna, a new hire.

Alexandra bowed closer to her work. “Not
many I know,” she said, not wanting to announce that her mother had
been banished from her wealthy family when she’d found herself
pregnant, at fifteen, by the village baker’s son. Elizabeth had
gone to her young lover, hoping he’d run away with her, but her
father had gotten to him first. For a few pounds and the promise of
his own bakeshop someday, the boy turned his back on Elizabeth. So
she left on her own, made her way to Liverpool, and went to work in
a cloth mill, where she met Willy.

“Willy has family here, but they keep to
themselves. They didn’t like my mother, accused her of thinking
herself above them.”

“If they’re anythin’ like Willy, she
was
above them,” Miss Harper snapped.

Alexandra smiled at the spinster’s
matter-of-fact tone. “I do have an aunt on my mother’s side.”

“The one Willy chased away when she came to
visit?” Libby asked.

With a nod, Alexandra continued, “I hear
from her every once in a while, but not often.”

“Where does she live?” asked Eliza, the
young mother.

“In London right now. I received a letter
not long ago saying her husband, who’s a military man, just
received a post in India. The entire family is moving there—”

“When?” Libby pounced on the question so
quickly, Alexandra paused from her work to look up in surprise.

She did a quick mental computation. “In less
than a week.”

A sparkle entered the widow’s eyes at the
same time a smile curved her cracked lips, and Alexandra began to
shake her head. “No. I know what you’re thinking. I can’t go with
them. I’ve thought of it, and thought, and thought, and I wouldn’t
dare burden Aunt Pauline by foisting myself upon her. Besides, it’s
probably the first place Willy would look—”

“They’re leavin’ the country. Ye just said
so yerself,” Sarah put in.

“And ye could always work,” Miss Harper
added. “Ye could be their servant, or the children’s governess, or
just stay with them for a short while until ye found a post
elsewhere—”

Alexandra held up her hand, trying to get
them to stop because she feared the hope their excitement fostered
in her soul. “And how would I pay for my passage to India? I’ll not
expect my aunt to carry the cost!”

Libby and Miss Harper looked at each other,
then at the others, and soon smiles curled everyone’s lips. “‘Tis
almost noon,” Libby announced as Alexandra became the center of
attention again. “The shirts for Mr. Cophagen are to be delivered
after lunch, less than an ‘our away. Madame Fobart’s skirts are due
shortly after. Payment on such an order would be significant, if ye
get my meanin’.” The widow fell silent, letting the suggestion of
her words hang in the air.

Alexandra’s heart doubled its pace, even
though her head still insisted she could never run to Aunt Pauline.
“I only deliver our completed orders. Willy collects the money. You
all know that.”

“Convince Fobart’s manager that Willy sent
ye to collect for ‘im,” Miss Harper said. “That mother of yers
trained ye well. Ye could pass yerself off as a real lady if ye
wanted to.”

“But Fobart’s manager has seen me dozens of
times. He knows who I am. And I have no time to arrange anything
with my aunt,” Alexandra argued. “She’s leaving in less than a
week. It could easily take a letter longer than that to reach
her.”

“Then ye’ll simply ‘ave to convince Fobart’s
manager that Willy’s ill an’ needs the money. An’ ye’ll ‘ave to
travel directly to London, and catch yer aunt an’ ‘er ‘usband
before they set sail,” Libby replied.

“What better chance ‘ave ye got?” asked Miss
Harper.

A lump of fear congealed in Alexandra’s
stomach because she knew Miss Harper and the others were right.
Aunt Pauline might be her only hope. But what if the manager at
Fobart’s refused her and told Willy what she had done? What if she
didn’t make it to London in time?

She shuddered at the memory of the beating
she’d received the last time she’d gotten the crazy idea to escape
her stepfather, but slowly, she nodded and gave the others a shaky
smile. Though the risks of their plan were great, it offered her a
chance at freedom. A very slim chance. “All right,” she said at
last. “I’ll try it.”

* * *

Nathaniel Kent strode boldly to the bow, his
good arm gripping a rope cable to help him keep his balance on the
heaving deck, the other arm hanging useless at his side. The thrill
of the chase surged through his body, heightening his senses and
causing his heart to pound within his chest. His quarry was close
to surrendering. It had to be. The merchant brig had tried to run,
but there was no escaping the sleek, fast-cutting
Royal Vengeance
, not on a day like this, when the sun
was high in the sky, the water as smooth as satin, and the wind as
steady as a camel plodding through the desert.

Still, Nathaniel wondered why the
Nightingale
didn’t return their fire; he
knew she carried at least four thirty-two-pound cannons.

“What’s going on?” Mystified, he turned to
Trenton, his lanky first mate.

Trenton shrugged. “Damned if I can say. I
know we come as quite a surprise, but even the first ship we took
offered up a better fight than this.”

“Still, I don’t see a white flag.”

“Should we blast ‘em again?”

Nathaniel thought for a moment. “Aye, maybe
a direct hit will convince them.”

The deafening roar of cannon clamored above
the shouts of his men as four twenty-five-pound steel balls plunged
into the sea somewhere near the stern of the
Nightingale,
sending large, drenching sprays of
seawater across her decks. Smoke obscured Nathaniel’s view but soon
cleared, rising like the ascension of a million ghosts.

“We got ‘er!” someone cried.

A chorus of cheers resounded.

Nathaniel glanced back over his shoulder.
His men were busy cleaning cannon muzzles so they could reload. He
doubted such action would be necessary. Since the invention of the
steam engine, pirates were a thing of the past, but the tales of
their bygone era were not forgotten. Any good sailor could recount,
and usually did, at least a dozen hair-raising stories supposedly
experienced by someone in his ancestral tree.

Banking on the fear those tales engendered,
Nathaniel knew it would only be a matter of time before the
Nightingale
surrendered. He smiled,
enjoying the feel of the deck moving beneath his feet, the wind
rushing through his hair, even the smell of battle—especially the
smell of battle, for it brought him that much closer to his
goal.

“There’s the flag,” Richard shouted,
pointing toward the other ship. As unpredictable as a wild boar and
twice as mad, Richard had been a member of Nathaniel’s crew for
less than a year. “We got the bloody bastards!”

Nathaniel turned to look. Sure enough, a
white flag rippled wildly in the afternoon wind, hoisted high on
the brig’s main mast. “Good girl,” he murmured to himself. “Now for
your cargo.”

Moving quickly, he headed to the side of the
ship where his men lowered a boat. He heard it splash in the water
only seconds before he climbed over the side and jumped in. Trenton
stayed behind to take charge of the
Vengeance
, but Richard and Tiny, a man the size of a
bear, came with him.

Nathaniel listened to the rhythmic slap of
the oars hitting the water as Tiny pulled for the other ship. The
whine of voices from the
Nightingale
shifted on the wind. He couldn’t determine the words, but he could
guess that expressions of surprise and dismay were chief among
them.

When they reached her hull, Nathaniel turned
to his men. “Are you ready?”

“I’m as eager as a sailor with his first
woman,” Richard exclaimed. The barrel-chested Tiny merely
nodded.

“Let’s go.”

Nathaniel scaled the rope that dangled to
the water, climbing with the ease and grace that came only from
experience, despite his bad arm. He was the first to stretch his
long legs on deck. Richard and Tiny came behind.

An older man with iron-gray hair and long
sideburns, evidently the captain of the
Nightingale,
separated himself from his crew almost
immediately. He wore a new frock coat, but his face and hands were
as crusty and battered as an old sea chest. “What in damnation do
you think you’re doing, firing on this ship?” he asked.

Nathaniel hesitated before making his reply,
letting silence establish his dominance better than any amount of
talking could ever do.

Evidently the
Nightingale
carried passengers. Trunks, stacked in
front of the artillery in great rows several feet deep, rendered
the cannon useless in an emergency, making it little wonder that
the other ship hadn’t returned the
Vengeance’s
fire.

“I’ll have an answer.”

Turning back, Nathaniel focused on the man
who addressed him. “You’re hardly in a position to make demands,”
he said smoothly, motioning toward the plethora of baggage stowed
in front of the cannons and allowing his lips to curl into a
smile.

The captain’s face reddened. “You’re a fool
if you’re doing what I think you’re doing. There haven’t been
pirates in these waters for nearly thirty years, and for damn good
reason.”