Ransome's Quest (8 page)

The fifth lieutenant scampered up the shrouds to the foremast top, the long handle of the signaling lantern over his shoulder. William forced himself to stand still, though the urge to pace the quarterdeck made his legs twitch.

The other five lieutenants had not the same restraint. Though not all chose to discharge their anxiety through pacing, none stood still.

“Sir, they’re standing down,” Lieutenant Campbell called from the forecastle.

Muscles still as tight as a sail in a stiff wind, William buttoned his coat and donned his hat. “Bring us abreast of the other ship, Master Ingleby.”

From his position at the wheel, the sailing master saluted. “Aye, aye, sir.”

William craned his neck and turned his face toward the foremast top. “Mr. Blakeley, signal to the other ship that their captain is to report to me in person within the hour. Lieutenant O’Rourke.” He waited until his first officer stood beside him. “Stand the men down but keep them on alert until we know precisely who is on the other ship.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” O’Rourke touched the fore tip of his hat and set about implementing William’s order.

Blakeley scuttled down the shrouds and dropped lightly to the deck, signal lantern swinging from his arm. “Commodore, the other ship signaled they received your orders and their captain will comply.”

“Very good. Report to Lieutenant O’Rourke.” William returned to his cabin to prepare it and himself to receive the captain of the other ship. While waiting, he updated the log entry he’d start last night, recording the facts and details of the long night’s vigil while keeping his doubts, misgivings, and fears to himself.

Out on deck the bell chimed, marking six o’clock in the morning. The other captain had but a few minutes to present himself. Shouts from the quarterdeck marked the arrival.

William set his journal by, stood, changed his plain frock coat for the formal one, and stepped into the dining cabin. He went around to stand behind his chair at the head of the table.

The expected knock came. “Enter.”

A man in a post captain’s uniform entered the room and stood at attention. “Captain James—” The man’s voice choked off. “William?”

The familiar voice acted like a sudden wind in the doldrums on William’s soul. He rounded the table to get a better look at the other man. As soon as he did, he grabbed the captain by the shoulders as if afraid he were an apparition that might just as suddenly disappear.

“James! How…? Last I heard, you were on your way to India.”

“I had orders to India, but then the Peace came, and I was reassigned to Jamaica station.” He eyed the gold adornment on William’s jacket. “You seem to have come up in the world since last we met. Commodore? Or did they just skip you ahead to Admiral of the Red? I assume Sir Edward has managed to raise himself into a position to make such a promotion possible.”

William dropped his hands back to his side, surprised by the edge of bitterness in James’s voice. “It is commodore. I have been put in command of a division out of Fort Charles.”

James took a turn about the dining cabin, eyeing each detail with a critical expression. “As Admiral Witherington sent you here, I would imagine you have been tasked with hunting down the few remaining pirates and privateers of these waters.”

“You say that as if it were a bad thing.” William returned to the head of the table. He crossed his arms and watched the other man, trying to see him objectively, as just another fellow officer. “I was given proof less than forty-eight hours after my arrival of how important it is to rid these waters of these desperate and vile criminals.”

James snorted in derision. “Oh yes? Did you witness one of them steal your beloved admiral’s sugar shipment again?”

William worked to keep his anger contained. Why was James behaving thusly? “No. They decided to take Charlotte instead.”

James stilled, all vestiges of cynicism leaving his expression. “Charlotte?”

“Charlotte Ransome. Surely you remember her. After all, she is the only sister we have.”

William’s brother faced him from the opposite end of the table. “Having spent more time at home with our family, I can assure you I know her better than you. How did this happen? What was she doing in Jamaica?”

William pulled out his chair and sank into it. “It was not my choice, believe me. Charlotte, apparently, began a secret correspondence with a young man Mother deemed inappropriate. The young man came to Jamaica to make his fortune working as a steward for a sugar plantation—my wife’s sugar plantation, in fact.”

“Your…wife?” James snorted with laughter. “Now I know you are telling tales.”

Clamping his back teeth together, William tried to maintain a calm countenance. “I have been married these seven weeks.”

James made a derisive sound in the back of his throat. “Who—no, do not tell me. I know already. You married Sir Edward’s daughter. Does the man’s patronage never end? He saw you raised through the ranks faster than any other officer of your age, put you on a third-class ship of the line—the youngest captain to have command of one—assigned you to such actions as would ensure you the quick accumulation of wealth, promoted you to commodore, and gave you his daughter and her inheritance in the bargain—or did he make you his legal heir, as well?”

William stared at his brother. Though the man leaning over the other end of the table resembled William so greatly they could have been twins, he no longer recognized him. Two years younger than William, James had been set up for patronage by their father under another captain their father had served as sailing master. Phillip had been sent to the captain their father served before signing on to the ship that took him away from their family forever. Neither of his brothers’ captains gained wealth, recognition, or promotion as Julia’s father had done; therefore, neither of his brothers had achieved promotion as quickly nor wealth as readily as William.

And that was no fault of William’s. “Yes, I married Julia Witherington. But that is not the issue. The issue is that Charlotte has been taken by pirates.”

“Ah, yes, Charlotte and the secret correspondence.” James straightened and paced the other end of the cabin.

“And she made the ill-judged decision to disguise herself as a midshipman and run away to Jamaica on a ship in the convoy I led here. We learned of her presence only when she fell ill to yellow fever and had to be cared for aboard my ship.”

“You did not put her on the first ship back to England?” James’s voice bounced off the thick oaken joists overhead like thunder. “If she had been in my care—”

“You would have known there was no other course of action to take.” William rose and braced his fists on the tabletop. “Was I to turn her over to a captain I didn’t know, to make the return voyage surrounded by strangers who cared nothing for her virtue or well-being?”

James seemed to contemplate this, and William worked to control his fury. He’d always imagined that his reunion with his brothers once the war ended would be a far more pleasant experience.

“I have contacts in Port Antonio on the northeast point of the island. I will make sail for Fort George and start the search for her there.”

“No.”

“From Fort George, I can go on to Brunswick. Aye, the mayor owes me a favor.”

William straightened. “Captain Ransome, I said no. You are not to divert from your previous orders. I am attending to this matter.”

“She is my sister, Commodore Ransome, and you need all the help you can get. Otherwise, she never would have been taken.”

The temptation to let his boiling anger explode the way his father-in-law did proved almost greater than William could bear, but he mustered all the strength he still possessed to speak calmly. “She may be your sister, but I am your superior officer. If you divert from your commanding officer’s orders, I will have you relieved of command and sent back to Kingston to face a court-martial for mutinous insurrection.”

“You…William, you would do that to your own brother?”

“In this instance I cannot allow our familial bond to sway my command decisions. You are under orders from someone other than me. For me to allow you to join the hunt for Charlotte’s abductors would be no better than if I commandeered your ship. We would both face courts-martial, James. Surely you can see that.” He would not put himself in the same position as Admiral Witherington found himself when he learned his son’s ship had been attacked by pirates and the crew either killed or held for ransom. If Sir Edward had not captured a notorious pirate and several privateers in the futile attempt to save his son, he would have lost everything instead of being promoted to commodore and, three years afterward, knighted for his actions during the war.

James glared at William through narrowed eyes. “Aye, rank, patronage, and promotion were always of greater importance to you than your family.”

William clenched and unclenched his fists. “Leave my ship.”

James slapped his hat onto his head. “Gladly.” The cabin door slammed behind him, and William was fairly certain he heard one of the panes of glass crack in the windows beside the solid door.

His entire body trembled from the effort of containing his anger at his brother. What had happened to make James so bitter, so cynical, so resentful toward William and the blessings Providence—and Sir Edward—had given him?

He took a few deep breaths and returned to the quarterdeck just in time to see the top of his brother’s hat disappear at the accommodation ladder. He turned back to the wheelhouse. “Lieutenant O’Rourke, Master Ingleby, resume course for Port Morant.”

“Aye, aye, Commodore.” The first officer and sailing master immediately set to work—O’Rourke shouting orders to put the crew in motion to stretch canvas and find the wind, and Ingleby to set the heading.

William glanced at the stern of his brother’s ship. HMS
Insolent.
He averted his gaze and refused to look as
Alexandra
pulled away from the thirty-eight gun frigate. A vessel with a more apt name could not have been assigned to James Ransome. William prayed he would not have to follow through on his threats and charge his brother with mutiny. He worried how his mother had endured Charlotte’s disappearance. To have to inform Mother he’d had James arrested and court-martialed would be more than she could bear.

In truth, it would be more than he could bear.

Compared to the plain dress of everyone who lived and worked at Tierra Dulce, Julia felt more out of place now than she had her first weeks in Portsmouth. She smoothed her hands over the green day dress and touched one of the loose, long curls at the nape of her neck. The women of the house, from Jerusha to Julia’s lady’s maid to the chambermaids, had been thrilled at the stack of fashion magazines she’d brought back with her.

Julia would have been much more comfortable in one of her plain cotton work dresses.

She took a deep breath and left the sanctuary of the bedroom for the receiving room, but she stopped in the doorway. Here, Mama had received callers, had pretended she enjoyed the company of the “locals,” as she called them.

Julia grimaced. For the daughter of a baronet who had spent and gambled away his fortune and almost landed his family in the poorhouse, her mother had sometimes thought a little too highly of rank and birth for Julia’s liking. While now wealthy and moving amongst the best society in Jamaica, many of their neighbors had been no better than shopkeepers, farmers, or menial laborers back in England—or younger sons of nobles. The latter had been the families to whom Mama had tried to connect Julia through marriage.

The sounds of a carriage arriving clopped and jangled and rattled through the open windows and doors. Julia steeled herself for a long day.

Though the tedium of telling the same story again and again—of her life in Portsmouth and of marrying William—began to wear as the day dragged by, Julia reveled in the familiar faces and voices of the neighbors she had known most of her life. And her neighbors did not ask much of her. The women wanted to admire her fashionable dress and the beautiful emerald ring William had slipped onto her finger less than two months ago at their wedding, and the men enjoyed Julia’s description of William’s ship and the voyage from England to Jamaica. It rather surprised her that none of her neighbors mentioned Charlotte’s abduction. She hoped the news would stay secret and remain only a family matter. The less known about Charlotte and how she came to be here, the less damage would be done to her reputation.