The Loves of Leopold Singer (29 page)

He’d insisted on yet another silly Greek name. “Penelope’s the name a man holds in his heart when he’s been too long at sea.”

“Not Circe?” She had pouted, hoping to tease him into paying her his old attentions.

“Ah, that name appeals to a different organ!” He’d returned the baby to her cradle and smiled with real delight. Circe had reclaimed him. The old passion was there, she could have sworn it. But when he cupped her breast, a little milk oozed from her nipple and he went limp. She laughed, but he did not. Confusion and anger passed over him, and all the light in his face for her was gone. She lost him to Penelope.

Sande played with his daughter, sang to her, told her tales of dolphins and mermaids, corrupt governors and daring privateers. She seemed touched by magic. The crew swore she was a daughter of Neptune himself. Her hair was the color of corn silk, thick and white with a hint of yellow. Her blue eyes were full of fun. She expected to find the world and every good thing at her feet. Penelope adored her father; she tolerated her mother.

Circe became nothing more than nurse to the captain’s daughter. She took to carrying a blade to punish the grabbing hands, hands that once had not dared. She had gambled her identity on Aristaeus Sande and lost. She couldn’t go home to the father she’d defied.

The Kingston mailbag had just arrived, and one of the less odious crewmen handed her a three-year-old letter from Philomela. It had been lost in transit, which could explain why their correspondence had ended. Philly must have been waiting for an answer all this time.

As Circe opened the letter, she spotted Aristaeus in the jollyboat returning from the
Syren
anchored across the harbor. She kept track of his progress as she read.

As Circe expected, the letter contained no greeting Aristaeus. Philly had hated him from the beginning, but then she hated all men. There was no plea for Circe’s return. Rather, it was a litany of Philly’s sufferings. Their sister Daphne had been ill and Philly had gone to Ireland but was too late. Everyone in the household, including Daphne and her husband, had died.

And there was fresh humiliation, the strong insinuation that Aristaeus had seduced Philly as he’d wooed Circe.
Surely, I need not draw you a picture.

Circe glared at Aristaeus. She’d like to convince some voodoo woman to lay a hex on him. But hold! There was another bit of news, great news that made the rest like nothing:
 
Lord Branch was dead. Circe let out a joyful yelp. She could go home!

But as she read on her hand trembled and the rage of blood pounded in her ears. “Never!” She paced the deck, groaning, and the men exchanged knowing looks about the captain’s crazy wife. According to Philomela, Gohrum had petitioned the crown, and she was already made baroness in her own right:

Poor Daphne is dead, and we cannot know if you will ever return to England. The title is called out of abeyance in my favor.

This was an outrage. Circe was the rightful Lady Branch, and Penelope absolutely the heir apparent. She had to get back to England.

The jollyboat pulled alongside the
Circe
. Aristaeus looked furious and the men were quiet. Penelope was perched on his shoulders in sky-blue silk trousers and a vest of the same material over a canary yellow blouse. With her wild hair she could be a djinn from an oriental tale. Surely it was Circe’s duty as her mother to get her into proper clothes and back to England to claim her rights—and prevent her growing up a savage.

The girl scrambled down to her father’s lap. The men looked everywhere else, each hoping the child’s magic would work now, but she ignored Sande and reached out to the young man seated beside them.

Circe had seen the boy before, James, maybe seventeen years old. Sande told a ridiculous story that James was a kind of genius with sums. He wore a large, cut gold hoop in his ear that sparkled against his dark skin. Penelope fingered the earring and the dull silver charm he wore on a leather cord around his neck. She touched his cheek and gave him her most disarming look, the one that said, “I am the princess who deigns to pay you attention. Are you not pleased?” He returned a brilliant smile, equally self-confident.

Penelope spied Circe. “Look, mama!” She stretched her little hand over James’s head. “I am tall!”

“Yes, dearest; you are so tall!”

She was a sweet girl. Her brows came together in concentration as she looked past her mother to the ship’s bow. Circe followed the child’s gaze and sighed in disgust. When Aristaeus renamed the sloop for her, it had seemed clever, even hilarious, to model the bare-breasted figurehead’s face after her own. Now, it was just another humiliation.

She had ruined her life. She, who should be Baroness Branch, had calluses on her feet and had to bolt her cabin against her husband’s men. But she could save her daughter. She went to her berth and tucked Philomela’s letter into a nook Aristaeus knew nothing about. No one would miss her, but she’d have to be clever to get away with Penelope. She’d sleep a while and plot her departure later, when she was thinking clearly.

-oOo-

The
Circe
was at sea, the half moon rising as the stars came out. Captain Sande stared at the orange rim of the horizon. He was still fuming over what he’d learned today. His favorite frigate the
Maenad
had been taken as a prize by the British and sold in London—and to Gohrum of all people. It never would have happened had the colonies not rebelled against the crown; but since Sande now carried letters of marque from the United States, he could hardly petition the British for the
Maenad’s
return.

The new country had a mere thirty-one vessels, hardly a navy. They were eager to supplement with privateers, and Sande had letters for all six of his ships—five now. The letters of marque were just a precaution; events could lead to all sorts of things, and the letters would save him from piracy charges if he took a British vessel.

Now, by God, he would take a frigate to replace the
Maenad
, whether the East India Company or the British Navy liked it or no, damn them. It was a matter business as well as honor. No one should lightly attack anything belonging to Aristaeus Sande.

He’d acquire more ships and quit the Mediterranean altogether. The Barbary Mohametans were too violent, and they liked to take Americans for hostages and slaves. Without the British Navy as protector, the risk of Tripoli was too great. It would be safer and more profitable to run gunpowder and rum in and out of the blockaded colonies. A man could grow rich as Croesus off the war and remain on this side of the world all the while.

Kingston would no longer do, though, now that the British were seizing American ships. He would remove to Orangetown at St. Eustatius.

That damned Gohrum. He and his Austrian partner, Augustin Singer, had taken possession of the
Maenad
for a mere two thousand pounds. Her present cargo alone was worth as much, figs and capers and raisins and painted silk. Blast.

At first, Sande had suspected Lord Branch put the idea in Gohrum’s head to take the ship, but that couldn’t be. The
Syren’s
captain had it from England that Branch was dead these three years. Sande hadn’t told Circe. The news might drive her even more out of her mind.

But as Branch wasn’t involved, the next likelihood was the East India Company had influenced the sale in Gohrum’s favor. The Company wanted to protect their charter and their exemption from the tea tax—the very exemption that had finally pushed the colonies to rebel against their sovereign. What could be a better business move? Put a profitable ship in the way of a man with the king’s ear and, as important, influence at Lords.

He’d curse the frigate now, if it didn’t feel like bad luck to do it. The
Maenad
was a beauty and well-fitted-out. She could carry fifty guns, but only had forty. Her captain reasoned better forty smart guns and more room for cargo than the weight of fifty brutes and the powder and men they cost to operate. Sande had liked the idea and reduced the number of guns on all his ships. Well, the gods had had their joke. Sande had got Circe from Branch and lost the
Maenad
to Gohrum.

Enough. He let it go, for now, and set his mind instead on the moonlight dancing on the waves. The
Circe
dipped and surged through the dark water. He relaxed and looked to the future. He was glad James had come along this time. He had taken James under his wing to curry favor with the lad’s father, a priest of Voudon with a reputation in the islands, but James’s education had proved a good investment too.

James had a thorough knowledge of figures. He’d already added to Sande’s fortune just by putting the wealth he’d accumulated to work in investments and earning percents. He was remarkable, and only seventeen years old. Perhaps the two of them would visit Eugenie when they put in to Orangetown.

“This must end, Aristaeus!”

Blast. His daft wife had come on deck, barefoot and wearing nothing but a torn shift, her dark hair loose and uncombed. She was becoming more than an irritation. She was an embarrassment. Why some night could she not just go over the side?
 

“See how you move me.” He kept his back to her.

“I will not have it.” She stepped in front of him. “I’m your wife.”

“You’re my misery.”

“I’m the daughter of a baron.”

“You’re nothing. I keep you for Penelope’s sake.” He stared hard at her. “But I wonder if that is wise. Lately you’ve been more than a little upset. Are you becoming a danger to my child?”

“So you’ll get rid of me, just like your father got rid of Eugenie.”

“You will not speak of my mother.” Where had the temptress gone? Had she been an illusion all along? How could this sorry, dark thing have produced his magical golden child?

“Listen to me,” she said. “I am leaving you at the next port and taking Penelope back to England. Back to civilization.”

“You whore.” He grabbed her arm. “You’ll never take my child from me.”

“Papa!” They had disturbed Penelope. She came running to him, and he released Circe so he could lift his daughter.

“It’s all right, my darling. Everything is all right.”

Circe exploded. “Ah, you American, you pirate! You stole my youth, my life. Even our daughter’s love, you take all for yourself.” She ran at him. There was a flash of metal, and she tore Penelope from his arms. He gasped and clutched his leg where blood spurted out of his thigh, and Circe’s dagger clattered to the deck. She twisted away from him, and scrambled up onto the rail, clutching Penelope. The weight of the squirming three-year-old unbalanced her, and they both went over the side.

“Penelope!” Sande tried to move, but his leg gave way. A shadow flew by, and another body hit the water. “Man overboard!” Sande cried, but the crew was already at work. With the day’s last light slipping away, they threw a boat over and began to bring the sloop around. After an eternity, they hauled out of the water a dark young man with a gold hoop in his ear and a little girl clinging to his neck.

“James, you have saved my daughter!” Sande took the precious drenched bundle into one arm, and threw the other around James.

Penelope touched James’ cheek as he had touched hers that afternoon. “James, you have saved me,” she said in her child’s lisp. Aristaeus saw the bond form between the two, and he was glad.

“I’m sorry, Aristaeus,” James said. “I fear your lady is lost.”

“Don’t torment yourself,” Sande said. “She was lost a long time ago.”

He called the crew together and spoke a few words to commend his lost wife to the deep. He didn’t want the madwoman haunting his ship. In the morning he searched Circe’s quarters, kept her jewels for Penelope, and ordered the rest of her things thrown over the side. In the secret hiding nook he found Philomela Asher’s letter. Ordinarily he would have tossed it with the detritus, but on the chance he could use it against Gohrum, he opened it.

“So Philomela’s got the estate and title,” he said aloud as he read. No wonder the letter drove Circe mad. “Hold, what’s this?” He reread a sentence and counted nine months to be sure.

“Hold, what’s this?” Penelope repeated, sitting cross-legged at Aristaeus’s feet. She’d made a coronet of a string of sapphires.

Aristaeus could read between the lines. He could put together two and two. He said, “It would seem, my princess, that you have a bastard brother in this world.” She was too young to understand him. “Carey Asher.” He folded the letter neatly and locked it away in the box that held his letters of marque.

He moved James into the berth nearest Circe’s—now Penelope’s—quarters. The boy’s father was a priest of Voudon, and it pleased the men to think the
ghede loa
would keep the drowned woman’s shade away. Penelope called him Uncle James. She followed him everywhere and cried tragically if he left the ship without her.

1809, Jamaica – 33 years later.

Penelope Sande held a decidedly low opinion of marriage. Her father was a rich man and practically an outlaw. She had no reputation to protect and no society to please. At thirty-six, she was a wickedly happy old maid. One day, for some unknowable reason, something changed. She was at a usual place at a usual time doing a usual thing. There was a man, no different from any other man. But he looked at her in a way that pierced her façade and touched her heart, and she wanted his ring on her finger.