The Rebel Pirate (27 page)

“I received a message this afternoon.”

“Thank God. Where is he?”

“With Sparhawk,” she said.

Trent’s expression darkened. “Sarah, Ned cannot remain with Sparhawk. This man is a fugitive. He presumed upon your obligation to him and embroiled you in his escape. With Ned in his power, he can prevail upon you again. You are already a hairbreadth from the gallows. Further association with this man could hang you.”

“He will not prevail upon me again. He is in love with me. And he is your son.”

Trent became perfectly still. The clock in the hall chimed. A carriage passed in the street. The silence in the room stretched. Finally, he leaned forward and said in a low, deadly voice, “Who told you this?”

Her mouth felt dry. She had not been afraid to broach the topic, but she was afraid now. “Sparhawk did,” she said, summoning her voice and her courage. “He says he was born on Nevis, to your first wife, and he believes you have done him a terrible wrong.”

Trent considered, then sat back and smiled. “He is an imposter. My son is dead.”

His certainty was chilling. Sparhawk had warned her that Trent would kill to protect his secret. She had not taken the threat seriously until now; she found that she was too frightened to press his claims of murder and imprisonment. “There is a resemblance,” she said.

“No doubt. Most, though certainly not all, of the imposters who have attempted to blackmail me have held claim to a passing resemblance, but dark hair is not so very uncommon, and it is no secret that I searched for two years for the child of my first marriage, who I believed, wrongly, had died on Nevis. What is less well-known is that I found him.”

Her stomach churned. “Where?” she asked.

“Buried. At Portsmouth.”

It did not
directly
contradict Sparhawk’s story. “As he tells it, that is the grave of the real James Sparhawk, the midshipman whose identity your son took.”

Trent smiled again, but it was a cold expression, with no light in his eyes. “That is a very clever twist on an old refrain. I give the boy credit. But I can assure you, Sarah, that he is not my son, and any congress you have had with him will be no impediment to our marriage.”

“But the fact that I love him will be.”

A muscle in Trent’s jaw twitched. “This man is a known rake and seducer, Sarah. He has deceived you.”

“He says much the same about you.”

“No doubt he would. The tricks men play on gullible women, the tricks
I
once played, have changed little over the years. You are young and have led a sheltered life in a small port—”

“Until Wild jilted me, and the navy tried to press my brother, and the mob burned my house down. I am not a child, and I have not been gullible for a long time. I cannot marry you, Anthony, because even if you are right and I am wrong,
I
believe
Sparhawk is your son, and he has been my lover.”

“What,” said Trent, “must I do to prove to you this man is a liar?”

If she was right she could restore Sparhawk to his father, heal wounds that went deeper than the scars on his back, and enlist a powerful ally to fight with them against Admiral Graves. “This parson who is to marry us, do you trust him?” she asked.

Trent considered. “For many years after my wife died, I paid Reverend Edwards the rent from the living at Polkerris. He stopped accepting it around the time of the business with the tea, out of conscience. He is honest to a fault. I do trust him.”

“And do you believe he would recognize your son?”

“Tristan is dead,” said Trent. She had never heard his name before, thought it might have suited the boy she imagined James Sparhawk had once been, but found it hard to reconcile with the man.

“But if the Reverend Edwards declared James Sparhawk your son, then you would accept him as well?”

The muscle in Trent’s jaw twitched again. “Yes.”

If she was wrong, she was placing herself in the power of a murderer. She had to take the risk. “Then you must meet with him,” she said. “You must do it, for me.”

The muscle in Trent’s jaw twitched again. His answer was long in coming. But at last, he replied simply, “Yes.”

•   •   •

Sparhawk pondered his choices. He had spent years assembling the evidence of his identity, planning his revenge against Trent. He might, even now, if he took the
Sally
to Lisbon for Angela Ferrers, be able to clear his name with the Admiralty and pursue his long-held goal.

If he left Sarah to Trent’s mercy.

He could not do it. He had to get her away from the bastard and take the surest route to keeping her safe: killing Trent. He now knew he could not call upon the Wards for help spiriting her off. If he brought Sarah Ward aboard the
Sally
, Mr. Cheap and Benji would simply release her again. Not even Ned had been willing to join in his plan.

That left him only one option. Taking her and holding her somewhere long enough to execute his father. Public vindication was vanity, and Sarah’s life was more important than Sparhawk’s reputation.

The cook, he suspected, would not like it, but she had been hired to manage house in a love nest and would be used to exercising discretion. Money, no doubt, would help. He had brought a length of soft rope. Though he shrank from the idea of binding and gagging her, he did not know any other way to hold her silent and secure in a neighborhood like the North End.

He arrived early, at dusk, to the meeting she had set with him, and used his own keys to let himself quietly into that snug little house. The sand had been spread once more over the floors and brushed into chevron rows. He had not seen it from the street because the shutters were closed, but a light already burned under the door to the parlor.

He lifted the latch and pushed the door open. Sarah Ward was seated on the daybed where Joseph Warren had extracted the bullet from her brother’s belly. She held a pistol in her hand, and she was aiming it at Sparhawk.

“Come in and shut the door,” she said. She did nothing so foolish as gesture with her pistol. Someone had taught her well.

“I’m not convinced you will shoot me,” he risked saying.

“Nor am I,” she replied. “That is why I invited Mr. Cheap.”

The Wards’ worthy sailing master stepped out from behind the door. He had a long blade in his hand, and Sparhawk had no doubt whatsoever that he would use it.

“Empty your pockets,” said Cheap. “Onto the table.”

He did. Out came the pistol, a necessity for a wanted man, the knife, a practicality, and the soft rope, which was damning evidence of his intentions.

“Very nice,” said Mr. Cheap. “We brought hemp cord for you.”

“I was going to keep you here for your own good,” said Sparhawk to Sarah as Mr. Cheap lashed him to one of the room’s ladder-back chairs.

“You were going to keep me here because you love me,” she said.

“I believe that is my cue to exit,” said Mr. Cheap. “I shall be in the Green Dragon Tavern.”

“Thank you for saving Ned,” said Sarah Ward.

“I suppose you came early and suborned my servants,” said Sparhawk.

“They’re my servants, in point of fact. You put the house in my name and paid them a year’s wages in advance.”

“I did, didn’t I? What happens now?”

“We come to an agreement and I set you free, or we fail to come to an agreement, and I hold you here indefinitely.”

“I will never agree to let you marry Trent,” he said.

“I don’t want to marry Trent.”

“Because you know he is a monster.”

“No, because I am in love with his son.”

No glib response rose to his tongue. He had heard sacred oaths and slavish endearments from women in the throes of passion, but in fifteen years, no woman had said she loved him. All at once the ropes and his chest felt too tight. A sense of worth filled him. Sarah Ward loved him. She was remarkable. Brave and loyal. And she did not bestow her affection lightly. If a woman like this could love him, his father’s scorn and Slough’s abuse no longer mattered. Together, they could remake the world, start a new and better family, one in the mold of Sarah’s roguish clan of pirates, where treachery like Trent’s was unthinkable.

He was afraid, just yet, to believe it. “I thought you had sworn off such declarations.”

“I find them easier to make with a pistol in hand. I love you. That is why I am offering you the chance to prove your identity, and to find out the truth about your father. The parson you are searching for, the one who married your parents, who was living on the island when you were abducted and your mother was arrested, is a cleric at the college in Cambridge. He will be at Three Cranes on Saturday. Trent believes he will declare you a liar and imposter. I know you are not.”

She placed the pistol on the table alongside his weapons and bent to kiss him. It was a light peck on the cheek, but more sensual than he expected. He could not move at all, and his predicament focused all his attention on the smooth skin of her lips, the soft velvet of her cheek brushing his, the warm caress of her breath in his ear.

He hardened instantly, like a randy boy, and strained against his ropes, the chair groaning in protest.

She drew back and looked at him, understanding lighting her loved features. A sly smile spread across her face and she kissed him again. This time she peeled back his neck cloth and brushed her lips against the hollow of his throat, her tongue flicking out, warm and wet, to taste him.

He groaned as loudly as the chair. “Untie me,” he said.

“That was supposed to be my line.”

She straddled his lap, resting her weight on his thighs. Her hands slipped into his coat pockets, drawing out the items Cheap had deemed harmless and unworthy of confiscation: a boat whistle, a slab of candy he had bought for Ned, the letter she had written him setting this assignation. She tossed them on the floor and slipped her hand, fiery hot, down his breeches.

And stroked.

There was too much clothing between them. Waistcoats and petticoats and stays and his velvet coat and her cotton round gown all separating him from the sweet spot at the juncture of her thighs.

“Please,” he begged, though he wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted her to do.

She worked him with her right hand in the tight confines of his breeches until there was barely room to move, and then she popped his buttons with her left.

He sprang free, and she left off stroking him to push his coat down his shoulders, unlace his cravat, untie his shirt, unbutton his waistcoat, and bare him neck to navel. She ran her hands over his chest, tweaking his flat nipples and pressing wet open kisses over his collarbone.

It was too much and not enough all at once.

And wicked thing that she was, she knew it. She leaned back and untied the sash that held her round gown closed, and began gathering her skirts up, instinctively coy as the most experienced demirep. He swallowed hard when her pale thighs and pink center came into sight and then watched with fascination as she held her skirts aloft like a curtain at the theater and engulfed him with her sweet flesh.

She rode him, holding up her gown so that he could see their connection. He could not tear his eyes away until her cries became urgent and then he wanted to watch her face, as he had been too consumed to do the last time.

“Sarah,” he begged, “let me free. Let me touch you.”

She shook her head. “Later.”

Later she did let him touch her, after she had convulsed and cried out and helped him, with her hand, to his own conclusion. Then she had cut his bonds, and they lay tangled in each other’s arms on the narrow daybed.

“If I’m right about my father,” he said, stroking her silky blond hair, “will you come away from the Three Cranes with me?”

“Where will we go?” she asked.

“I don’t know. England if I can get the evidence against the admiral from Angela Ferrers. The Dutch free ports if I cannot.”

“And your inheritance? Trent’s money? The title?”

“I have never desired them for their own sake, only as a means of obtaining justice. Say you love me again.”

“Pass me the pistol.”

“I have a better idea.”

Sarah saw little of Trent that week. The burning of the
Diana
was taken by the admiral as a personal affront, and he had every available officer scouring the harbor in whatever craft he could lay hands on. He issued general passes for fishing boats to land their catch in Boston Harbor, and then confiscated any vessel foolish enough to accept the invitation and pressed it into service patrolling the channels.

In the mornings Sarah sat with her father in his study while he worked on the model of the
Sally
. In the afternoon she made visits and received callers. She accepted an invitation to tea at Province House from Mrs. Gage, and when she arrived was surprised to discover a large gathering. Lady Frankland was there in the long, cool room with the Dutch tiled fireplace, along with the panniered ladies and several women Sarah had never met.

Margaret Gage showed herself a skilled hostess and
raconteuse
when she regaled the company with the tale of her abduction by whaleboat pirates. She made certain to refer to Sparhawk by name, and when prompted, related the story of that naval officer’s fall from grace. It was an almost irresistible fiction: the rakish young man lured by a Rebel seductress and the glitter of gold, stealing the navy’s hard-won prize and burying it in a secluded cove. That Sparhawk and the American jezebel had made love atop the mound of riches was a particularly nice touch.

If she still thought of herself as Micah Wild’s jilted lover, used goods, she might have found the notion of herself as the Rebel seductress uncomfortable, but considering her recent night with Sparhawk, and remembering how she had ridden him to completion in the parlor and then later again upstairs, she decided with some amusement that the tale might have a little truth in it after all.

Then Saturday arrived and Trent’s carriage was waiting and Sarah knew a moment of real trepidation. She had not left Boston, save for the whaleboat trip to Noddle’s Island, in more than a month. If the parson of Sparhawk’s youth confirmed his identity and Trent’s treachery, she would go away with James and become his mistress, embark on an uncertain future with Sparhawk’s affection her only fixed star.

But if the parson proved him an imposter as Trent expected, she would have to make a decision. To tether herself to a man she could never be sure of and run from the danger Graves represented, or take Trent’s offer of safe harbor and allow the parson to marry them, putting her forever beyond the admiral’s reach.

There was no one on the causeway this time. Their carriage rumbled out of the gates on the neck unimpeded. The Loyalists in town had persuaded General Gage to stop issuing any passes at all. They feared that if all the Rebels fled and only the friends of government remained in town, there would be nothing to stop the Americans from putting Boston to the torch—nothing, reflected Sarah, but the fact that they were Americans and Boston was their city. That the Loyalists could contemplate the burning of the place meant to Sarah that they did not think of themselves as Americans at all.

Charlestown was more deserted than the last time she had seen it. Homes were empty and boarded up, and many showed obvious signs of looting. Someone had taken it in mind to steal most of the copper drainpipes on one street. A house with particularly large fine windows showed only empty sockets to the street, the sashes removed and curtains left fluttering in the breeze. Only a few businesses hard by the water still plied their trade.

The Three Cranes put on a brave front amidst the squalor, as though the farther Mrs. Brown’s fortunes fell—runaway husbands, pregnant maids, and looting notwithstanding—the harder she clung to her livelihood. The yard out front had been swept clean. Too many shutters, it seemed, had been damaged to present an orderly façade to the street, so all had been removed. Inside, the floors were sanded, the curtains washed and mended, the bar freshly scrubbed.

It made no difference. The taproom where Sarah had tried to pick the fusilier’s pocket and Trent had come to her rescue was empty. Mrs. Brown greeted them warily and led them up to the private room Trent had requested. It was not the spacious chamber he had spoken for Sarah the night they met, nor was it the well-appointed suite where her father and Ned had slept. This was a mean little room with no fireplace and a low, bare timbered ceiling at the back of the house. The stuffy garret had only one window, no connecting door, and nothing but rushlights on the table.

The choice surprised her, and it must have shown on her face, because Trent said, “This is a private matter. Hardly something one discusses in a taproom.”

And a more comfortably appointed chamber, she thought to herself, settling on a loose and sagging chair, would have implied some measure of respect for their guest.

Trent took up a pose beside the window. The frayed rush seat prickled through her silk petticoat. Fortunately they did not have to wait long. There was a scratch at the door. Then the latch rose and James Sparhawk entered. She had not seen him for a week, but the way her spirit lifted to be near him, she knew that whatever happened in this room tonight, she would leave with him.

He was not dressed as the splendid naval officer of the
Wasp
and
Hephaestion
, nor the raffish blade of Salem and Noddle’s Island. Tonight he wore a simple suit of black silk with narrow tailored sleeves over an equally subdued waistcoat subtly embroidered, white on white. His stockings were fine and new, his shoes polished, the buckles plain but good silver. His hair was brushed and queued in a faille ribbon. It gave him the air of a scholar or a jurist, and for the first time she wondered what James Sparhawk might have become if he had not been pressed into the navy. Only the practical sword at his hip with its well-worn scabbard betrayed him as a military man.

Anthony Trent stood up and scrutinized Sarah’s lover. Trent’s face took on a quizzical aspect. “I commend you, sir,” said the cold, distant Trent, who had faced down the fusiliers in the taproom. “It is a far better impression of my youthful self than I am usually treated to.”

“You can be forgiven for thinking me dead,” said Sparhawk balefully, “since you paid good money to have me killed.”

Trent put his hands together and clapped slowly. “Righteous indignation, worthy of the theater. You are a veritable Garrick, but your flair for blackmail is sadly lacking. When a man is about to marry, you threaten him, not his new bride, with revelations about his dark past. I have dealt leniently with others who sought to traffic in my secrets, but your deviltry has endangered Sarah. That I cannot forgive.”

Trent drew his sword.

“Anthony,” said Sarah.

“Go downstairs and wait with Mrs. Brown,” he said coolly. He had spoken to her, but his eyes were fixed on Sparhawk.

Sparhawk drew his own blade and looked left and right. “We should leave Sarah up here and take this downstairs where there is more room.”

“No need. I have more than sufficient scope to kill you,” said Trent pleasantly, and lunged.

His reputation as a duelist had not been exaggerated. Trent moved in a straight line, and there was nothing that Sarah could see that telegraphed his intentions, just the point of his sword flying toward Sparhawk, who, damn him, still had his eyes on her.

Sparhawk danced right just in time, in a circular path, and Sarah dove into the corner to get out of his way.

Trent retreated, his sword held casually. He cocked his head to study Sparhawk’s posture. She saw what Trent saw. James held his sword high, his body in profile.

Trent looked intrigued, and as though testing a theory, he darted forward once more with a savage thrust. Sparhawk’s body continued to move in a circle, but his blade remained in the path of Trent’s and met it. Sparhawk twisted, and the strongest part of his blade kissed the weakest span of Trent’s. With a movement that began in his shoulder and rippled down his arm, Sparhawk used his leverage to bind and deflect Trent’s blade. The maneuver laid the older man’s right thigh open, for a fleeting moment, to a riposte, but Sparhawk either failed to see, or to capitalize on, the opportunity.

Surprised but undeterred, Trent disengaged, then lunged again. Sparhawk moved in an arc once more, neat as a figure in a mechanical clock, but the irregular shape of the room hampered him, and this time Trent’s blade scored his shoulder and came away bloody.

A terrible suspicion stole over Sarah. Sparhawk was not the swordsman Trent was.

She had watched her brother practice when they were teens. He had sparred often against Mr. Cheap, who fought with terrifying strength but no finesse at all, and against Micah Wild, who had the best fencing master money could buy. She recognized real skill when she saw it, such as Micah had acquired from his paid tutors, and Benji had taught himself by observing Micah.

She watched, heart in her throat, these two men fence now, and her suspicion grew into certainty.