The Valentine Legacy (33 page)

“Be quiet, Jessie. I'm on the very edge of death. What mystery?”

“You've heard of the lost colony on Roanoke Island, haven't you?”

“Certainly. Sir Walter Raleigh owned the ships and was a major backer of the expedition. He shipped colonists to the Outer Banks, off the coast of North Carolina, to Roanoke Island. It was sometime late in the sixteenth century.”

“Yes, in 1587. There were more than one hundred colonists from England, including women and children. In fact, the first child born on American soil was Virginia Dare, the granddaughter of John White, the leader of the colony. When it was time for Sir Walter to leave Roanoke Island,
the colonists asked that John White return to England and make certain that they weren't forgotten and to see to replenishing their supplies. However, Spain attacked England in 1588 and thus no relief ships ever went to Roanoke Island. White wasn't able to return until 1590. When White and his men landed, there was no one there. Not a single soul. There was no sign of them, not even a trace. There hadn't been a massacre because there would have been bones, debris, wreckage, but there was nothing. The colonists had simply vanished. So what became of the colonists of Roanoke Island? It's been a mystery ever since. Many men have tried to solve it and have come up with outlandish theories.”

“Is this leading somewhere, Jessie?”

“Yes. I'm a woman and I've solved it.”

“What?”

“Well, I really haven't quite solved it just yet and by the time I do solve it, I won't have had to study it as all those poor men have in the past three hundred years. I just have to finish reading Valentine's diary—that's her first name, I suppose, but I'm not really sure. She only ever refers to herself by that single name. Of course we have to find all the diaries first.”

“Who the devil is Valentine? Where did she get that ridiculous name?”

“She was one of the colonists. She is also Blackbeard's great-grandmother. Yes, you heard me right. Evidently she was the one who passed on the habit of recording events in diaries. She was Blackbeard's great-grandmother, so therefore she must have survived and thus it's likely that all the other colonists survived as well. When we find the diaries on Ocracoke, I'll read the rest of her diary and know what happened to the colonists. I'd forgotten about her just as I'd forgotten Blackbeard.

“Her diary won't help us find Blackbeard's treasure. She
died long before he was ever born. But I imagine she can set to rest the mystery of Roanoke Island once and for all. Isn't that exciting, James?”

“I don't believe this. You've had too much sex, Jessie. You're not thinking with your brain, not if you're dredging up this ancient relative of Blackbeard's. You just want me to caress you again and come inside you and make you scream and moan.”

“Well, perhaps you're right about that.” The hussy closed her hand around him and he nearly leaped off the bed.

“Stop that or you'll regret it.”

“Just how will you manage that, James?” She leaned up and kissed his chest.

“I'm so tired I can't make you regret anything right this minute, Jessie, but there's always tomorrow. Actually, there's always two hours from now. I just need a bit of rest, only a small number of minutes. Blackbeard's great-grandmother, you say? This is surely too much. She was a member of the lost colony of Roanoke? You've lost your grip on things, Jessie my girl. You've been off a horse for too long. You've been wearing stockings and lovely gowns for too long. Those streamers have cooked your brain.” There was no answer.

He nearly laughed aloud. Jessie was sound asleep, her fingers still curled around him.

There was no nightmare of Mr. Tom that night. James didn't mention it the next day, and neither did Jessie. Maybe the nightmares were gone for good. Maybe. But James didn't want to take the chance. No, he wanted to go to Ocracoke and he wanted Jessie to see where it had all happened. Then he wanted to find that bloody treasure, like everyone else in his house.

“W
E
'
VE DISCUSSED THIS
thoroughly and come to a decision.”

Neither Marcus nor James looked the least bit surprised at Spears's announcement.

It was Jessie who said, “What is this decision you've come to?”

“Mr. Badger, would you do the telling, if you please?”

Badger handed everyone another of his delicious damson tarts while Sampson poured the port. He cleared his throat and said as he seated himself at the dining-room table, “It's all about this Valentine woman and the lost colony of Roanoke Island. You've added more spice to the stew, Jessie, and we all find this lost-colony business stimulating. Perhaps the stimulation could have come a bit later, but one must continually adapt, and we have.”

“Fancy,” Maggie said as she took a delicate bite of her tart, “a young woman who lived so long ago writing to us across the centuries. And here she is that evil pirate's great-grandmother.”

“That certainly proves the lost colonists survived,” Marcus said. “If this Valentine gave birth and her offspring survived, then others could have survived as well.”

The Duchess's thoughts were more focused on the chair in the parlor she'd pronounced would belong to James—a huge, comfortable winged chair, as ugly as the devil in a
tattered old brocade of pale brown. But her ears pricked at this talk of Ocracoke and a lost colony. “What about Valentine, Badger?”

“Jessie told us that she'd forgotten about Valentine's diary just as she'd forgotten all about Blackbeard's journals. This Old Tom was the one who told her his grandfather had gotten his evil hands on all the diaries. The only reason he'd kept Valentine's diary was because he thought it an oddity, and she was family, after all.”

“That's right,” Jessie said. “Old Tom let me read aloud to him part of Valentine's diary. I know a lot about how the colony lived. I'm certain that what happened to them will be toward the end of the diary. I fancy I could become very famous were I to publish her diary and present my conclusions.”

“We are considering that, Jessie,” Spears said. “It is another stimulating prospect. However, first things first. What we want to do now is journey to the Outer Banks to Ocracoke Island and dig up all the diaries. Then we'll locate that treasure. You can progress with your scholarship, then we will assist you to present it to the world. I fancy all of us are nearly ready to board another ship. It isn't all that long a distance, after all.”

Maggie cheered.

Sampson lightly patted her lovely hand.

Badger said, “I have four more damson tarts. Who would like them?”

“Yes, let's go immediately,” the Duchess said, leaning forward to take one. “Well,” she added with a small frown, “perhaps not tomorrow, but soon. First Jessie and I must order all the furnishings we need for the house. When we return, everything should be about ready. Oh dear, there are the roses to be seen to. I've already asked Thomas to look into finding you a gardener, James. I can't bear to see the
roses so bedraggled and I fear I don't have enough time to work on them myself.”

“Don't worry, Duchess,” Jessie said. “Now that James and I have my dowry, we can hire three gardeners. I will make certain that when you come again to America the gardens will be what you're used to.”

“James,” Marcus said, eyeing the last of Badger's damson tarts, “are we even necessary? Do you get the feeling that we might as well take ourselves back to England? That the ladies can see to these matters all by themselves?”

“James is very necessary to my happiness,” Jessie said, and smiled at James, who seemed startled by her words. Then he gave her a wicked grin.

“My dear Jessie, that's not exactly what I meant, but perhaps that is a consideration.”

“What can I do, Marcus?” James said, snagging the tart before the earl could. “My wife will surely pine away without me if she and the Duchess go off adventuring.”

“We'd never leave you to yourselves. It would be too dangerous,” the Duchess said, leaning forward, her soft white elbows resting on the white tablecloth.

“Do your ordering, Duchess,” James said, “then we'll leave. But first, tomorrow night, we're going to a ball in Jessie's and my honor at the Blanchards', where it all started with Jessie falling out of a tree on top of me, after, of course, she'd shot Mortimer Hackey in the foot.”

“Oh dear,” Jessie said. “Do you think that dreadful man will be there?”

“If he is,” James said, stretching his legs out and crossing his feet at the ankles, that last damson tart chewed and swallowed, “and if he gives me any threatening looks at all, you, my dear wife, can pound him into the Blanchard rosebushes.”

Surprisingly, Jessie didn't laugh with all the others. She nodded solemnly. “Don't worry about Hackey. Surely he's
feared me ever since I shot him in the foot.”

James rolled his eyes.

Spears said, “Quite right, Jessie.”

Marcus said, “I don't suppose, Badger, that you hid just one more damson tart? James has proved himself an unworthy host. He popped that last one into his mouth before I had a chance to snag it for myself.”

Badger, giving Marcus the same fond look he frequently bestowed on Anthony, lifted the corner of a napkin to reveal one last tart.

 

The Blanchards, immensely fond of James but not his mother, and equally fond of Oliver Warfield but not his wife or his daughter Glenda, were perfectly willing to accept Jessie once Mrs. Blanchard saw that she wasn't wearing trousers and smelling of the stables. Indeed, the Blanchards were so relieved to see something of a vision come into their house that Mr. Blanchard ordered more bottles of champagne to be brought up from the wine cellar.

He rubbed his beefy hands together. “Ah, James, she's a fine girl, just look at that beautiful hair. Never noticed she even had hair before. And her, well, her other womanly parts look womanly, which is a vast relief, let me tell you.”

James took it all in good humor, just smiling and nodding.

Mrs. Blanchard wanted to exclaim her delight and her relief, but she was too in awe of the Duchess, this glorious English countess who surely could be a queen—filled with grace and charm and so achingly beautiful she knew all the gentlemen would fall over their feet to get near her. Not to mention that husband of hers—an earl!—and he was actually James's cousin. They'd known about the English Wyndhams, of course, but actually to have them here in their own house in Baltimore—it was more than Mrs. Blanchard could stand, nearly. Her hands were over her bosom as she listened with rapt attention to the Duchess's ever-so-refined
voice, with all those clipped syllables and concise royal vowels. Mrs. Blanchard was filled to overflowing with sublime content, knowing that every matron in Baltimore and its environs would know of her brilliant accomplishment in hosting such fine guests. They'd worship at her feet. Which was of course the real reason they were giving the party for James and his new bride.

Mrs. Blanchard prayed that Wilhelmina Wyndham would be late. Indeed, she sent one brief, heartfelt prayer that Wilhelmina just might sprain her ankle as she stepped into her carriage. Maybe even break it.

No such luck
, she thought, hearing Wilhelmina's ringing voice all the way from the front steps. It appeared she'd arrived at the same time as the Warfields. Surely Glenda wouldn't be with them. Surely.

James wasn't at all surprised to see Glenda standing stiffly beside her mama, wearing a gown that surely showed off too much cleavage. She looked very pretty, if the truth be told, not the kind of pretty that attracted him, for he'd discovered that Jessie's looks appealed to him now. He drew a deep breath, tucked Jessie's cold hand in the crook of his arm, and said, “Good evening, Oliver, Mrs. Warfield, Glenda.”

That was the most optimistic line that came out of his mouth for the next five minutes.

“We are here because your father insisted we come.”

“Actually,” Oliver said under his breath, but not enough under it for everyone present to hear, “I wanted to come alone. I knew I'd have a better time if I came alone.”

“You can come with me, Papa, and have some champagne punch.” Jessie took her father's arm, and the two of them bolted toward the punch bowl. James grinned after her, then watched the Duchess reduce his mother-in-law and sister-in-law to stuttering supplicants. Glenda even curtsied. The Duchess gave her a gentle nod of approval.

It was excellently done. As for Marcus, he took care of James's mother when she swept into the Blanchard house, passing Mrs. Blanchard with a mere nod, heading straight toward the Duchess.

Marcus said to her without pause, “Charm is a very useful tool, if one has sufficient intelligence to realize it. Don't you agree, ma'am?”

Wilhelmina pulled up short, twitching her skirt away from the Duchess, who was standing six feet away from her, and smiled flirtatiously up at the earl. “My dear papa told me that I was endowed with more charm than anyone he knew.”