The “Gentleman Pirate” . . . a retired British
army major with a large sugar plantation in Barbados,
abandoned his wife, children, land and fortune; bought
a ship; and turned to piracy on the high seas.

—Amy Crawford, Smithsonian magazine

Chapter 4

Nathaniel Aaron Upchurch spent two restless nights in his family’s London residence after his appearance at the ball. He did not see his brother at all the first day. Lewis slept in very late and then had left for his club while Nathaniel met with the family’s London banker. He supposed his brother was avoiding him after their fight.

In Lewis’s absence, Nathaniel began taking stock of the situation—gathering unpaid bills and paying the permanent staff as well as the valet and coachman who had come up from Maidstone to help run the place. All the while his sister remained in Fairbourne Hall, necessitating the upkeep of both houses simultaneously, further compounding their expenses.

Lewis sauntered down for breakfast late the second morning, sporting a black eye and bruised cheek. “I say, Nate ol’ boy, you made quite an entrance the other night.”

Nathaniel regarded his brother warily, but Lewis’s tone held no rancor. Nathaniel regretted losing his temper, overtired from the journey as he was. He was determined not to do so again.

Lewis sized him up, surveying him from head to toe. Nathaniel became conscious of the fact that he had yet to shave his beard or cut his hair.

“My, my,” Lewis drawled. “Who, I wonder, is this rogue before me and what has happened to my young pup of a brother?”

“Two years in Barbados happened.”

“The island did not have such an effect on me.”

Unfortunately, Nathaniel thought. But he said, “I am sorry we came to blows at the ball.”

“I am not.” Lewis smirked. “We shall be the talk of town for a week.”

Nathaniel said dryly, “Or until the next scandal erupts.”

Lewis helped himself to coffee with several lumps of sugar—sugar grown in Barbados, though refined there in England. Nathaniel took his coffee—without sugar—and settled himself at the small desk in the breakfast room. He placed his spectacles on his nose and continued inscribing the outstanding debts into a ledger. He ought to have brought Hudson to do this, but the man had insisted on staying aboard the Ecclesia to keep watch, since Nathaniel had given the crew three-days leave.

Lewis turned from the sideboard and laughed. “Now there is the brother I remember. Nose in a book and wearing unfashionable spectacles.”

Nathaniel ignored the jab. “Were you ever going to pay these bills?”

“Me? Is that not why we have staff?”

Nathaniel clenched his jaw. “You tell me. I see that you have hired another French chef but no clerk or secretary.”

Lewis popped a hunk of sausage into his mouth and spoke around the bite. “Monsieur Fournier preferred to stay at Fairbourne Hall, and I could not leave Helen in the lurch, could I?”

“That is exactly what you have done.”

“The season is almost over, ol’ boy,” Lewis soothed. “Then I shall tuck tail and go home like a dutiful spaniel, ey? But to insist I leave London now? Especially now that you are returned? You cannot be so cruel.” Lewis rubbed his bruised jaw. “Though after meeting with your fists, I am not so certain.”

Nathaniel noticed that Lewis did not bring up the reasons for his return. He knew their father had written to Lewis about it, but he was relieved not to have to rehash it all again.

After breakfast Nathaniel spent several more hours meeting with tradesmen and bringing accounts up to snuff. Then he allowed Lewis’s valet to cut his hair and give him a better shave than he’d had in months. Finally, Nathaniel felt ready to return to his ship, collect Hudson and the rest of his belongings, and set off for Maidstone.

Nathaniel left the coachman and fashionable barouche with Lewis and insisted on driving the old traveling chariot himself—to the coachman’s horror. Nathaniel would have settled for horseback or a small curricle, but he had quite a bit of cargo to unload and transport to Fairbourne Hall before the captain and crew departed for Barbados without him.

He enjoyed handling the reins, though the boxy enclosed carriage and team did not handle as well as the small trap and spirited mare he had driven around the island.

He pulled up the collar of his greatcoat and pulled down his hat, ignoring the disapproving look of an old dowager-neighbor, stunned to see him playing coachman. No doubt he had just given the gossips more reason to denounce him as uncivilized.

He drove his customary route to the Port of London and, when he arrived, hopped down and tied the horses near the Legal Quays. He turned toward the river and stopped, staring in disbelief. Flames shot up from the Ecclesia and smoke billowed. God have mercy. What next?

He began running while these thoughts still echoed in his mind, his boots thumping against the wooden planking in time with his heart. Beside the three-masted merchantman, a dinghy floated. Several men waited at the oars, ready to make their escape. This was no accident, then, but an intentional attack. Where was Hudson? Almighty God, please spare Hudson.

Nathaniel ran up the gangplank, heedless of the flames and smoke. If only he had retained a skeleton crew. Where were the river police? They were supposed to patrol against cargo theft and vandalism. Had a port worker—or even a member of the river police—been bribed to look the other way?

Fire licked up the mizzenmast. Nathaniel ran to the larboard rail and looked down at the dinghy. Still there. Nate was torn between the desire for revenge and the desire to try to save his ship. The ragged crew smirked up at him. What were they waiting for?

He had his answer soon enough, for a man leapt down from the quarter deck and sprinted across the main. He wore the clothes of a gentleman. His face was tanned, distinguished, and . . . familiar. Nathaniel’s gut clenched. Thunder and turf. Not him. Not here.

Nathaniel drew his pistol.

Abel Preston skidded to a halt, an infuriating grin on his handsome face. “A pistol? Not very sportsmanlike.” He glanced down at the fine sword sheathed at his side.

“But effective,” Nathaniel said. “Where is Hudson?”

Preston jerked his head toward the stern. “Fast asleep, poor lamb. Better drag him off before he’s overcome with smoke.”

Nathaniel gestured with the gun tip. “You lead the way.”

“Very well.” Preston stepped forward as though to comply but then whirled and slashed out with his sword, knocking Nathaniel’s gun to the deck, where it went skidding beneath a pallet of sugar-syrup casks.

Nathaniel drew his sword and struck. The former army major coolly met him thrust for thrust for several minutes. Then Preston stepped back and the two men circled each other warily.

Struggling to catch his breath, Nathaniel scoffed, “This is the career you left Barbados to pursue?”

Preston smiled. “Yes, and I am making quite a name for myself.”

“I must have missed it. For I’ve not heard your name mentioned since you left.”

“That is because I’ve acquired a new name.” Preston gave a mock bow and recited, “They call me the Pirate Poet. And some the Poet Pirate. How fickle is Lady Fame, when she cannot settle upon a name.”

Nathaniel cringed, remembering several island socials this man had attended—without his wife—during which he had attempted to impress the ladies with his long-winded recitations. Nathaniel had heard tales of a poetry-spouting “pirate” but assumed them mere legend. He had never imagined Preston might be that man. He supposed it made sense. The fop always did love poetry. Preston had spent more time composing rhymes than overseeing his plantation—when he wasn’t tormenting his slaves. No wonder he’d failed as a planter.

But the man had always been good at one thing—he was highly skilled with the blade. Once again Preston advanced, striking with startling speed. Nathaniel countered, but his every strike was parried with ease. He fought back hard but with the growing realization that he was the inferior swordsman. Barring aid from Hudson, or heaven, he would be beaten. Sweat ran down Nathaniel’s face. Fear threatened, but he refused to cower before this man. Almighty God, help me.

Preston knocked Nathaniel’s sword from his grasp and kicked his feet out from under him in a blinding blur of motion. Nathaniel landed on the deck with a thump, his breath knocked out of him, his sword out of reach. Preston pinned him to the deck with a sword tip to his throat.

I commit my soul into your care, Nathaniel thought. Please forgive my many sins, for Jesus’ sake. He said, “Take what you want and kill me if you will, but let Hudson go. This is my ship. He only works for me.”

Preston’s lip curled. “Do you suppose I’d forgotten how you lured Hudson away—stole my best clerk? Not to mention the other problems you caused me.”

Nathaniel’s calls for reform had not made him many friends in Barbados. Preston had been chief among his detractors, especially after Nathaniel reported his continuing involvement in the slave trade after it was outlawed.

Still pinning Nathaniel to the deck, Preston called over his shoulder, “Turtle, bring me the master’s chest.” He looked down at Nate once more. “This year’s profits, I assume?”

“As well you know,” Nathaniel snapped, though he’d taken half the money to their London town house to begin paying bills. The remainder was even now hidden in the coach’s lockbox. “I see how it is. Why live off the meager profits from your own ill-managed plantation, when you can live off the profits of others?”

“Exactly so.” Preston’s eyes gleamed. “I hear your father bragged about this season’s yield—the highest in several years, I understand.” The man lowered his sword tip to the chain around Nathaniel’s neck. “The key?” With a flick of his wrist, he severed the chain, speared the key through its hole and tossed it into the air, catching it handily.

“I’ve got it, sir!” the man called Turtle shouted, lifting the two-foot-square padlocked chest in the air. His scar, from mouth to ear, looked like a gruesome leer.

“Take it down to the others. I shall join you directly.”

Here it comes, Nathaniel thought, his whole body tensing. He has everything he wants from me. This is the end. He found himself thinking of Helen. More alone than ever now. And his father. Would he think him a failure? And then he thought of Margaret Macy. Perhaps it was just as well she hadn’t married him. He wouldn’t want to leave her such a young widow.

Preston lifted his sword once more—to bring down the death blow, Nathaniel knew. Instead the man rose with a jerk. “Away with us, me lads! Take our bounty and be gay. Let these good men live, to see another day!” He leapt from the burning deck and swung from a mooring line with impressive agility.

Nathaniel jumped up and dashed to the rail in time to see the man land in the dinghy with practiced ease. Preston smiled up at him and tipped his tricorn.

Nathaniel called down, “Running away? For all your skill and supposed renown, you are a coward, sir.”

Preston’s smile faded. “You risk my sword, saying that.”

“Name the time and place.”

An eerie gleam shone in the man’s eyes. “Your place. When you least expect it.”

The crew began rowing, and the dinghy pulled away, no doubt on course for a waiting ship.

Nate considered jumping in after him, but that would be suicide. He debated rousing the tardy river police, but there was no time. The stern of the ship was burning rapidly now. His ship. The one he had convinced his father to add to their small fleet. The one he had invested in with his own share of the profits.

He ran to where Hudson lay, insensible but alive, and bodily dragged the man away from the burning master’s cabin. A flaming yard clubbed his arm, nearly felling him. Ignoring the bone-deep pain, he lugged Hudson across the main deck and down the gangplank, hearing the alarm being raised at last. Too late. The dinghy was already fading into a dim shape and disappearing behind a row of moored frigates.

Nathaniel ran up the gangplank once more, vaguely hearing Hudson’s groggy voice calling after him to stop but not heeding him. He ran into what was left of the master’s cabin, grabbing what he could of value—monetary or sentimental. A roar surrounded him. The deck below him buckled. He grabbed one last thing. The only thing he had of hers. He ran from the cabin as it caved in, a section of the wall crashing into his left side, searing his temple.

But he did not let it go.

That evening, Margaret sat thinking at Peg Kittelson’s open window, elbows on the sill, her back to the depressing room crammed with toppling piles of piecework, childish babbling and wailing, and meager food. Margaret inhaled the outside air, fresher than the stale apartment, though carrying the smell of the nearby river. She tried in vain to reach an itch through the wig and wished she’d thought to bring a wig scratcher. The narrow lane below, littered with tumbling wads of newspaper and horse droppings, was relatively quiet compared to the clamor of the room behind her.

She wondered if she should try again to contact Emily. Perhaps wait a day or two and knock at the servants’ entrance in disguise. Or would the runner still be on guard, questioning everyone who came to call?

On the distant street corner, three young men sat on the stoop of an ale house. A hulking black-haired man tossed pebbles into the gutter, while his thin comrade whittled and spit seed hulls into the street. The third sat, limbs sprawled, head lolling against the wall behind him in an ale-induced doze.

“Come away from the window, girl,” Peg whispered. “You don’t want that lot to notice you. Blackguards they are.”

Margaret was about to comply when clattering hooves and wheels sounded below. From around the corner came a black coach pulled by two horses. As it passed the ale house, the enclosed carriage all but filled the narrow lane, its brass lamps blazing like beacons in the night.

Joan said from her shoulder, “Might as well light a sign asking to be robbed.”

Joan and Peg receded into the room, but Margaret remained at the window. The equipage and horses were too fine for the neighborhood. The man at the reins, a sturdy man in his midthirties, did not look the part of traditional coachman. No top hat graced his head. No many-caped greatcoat fluttered in the wind.

The carriage stopped on the street below for no apparent reason, and the driver tied off the reins and clambered down none too nimbly. He opened the carriage door and leaned in. “Are you all right, sir?”

She heard no reply.

Margaret looked past the coach to the ale house on the corner. As she’d feared, the ne’er-do-wells on the stoop had taken notice of the carriage as well. The thin man stopped whittling. The black-haired hulk stilled, his gaze focused on the coach, nose high like a hound on the scent. He slowly rose, gesturing to the second fellow to follow and kicking the foot of the dozing youth.

Dread prickled through Margaret’s stomach and along her limbs.

She glanced back down at the driver standing with his head and shoulders in the coach, completely unaware of the danger he had steered into.

“Hello?” she called in a terse whisper, trying to make herself heard. Vaguely she heard Peg shush her in the background. “Excuse me, you there!” she hissed, not daring to shout. She did not want to draw the ruffians’ attention to poor Peg’s window. Only belatedly did she realize she had not bothered to disguise her voice. No matter, for the man had not heard her.

Margaret closed the window and stepped back, retreating into the relative safety of the room. Well, she told herself, she had tried.

Then in her mind’s eye she saw her beloved father calling “Whoa” to his old driving horse, pulling the gig to the side of the road to help a farmer with a broken wagon wheel, mucking his breeches and gloves without complaint. Just diving in to help a fellow traveler in need. How often he had done so.

She turned to the door and yanked it open. “I shall return directly.” Without awaiting a reply, Margaret drummed down the stairs. She was halfway to street level before the second thought followed. . . . It had been in the midst of just such a good deed that her father had been killed.

Reaching the front door, she cracked it open. The driver still had his head and shoulders inside the carriage, and she could see that he was repositioning a pillow under a man’s bandaged head. A pillow was not going to help either of them if they did not get out of there in the next few seconds!

She peered around the edge of the door. The large man had paused down the street, bending to remove something from his boot. A knife? His thin crony cinched up his baggy breeches as the third man yawned and sized up the unguarded coach. Margaret wondered why the travelers had neither guard nor groom.

She inched open the tenement door a bit farther, glad that it acted as a shield between her and the approaching cutthroats.

Dredging up her best imitation of Nanny Booker, she called sharply, “You there. Best drive off . . . and sharp-like.”

The driver swiveled around to frown at her. “What do you want?”

Only then did she see that one of his hands was bandaged. She pointed beyond the open door. “Are ya blind? Get out of ’ere. Go.”

The man looked in the direction she’d pointed and the skin around his eyes tightened. His mouth followed suit.

“Hold on,” he urged the man inside. He slammed the coach door and leapt back up into the coachman’s seat far more adroitly than he’d climbed down. He slapped the reins, yelled a command, and snapped the whip in the air. The horses tossed their heads, whinnied and pulled, and the coach began to move away. Too slowly.

She braved one more glance around the door. The black-haired man was running up the lane. He shouted, “Let’s get ’em, lads!”

His cronies followed more cautiously.

In a flash she gauged the hulk’s gait against the coach’s slowly increasing speed. Not accelerating quickly enough. Looking up, she saw the driver glance back, his face grim.

She heard the pounding of the boots just beyond the door she held slightly ajar. At the last moment, she shoved the door wide open with all her strength.

Slam. Umph. The heavy wooden door reverberated violently and came slamming toward her. She leapt back. The door smacked her shoulder, barely missing her face. She heard a shout, a thud-slap, as knees and limbs hit the cobbles, followed by a sharp curse.

The door hit the jamb and bounced outward. Through the opening, a pair of black eyes locked on hers. She snagged the latch and pulled the door closed. Hands shaking, she slid the bar home.

Margaret bolted up the stairs as fast as her feet could carry her. She tripped at the first landing and felt her stocking tear. Her ankle and knee screamed complaint as she rounded the first newel-post and shot up the second pair of stairs. Below, the bar splintered and the door crashed open. Footfalls, threats, and curses gained on her as she hoofed it up the remaining stairs and down the passage. She ran into number 23 and shut and barred the door behind her, hoping the men had not seen which of the many doors she had disappeared into.

“What is it?” Joan asked.

“Shh.” Trembling all over, Margaret picked up a cumbersome oak chair and propped it against the door.

Peg asked, “Is it those ruffians?”

Margaret nodded.

Peg’s eyes grew wide, and she wrapped a protective arm around the child nearest her.

Running footsteps raced past their door.

The women looked from one to the other as they waited, listening.

The footsteps clomped back, more slowly. A man shouted, “I’ll find you. And when I do, I’ll kill you.”

That night, Margaret shared the narrow pallet bed with Peg’s son. She didn’t sleep well. She was reminded of the days Gilbert would climb into her bed for a story, fall asleep, and then rob all the bedclothes.

In the morning, Margaret sat at the small table with Peg’s family, sharing a meager breakfast and strained silence. Even the children were unnaturally quiet. From across the table, sisters Joan and Peg exchanged a pained, meaningful look, which Margaret had no trouble interpreting. She had worn out her welcome already.

She opened her mouth, but Joan beat her to it. “I am afraid, mi—Nora. That after last night, it would be best if you took your leave. If those men see you and figure out whose place . . .”

Margaret nodded, though fear ran through her veins. “I understand.”

“And as soon as possible,” Peg added. “While that lot is still sleeping it off.”

“I know you meant well,” Joan allowed. “But I can’t have you bringin’ danger to my sister’s door.”

Again Margaret nodded and woodenly repeated, “I understand.” She rose, her legs weak and trembling. Where was she to go? And what if those men were out there right now, lying in wait?

She plucked her Oldenburg bonnet from the peg near the door, and tied it securely under her chin. She picked up her bag and bid farewell to each of the children and pressed one of her few coins into Peg’s palm. “For your hospitality,” she murmured and opened the door.

“Wait,” Joan called after her. “I’m going with you.”

Peg began to protest, but Joan insisted she needed to find work. “There aren’t any positions hereabouts anyway.”

Margaret swallowed a bitter pill of pride and humbling gratitude. She guessed Joan was making excuses. But Margaret was not brave enough to insist Joan remain, to bluster that she would be fine on her own. She would not be. And after the near-miss with those men, she was frightened of venturing out alone.

“Very well,” Margaret said, the words thank you sticking in her throat.

Joan embraced her niece and nephews, and quietly warned Peg not to say anything about them being there. Peg no doubt believed the warning due to the three would-be thieves alone.

Taking valise and carpetbag in hand once more, Joan and Margaret went quietly downstairs. They peered from behind the splintered door, and seeing no one about, stepped outside. They walked quickly down Fish Street Hill, turning from the lane as soon as possible to avoid being seen by any early riser glancing from his window.

Once they were several blocks away, Joan moderated their pace, leading the way toward the Thames and across London Bridge. The wide river teemed with boats—fishing boats moored midriver or docked to unload the morning’s catch—while sailing vessels of every size slipped between them.

On the other side of the bridge, they passed the Southwark Cathedral before turning left into the Borough High Street. There, Margaret glimpsed a three-story galleried coaching inn. Joan explained that many stagecoaches as well as a Royal Mail coach departed from The George each day.

From behind the railing of the first gallery above, a swarthy porter carried a bolt of fabric over one shoulder, and a well-dressed gentleman smiled down at them and tipped his hat. On the upper gallery, a woman in a low-cut nightdress blew kisses to a sailor trotting down the outer stairs.

The inn’s courtyard swarmed with activity. Dogs barked. Horses snorted and pranced in their braces. A large stagecoach with red wheels prepared to depart. Hostellers checked the horses’ harnesses. An official-looking man in red greatcoat and top hat opened the coach door and handed in a matron and her young charge. Once the door was closed, a brawny dark-skinned man strapped barrels to the side of the carriage.

The body of the yellow stagecoach was emblazoned with its final destination in bold and stopping points along the way in smaller lettering. Four passengers sat on its roof, and another shared the coachman’s bench. The guard climbed to his position at the rear and blew his long horn.

Joan led Margaret to the front of the clapboard inn, to a protruding half-circle structure with the words Coach Office painted above its sash window. Boards listing routes and departure times lined its outer walls.

“Where to, miss?” Joan asked, studying the boards.

Margaret frowned in thought. “I don’t know . . .”

“How much money do you have?”

Margaret recounted the coins in her reticule, bit her lip, and pronounced the paltry sum.

Joan stepped to the office window and addressed the booking clerk within.

“Hello. There are two of us traveling together.” She laid the coins before him. “How far can we go?”

The clerk stared at her a moment without speaking. Margaret noticed one of his eyes was milky white. With no change of expression, he drew a chalk circle on a map on the counter. Margaret glanced over Joan’s shoulder at the circle of modest diameter around London. Not very far at all.

“Stage rates are tuppence to four pence per double mile. Royal Mail is faster, but costs a bit more, and don’t leave till tonight.”

Joan said, “We prefer to get out of . . . that is, to be on our way as soon as possible.”

He turned his milky gaze from Joan to Margaret. “The Northampton line will take you as far as Dunstable for a crown—if you take an outside seat, which is cheaper. It leaves in twenty minutes. Or, the Maidstone Times leaves in thirty.”

Joan glanced at her. “Which shall it be, miss? North or south?”

Margaret thought quickly. Her old home, the village of Summerfield, lay to the south, though outside the chalk circle. Would Sterling look for her there? “South, I think.” She hesitated. “Unless you prefer north?”

“Maidstone has a hiring fair, I understand,” Joan said. “So that would suit me.” She lowered her voice. “But remember, it’s you what has to get out of town. Once we are safely out of London, you shall go your way and I mine. Understand?”

Margaret felt chastened by the cutting words of her once-docile maid. But she nodded without retort. She needed Joan too much to risk complaining.

Joan turned back to the man. “Two for Maidstone, please.”

He took the money, gave them their change, and directed them inside. “Marsh is the coachman you want.”

They would go south. Not as far as Summerfield, but as far as their meager coin would take them.

Half an hour later, Margaret found herself, for the first time in her life, sitting on a bench atop the roof of a stagecoach, in an outside seat no less. She gripped the metal handrail so hard her knuckles ached, and they had yet to set off. In front of her, the coachman sat at the ready in his many-caped coat and top hat. Beside her sat a soldier, Joan on his other side.

The soldier turned his cheek toward first Joan, then Margaret, pointing out a long scar. “See that. Not from the war, no. From being struck by a coachman’s wild whip.”

Margaret swallowed and inched back on her perch as far as the low leather backrest and the baggage behind would allow.

When the guard had assisted the last passenger, he climbed up to his box at the rear and blew his yard of tin—first the “start,” then the “clear the road,” signal. Margaret cringed. The horn had never seemed so loud from inside a coach.

The coachman called to his horses, “Get on lads. Walk on.”

Soon, they were trotting down Southwark streets, gaining speed as they left the metropolis behind. The roads worsened, but this seemed no deterrent to the coachman, snapping his whip and urging his horses faster. Margaret sent up a prayer and held on tight. The careening coach rocked to and fro over the rutted road, and Margaret feared she would lose what little breakfast she had eaten. A man’s hat flew off, and the gusting wind pulled at her bonnet and wig. She could not imagine how the wind must bite and torture in winter. She risked loosing her handhold only long enough to tie the ribbons tighter before gripping the rail once more. At every turn, the coach pitched and the soldier’s body pressed against her side. He needed a bath.

The stage stopped to pay tolls at several tollgates. The polite soldier leaned near and said, “I prefer traveling by Royal Mail when I can. They don’t have to stop and pay tolls.”

Margaret nodded her understanding but did not mind the brief stops. They gave her a few moments to rub her aching hand and check her wig and spectacles. Joan, she noticed, bore the journey without complaint.

Margaret leaned forward, mustered a smile, and said to her, “Could be worse. At least it is not raining.”