Twenty

“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.

Trent was skilled indeed, as well as talented. He moved with absolute economy, indulged in no showy flourishes, followed no pattern. Instead, he attacked cleanly again and again, the tip of his blade drawn like a magnet to the most vulnerable point of his opponent’s body, flickering, feinting, and thrusting, but always seeking avenues past his foe’s guard and outside his expectations.

Anthony Trent fought opportunistically, like her brother, because he meant to kill.

Sparhawk did not. He meant to win, yes. To injure or maim perhaps, but only incident to his goal, which was an abstract notion of justice. He meant to spit his father’s black heart, and his goal was a fixed point in Trent’s chest.

He darted forward and danced aside at the same time, putting the point of his blade through Trent’s sleeve, and snarling it.

Sparhawk was going to die. His sword was caught; the way was open for Trent to slash him across the body, a killing blow.

Sarah cried out.

Trent hesitated.

There was a knock upon the door. Mrs. Brown’s voice came through the thin wood, clear as a bell. “I know you said to admit no one, my lord, but there is a reverend here who insists on coming in.”

Trent’s brow furrowed. “But I did not send for him.”

He had always planned to kill Sparhawk, Sarah realized. She was, in fact, a terrible judge of men.

“No,” said Sparhawk, “but I did.”

The door swung open. The cleric who filled it was a New England divine of the old school, dressed even more soberly than Sparhawk, his neck cloth starched like a drainpipe. His presence made you feel like a sinner in the hands of an angry God.

He was no longer young, and his tall, angular frame moved stiffly. He took two steps into the room, narrowed his eyes upon Sparhawk, and spoke in a voice ravaged by too many years at the pulpit. “Almighty God is merciful. Tristan, you live.”

•   •   •

Sparhawk heard his father’s sword clatter to the floor. He looked away from the cleric to see Anthony Trent stumble back against the wall, shaking his head. “It cannot be,” he said. “I saw your grave.”

Sarah stepped to the center of the room. Sparhawk had forgotten for a moment that she was there. She addressed the parson. “You will swear it? That Sparhawk is Trent’s son?” she asked.

“Yes,” said the parson. “He is Tristan. I saw the boy every day of his life from the hour he was born. I knew him as well as his own mother.” He turned to Trent. “It is he, my lord, and no other.”

She turned to Trent. “You agreed to accept his judgment,” she said.

Trent nodded numbly. “I think I began to suspect the truth myself, a few moments ago. Strutting and circling. I should never have entrusted my son’s introduction to the blade to that dropsical Spaniard.”

“And will you confess,” asked Sparhawk, standing upon a precipice, “to bribing the magistrates, to ordering my death?”

“Is that what you thought? Why? In God’s name, why?”

“You threatened my mother with arrest for prostitution, and three days later she was taken to jail.”

Trent closed his eyes. “I see. Yes. You are right to blame me. I didn’t order it, would have given my life to stop it, but I am the cause of your mother’s death. And of everything that you suffered.”

Sarah shook her head. “No.”

“Poor Sarah,” said Trent, smiling faintly. “I was going to make up for everything—by saving you.”

Sparhawk swallowed. “If you didn’t order it, then who did?”

“My wife. My second wife. Or more accurately, her family. And I brought them to Nevis. On my own ship,” said Trent. “Like some biblical plague.”

Sparhawk felt the anger that had sustained him on the Scylla returning. “My mother died on a dirt floor in rags like an animal, and you have slept on silk sheets these past fifteen years.”

“Yes,” Trent said. “It was my fault. I was young and selfish and arrogant, and I thought your mother ought to bend to my whims. I loved her, passionately, as a friend and partner. I wanted to have her, and money besides, and I saw a way to get it. Flora Milton was passably attractive and came with a hundred thousand pounds. Enough to make Polkerris both solvent and profitable. I envisioned your mother kept snug in a nice cottage on Flora’s money. One woman a rich, unloved dupe, the other a cosseted pet. It might even have worked, had I chosen another heiress for my scheme, but the Miltons were more ambitious and ruthless than I understood.

“I thought that if I could speak with your mother in person, I could get her to fall in with my plans, so I stopped in Nevis on my way home with the Miltons aboard. They were a planter family, rich off sugar and slaves, and eager for the advantage that a titled connection at court would bring.

“You were in the cottage that night, when your mother and I argued. She threatened to write to the Miltons and tell them that I was already married. And fool that I was, I told the Miltons. I lied to them, of course, but I had half convinced myself it was the truth. I told them that your mother had been a youthful fancy of mine, that I had tricked her into thinking a form of marriage had taken place, and that she had no real legal standing. I even tried to pass myself off as an honorable gentleman who had done the right thing, and set her up with money for your keeping.

“I was twenty-eight and thought myself clever and worldly, but I was a fool. The Miltons did not believe my tale of a sham marriage, but they were the very picture of warmth and understanding. Flora’s brothers explained that it was a simple matter to make the problem of my first wife go away.”

Sparhawk dreaded what he would hear next.

“They told me not to worry, that all would be taken care of, and that I was to think nothing more about the matter. I protested, of course, but I realized, sitting there listening to these two men casually talk murder on the veranda, that I had to get your mother away.”

“No,” Sparhawk said. “I saw you throw my mother off your ship the next night.”

“Yes,” said Trent. “A few hours after Flora’s family had plotted your mother’s murder on the veranda. I had had no opportunity to warn her, dared not betray any sign to the Miltons that I would not fall in with their plans. She had come to the ship because the cottage had been broken into, and all of her papers stolen. The Miltons, I realized, but I could not tell her that then. So I returned to the cottage the next day. You were out studying with the Jewess.”

Trent closed his eyes and went on. “The Miltons had money and influence in the islands. I had none. Edwards”—he turned to the parson, who had been sitting quietly—“agreed to help her get away.”

The Reverend Edwards took up the tale in his reedy, high voice. “We feared that once Anthony broke things off with Flora, the Miltons might take revenge on you and your mother, so we determined to hide you on one of the neighboring islands. Your mother did not want to tell you, did not want to frighten you. It was going to take a few days to arrange, to be sure that your refuge would not be easily discovered.”

“And I,” said Trent, “fool that I was, thought that by sailing with the Miltons aboard, I had removed the immediate danger. But men like the Miltons do not do their own killing, and they had already hired the sailors and bribed the magistrates.”

Sarah, Sparhawk realized, was weeping silently. He had no more tears, only a sick grief clawing his chest.

“When I went to fetch your mother for the journey,” said Edwards, “I found the cottage broken open. Everything of value taken. I went to the magistrates, of course, but they had been bribed to jail her, and such was the Miltons’ sway on the islands, there was no one to gainsay them. Of you I could find no trace. I managed to bribe one of the guards to let me in to see her, but afterward . . .” He trailed off.

“They poured lye down her throat so she could not tell her story to anyone.”

“I thought she was safe,” said Trent. “That she would be waiting for me when I returned.”

“And yet you married Flora Milton,” said Sparhawk. He did not know how his father could have done it.

“When we reached London, I tried to break it off with Flora, but her brothers told me that you . . . had already been taken to the harbor and drowned, and that your mother had been indentured to one of their plantations. Her life, they explained, depended on my good behavior. The Milton brothers had the letters I had written your mother, suggesting that we put aside our marriage, no doubt taken when the men they hired broke into the cottage. They had our marriage license and lines. Flora made it plain—very plain—that if I did not marry her, she and her brothers would make those letters public, and your death and the degradation of your mother would be laid at my door. I felt I had no choice. I married Flora and maneuvered the Admiralty into sending me to Nevis at the first opportunity. But by that time, it was already too late. Your mother was dead.”

“How did you discover I was not dead as well?” Sparhawk asked.

“With you and your mother lost to me, there was nothing to stop me from taking revenge on the Miltons, but first I decided to deal with the men they had hired to carry out their designs. I found the merchants who had sworn out accusations against your mother, and the magistrates who had been bribed to sell her indenture, and I killed them.

“With like purpose, I searched for the sailors who I thought had drowned you, and found one of them: an old tar who had once served with me and who swore that he would never hurt a child. That he had pressed you aboard an Indiaman and that, God willing, you lived still. Then I set out to find you. I had been directed to cruise the Caribbean, so could hardly go direct to Bombay, but I returned home and wrote letters and begged favors and accepted the leakiest brig afloat with a dispensation to survey the China Sea.”

“We would have been recalled by the time you got to Bombay,” said Sparhawk.

“Yes. And once I got there, I was ordered to stay. When I finally returned to Plymouth, Slough had been put on half pay and was roaming the dockside taverns always in pursuit of the rough trade. I found him, and questioned him, and discovered you had been entered into the ship’s company as Jack Nevis.”

“Slough was murdered on one of those Portsmouth ambles,” said James.

“Yes,” said his father. “So I understand.”

James did not ask him to elaborate.

“And the crew was dispersed, a wise precaution with a mutinous ship. I checked the Admiralty records and found you had ended up under Mungo McKenzie. It was then I checked his roster and found you had died. I visited your grave. There were flowers on it. I did not know who could have placed them there—and I knew McKenzie had perished of a fever in Calcutta that winter—but I hoped it meant that you had been loved by someone in those two years, when everyone and everything had been taken from you.”

“James Sparhawk,” said the man who bore his name, “was like a son to McKenzie, and a brother to me. We mourned him. And he knew of our plan. He asked me to make his a famous name. I suppose I have honored his request, though not in the manner he expected.”

“Dear God,” said his father. Sparhawk had never seen the man look afraid. “Have you evidence against Graves, enough to save you?”

“No,” said Sparhawk. “I have a few incriminating papers taken off the Diana before she burned that implicate Thomas Graves in brokering a transaction with Micah Wild, but nothing to prove the admiral used the gold to buy her. The Rebels say they have the evidence to damn him, but they hold it hostage to a powder run.”

His father shot up out of his chair. “You must leave, now, quickly. Graves and his marines will already be surrounding the building.”

“So you meant to turn me over to them, whether I was guilty or not.”

“No,” said Sarah.

Trent turned to look at her. “I did it for Sarah. You in exchange for her safety, Tristan.”

It was strange to be called by his real name.

“We must go,” Sarah said. She placed her hand in Sparhawk’s.

It was going to be all right, he realized. If she was going to come with him, they would have the Sally and her family and the freedom of the sea.

The floor vibrated. Feet on the steps. The door rattling in the jamb. Too late, too late. He had left it too late.

“The window,” said Sarah.

“They will be in the alley,” said his father. “I left nothing to chance.”

Sparhawk opened the casement. His father was right. Below in the alley was a thick line of red, blocking his escape. Marines. A dozen at least.

Sarah drew a little pistol out of her pocket.

“Put that away,” Sparhawk said. There must not be any shooting, not with Sarah in the room. He turned to Trent. “You must let them take me.”

His father nodded.

“I will get the evidence from Angela Ferrers,” said Sarah. “Somehow.”

“I will come with you,” said Trent. “And once I know where they are holding you, I will see Tommy Gage.”

The door burst open. Sparhawk was not surprised to see Lieutenant Graves leading the marines. “Arrest that man and take him to the Preston.”

Sparhawk held out his empty hands, but they knocked him to the floor anyway.

Sarah screamed.

“Her as well,” said Graves.

“That was not part of our arrangement,” said Anthony Trent. “The girl was to be left out of the matter of the gold.”

“The girl is a pirate. We have a witness who will testify that she took a British officer captive and held him in her home in Salem.”

“Micah,” said Sarah, numbly.

Two marines took hold of her.

She wrenched free of them and reached for James.

As his mother had in the cottage.

He acted without thought, punching one marine in the throat, feeling the man’s windpipe buckle beneath his knuckles, then sheathing his belt knife in another’s belly and feeling the blood wash warm and sticky over his hand—anything to win her free of this, but they were too many. The marines closed in around him, overwhelming him with the press of their bodies and the butts of their muskets.

A blow to his jaw knocked him to the floor, and a kidney punch kept him down. Between their booted feet he could see Sarah being dragged out the door, hear her slippers scrabbling for purchase over the floorboards, her cries echoing off the plaster walls.

His father hesitated on the threshold, torn between his son and the woman he so evidently loved.

“Go with Sarah,” Sparhawk implored him. He knew what would happen to her, a woman without interest, accused of piracy, imprisoned in a British jail, if she was not plainly attached to a powerful man.

Reverend Edwards stepped forward. “I will stay with the boy, Anthony.”

His face a mask of anguish, his father managed a responsive nod, then set off after Sarah and her escort. And shortly after he was gone, the remaining marines began beating Sparhawk in earnest, eager to get back a little of their own for the unlucky bastard who’d been stabbed, while Francis Graves looked on. The reverend begged that officer, with all his powers of persuasion and the best of precedents, to put a stop to things. But young Graves, it transpired, was not a God-fearing man.