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Less than an hour later, Beryl was on the Wellesley heading home. It would take a third of a year, maybe a little more. At that moment, though, her thoughts were with a particular man on another ship, its whereabouts unknown to her.
What had the other man called him? Lord Corsair?
She wished she’d had the chance to ask the captain why. Instead, within moments, she was on deck, surrounded by the Robert’s crew and then by her father and his contingent.
Her father had been beyond grateful, thanking Captain Carruthers, pumping his hand up and down and slapping him on the back. The captain had looked bemused, even more so when Lord Angsley said he would write a letter of gratitude to Queen Victoria and ask her to publicly commend him and the entire crew of the Robert.
“Much appreciated, my lord,” Captain Carruthers had quipped, then ruining the solemn moment, he’d added, “but coin of the realm would be preferable over commendation.”
Ha! She’d nearly laughed out loud. He’d proven himself again to be a pirate who wanted only gold and jewels. Her father faltered a moment, appearing taken aback.
“I’m speaking only in jest, my lord,” the captain amended. “Of course, there is no price which could be put upon the safe return of your daughter. While I am not in the Royal Navy, still, I was happy to do service to queen and country.”
Beryl rolled her eyes. He made it sound as if he’d gone searching for her rather than happening upon her while stealing a jeweled necklace, even one already stolen.
And then it was over, and she barely got to say goodbye. First, she offered a general thank you to the crew who were standing around listening, and then, she let Captain Carruthers take her hand and bow over it.
Very much a gentleman.
How she wished they’d had time for a deeper, final kiss in his cabin, one she could cherish. She’d been waiting since he’d left her the evening before. Instead, she had barely felt the whisper of his lips across hers.
That evening, in her own lovely stateroom on the Wellesley, reunited with her maid and all her belongings, Beryl considered unpicking the sewn hem of her gown and withdrawing the necklace from its hiding place. Then she thought better of it. She wouldn’t wear the gown again on the voyage home. She would put it away and the necklace with it.
Hesitating before dropping the pale green silk into the bottom of her trunk, she wondered if she should show her father the jewels immediately. In her heart, however, she believed it would cause him to think badly of her rescuer — to consider him the pirate Captain Carruthers — while, at present, her father was full of praise and gratitude.
No. When she was once more in London, she would decide what to do, perhaps asking her best friend, Eleanor Blackwood, who had a good head on her shoulders. After all, Beryl could not simply appear at Buckingham Palace, request an audience with Queen Victoria, and then inquire as to whether the queen had lost any of her jewels.
***
PHILIP WAS SORRY TO see Miss Angsley go. He couldn’t deny it. He also knew he’d better get himself into the next friendly port and find a willing woman to tup.
However, even while watching the wake of the Wellesley as it sailed for the Riau Archipelago, his lookout announced they were under attack.
“Sails, ahoy!”
It took Philip but an instant to regain his concentration and discover the danger wasn’t coming from the harbor and Shap-ng-tsai’s ships off their starboard but from their port side. A small fleet of junks were coming upon them from the east, perhaps having waited for the British warship to leave.
“Christ!” Philip exclaimed. “All hands!”
The boatswain blew his whistle, calling all hands to their stations.
Obviously, Chui-A-poo wasn’t going to let the necklace go easily, after all. And here they were, temporarily dead in the water. That, however, was the beauty of a three-masted clipper.
“Haul the wind,” he ordered his crew.
Though primarily a peaceful mission, they’d had their share of encounters, and every crewman of the Robert had either been a merchant seaman or a navy man. In the shake of a lamb’s tail, sailors were manning the lines and gunners were at the cannons, ready for battle.
Philip didn’t like their odds at close quarters, not with only a dozen junks.
“Hard about,” he called to Rufus at the helm. “We need the Royal Navy.”
Thus, instead of sailing to a friendly port and enjoying shore leave, Philip found himself sailing directly toward the skirmish in the Hai Phong harbor. While there were still three British ships to help him, going into the midst of another battle seemed the best option.
To his relief, the other pirates didn’t follow but stayed close to the small island of Dao Bach, the only land for miles in any direction.
His relief died after the first few hours and was buried at the bottom of the sea when they ended up fighting for three days alongside the Royal Navy and the Qing navy. Afterward, he learned they’d helped destroy fifty-eight pirate junks carrying twelve hundred cannons and three thousand pirates.
Six junks escaped, as did Shap-ng-tsai, but since he hadn’t been the pirate to take Miss Angsley, it didn’t matter. The blow to his fleet had sent him fleeing farther west, and Philip couldn’t imagine the pirate regaining control over the coastal villages he’d terrorized before.
Moreover, in the interim, sometime in the middle of the second night during the lull in battle, Chui-A-poo’s handful of junks had vanished. Philip could only hope they’d headed back to China. Maybe they didn’t want to wait until the British were free to turn their attention on them. Or maybe they’d assumed the Robert was going that way, too, after the battle of Hai Phong. They were wrong.
Taking the same tack as the Wellesley, Philip ordered their course for the Java Sea — and home — anchoring that evening at the southern point of Dat Mui in the Gulf of Siam. For a few hours, all was quiet.
In the pitch black, they were set upon.
Like a dragon, Chui-A-poo sent flaming balls of gunpowder onto the Robert’s decks. While the lookout screamed the danger, and the Robert’s bleary-eyed crew scrambled to put out the fires, Chui-A-poo’s pirates climbed aboard from row boats below, using the cover of the first attack to hide their grappling hooks.
Philip shot more than one before he was overcome and dragged into his own cabin by two pirates while their leader and another guard walked calmly behind.
Ordered to light his lamps, Philip did so and faced Chui-A-poo.
“Where is she?” the pirate asked, gesturing for his guard to check behind the small door to the privy.
She! They were here for Beryl?
“You speak English,” Philip stalled.
“Obviously,” Chui-A-poo said. “Do you? I asked you a question.”
There was only one answer, and they would know it anyway, after they searched his ship.
“She was taken by one of the British ships.” He thought he’d phrased that well, putting the blame elsewhere.
Chui clenched his hands and closed his eyes. When he opened them, he punched Philip directly in the face, snapping his head back.
“She was a rare jewel. Even named after one. Only an idiot would let her get away. Like my captain, who I killed for his stupidity in losing the girl to you.”
Feeling blood trickling from where his teeth had cut his mouth and cheek, Philip could only hope he wouldn’t be the next to perish for the same crime — while fairly confident he would be.
He was going to die over rescuing Beryl.
Considering the thought, he supposed it was an upstanding, honorable reason to perish. He wished he’d got to tup her first, but that was rather selfish of him.
Chui-A-poo gave his guard orders, probably to search the rest of the Robert for Beryl. The man quickly departed. Philip liked his odds better and wondered if he stalled long enough, perhaps Rufus would rescue him.
“She was kidnapped for you?” he asked the pirate leader.
Chui didn’t bother to answer. Instead, he said, “She would have been an honored and cherished wife.”
Wife? There was that Chinese pirate code again. Marry the pretty ones, give back the plain ones, and don’t rape any of them unless you wanted your head cut off and thrown into the sea, which had saved Beryl from that fate.
If the kidnapped girl had been for Chui, then maybe he didn’t know of the—
“Where is the necklace?” the pirate demanded.
The devil! Both jewels — Beryl and the necklace — belonged to Chui-A-poo.
“I had two treasures,” Chui-A-poo added. “I had better still have one.”
“Yes,” Philip muttered, thinking of the failure of his two-year mission. If he hadn’t waited to reunite father and daughter, he would have been rounding the Cape of Good Horn in a few weeks. Instead, he was likely to be slaughtered where he stood.
On the other hand, perhaps he could give the duchess’s necklace back and live to tell the tale. If he and the crew survived, they could always hunt it down again.
“Release me,” he demanded. He could hardly do the pirate leader’s bidding with his arms held.
Chui-A-poo nodded to his men. When Philip’s arms were free, he wiped the blood from his face with the back of his hand.
“If I return the necklace to you, you will let my crew and my ship go free.”
Chui raised an eyebrow. “What about your own life? Are you offering to sacrifice it for your crew?”
Philip decided to be honest. “I had assumed I would go with my ship and crew.”
To his amazement, Chui-A-poo laughed. When he stopped, though, Philip saw no mirth at all in the pirate’s black eyes.
“Will you beg?” the pirate leader asked.
“No,” Philip answered at once. Dammit! He was a Carruthers, raised on the same stretch of coast as the famed pirate Avery who claimed to have buried three chests full of glorious treasure in the sands of the Cornish shore, and he wouldn’t tarnish the legacy of the fearless men of Cornwall.
Besides, death meant seeing Robert again, and he intended to give his twin a good thrashing for dying so stupidly in a carriage accident. If he hadn’t, Philip had no doubt he never would have undertaken this fool’s venture.
Chui-A-poo looked at him and grunted. Then he shrugged.
“Give me the necklace.”
They didn’t exactly have any kind of spoken bargain, but the power was all in the pirate’s hands. At least Philip did have the necklace. If not, his death would have been immediate. Reaching into his coat, he pulled out the key to the lock.
“If I may,” he said, gesturing to the other side of the cabin.
Chui nodded and the two pirates let Philip pass, and then he knelt by the chest, opened the lock, and after a moment, retrieved the red-lacquered box.
Should he toss the small container at the far wall of the cabin and try to escape?
Most likely, he would feel a blade of steel in his back before he took a step.
“How did you come upon the necklace?” Philip asked, returning to stand before the pirate leader.
Chui eyed him. “On my orders, it was stolen from a Qing official who stole it from a servant to the Imperial Palace.” He smiled and added, “Who stole it from the emperor’s emissary to Britain, who—”
“Who stole it from Buckingham Palace,” Philip finished.
“No,” Chui said. “Who stole it from the emissary’s servant who stole it from Buckingham Palace.”
Then he laughed heartily, probably at the notion he, the pirate leader of a grand fleet of pirates, had managed to get something that the emperor and the government of the Manchus couldn’t hold onto.
Watching as Chui set Philip’s confiscated pepperbox revolver on the table, his glance took in his candlestick, too. Beryl apparently had rummaged in his wardrobe, found its hiding place, and set it back on the table, perhaps as a jest.
Chui held his hands out, and Philip placed the box in them, watching as he opened the container.
From his angle, Philip could see a sparkle of gold and green. Green?
“What is this?” Chui-A-poo bellowed, reaching in and pulling out Beryl’s necklace.
What, indeed! Philip wanted to roar, as well. In the space of a heartbeat, he knew what had happened. She’d stolen his booty! And now he would die.
The other two pirates leaned forward to get a look at what the box contained.
And then Philip’s luck changed. Leo, undetected under the table, yowled like a devilish fiend. One of the others must have trod upon his tail.
Everyone jumped at the hair-raising sound, and all three pirates looked down, searching for the unholy creature.
It was as good a diversion as any. Thrusting his hand forward, Philip snatched his gun with one hand and, for good measure, the candlestick with the other before darting backward.
They were at extremely close range, but there was no choice. Philip shot the first of the pirates who moved, and then heard the terrible sound of the empty revolver chamber as he tried to shoot the second one. He had fired his last ball.
Before the other pirate could understand his good fortune, Philip whacked him in the face with the candlestick’s base. As the man grabbed his bashed nose, Philip struck him hard on the head. He dropped like a stone.
Beryl was right. It was a decent weapon. However, seeing how she’d stolen his necklace, nearly getting him killed in the process, he didn’t like her as much as he had before.
Ready to fight one-on-one with Chui-A-poo, candlestick to sword, Philip turned only to find the pirate leader had vanished.
Reaching over, he abandoned the brass candlestick and opened the tin cannister on his table. Grabbing a hand full of .42-inch lead balls, he dropped some into his pocket and then reloaded his gun, filling each of the six chambers.
Chasing after the pirate leader, Philip had a feeling this wasn’t over yet. On deck, things were looking grim. Most of his crew sat in a circle, Chinese pirates guarding them. Two of his men lay either dead or wounded. No sign of Rufus, which worried him.
For the second time that night, Philip had to kill without choice. He started shooting any pirate who moved. Those who didn’t fall to the deck scrambled over the side, splashing into the water below. Chui-A-poo was nowhere to be seen and had probably already fled back to his own junk. The man would live to fight another day.
That was what worried Philip most.
And where the hell was Rufus?
Unfortunately, his answer came when he found the pirate leader’s guard, who’d been searching the Robert as ordered. He and Rufus had obviously fought and now the guard lay face down and Rufus was bleeding profusely.
Opening his eyes when Philip approached, Rufus ground out, “I’m not dead yet. Can’t say the same for this one, though.” He nudged the pirate with the toe of his boot.
“Lot of blood, my friend,” Philip told his first mate.
“My arm mostly,” Rufus reported. “Bastard got a good couple slices in before I killed him. Take more than that, though. Remember I’m related to John Gow—”
“I know, I’ve heard it before.” Philip hoped he wouldn’t continue.
“A notorious pirate who became captain of the Revenge, God rest his soul,” Rufus continued as if Philip hadn’t spoken.
He’d heard the story before as Rufus somewhat dubiously trailed his lineage back to an ill-fated red-haired buccaneer.
Now wasn’t the time, however, for an adventure story. They were having one of their own, and Philip was ready to end it.
“My father is a famed wool merchant,” Philip added, “and he won’t help us anymore than your old dead pirate relation who, may I remind you, was hanged not once but twice. Poor unfortunate bastard!”
Rufus had told the tale many times of how John Gow’s friends, trying to help him to die swiftly, yanked on his feet. When the rope broke with the pirate still alive, he’d had to be hanged again.
“Curses to those who used a thin rope the first time,” Rufus declared.
Philip dropped to his knees to assess the damage before helping his first mate to stand. Rufus wavered slightly, grasping hold of his captain’s arm with his good hand.
“Christ almighty! We need to get you bandaged and sewn.”
Leaning Rufus against the hull, Philip bent down and tore off the dead pirate’s shirt, then quickly tied it around his first mate’s upper arm.
“I can’t have you bleeding all over the ship.”
In silence, they made their way back on deck to view the damage. Their sails had been furled for the night, so were largely undamaged except for a burned topsail and a singed lower course. More worrisome was the smoldering decking, which the carpenter was already inspecting.
In the daylight, the crew would have to hang on ropes to examine the Robert’s sides, making sure they were still seaworthy. Repairs would further delay their return trip, making the passage round the cape even more dangerous. Not to mention the present peril of remaining anchored off Việt Nam. They would have to sail slowly north into the Gulf of Siam for better protection.
Meanwhile, after quickly disposing of the pirates’ bodies, they wrapped their own two dead crewmen in the singed flax canvas sails and, after Philip performed a solemn service, sent them to Davy Jones’s locker. It didn’t sit well with him. No necklace, regardless how beautiful or dripping with jewels, was worth the price they’d paid that night.
Moreover, Beryl was to blame for all his bad luck.
Later, over cups of rum in his first mate’s quarters — a bunk against the wall with a half wall separating it from the rest of the crew’s bunks — Philip told Rufus of their guest’s unbelievable trickery of switching the necklaces.
“The wench had more gumption than I gave her credit for,” Rufus said, looking pale and lying down but drinking rum all the same. “Not a terrible thing, either, her stealing our treasure. Elsewise, the duchess’s necklace would be heading back to Bias Bay by now.”
Rufus was right about that, but Philip wasn’t willing to give her any credit for her deception. It had nearly cost him his life.
“Let’s drink to Leo, for without him, I’d be dead, the ship would’ve been taken, and you probably would’ve bled out on the deck,” he reminded his first mate.
They toasted his dead brother’s cat.
Then Philip made a silent vow. He would hunt down Beryl Angsley, retrieve his necklace so he could claim his reward, and he would demand reparation for his dead crewmembers’ families to boot.