“Have I lost my mind, or is the flag of Mexico flying over the harbor?”
Jack turned to Mr. Rice, who took the glass from his captain and put it up to his eye.
“Sure looks like the rebels’ flag to me, Captain.”
The harbor of Fernandina on Amelia Island was known for smuggling, prostitution, and piracy, but as far as Jack Burrell knew, it had always been part of Spanish East Florida, not the struggling revolutionary forces of Mexico. They’d been fighting Spain for over five years, trying to break away from the mother country with mixed success. Jack had no doubt eventually they’d win, since Spain was too poor to hold onto its colonies in the Americas, but that didn’t mean Florida was going to be part of the new Mexico. The United States was unhappy enough that they had Spain to deal with in Florida, they weren’t going to let Mexico take over the lands from the Atlantic to the Mississippi.
Jack mulled this latest development over when Sophia came up alongside him, hearing the end of the conversation.
“Florida is under attack?”
“I am not sure about that,” Jack said slowly, “but this is an unexpected development. We could be sailing into the middle of a war.”
“A war! I only took this trip because the war was at long last over and I thought I could travel safely!”
“I warned you Florida was a dangerous place.”
“You warned me about storms and insects, not about the government being attacked!”
“In Florida, you learn to expect the unexpected. It is like a vortex attracting the refuse of the rest of the world, eager to reinvent themselves here.”
“That certainly explains your presence!
“Yes, it does. And now it explains your presence, too.” He put the glass back up to his eye. “Mr. Rice, I don’t see any signs of damage or active fighting going on. I suggest we head into port as usual, and see what we find when we get there.”
“Whose flag would you like to arrive under, Captain?”
Jack thought about this for a moment, then came to a decision.
“Let’s fly the United States’ colors for now. But be alert, and have the men ready for action.”
“Aye, sir,” Rice said, turning aside to direct the crew.
“So can you explain this latest development to me, Captain Burrell?”
Jack looked over at his wife, who was shading her eyes and watching the activity in the harbor. There was an uneasy truce between them, but he had to admit she’d been a game traveler. Everything to her was an adventure, whether it was pirates or marriage at sword point, and he could not say she was a whining or unpleasant companion.
“As I said, Florida is not like other locales. Envision the map of East Florida in your head, and imagine Florida as an appendage. A flaccid and dangling appendage, protruding from the nether regions just below the United States. Then it is engorged with settlers and commerce. It rises, alert to opportunities, ready to thrust itself into the very womb of world affairs…”
“Thank you, I get the picture,” she said dryly. There was nothing missish about the former Miss Sophia Deford, and that, too, intrigued him. It seemed unlikely she was an untouched maiden, given her propensity for stripping men naked, gambling, and setting off on her own for uncharted territories. He was just itching to find out for himself, despite the complications that would cause.
After all, while cats are notoriously standoffish and independent, they do like to be stroked and petted. He’d been ruffling her fur the wrong way on this trip, but maybe that could change once they hit land.
As the Jade maneuvered into the harbor, the crew was at the ready, but no one hailed them demanding anything. In fact, Fernandina looked surprisingly robust and busy for a town that had changed ownership while Jack was at sea. Other ships were unloading cargo, and most of the vessels he recognized were fellow smugglers and privateers, keeping to business as usual.
Situated as it was just south of the border, Fernandina was ideally suited for smugglers trying to avoid the United States’ customs agents. Jack was a U.S. citizen, but he wasn’t above maximizing his profits by using Fernandina rather than the Georgia ports when he was in southern waters.
But his grip on the rail tightened as he saw the cargo being unloaded from the Santa Inez.
“Good Lord, are those people being herded along that wharf?”
“Yes. Slaves.”
“Poor things,” Sophia murmured, her hand clutching the neck of her dress as she watched chained men, and women struggling with crying children, being herded along by men with whips.
“It is a sight you will find common in Florida, Sophia. Ever since the United States barred the importation of slaves, all it did was make Fernandina rich.” Jack turned to her. Her eyes were even wider as she watched the scene of misery in front of her.
“What will happen to them?”
“They will be transported up the St. Marys River in Georgia and sold to plantation owners there. If they’re fortunate, their families will stay together. If not…”
He left her there, watching the bustling port, and turned back to getting his affairs in order so he could leave his ship. There would be well-armed men left aboard, with liberty rotated through the crew, but he was taking no chances. He’d seen other ships slip out during the night from what they’d thought was a safe harbor, a new crew at the helm and bodies left floating in the wake.
There was one more thing he needed to do now that they were in Florida. He went to his cabin and returned with paper and a pencil, which he gave to Sophia.
“I need to have you write down your clues to Garvey’s Gold so I can figure out where our journey will take us and what supplies we will need.”
Two vertical lines appeared between Sophia’s brows as she thought about it.
“How long will we be in port?”
“I cannot say, and frankly, that is not important. I need to see where we are going so I can properly prepare us for this journey.”
She looked at him in her assessing way, and he could almost see the gears spinning in her head as she worked this out.
“I will write the clues up to a point, Captain. But it will not include the final information. I am willing to risk we may not have all the gear we need at the outset rather than have you go off on your own and leave me stranded in this land.”
“Don’t you trust me, Mrs. Burrell?”
“No further than I could throw you across this deck, Captain Burrell. And if you tell me you trust me, I will know you are a liar.”
Jack couldn’t argue with this, so he merely nodded and said, “Give me what you have, and I will let you know if it’s sufficient information. We will continue to sleep aboard the Jade for now, but before we leave here I need to know if this treasure hunt starts in this vicinity or farther down the coast.”
“We are not sleeping ashore?”
“I intend to stay aboard my ship and send a message that we are armed and ready for action.” He softened at her look of dismay. “Let me see what I find, but for now, it is best you stay here. I can protect you when you are with me, but I would worry if you were out of my sight.”
“Worry about me wandering off with the clues to Garvey’s Gold?”
“Of course. Why else would I worry?”
* * *
When Jack returned to the ship, he found Sophia going over Mick’s mathematics text with him, and the boy looked relieved when he was ordered back to duty.
“Put on a pretty frock, Mrs. Burrell, we have a supper invitation.”
“With whom?” Sophia asked as he helped her to her feet.
“Luis Aury, the self-proclaimed commander-in-chief of the armed forces holding Amelia Island. Of course when I knew him, he was just plain old ‘Captain Aury, pirate.’”
“Another dinner with pirates? My life is so ho-hum these days.”
Jack grinned but sobered quickly. “Fernandina is under the control of pirates, led by Aury. It’s best to go along with his dinner invitation.”
“Where are the Spanish officials?”
“Down at St. Augustine, staying out of the way. They don’t have the troops to go against the pirates, and they’re not likely to get more sent from Havana. Most of the law-abiding citizens left, some of them Americans and British citizens banished from Aury’s ‘Republic of the Floridas.’ It won’t last. It’s bad enough for the Americans to have Spain in their cellar, they’re not going to allow a nest of pirates to flourish down here. Did you write the clues?”
“Yes, but if we are going ashore for supper I need to get ready. Can we go over it later?”
“Very well. But no tricks. I am running out of patience with this venture.”
“If it all works out, you will get the reward you deserve, Captain.”
He looked at her, but her face didn’t reveal anything more, so he let it go. For now.
“One more thing, Mrs. Burrell. Put this on.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box, handing it to Sophia. He shoved his hands back in his pockets and waited. She opened the box, and her eyebrows went up, but she took out the gold ring set with pearls and slipped it on her finger.
“This is quite lovely.”
“Do not insist you will give it back to me when we are finished with our journey.”
She looked at him in puzzlement. “I had no intention of giving it back to you, Captain. It’s mine now, and I keep what is mine.”
“Of course. I cannot imagine why I expected otherwise.”
* * *
Sophia did not know what to expect with her second pirate encounter—third if you included Lucky Jack taking her off the Primrose—but Captain Luis Aury didn’t match her idea of what a pirate looked like. He was a Frenchman of slight build with almost delicate features, the black hair falling across his forehead giving him a boyish look.
The men surrounding him looked more piratical, a scarred and raffish group, with armed mixed-race troops, “Aury’s Blacks,” guarding the doors.
“Are we expecting trouble?” Sophia leaned over and whispered to Jack.
“No more than usual on an island in the middle of an insurrection.”
She took a moment to admire her escort for the evening. Jack was dressed informally in a dark blue coat and buff breeches, but the linen at his neck gleamed white and he’d shaved and put on a spicy cologne that made her want to lean in for a closer sniff. The arm beneath her hand was corded with muscle, and she flicked her fan open to waft some of the tropical air around her face. It had suddenly turned warm this evening.
She wondered if he was wearing his smallclothes—daisies and all—and the thought made her smile.
“You are looking particularly fine tonight, Sophia.”
She looked up at him but could find no hidden meaning in his compliment. The dress she wore this evening was a pink sarcenet the shade of an opening rose, with a white net overlay, and she knew the high waist and simple lines of the current fashions enhanced her slim figure. She’d braided her hair into a coronet, wrapped in a demi-turban of pink silk, stray ringlets peeking through at her nape and framing her eyes. A string of pearls, one of the few remaining legacies of her mother, gleamed at her neck and she gained appreciative looks from the pirates, who in turn earned scowls from her husband.
“Captain Burrell! I heard you were married,” Aury said before coming forward to embrace Jack and take Sophia’s hand for a kiss. “You are well called ‘Lucky Jack,’ mon ami, for your new bride is lovely and charming!”
“Where did you hear I was married?”
“From one of Roberts’s men, of course! Captain Sinister was most proud of the role he played in bringing you two together.”
“Of course.” Jack sighed.
Aury turned his dark gaze back to Sophia. “But you must tell me all about yourself, Mrs. Burrell. Please, allow me to escort you into supper.”
Sophia entered the spacious dining room on the arm of her host. Aury had commandeered one of the private residences abandoned by an American family staying away from the island until the situation settled itself down, and he ushered her to her seat with great courtesy.
There were other ladies present, though “lady” might have accorded the women a status they only aspired to, but Sophia took it all in stride. Living amongst gamblers and their women, working near the Portsmouth docks, robbing highwaymen, she was the last person in the world to pass judgment on what a girl did to keep a roof over her head.
The supper boasted a variety of dishes not seen aboard ship—turtle soup, oysters, fresh turkey with a savory dressing, venison, a variety of greens and spring vegetables, and pies and cakes made from figs, oranges and pecans stored from the winter. The conversation was a bit warmer than what one would have likely found in the house while its American owners were in residence, and it was spoken in a mixture of Spanish, English, and French.
“If you are having new dresses made in St. Augustine, you must see Señora Martinez on St. George Street,” one of the flashily dressed women remarked. “She has all the latest fashion plates from France and will rig you out in fine form.”
“Thank you,” Sophia smiled at her across the table. Mrs. Banks was wearing too much kohl around her eyes, but those eyes were open and friendly. The man seated next to her she referred to as “my Sam.” He was missing part of his nose and sported a hook in lieu of a left hand, but he appeared fond enough of his dinner companion, though it was clear he wasn’t Mr. Banks.
“Are you leaving for St. Augustine then, Jack?” Aury asked from the head of the table.
“Eventually,” he said, slicing into a piece of venison.
“I was hoping you might be staying here on Amelia Island, Captain Burrell,” Aury said, taking a sip of his wine and looking at Jack. “I could use some experienced men. I intend to establish a legislature for the Republic of the Floridas and a man with your background would be an asset, especially when dealing with the Americans.”
Sophia listened with half an ear to Mrs. Banks rattle on about Florida modistes. While Jack looked relaxed and at ease, she knew him well enough by now to see the tense lines at the corners of his eyes while he talked with their host.
“You will have to excuse me, Captain Aury. As a newly married man, I cannot take on additional duties and neglect my bride.”
This last was said with enough feeling while gazing at her that the ladies at the table sighed for the sentimentality, and Sophia knew a cue when she heard one.
“Oh, my goodness, Captain Aury,” she said, looking at him from beneath modestly lowered eyelashes, “Captain Burrell has promised to show me more of this amazing place. Why, I have never seen anything like Florida! Surely you would not disturb us on our marriage trip?”
Aury gave Jack a hard look, but then resigned himself with a Gallic shrug.
“What can I say, madame? I am, after all, a Frenchman, so of course I understand why your husband would wish to spend his days with his charming bride.”
“Our dear friend Captain Roberts has offered us the use of his home in St. Augustine, and as Mrs. Banks was kind enough to point out, the dressmakers there are worth a visit,” Sophia said demurely.
“You don’t want to try and stop a lady from obtaining new frocks, Captain Aury. You will wish you were facing navy frigates instead!” Jack said, giving him a wink in manly understanding.
The remainder of the dinner passed without incident. The men and women gathered in the parlor afterward where Jack agreed to play the pianoforte. Much to Sophia’s surprise, she discovered her husband also had a pleasing tenor singing voice. He kept to ballads and light airs, and Sophia was startled to see a hardened pirate or two snuffling into a handkerchief, Mrs. Banks’s friend nearly putting out an eye with his hook as he surreptitiously wiped away a tear.
“I did not know you played,” she said to Jack he gathered the music together when the guests rose to make their goodnights to their host.
“My mother enjoyed musical evenings at home with the family and insisted we all learn, including the boys. We would gather around the pianoforte to sing as she played, and it made for an enjoyable evening. Until my voice started to crack. Then there was no end to the teasing from my sisters,” he said with a grin.
“That sounds lovely, Jack. An evening with family, singing.”
“It was nothing special.”
No drunks retching in the potted palms, no demi-reps tossing their garters to the gentlemen, no smell of fear-sweat from men gambling their lives away.
“No, I imagine it was all a perfectly ordinary family gathering. And now it is time for us to return to your ship, is it not?”
They made their good-byes to their host and went out into the warm air. Jack had not hired a boy to go ahead of them with a torch, so Sophia clung to his arm and stepped carefully around the piles of refuse in the streets. As they neared a darkened doorway just a few streets from the harbor, he stopped and leaned down, his arms going around her and his mouth nuzzling beneath her ear. She was about to say something when she felt the whisper of his voice against her neck.
“There are two men up ahead. When I give you the signal, drop my arm and run for the ship.”
“But Jack—”
“Don’t argue,” Jack said, and kissed her for verisimilitude. She put her arms around him but saw his eyes were wide open as he scanned the street. He pulled back, looked down into her eyes, kissed her lightly on the lips and then said, “Walk forward, but when I give you the signal, run.”
Sophia adjusted her shawl and Jack put his hand at the small of her back and continued walking, looking as carefree as a man on his wedding journey.
As they approached the trap the two men swaggered out, and the one in front said, “Fine night for a walk, Lucky Jack. If you wouldn’t mind steppin’ into my place here, we have some business to take care of.”
“I don’t do business in alleys at night,” he drawled. “At least not with someone as ugly as you. Tell your employer to contact me in the morning.”
“How do you know I’m not workin’ for myself?”
“Because I know you, Simon Wesley. You haven’t the brains or the imagination to come after me on your own, Weasel.”
In the faint moonlight Sophia saw the man frown at the insult, but instead of rushing them he gave his partner a hand signal. The two toughs moved apart, one moving closer to her, but he stopped when Weasel held up his hand.
“Now, we don’t want no trouble with you, Captain. All we want is what Erasmus Tanner gave you.”
Sophia gave a small start, but Jack only said, “The only thing Erasmus Tanner ever gave me was aggravation, Weasel. I have nothing for you from him.”
“’s not what I hear, Captain, and if you don’t give it up, then my orders are to take the lady with me. Whether you’re alive or not when we take her is up to you.”
“Now, Sophia,” Jack barked, but she ignored him, instead watching Weasel’s partner, who was inching toward her.
“Oh, please, sir, do not come any closer,” she said in a small voice.
The miscreant gave her an ugly grin and kept advancing on her.
So she shot him.
In the haze of pistol smoke and screaming from the ground, Sophia scrambled out of the way as Jack, recovering more quickly than Weasel Wesley, rushed his man. Wesley was smaller, but fast, and when he saw Jack coming after him with a knife he took one look at his companion on the ground, then turned and ran.
Jack turned instead to the man on the ground clutching his bleeding foot and moaning. Sophia went toward him to see about his punctured foot, but the man scrambled backward on his butt.
“Keep her away from me! That crazy bitch tried to kill me!”
“Oh, please. If I was trying to kill you, you would be dead.”
Jack grabbed his pistol out of Sophia’s hand and shoved it back in his coat pocket, then took the cutthroat by the shirt and hauled him up, heedless of the yelp of pain when he put weight on his injured foot.
“Who sent you tonight?”
“I dunno!” Their assailant was all but sobbing now in pain and fear. “Weasel came and got me and said there was a job to do, that’s all I know! I dunno who he talked to, honest, mister!”
He let him go and the man fell to the ground again, clutching his foot and darting his wild-eyed look between Sophia and Jack.
“Please, mister, you gotta believe me!”
Jack said, “When you see your friend Weasel again, you tell him to stay away from me and not to take any jobs that put him within a mile of where I’m at. You got that?”
“Yessir,” the man whimpered, pulling himself up and hobbling off into the dark.
Jack watched him go and then turned back to Sophia.
“That was interesting.” She was hiding her shaking hands in her shawl, but felt confident her face showed none of her fear.
“Interesting?” Jack said softly, stepping toward her. “You lifted my pistol from my pocket and put my life at risk and you term the evening interesting? You have a talent for understatement, madam.”
“I was fairly certain wounding that man in the foot would stop him,” Sophia said, stepping back. “And I had every confidence you would take care of that other person. I knew you kept a knife in your boot.”
He continued advancing on her, and it wasn’t until she hit the stone wall behind her and could retreat no farther that she realized just how angry Lucky Jack Burrell was.
“Interesting,” he said again. “A new way to describe being attacked on the street. I would call your response to tonight’s events reckless and harebrained, but I would not term it interesting.”
Sophia shivered, which was odd because the night was quite warm. But she straightened up and looked her supposed husband in the eye.
“I did what needed to be done, Jack. Unarmed, I am defenseless. And the element of surprise is one of the few weapons I have in my arsenal.”
“I know that, madam, to my own regret! But I would never call you defenseless.” He put his hand alongside her head against the wall and leaned in, his eyes inches from hers.
“You are about as defenseless as an adder, Mrs. Burrell!”
“Do not call me that!”
“Why not?” he snapped back. “It is who you are now! I deserve some recompense for this evening’s aggravation, and if I am going to be saddled with a wife, I might as well get something out of it!”
He grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her up against him, his mouth swooping down on hers, hot and hard.
Sophia pushed at his shoulders, but it was no use, he had her pinned against the wall, trapped there with his body. She panicked and began to struggle in earnest, and he jerked his head back, his eyes hooded and faintly gleaming in the dark.
“Little cat…” he whispered. “Sheathe your claws, I won’t harm you.”
Then his mouth was back on hers, gentle this time, asking instead of taking, and Sophia stopped her struggles as her body, if not her mind, registered the new sensations drifting through her.
Jack’s mouth was firm on hers, but not forceful. He took his time, coaxing her response, his lips just skimming the corner of her mouth, then across to the other side, while his hands glided over her, down her arms to her waist, his fingers holding her delicately, but she could feel the strength in those fingers and knew if she struggled there would be no escape. His tongue was at the seam of her lips and she gasped, an act giving him access to the inside of her mouth. The intrusion into her senses and her body continued even as her mind registered the feel of him, so hard against her, the taste of him so sweet as he explored her mouth, the small groan that came from the back of his throat, in complement to her own gasp.
Everything in her tightened like a string being pulled toward Jack Burrell. The chink of a bottle rolling away from where her foot brushed it brought her back to the realization she was standing in an alley, kissing a man she suspected would turn on her as quickly as she would turn on him for fifty thousand pounds. It was a complication she didn’t need.
This time when she pushed at his shoulders there was a moment’s resistance, but then he pulled back and looked at her.
“We are vulnerable here on the street, Jack. Those men may return.”
He only stared down at her, and in the faint light she could see the hard lines of his face.
“Practical, as always, Mrs. Burrell.”
He stepped away from her and she adjusted her shawl around her shoulders again, more to give her shaking hands something to do.
“Sophia—”
She looked up to find Jack watching her intently, his glance dropping down to her hands, which she clasped together in front of her.
He opened his mouth, but then closed it, his lips a thin line, and gave her his arm.
Sophia took it, the muscles like steel line beneath his coat.
They returned to the Jade unmolested and she hurried down to the cabin while Jack talked with the men on watch. Once inside she quickly washed and climbed into her hammock, making sure her nightrail was pulled down to her ankles and her form securely cocooned in the covers and netting. When the door creaked open her eyes were closed as she pretended to sleep, but she slitted one eye open to follow Jack’s movements.
He stripped the bedding off the bunk and went back to the door where a light gleamed from the passageway.
“I know you are only pretending to sleep. I will be up on deck tonight. It’s safer if I sleep up there.”
Sophia opened her eyes and turned her head toward him. “Safer for the ship?”
“That, too.”
“Jack—”
“Yes?” He turned back toward her.
“If you are sleeping on deck, may I have your bunk?”
The sound of the door reverberating in its frame lingered after his exit from the cabin.