DARE THE WILD WIND (42 page)

"I came because of the inquiries you've made." 

Drake had offered a reward for the smallest scrap of news about a captain named MacCavan or a ship called the
Red Witch
from the master of any vessel tying up at the London docks.  Sebastian was far from the first to come forward with reports of the bloody path Brenna's freebooting lover had cut across the Caribbean, but Drake couldn't know too much about Cameron MacCavan's movements or where he might be bound.

Drake cut bluntly to the point.  "You say you've seen my wife?"

Sebastian started.  "Your butler misunderstood.  I told him I had the good fortune to spend a fortnight in the company of the Countess, although at the time I had no idea she possessed a title."

Something tightened in Drake's belly.  The man was an ass if he had come to boast of an intimate acquaintance with Brenna, and MacCavan was the worst kind of panderer.

"My wife is traveling incognito?"

Sebastian didn't miss the steely edge in Drake's voice.

"When I had the pleasure of meeting Lady Brenna, she wasn't yet your wife.  The Countess was traveling incognito when she took passage from
Scotland on my ship.  She gave the impression she was the daughter of a merchant, traveling with her maid."

Drake inwardly cursed the relief he felt.   "You've seen her again?  Where has
the
Red Witch
made port?"  

The captain shifted a little uneasily in the chair Drake had offered him.  "I regret I can't report that I've seen the Countess since her disappearance in
Cornwall," he said, choosing his words diplomatically.  "But I've just returned from the Antilles.  The
Red Witch
and Captain MacCavan have spent most of the last year in those waters."

Drake forced down his sudden leap of excitement.  "You know where he has his base?"

"I have a very good notion."  Drake waited for him to say more.  "When I heard how interested you were in the whereabouts of the errant captain, I thought I should pay my respects."

"If you require gold in hand before you speak, that can be arranged," Drake said, opening the top drawer of his desk.

"I didn't come to collect a reward."

Drake reassessed the man opposite him.  "Then what precisely do you want?" he asked in level voice.

"Forgive my speaking plainly, Lord Stratford, but it's rumored you're commissioning a ship to pursue the man who abducted your wife.  I've come to offer you my services and my ship."

Drake leaned back in his massive chair.  "Arrangements for a ship are already under way, Captain.  The information you may have could be of far more value to me.  And providing it would squander far less of your time than a voyage across the
Atlantic."

Sebastian met Drake's look.  "I have a personal interest in making the voyage." 

Drake's first distrust surfaced again.  "Would you care to enlighten  me?"

The captain drew a short breath.  "As I said, my reasons are personal.  Rumor has it yo
u plan to sail on a well armed merchant ship, and a force of royal marines will be aboard."

"His Majesty was gracious enough to grant me that favor," Drake said, still wary.  "What makes you imagine I'll deploy any troops at my disposal to serve your ends?"

Trevor Sebastian's sharply
  drawn face hardened into harsh lines.  "I think we hunt the same ground." 

Drake straightened.  "If you know where MacCavan is bound, tell me."

"I'm all but certain Captain MacCavan and the
Red Witch
are based on the coast of Hispaniola."

"
Where
on the coast?" 

"Between the
Windward Passage and the old pirate stronghold of Tortuga."

"What kind of answer is that?" Drake exploded.  From the charts he had studied of the
Caribbean, there could be a hundred inlets along any coast capable of hiding a ship the size of MacCavan's.

"Better than you think," Sebastian told him.  "Your Scottish captain is privateering with the blessing of the government on the French side of the island.  It's rumored he's carving a plantation out of the jungle somewhere between
Pointe du Cheval Blanc
and
Cap Haitien
. 

"My helmsman knows that coast.  You'll have a better chance of finding MacCavan and finding him quickly if you sail with me."

Drake tried to curb his reaction.  Time was short, for more reasons than one.  "You're asking me to place a great deal of trust in you, Captain Sebastian.  That might be easier if I knew your business on the island."

Trevor unfolded his long legs and got to his feet from the chair where he sat.  For a second, his eyes were distant and bleak.

"I have a debt of honor to repay."  He paused, then his voice was brisk again.  "The business I have in Saint Domingue could require the force your sort of expedition can mount.  To my grief, I've discovered an Englishman isn't welcome to move freely in a French colony at the moment." 

Drake nodded.  Louis of France had supported the Stuart Pretender's cause.  It was no secret that relations were strained between George the Second and the Bourbon king.  Sebastian went on.

"I tried to slip quietly into
Cap  Haitien
, but I was ejected by the
gendarmes
.  I was fortunate they only booted me out of the town aboard the boat I'd brought ashore.  They warned me if they found me or my men anywhere on their side of the island, they'd toss the lot of us in the local
bastille
."

"And you suspect I don't plan to consult the authorities if I find it necessary to land on French or Spanish soil?"

The captain's answer was direct.  "In your place, Lord Stratford, I wouldn't waste time with bribes and diplomacy."

The captain had his measure.  "Then what you want is an armed escort onto the island by some of my men?"

"If an armed escort is necessary.  The debt I mean to pay may be a simple matter.  But I can't rely on that, and I won't be turned away again."  He faced
Drake squarely.   "I give you my word nothing I plan will jeopardize your mission.  I only want to bring someone safely off the island.  I don't anticipate serious resistance, but I have to be prepared for the possibility of encountering a stray patrol of the local militia."

Drake felt a degree of relief.  As long as Captain Sebastian understood that Drake's business came first, detailing a company of men for the Captain's purpose was a small enough trade to make.  "What sort of ship do you have?"

"A square
rigged Hermaphrodite Brig."  Sebastian's voice was full of confidence now.  "In a fair wind, the
Trident
is one of the fastest ships afloat, and she's outfitted and ready to sail.”

Drake weighed what he said.  Sebastian had made no claim on the reward he offered.  A man who couldn't be bought promised to be more worthy of trust than the parade of would
be informants who had so far straggled to his door.  And Drake needed as swift a ship as he could find. 

The voyage to the
Indies could take two months, sometimes more.  And Drake had to find Brenna before winter closed in, and the return passage across the Atlantic was too perilous for a woman big with child.  Trevor Sebastian offered him the first news of MacCavan he could put to a test, and a ship that could sail on the tide.

The captain saw a last flicker of doubt in Drake's face.  "I have no reason to deceive you, Lord Stratford.  You'll have every opportunity to deal with me personally if I disappoint you."

Drake met Sebastian's look.  "Be assured I will deal with you if you disappoint me," he told him bluntly.  He rose from behind his desk, and held out his hand. "You've struck a bargain."

                            *****

At Morag's approach, the covey of short tailed, speckled birds scurried away from the paled fence of the pen Duncan had built.  No longer quite wild, they scattered as anyone drew near, then crowded back again for grain cast over the fence.  Crudely split and uneven, the stakes thrust up from the bare beaten earth like crooked wooden teeth, tall and closely spaced.  There was no need to cover the enclosure.  Quail ran swiftly on the ground, but their small wings and plump round bodies stunted their flight.

It had been one of
Duncan's duties to see that the laird's private preserve was kept well stocked.  Not for Malcolm the sport of the hunt.  Grouse was served at Lochmarnoch's table, but quail was the laird's favorite dish.  And he abhorred finding shot in the soft roasted flesh he relished. 

It was up to
Duncan to lay snares and flush the quail from the fields and grassy bushy swales in sufficient supply for Malcolm's craving.  And it was near the snares he had laid that Duncan had been found, the back of his skull crushed by a stone.

It was murder, bloody and undisguised.  But no man dared to voice the suspicion th
at sprang to the mind of every member of the clan.  Duncan had defied Malcolm, and he had paid.

Morag had no hope the culprit would ever be named.  And she knew he had only been a hireling. 
Duncan had died for taking her in.  For marrying her in defiance of Malcolm's edict against her.

Sat
isfied with the example he had made of his father's oldest and staunchest servant, Malcolm had expressed a hypocritical sympathy misunderstood by no one in the village.  Though he had stripped Morag of Duncan's croft on the excuse a woman couldn't be expected to till the field, Malcolm had made a great show of allowing her to remain in the cottage.  Where, come winter, she would very likely starve.  Without Duncan's share from his crop, the small tasks she performed in the village would scarce keep her in bread or firewood through Boxing Day.  But Malcolm had left her one of Duncan's duties. 

Tending the penned fowl fell to her now.  In the weeks since
Duncan's murder, Morag had gone about her daily round blindly, in a stupor of grief.  But gradually her mind had cleared. 

Today she had gone to the marshy banks of the stream that spilled out of Lochmarnoch Wood.  Wrapped in the thick morning mists that muffled and cloaked the moor, Morag had little fear she would be observed.  And the chill wet brush of the fog against her face had sharpened her senses and her resolve. 

What she sought had been exactly where she remembered, among the grasses that grew along the clear twisting stream.  Not the whole plant, with its purple
blotched stem, not even the lacy leaves or tiny clustered blossoms with their betraying mousy odor.  Naught but the seeds, still green but fully formed.

Now they weighed lighter and lighter in Morag's sagging apron as she cast them over the fence to the scratching, greedy quail. 

They would do the birds no harm. 

Chapter 23

Brenna woke to pain.  At the very core of her, a low burning flame, slow but consuming.

Her eyes fluttered and retreated from the brightness of a close
  held lamp.  She slid unsteady fingers toward the gently swelling mound of her stomach.  And winced at her own touch.  A great boil seemed to fester on her side, just beneath her ribs.
 

"It's only a bruise," an unfamiliar voice told her.  "Very deep and painful, but by no means fatal.
"

Concentrating with effort, Brenna opened her eyes.  A man decked in gold rings and color
  blind finery bent over her.  His flaring coat was red  purple velvet, his waistcoat heavily embroidered in gold thread, and his breeches were pea green silk.  Shot with gray, a thatch of black hair sprouted in a mare's nest of tangled locks that ended in a dozen braids brushing his shoulders, all knotted with thin scarlet ribbons
.

But the face the mad eruption of plaited hair framed was sober and oddly reassuring.  He held the lamp, and he set the ship's lantern on the shelf next to the bed
.

"You've had a fever, but it broke in the night."  His voice was soothing and matter
  of  fact.  "I'm Bartholomew Fletcher, the ship's surgeon and quartermaster.
"

Brenna blinked, her brain still hazy.  He smiled at her look
.

"No need to fear.  I studied at the Royal College of Surgeons in
Edinburghuntil my taste for adventure led me astray."    
 

"You've been taking care of me?
"

He nodded.  "You've been in my charge the past two days.
"

"So long?"  She tried to sit up, to find her bones had turned to water.
 

"Best you stay where you are."  With a practiced hand, he reached out to check her brow.  "Quite cool.  And you're awake in the bargain.  I should say the worst is over now.
"